#(i love the similarities between their styles but also like)

[fox-daddy]

I have six Mc's broken down into the main trio and the secondary trio. I'm going to full out a form I found for my main trio of Mc's. (I would do all six but the form is long and also sorry it's so long.)

IT KEEPS TURNING RANDOM LETTERS BLACK SO PLESE PRETEND EACH CHARACTER'S PART IS ONE COLOR BECAUSE FUCK TUMBLR

First Name: Kyle Last Name: Boivin Gender: Trans-male Age: around 2 years younger than Asra Sexual Orientation: Pan Birthday: 2nd of February Main love interest; Asra Secondary love interest; Nadia Who they can be shipped with; Muriel, Portia, and Lucio Who they can't be shipped with; Julian

Appearance Eye Color(s): segmental heterochromia in both eyes. Making them look mostly blue with patches of bright green. Hair Color: bright red the same shade as Nazali Hair Style(s): similar to Asra but slightly less curly and more spikey Skin tone: closest to Muriel being only slightly lighter than his skin tone. However if you look closely you can see he has freckles of darker and lighter skin. With the darker freckles easier to see than the lighter ones you have to look closely to see. Body type: A mix between Portia and Muriel being slightly more on the chubby side but less so than Portia. (Which obligatory theirs nothing wrong with Portia's size she is great but this is for Kyle) Height:4'4

About him Personality: Kyle is genuinely a sweet person. However due to his height and his clothing choice he likes to act adorable and innocent. When in reality he is aware of what's going on way more than he lets on. Using his cute appearance and attitude to trick people into revealing more than they realize. Since he knows to be sweet and cute he also has to be able to defend himself from those who would love nothing more than to use him for their own gain. Hobbies: Reading, bird watching, animal watching, writing, magic and in general just learning new things Allergies: none Fear(s): pure darkness (like more so than normal nighttime darkness), being completely utterly alone (more than just being left alone in a house or shop), fire (which also fascinates him) and heights

Family and Friends Parent(s): Light (mum) (alive) and TBN(adoptive dad) (dead) Sibling(s): Silver (twin) (alive), Tui (adoptive older sister) (alive) and Albatross (adoptive older brother) (alive) Relative(s):  Jade (aunt) (dead) Best Friend(s): Hunter Friend(s): Bluebell, Hunter, and Fauna familiar(s): Kea named Kai and a dragon named Emerald. (Emerald can't breath anything being a species of dragon from Kyle's homeland)

Extra Scent: forest after rain, moist wood and rain Outfit(s): silver shirt/pants with yellow trim illusioned to look like gold Accessories: He usually carries a shoulder bag with a lot of items in it for daily use Scars: pair of scars on his shoulders that look like their from a giant bird because they are

Favorites Theme Song/Quote: Try again tomorrow Favorite Food(s): Pancakes and Blueberries Favorite Drink(s): Apple cider and applejuice Favorite Color(s): Purple/Green Favorite Animal(s): Dragons (crows) Favorite Number: 8 Favorite Season(s): Spring

First Name: Hunter Gender: They/them Age: between Julian and Portia Sexual Orientation: Bi Birthday: 20th August Main love interest; Muriel Secondary love interest; Julian Who they can be shipped with; Muriel, Portia, and Lucio Who they can't be shipped with; Nadia

Appearance Eye Color(s): blood red Hair Color: Black (dyed, naturally white) Hair Style(s): Long and straight Skin tone: a pale as you could possible be Body type: closest to Muriel Height: 5'4 Extra; They are an albino and yes I know red eyes isn't that accurate to humans and technically they should be blue but it looks cool so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Also I do have another albino Mc called Sora who makes up for this by having pale blue eyes

About them Personality: They have a lot of pent up anger since from an extremely young age they were taught how to fight and kill. Using those skills until they settled down in Vesuvia either as the Mc where they started to learn how to deal with that anger or where they used it to deal with problem customers in bars. Hobbies:(when the Mc carving, reading, making tea, magic) (When not the Mc fighting, drinking, defending the weak and those who refuse to defend themselves and putting people in their place.) Allergies: very mildly to sunlight (which doesn't help their already ungodly pale skin) Fear(s): blood

Family and Friends Parent(s): Never meet them (was sold when they were too young to remember) Best Friend(s): Kyle and Bluebell familiars(s): a goldfish named Goldy and a red-tailed black cockatoo named Ruby

Extra Scent: The best way to describe it is burning wood. A sort of smokey wood smell. Outfit(s): black clothes that cover as much skin as possible. Long shirt/pants/jacket. Think Julian if instead of leather gloves it was long sleeves and instead of leather boots it was long pants with sneakers. Accessories: A single necklace that looks like it's made of glass with their goldfish familiar inside it. (it is actually made of metal and just enchanted to look/feel like glass) Scars: Yes (I like to joke that every time you look at them the scars have changed but the important part is they are COVERED in scars head to toe no part of their body doesn't have scars)

Favorites Theme Song/Quote: All hail Shadow Favorite Food(s): dragonfruit Favorite Drink(s): (when Mc tea any tea) (when not the Mc vodka) Favorite Color(s): black Favorite Animal(s): Wolf Favorite Number: 69 (nice) Favorite Season(s): Winter

First Name: Bluebell Last Name: Snowfield Nickname: Blue, B Gender: They/them Age: a few years younger than Lucio (details unknown) Sexual Orientation: Bi Birthday: 1st of September Main love interest; Lucio Secondary love interest; Muriel Who they can be shipped with; Nadia, Julian, Portia, and Asra Who they can't be shipped with; nobody (They can be shipped with all the M6)

Appearance Eye Color(s): Bright blue Hair Color: Bright blue Hair Style(s): Long and messy (it's always messy) Skin tone: Basically the same as Portia Body type: Has almost the exact same build as Julian being all legs Height: 6'4 Extra; They have a pair of blue wings, tail with blue feathers at the end and if you took a normal human ear and an elf ear and made the difference up with blue feathers

About them; Personality: Bluebell is absolutely shy hating any attention put on them. Under that they are a sweet and caring person who basically acts like the mother of the group. Like(s): Animals, nature, healing Allergies: Mildly allergic to bee stings and alcohol (can still drink and get drunk they just get a bit red when they drink.) Fear(s): insects and spiders

Family and Friends Parent(s): refuses to say if they have parents (they do) Sibling(s): Has no idea if they have siblings Best Friend(s): Hunter, Kyle and Fauna Familiars(s): a house sparrow called Chirps

Extra Scent: They smell like anxiety Outfit(s): Blue (dresses, long shirts/pants all blue) Scars: Due to their incredibly strong healing magic they don't have scars

Favorites Theme Song/Quote: Tobu - If I Disappear (stg this song is more them than the other's theme songs omfg this is Bluebell) Favorite Food(s): bread Favorite Drink(s): water Favorite Color(s): Blue (shocker I know) Favorite Animal(s): Can't pick one Favorite Number: 3 Favorite Season(s): autumn

Show me your mcs

I haven't been in the fandom for a while but I'm curious if it's still active around her or not (? So, if you have them, please show me your mc /ocs and tell me a little bit about them 🙏🏼🥹

This is mine, here name is Serein and that big bear is her familiar, Ursan. Her LI is Asra and she's a healer.

[exn0bis]

So. Completed Veilguard. I have lots of thoughts.

Regardless, I don't think I'd be saying anything that hasn't already been said.

For my part, I went in with the expectation it was going to be bad. I was pleasantly surprised by some things, certainly by the technical aspects, but it fell about where I expected in most other ways.

But first, the good.

It was extremely refreshing to see a AAA game actually release so well optimized for once. I'm running an older system at this point, with a GTX 1080 TI. Even so, out of the box, I was able to run things on the Medium preset perfectly. After some troubleshooting the latest Nvidia driver, and updating the games native upscaling to FSR 3.x, I was running things on a mix of High & Ultra with minimal to no frame drops. This was way beyond what I expected, and made the play experience more enjoyable. While I do think that, like many games in the past few years, there is some over reliance on upscaling to make it look its best, Veilguard still maintains excellent visual fidelity without it.

On that note, the game is objectively gorgeous, regardless of how one feels about the art style (which I did personally like, too); I'm also extremely impressed how they adapted a simulated strand hair system into something playable in real-time without it being overly taxing. Would love to know the technical breakdown for that specifically, but either way, I would not be surprised if we start to see more games released with something similar going forwards.

Veilguard very much proved you can make something look gorgeous and still have it be playable on more than just the latest and greatest systems, and I hope it will encourage more studios to focus on how they optimize and implement their work.

I also found the general gameplay mechanics to be, overall, enjoyable. I was hesitant going in, as I'm 1) bad at games, and 2) from a CRPG background, so the real-time style of combat is not generally something I'm good at. I was also concerned about the stripping down of party mechanics, etc, that was a big part of the previous games. And while I do wish the party tactics had been a little more varied, I ultimately found combat fun and responsive, and that they struck a reasonable balance between simplicity with party, and overly tactical. It did have way too many buttons & combos for me, but that is definitely a me being bad at games thing and not a fault in the game.

I also was extremely impressed with how smoothly the game transitioned from gameplay to cutscenes, and I really liked the more open maps/elimination of excess loading screens.

Unfortunately, that is about all the praise I have for the game.

I'm not really going to talk too much about the complete disregard for the world state built by previous titles, because I think all that needs to be said about that has been. I agree that, from a development standpoint, they needed to find a way to simplify things. However, going so totally scorched earth that character creation literally states "you don't need to customize your previous choices if you don't want to because it doesn't really affect anything" only serves to insult and infuriate the very dedicated player base.

It's very clear that the goal of Veilguard is to wipe the slate clean for the purposes of rebranding and bringing in new players for future installments/capital. Considering the mass layoffs at Bioware, and EA's generally established business practices, this sort of tactic isn't really surprising, no, and was truthfully only a matter of time. But that doesn't stop it from feeling like a slap in the face.

That being established, the total disregard for existing lore, world state, impact of previous titles, glaring plot holes within Veilguard itself, etc, is unfortunately to be expected. No point in picking it apart individually, as it's all just a symptom of the goal of a clean slate reboot.

Which isn't to say I wasn't cursing at my screen by the end of it, but I digress.

I had hoped I could at least enjoy the game as something new, turn off the part of my brain that associated it with Dragon Age and just play it as a stand alone thing. This even worked for the first chapter or so, as I was really enjoying the exploration and gameplay. And then I started recruiting more people. And the main plot started to really get going. And turning my brain off suddenly stopped helping.

The writing is awful, full stop. It's all incredibly surface level and sanitized, and it treats the player with such ineptitude I started to feel like the game had actual disdain for me for trying to play and enjoy it. If I had a dollar for every time an NPC explicitly repeated a plot point or goal immediately after a cutscene that had already painfully spelled it out for me ended, I would have recouped the price of the game three times over. I get that reading comprehension is at an all time low, but holy shit. I paid for a sweeping fantasy narrative, not a degradation simulator that treats me like a moron.

If we manage to put that aside, we're left with a narrative that spends every spare second trying to convince you of how high the stakes are and how important your relationships will be to get through it... and then never actually manages to deliver on any of it. The game repeatedly shies away from showing you anything actually bad, or building anything actually meaningful.

Yes, we see the Blight being gross and a few choice deaths, but that's it. The mass devastation we're told is constantly happening all over Thedas? The staggering amounts of death taking place? The oh-so-vile practices and punishments of our main antagonists? Anything and everything that has to do with the extremely prevalent theme of slavery? That all happens off screen, if it happens at all. Somewhere nice and clean and safe for it to exist, sanitized of any tension or emotional impact. I cannot decide if the flagrant pacing issues in the narrative are a product of the missing tension, or their own problem.

And those important relationships we're told about follow the same pattern. Even if we ignore how everyone speaks to each other like they're reading the script of an HR Workplace Togetherness video, their personal stories are devoid of the stakes we are assured they have. I wanted so desperately to care about the things these character's cared about, but I left still unconvinced the character's themselves even gave a shit.

And with a shallow plot comes a shallow character; I felt no attachment to any of them, despite telling myself they'd grow on me as I progressed. Of course, I also didn't dislike any of them, either; I just didn't care, and I find that infinitely more damming.

I think what I find most frustrating is that the potential in the characters is there, at least. They're each interesting concepts with interesting themes, and every so often I'd get a cutscene that actually got me to feel something, to react, and I'd get excited thinking 'oh, this must be when it gets good.' But no, as soon as you're out of the cutscene, it's situation normal again. No more feelings, no more tension. That all happened off screen, again. Any emotional turmoil the character in question was in moments before is now gone in favor of Group Togetherness.

Rook is no exception to any of this, either; exactly as tepid as the rest, but coated with an even less polished illusion of substance. This is not helped by the fact that the game makes an active effort to remind you that Solas is the actual main character of this story. Rook, you as the player, are just sort of... there.

The headcanons I've seen from fans do more justice to this entire cast than the game ever does.

In summary, it's sad, I think. It's ultimately what I expected, but it's sad. Many of us have a very deep attachment to Dragon Age, the story and the community that built up around it. I literally met my wife through the Dragon Age fandom. I learned to explore some deeply personal things about myself through how I related to the story and characters because of how much depth and nuance there was to examine. To see all that reduced to what amounts to a very prettily polished turd is just... yeah. Sad.

I'm really happy that there are people who have enjoyed the game. Genuinely. I hope they'll continue to do so. Myself, I'll probably still go on a screenshot binge and enjoy how pretty it looks, too. But Veilguard is very much the end of Dragon Age, for me. And I'm sad about it.

[lastdivantruther]

A short (!) take on why this goofy ass page is the best introduction to HunterXHunter's characters:

Or, an alternative title, why Togashi is the best liar in the world and why it makes him the best story-teller.

I've spent my afternoon writing this because I couldn't stop thinking about the ship scene at the start of the story for a month now. Rest is under the cut.

Starting this page, as these three introduce themselves, the speech patterns they use already say something about them:

Kurapika's is polite and to the point, using the gender neutral I, 私 (watashi), while Gon's is simple with casual and more masculine おれ (ore), and Leorio's is more pompous, also using the casual おれ (ore).

When the captain asks about their motives, Gon is first one to answer, that is expected of course. As we know him he is a bright and pure and happy kid who trusts easily, right? Right?

I'll come back to it for another time. Let's look at the others.

Both Kurapika and Leorio refuses the talk about their motivations. That's the first similarity of them which is shown to us. Kurapika giving a more through answer on why, which shows his thought process clearly. He also completely ignores Gon and Leorio until Leorio annoys him.

When he is finally forced to talk, we see a polite but cold boy with an honorable and tragic mission he has to pursue. Or that's the image he wants the audience, and most importantly himself to see. We also take the first hint about Kurapika's relationship with the idea of his death.

Leorio literally shouts all his motives, and he clearly is only in it for money. This is our first impression on him, and it's what he wants the audience to see.

This is the second similarity between Leopika the manga shows us. They both lie about who they are, to their audience and to themselves. (Because we already can guess at this point that these two are not of a good actor to pull of such a lie without believing it themselves.)

Next scene shows us how much they care about this image they've drawn to hold. They even put their own, and the opponent's life to a risk for it.

And then fallowing this one is my favorite scene, where all their lies and personas shatter. It's such a simple scene but it makes us see everyone from a new light. Everyone? You might ask, Gon and Kurapika already showed their altruistic side, right?

Here, let me explain:

They are at the hull on the ship, in the middle of the storm and they both focused at each other, ready to strike.

Then, a man falls over the ship.

We already know this part. Both forget the fight instantly and run to the guy. Both fall short of reaching him. We see the moment of them realizing that their efforts are useless.

That's the scene where their true character's shown. For one thing, we see that Leorio, even though he talks like a selfish person, cares enough of another to let go of his pride (a fight he was there to protect his pride). And we see that Kurapika (and Leorio too), even though he is after an honorable mission to an extent he's ready to throw away his life, it isn't extended to things other than his mission. That they still prioritize themselves before the others. Because even though both reached out to the fallen guy to save him, they still hold onto the railings, and stop before their lives can be in danger.

I know I talked a lot but this 2 panels explain a lot about their characterization without telling us a single word.

Then here comes Gon.

At first this can be accused to Gon's altruism, him being the shounen MC, feelings, talk no jutsu etc. But there is more to that. We know that Gon doesn't care if people puts their lives in danger knowingly. We can deduct it from his attitude to Leopika's fight. No, this scene isn't there to show his altruistic side, it's here to show his single-mindedness and his instinct over people's nature.

That's the first scene he puts his live in danger without even giving a thought, and there is more to come. Rest of the scene also shows that Gon trusts people easily, instinctively, but he's mostly right about it.

Anyway, to finish up this mess of a take, what Togashi did here is to create space where characters can introduce themselves the way they wanted. Then tear it all off by forcing them to act as who they are by putting them in a life-and-death situation. And that's peak writing to me.

Finishing off with a Hot Leorio Panel.

Sayonara you weebo shits.

[saym0-0]

this post on pinterest has somehow made me start thinking about a comedy human au,, all the bots are siblings, ages are fucked, all the walters live in one big house,, the bots r all teenagers (imagine having six teenagers jc). their parents are iris and peter i. they have two adult siblings, ii and iii. mark, wanda and iv are their nephews and niece. peter i has an oc sibling that isn't around anymore but is V's parent, and VI is his son (the bot's cousin).

i dont think the original inspiration post fits in at all but its funny so im not removing it amen

anyways. ages i think would be like,,

II & III in their early thirties

V in his early thirties but younger than the rest of em.

rabbit and spine are 18 and twins

hmm my zer0 headcanon is that he was built first but powered on later so maybe hes like 19 but adopted/a half sibling that moved in slightly later? idk hes 17 or 19

next i think is hatchworth he is 15 and draws on a moustache every morning and tells everyone its real (jon is convinced)

jon is um uh 12 little boy 🫵

upgrade is 9

mark is 11

wanda is 9 (woah two 9 year old girls. yhey tell everyone they're twins)

realising that i cant keep the age difference the same as canon because iv would be -1. oops. hes a little baby

vi is also a little baby.

sorry i lied they're not all teenagers lawl. also realised zer0 couldn't be a half sibling because they have two way older siblings too oops

yeah this au makes no sense but i do think its funny. sitcom au. highschool au.

they all go by their canon robot names, its unclear whether they were named that or if they're nicknames or a mix of both. five is older than four because of a mistake on his birth certificate, he should have been four but they all just kinda went with it and named the next one four

i think rabbit would come out to her [younger] siblings at 13 and come out/start transitioning at 14, partially in reference to the year she transitioned in canon and partially because i was that old when i came out teehee. i think maybe she always knew and expressed it though, she just didnt know trans people existed and didn't have the terminology for it

do they have all-through schools in the us? like elementary all the way to high school? we do in the uk but idk about over there. if they do then that could be funny i think

[amelikos]

Something about the way Spinel, Friede and Liko's first Pokemon all share (or will share) the Dark type under certain circumstances (Spinel's Blacky being Dark type, Friede's Lizardon becoming Dark type upon Terastalization, and Liko's Nyarote will eventually gain the Dark type if it evolves into Masquernya). And how all three of them craft strategies around diversions, creating distractions, observations and running away.

Also thinking about how Spinel's Orbem is a Psychic type, similarly to Liko's Tebrim. Psychic moves being used to restrain or limit movements, or stop opponent's moves and use them against them. (Liko's Tebrim using her Mind Power during the battle against Grusha to stop her opponent's Icicle Spears and send them right back at it really reminded me of Spinel using his Orbem's Psychic moves to restrain Friede's Lizardon's movements back in HZ014.)

[prismit]

dead cells show looks sooo ugly but aside from that it does look fun to watch ngl.... i feel so conflicted

[the-physicality]

20 years later, the mercury have not changed lmao

[measureyourlifeincake]

anyway speaking of the new teaser i am admittedly a bit of a lestat hater but after watching that i think this new season might make me enjoy his character a lot more

[stargazerlillian]

A video montage of Geoffrey Rush's time in Romania during TIFF 22.

[pocketramblr]

Upon seeing the post about second as iida my first thought was and third can be uraraka then I noticed you had the same idea in the tags

Great minds think alike I just think that's what she deserves,,,trio holders to the original trio babeyyy

[mxdotpng]

i think the legend of zelda is probably the only series that i think got Better after it switched out of pixel animation

[shithowdy]

this is your periodic reminder that for all the artifacts and errors and "tells" one could possibly list, the only reliable way to actually determine if an image is ai generated is to investigate the source. it is becoming increasingly common for "fake classical paintings" to circulate around curative aesthetic blogs, and everyone should be using this as an opportunity to not only exercise their investigative skills but also appreciate art more in general. you're all checking out the artists you reblog, right? 🫣

so what are some signs to look for? let's use this very good example.

what a lovely late-impressionist piece blended with evocative leyendecker-esque themes! why haven't you ever heard of this artist before? surely tumblr would be all over an artist like this. who is justin brown?

your two options from here are to do a search for the name, or a reverse image search. i prefer reverse image searching, particularly when it comes to a common name like "justin brown". so what does that net?

Immediately, without looking at any text, something is wrong: it barely exists. an actual historical piece would turn up numerous results from websites individually discussing the piece, but no such discussions are taking place. Looking at the text, though, does show the source-- and at least in this case, the creator was honest about their medium.

But let's also look at the "exact matches", in case a source doesn't make itself apparent in the initial sidebar results like this.

This section will often tell you post dates of images, and here it can be seen that the very first iteration of the image was posted 15 days ago. It did not exist online prior to that.

Seeing how long an unsourced image has been floating around is a skill applicable to more than just generative images! See a cool image of an artifact or other intriguing item with a vivid caption? Reverse search it! If all the results are paired with that caption and only go back a few months, you might just have viral facebook spam.

Sometimes generative creators are dishonest about their medium and do not tag it like in the example, so that's when establishing "jpeg provenance" becomes important. While it can be a little trickier to determine if someone is using generative images and not admitting to it if they aren't trying to pass it off as a classic, something to consider is the age of their account and the frequency with which they post. Here are some account red flags:

-Did they only start posting art after 2022, or if they did before, did their style/skill level WILDLY change? Not gradual improvement-- I'm talking amateur graphite portraits straight into complex digital renders. Everyone starts somewhere, newness is not a red flag alone; it's newness combined with existing in a vacuum away from any community.

-Do they post fully-finished paintings several times a week? -Do many of these paintings seem iterative of a similar theme or subject matter ("three well-dressed young men face each other under shade and dappled sunlight")?

-Does their style change in inconsistent ways? An artist that can swap between painting like Drew Struzan and Hokusai should be pretty well known, right? Why is no one hyping this guy?!

-Do they have social media besides the source instagram? If so, what are they posting about? Are there any WIPs? Doodles? Interactions with other artists? Gallery dates? 3am self-doubt posts? Or is it all self-promo? Crypto? Seemingly nothing art-related at all for someone pushing out 3 weekly paintings?

Basically, if it's important to you to omit this stuff when you curate, please don't just smash reblog if the source doesn't seem to be the OP themselves. Seeking out sources was important even before this became an issue, now it is more than ever.

peace n love

[dutybcrne]

Okay Sc.arveh has been replaced in my mind as resident silly crack crossover ship potential of clashing personalities.

Ly.cae is now my new best friend

[alsoanyways]

god you know what would be so cool?? having a different art style for each OC and their accompanying universe spider-verse style

[celestial-kestrel]

It's that time of year again where Mari Lwyd starts to be talked about and shared around and an INCREDIBLY misleading post gets shared a lot. As someone who grew up with Mari Lwyd I wanted to clear some things up.

Also hello, if you are unaware who Mari Lwyd is. This is about the Welsh tradition of the horse skull who visits houses during the Christmas to New Years period in Wales asking for alcohol.

First off and probably the most important one:

Mari Lwyd is not a cryptid!

I can not emphasise this enough. She. Is. Not. A. Cryptid. There is no story or mystery about a ghost or zombie horse roaming the Welsh valleys. She's not even supposed to be a ghost or a zombie. It's just a horse skull on a stick with a guy under a sheet. She's a hobbyhorse and a folk character used to tell Welsh stories and keep songs alive. When people spread the misinformation that she's a cryptid, it's the equivalent of saying Kermit the Frog is a cryptid.

She is actually only one character in a wider cast of characters who go door to door or, in more modern times, pub to pub. The cast of characters can change town to town and village to village but there are some common ones I see time and time again. The Leader, the Merryman, The Jester and The Lady are just some I see regularly. Punch and Judy used to be more popular a few years ago but I haven't seen them in a while as their tradition has mostly fallen out of popularity. In most cases, almost the whole cast will be played by men. Even the characters are considered and referred to as female. Though this again depends and varies by which group is partaking in the Mari Lwyd tradition.

This point also goes onto my second point,

Mari Lwyd does not rap.

I think this comes from a very common misunderstanding of what rap is vs spoken word. Rap is a very specific style of music originating from the African American communities of the USA and has it's own structure and motifs unique to it. It's a lot more complex than people give it credit for as a style of music and just flippantly assign anything similar to it as being rap. If someone is talking fast or reciting poetry, it is not rap. Or anything that is an exchange of words between two people is not a rap battle. Mari Lwyd does not do rap, actually something that gets left out of these posts is the fact Mari Lwyd does not even speak. It's actually the Leader, who does all the speaking and song based banter between the house/pub owner for entry. Mari Lwyd just clicks her mouth, bites people and bobs her head around.

I think Mari Lwyd is a really beautiful and unique part of Welsh culture. She's not actually as wildly celebrated as a lot of the posts make her out to be. Actually, I think most Welsh people themselves learn about Mari Lwyd through the internet as well. Her popularity is increasing thanks to the drive of local groups wanting to keep the traditions alive and a renewed desire to document Welsh traditions before they're gone. Which is why it's such a shame that she's turned into something she's not to earn horror points on the internet. I think this is why it bothers me so much to see the misunderstandings of the culture and the folk tradition. Mari Lwyd's origin is very hot debated as well as how long it's been going on for. But I think it's thanks to a lot of traditions like this that the Welsh language and our stories weren't lost forever. Welsh culture is recovering as is the language. But it's still in a very fragile place. I think it's why it's important to document and correct information when it's spread.

Anyway, if you want to see the tradition in action, here's a lovely video from the Cwmafan RFC going to one of the pubs for charity. It includes the song exchange with the pub owner for entry and the whole pub singing and joining in once Mari Lwyd and the rest are inside.

As well with another video from St Fagan's showcasing the more traditional and door to door form with the larger cast.

[poptartmochi]

hhrrrrrng.. colonel. it is anemone thought time