#I was originally to ask what’s the most popular

[vanitythevantropist]

OOOOO I like this one :DDD

Imma go with this one👇 (His name is Quill btw)

1. Chris McLain (or howver tf you spell it) from Total Drama the original series :3

2. Canonically, he’s best friends with an alien cat named Spine who is a fire dancer! Working out the kinks on how they met so👉👈

3. Ermmmmmm… Immortals by Fall Out Boy

4. He does not have a love interest, he’s too swag for that

5. See above

6. He is a gunsmith canonically so prolly that👀

7. If he was in a fantasy setting, he’d be some guy who is WAAYY too confident in the world full of giants and dwarves n shit

8. His main hobbies - besides making guns cuz it’s his job - would be dress making, actually :3 He’s very into cross dressing and likes tailoring his own stuff, along with doing traditional at for the funsies and going scrapping (looking for scraps in the junk yard)

9. He takes very good care of himself as he wants to look pretty 24/7 and succeeds better than most people

10. He’s very very bad at it :) Just pretends everything’s fine and covers it all with humour because he has issues

11. He was originally a side character in a Mandelorian ripoff story I made when I was 14 but he overshadowed the mc of that story cuz he’s just like that lmao (Idk what directly inspired him tho)

12. Yesh, I have done sum roleplays with a friend! Their OC is named Junko and they get along well cuz they’re so similar

13. To be determined

14. See above (there are so few characters in this story cuz Quill is my world and my soul)

15. He’ll die before he ever retires (he refuses)

16. He was created in a test tube so that may be a little complicated :)

17. He would not have children as he ain’t that kinda guy but I imagine he would be the fun but kinda forgetful parents who lets their children wield guns (one’s average american, basically)

18. He goes by he/him :3

19. He is aro/ace! His main love language is physical touch (friendly hugs n kisses for the homies)

20. GUNS GUNS GUNS

21. To be determined (it might be Anything You Can Do with basically anyone tho)

22. In rough situations, FIGHT. Lover or a fighter? Imma go with ‘it’s conplicated’

23. Abso-fuckin-lutely! Feeling sad? This man will be there in under five minutes with snacks and a nice warm blankey for you in case you’re sad, as well as all the necessary tools to fix your tire!

24. He isn’t a musical guy

25. Yes absolutely he does it most of the time👀 Walkin down the street, running sum errands, in the middle of a battle, whatever, it’s singin time

26. Errmmmm… I have no idea, what do you think?

27. In spirit, a fox. In appearance, ehhh-

28. Oh my god I need to ask you if I should tag you in this cuz this is such a good idea (high school clique? He’d be the guy whose strangely popular with everyone despite hanging with the weird kids)

29. GUG, see question above !!

30. Quill is very glad that someone wants to be his friend :3 Most people do not

Anyways, ty forthis, it was fun <3 Now y’all have sum lore✨ Have fun~

Fuck it, OC brain rot won. Get ready for the Secret Ask List

1) Does your OC have a voice claim, if so who?

2) Who's your OCs best friend? How did they become best friends?

3) What song describes your OC?

4) What song describes your OC and their partner/love interest?

5) Do you ship your OC with a Canon character? If so who?

6) If your OC is in a fantasy setting, what profession would they be in the modern day?

7) Vice-Versa! If your OC is in the modern day, what fantasy class would they be? Would they be a different race?

8) What hobbies does your OC have? What do they do to unwind?

9) How does your OC handle their physical health? Do they take care of themselves?

10) How does your OC handle their mental health? Do they take care of themselves?

11) What was your inspiration for your OC?

12) Does your OC interact with other people's OC? If so, who's their best OC friend?

13) Does your OC have a rival? How did it start?

14) Who's a character your OC cannot stand! It's on sight when they see them!

15) Will your OC ever retire? Do you see them making it?

16) How's their relationship with their parents? Are they alive?

17) If your OC has kids, are they a good parent? Do they ever feel guilty if they have to leave them?

18) What are their pronouns? What would they like to be called?

19) What's their sexuality? What's their love language both giving and receiving?

20) If they fight, what's their weapon of choice?

21) What song best describes their relationship with their enemy?

22) Fight or Flight? Are they a lover or a fighter?

23) Is your OC reliable? Can I call them up at two in the morning if I have a flat tire?

24) Can they play any instruments? If so, what do they play?

25) Are they the kind of person who can't resist a good song? Can I catch your OC singing to themselves while they do the dishes?

26) What flower do you associate your OC with?

27) What's their spirit tamagotchi? Or an animal you associate them with?

28) What clique would they be in? (Draw them in the clothes of said group!)

29) Imagine a mood board for your OC! What's on it? (Make it if you want!)

30) My OC and your OC are friends. This isn't a question. I'm not asking. (How do they respond?)

[doyoulikethis-videogame-song]

Ask Masterpost 2/1/2024

Fourth edition! I changed some formatting things for better readability.

Summary:

Permissibility of creator-leaked/teased soundtracks (Not allowed)

Proposal of demographics poll

Permissibility of Simlish covers (Allowed)

What franchise has the most polls?

Permissibility of remixes of licensed music (Allowed)

Inquiry about duplicate submissions

Permissibility of pinball soundtracks (Not Allowed) and Inquiry about ports of older games

Permissibility of unused tracks in the game files (Allowed)

Permissibility of roblox game tracks (Allowed)

Highest "I like & I know it" song?

Inquiry about revealing the composer before the reveal

Proposal of demographics poll

"Can we submit 'leaked' soundtracks from games if the creator leaked/teased them?"

I'm going to say no, because there's a broad spectrum of scenarios that could happen in between the 'leak' and the official launch of the song that would technically make the 'leak' not indicative of the final product and of course you don't know that until the final product is released :').

----------

@pomrania asked:

Is there any chance we could get a poll on what people mean when they vote for that they like a song, or that it sounds familiar? For me, "I like this song" means "I'd want to listen to it again once it's revealed", and "it sounds familiar" generally means "I'm not sure whether I've heard it before but I might have" also sometimes it's "I know I haven't heard this SPECIFIC song before, but I recognize the motifs in it".

Or if that's not something you'd want to make a poll for, then I'd still be interested in seeing what people say for how they vote on things, like in the comments.

I think this would be super interesting to do for a special event or something like that! I've been curious about demographics and other general statistics for a while now. I'm actually starting to have quite a good rhythm with managing the blog now so I may begin implementing the fun side ideas I've had sometime soon (or at least, I hope so, this semester is looking rough LOL)

----------

Can we submit simlish versions of popular songs, like simlish Katy Perry?

They're remixes for a game so absolutely! I think we already have some in the submissions queue.

----------

Which franchise/game has the most polls?

It's probably destiny (forlorn, distant stare).

----------

@haellen-o asked:

Is licensed music created/remixed for video games allowed?

(examples being the version of rob zombies dragula in the original jet set radio. And ludens by bring my the horizon)

It's an official remix for the game's soundtrack, so absolutely :).

----------

Out of curiosity, how often do you get duplicate requests from different people (or maybe the same person, worried you never got their first response, lol)? I think you've said you have around 7,000 requests, is that after removing duplicates or before?

We honestly have a lot of duplicate requests for popular games, and we've been shaving down the duplicates as we go along and queue new submissions. I think we've cut down AROUND ~1000 duplicates so far (we're not done!) and these are mostly very popular (at least on tumblr) games such as disco elysium, sonic series games, in stars and time, final fantasy, pokemon, tf2, mass effect, hollow knight, legend of zelda, just off the top of my head. The 7000 number was from before removing duplicates.

----------

for older games where the music is ported to different consoles, would the soundtracks be considered separate if the soundfonts impact them enough, or do they have to be very, VERY different? Like if a game was released on pc vs a 32x port.

Also, if a pinball cabinet includes a soundtrack, is that considered a video game soundtrack?

I would honestly just submit your PREFERRED version (if the soundfonts did differ), and I would put BOTH versions into the reveal, since I don't think this is a common enough occurrence to be significantly obnoxious/unfair for whatever reason. As for the pinball question, last masterpost answered overwhelmingly 'no', so I'm going to say no as well :').

----------

Are unused vgms allowed for submission? So in the files but never added to the game itself.

If you can credit the creator of the tracks then yes! (provided they're in the files in the final publicly released version and not from a demo/waiting for a future update to be implemented in a live service game/etc)

----------

are roblox games allowed?

Yes, if you can credit the creator of the tracks and they were made for that roblox game :).

----------

what song had the highest "I like it and I've definitely heard it before" percent?

I think it is still #100, which was Megalovania from Undertale (85.20%) Correction: It's Death By Glamour, #460, at 87% :)

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@enderlordisadumbusername asked:

are we allowed to mention song composers before the song has been revealed?

Absolutely!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And please do!!!!!! (This will literally only give away the game if you were already familiar enough to know the composer, so it's actually very perfect)

----------

Would you or have you ever run a poll to gauge how much of a song your followers listen to before voting?

Definitely considering it after learning a lot of people don't listen to the full song or even at least the first minute...

[awakefor48hours]

Please consider reblogging for a larger sample size

Remember: this is about normal/everyday Parisians who live in the Miraculous Ladybug universe. We've seen actual debate on whether or not Rena Rouge has a crush on Cat Noir or Carapace before so people feel strongly about this topic in universe.

[floaromaxtowns]

TY for sharing your story! :0

I'm happy to see that you managed to turn your distaste towards NFCV, into an opportunity to get to learn more about the actual franchise that anime is making a mockery out of! :)

I can asure you that the reason DoS' story feels off is due to it literally being, the last game that takes place in the timeline of events! Funnily enough, I personally never enjoyed any of the Soma Cruz's games, BUT they are definetely amongst the best ones of the Metroidvania style games we got.

And GOD Order of Ecclesia, that has to be one of the worst beginner-friendly games in the franchise :( . I own it, and as much as I love its art, especially its OST (Shame it was our last proper game entry to the franchise). You summed it pretty well: It's way too grindy and unnecessarily punishing if you don't have EXACTLY what it asks for.

Here's hoping you find a way to try more Castlevania entries, I'd also recommend you to try:

Symphony of the night (the ogTM that started out the whole exploration + RPG elements genre. It was my entrypoint to the franchise, and to this day it's still one of my favorite games <3);

Portrait of Ruin (Another great title from the NDS era).

I have never played any of the 3d console games (outside of the Lords of Shadow game, which I personally don't recommend [it was an attempt at a reboot of the franchise in the 2010s. It failed miserably]), or even the classic platformers. BUT!! I'm sure you can also find some hidden gems there.

Also, I believe there are some mangas out there that expand on the games lore, with gorgeous art to boot. And we even have a radio drama (Nocturne of recollection, highly recommend it <3).

It's genuinely fascinating to hear this perspective. Because as I mentioned in my original post, it sure feels like only people who were already fans of the series, that disliked the anime (I'm going to pretend those alt righter grifters who scream woke at anything, don't exist). So, reading this is VERY refreshing.

Speaking as a CV fan, I felt thoroughly disappointed with the show as it went on. I wasn't angry at it just, really disappointed with the direction they took with one of my most beloved franchises (and it stings knowing that for now this is the "most popular face" of the franchise). I'm sure that if I were in my edgy, antsy and asshole teenager phase NFCV could have been my shit. But alas, all it did was push me away. I tried watching Nocturne-- but I somehow, only made it past the first episode. And then I swore to nevermore touch it.

Also, I'm sorry-- but it's actually really funny to know that the series somehow looks best when it's exclusively in gif format. No audio, no dialogue.

The joke wrote on its own.

@pinkdamascus responded to your post

I was about to say how Netflixvania only really works, if you don't even know it's supposed to be an ADAPTATION of a VIDEO GAMES franchise. But like

You're literally the Second ever non-CV fan to say this.

Holy SHIT.

For context: I'm not a Vivziepop fan, I didn't check out either of her series.

I bring this up bc

I'm convinced it's all about the optics at this point. Those people can't be actually watching these shows.

People blatantly ignore the fact that HH and HB are supposedly meant to be, in the same package as goddamn Family guy/South Park/etc (and even then it feels MILES tamer in comparison). And yet, there are motherfuckers looking at them, as if they are children's MEDIA!!!

Netflixvania's more mature/edgier aesthetic, while actively trying its hardest to be serious & big brain, with its shallowest takes (It shows the people on this show clearly wanted to be working on something original. And instead, they are stuck doing IP stuff). People who are always throwing themselves at discourse are that fucking shallow, and they resonate with this show. If anything, it tells a lot more about the people flocking to the shows rather than the product itself.

Don't forget that the lead director used his own father's passing as a meatshield from criticism c: That's always a good sign, and not at all a red flag, right?

[brofightiscancelled]

ok kind of an insane ask so feel free to ignore but would you be able to translate "友達バリア" by deco*27? i can't find any translations online and i wanna see if i'm right about the song kind of fitting the matsus... it's also a banger imo

- vocamatsu anon

omg.... tbh i have a feeling deco will make a video for this one which means we'll get an official english translation of it, rendering this completely redundant, but i'm really cheesed to have been asked, so i gave it a shot for you anyways <3

Friend-zoned, love fire, sparks flying HIBANA We're ready, set to lock horns, love's ultimate showdown I'm outmatched- but it's not over yet! I won't let this end! With a dazzling, never-give-up attitude, I'll break through your defenses!

The despair of never getting anything more of this Your behavior, nor what's going on in your head- I can't read it at all! I can't help but envy the kindness you radiate Omnidirectional compatibility- it's just not for me

Carefully-picked down-played words The outcome: A bloody heart True feelings double-crossed by embarrassment; how frustrating, I'm changing sides But that won't fill up my heart What I want is nothing more than to be by your side If you've got something to say, then say it- 'til I defeat you, that is! 3, 2, 1!

Friend-zoned, love fire, sparks flying HIBANA We're ready, set to lock horns, love's ultimate showdown I'm outmatched- but it's not over yet! I won't let this end! With a dazzling, never-give-up attitude, I'll break through your defenses!

I want you to like me! I want you to like me! Friend-zoned, love fire, hey, say "I give up"! With a dazzling, never-give-up attitude, I'll break through your defenses!

Fun things, good feelings- without you, they have no taste at all Sadness, jealousy- if they're cuz of you, then I don't mind them Let's throw down, bro! Better to regret doing it, than not doing it at all! A feeling like I won't need any special moves, YEAH I'm sure everything will be OKAY With an endless supply of love, you're undefeated, AYE Play dead, BYE BYE I'll be the one to throw the first punch

Friend-zoned, love fire, sparks flying HIBANA We're ready, set to lock horns, love's ultimate showdown The lonely and timid me is already no more! With a dazzling, blazing flair, I'll burn through your defenses!

Do you like me yet? Do you like me yet? Friend-zoned, love fire, now, let's immerse ourselves in love! With a dazzling, blazing flair, a never-ending HAO sweetener battle!

Do you like me yet? Do you like me yet? Friend-zoned, love fire, now, let's immerse ourselves in love! With a dazzling, blazing flair, a never-ending HAO sweetener battle!

------

my notes:

my overall interpretation of this song is "I'm trying to break through the friend zone (friendship barrier) so that you like me instead of thinking of me as a friend", so any vagueness in translation went in that direction

The use of "lock horns" in the official translation snippet + the HAO motifs give me the mental image of like, a hand-to-hand kung fu battle, so I leaned towards that imagery whenever there was vagueness (as opposed to like, a military campaign, for example)

deco's official english translations tend to be very liberal, so i tried to keep my translation a little more literal

[primdaisy]

new (…?) cafe in town

[woolmasterleel]

How do I even introduce him again.. Here's the man himself, Kisaki!! I am so happy to finally have an updated ref for him! His other ref is almost five years old...

Honestly working on this and Tagashei's ref just made me so happy, I gave them both slight redesigns and I'm very happy! As always, info below! o(*°▽°*)o

Dr. Kisaki Hizarou

213 cm tall (without heels)

Male

Limbo-Altered Entity (partial)

Tagashei’s husband and Alice’s father!

A famous scientist known for his breakthrough research in organ creation.

Initially a withdrawn, shy individual, Kisaki became his energetic (and somewhat scary) self overtime due to his constant exposure to deities being taken to Limbo.

At the time, he didn’t know anyone else who could understand Limbo, nor could he tell anyone. This ate away at him constantly.

When they were both human, Kisaki spent most of his time desperately trying to perfect his organ creation, so he could make a new heart for Tagashei, who was in dire need of one.

Unfortunately, Kisaki’s life was cut short just as he started making progress.

He was unruly after his passing, not taking the moment to decide which kind of deity he wanted to become, he ran into the demon realm while trying to find a way back to save Tagashei.

It is because of his urgency to get out that his biology didn’t properly adjust to his new demon form. His heart failed to properly form the chamber responsible for magic production. Kisaki didn’t care.

It is hard to pinpoint when Kisaki finally snaps and becomes his seemingly careless, laugh-at-everything attitude, but it is most likely around the time he found Tagashei’s grave.

Not knowing what to do now, he continued his work, creating a heart for Tagashei.

Feeling as though he failed him, he approached the local hospital with his work.

Years later, Kisaki and Tagashei reconnect. They work to create Alice. Kisaki’s organ creation extended beyond organs, he was able to create an entire human in a lab.

A few years later, Kisaki is approached by Mirror Kagami. He offers him a position in a lab specializing in disease creation for the purpose of fighting against them. Kisaki is immediately suspicious, but agrees to join.

He created the first sample of Rapid Corpus- a disease which is supposed to target only angels and demons, rapidly promoting bone and blood production to a fatal degree.

Kisaki then kills this sample in front of the head researchers. When they demand he create another one, he refuses. When they ask him for his notes on creating it, he smiles and says there are none. He calls them out, knowing why they wanted such a fatal disease so carelessly created.

Kisaki promptly causes the lab to explode, killing a large number of angels.

This severely throws off the balance of powers. Galvarium appears to take him to Limbo. She is confused and shocked to see Kisaki.

He explains his reasoning. Hearing Mirror’s name is enough for Galvarium to believe him.

Kisaki is released from Limbo not long after, thus being only a partial LAE.

When Kisaki returns to his family, he isolates himself from Tagashei- he knew he was being watched by Mirror’s organization, and didn’t want Tagashei being killed again because of him.

Finding out years later that Tagashei’s body mutated the Rapid Corpus disease made him extremely happy. Not only was he immune to any targeted attacks from Mirror’s organization, but now he could study Tagashei’s Mad Rabbit form, and create a mutated strain of the disease for defense purposes.

During the final arc is when Kisaki reaches his complete Limbo form, known as Alpha Decay Kisaki.

During their fight with Reflection of Mirror β, Kisaki (as Alpha Decay) and Tagashei (as Mad Rabbit) form Monarchy of Hearts.

He is part of the Court of Limbo (which consists of Galvarium, Pandora, Fate, and Medlo)!

Here's some design notes!

Kisaki's hair usually looks like normal hair, but he sometimes appears to have molecule structures floating around. How he does this, no one knows.

Kisaki purposefully wears the loudest shoes possible- it lets people know he's approaching, giving them a head start if they need to leave.

His wedding ring was made by Tagashei!

He does have the emblem visible on Alpha Decay with him prior to reaching that state, but keeps it in his pocket.

His blood is really bright green, he probably modified it to be that colour.

His eyes flicker like radiation caught on camera, that sort of fuzzy texture.

You will never see him without his coat.

He has four black earrings- two on each ear.

He needs his glasses to see well, he can manage without them but he prefers wearing them.

I'm attaching Alpha Decay here too because again I'll take any chance to show him off...

And of course I have him and Tagashei together! I worked on their refs on the same canvas so they're actually to scale with each other (✿◕‿◕✿)

They'll kick your ass

[unexpectedbrickattack]

Did you fully take that "both of them want to bottom" comic from popular furry artist skunkes or ????

I almost didnt want to answer this bc u got their whole government name out here without slashes; I dont want them to look up their own name and see this silly blog 😭😭

I think take is an AWFUL strong word where nothing is even remotely traced or copied 😭😭😭 I like their art alot and I when i was thinking about this specific scenario i was like ‘i am so sure someone did a comic w this exact vibe 🤔’ I love them but um. I do not think he owns the concept of ‘two men want to bottom and they are unable to communicate that easily’

[landinrris]

hi! not so much an ask, more just a message in general. my friends and i have been doing all sorts of deep dives into the whole martin & lando situation and are very invested in the entire thing, i'm talking archives, created a calendar with entries just for them with photos and liks to the source, power point presentations with the timeline (hello sophie ❤️) the list goes on. we've looked into loads of stuff and noticed patterns and connections and have been predicting things the past two weeks that then happened just the way we said they would. even made a bingo board a few days ago and were already able to cross two things off lol. so yes. quite invested.

it just makes us really really really happy to see two such amazing and kind and lovely and humble people who found each other and fit so so so well together, make each other so happy.

i created this account to post about them, keep up with stuff, share stuff. now since i think you are the most popular norrix account out there rn, i wanted to know if maybe you could share this so that other people who are interested in this whole development as well can follow me so i can follow them back and i just find more people to connect with?

(also if anybody is ever looking for a source, photo, video, date of anything connected to them, we probably have it and don't hesitate to reach out!)

damn did i leave my google docs signed in somewhere? 😅

Real talk, I love that you and your friends are having fun with everything. I also love that you've started an account about it. It's fun to look at things from both a zoomed-out perspective as well as zooming in. My own chat has been known to pop off at the drop of a link or old screenshot, so I totally get you.

[ultrainfinitepit]

For the possibility of doing the pride angel recolors; would those be a part of the campaign or just future shop stock?

Future shop stock (ideally for Pride Month next year) - and it would probably be just for the most popular designs or any that sell out.

[quibbs126]

The good thing about having a new roommate is that I can spend an hour explaining the lore of whatever my hyperfixation is

This time it was Berserk

[burinazar]

when i mention that i have the most individual MiA fics out of any author on AO3 i am not bragging. mostly i am sad about this. fic scene is very small, total of ~200 works in all languages

i am also always noting that the characters i'm likely to read/write about aren't the same ones as the characters most of the rest of the already-small fic reader and writer scene for The Hole Show is likely to read/write about. so the following results aren't news to me

but i hadn't thought to actually compare character tags for the whole fandom to character tags for my work, and the sheer disparity between 'tags of the fandom' and 'tags of the author who wrote the most individual fics in that fandom' is...funny lol. (left: MiA tag as a whole's most tagged characters; right: ebilfic's most tagged characters

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

This tool will count your notes for you.

If you have multiple blogs, report only your most-used blog. You can count the other blogs, but please only put the notes for those in the tags or comments.

[prokopetz]

Folks act like "maybe the author isn't the final authority about what their work means" is some wanky post-modern nonsense and not a simple recognition that a lot of authors are perfectly prepared to bullshit about their own work. Like, leaving big-name popular media aside, I have personally encountered authors being actively disingenuous about their own work for all of the following reasons:

A true answer wouldn't fit the image they've cultivated.

They've decided they like the explanation the readers/viewers have come up with better than what they actually had in mind.

Something that was originally intended as a standalone work ended up growing into a franchise or series, and now they're pretending that was the plan all along for some reason.

They don't want to admit that the bit you're asking about is genuinely just a plot hole.

The real answer gets into some shit they don't care to discuss, so they've prepared a cover story to explain away the parts they don't want to talk about.

Their politics have changed since they wrote it, but they don't want to acknowledge that, so they're constantly trying to re-interpret everything they've ever written to be perfectly consistent with whatever their positions are this week.

They wrote it decades ago and they honestly don't remember what they were thinking at the time, so they're just making shit up; sometimes they also don't remember what shit they made up the last time, so the answer is different every time they're asked.

The work in question is at least partly autobiographical and they can't tell the truth without confessing to a crime in the process.

Most of the good bits are plagiarised and they don't really understand it themselves.

They're lying to you on purpose, for evil reasons.

[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.

[cakemoney]

you ever watch someone you genuinely care about and respect get into very bizarre twitter beef. and just go. ohhhhh girl i think you're probably in a bad mood because of other stuff going on but to the strangers on the internet you just look like a massive asshole