#LOOOOOOOONG post.

[kwistowee]

for everyone who needs this reminder SOMEONE LIKE YOU (2001)

[staff]

tumblr tuesday: hyrule compendium

The world is healing, Rauru is great, your art blocks are being cured, and no one, absolutely no one, is thinking of the Zelda x Link ship name being Linda instead of Zelink. Tears of the Kingdom is here, and mentally, we're all in Hyrule for the foreseeable future. Here's some fanart for your heart containers.

(Please, proceed with caution. There are mild spoilers for the game ahead!)

@ragepups:

@susanyung:

@transparensie:

@nolvini:

@boomygonzalez:

@wyvern-witch:

@taboonle:

@laurzaboonart:

@jameelaillustration:

@drizzledrawings

@artsyvii:

@bloominflowers:

@trashieart:

@graysheartart:

@emipon:

@memoryjoule:

@kornart3:

@bird-wells214:

@lunehowls:

@tinabongorno:

@rhoshilio:

@bluemiilks:

@solqau:

@kazehita:

@fefisbf:

[allthatispeculiar]

[nyaawn]

FFXVI - Eikons Keyart

[harudnae]

Sorry for disappearing, it will happen again

(but not before I post my latest fic)

[sweetsouldhavernas]

03x01 // 03x200

[amuseoffyre]

@epersonae​ :D

Infodumping time! :D :D :D :D

Okay, so it has been acknowledged on all fronts that OFMD does really well at dealing with a world steeped in colonialism, especially when it comes to Ed and his mum’s implicit backstory, Jim’s history and family background in St. Augustine, plus the various tidbits we get about Frenchie, Oluwande and Roach and the other one-episode characters like Abshir and the Arawak people.

Now let me explain why I also got so excited about the British characters we have in the show, entirely based in the context of colonialism and the British class system.

The show is set in 1717. By this point, Britain is the ‘united’ Kingdom with England having laid claim to Ireland and Wales for years and finally hooking Scotland with the Act of Union in 1707, after the disaster of the Darien Project - another story another day - utterly bankrupted Scotland.

In 1689, there was the Glorious Revolution, wherein William of Orange came over from the Netherlands (at the request of the mostly English aristocracy) and punted James II/VII (II of England, VII of Scotland) off the throne. Civil wars of various shapes and sizes happened for the next 40+ years, but especially in parts of Ireland and Scotland.

So let me tell you that when I realised this crew of pirates had both a Northern Irish and a working class Scots character in it? I screeched. Especially a Scots character using the Scots language, which never appears anywhere except Scots media? Not least because many, many pirates who were working in the Caribbean at that time were dispossessed Irish and Scotsmen, especially following the most recent Jacobite rising in 1715. (Also, speculation abounds that historical Stede was actually a Jacobite sympathiser since he named his second ship Royal James, but that’s another story for another day)

I’m not as familiar with the Irish history, but I know that with the plantation of Ulster in the 17th century, Irish Catholic families were forcibly displaced to make room for Protestant families from Britain, who got all the valuable/usable land, while the Irish Catholic population were taxed to the hilt and driven to live on poorer land plus the horrors of the church schooling system, where the kids were taken from their families to be assimilated.

Sound familiar? Ireland is where Britain honed its colonisation blade to the point that in 1745, the Scots nobles were calling it “the Irish system” when they decided it would be a useful thing to use to subdue “the superstitious savages” in the Highlands to turn everyone into only-English-speaking protestant automatons (Again, Buttons speaking Scots had me screeching! It doesn’t happen! Not in American shows! And yet!!!). It was later rolled out across the British empire.

So yes. This has been happening for centuries and one of the regular solutions to deal with people who were protesting against children being taken/all their food being taxed away/any vague sound of dissent or rumblings of ‘Papishness’ was cause for Banishment. The Good Old British solution to any problem in the 16th-18th century: kick them out the country to one of the countries that we need filled with white folk or enslave them in a plantation. 

It’s very telling that in British politics, the insults that the London-based politicians used for each other were to call each other Irish bandits (Tory is apparently an English bastardisation of the Irish word “tóraidhe”, which means outlaw) and Scottish cow herder (likewise Whig was mockingly derived from “Chuig an bothar”, the call of the cattle drivers)

So within a historical context, Buttons and Wee John ending up in the Caribbean wouldn’t have been unusual. It was very common to the point that there was an entire Jacobite/anti-England faction of pirates in Nassau (ie. the Republic of Pirates). There’s also a reason that a lot of plantations ended up being owned by Scottish ex-aristocracy - many were stripped of lands/titles because of the Jacobite risings and ended up in the Caribbean (And made their fortunes, then bribed their way back to their titles because of course they did. Bastards).

I do wish we’d got more information about Ivan and his background. At the time the show is set, Britain was tromping over and around south Asia with the East Indian Trading Company (also known as the Giant Company of Thieving Bastards Here To Steal Your Cool Stuff) which had been spreading its influence throughout the region since the 1600s and by the 1700s, were the main European power in the area. There are records showing connections between south Asia and St. Helena in the Caribbean from as early as 1684, so it isn’t impossible that someone from the area that is now Pakistan couldn’t have ended up working on trading ships to the Caribbean.

And then we have Lucius and Izzy, our two white English crew.

I have so many feelings about the class subtext that is slathered all over the show and I need to mention that before I move on to the boys.

Stede is technically upper class because of his wealth but when you see him with any of the other English characters who are upper class by birth and breeding, he is seen as secondary to them. The way Badminton and his officers treat Stede demonstrates this. If he was the firstborn son of someone with any title/lineage and had inherited said title, there would be some level of class-bias and respect shown because one has to follow the social code. However, the son of a man who bought his way into land and respectability? PFFT. No.

When his father says “Mary has acreage” and tells Stede “you didn’t earn it”, it speaks measures: Bonnet Senior is new money with no property or title and is still angry about “rich boys”. He’s rich himself, yes, but he wasn’t born to it. He didn’t inherit it and he begrudges the fact his son will have it handed to him. (Take Antoinette’s comment to Siegfried on the party ship - “just inherit it like a normal person” - this is how the gentry talk about wealth)

Also, re. Stede not having an English accent, while his father does - I like the implication that Stede is first-gen colony baby. His dad came out to make a fortune, which is why he still has his English accent, but Stede was only in England for school, which is why he doesn’t have the accent.

So yis, in that line, Stede is upper class by property, but not by breeding. He’s “not some derelict. He has money” and that’s all that he had going for him. When he talks about the party he describes it as “posh knobs hob-nobbing with other posh nobs” and later tells Frenchie he never really fit in at those kind of dos. His father may be a land-owner, but that’s only a few steps above “tradesman” to the born-and-raised aristocracy.

Then we have Lucius. He’s absolutely not working class. At a guess, I’d say some kind of merchant level because his family would have had to be financially sound enough to afford to give him an education that involved calligraphy and have a reason for him to be able to read and write exceptionally well. One of the options is that he was trained up to be a clerk, someone who does all the writing and book-keeping.

And then we have Izzy. I can’t avoid the fact that Izzy’s social context is important because Con is famous in his field for playing working class northern characters. He’s won awards for it. 

Before I start munching on this particular chew toy, a quick recap: for people unfamiliar with the British Isles, there is a big social divide between the north and south of England. North England was where so much of the big industry happened back in the day (mines, shipyards, factories, mills et al), while London and the south were seen as the political hubs.

When said industries went under, let’s just say it was the north that dealt with the brunt of it and are still dealing with the repercussions of decisions made by the governments in the south. (Yes, this is a quick and very generalised recap, but it’s 9am on a Sunday morning and I have no brain for getting into the collapse of the industrial revolution + the successive mess of stuff that followed)

So Izzy. Izzy is one of Con’s juicy working class northern lad creations. He’s not got much in life but he’s clawed his way into a position that should merit some respect and some appreciation. He has worked hard to get where he is and is determined to maintain what he has got.

And if we are to take his accent as we take Buttons and Wee John, he’s from Liverpool, which was becoming one of the biggest ports in England at the time on the north west coast of England. Because it expanded so rapidly from the late 1690s, the majority of people in the Liverpool area were probably working in/around/associated with the port.

My dad’s side of the family are northern (north-east, though) and working class and one thing I can very clearly remember about the older generations was that they thought hard work was the way to go because that was how things had always been done: you work hard, you get what you earn and you get on with it. Education was a luxury most people couldn’t afford because you had to work, because if you didn’t work, you didn’t eat. (I could also go on and on about how certain generations there thought reading made you “soft” but that’s a whole other kettle of fish)

Izzy really embodies that ethos, especially when he’s faced with a crew who don’t seem to even be doing the bare minimum of work. His hostility is understandable when he has been working his arse off and, in his own words, “barely ekeing by” while these people are acting like they’re on a holiday cruise. His comment on the library - the “perverse misuse of space” about something only rich people had access to - and pushing Lucius into doing some physical labour when Lucius is the equivalent of a secretary is Izzy expressing his frustrations with it all. This life is the one he knows and he knows how it’s meant to work but Stede has come along, saying “what if it wasn’t like that?” and Izzy isn’t a fan.

I know I’m probably reading a lot more into it than there really is there, but given how much David Jenkins has spoken about Con’s audition performance and development of the character shaping the scripts, I can’t help feel that it’s important, especially given how deftly they handled so many of the other aspects.

[leverage-ot3]

if y’all read my tags you’d know that I have had a massive pileup of drafts because I’ve been too lazy to tag things correctly

LOOK HOW GOOD I DID!!!

after weeks of working on tagging over a thousand drafts, I finally have almost everything sorted!!! most of the 44 drafts left are notable moments commentary posts that have been in there for like two and a half years (oops lmao)

[classpect-crew]

this is me btw

this is the wizard behind this blog

all of that deep, interesting analysis you like to read? it’s all me, baybee

[mai-mai-lim]

not me accidentally upload the previous post early WHILE IM WRITING JABSDFLKAJS

dang you keyboard shortcut i was trying to remove some space wheezeeee

[eeneendje]

I'm always sad when these "going to the real world" movies don't have the fake world animated. Enchanted did it right and then no one did it again :/

[finsterhund]

Might get back into streaming to play Bramble the Mountain King. I've had people telling me to play it left and right all over the place and it looks like thematically the closest a spiritual successor to Heart of Darkness has actually come to having a story that's along the same vein. Lacking the sci-fi element for sure but it's got the dark folklore fucked up stories to make kids afraid of the woods vibe that's basically the "acoustic" ????? equivalent to alien shadow nightmare fear monsters.

Been told it actually has death scenes too.

Thinking about it now there's like four categories to the whole HoD concept.

There's prehistory early human child that's still very much not "dominant species" yet having to contend with what could just be chalked up as another animal. Aka "don't leave the protection of the fire light when it's night or the thing with the big claws will get you"

There's classic folklore scary legends (where this game falls) Aka "don't go too far into the woods or the anthropomorphic wolf will get you"

There's modern kidlore Aka "being under the blankets will protect you from the closet monster" kinda thing (heart of darkness is this one plus a mix of the next step up)

And then there's the cosmic equivalent, which is very much a mirror/call back to the first one. Where human child is still very much just a little critter in the face of some cosmic force with power and a foothold in the interstellar pecking order humans have yet to reach. "Don't let the unearthly.. thing... take you off world"

You could say this is just a kidlore subset of the man vs nature literary concept but that wouldn't fully be correct because each time "nature" is on par with, if not more sapient than, the protagonist so its a bit of man vs man too. The cosmic version can be man vs god too.

You get outliers where it takes primarily from one of these categories but creates its own unique worldbuilding and universal laws (such as the game Little Nightmares, where it appears kids just show up inexplicably in some warped mirror world with no context as to why) but if things are actually explained in a more indepth "realistic" way they'll generally fall into the above list unless they're plot-wise too vague to do so (Limbo) as for Inside, I don't think Inside actually falls into this style of story plot at all. Even though the game does appear to as the spiritual successor of limbo because the game isn't about the boy but rather what the boy represents/is part of.

[akanemnon]

What kind of music would kris Frisk and listen to? I know it's a silly question but I wanna know

I feel like I answered something like this before... but it's been a LOOOOOOOONG while. I dunno if I'll contradict myself with the old post but, uhhh...

Kris likes classical music thanks to their love for the piano. But I think they also like punk rock and classic rock.

As for Frisk, they're pretty new to most music. They just listen to whatever. They don't have a favorite genre.

[kizunatallis]

I'd absolutely be her sugar baby

i tag @caseopencaseshut, @doctor-fluffy, @thegothicviking, @thetourguidebarbie, @uniunivrse, and anyone else who wants to play this

Doing one of these but with my mutuals after seeing this image on my dash today!!

..Y'know he may be the god of war but.. I'm not mad. No, no not at all. :)

@xxgalacticambitionsxx @hatbox-apologist @ghostingyourass79 @kittieshauntedourfantasy @emerald194 @thatonerabbit @comical-icicle

[peekofhistory]

What are, in your opinion, the most iconic hanfu for men and women from each dynasty?

Hi! I'm so sorry this reply is delayed, I had to do a quick trip abroad and didn't have my laptop with me, also wanted to spend some time finding photo examples for this :D

OK! Here we go!

Qin/Han Dynasties (Pic 1, 2): Quju (wrap-around) and Zhiju (straight-edged) are what I think of for this period. Both men and women wore these robes.

Weijin/ North-South dynasty (Pic 3, 4): This is hard...xD Too many styles to pic from OTL I do LOVE the drastic long sleeves of this period, the robes get split from one long robe to the top/bottom separated Ruqun style. Men and women shared most fashions during this period too. For women, the hair styles start evolving in complexity, a lot of gold hair pieces (no flowers yet). The clothing starts looking more "flowy" compared to the heavy, serious robes of Qin/Han.

Tang Dynasty (Pic 5-8): Tang was a period of dramatic economic growth, it was also when the Silk Road flourished so there were merchants coming to trade and do business. It's difficult to pick one "iconic" style, but for women I usually think of dresses that tie around the bus with either a form-fitted, thin shirt underneath, or a larger-sleeved robe worn over top (pic 8). This bust-tie style wasn't seen before this period. OR, a form-fitted top, maybe with a little vest over top, and a waist-tie skirt (pic 7) (this is a good style to go on outings, easy movement).

There was also a particular group of ladies who wore these long, dramatic head pieces that almost formed a giant halo around their head (pic 6). I'll talk about them in a later post too.

For men, the round-collared robes became popular, with these bumpy looking "hats" (the vertical portion and the portion wrapped around the head are actually separate pieces so it's not really a hat, I'll explain more in later posts).

Song Dynastyn (Pic 9-12): In my mind, Song's style was a lot more gentle and soft compared to the lavish, bright colours of Tang. Song was a dynasty that focused on the arts, Song dynasty's emperors were all very artistic (they tended to lean away from focusing on military defense which, unfortunately, led to the dynasty's downfall).

So I think of soft colours during this dynasty, simpler hair styles. A wrap-around top with a waist-tie skirt, topped with a loose outer robe (pic 9). For men, Song dynasty is famous for men wearing flowers in their hair or adorning their hats (pic 10, 12). The work hat also developed these giant, loooooooong sticks from the side (pic 11) which is great for social distancing xDD

Ming Dynasty (Pic 13-15): The biggest change to Ming dynasty's hanfu is we go from soft, flowy silks to thicker brocades, this makes the clothing look "stiff" and allows for clear-cut shapes using pleating (if you've ever worn a Ma Main Qun (horse-face skirt...wtf are these translations O.O) you know what I mean.

The collars for the tops also develop these high-rise styles (although they can be criss-crossed styles or round-collared too). I absolutely HATE these high-rise collars because my neck is short and anything wrapped around it makes me itchy (I can't even button the buttons, my neck is too chonk). Whenever I buy one of these robes I have to move the buttons down so I can flip the collar down otherwise I can't wear them T__T

So I usually think of a short or long "Ao" (top) paired with a Ma Mian Qun for women (pic 13, 15). The Ma Mian Qun (horse-face skirt) is recognizable by the pleating, it shot into into the spotlight in China in July 2022 when a lot of Chinese Hanfu-hobbyists noticed Dior had a skirt that was constructed the same way, only the length was shorter. It was a whole big controversy with people accusing Dior of copying the style without giving credit, so now most people in China know of this skirt (I'll post a pic below of Dior's version). It's not uncommon to see people wear it paired with a cute, modern-top in China

For men, one of the most iconic clothes for men in this dynasty is the "flying fish robe" (pic 14). These were worn by imperial guards and named for the pattern of the brocade. Because the guards need easy movement, the robes cut off around the calf, and the sleeves are tightened using arm cuffs.

So, there's my "iconoic" hanfu for every dynasty. That was hard T__T I wanted to pic so many xD Oh, and here's Dior's skirt:

Left is Dior's, right is a Ma Mian Qun. Ma Mian Qun's pleating style is quite unique, I don't have one on hand to take photos but here's a video of someone twirling in one and you can kind of see the pleating. Some people speculate maybe Dior saw these skirts on Taobao or something, thought the design looked nice and took it without realizing the historical significance of the outfit. I don't know the details, I only heard about the controversy very briefly (back then I hadn't really dived into Hanfu yet).

[kokushibitch]

my dmmd au where mink is actually a brown guy instead of being vaguely yellow and grey. left edit is just a skintone edit while the right contains more natural looking feathers. i also gave him a stronger face

i spent a while trying to pinpoint his nation. unfortunately his design contradicted itself a bit and the slapping of random feathers and dreamcatchers everywhere pisses me awf. i wish that the artists had chosen to stick with one specific nation, and the closer i looked it actually wasn't as bad as i initially thought, but there were still some pretty egregious errors made with his design that could be avoided with CURSORY research, and for a company like n+c, big as they are with the resources to do better research, is unacceptable. to be quite honest, i almost hesitate to even make this post because i really don't want people to run with the information ill be discussing. while i am a native dude that enjoys DMMD, i know so many others that dislike mink, his design, and story because he falls into quite a few racist tropes. also, just because i can kind of glean some information about mink's culture based on his character design/home design, does not mean that it's a 100% accurate portrayal of said culture.

TL;DR: i used to think he was supposed to be ojibwe, but upon further inspection i headcanon mink as navajo/dine and afronative, my reasoning below the cut. im gonna make a later post discussing the nuances of his route and the meta racism in DMMD cause its been a loooooooong time since ive played his route. while im not navajo myself (im tsalagi) i at least have the life experience to tell the goddamn difference between nations lol. i also love the inclusion of a rainbow in his design as a fellow indigenous rainbow enjoyer

note: dine and navajo are the same thing, but im gonna use navajo because thats what more people are familiar with.

the easiest way to start would be with his most obviously unique feature, his locced hair. loccing among NA nations wasn't super common, but it did happen due to the culture & rituals around hair (no cutting unless under specific circumstances, braids/plaits end up "locced" from saltwater, etc etc). to me, however, his locced hair didn't feel like a purposeful design choice. meaning, i dont think the artist chose the locced hair because they wanted to convey something traditional about mink's culture, i think they chose it just because it looks cool, or because mink kind of just falls into the "vaguely brown" category. i'd also be okay with interpreting him as black/native, which i think im gonna do because i know that there are (or was, dead fandom) plenty of black dmmd fans that identify with him

his second most unique cultural indicator is his dreamcatcher. unfortunately, dreamcatchers have kind fallen into that "vague native design" bullshit, but they do have a tribal origin: aanishinabe. again though, due to the sheer abundance of people slapping dreamcatchers onto vaguely native characters, i cant say that this is a strong enough point for me to say definitively that he's aanishinabe. also, you dont fuckin wear dreamcatchers. end of, they're not supposed to be on your body.

THEN there are even more important indicators to me that denote exactly which nation he's from.

just judging base on the patterns used on his traditional tapestries, blankets, and runners, would denote some sort of southwestern nation. now they're not accurate designs necessarily, but i can understand and see clearly where they took inspiration from.

the peace pipe on the wall in both his home and his hideout immediately indicate navajo, a southwestern nation. the fact that he has a strong religious orientation to smoking herbs (im assuming in place of tobacco) is also very navajo to me. the pottery in his home & hideout are also very strongly southwestern, as pottery was a very common art in the southwest. the fact that he has an altar at all is unique because altars are actually not common practice and are usually only found in the southwest, which is actually a good detail point whether it was intentional or not. ignore the dreamcatchers which were, again, thrown in randomly

and of course his homeland contains mountains and more importantly, cliffs and canyons which is another southwest feature. there's also his fuckass cowboy boots which are VERY southwestern

IGNORING the dreamcatcher in his hair AGAIN, he's also flexin beaded jewelry. to me, these are just like regular beads, but you could interpret them as turquoise if you wanted. traditional turquoise jewelry is usually inlayed onto silver bands or pieces as well as strung together like so. his white belt also contains a very southwestern design.

as much as some elements of his design annoy the fuck out of me, i love, love, love, love the inclusion of the rainbow in mink's character design. the rainbow is so important to so many different nations, and mink being a religious person, it actually makes a lot of sense for him to have this sort of draw to rainbows or rainbow colored items. specifically in navajo culture, rainbows are used as Bridges between The Navajo and The Holy People, basically communicating with a higher power. a rainbow is also a symbol of the 7 sacred rituals in navajo culture, one color per ritual. here's a youtube video about it, learn something

i do have some thoughts on mink de-loccing his hair in his good ending, but i think i will have to save that for another post further down the line

anways, ive made my case. mink is navajo