#Once a nerd

[three-red-horns]

This is a Sharon Kovacs picture off Spotify 

You're probably confused by the second picture. I will get to that in a moment.

Now, every year in December Spotify graciously presents me with a list of songs and artists I listened the most throughout the year, all wrapped up in a fancy slideshow. No surprise there, Sharon Kovacs got the top spot. I really like her seductive voice with a tiny bit of a lisp.

This song, Bang Bang, is not only quite kinky. Here is a bit of a taste of Ms Kovacs' lyrical talents:

Baby oh, come to me

Like you used to down on your knees

You do as you're told

Wearing your blindfold

Here on the rubber sheet

Baby, don't be scared

You're all tied up and going nowhere

So take a moment

Savor the moment

And then realize how much I care

...but it was a completely different line that kept me awake at night:

You're chillin' out at minus ten degrees

Inside my deepfreeze

Mind you, the song is about a murder, I listened to it numerous times, and that line "minus ten degrees" rubbed the wrong way, time after time. Finally, my inner nerd takes the matter into its own hands and goes to check the freezer setting (hence, the picture) AND googles the recommended settings as well. 

My inner nerd to Ms Kovacs: 

"Darling, your food and whatever else you are keeping there will go bad, if you won't change the setting to minus eighteen. Please, for my sanity sake."

Or maybe she knew that it should be eighteen degrees, but the word is one syllable longer, and she decided to use ten instead. Or being the artistic spirit, she doesn't care about her freezer setting and doesn't use it at all.

I wonder, if I found that line, are there any other trolls, for the lack of a better word, already discussing it on Reddit or Quora. Should I research the matter any further? Should I make Google cry from desperation? Hmm, so many questions.

Psst, don't forget to vote!! And reblog, will ya? Look how much effort I put into it 😂

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

main take aways from Halloween (1978) rewatch:

michael myers is canonically 21??? this bitch should be at the club

*sees tiddies* ***MURDEROUS RAMPAGE NOISES***

that's it that's the movie

outside of the fact that everyone who has sex is murdered by the narrative, this is a surprisingly chill portrayal of female sexuality? these teen girls are horny and actively enjoying Getting It On with their boytoys. no pushy boyfriends sneaking in through their bedroom windows--these ladies are taking the initiative to sneak out and GET SOME. one of them gets laid and then immediately orders her boyfriend to get her a beer. (yes she gets Slashered soon afterward, but so does the boyfriend so honestly, gender equality.) yes the Final Girl is the only one not having sex, but she's not bullied for that, nor are her friends slut shamed except possibly by being murdered by the narrative

actually the only character who is shown being morally condemned on-screen is michael myers. specifically FOR his violent overreaction to other people's sex lives. (people he is spying on). metaphorically, the villain is American Puritanism sticking its judgy nose into other people's business.

aka Michael Myers Is A Republican

but actually the real villain is the doctor. guy's a judgemental, shaming, pathologizing asshole. and he's been in charge of michael's care since he was SIX YEARS OLD? kid never had a chance. i'd go on a killing spree too

also the parents. where are the parents? it's halloween night and all the teenage girls are home babysitting their younger siblings? come to think of it, michael's first victim was his own older sister, whom he killed while she was babysitting him. teen girls are really shouldering a labour burden here. maybe parentification is the true villain

side note: mike commits his first murder wearing a clown costume...which is never referenced again? his 'iconic' costume is a generic mask and wig and jumpsuit, when we coulda had a Killer Clown Michael Myers??? travesty

i like how the Final Girl and her friend casually smoke weed in her car. yeah she's an honor student and her friend is the sheriff's daughter. yeah they smoke weed. so what it's 1978

(to reiterate, mike is 21 and should be at the club. im not saying he shouldn't be rampaging, im saying it's sad that he broke out, tasted freedom for the first time in his life, and immediately snuck back into his childhood home to go rampaging. let's have a remake where he goes to a nightclub and has a few beers. maybe some slutty dancing. then rampage)

oh no he's hot

[blumineck]

Bows vs Guns: when does it make sense for modern/ sci-fi characters to use guns?

This is just one example! For a longer breakdown (with some bonus history!), check out my YouTube channel.

And don’t forget there are art reference packs now up on Patreon!

[tomatette]

As a teenager at a time when internet wasn't yet a thing, I had no idea a thing like "fandom" or "fanfic" existed. But I always wanted more of the characters I loved. So when I first saw the Star Trek novels in the local "Bahnhofsbuchhandlung" I was beyond thrilled!

From that moment on I was hooked.

It's been a while, but I remember Star Trek novels fondly - yours in partiuclar. This might sound stupid since we obviously don't know each other, but when I saw your blog here on tumblr it was like meeting an old friend.

So thank you for giving teenage nerd me joy. Adult nerd me still greatly appreciates and treasures it!

Dear Diane,

if you appreciate cheering-up today, I have another story to offer. Or rather, something I've been meaning to say for some time.

When I got into the Star Trek fandom, your books were to me what fanfic is to new fans today.

At the time, which was in the mid nineties, I was a young German university student with hardly any internet access. (Well, it was possible to log in at the institute to read your email, which was an exciting new way to communicate, but that was it.) But there was a library in town, which held an entire shelf of ST books! Yours were among them - the German translations, of course, which was all we had at the time - but they were so good that I remembered your name.

Today, when getting into new media, the first thing I do is to check out tumblr and AO3. Back then, I didn't even know such a thing as fandom existed. But I had the books! They went beyond the shows and told new stories; they explored the characters in new ways. They showed me that the Star Trek universe was so much larger than I had imagined, and encouraged me to want more of it. I wrote my first little piece of fanfic then, without knowing what fanfic actually was.

Thank you so much for that. It is an honour to be here on tumblr with you.

You're so welcome! And I'm pleased to be here with you too.

I have to say that one of the reasons (among various others) that I'm so fond of the German side of Trek fandom is because that's where I first saw my name on a book on a spinning rack in another language. Naturally it's very nice to be sent authors' copies from Heyne (or whoever) at your home address. But it's something else entirely to see a book with your name on it in a bookstore, or a railway station newsstand, in a different country. And a Star Trek novel at that! You can't beat it. :)

Additionally, our meet-ups with German Trek fans (at FedCons, for example) have always been fantastic. @petermorwood and I both look forward to getting over that way again as soon as we can.

Anyway, thanks for letting me know! :)

[milkywayes]

GARRUS VAKARIAN: DATABASE IMAGE ACCESS. > PT. 1 : 2160, 2166, 2170. > all files backdated according to user preferences: (terran_coordinated.calendar).

[benevolenterrancy]

redraw of that ds9 scene

LBH doesn't understand what's going on but wants to impress shizun; MBJ understands it even less but is optimistic about any sport involving a solid wooden bludgeon at least

[s1x-foot-deep]

do u see the vision. are you picking up what im putting down here

[three-headed-monster]

luke hughes wants to dine with julius caesar

[dragonologist-phd]

also! there's specific dwarven mourn watcher dialogue!

[garuye]

For the palette thing: Mai Valentine #35 or #135? whichever one you like better :)

THANK YOU FOR MAI!! I didn't realize how much I missed her!! *feat girlfriend shirt*

[drawnfamiliarfaces]

Lord of Dreams and Nightmares Nocturn

but also Creepy Shadow Person in your window/in the corner of your room Nocturn

[toasted-buguette]

So Ryis is my favorite bachelor to no one's surprise and as I get further into the available game I am enamored with the idea of him and the farmer slowburn falling in love while they pretty much singlehandedly rebuild the town.

Like come on? Those two built that whole general store all by themselves and you're telling me that there isn't any opportunity for a bashful brushing of fingers as they hand eachother tools? No staring at the other person while they're not looking cause they're so involved in their task and they look so cute when they're so focused? Not even a moment where one of them catches the other before they can trip on a loose piece of debris?

If I were a man predisposed to writing fanfic I would, it just a concept I fuck with so hard

[lgbtlunaverse]

What kind of saber is baxia anyway?

I love my bloodthirsty princess of a cursed blade, and in my heart of hearts i am nothing but a sword nerd, so i've been extremely fascinated by Baxia and how we know frustratingly little about what she actually looks like!

I mean, look at bichen, right?

Bichen in the donghua:

Bichen in the drama:

They're clearly not exactly the same. The scabbards are different, and the guards have a different shape. But these are recognizably different iterations on one theme, right? Thin jian with a white grip silver guard, light blue tassel and silver mounting accents on the scabbard.

Now this is baxia in the donghua:

And baxia in the drama:

????????

THAT'S A COMPLTELY DIFFERENT WEAPON

it doesn't stop there either, the audio drama is kind enough to give us ANOTHER COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BAXIA

pretty! But how is that he same sword??

And when we go back to the novel, we get very little information on her appearance other than the fact that her blade is tinted red with all the blood she's absorbed. Which none of these designs incorporate.

This is not a dig on the designs itself, they're all quite gorgeous in their own right and i'm going to spend a while discussing all of them! Because isn't it fascinating how, since we know little about novel baxia beyond "saber" all of these designs ended up so different? What kinds of sabers are these, anyway?

So, a chinese aber, aka a "dao" (刀) just means a sword that has only one cutting side. As opposed to a jian, which has two.

You can see how that leaves a LOT of room for variaton.

I've actually seen some people get confused because Huaisang's saber in the untsmed is thin and quite straight, making it superficially resemble the jian more than drama!baxia, but it is still clearly a saber!

See? only one cutting blade!

This, to me looks a lot like a tang dynasty hengdao

credit to this blog for providing his image and being a great source for all this going forward.

TANGENT: during all this I found out the english wikipedia page for dao is WRONG! Ths is what they about the tang hengdao!

So that sounds like the hengdao was called that during the sui dynasty, but then, after that, started being called a peidao, right?

WRONG

I LOOKED AT THE SOURCE THEY USED AND IT SAYS THIS:

IT WAS CALLED THE PEIDOU UNTIL THE SUI DYNASTY, AT WHICH POINT IT WAS CALLED A HENGDAO. Which would carry over to the Tang dynasty. This was the source wikipedia linked! and it says something else than they say it does!

Anyone know how to edit a wikipedia article?

ANYWAY

BACK TO BAXIA

Since we're already at the drama, let's look at drama baxia: She's also straight! the general term for straight-backed saber is Zhibeidao, but that's a modern collector's term, and doesn't really say anything about which historical kind of saber baxia could be based on. Another meta i found on the drama nie sabers already went on some detail here.

I'm gonna expand on that a little: The kinds of historical straight-backed sabers we see resemble the hengdao a lot more than they do baxia. They don't go to their point as harsly as she does (she's basically a cleaver!) and they're all way skinnier.

No, my personal theory is that instead of being based on any kind of historical sword, drama!baxia is based on a Nandao.

I mean, come on, look at it!

Baxia!

The Nandao... isn't actually a historical sword. It was invented for Wushu forms. There's a really fascinating article about its conception, but that's why the swords in the images look a little thin and flimsy. Wushu swords are very flexible and light, they're dance props, not weapons to fight with. There are actual steel versions of Nandao, but they're recreations of the prop, not the other way around.

So That's one way in which Baxia differes from the Nandao: she's actually a real weapon. The other is that, as you can see above, the nandao has an S-shaped guard. Baxia doesn't. She's also much more elaborately decorated, of course. Because she's a princess.

Now: audio drama baxia!

This is much easier. with that flare at the tip?

Oh baby that's a niuweidao, all the way!

There are more sabers with that kind of curved handle, but the broad tip is really charcteristic of the niuweidao. The Niuweidao is also incredibly poplar in modern media, often portrayed as a historical sword, but it originated i nthe 19th century! And it was actually never used by the military!

That's right, the Niuweidao was pretty much exclusively a civilian weapon! That makes its use here anachronistic, but so is the nandao, and considering that the origin story of the Nie is that they use Dao intead of Jian because their ancestors were butchers, portraying them with a weapon historically reserved for rebels and common people instead of the imperial military is actually very on theme!

Finally, Donghua/Manhua baxia. These two designs are so similar I'm going to treat them as one and the same for now.

Unlike both previous baxias, The long handle makes it clear this baxia is a two-handed weapon, though Nie Mingjue is absolutely strong enough to wield her with one hand anyway. Normal rules don't count for cultivators.

Now, this is where things get tricky, because there are a lot of words for long two-handed sabers. And a lot of them are interchangable! This youtube video about the zhanmadao, one of the possible sabers this baxia could be based on, goes a little into just how confusing this can get. This kind of blade WAS actually in military use for many centuries, making it the most historically accurate of all the baxias. But because of that it also has several names and all of those names can also refer to different kinds of blades depending on what century we're in.

So here's our options: i'm going to dismiss the wodao and miandao, because these were explicitly based on japanese sword design, and as we can see manhua baxia has that very broad tip, so that won't work

(Example of a wodao. According to my sources Miaodao is really just the modern common term for the wodao, and the changdao, and certain kinds of zhanmadao... do you see how quickly this gets confusing?)

Next option: Zhanmadao.

Zhanmadao stands for "horse chopping saber" so... yeah they were anti-cavalry weapons. meant to be able to cut the legs and/or necks of horses. That definitely sounds like a weapon Nie Mingjue would wield. But if you watched that youtube video i linked above, you'll know the standardized Qing dinasty Zhanmadao looked very different from earlier versions. It was inspired by the japanese odachi, and more resembles the miandao than its ealrier heftier counteprarts.

Earlier Ming dynasty Zhanmadao on the other hand were... basically polearms. the great ming military blog spot, another wonderful source, says these are essentially a kind of podao/pudao (朴刀) which looked like this

Now that blade looks a lot like baxia, but the handle is honestly too long. Donghua!baxia straddles the line between sword an polearm a little, but while zhanmadao have been used to refer to both long-handled swords and polerarms, this was undeniably a polearm, not a sword.

If you want to know what researching this was like, I found a picture of this blade on pinterest-- labeled as a "two-handed scimitar"-- and the comment section was filled with people arguing about whether this was a Pudao, Wudao, Zhanmadao, Dadao, Guandao, or a japanese Nagita.

So... that's how it was going. This has kept me up until 2 AM multiple times.

However! Thanks to this article on the great ming military blog I found out there have historically been pudao blades with shorter handles!

Specifically, Ming dynasty military writer Cheng Ziyi created a modified version of the pudao to work with the Dan Fao Fa Xuan technixues-- aka technqiues for a two-handed saber, which would alter heavily influence Miaodao swordmanship-- thereby, as the article points out, essentially merging the cleaver-polearm type Zhanmadao with the later two-handed japanese-inspired design.

This is the illustration for the Wu Bei Yao Lue (武備要略) a Ming dynasty military manual

This blade shape in the illustration doesn't match Baxia exactly, but since it's a lengthened Pudao-like blade and we've seen above that those can match Donghua Baxia's shape, i'm gonna say that calling Baxia a Zhanmadao with a two-handed grip isn't all that innacurate!

However, because all of these terms are so intertwined, there are a dozen other things you could call her that would be about equally correct.

To show that, here's a lightning round of other potential Baxia candidates:

Dadao (大刀)

Which are generally one-handed and too short. However!

Another youtube video i found of someone training with a Zhanmadao that resembles baxia a little also calls it a "shuangshoudai dao" (雙手带 刀) shuangshou means two-handed, and while 雙手带 seems to refer to a longer handled weapon, when looking for a shuangshou dao or shuangshou dadao (双手大刀) we find a lot more baxia-resembling blades like here and here

I also found that, while the cleaver-like Dadao is strictly a product of the 20th centuy, since dadao just means big sword or big knife, it has been used to refer to loads of different weapons! Some people could've called the zhanmadao and pudao "dadao" during the Ming dynasty as well.

Another potential baxia candidate that mandarin mansion classifies as similar to the later dadao (though longer, as seen in the illustration below) is the "Kuanren Piandao"

Which piqued my interest because this diagram classifying different tpye of Dao:

Claims that a Kuanrenbiandao (diferent spelling, same sword) is the same as a modern day Zhanmadao.

(So once again, all of these terms are interchangable)

Another opton Is the Chuanmeidao/Chuanweidao (船尾刀) below you can see a diagram, based on the Qing dynasty green standard army regulation, of blades all officially classified as types of "pudao"

The top middle is the Kuanren Piandao, and bottom left is the Chuanweidao.

Both of these have a lot of baxia-like qualities.

So there you go! live action baxia is based on a Nandao, audio drama baxia is based on a Niuweidao, and Manhua/donghua baxia is some kind of two-handed Zhanmadao/Pudao/Dadao depending on how you want to look at it.

I'm honestly surprised no one has made the creative decision to portray Baxia as a Jiuhuandao, aka 9 ringed broadsword yet.

I mean look at it! Incredibly imposing. Would make for a great Baxia imo. (@ upcoming mdzs manga and mobile game: take notes!)

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

jon val jon or something

[dying-artists]

Purple Guy

This will forever be only a sketch so I may as well just throw it out while I still haven't forgotten about it

[peanutseagle]

Guys please show more enthusiasm !!