#anatomy analysis

[fragiledate]

hayy. heres a random, spontaneous, niche art note compilation

[artist-issues]

I’ve only seen it once so forgive me for not saying more—

—but my favorite sequence is by far the part where ROZ is watching Brightbill finally take flight, and she looks up to try and see him as he gets farther away, but then her view of Brightbill is blocked by the pop-up screen saying “Task Complete.”

And she has to rush after him to get her final look, because of that. Because the Task was getting in the way of her seeing him.

[mikiib]

I’m in too deep- and no one can stop me... ANATOMY OF THE TURTLES! You are 100% allowed to use this as reference or add on if you think there is something I may have missed. Please credit me if you repost this anywhere thats not a simple reblog. I worked hard on this and I hope it shows! 

[fuumiku]

Sweet & salty can be a good mix! Idk about syrup in sandwiches though… 

It’s bicorn day!!!

[zinzabee]

Hi @birthday-cake-rockz! I hope its okay if I answer your questions here in a separate post. I definitely have some tips and thoughts for help with drawing Raph.

First of all, I recommend This free PDF of the book "Morpho - Fat and Skin Folds: Anatomy for Artist" for those who are interested in really getting familiar & comfortable with drawing larger/fat/thick body types. (Make sure you click the second link, the first one is broken)

Now for Raph specifically, I do have a one very important shape I use when I draw him that might be helpful:

A lot of people like to associate diamonds with Raph as much as squares, and I think that's accurate to his design, too! The boy has a lot of serious neck muscle going on, and so his trapezius muscles and those surround it are gonna be more visible. Which actually creates a diamond shape around his collarbone and upper body. If you follow along with the angles of his shell, you can create this shape to help give him that stronger upper body look!

As for his leg proportions, that's a bit tricky because unlike his brothers, Raph's lower limbs are disproportionate to his upper limbs. It's a case of "you have to understand the rules of anatomy in order to break them".

SO!! Real quick anatomy lesson that I learned in art school: the average adult body should be about 7 heads high. Because the boys are teenagers, theirs come up to be about 6 heads high, which I credit to their younger age. But as you can see by the red marked areas, everything is still in normal proportion.

Raph, on the other hand, is different.

Raph's arms are as long as his body is, and his legs are much shorter than his arms. Because of this, he's actually disproportionate to his brothers, since his height is only about 5 and a half heads tall, rather than 6 or 7. In particular, his thighs seem to be unequally shorter in length than the calves. I think its important to keep that in mind when draw him! Because even if you know he's made up of all these thick, blocky shapes, if you try to give him the normal proportions you would Leo or Donnie or Mikey, it might still not look right. He's a stocky lad, and his upper body strength is showcased by these design choices.

Hope all this was helpful for you guys. Now go be free and draw him to your hearts content! :)

Additionally, here are several other links to posts people have created that give references of Raph and the other turtles! I'm sure these will be a big help, too.

High Quality Reference Sheets of everyone, including April and Splinter

Turtle Side Profiles Specifically

Multi-Angle Ref Sheets

RAPH'S SHELL

MASTERPOSTS by @melancholic-rowen: RAPH | LEO | DONNIE | MIKEY | APRIL | CASEY | CASEY JUNIOR

[dunmeshistash]

Did we...get Falin's dragon d in anime...am I seeing wrong ?????

WELL While I wish that's her dragon d it might be a Saurischian pubis peeking thru (or so I heard some people say)

The angles in which we see a female red dragon in the manga don't show much

we do see Falin making quite the pose, and the dragon she was fused with was male so...

Anyway, could be?

[maespri]

your turn to die characters ranked by how painful their death was (and why)

okay. crazy title, i KNOW. but this was actually so interesting to talk and think about. at least for me.

spoilers ahead, and TRIGGER WARNING. this post is going to go into detail about each death. it’s going to get gory and upsetting. if you don’t think you can handle hearing about that, please keep scrolling!

everything is under the cut, because this post is LONG, i'm warning you now.

some backstory: i have a special interest in anatomy and physiology, and i've always thought about how the different deaths in your turn to die worked. my wonderful friend @lovivelle and i talked about this topic extensively last night and they made this tier list with me! so, here's the ranking and explanations!

this ranking ONLY covers HUMAN deaths, because dolls/dummies do not feel pain.

quick glossary: exsanguination: death caused by bleeding out hemorrhaging: bleeding necrosis: cell/tissue death hypoxia: inadequate oxygen supply hypovolemic: loss of fluid in the body, often referring to blood or water shock: life-threatening condition where the body does not have enough blood circulating through it crush syndrome: medical condition where skeletal muscle is crushed for a prolonged time, resulting in shock and organ failure hematemesis: vomiting up blood hemoptysis: coughing up blood TBI: traumatic brain injury immolation: death by burning; being burned alive

the tier list:

OUCH!! (most painful):

nao: nao's death involves her ribcage being crushed. i put her at number one for what i hope are obvious reasons. for starters, her death is drawn-out, making the pain last even longer. while her ribcage is being crushed, any internal organs are being crushed as well. her bones are probably splintering and breaking off and piercing her insides and organs. overall... just horrible pain. official cause of death: internal hemorrhaging and irreparable damage to organs.

kurumada: kurumada's death involved being crushed (between two walls), which is similar to nao's. i would put their pain levels as being equal to each other, but kurumada's has the potential to have been less painful than nao's, because we don't know how quickly the walls crushed his body. if they were moving slowly, the pain would've been drawn-out and agonizing, and in that case, i would make the argument that his death was more painful than nao's. but if it was very quick, he would've just felt blinding pain in his entire body for a few seconds before it would end. we do have to keep in mind that kurumada is clearly quite muscular however, which probably provided some resistance against the walls, but only served to draw out his pain even further. official cause of death: muscle necrosis, internal hemorrhaging, and irreparable damage to internal organs due to crush syndrome.

either way, both definitely experienced, in my opinion, the most painful deaths in the game.

YOWZA! (very painful):

mishima: mishima's death results from his collar slowly heating up and burning his neck until his head disconnects from it. i don't even have the words to describe how painful this would be. the fact that the collar heats up slowly and it is drawn out only makes it worse. if you've ever burned yourself before anywhere on your body, you know how painful it is. imagine that pain centralized around your neck. mishima might have the fortune of his nerves being burned off after a certain amount of time, which would mean he wouldn't feel anything (think third-degree burns burning through to muscle, tissue, and nerve endings). but at that point, because the burning is around his neck and your neck contains- A) your spine/spinal cord and B) your trachea, which allows you to breathe- anyway and burning it in half would definitely kill you, he may be dead before he even has time to not feel any pain. either way, this shit would hurt so bad. official cause of death: cerebral hypoxia due to decapitation.

hinako: hinako technically has two deaths, but we ranked her based off of her being drilled. a lot of questions actually arose when my friend and i were talking about the drill deaths, because we don't know the speed at which the drills move. i mean, whether they're moving quickly or slowly, it would still obviously hurt- but the faster the drill, the quicker the death, which would make it less painful. being drilled would be unbearably painful for the sole fact that she might be alive for a lot of the drilling until it reaches any vital organs. no matter what, it'd be very painful. official cause of death: hard to say for certain, but would most likely be from exsanguination... y'know, from her body being split in half by a giant drill.

kugie (kanna's sister): my friend and i were FLOORED when we looked into kugie's death. in the game, i don't think we get a canonical answer specifically as to how she dies, but in the manga, we do. kugie and kanna have the same first trial as joe and sara, but they don't succeed. in it, kugie's bed literally snaps and essentially folds her in half. in the image from the manga, we can see blood flying out from the bed (implying it happened very quickly, because if it were slow, the blood would instead drip and flow), and kugie's hand sticking out between the two slabs of the bed. i think this death is the most painful out of the entire "YOWZA!" category because kugie was probably alive and in immense pain for at least a few seconds or even minutes after the bed snapped. if i had to speculate official cause(s) of death:

i would guess her lumbar vertebrae (basically the bottom discs of the spine) and spinal cord snapped, cutting off sensation and sending her into shock.

if she was folded in half, her legs would have quickly shot up, meaning her torso was likely unnaturally slammed into by both them and the bed, and sustained massive trauma. this would cause internal hemorrhaging and damage to her organs.

the blood spurting out of the bed was likely from her head. i'm a teenage girl, likely the same height or around the same height as kugie, and when i bend in half, my face is level with my knees. knowing this, her knees probably slammed into her face and broke her skull, causing a TBI.

the combination of all of that would have first caused terrible pain for, like i said, at least a few seconds or minutes- we don't see how extensive the damage really was, so i can't say for certain... but yeah.

aughhh (painful):

joe: joe's death is really interesting to think about, because upon first glance, you might think it's one of the most painful- but there are a few things i considered with him. his death is a result of wrigglers draining the blood out of his body. because we don't know how large the wrigglers are, i can't say how painful it would be when they enter his body- but i'd have to guess they're on the smaller side, like little tubes, because if they were big, they would have difficulty sucking out his blood due to how small blood vessels are. it would hurt horribly to have the wrigglers enter his body and drain the blood. we don't know if they moved around through his blood vessels- if they did, that would definitely exacerbate the pain- or if it was more just like getting blood drawn. but what i considered with him, the thing that makes his death less painful than the others, is the fact that he would probably pass out long before he's even fully dead. the amount of blood he's losing at such a rapid pace would first make him dizzy and disoriented before he just... passes out. his entire body would start shutting down very quickly and he wouldn't even be awake for it. his body would give up on transporting blood to the extremities and non-vital organs and shift only to transporting what little blood it can to keep vital organs running. when that blood runs out, the heart will stop being able to pump enough blood throughout the body and to the brain, and joe would actually be dead. so... yeah. official cause of death: hypovolemic shock resulting in organ failure.

shin: shin dies after being fatally injured by the death game's security system. while it's unclear exactly how the security system killed him, i believe he was stabbed/impaled somehow. there are a few questions regarding exactly where he was stabbed, but i assume he was hit somewhere in the torso because he has blood coming out of his mouth. if you don't know:

blood coming out of the mouth can be a result of haematemesis (vomiting up blood), which is where blood wells up in the stomach/digestive tract due to trauma in that area

it can also be a result of haemoptosis (coughing up blood), which results from being stabbed in the lungs/trachea due to trauma in that area

my guess is he was stabbed in the stomach, because if he were stabbed in the lungs, he'd be coughing and frothing at the mouth struggling to breathe. if i'm remembering correctly, he's also shown to be clutching his abdomen after turning on the joe AI, so... my money is definitely in the stomach.

which, you guessed it, would hurt. a lot. and there's no workaround. he's strong enough to drag himself to the rubble room and turn on an AI before dying. he would've been in blinding pain that entire time before dying.

official cause of death: exsanguination.

reko: reko technically has three canonical deaths, which made her hard to rank. i'll cover them all.

strangulation (hanging by collar): being hung is painful, but i think people underestimate how terrifying it is too. reko would have been terrified and in immense pain for a few minutes before dying. everything in her neck would be getting crushed and pressed on by the collar thanks to gravity. overall... awful death. official cause of death: cerebral hypoxia due to strangulation.

stabbed: same as what i said for shin. terrible pain for however long until she ultimately bleeds out. official cause of death: exsanguination.

fake-reko falling headfirst onto a spike: this one's... interesting! mainly because i think she would actually just be dead instantly. if the spike pierces her brain, she won't even really have time to process "ow!" before just. being dead. official cause of death: severe TBI resulting in death.

owie (painful, but not as painful as others):

q-taro: q-taro is stabbed in the back by mai and slowly bleeds to death over the course of the chapter. the reason i put him so low is because he would definitely be in some pain, but i don't think mai stabbed him very well (no offense girl). he's able to walk around, talk, and do stuff with the others after being stabbed, at least for a little while. it's difficult for me to pinpoint what exactly killed him because of this. i'd imagine his body began repairing the stab wound in his back, but ultimately, blood loss and the disruption to everything surrounding his spine (because mai stabs him in the back) is probably what killed him. depending on how deep mai's knife was, the blade may have even pierced or grazed internal organs such as q-taro's heart or a lung. his body probably put most of its focus on keeping his internal organs running whilst simultaneously trying to repair them, which tired him out over the course of the chapter, before it ultimately couldn't keep up with the amount of blood being lost. a hasty bandaging job using an office first-aid kit is not ideal for stab wounds.

*edit: this person corrected me regarding q-taro's death! i still think the severity of his injury could have killed him before the coffin cremation system actually killed him, plus the information is interesting, so i'm keeping it. but technically, being burned alive is actually what killed him. ouch.

official cause of death: exsanguination OR immolation.

kai: kai's death is kind of up in the air in terms of the specifics, but we know he kills himself during the first main game by cutting his arms. in order for this to kill him, and for him to have bled out as fast as he did, he likely cut his axillary and/or brachial artery. your brachial artery runs down the front of your bicep and is an extension of your axillary artery, which is in your upper arm/armpit. if kai cut deeply into both his brachial arteries, and/or his axillary arteries, he would bleed to death very quickly. it would be really painful, but i think adrenaline and the probability he'd pass out immediately would certainly be on his side here, making it at least a little less painful. either way, he dies quite fast, so. official cause of death: exsanguination.

uncertain (i'm not sure!):

this category is for the characters who have one or more variables that make it difficult or impossible to determine how painful their death was.

kanna: first of all, the way kanna dies is impossible in real life. lets just get that out of the way. you cannot have flowers sprout out of your body. that immediately makes it impossible to tell how painful it would be for her.

if i were to suspend my disbelief for this, however, here's what i have to say about it:

safalin says kanna is numb during her death, which would instantly give her a pain rating of zero. kanna is screaming during her death, but given what safalin says, that doesn't necessarily prove she's in pain. she could just be screaming out of fear.

if she weren't numb, yeah, she would be in a lot of pain. flowers and vines growing out of your body, poking out of your skin, running through your insides- that would hurt insanely bad.

but the fact that:

this death isn't possible in real life

kanna is presumably numb during her death

we don't specifically know how the seeds are working/moving inside her body

kind of made it impossible to rank her.

if i had to guess a cause of death, i'd guess severe disruption by the vines to her internal organs and processes is what ultimately killed her.

hayasaka: hayasaka's head is presumably cut off by a swinging axe. there are two reasons we put him in 'uncertain'; we don't know how sharp the blade of the axe is, and we don't know the velocity it's swinging at.

if the blade is swinging slowly and is very dull, it would take a few swings to fully cut off hayasaka's head, which would make it incredibly painful.

but if the blade is swinging very quickly and is super sharp, his death would be instantaneous, making it essentially painless.

so it's difficult to say, but either way:

official cause of death: decapitation.

ranmaru: ranmaru's death is in 'uncertain' because we

don't know exactly how that happened to his stomach

hear him talk about how he's numb to it

don't know how long he's been sitting there

i imagine he was in some pain and just putting up a front, but we just don't know for sure. and like i just said, we don't know what specifically killed him or how. we just see a wound in his stomach.

probable cause of death: exsanguination/hemorrhaging.

anzu: anzu's was between 'uncertain' and 'so quick.' we see spikes piercing her body, but the angle makes it difficult to tell exactly where they pierce, or how sharp they are, etc. if the spikes didn't hit her face/brain, she probably felt intense pain for some time from the neck-down before rapidly bleeding to death. if the spikes got her head, she'd die instantly. so.

probable cause of death: exsanguination? TBI? damage to internal organs/processes?

ranger: according to ranger's wiki, his human form was stabbed by an assassin. not nearly enough information to rank him with certainty.

cause of death: stabbed?

so quick (too fast to be painful):

both mai and alice's deaths were so fast, they fell into this category.

mai: mai shoots herself in the head. her death would have been immediate and painless since she shot herself in the brain.

official cause of death: fatal TBI.

alice: alice's abdomen explodes. if that happens, you're probably going to feel a very brief flash of pain before immediately dying, because the damage would be so extensive (shrapnel exploded his stomach, but there was undoubtedly collateral damage to his heart, lungs, and other organs around there). he would have been in shock if he did somehow manage to survive for a few more seconds. pain would be minimal or nonexistent in my opinion due to the sheer severity of the injury. and in terms of him being hung in chapter 3, it's the same as reko.

official cause of death: shock resulting from traumatic abdominal injury.

thats it!

if you for god knows what reason read all this, thank you! i'm honestly only posting it kind of for myself and my friend to look back on if i ever want to think about it again, but maybe someone will find it interesting.

questions, comments, concerns (of which i'm sure there are many)- i'm an open book. i'm not a professional by any means, but i am insane. bye!

[loadinghellsing]

random anderson headcanon: he is extremely flexible.

---

based/inspired by how Anderson bends inhumanly backwards to laugh after "killing" Alucard.

(andercard addition) . (old post)

[yeetmeoutthewindowdaddy]

A deep dive into Zevlor's devotion (Part 1) Everybody hates tieflings, and how discrimination impacted a young Zevlor:

THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR BG3.

These series of posts were originally one loooooong post— but apparently Tumblr has a character limit, and I found it; so now it's been split into several parts/posts.

((Part 1, this post, is mostly to give context to the discrimination faced by tieflings in Faerûn. The third part is where the meat of my Zevlor analysis is.))

(Part 2) Elturel's history and culture, the Hellriders, and Zevlor's paladin oath. (Part 2.5)

(Part 3) Zevlor's actions during Act 1, an analysis of a man who is barely holding on.

(Part 4) Zevlor's actions during Act 2, an analysis of a broken man.

(Part 5) Zevlor's actions during Act 3, an analysis of a man with his faith restored.

(Part 6) Zevlor's actions during/ after the epilogue, not all endings are happily ever after— especially not for a tiefling.

(Part 7) Zevlor in a romantic relationship.

I don't think many bg3 players understand just how dedicated and loyal of a person Zevlor is. This ADHD hyper-fixation fueled multipart-thesis is meant to show how Zevlor's past is as tragic as any of the origin characters'/ Durge's. It's meant to show how horrifically broken Zevlor was when he "betrayed" the other tieflings. It's also meant to show that our beloved blorbo would probably be fervently obsessive if he was in a romantic relationship.

Most importantly: It demonstrates how our favorite man Zevlor was most likely a fanatical religious zealot my dudes. He was (probably) a part of the Faerûn equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition lite.

I have kept this as factual as I am able to. Please keep in mind that Baldur's Gate 3 plays it fast and loose with the DND/ Forgotten Realms canon and lore, on top of DND/ the Forgotten Realms itself regularly disregarding and changing it's own lore and canon. DND lore and canon as a whole is a mess. It has multiple universes that sometimes interact and are maybe separate from each other. Full disclosure; I've mixed 1e-5e lore together FUCK 5.5e, because parsing through what is currently considered canon is a nightmare. As far as I'm concerned, as long as a piece of lore was canon at some point in the past 50 years— it's fair game. @y-rhywbeth2 in this post has a more in depth disclaimer. Also please check out their headcanons and lore breakdowns, they're so good.

THIS PROJECT TOOK ME OVER A MONTH TO WRITE. I've tried to find all grammatical and spelling errors. I've tried to ensure that I've cited the correct sources in the correct places.

I have given up on trying to understand Tumblr's inconsistent post formatting. Why does the 'small' option for text sometimes actually make the text smaller but other times it makes the text larger???

______________________________________________________________

● (Section 1) The Origins, Anatomy, and Physiology of Tieflings:

AN: It used to be that tieflings could only breed with other tieflings and humans. This seems to have been changed recently— one no longer has to have a demon somewhere in their genetic lineage to be a tiefling, one of their ancestors having contact with a demon is enough to produce a tiefling descendant. Which has interesting implications for Warlocks. There are also special versions of elf and orc tieflings.

(From what I can tell) tieflings live for about the same amount of time, maybe ~10 years longer than, humans do. (AN: Remember how I said the Forgotten Realms loves to retcon and disregard it’s own lore? The wiki states that their life span is from 90–150 years, but this source is from 2004 and the lore has greatly changed in the past 20 years. I am choosing to ignore the wiki here for my own sanity.)

Tieflings were humanoids with fiendish ancestry. They came about due to one of their ancestors (even many generations prior) getting freaky with a demon being "touched" by the evil planes in some way.

"Tieflings... were infused with the touch of the fiendish planes, most often through descent from fiends—demons, Yugoloths, devils, evil deities, and others... Although their evil ancestors could be many generations removed, the taint lingered."

Before some warlock shenanigans happened, tieflings had a much wider range of appearances than the ones we generally see now.

"In 1358 DR, a warlock coven...the Toril thirteen performed a ritual that cursed most tiefling lineages... [changing] their original lineage with that of the archdevil... Asmodeus [who] became a god... giving most tieflings... a similar devilish appearance... [whereas before] infernal blood could be diluted through intermarriage... afterward, the union of a tiefling with another race always produced a tiefling child."

Their infernal ancestry gave them some very powerful abilities.

"Tieflings had a number of abilities gifted to them by their fiendish heritage... an innate resistance to heat and... a hint of bloodlust that gave them a slight edge in combat. Tieflings also had access to an ability known as infernal wrath, which channeled their innate rage and potential for evil into their attacks for added effectiveness... [they] tended to have better reflexes than their human kin... [Tieflings are] alluring and intelligent creatures, with a seductive aura in spite of their obviously evil ancestry...

Along with some not so great traits that fed into the prejudices against them.

"Other, more unusual characteristics included a sulfurous odor, cloven feet, or... an unsettling air about them... a general aura of discomfort they left on others... most people were uncomfortable around them, whether they were aware of the tiefling's unsavory ancestry or not... Tieflings were carnivores. They consumed blood, blubber, bone, gristle and meat... [and] raw bone marrow..."

Tieflings tended to be resolute and tenacious, with a strong internal drive to rise above their circumstances.

"They are adaptable and resilient to hardship, and possess strong aptitude at whatever pursuit they dedicate themselves to... When facing adversity, the tiefling instinct is not to withdraw from the world, but rather to challenge it head-on... Tieflings seek to make their own fates, defy the odds, and take risks that... most... would not dare."

For some awesome insight on tieflings check out this post [alt] by @gortashs-skidmark, it's a good source on tiefling appearances and traits. Along with this post [alt] by @pikapeppa providing evidence-based headcanons on tiefling appearances. And this post [alt] by @y-rhywbeth2, which talks about how a tiefling's physical traits are influenced by their specific infernal heritage.

Their infernal appearance and weird vibes are why almost

● (Section 2) Everybody Hates Tieflings:

Even before Elturel's Decent into Avernus, and subsequently the events of BG3 (both of which I will cover later), Tieflings faced an incredible amount of discrimination— even from their own kind.

"Few tieflings were raised with the love a normal human child might expect to receive... Tieflings who had strikingly inhuman features were often killed at birth by their horrified parents or others. Only those tieflings with subtle features or born to someone indifferent to their appearance, either out of acceptance or cruel purpose, were likely to reach adulthood... Tieflings often distrusted one another, sometimes even casting the same preconceptions on one another that others did on them."

This post [alt] by @underdark-dreams highlights the discrimination tieflings face in game. And how the Flaming Fists should be called the Flaming Shits, but I'll get into that in another part of this series.

Understandably, they didn't easily trust others. But once someone did earn a tiefling's trust, they were an incredibly loyal friend.

"…[Tieflings] expected eventual rejection from all... However, members of other races would find that once they demonstrated friendship and trust towards a tiefling, it would quickly be reciprocated in full. Once that bond was forged, it was rarely broken."

While some tieflings wholeheartedly embraced the preconception that all tieflings were evil, others would endeavor to prove it wrong.

"Their attitude regarding their heritage... while some tieflings embraced it, others were repulsed by it... tieflings, who were proud of their fiendish past... chose to... thwart... dark plots and schemes. Others sought to... emulate these evil deeds. Other tieflings were ashamed or even frightened of their heritage and wished only to escape the shadow that lurked over them... Some did this through constantly doing good, as though to make up for the evil that begot them. Others instead hid [their heritage]…"

Looking like devils made people think they were devils, or acted like devils.

"Tieflings are widely stereotyped as wicked, cruel, and criminal individuals... [with] a tendency to be solitary loners... known for their quick temper, stubbornness, self-confidence, and fickleness in relationships."

And since people thought tieflings were, or would act like, devils they treated them like devils.

"The social rejection they typically face often leads tieflings to enter a life of crime, which furthers social prejudice against their race." 

"We're distrusted and viewed as evil malcontents for so long that we start to believe it ourselves. It's hard not to try to live up to the hype, eh?"— Enkillo the Sly, tiefling

It's not a stretch of the imagination to assume that people would believe that: the more devilish a tiefling looked = the more they'd behave like devils (evil). It's also safe assume: that the more infernal traits a tiefling had = the more, harsher, discrimination they'd face.

This leads into my next topic,

● (Section 3) Zevlor's Infernal Appearance:

He looks like a combo of Sylvester Stallone and Willem Dafoe.

He and his Habsburg jaw lookin ass face seems to always have a 5 o'clock shadow. (Probably because he's a refugee struggling to survive, so his personal grooming habits have taken a back seat.)

Zevlor has more infernal features than the other tieflings do in-game. (As shown in this post [alt] by @lolliputian and @haru-sen) He has very prominent cheekbones, a thick brow ridge, and BIG horns. (Look at @cinnasalmon's post [alt] on Zevlor's horn anatomy.)

HC: The reasons his face bones are so protuberant is because they need to support the weight of his huge horns, as without them his (face) skull would fracture/ cave in from the constant pressure. Poor guy probably lives with a perpetual headache.

Zevlor's prominent infernal facial features make him look older than he probably is— as they emphasize the traits we humans commonly associate with aging; such as defined nasal labial folds, a lack of facial fat, and big ears. The striations by his eyes look like wrinkles, but I think that they're mostly infernal markings.

Stress prematurely ages people, and Zevlor had multitudes of stressors throughout his life: Contending with the discrimination from being a tiefling with prominent infernal traits, joining an elite military unit at age 12, rising through its ranks to become a Commander of said unit, having his city dragged into the literal Hells (more on that in part 2), defending the civilians/ city trapped in the hells, surviving the hells, then being stripped of his rank and banished from his home because of racial prejudices, and then leading a group of (mostly civilian) refugees to Baldur's Gate— all while desperately trying to keep them alive in the face of Faerûn's many, many, dangers.

Combining all the factors above would make any man look 10+ years older than he actually is.

Zevlor looks scary. His irises look like they're on fire, and his teeth are scarier than Astarion's. I was browsing Tumblr alone in my room, at night, 😳 and this photo of Zevlor popped up on my feed giving me a good scare. I have an unhealthy obsession with Zevlor, he's made it onto my official husbando list! And yet, I can't look at certain screen shots of him at night because they scare me. I'm a wuss.

I simp hard for this man, and yet I am still frightened by his appearance sometimes. Imagine how people in Faerûn react when they see his sleep paralysis demon lookin ass him in person? Screaming and running away is completely understandable.

Which brings us to,

● (Section 4) How Discrimination Impacted a Young Zevlor:

Even as a young child Zevlor would've know that his appearance othered him.

"Most tieflings were aware from an early age that they were different from others around them..."

Even as a child Zevlor most likely knew that many people would dislike him and refuse to trust him because he was born a tiefling.

Tiefling families in the traditional sense are rare. Many tieflings, born to human parents who possess a latent infernal bloodline, are abandoned at birth and raised by a monastery, church, orphanage, or adoptive parents.

I headcanon that he had at least one loving parent—before he was orphaned, but it's entirely possible, and likely, that he was abandoned at birth.

Young Zevlor would've known that he would have to work very hard to be seen as something other than a criminal or evil monster.

"While some [tieflings] would... [turn] towards evil, others rejected it wholeheartedly and sought to make a good impact on the world around them, sometimes becoming the most heroic characters of all. Few could maintain this discipline however."

AN: Elturel was a theocracy (more on that part 2)— Zevlor likely grew up in a deeply religious family/ community.

All these factors combined would lead to a young Zevlor who:

Was determined to prove his goodness and rise above the adversity he faced. The force of will and work ethic he needed to become not just a Hellrider— but a Hellrider Commander, while being a tiefling, meant that he would've grown into a stubborn man. (See this post [alt] by @ohsayit)

Was so deeply religious and devoutly pious that he became a paladin. (More on this in part 2)

Internalized the impossible standards he was held to.

Developed a guilt complex (my "grew up Catholic" is showing)

Viewed any mistake he made as a personal moral failure, and as an indication of his inherent evil nature. (Hello again, Catholicism)

Would be hyperaware of how he's perceived by others.

Would learn how to read people's true intentions/ motivations.

Learned to vigilantly monitor, and strictly control his facial expressions and body language. (Is my autistic masking showing?)

Learned how to show deference to others through body language.

Leaned how to make himself appear smaller and less threatening.

Figured out how smile and laugh without showing his teeth.

Mastered the awkward and tight-lipped polite smile.

Figured out how to intelligibly speak with a tight jaw and lips so that his teeth wouldn't be seen by others while he spoke.

Developed self worth/ self esteem issues. Even other tieflings would've looked at him with suspicion and maybe even disgust.

That's it for part 1, here's another link to (Part 2) Elturel's history and culture, the Hellriders, and Zevlor's paladins oath. (Part 2.5)

and the other parts,

A deep dive into Zevlor's devotion series (master list)

[aburninghill]

The body, the haunted house.

Those Times by Anne Sexton // Dream House by Shanice Bloodbloom // Walking House by Laurie Simmons // Ash by Tracy K. Smith // One need not be a chamber by Emily Dickinson // Deconstructa III by Tania Font // Housewife by Anne Sexton // Femme Maison by Louise Bourgeois // The Haunting of Hill House by Mike Flanagan // My House by Loren Siems // The Architecture of Deconstruction by Mark Wigley // Anatomy by Kitty Horrorshow

[ukanlos000080]

Gesture studies, 2: Electric Boogaloo

This time, we have mostly Dandadan and some Jujutsu Kaisen

One thing I noticed while doing this is that these artists have different ways of doing things. Kei Urana (Gachiakuta) does their characters with a more lanky look (see last study post). Yokinobu Tatsu (Dandadan) leans more to the realism side of things with his while still exaggerating here and there. Gege Akutami (JJK) draws their characters with a kind of burly, more stylized look.

[scrollwyrm]

Artist of WoF, I have a question:

[artist-issues]

Want to Analyze Together?

Listen to what the music does in this clip, and pay attention to what the Beast is saying about Belle. What can we get from that?

share with me in the reblogs! lightning round!

[xxl1ghtxx]

Small sebby body analysis

[pearlcages]

can we have some neurodivergent arizona hcs?

Okay this is going to be significantly more than what you asked for, because I honestly— honestly!— believe that most if not all of Arizona’s neurodivergent behaviors are showcased in canon

And if this is not the post for you, then it’s not the post for you! Keep on scrolling, I will not be offended. But if you keep reading, you’re gonna have to take this for what it is: My interpretation of a fictional character. Interpretations vary. Mine is not gospel. But it is mine, and I like it, and I stand by it

I specifically headcanon Arizona as autistic, and this will be a post discussing that, but I've also seen some people say that they interpret her as ADHD and I'm all for it! That wasn't my reading, but there's a lot there to support it in canon. I just don't have an already developed argument for it

Disclaimer 1: Disclosing my autism here through Arizona— because let’s be real, there’s no way I would have noticed any of this if I wasn’t autistic, so there’s no way to avoid disclosing if I want to discuss this— is extremely vulnerable. Most of the people in my day to day irl life don’t even know that I’m autistic. I present in a very palatable, easily digestible way. People like me, and I get away with a lot because people like me. To me, Arizona screams autistic-but-charming, gets-away-with-a-lot

So let's start!

Part 1: Thank you for asking though... I'm super flattered. Super!

Or: Autistic honesty and masking to compensate

Arizona consistently exhibits straightforward, honest behavior that reads as rude to others. Like, all of the time, from day 1

As in almost the first words that come out of her mouth.

Arizona walks into her new position with roller-skates and a smile, immediately insults her predecessor to one of his coworkers, and then is genuinely confused when Bailey doesn't like her

One of the strongest arguments for autistic Arizona is the way she just says blatantly insulting, brutally honest things and genuinely believes that because she's smiling, and because it's true, that it won't be offensive. Which-- works? Kind of? She does get away with it! She's just out here saying whatever she earnestly believes all of the time and getting away with it

She also follows very specific social scripts, and very specific rules for engaging with other people (particularly in seasons 5-6) regardless of if those social scripts/rules are actually appropriate in the moment

The first example we see of this is 5x12 when Alex confronts her for asking him about his Valentine's Day plans-- Arizona knows that in a situation where she is left alone with a colleague for an extended period of time, she's supposed to make conversation. It does not occur to her that the timing might be inappropriate, because while she understands and acknowledges internally that they are both having feelings about what just happened, those feelings do not override her social script. She is unable to recognize the nuance of the situation, and thinks that Alex won't either-- and while she is ultimately positioned as "right" within the narrative of the show, it's interesting that she maintains this behavior (politeness script > genuine social tact) in situations where the show positions her as "wrong"

If you pay attention, Arizona is consistently very regimented in her politeness. She's been taught how to be polite, and she follows that script regardless of the situation. And when people react negatively to that, she's frequently confused

It's also important to note that 5x12 is an episode about empathy, and that Arizona is positioned as being the more empathetic person in this conversation with Alex. I've heard people--psychiatrists, even--describe autism as an "empathy disorder" which is something I choose not to engage with, and something that does not represent all autistic people. If we think of autism as an empathy disorder, then obviously we will not be able to conceptualize Arizona as autistic (Arizona who loves so much and so deeply, who goes into spiraling depressions every single time she loses a patient, who wants to be liked so, so badly)

Arizona is everything but unempathetic, but she does script and she does mask

The deliberateness she approaches casual conversation with, and her consistent inability to recognize when this script becomes inappropriate, reads as autistic to me!

Part of what makes her have such a distinct character voice is that hyper-specific scripting. You can always predict how Arizona is going to react, what Arizona is going to say, because she uses and reuses the same words/sentence patterns throughout her run on Grey's. Her way of speaking is always running along the same pattern with little to no deviation, even across years. I mean lbr, I'm calling it: script script script script script

Another perfect early example of Arizona's hyper-polite, overexuberant scripting is when she turns Callie down in 5x16

We have the smile-- and come on, that smile is masking if I've ever seen it

The rejection, followed immediately by an earnest but abrupt apology

And then-- then!!-- she literally insults Callie ("I work in peds. I spend my whole day around newborns, so I try not to in my personal life") and finishes it off with a thank you

So many viewers had an immediate negative reaction to Arizona after this scene, because it's "condescending" and "rude"-- which, yeah, that's a fair! But what's relevant here is that not only is she being entirely earnest, she's completely unaware that she's being insulting

Arizona genuinely believes that if she follows her scripts exactly, all of the time, nobody will notice. Which works insofar that people don't notice that she's autistic, they just think she's, like, super fucking rude

And isn't that interesting? Because we, as fans, recognize Arizona as someone who's extremely polite, who values politeness. But that's not how people react to her when they meet her

Arizona is straightforward to a fault, and she does not understand (and frequently does not notice) people reacting negatively to her because of it

You could argue that Arizona is completely aware that she's being insulting, but that argument would involve saying that Arizona doesn't care what people think about her, and I really do not see any canon support for that. Az deeply cares what people think about her. She cries when her boss is mad at her. She cries (rejection sensitivity much?)

This scene is also really interesting. Arizona says something truthful but insulting, and Bailey-- who knows her, and who is one of the people who unintentionally helps her manage how she's being perceived-- steps in, and she immediately backtracks. Because someone she trusts has indicated to her that she said the wrong thing. And maybe she would have gotten that just from the Chief's reaction, but at the end of the day she still said it. She said it, and she wasn't trying to be insulting-- she was just being honest. Arizona doesn't know where that line is.

I really cannot emphasize this enough: Arizona. Just. Says. What. She. Thinks.

All of the time!! She can't help herself-- she would stop if she could, but she can't, so she covers it all up with the biggest smile you've ever seen and lots of the most polite things you've ever heard in the most inappropriate contexts they could possibly be said in. And it works! Somehow, her raggedy duct-tape solution to accidentally insulting everyone she meets is remarkably effective

To me, this is masking. She's diverting attention from autistic behaviors specifically so people will continue to like her; through the smiling and the bubbliness and the gregarious chattiness, she's distracting from the fact that she regularly says extremely honest, inappropriate things

Speaking of Bailey-- let's take a look at this scene.

There's something about the genuine confusion in how JCap plays this scene that really stands out to me.

Arizona knows that Bailey has lost someone, and recognizes, empathizes, with the fact that she may be struggling to think about work-- but getting a negative reaction does not occur to her as a possibility until Bailey responds negatively (see image below)

Within the text of the conversation, Arizona says directly that she does not mean to be insensitive, but her values are too rigid for her to change tracks. More on that later.

Part 2: Maybe I don't understand people. I don't see things.

Or: Guessing how other people feel and sometimes getting it super, super wrong

This part is going to be pretty short, but I can't not include it

At the end of s5, Arizona says it, point blank:

And this is so early into her run on Grey's that it has to be understood as something fundamental about her character. The writer's want us, explicitly, to understand Arizona as someone who occasionally misses out on social cues and knows it

In either 6x1 or 6x2, After George dies Callie says, "And Arizona keeps sending me doughnuts." and we learn that that's what Arizona did when her brother died. She ate doughnuts. Doughnuts made her feel better, so she sends Callie doughnuts when George dies. That's how Arizona expresses empathy in times where she knows her script is inadequate, by treating people the way she wanted to be treated-- by caring for them in the way that makes the most sense for her

Something that a lot of autistic people do, and that a lot of non-autistics read as unempathetic, is connecting their personal experiences of an emotion to another person's experience of that same emotion. I.e., if you've recently lost a loved one, an autistic person may express empathy by sharing about when they lost a loved one. Another example is if you've just gone through a breakup, and autistic person may tell you about a breakup they've been through

This reads as self-centered and unempathetic sometimes, because it feels like the autistic person is centering their own emotions in a situation about you-- when really, they're just trying to connect

Which makes this conversation in 12x4 between Arizona and April hilarious, because she can recognize it in others but not herself

(April and Arizona are two non-diagnosed later in life autistic women with advanced masking, btw. Not only that, April and Arizona are the same kind of autistic, which is why their friendship is so special!)

Part 3: I'm a good man in a storm.

Or: Black and white thinking, moral codes, and autistic sense of identity

I've said this before, and I will say it again-- Arizona is a fundamentally moral person. She stands on her morals, and she suffers for her morals. Only the disruption of her fundamental sense of self takes this part of her away, because her sense of right and wrong is her sense of identity. Arizona sees herself as someone who is good, and she knows what, specifically, it means to be good

Love your country, love your family, protect the things you love. She doesn't deviate and she doesn't play around with it, ever. Arizona decides on something, and she follows through

In order to understand Arizona as a character, we have to isolate her fundamental beliefs. To me, these are kindness, service, and autonomy. We also must understand that outside of the post-crash decimation of her fundamental "self", Arizona does not behave in ways that go against her morals. Ever.

Arizona the idealist, Arizona the self-righteous, Arizona who lives and dies by her beliefs, who does not break her own rules. There's no room for interpretation; there's right, and there's wrong

One of the ways this manifests that I keep coming back to is her belief in autonomy. In 7x18 when it comes down to a choice between Callie or Sofia, Arizona chooses Sofia not because she, personally, values Sofia over Callie but because it's what Callie would want. It's the choice Callie would make. And, yes, Arizona hates that choice, but she honors it. Even if it means the love of her life, the woman she just proposed to, dies. Autonomy is a core value, which means she'll suffer personally to make sure it's upheld

And in s9, when her own autonomy is stripped away, she loses her shit. Not just because of the leg, but because it was her decision. Hers. And autonomy is a core value.

"What's different now? No, say it, 'cause it was perfect. It's not a decision that I should be making for you."

This isn't good and it isn't healthy, but it's a direct reflection of Arizona's sense of morality. She isn't being hypocritical here-- she's already shown that she's willing to let Callie die to respect her autonomy. It's not a 1:1 comparison because the situations are wildly different, but this is about idealism. It's not about what's best, it's about what's right.

Returning to that scene with Bailey from part 1. At first, Arizona does not realize that she is being inappropriate, but this scene is significant for more than that. In almost every situation (see: You're my old friend. Older. Older friend.) where Arizona misjudges the social landscape, she pivots very quickly.

This scene is a key example of Arizona's exception-- when being polite contradicts her core values. (In this case, service). Despite realizing that she has crossed a social boundary with Bailey, she pushes the conversation forward anyways, because not doing so would mean worse care for her patient.

"Dr. Bailey... I hear that. And I don't mean to be insensitive, but this kid? This kid's still alive. And I don't know what's wrong with him, not a clue, so I need you to work."

There are several scenes like this one, where Arizona makes this exception and only this exception to her sense of social propriety

It's rigid and uncompromising. There are specific closely held ideals, and a script, and those closely held ideals are the only reason to deviate from the script.

And she's super. freaking. judgmental. particularly when it comes to morality

One of the most horrific examples of Arizona's black and white thinking is when she tells Jackson about April's pregnancy, because it's the right thing to do. Or, it's the right thing to do... to Arizona. Because she fails to recognize the nuance and emotional undertones of April's specific situation. There is right (being honest) and wrong (lying) and she absolutely cannot recognize of the many choices between those things until she receives the overwhelming feedback that actually, she is wrong here

Arizona is an incredibly rigid character. She very rarely understands or seeks nuance unless specifically forced to. I think, in large part, this is why the cheating is such a significant character deviation for us as an audience-- and why Arizona never fully forgives herself for it. Everything that goes wrong in her life from that point forward is punishment for the cheating, and Arizona truly believes that she deserves it.

Even retrospectively, I believe there is a part of her that thinks back on the cheating as earning the plane crash, that wraps those two things up in each other until they're indistinguishable, and then justifies all of her future suffering in perpetuity through it.

The first time we see Arizona truly go against her own ideals has to be post-crash, because it would take the complete destruction of her sense of self for her to go through with something like that. She has to be completely detached from her identity first, because there is no separating her morals from her "self". There's no bending that code until she's so far gone she no longer knows who she is. Arizona simply does not compromise. When she does, it is the kind of compromise that is so unreasonable, so extreme, that it ruins her life-- and she never forgets that. No nuance, ever. She is either living and dying by her morals, and setting fire to them in one wildly destructive action

April does something pretty similar during her crisis of faith, and it reads as autistic there as well! "If I live in a world where my extremely strict morals no longer make the world make sense, then nothing matters and I must set fire to the world."

Part 4: Grey's Anatomy and accidentally writing autistic characters.

So here come the disclaimers: I do not think that Arizona was intentionally written as autistic, and if you asked Shonda Rhimes about it, I think she'd be deeply confused. Like, really confused

But, like, since when has writers writing autistic characters accidentally stopped those characters from being interpreted as autistic? Just look at Dan Harmon and Abed from Community

And Grey's is just so, so consistently guilty of this, because Grey's deals in these huge, larger than life personalities. It has to. Being larger than life is the heart of the show. Look at Cristina and April! They're these extremely different, complicated, deeply autistic-coded women, each with their own self-expressions and relationships to empathy. April is annoying and perky and lacks empathy and carries around a tear-stained notebook of self help book affirmations. And Cristina... I don't even think I have to go there, honestly

These are not characters written to be portrayals of women with autism, and frankly they'd probably be way worse representation for autistic women if they were. We don't let autistic women have varied or diverse presentations. We don't think of the pretty, charming, talkative doctor who likes babies and cigarettes as possibly being autistic but that doesn't mean she isn't. Undiagnosed adult autistic women are everywhere. Everywhere.

(And don't get me started on autistics and addictive tendencies, or how smoking is a great way to have something to do with your hands and mouth without looking weird)

I think a lot of the knee-jerk, negative reaction when people interpret beloved characters as autistic comes down to the belief that autism manifests in exclusively bad ways, ways that inherently make the character less likable

But a lot of the things I like about myself are associated with my being autistic. I'm meticulously detailed, I care very deeply about the things I'm passionate about, I approach my intimate relationships with intentionality and consistency, and it makes me a better writer. It makes me dedicated to being better. I like that I'm autistic! I wouldn't want to be neurotypical, even if sharing that with people is a vulnerable thing

So, I don't know, you don't have to agree with me but at least consider it

[miscellaneoussmp]

I don't know if I've ever told yall, but I'm a huge anatomy and physiology nerd, and I just remembered something. I'm sorry to the Ghosties out there for it.

So, there's this thing called the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB for short), basically, its function is to keep unwanted things in the blood out of the brain!

Ghosties, this is the part I'm sorry about, but some of the symptoms of a weak BBB can include brain fog, difficulty concentrating, headaches that grow in severity, and memory loss. Sound familiar?

That head wound has wrecked Badboyhalo's Blood Brain Barrier.