#full context for all options now in the reblogs :)

[darcyolsson]

hello dear followers i recently read a spinoff book starring the main characters from the mortal instruments and since it brought back the beloved ridiculous factor the early tmi books had I have decided IT IS TIME FOR ANOTHER ROUND OF

[anistarrose]

I want to make my posts more accessible, but can't write IDs myself: a guide

[Plain text: "I want to make my posts more accessible, but can't write IDs myself: a guide." End plain text.]

While every image posted online should be accessible in an ideal world, we all know it 1) takes time to learn how to write image descriptions, and 2) is easy to run out of spoons with which to write IDs. And this says nothing of disabilities that make writing them more challenging, if not impossible — especially if you're a person who benefits from IDs yourself.

There are resources for learning how to write them (and if you already know the basics, I'd like to highlight this good advice for avoiding burnout) — but for anyone who cannot write IDs on their original posts at any current or future moment, for any reason, the there are two good options for posting on Tumblr.

1. Crowdsource IDs through the People's Accessibility Discord

[Plain text: "1. Crowdsource IDs through the People's Accessibility Discord". End plain text.]

The People's Accessibility Discord is a community that volunteers description-writing (and transcript-writing, translation, etc) for people who can't do so themselves, or feel overwhelmed trying to do so. Invite link here (please let me know if the link breaks!)

The way it works is simple: if you're planning to make an original post — posting art, for example — and don't know how to describe it, you can share the image there first with a request for a description, and someone will likely be able to volunteer one.

The clear upside here (other than being able to get multiple people's input, which is also nice) is that you can do this before making the Tumblr post. By having the description to include in your post from the start, you can guarantee that no inaccessible version of the post will be circulated.

You can also get opinions on whether a post needs to be tagged for flashing or eyestrain — just be able to spoiler tag the image or gif you're posting, if you think it might be a concern. (Also, refer here for info on how to word those tags.)

The server is very chill and focused on helping/answering questions, but if social anxiety is too much of a barrier to joining, or you can't use Discord for whatever reason, then you can instead do the following:

2. Ask for help on Tumblr, and update the post afterwards

[Plain text: "Ask for help on Tumblr, and update the post afterwards". End description.]

Myself and a lot of other people who describe posts on this site are extra happy to provide a description if OP asks for help with one! This does leave the post inaccessible at first, so to minimize the drawbacks, the best procedure for posting an image you can't fully describe would be as follows:

Create the tumblr post with the most bare-bones description you can manage, no matter how simple (something like "ID: fanart of X character from Y. End ID" or "ID: a watercolor painting. End ID," or literally whatever you can manage)

Use a tool like Google Lens or OCR to extract text if applicable and if you have the energy, even if the text isn't a full image description (ideally also double-check the transcriptions, because they're not always perfect)

Write in the body of the post that you'd appreciate a more detailed description in the notes!

Tag the post as "undescribed" and/or "no id" only if you feel your current, bare-bones description is missing out on a lot of important context

When you post it and someone provides an ID, edit the ID into the original post (don't use read mores, italics, or small text)

Remove the undescribed tag, if applicable. If you're posting original art, you can even replace it with a tag like "accessible art" for visibility!

And congrats! You now have a described post that more people will be able to appreciate, and you should certainly feel free to self-reblog to give a boost to the new version!

[inklings-challenge]

The Chesterton Challenge: Day 1

Welcome to Day 1 of the Chesterton Challenge! The beginning of a month full of creativity! I can't wait to head on this journey with all of you!

Today's Optional Prompt is: Tradition.

Chesterton was an advocate for tradition in secular and religious contexts, and May 1st is a day associated with all kinds of traditions, from May Day to St. Joseph the Worker to the opening day of writing and art challenges.

You can interpret the word any way you want. Will you write about a fantasy world's traditions? Write an essay about your favorite springtime tradition? Create artwork within a traditional art medium? The sky's the limit!

Whatever you create, make sure to show us or tell us about it by reblogging or replying to this post.

Now go forth and create!

[queen-of-the-boos]

You are Cordially Invited...

to the second ever-

(The envelope opens with a shrill shriek)

THAT'S RIGHT I'M DOING THIS AGAIN!!!

I'm throwing a little Luigi's Mansion themed ball for everyone who selfships and self inserts! (You don't have to selfship in the Mario universe to participate)

ᴵᵗ'ˢ ᵇᵉᵉⁿ ᵠᵘᶦᵗᵉ ᵃ ʷʰᶦˡᵉ ˢᶦⁿᶜᵉ ᴵ'ᵛᵉ ᵈᵒⁿᵉ ᵒⁿᵉ ᵒᶠ ᵗʰᵉˢᵉ ˢᵒʳᵗˢ ᵒᶠ ᵖᵒˢᵗˢ ˢᵒ ᵖˡᵉᵃˢᵉ ᶠᵒʳᵍᶦᵛᵉ ᵐᵉ ᶦᶠ ᶦᵗ'ˢ ᶜᵒⁿᶠᵘˢᶦⁿᵍ. ᴵ'ᵐ ᵃ ᵇᶦᵗ ʳᵘˢᵗʸ

Details about the event under the cut!

Now then, I'm sure you have a few questions. Hopefully I can answer them all here! Such as...

- What the heck are Banshee Blossoms?

Glad you asked, my fine friend! They're a fictional flower I made up based on these pretty little blooms on the roof of the mansion!

(Don't mind the fire. Luigi is totally fine.)

Here's my silly little doodled rendition for reference!

Banshee Blossoms are symbols of love, romantic and platonic, even familial! There's a tradition in the Boo Kingdom where you give one to someone you care about. They're said to bless whomever is gifted one with good luck and a happy relationship for the rest of their lives into their afterlife! Theyre pale white flowers that glow like moonlight with purple foliage.

They only bloom in the month of March, so now is the best time to come and view them!

- What's this event all about?

Another excellent question!

This event is tailor made for those of you who selfship or self insert as well as anyone who has Luigi's Mansion ocs! You're all welcome to attend! I'll be hosting it along with my darling husband King Boo 💕

It's just a small, relaxed event for everyone to have fun with whether you're an artist or not.

The general thing you can do is go around to your friends' ask boxes and leave them Banshee Blossoms should you feel so inclined. But we also have... Prompts!

- Prompts?

That's right! Prompts. You're a great listener!

The event runs from March 15th - March 17th, and throughout those days, you, dear listener, will have two prompts to choose from with which you may create things with! Think of them as themed projects? You can choose one or do both if you're feeling it!

The regular prompts will be:

15th - Arrival / Meeting

(Your arrival at the ball, or you meeting someone at the ball!)

16th - Grudges / Spinoffs

(Getting out any grudges before the party begins, or thinking of your self insert/ship/oc in the context of a Mario series spinoff like Mario Kart or Mario Golf ect.)

17th - Party / Comfort

(How you would be enjoying the party, or perhaps reviving comfort from somebody or something.)

Along with our regular prompts, we will also have musical ones for those of you who are music autistics with melodies in your heart like me.

Those will include:

15th - Treacherous Mansion /Paranormal Chaos

16th - Phantom Dancing / Luigi's Mansion DS

17th - Luigi's Mansion Credits / LM3 Music box

These work just like the regular creative prompts! You're just going off a song rather than an idea. You can do one, two, or all three of these options if you wish! No rules against that!

I'll be posting a daily post with all three daily prompts for that day around midnight (12 am CST) each day!

These prompts are for anything creative! Mood boards, writing, art, playlists, you name it! Even just posts saying what you and your fave are doing to participate are welcome!

- When is the event?

Just like I said above, the event will run the weekend of March 15th - March 17th.

- Where is it being held?

Well, it'll be hosted here on this blog! I'll be sure to look for posts and reblog them all here so everyone can see! Be sure to tag your posts for the ball with #Banshee Blossom Ball 2024 so I can see them! That's the tag I'll be looking for! Youre also free to tag me so I can see them too!

But...if you meant what location the event is being held... Its-

The Treacherous Mansion from Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon! It's a large mansion in Evershade Valley full of many interesting rooms that house treasures from a famous adventurer from days long past.

(Thanks for helping me show it off, Luigi! But get that AWFUL thing off your back-)

Phew! Hopefully that clears things up. I'll try to condense the info here for those of you who need a tl;dr

TL;DR

I'm hosting an event for self inserts and shippers as well as Luigi's Mansion oc havers! It's a ball themed after Banshee Blossoms, symbols of all types of love and new beginnings!

The creative prompts for the event including musical prompts (notated with a 🎵) are:

🌙 15th - Arrival / Meeting

🎵 Treacherous Mansion/Paranormal Chaos

🌙 16th - Grudges / Spinoffs

🎵 Phantom Dancing/Luigi's Mansion DS

🌙 17th - Party / Comfort

🎵 Luigi's Mansion credits/LM3 music box

The event runs from March 15th - 17th.

I'll make a post each day at 12am CST with a short blurb about the day's prompts to help inspire! (You're free to start on the prompts early though!)

Remember to tag your ball related posts with #Banshee Blossom Ball 2024 so I can see them!

I hope everyone has fun! Feel free to send me an ask over on this blog here if you have any questions or concerns!

This event is not for proshippers. Please kindly do not participate.

[allyphase]

toa anniversary munday!

thank you neffi for putting this together! here are my answers from last year.

Celebrating TOA and the people who contribute to make our group what it is.

Repost, don't reblog. Only fill in what you feel comfortable sharing!

Happy anniversary, TOA! Here's to many more years spent together.

Name: Birdie! Used to be Red, but I changed it after joking I wanted to be called Birdie for years.

Pronouns: She/Her

Birthday (no year): October 13th

Where are you from? What is your time zone? I’m from the Midwest, but I live in EST now. 

How long is your roleplay experience? I said 8 years last time, so it must be around 9 years now.  

How were you introduced to roleplaying as a whole? I had a friend with an OC on Wattpad and we’d have them interact in comment sections. 

How were you introduced to TOA? I’ve told the story many times, but I pulled Reyson in Heroes and I thought he was an angel. Imagine my surprise when he turned into a bird. I started researching him and fell in love with his character, and saw he was open in TOA. Decided to take the leap and join, and I’ve been here three years since! 

Do you have any pets? My parents have 4 wonderful Adam Driver cats, but I just have one fish. Her name is Deirdre and I post about her biting me often. 

What is your favorite time of year and why? (Season, holiday, general period) Halloween!!! I love dressing up and I love silly parties and I love the chillier weather. 

What is your IRL occupation? Full time college student. I’m studying playwriting! 

Some interests and things you like/enjoy? I research vocalsynth history at any chance I get. I collect both voicebanks and various Miku merch. I play a lot of D+D, and I’m a birdwatcher. 

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play? Been grinding my way through BG3 recently. I also play a lot of rhythm games, my favorites being Project Diva and Sekai. 

Favorite Pokemon type & Pokemon: My favorite type is flying, and my favorite pokemon is Alteria. 

Tell us some funfacts and trivia about yourself! (Optional bonus challenge: if you filled this out last year, try not to repeat what you said back then!) My favorite vocal synthesizer is the Voder from 1939. They killed her after the world’s fair but she lives on in simulations. 

How did you get into Fire Emblem? Bought 3H on a whim and wasn’t sold on it. My friend got me into Heroes and I played casually until I saw Reyson. The rest is history! 

What Fire Emblem games have you played? FE7, FE9, Awakening, Fates (all routes), 3H, and Engage! Feels really good to update that list from last year. 

First & Favorite Fire Emblem games: My first was 3H, but my favorite is FE7. 

List your 5 favorite Fire Emblem characters across the series! Mark, Janaff, Sigurd, Phina, Plumeria

Who was the first character ever to make you go “ooh I like this one in particular” and why? Can be any context and reason! Claude! I actually wrote him in a multifandom killing game once before TOA. That was my first RP experience. 

Any Fire Emblem crushes? 😳Not really tbh. There are some fine people in FE but my attention is elsewhere. 

If you’ve played (or are familiar with) the following games, who was your first S support? Who would you S support nowadays?- Awakening: Chrom. Teehee- Fates: Tsubaki my darling. He romanced my OC Juno by being her rival.- Three Houses: I was on track to S-Support Claude before I put the game down. - Engage: Kagetsu! He just completely captured me. 

Favorite Fire Emblem class? Dancer! I always like the Dancers. 

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class and stats? Would you be playable? Axe General baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Midgame prepromote that requires a lot of love to be good. But I can get there! 

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation? (Black Eagles, Blue Lions, Golden Deer, Church of Seiros, Those Who Slither in the Dark, unaffiliated civilian, other - for example Almyran) Golden Deer, I’m too silly to be anywhere else. 

If you were an Officers Academy student, what would be your boons, banes and potential budding talent? Boons in Axe and Authority, banes in Faith and Reason, and budding talent in Heavy Armor! I used to powerlift so I can get back into form for the armor but I’ll need a bit. 

If you were an Engage character, which nation would you originate from? (Firene, the Kingdom of Abundance; Brodia, the Kingdom of Might; Elusia, the Kingdom of Knowledge; Solm, the Queendom of Freedom; Lythos, the holy land of the Divine Dragon; Gradlon, the desolate land of the Fell Dragon) I’m an academic so probably Elusia...? 

How do you pronounce TOA? 🤔(separate letters, to-ah, other?) Tee-Oh-Ey. The letters. 

Current TOA muses: Just Mark for now :> 

Past TOA muses? Oh god. Reyson, Janaff, Plumeria, Midir, Phina, Sanaki, Fury, Kagetsu, Shura, Hraesvelgr, Robin...? I think that’s everybody. 

Who was your first TOA muse? If you no longer have them, can you see yourself picking them up again? Reyson! I don’t think I’d ever pick him back up again, but he holds a dear place in my heart. 

Do you believe you have a type of character you gravitate towards writing? (If you filled this out last year, has this changed in any way?) People in love! If they aren’t in love with someone (or an abstract something) then I can’t find the drive. 

Do you have characters or types of characters you don’t think you can handle writing, but wish you could? What I would do for an evil muse. You guys have no idea. There is a blog for a very evil woman sitting in my unused pile. 

What kind of scenes, situations etc do you believe you enjoy writing the most? (If you filled this out last year, has this changed in any way?) I’m just happy to see when my character flourishes. I like to give them equal wins and losses. 

Do you have any scenario in mind for your muse(s) that gets you thinking “man I hope I get to write this one day”? I go insanio bonkers for anything involving Mark’s disability, because she feels like a mirror to my own experience more often than not. I hope one day she gets to have a scene with someone she cares about entirely in sign! 

Favorite TOA-related memories? Phina and Elincia remains one of my favorite TOA-specific ships. Love that so much.

Present or past tense? Present. 

Normal size text, small text, no preference? I’m very formatting light for ease on my hands. So, I use normal text and no fancy formatting. 

Got any potential muse delusions to share? 😉I’m working on getting my activity up this month but I have a returner who I miss dearly and is beating down the door. It’ll be a nice change of pace to have her and Mark.

[tmmyhug]

new fandom word voting results

context for those unaware: see this post. it's about the need for some kind of descriptive word for the version of the mcyt character that exists between the cc!s and the c!s. kind of like the fanon or au or persona version of them - a combination of all those things and more. there's no good way to describe it. which is why we did a bunch of brainstorming on my blog that led to this form where everyone voted on their favorite suggestion. here are the results!

1. fancept

the winner by far with 61.6% of the vote! congrats to @fruitpilled for the winning suggestion and thank you for the great idea.

2. fan-created or fc! for short

second place goes to fan-created or fc for short with 33.7% of the vote. It was suggested by anon and by @tobi-smp in the reblogs of the first post.

I like this one because fc! could also be a shortened version of fancept, so you end up getting both ideas in one descriptor. however fc! succeeding as a term would rely on fan-created and/or fancept going into popular use, so I'm curious to see where that goes.

3 and 4. The Consensus and fandom

The Consensus was mostly a joke option as it's not quite practical for regular use, if very funny. props to @offishly for coming up with it and getting 27.9% of the vote. Fandom was one of the first suggestions we had by anon, and while I didn't find it specific enough personally, it seemed lots of people liked it, with 25.6% of the vote! Very cool.

Full results for those curious:

Honorary mention to 5th place "fanspired" with 22.1% of the vote by @the-dashcon-ballpit, that was another cool one.

Reminder as always that this was just for fun and isn't meant to make any hard rules. Use whatever words you like or come up with your own :) Personally, fancept is my favorite and I will definitely be incorporating it into my lexicon from now on. This was a lot of fun and I'm really happy to have settled on an awesome new word. thanks to all you guys for participating!

[combeferres-mothematics]

barricade day fic!!!!!!?? ?? tell us moooore

😭😭😭 The fact that this appeared in my inbox less than a minute after I reblogged that is greatly amusing to me.

So, the basic plot of the fic is Les Amis die at the barricade, then wake up in modern times. I'm not sure whether to call it time travel or reincarnation, so I've just been referring to it as a bit of both. Because they definitely died, that's very much a thing that happened, but they're also waking up in in the 21st century as adults, full memory of what happened at the barricade and before, and they have never seen a lot of the 21st century stuff. (I am having So. Much. Fun. with this plot point and I've barely even written anything in the 21st century 😭I need to finish the 19th first aaaaaahhhhhh)

The first nine chapters are each from the POV of one of the boys covering the events of the barricade, from them heading down the street after the funeral (Or, in JBR's case, Preliminary Gaieties), to their deaths, and then a short snippet from when they first wake up in the 21st century.

In the 21st century they're also split up into different cities, I have them two to a city at first, aside from Feuilly Yes, I know I am slightly evil who's alone. Of course, they may not be close to each other in the city, but the pairs will run into each other by chance, aside from ExR, who are much closer than the others (They died holding hands, so I factored that into the time travel logistics)

I haven't decided on the places they'll be quite yet, but I do have my pairs mapped out. :D

Bahorel and Prouvaire are together, as are Courfeyrac and Bossuet, and Combeferre and Joly.

This is so far what I have, (Yes, this is how I realized that Courfeyrac dies 5th out of 9th of the Amis). The Chapters for Bahorel, Prouvaire, and Combeferre are finished, and Enjolras needs one more scene that I have to choose. (I have too many options and not enough room)

And the word count is only counting the words in the actual chapters, with the scenes for later chapter's I have written, I'd say I'm about 11,000 words so far. They're all contained in the 'snippets' section of the document though because I'm trying to finish these nine before adding more.

But alas, Combeferre accidentally terrorizing people by being WAY too excited about their digital camera is much too funny not to write now. (In context he is also still very much in the clothes he wore at the barricade at that point, and they are none too pretty... 😭)

[lunanoc]

PART III: WHO ARE KING SHANG OF LU AND THE IRON-MASKED GENTLEMAN, AND WHY IS IT EVEN IMPORTANT

finally we’re reaching the end of this thing

(to see previous disclaimers and context here’s part I and part II of this madness)

blanket spoiler warning for the books once again

more disclaimers, the entirety of this part is where i veer solidly into crack theory and full-on interpretation, so while everything i’m presenting here does have arguments based on sources that’s important we do love sources, it’s very much speculation and not hard fact

now that that’s out of the way, let’s get into the really wild stuff

with the various versions of “king shang of lu”’s and the iron-masked gentleman’s story, along with king mu of zhou’s story more or less unpacked (or as unpacked as they can be given we don’t know everything or even have a definitive truth), the real question then becomes what exactly you do with that information

based on what we’ve determined so far through the various versions of these characters’ stories, and taking into account the dubious nature of some or all of them to some degree, i feel there are a few base assumptions and conclusions you can come to, and that i’ll be working with from here on out:

the silkbook that wu xie found in “king shang of lu”’s coffin was indeed a fake, and was placed there with wu xie in mind, knowing that he would find it, and its purpose was to ease wu xie into the game the wu and xie families had been playing with the wang family. whether it was wu sanxing himself or the wang family who did it isn’t certain, and while either is a solid option, @tiesanjiaoshenanigans raised some solid arguments in favor of it being wu sanxing that you can read in their reblog here. in any case, it’s highly unlikely that it was xiaoge. grain of salt because i haven’t reached this point myself, but i’ve looked into a particular passage in ten years (Ten Years, Ch. 31, Key) where wu xie thinks back on the seven star palace, and while he does speculate that wu sanxing had a hand in using the silkbook jin wantang brought to him for his own purposes, wu xie also works on the assumption that it was xiaoge who swapped out a real silkbook for the fake one that contained the first version of king shang of lu’s story, and that his unease was due to recovered memories. granted wu xie does also speculate that he’d had the impression that xiaoge had been to the seven star palace several times before, which is entirely possible due to its significance in relation to “the truth of the world” (credit to @kelly42fox for speculating that maybe the headless corpse thrown into the sacrificial ding cauldron at the entrance of the seven star palace was in fact that missing blood zombie that xiaoge had subdued on a previous visit, and it was this memory that was triggered). however, while wu xie’s word is generally the most trustworthy simply because he’s dmbj’s main narrator, bases his assumptions on logic, and readily course corrects when he’s proven wrong (so in that sense he’s not the type of unreliable narrator who deliberately misleads the reader), he’s still a limited pov character, and what wu xie thinks he knows isn’t always necessarily the truth. because again, xiaoge planting the fake silkbook implies either he or chen pi ah si had a solid motivation for deceiving wu xie specifically, which seems odd all things considered

the wang family’s version of the tale of king shang of lu is the closest we have to the truth simply by virtue of it being the most detailed, of providing additional information that conveniently sheds light both on things mentioned in prior books and things mentioned in later books, and of it being a tale they clearly believe in. while it’s likely not the entire truth, both because they have a clear bias, and because they themselves are lacking key elements of this history, namely what “the truth of the world” is and what their feud with the zhang family truly stems from (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 146, Wang Zanghai), it’s the best candidate so far

the iron-masked gentleman from the first two versions of “king shang of lu”’s story and the owner of the fox mask from the wang family’s story are the same person, and there might be more to his identity than you’d think

with all this being said, what’s left to consider is the possible identities of the characters in this story, namely king shang of lu, the iron-masked gentleman, and king mu of zhou, and the ramifications of those possibilities

let’s start with the iron-masked gentleman, as he’s arguably the most nebulous of the three, and for the sake of convenience i’m going to refer to him as just iron mask from here on out since that’s what he’s best known as

ironically however, the first detail i want to bring attention to regarding him is that he specifically wears a fox mask adorned with “patterns often found on bronze ware”, bronze ware being so precious a material at the time that it was used almost exclusively for ritual objects, most often funerary ones (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 132, Lesson). later, we learn from the wang instructor that similar fox masks were correlated with a specific group of tomb robbers operating in shandong (where this story takes place) during the same time period (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 134, Deception). based on this alone, i feel it’s safe to say that some type of parallel is being drawn between both iron mask, and if not this particular group of grave robbers, then at the very least the activity of robbing tombs. this detail will be important in a bit

for now, let’s look at how iron mask is presented to the reader in the various versions of king shang of lu’s story we’re successively given:

in the first version taken from the fake silkbook, iron mask plays a fairly neutral role despite helping king shang of lu to find the famed jade burial armor, which ironically in this version he also reveals the existence of to the man he advises

in both the second version briefly mentioned by xiaoge and in the third version given by the wang family, iron mask plays a more duplicitous role, either by stealing the jade armor for himself, or by sharing in duping the ruler of the state of lu to acquire his resources to find the jade burial armor in king mu of zhou’s tomb

according to the wang family’s version of the story, iron mask wasn’t king shang of lu’s advisor, but rather the advisor of the ruler of the state of lu, and as such, while he wasn’t in a position of direct power himself, he was in a position to influence said power, and he clearly did given he deliberately swayed the ruler of the state of lu into granting resources to rob king mu of zhou’s tomb. it’s also noteworthy enough to mention that the state of lu happens to be where confucius was born among other eminent scholars of the spring and autumn period, the intellectually prosperous period preceding the warring states period, and the one during which king mu of zhou supposedly began to implement his plan by incorporating the guarantee of tomb robbing into chinese tradition itself (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 135, Stone Box). as such, the state of lu had a particularly important cultural influence on the rest of china both at the time and going forward. what i’m getting at by bringing this up is that iron mask was therefore not only in a position to influence the court of just any of the many states of the eastern zhou dynasty, he was in a position to influence one of the more prominent states of the time that had been a hub for some of the foundations of chinese culture for millenia to come. that iron mask was the one to recommend “king shang” to the ruler of the state of lu in the first place, clearly long before king shang ever had any sort of prominent position at court, further solidifies this idea.

and while there’s no direct evidence to infer that king shang, iron mask, and king mu might have been searching for and robbing tombs before iron mask ever brought up the idea of robbing king mu’s to the ruler of the state of lu, the previous connection between iron mask and the grave robbers with fox masks seems to hint at that possibility, and the narrative, by drawing this parallel, lends itself to interpreting iron mask and these fox-mask wearing grave robbers as some sort of organized collective

as mentioned in a previous part, the wang instructor explains to li cu that a number of these fox masks were found in tombs all over shandong, and that grave robbers of the time associated foxes with grave robbing because they’d often burrow in grave robber tunnels and around graveyards. what this then means is that, assuming these fox mask-wearing grave robbers and iron mask are indeed connected, then the activity of grave robbing itself is also connected to iron mask, or rather iron mask is connected to tomb robbing. as for the reasoning behind why someone would consistently wear a mask to the point their identity becomes eclipsed by it, the easiest answer is to assume that concealing their identity was maybe the point, and in the case of iron mask, given we have no information on his real name or anything else about him really, if that was his goal, then he clearly succeeded. therefore this fox mask he wears potentially has the dual purpose of both hiding his identity, and establishing some form of kinship with others who wore similar masks

to sum up then, iron mask was a man whose true identity and name remains unknown, who held an influential position in the court of one of the more prominent and certainly most culturally significant states of the eastern zhou dynasty, was associated in some capacity with grave robbing via kinship with a group of people who wore the same type of mask as him, and he used his influence at court to sway the ruler he advised into taking actions that benefited him in some capacity. as it happens, we know of at least one organized group of people in dmbj’s universe who also held influential positions in various imperial courts, are associated with grave robbing, and used their influence in spheres of power to sway rulers and/or the course of history in directions that benefited them and/or their endgame

do you see where i’m going with this

again, there’s nothing anywhere that can directly confirm that either iron mask and/or the fox-masked grave robbers were members of the zhang family or even associated with them, but there’s also nothing to technically disprove it either so i’ll just. leave the parallels here for people’s consideration

but where things get even more interesting is when you stop to then consider who “king shang of lu” might be

outside of the very first stone slab we get in the seven star palace that describes king shang of lu as having been “born with the ghost seal in hand” and the command of the army of the dead, if we assume that version 1 of his story in the silkbook that wu xie finds is dubious at best, then we don’t really get all that much about king shang of lu’s life or identity. the wang family’s version describes him as being introduced to the court of the state of lu as a descendent of the zhou emperor and as a “strange man” or “奇人” (qiren), which can either mean a “strange” person or an “extraordinary” person, as in having extraordinary talents, which arguably, given what his tomb looks like, he was (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 132, Lesson).

beyond this however, there’s nothing in the wang family’s version to suggest that king shang of lu was anyone of note before iron mask quite literally pulled him out of thin air, as if he’d never existed until he suddenly appeared at court one day like a mysterious messenger from the beyond that the ruler of the state of lu, if not purports him to be, then may also believe him to be. the mystery persists with the tale of how king shang of lu supposedly gained his title by communing with the dead king mu of zhou to ask permission to open his tomb, since while we know that this perspective on what happened is in fact skewed by what the ruler of the state of lu who was tricked saw, and that in reality, king mu of zhou wasn’t dead, knowing this doesn’t answer how king shang of lu actually acquired the ghost seal or who he really is, if his identity is even significant. that he was “born with the ghost seal” in hand is likely a descriptor made to reflect him coming out of the coffin he’d been sealed as if “reborn” under his new title with the proof of his “covenant” with king mu of zhou. however, given the meaning of the name 殇 shang mentioned earlier (that is to say “to die young or at war”), and despite the explanation given of his title as a means to justify the subsequent robbing of king mu of zhou’s tomb, it nonetheless leaves you wondering why this name, and why specify that he was a direct descendant of king mu rather than simply “forming a covenant” with him? it could simply be that it was the most efficient ploy to manipulate the ruler of the state of lu into finding convenient moral outs, and there’s nothing more to read into it than the first step of the elaborate plan king mu of zhou had roped king shang of lu and iron mask into

but consider: we’ve established that while it seemed as if there were only two people working together, in fact there were three. but what if against all odds, there really were only two people in the end? after all, a third party is never really hinted at in the earlier versions of this story we get in book 1, unless you count the initial corpse in the fake silkbook version of the story that king shang supposedly removed from the jade burial armor when he found it, but that can’t have been king mu if king mu was in fact alive. what i’m saying is, what if we consider the crazy possibility that king mu of zhou and king shang of lu were in fact the same person

we know that king mu of zhou faked his death centuries before, and while he might have simply sought out and convinced king shang and iron mask of his identity, objectively, the less outside parties involved in his plan, the better. to be fair, it’s entirely possible that king mu used himself as a living example that immortality existed in order to bait king shang and iron mask into helping him, only for them to betray him later and successively take the jade armor for themselves. but if you consider the possibility that king shang was nothing more than an alias king mu used to “return to life” so to speak, it wouldn’t be less fitting of an explanation, as who could possibly have stood to recognize the face of a man centuries dead? of course, nothing really exists to solidly confirm this idea, which is the case for pretty much all of this “meta” that’s entirely speculation at this point but consider

after all, king mu of zhou saw “the truth of the world” in the queen mother of the west’s kingdom. i’ll come back to her briefly later, but we also know that to our knowledge, before wang zanghai, the zhang family were the only other people to have access to that “truth”. it’s reasonable to assume that king mu of zhou, having seen the “truth of the world” and returned from the queen mother of the west’s kingdom changed from it in more ways than one, might have also gained knowledge of another party who knew this “truth”. it’s equally reasonable to assume that rather than go through a third party and thus introduce an unknown variable into his plan, and seeing as king mu of zhou had been “dead” long enough that no one would recognize him should he choose to assume a different identity, it would have simply been easier to approach the only other party who both shared in the same forbidden knowledge, as well as presumably shared similar goals to some extent. and if iron mask was a zhang, then coming back to the previous point, given his particular social status, iron mask would have been the prime candidate for king mu to turn to for assistance. it also stands to reason that if iron mask was a zhang, then by extension a member of the zhang family would have accepted a mutually beneficial arrangement. after all, king mu’s plan and goals aligned somewhat with the zhang family’s interests, and they had to have been aware of king mu’s covert manipulation during the spring and autumn period. using grave robbing as a means of perpetuating curated traditions and culture over centuries, manipulating the flow of history, and thus making it extremely easy to practice convenient historical revisionism perfectly aligned with the zhang family’s designs. arguably it’s also precisely what the zhang family had been doing and continued to do, as wu xie himself eventually speculates, wondering if the zhang family had used tomb robbing as a means of disseminating if not false, then modified histories in order to control china’s “fate” through the ages (Tibetan Sea Flower, Ch. 67, Biggest Secret)

in addition to that, considering we know the ghost seal is something tied to the main zhang family, particularly zhang qiling, and that it allows passage into the bronze gate beneath changbai mountain that houses the ultimate (which is what “the truth of this world” ostensibly is) past the ghost army that does exist (though whether they can be controlled is something we have no evidence of), it’s also not a stretch of the imagination to consider that the zhang family might have lent the ghost seal to king mu/king shang for appearance’s sake. and if all this did have to do with the zhang family and there really were only two people involved in the endgame of this story, it might also provide a tentative reason for xiaoge’s unease as he tries to parse through why there isn’t a third blood corpse in the seven star palace. it might have triggered a memory or some feeling in him that there was an explanation to all this that existed but that he wasn’t privy to in the moment, but perhaps he had been privy to it in the past, and perhaps he had come to find it many times before that he could no longer recall because it was a place tied to the zhang family in some capacity

that does however raise the question of why then had iron mask’s memoirs been circulating if he’d been a zhang, but then again, dissemination of information via tombs was a plan the zhang family had every reason to encourage and perpetuate if they hadn’t already been in the business of practicing it, so if iron mask was a zhang, he would have neither had any qualms about participating in it himself, nor of providing a revised version of the truth. after all, we have no indication that version 2 of the story as told by xiaoge is a truthful account either, especially since this version still doesn’t reveal a name for the iron-masked gentleman despite it coming from his supposed memoirs

in addition to that, we also get an interesting tidbit in hindsight from practically the very beginning of book 1, where wu sanxing takes note of the fox pattern on the warring states silkbook that started wu xie’s journey into the conspiracies and says that it depicts “the mask worn by the earliest people in the state of lu when they were offered up as sacrifices” and that it must mean that “someone with a very special identity” was buried in the tomb, possibly “more respected that the emperor” (Book 1, Ch.3, Temple of Seeds). it’s hard to say what to make of the notion that the fox-masked people were “sacrifices” considering the wang family’s story explicitly makes them out to be grave robbers, so either or both of them is a lie. however, it does at least confirme there is something special about these fox-masked people beyond what’s being said (especially given the green-eyed fox corpse, who following the zhang logic, might have been a lower ranked family member offered up as a sacrifice and who turned after death, but this is probably a stretch), and whoever is buried in that tomb is abnormally important. the only real issue you run into with this train of thought is considering how far back the zhang family tomb extends, why would any zhang of note not be buried in it, so that’s at least one gap in logic

all of this then leaves us with a final question: if we assume iron mask was a zhang, and that king shang of lu was in fact a false identity created by king mu of zhou for himself, then what exactly happened in the seven star palace, and who is who in what coffin?

we know that the seven star palace is a warring states period tomb constructed on top of a pre-existing western zhou dynasty tomb. there’s no indication of whether this pre-existing tomb was meant to be king mu’s (in which case it was at least partially a dupe as he was still alive), and raises the problem of king mu not having had the jade armor prior to the king shang of lu story as he was actively looking for it, so he can’t have found it in his own tomb. to me, this means there are two possibilities to consider:

possibility one: king mu had a tomb built for himself during his reign that was designed with his plan in mind, which might explain the presence of the snake cypress (which we again only ever see elsewhere in gutongjing in ancient ruins related to a candle dragon baby snake mine, so clearly it being in the seven star palace is of some significance). king mu and iron mask did find a jade burial armor, but in another tomb or elsewhere that isn’t what would become the seven star palace

possibility two: king mu and iron mask, with each other’s mutual knowledge and abilities, found a tomb containing a jade burial armor that happened to be a western zhou dynasty tomb. the story then roughly proceeds like in the first two versions, and king mu/shang removes the corpse from the jade armor and takes it for himself

in some ways i feel like the most logical and likely option is the first one, simply because the mechanisms inside the seven star palace are too precise and deliberate, namely the timer coffin that was tied to the box with the baby in it (which i won’t be getting into here because that’s for another meta). this then leaves us with the problem of determining exactly who is who in this tomb by the time wu xie walks into it. the wang family implies that king mu’s plan ultimately failed because he hadn’t considered that someone like wang zanghai would come about and have the ability to hijack king mu’s plan for his own purposes. you can interpret that either as referring to his grave robbing plan alone, or that it also refers to king mu himself successfully staying in the jade armor for as long as it would take for him to come out of it side effect free. the ambiguity of what the wang family meant by “plan” makes it difficult to decide whether, following that wording, it leaves room for king mu to have been dumped out of the jade burial armor or not, which doesn’t really make deciding who is who any easier. for the record, wu xie mentions later when he comes back to this story in ten years later that he believes the one buried in the coffin under the snake cypress was iron mask (and npss also states this in his timeline in the postscript of book 8). if we choose to believe this is correct, and that king shang of lu was in fact king mu of zhou, then it leaves two more possible outcomes to the story:

possibility one: the thing in the coffin at the entrance of the seven star palace is king mu of zhou, and he was also the blood zombie that xiaoge killed

possibility two: the thing in the coffin is king mu of zhou, but he didn’t turn into a blood zombie, rather into something different or more powerful, and therefore the blood zombie xiaoge killed was someone else

the only thing that makes me doubt in this theory that king mu of zhou could both have been the blood zombie xiaoge killed and whatever was in the coffin at the entrance to the seven star palace is that to start with, there was a coffin so elaborate there to begin with convenient enough to place someone in (unless there had actually initially been a sacrifice in it and that’s the body that got dumped in the ding cauldron on the side to get replaced), that if wu xie was correct in assuming xiaoge had been to the seven star palace before, he would have left a dangerous blood zombie that could roam around in it “alive”, and lastly, the fact that not only did xiaoge kowtow to it to ask for safe passage within the tomb, even after having killed the blood zombie, xiaoge insisted on respecting the time limit the thing in the coffin had set and pushed wu sanxing’s team to leave the seven star palace before dawn regardless. it’s worth noting that xiaoge has never kowtowed to a corpse outside of this occasion (to my knowledge at least), has only actually knelt in front of changbai mountain that houses the bronze gate really, and has only ever spoken to one other also incredibly old and likely powerful corpse that was very likely one of the first people to come out of the kunlun mountains, and that rests inside the meteorite in tamutuo (Restart Part I: The Sound of Providence, Ch. 222, Countdown to the Finale 4).

why adamantly continue to uphold the demands of a creature that you’ve killed and that can presumably no longer harm you? unless leaving before dawn was an imperative that went beyond the sole demands of the thing inside the coffin at the entrance, it’s a little strange. however, the problem with saying that whatever was in the coffin at the entrance to the seven star palace and the blood zombie that xiaoge killed are two different entities makes things difficult, because it would mean there was some third party involved somehow, and it gives possibility two (the one where king mu/shang and iron mask find another tomb to steal the jade burial armor from and co-opt it) a little more ground. i haven’t been able to find any conclusive information on where the real-life king mu of zhou was buried, and it’s hard to say how much of an argument a real-life fact holds for something like this, but it’s interesting to note that the western zhou dynasty’s capital was fenghao, located in what’s now part of present day xi’an in the province of shaanxi, and the province of shaanxi is roughly 800 km (or 500 miles) from the province of shandong where the seven star palace is. it’s relatively far, especially for the time period, so does the distance justify the thought that it might not have been king mu of zhou’s tomb that was used as the basis for the seven star palace after all? did king mu/shang and iron mask really find a tomb that contained a jade burial armor and co-opt it? more food for thought

either way, whether or not the blood zombie xiaoge killed was king mu of zhou, if we choose to follow both wu xie and npss, then it doesn’t change the fact that it’s very likely that regardless, king mu of zhou ended up in the coffin at the entrance of the seven star palace, and iron mask in the jade burial armor in the coffin beneath the snake cypress. in that case, it brings into question the motivations iron mask might have had for doing this if, following the current theory, he really was a member of the zhang family. surprisingly, it’s not too difficult to think of some plausible ones

the zhang family have been searching for a way to curb their own terrible longevity curse for centuries, to the extent their blind determination to find meaning in their existence is what proved to be the fatal weakness that drove them right into wang zanghai’s and the wang family’s trap. if he really was a zhang, why then would iron mask have been any different, especially since given the time period, knowledge of anything connected to either the queen mother of the west, or what her kingdom housed (re: the meteorite), or both would have likely still been fresh enough for zhang family members anyway. the promise of the jade burial armor could have been a tempting offer for a man himself doomed from birth. it’s also possible that while king mu of zhou’s grave robbing plan naturally aligned with what the zhang family had likely already been doing, and so in that sense they facilitated it, they drew the line at him potentially accessing longevity, as king mu of zhou remained an outsider and therefore an unknown variable in the long run. better then for one of their own to guard something like a jade burial armor than someone who while aware of the “truth”, wasn’t necessarily an ally, which is what ended up happening much later with wang zanghai. king mu would thus have been a liability to dispose of. and king mu/shang might have sensed this and tried to have all the people working with him killed like the first two versions of the king shang of lu story seem to suggest, and so iron mask really did fake his own death to ensure king mu couldn’t succeed

i realize this idea raises a number of other problems, such as again why the zhangs would not either have kept some knowledge that one of their own was buried not only outside of the family tomb (which had things dating back to the spring and autumn period, suggesting burial in it had already been an established tradition then), but also in something like a jade burial armor. maybe they did, and it’s one of those secrets only zhang qiling is privy to. only xiaoge would truly be able to answer that (not that he will). it’s also possible following this logic that if iron mask did fake his own death, doing so placed him outside the scope of the family enough he was free to act of his own selfish free will and seized the opportunity, but again, this is all speculation. it also raises the question of why the wang family, if they’d known there was a zhang buried in jade burial armor, wouldn’t have tampered with it and removed him, but then again, they likely needed to keep the corpse there to bring their plan against the zhang family to fruition regardless of who it was

for the sake of debate, i might as well also share an alternative theory to this, that while i feel has a lot more problems and ultimately doesn’t fit with a number of other elements of dmbj lore brought up here where the theory this “meta” has been about so far does, is still maybe worth mentioning. it’s essentially the reverse, that the iron-masked gentleman was king mu of zhou’s fabricated identity, and king shang of lu was a zhang. again, i feel like this spin on the theory has a lot of logic problems going on, but if i had to make a case for it:

殇 shang and 张 zhang are vaguely homonyms and both pronounced in the first tone, which while it’s likely a coincidence, lends this theory a tiny bit of substance given the zhang family is also associated with death both by nature and design

if king shang was a zhang, it could explain why he would have had access to the ghost seal, in which case it would have been iron mask who sought the zhang family out and then ultimately duped them

if iron mask was king mu, then his ability to spin a tall tale about himself to the ruler of the state of lu would have been much easier

if king shang was a zhang, then slaughtering any outsiders aware of the plan would have made sense to ensure knowledge would stay within the family

it would also mean that king shang the zhang was tossed out of the jade burial armor and presumably into the coffin at the entrance of the seven star palace while iron mask/king mu took his place, and was maybe duped by iron mask/king mu who faked his own death because the zhang family’s hubris has always been massive and he didn’t suspect he could be bested

this would fit with the interpretation that by saying only wang zanghai prevented king mu’s plan from succeeding, the wang family meant both his grave robbing plan and his ability to successfully attain longevity without side effects

this would have presumably also given iron mask/king mu the time to accomplish his “series of things” such as writing his “memoirs” onto a silkbook, constructing his own coffin duo together with the box that contained the unborn baby

that would mean that whatever was in the coffin at the entrance of the seven star palace was a zhang, which might explain why xiaoge would feel the need to kowtow to it when this is something he doesn’t usually do

again, as nice as this idea seems, it has a bunch of flaws to it, namely for example how that would then connect the fox-masked people and iron mask (unless you want to consider those were simply his own followers brought about by implementing his own plan), how king mu even in disguise could have had held a position at court without any suspicion and likely no familial backing as he’d faked his own death, and many more. so ultimately i feel like t’s not as solid of a theory, but it’s an interesting contrasting thought

as for who the queen mother of the west really was, that’s also up for debate and lot more difficult to determine. though li cu suggests even she might be a fabrication meant to embellish the story of king mu of zhou for the sake of luring people into believing immortality existed, we know enough by sand sea to be certain she did in fact exist. while it’s unclear whether she truly was the queen mother of the west of legend, i like to think she was simply because we have no other accounts of anyone with that name, and because of how deeply entrenched she was in things relating to “the truth of the world” that she was more or less implied to have been privy to. the theory i’m personally going with is that she discovered the meteorite in the qaidam basin and constructed a kingdom around it (which would have taken far longer than a lifetime to accomplish to the degree that she did), knowing full well what the meteorite represented and what it could do. and if she did know, then considering her knowledge of “the truth of this world”, and her supposed longevity, it’s not entirely impossible to consider, especially given the title of the book itself, that the queen mother of the west might be related to the ancestors of the zhang family mentioned in queen mother’s ghost banquet, and that she simply belonged to a different branch of those people who took a different direction than the zhang family did, and sought to remedy the curse in a different way. and what better way than to return to its source? after all, knowing the zhang family’s origins, it’s not impossible to suggest that not all of the people who emerged from beneath the kunlun mountains and among other things built the bronze gate all ended up congregating to form what would become the zhang family. we know, for example, that baima, xiaoge’s mother, also had special blood akin to the one running in the zhang family, enough that she passed it on to xiaoge, ironically granting him purer special blood than any other main family zhang by that point. so it’s not that far-fetched to think there may have been offshoots of the zhang family’s ancestors who chose to lead a different life and eventually drifted apart from their brethren enough that they lost knowledge of each other, or served a different purpose for whatever is controlling the zhang family like marionnettes on a string

so this has been a massive “meta” i still can’t believe i actually sat down and wrote this

hopefully it makes some kind of sense and isn’t just incoherent babbling i’m going to be honest that’s still what it is lbr and i’m not sure it’s contributed much to anything besides being one more rabbit hole crack theory, but uhhh if you’ve stuck out this long thank you for reading! and feel free to comment or add anything onto this i’m always happy to talk about dmbj lore please talk to me about dmbj lore

[lesbianchemicalplant]

YSK about Dr. Powers (negative)

Edit: folks I appreciate the awards but please donate to the center for transgender equality, the Brigid Alliance, or some other social cause instead ❤️

Many many of us are aware of Dr. Will Powers and his claims of better results than anywhere else. I know he is not at all the point of this sub but I’ve seen enough of us idolizing him here that I think this is worth posting.

Dr. Will Powers has an image he cultivates in the trans community. My personal take of that image is that it is one of a savior, or a persecuted man who is the only one trans people can turn to as being truly on our side.

Many of us are also critical of these methods for various reasons I won’t go into here (I mean, he’s threatening to frivolously sue transfemscience.org, I certainly don’t have $50k to burn on a lawsuit either). But the criticism is in the search function on this very subreddit.

Anyway, yeah. Transfemscience.org had a paper up criticising the methods used by Dr. Will Powers. Instead of doing better, or even working with the woman who runs the site to help make the paper more accurate, he uses his financial power over her to get her to take it off her platform. He does this despite admitting that causing transfemscience to go dark would do great harm to the trans community.

Ladies, this man is not our champion. Summary below, but please click through for context. I’m not affiliated with any of these links:

Twitter thread discussing this

Archive.org mirror of the paper being censored

Announcement of the censoring occurring

Financial bullying by Dr. Powers directed at the woman who runs transfemscience

The full email chain

I bring this up not because of some personal vendetta (I do not hate Dr. Will Powers; indeed I have no real opinion of him or his methods other than vague concern over some of what I have read) but I think “man using his financial power over a trans woman to silence her while claiming to be a trans ally” is something I must speak out about, and here seems to be the most impactful place to do so.

If you’re reading this thinking something like “but he was one of our only places to turn”, don’t despair. Providers are literally everywhere, often online; most of them are at least decent and often they’re very willing to hear their patient’s research on topics and take it under advisement. There are lots of options out there!

(10 November 2022)

Bolding emphasis mine. This isn’t necessarily the best overview, but it’s the one I have on hand

He literally shows up in this thread to whine that he Had to threaten her with a SLAPP lawsuit because he is a poor baby victim of her “control[ling] the narrative” (!)

(I’m posting this now because the big reblog chain about estrolabs cites Dr. Powers at one point, and I think most people don’t know what a piece of shit he is)

[writing-plurals]

back to answer-,

yeah, its just the 2 of them in the system ^^

giving a bit of context of the universe- basically, every time a child wishes their toy was real, a new baby is born with the memories of that toy. most of them end up forgetting this before they're able to talk, but because of trauma, the mc's personality split between the doll she was (calling her Dolly because all characters are still unnamed) and the girl she would've been had she had a good childhood (Lea, again all characters are unnamed im thinking these on the spot XD)

Dolly knows about the system. she knows she's an alter, she knows she's sharing a body with Lea, and she remembers everything that happened to her in her doll life (Lea meanwhile doesn't know shit 💀). at school, Lea meets this one girl (Maya), and since they get close Dolly decides to talk to her (Lea doesn't know tho). Dolly tells Maya about her (doll) life, and asks her to tell Lea about Dolly. Maya does it gently at first, but since Lea is deep in denial, Maya (still with the best intention) kinda gets her to remember her trauma between accidentally and on purpose

and about the ending, Dolly's existence doesn't go too well, so she ends up disappearing- this makes sense as a system, that when an alter goes through a lot of crap they go dormant, but I'm afraid if a singlet reads this they think the only way a system can be happy and/or functional is by becoming only one person

thanks for answering<33

-✨kai✨

Here's my answer to this follow-up:

Cool stuff. I understand the background a little bit more now, and yeah, I can see where you are coming from.

You have a couple options regarding Dolly's departure from the story and system.

Option one: Stress that Dolly's departure was not something that Lea was actually happy with. Make them friends or even family, and make the departure full of regret. This is a sad ending, but not necessarily a bad one. You can bring Dolly back in a sequel, just know that whatever way you end your first volume, your readers will have expectations for future volumes.

Option two: Let Lea develop someone else in the process of the story. This person might act as a buffer to reduce the effect that Dolly leaving might have on the story or on Lea. I do not like this option personally, since it seems like a band-aid fix and Dolly is just being replaced.

Option three: Stress that Dolly is still alive, the dormancy is temporary, or that Lea is still a system in some way. Single-member systems are still systems. This is especially what you would want to do if you don’t want to write a tragedy.

Option four: Write what makes you happy and publish it— or don’t!—regardless of the consequences. There will always be haters, so as long as you feel your story is representing the right kind of people, you should be proud.

This list is non-exhaustive, so if anyone else has suggestions, feel free to hit reblog.

And to you, Kai, feel free to pick more than one option if you feel that works best for you.

-mod birdie

[ponysongbracket]

MLP Song Tournament: Results of Round 1

Warning: Very long post. So many stats

Of the three biggest landslides, two of them were This Day Aria, with the reprise winning with 93.04% and the original winning with 95.85%.

The reprise's sweep is extra impressive considering that it went up against an actual song rather than a joke songlet.

The number one sweep, The Smile Song, won with a whopping 98.15%!!!

For context, this is a bigger sweep than Discord (Remix) [which eventually won] vs Discord's Puppet. This is bigger than Chris Pine vs Chris Pratt. This is bigger than the assassination of Julius Caesar. This is even bigger than Oscar Wilde vs Oscar de la Renta, the previous record holder for sweeps in my tournaments (and because that matchup and the Smile Song ended at around the same time, that record stood for about 10 minutes)

Now, going from the biggest sweep to the biggest opposite of a sweep: we had another tie! We Got This Together vs So Many Wonders.

This one got more votes than this blog's previous tie (Earnest vs On Wings of Moonlight)*

*If you remove my vote, the win margin for We Got This Together becomes 50.21%, which is still more than Rainbow Factory got against Anthropology and The Moon Rises.

The two next closest matches were Friendship Bound vs The Goof-Off (51.41%) and Pinkie's Singing Telegram Song vs Off to See the World (53.125%)

Speaking of the Singing Telegram, that was the only song that was originally put in the "Okay" Tier (fifth tier from the top, or second from the bottom), thus making it's defeat of Off to See the World (which was second tier from the top on a Movie song tier list) the biggest upset of the round. There were 9 upsets in total this round*

*technically Glass of Water beating Friends Are Always There For You was an upset too, but I am not counting it, as they were both in the tier "Wonderful Songs" (third from top) and it was entirely random that FaATfY was one seed above GoW. Since they really had the same ranking, I don't count it as an upset

One matchup wasn't a massive sweep, nor was it close, but it is interesting for a third reason. That being, the third option. B.B.B.F.F. vs The Heart Carol was the matchup that got the most Show results votes.

This was because it was reblogged by @todayontumblr, and as such was shown to a lot of people who don't care about MLP but do like pressing buttons.

Below is how many songs from each season entered the tournament, how many remain, and the percentage that moved on.

Season 1: 18 | 7 (39%) Season 2: 14 | 9 (64%) Season 3: 12 | 8 (67%) Season 4: 19 |13 (68%) Season 5: 14 | 8 (57%) Season 6: 14 | 5 (36%) Season 7: 6 | 3 (50%) Movie : 7 | 6 (85%) Season 8: 7 | 2 (29%) Season 9: 7 | 3 (43%) Promos : 3 | 1 (33%) Comics : 2 | 0 (0%) Other* : 7 | 2 (29%)

*Other refers to songs from Best Gift Ever, Rainbow Roadtrip, the Theme Song, and the song A Pony Kind of Christmas

Of the 131 songs, 67 moved on, or just over half. Seasons 2-5 all performed better than this, while season 1, the later seasons and most other media performed worse. I would guess this is due to Season 1 being full of songlets, and the later seasons and other media being less familiar. The exception to this is the Movie, which impressively won all but one match-up (and even then it was the third closest match)

Here is the above, but with specific episodes with a lot of songs

Magical Mystery Cure : 7 | 5 (71%) Pinkie Pride : 6 | 4 (67%) A Canterlot Wedding : 5 | 4 (80%) A Hearth's Warming Tail : 5 | 4 (80%) Crusaders of the Lost Mark: 4 | 3 (75%) The Mane Attraction : 3 | 3 (100%) Filli Vanilli : 3 | 2 (67%) The Crystal Empire : 3 | 1 (33%) Rainbow Roadtrip : 3 | 0 (0%)

Aside from Rainbow Roadtrip and The Crystal Empire, musical episodes all performed better than half

Now here is the above, but with the character singing the song

Pinkie Pie : 26 |10 (38%) The Mane Six : 17 |12 (71%) The CMC : 12 | 6 (50%) Fluttershy : 9 | 4 (44%) Rarity : 8 | 6 (75%) Twilight : 9 | 5 (56%) Rainbow Dash : 6 | 3 (50%) Applejack : 5 | 4 (80%) Cheese Sandwich: 4 | 3 (75%) Flim and Flam : 4 | 1 (25%) Coluratura : 3 | 3 (100%) Starlight : 3 | 3 (100%) Queen Chrysalis: 3 | 3 (100%) Celestia : 3 | 2 (67%) Spike : 3 | 0 (0%)

Pinkie Pie actually held on better than I expected, considering how many of her songlets got swept. As there are a lot of Pinkie Pie songs, and multiple people provide her singing voice, here is a breakdown of just her Voice Actors

Shannon Chan-Kent: 15 | 9 (60%) Andrea Libman : 10 | 1 (10%) EileMonty : 1 | 0 (0%)

As you can see, Andrea Libman as Pinkie Pie mostly did the songlets that got swept, with the only song she sang remaining being The Fresh Princess of Friendship (though she also sang The Goof-Off, which came close to winning)

As for how my taste conforms to Tumblr's, I have 36 MLP songs saved to my Music folder, and of these, 29 made it to Round 2*

*2 of these songs, At the Gala and True True Friend, were given byes, and so could not have been eliminated. Also, in 2 matchups, I had saved both songs, so the possible range was 4-34

But how about how my 11-year-old self's taste conformed? They had 5 songs saved to their IC Recorder, and of those, 3 made it to Round 2*

*This is kind of cheating, because the fact that I had saved At the Gala and Babs Seed when I was 11 is literally part of the reason they were given byes. So the possible range was 2-5.

Round 2 Starts Today!

[multiplicity-positivity]

Re: your tags about TPA. What harmful beliefs do they have around DID/OSDD and recovery? We're still relatively new when it comes to them and we want to be aware.

*deep breath* hoo boy. so this answer comes from our personal opinion from what we understand about tpa. we’re not experts and we don’t know them personally. you’re welcome to look into their cause and come to your own conclusions. that being said:

it’s definitely debated a lot, and we might get a lot of backlash for saying this, but we believe the plural association does not have the best interests of the plural community at heart. in a search to find out what they actually do at all, it seems like the big things are setting up the plural positivity world conference (that we boosted back in july, it’s basically a rival conference to the isstd conference) and setting up the warmline which we had reblogged that post about. note that as of writing this, the warmline still is not up and functioning. we’re not sure if or when that will happen. a quick look at their website shows a lot of exciting buzzwords “empowering,” “resources,” “community,” etc… but it does appear that all links lead back to the subscription-based community you can join, the warmline, which has been in development for 4-5 years now, and a handful of blog posts written by the stronghold system (and one by the alexandrite system) many of which containing personal experiences framed as absolute truths.

one thing we know about tpa, is they have pulled individual statistics while purposely withholding context in order to make these numbers align with their views multiple times. you can read about one example of this in this discussion post by system speak where they debunked a few claims made by the stronghold system (the main system behind tpa) on the system speak podcast, particularly regarding integration and the theory of structural dissociation. this is where we first learned of tpa’s harmful, incorrect ideas about did/osdd and what recovery means for these individuals, and what our tag was referencing specifically.

you can check out another example in this tweet which was referenced in the post we had reblogged, where tpa claims 62% of their survey respondents indicated that they felt that did/osdd was not understood by crisis hotlines, when the actual statistic is 62% of 60% (since 40% of respondents had never used a hotline), totaling closer to 36% of respondents. we absolutely recommend checking out the full survey results here, so you can see the context for yourself.

overall, we weren’t impressed with their website. it asks for money on almost every page, without disclosing clearly and specifically how that money is used besides “empowering plurals.” community access is behind a subscription paywall, and the free resources and options they offer are opinionated and sparse. after spending time on their website, we believe tpa serves the functions of a blog and a paid service (like patreon, in a way). it doesn’t seem to function like many other nonprofits we know of, which actively do fieldwork with goals of improving the lives of others, yield real, tangible results, and don’t offer more paid services than free ones. it honestly just looks like a place you can go to donate to the stronghold system personally.

this is what we believe after taking a closer look at tpa, who they are, and how they function. again, what we’ve expressed here is our opinion, and we’ve included hyperlinks throughout the post. we definitely encourage you to take a look for yourself and come to your own conclusion. we’re not trying to spread misinfo or sway you one way or the other - we’re just providing our thoughts.

there’s even more we could say here, but this post has gotten long enough. we are happy to continue this discussion with anyone else who chooses - the stronghold system has a big presence in the plural community, and we understand we may not have the complete picture as to who they are and how they run their business (tpa). i’m sorry this post got so long - i honestly do feel a bit betrayed by tpa after doing some research for this response and realizing that their site may actually just be a grift. again, please, please do your own reading and research (you can start with the links we’ve provided) and come to your own conclusions. we don’t have to agree here. we just want to look out for each other!

🐢 kip and 💫 parker

[shantechni]

⚠️[Spoilers for Buddy Daddies EP10 and 11]⚠️

I Wasn't Sad When She Died, I Was Mad

Let me say right away that I do like Kyutaro as a character, he's the in-between of the organization's dark world and the main trio's world of light, the middle man who reminds the audience and characters that he's not a good guy, yet has shown that he's reliable and capable of keeping a secret.

Now then, in spite of all of that, I sort of loathe the guy.

I don't think I'll ever be sure if this is a major L on the writers' part due to time constraints and whatnot, or if they legitimately thought having someone with a moral compass as nomadic and contradictory as the air around you was a good idea.

I guess I should start by mentioning the elephant in the room (something I'd already mentioned in a random reblog last week): he thinks Kazuki and Rei don't have the right to raise Miri after having killed her father. That makes sense out of context, but in the actual context of the show, killing her dad literally has no impact on Miri nor the world around them. Kyutaro keeps nonverbally dubbing himself as the judge for whether or not they'd be willing to bear the sin of killing her dad like they haven't killed dozens of others before (if anything, as Kazuki stated, they have to bear that sin by raising Miri, it's only logical to take responsibility for your actions). Miri's dad doesn't even have a name worth recalling honestly. He's only known for being a human trafficker who cheats on his wife, and bore an illegitimate child with one of his mistresses (of whom he didn't show any recognition for, likely due to him never knowing she existed).

Kazuki and Rei will bear the weight of that sin as well as they've been carrying the weight of their other sins, and Miri will easily go about her life either knowing or not knowing her biological father because it is of no concern to her at this age. Likely wouldn't be of concern to her if she were older either because she doesn't seem like the type of person to dwell on the unknowns that don't need to be known. Children often value those who actually cared for them over someone they've hardly breathed in the same room as, so why would she ever assign any significant amount of emotion towards her real dad when these two grown men are doing so much for her already?

"How do you think she'd feel if she knew?" IDK MAYBE NOTHING

Now then, for the hippo in the room: we saw that he's the one who called Misaki to take Miri back into her custody once Ogino and the organization relentlessly told him to do something about Kazuki and Rei's new life with Miri. And it would make sense to do that, y'know? As I said before in hope, Misaki wouldn't have been on the organization's radar, and as another fan stated, their interest would've likely waned once Miri disappeared and the guys went back to work full-time, right??

Nope, EP11 literally opens up with Shigeki outright telling Rei that Miri and Misaki will be dealt with because he still appears to be attached. Chaos ensues, Misaki unfortunately gets shot and killed, and Kyutaro and Kazuki have to somberly drive Miri back to his safe house without her knowing what transpired.

Now, it's already bad enough that Misaki was clearly willing to put in the effort to change for Miri's sake and happiness, only to sadly meet a tragic end no sooner than when she made the decision.

But, Kyutaro's handling of this whole situation is the only reason Misaki is dead to begin with.

He constantly reminded Kazuki and Rei about what the organization is capable of when you step out of line, but actively put Misaki in danger by connecting her with Miri and the guys when he told her to take Miri. He was so adamant about choosing the best option for Miri's happiness, but he somehow thought separting her from Kazuki and Rei would be in her best interest. He hardly even mentioned her safety now that I think back, he just grilled the guys over keeping her for so long and said she's better off with her mom than the two men who killed her dad. He didn't keep in mind that Miri actually loves them, or that the guys actually love her, that or he stubbornly ignored it. He had the audacity to say, "She meant more to you than I thought," as though he didn't see them literally zoom across the city for her multiple times when she was left at the cafe.

If he really wanted to keep everyone's best interest in mind, he would've taken Miri to the BIG WOODEN SAFE HOUSE HE CONVENIENTLY HAD AT THE END OF EP11, NOT SEND HER OFF TO A PLACE WHERE NO ONE CAN PROTECT HER AT A MOMENT'S NOTICE-

This all just make it seem like bringing Misaki back into the equation was pointless and the worst possible thing to do, and it makes me mad. Yeah sure a little sad, but I'm more so frustrated from the absurdity oozing out of this 'intelligent' man who seems like he'd know what to do when things need to be done. Like, there were better decisions, and this woman lost her life because you thought you were doing the right thing, even though you also thought it wasn't quite the right thing to do.

Unless this is all leading up to some kind of wild twizzler twist near the end, he's an irreconcilable man who does nothing but create the conflict rather than solve it.

[geojester]

Now that I finally have access to polls, here's one I've been wanting to run for a while

I read a lot of fic so I've seen all of these used before. A lot of people probably use more than one but just pick whichever option you default to/use the most

reblogs are appreciated for a larger sample size ^-^

[fbmajor]

Maybe you should take a break?

Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever posted anything related to these characters on here before? May need to go grab some of the older stuff for context. Either way, this is certainly a way to revive this dusty blog. You can thank every social media platform going through a wood chipper recently for that, I suppose.

These are two characters from a very long-standing DnD campaign. The one on the right is my own character, Verity Lapida Solaria, and the one on the left is @midnightwind's Nikolai Zepar. Assuming she sees this and deems it worthy of a reblog, I suppose her followers will now finally be able to see Nik's girlfriend in all of her glory, at least however much glory she can have while standing around in her pajamas.

This particular work features Nik copying spells into his ritual book from a recently acquired spell book. You probably couldn't tell that because I neglected to put anything inside either the book or the sheet of paper he was working on, probably because I would have made it glowy and wanted to do it after I had gone through and done the lighting and shading stuff, but I couldn't really bring myself to do anymore by the time I had done so.

The lighting and shading was particularly fun and insanity-inducing to do. I also ended up getting through it all without realizing my monitor was on its night mode setting the entire time, which minimized brightness. So uh, it'll probably be a bit weird for anyone viewing this on normal monitor settings. Oopsie.

Lighting is always a fun headache when it comes to Verity, because depending on what she's doing and how she's feeling, her hair can be a small light source (as it is in this image), or her entire body can just ignore the ambient lighting and appear as though it were the middle of the day, without actually giving off any light to affect objects around her. As you can imagine, these were qualities that I thought of while writing for her, not drawing her. Both are long stories that shall be saved for another time.

I won't claim to be particularly good at the whole light and shadows thing, but there's just something about pictures that depict a mostly dark scene with just a few small sources of light standing out that really appeals to me. It's a great vibe.

Anyway, back to the subject of the image itself, copying spells in DnD takes a very long time, something like one hour per spell-level. I like to think the process involves a lot of frustration as you have to get every little detail right and it's easy to mess up and have to start over. Nik spent a whole day copying spells over, so I imagine Verity coming back from whatever activities she got up to see Nik still working on this despite it being night time at this point. Nik is being a big grump (as usual), so Verity suggests taking a break.

This isn't an interaction that happened in-session, so there are a myriad ways the exchange might go down. Many of the ones I thought of involved Verity snuffing the candle by holding her breath (another long story), only for Nik to dryly point out that she'll have to breathe eventually, or that he can see in the dark, or that Verity herself gives off enough light for him to continue working, etc. etc. Another funny idea I had was a full on comic that I was never going to draw of Verity snuffing the candle, a panel of Nik's slightly glowy eyes turning to look at and squint at her, maybe a beat panel, and then the final panel of the light turning back on to Nik making out with her on the bed in the background that I didn't want to draw.

All of these options amuse me equally, so I decided to leave the image without any specific dialogue to serve as a fun little ignition for my own imagination.

As one final aside, I can't help but notice that the pictures I draw from this campaign rarely depict any moments of great importance. There's a few scenes that were great emotional moments, but most of the time I find myself gravitating towards drawing scenes like this that just show these two characters interacting in relatively mundane ways.

As you can see, I can't help but include a long rant about my creative process whenever posting my work to this site specifically. I'll cut this one here, but I'll go through my old stuff and (re)post it here with proper tags and talk more about Verity and Nik throughout that whole process. Feel free to look out for those posts if you care to know more.

[bishoukun]

I posted 808 times in 2022

That's 807 more posts than 2021!

19 posts created (2%)

789 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@kakashihasibs

@skykashi

@bakashi-rokudamn

@hashiramaaa

@obihoe

I tagged 185 of my posts in 2022

#written by dei - 10 posts

#dei does expositions - 6 posts

#kakashi - 2 posts

#obihoe - 2 posts

#uwah - 2 posts

#love him - 2 posts

#lmao - 2 posts

#wah - 2 posts

#lmfao - 2 posts

#my boi - 2 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

My Top Posts in 2022:

#4

Regarding the claim that Madara “was asked to pretend [his] lover’s brother didn’t murder [his] own brother.“

Let’s be frank, that didn’t happen. Reposting this exposition because apparently the OP of the claim is toxic trash who thought it was fine to harass me about racism for commenting on a post... about... anime....... yeah.

Picture of original post text below, and the actual text below that under an RM.

Like shoutout to madara 4 trying to be fine and be civil or w.e but what sane person could ever be asked to pretend their lovers brother didn’t murder their own brother

So, important things to add to this.

It was war, not murder. That needs to be distinguished very clearly. Izuna was trying just as hard to kill Tobirama, just like everyone else on that battlefield outside Madara and Hashirama themselves were trying to kill the person or people they were fighting.

It is heavily implied that Tobirama was unaware of and then disbelieving of the fact that his blow actually killed Izuna. He seemed to have taken the rest of the clan’s suspicion over Madara’s word - the word of the man who nearly had his older brother commit suicide or kill him to prove his loyalty, who made his brother act completely irrational on a whole other level - that Madara killed his own brother. He was highly suspicious of Madara, but avoided conflict with Hashirama on it because... well, Hashirama gets terrifying when Madara is involved.

Madara did not have that background context. The level of dissociation and traumatic memory blur that was likely to have covered most of that incident along with understanding the above point - that it was not a personal murder, it was war - led him to try and be at the very least polite to the little brother of his bae.

If for a single instant Hashirama thought it was a personal murder, he’d never ask that of Madara. Not directly, and certainly not pretending it never happened.

If for a single instant Madara ever thought it was a personal murder, he’d not have given Hashirama that second option to prove he could be trusted. He would have made sure that however he died, he took Tobirama with him.

2 notes - Posted July 10, 2022

#3

@kakashihasibs​ I immediately imagined No Children echoing through a classroom and now I’m going to piss myself laughing!

3 notes - Posted December 7, 2022

#2

🌊 for the Naruto ask game.

Th-there as an anon in my askbox?!

I may or may not have actually jumped in shock.

See the full post

3 notes - Posted July 10, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

#wanna hear all of your Sukea theories and headcanons too 😍

[cracks knuckles] @skykashi​ Brace for some feels and a long-ass post, friend.

Theory and headcanon overlap a lot with Sukea because I need to have a solid grasp on him and the decisions Kakashi made to create him for my writing. (And writing Sukea is so much fun!) So, I’ll try to clarify where different headcanons come into play.

The first thing of note is portrayed so fucking perfectly by a fanart I found on pintrest. Now, because I found it there and do not know the identity of the artist, I’ll not be posting the original picture. This is all about appearance, and how appearance leads toward the definition of origin and background, so I’m going to take the concept that the piece points out and show it to you here. I’ll note that this isn’t headcanon or theory - this is very intentional by design in canon, but it doesn’t hit until you see them side by side.

Sukea is designed to be connected, at the very least visually, to Rin.

There could be hundreds of reasons for this, some of them subconscious, and some of them practical. It’s hard for me to put into words why consciously I think he designed Sukea this way, but subconsciously is a different story, and comes down to three things.

Self-punishment

Emotional security

What neither he nor Rin got to be, but could have been

Which also leads into Sukea’s personality, but that I’ll address later on.

Self-punishment in this case I think is fairly transparent. There is no way to be so closely connected visually, thematically, at all really, without having to think of her. He already spends countless hours dedicated to her, telling her literally everything that is happening to and around him. He does this more so than with Obito, and there are reasons for that which come into play in the next one.

Rin, unlike Obito, was always able to get along with Kakashi - to the point where she could get him to ease off on Obito and be slightly less of a brat, which even Minato couldn’t get him to do. We also see that he’s comfortable with her touching him, which if you stop and think about, he is almost always either the one initiating contact, avoiding or deflecting it, visibly uncomfortable, or it’s Gai.

They also have more time together after Obito’s death, which was a shared trauma. Kakashi has some major notable changes in his core beliefs and opens himself more to acknowledging he cares about people. Rin is present through both trauma and major changes and instability, and she’s always a caring and gentle. Essentially, the way I tend to interpret it, at this point Rin and Minato are family to him, and they’re familiar. It’s easy to slip into a role that you’re already familiar with, even if you alter it.

Which he does, bringing me to the third sub-con reason. When we consider Sukea’s personality, I can describe him more or less as: “If Kakashi wasn’t made of trauma and anger and did a gem fusion with Rin.” Mischief? Check. Sass? Check. Drama? Check. With Sukea being a “retired” shinobi, whatever reasons both Kakashi and Rin had for becoming shinobi in the first place are still recognized, and because he’s primarily a non-combatant, he’s able to do things for cover that are, to be frank, sometimes really childish.

But it goes one step further than that, and this is why I think Sukea was and is a long-term active use cover persona. (Though if we take all of Boruto as canon, which frankly I don’t, Sukea has been retired when we see him again.) There are a lot of freedoms from responsibility and expectation Sukea is able to take advantage of, and a part of that includes what is more than necessary for someone as reserved as Kakashi; he can react in the moment and he can react genuinely and emotionally. Instead of the more subtle sighs and stares, Sukea is significantly more dramatic and emotive. And impulsive, which sometimes gets him into trouble, or almost does. (That’s the risk of Sukea being so close to himself, but being close to yourself is also the most reliable way of maintaining consistency and a continuity of narrative.)

Interestingly, and I personally think this is primarily because the times we’ve seen him have been within the village, he never gives his surname. Why would this matter only in the village? Nohara. I absolutely headcanon that Sukea’s full name is Nohara Sukea, and this forms a core part of his background when undercover, which could be debunked only if someone is familiar with the Nohara clan.

There’s also a reason, I think, for the scarf, but that comes with another major headcanon that strays from Sukea directly into Kakashi himself, his reason for wearing a mask and scarf, and addresses a mystery that is heavily implied throughout the series.

Inuzuka have the most sensitive and acute sense of smell of any clan. Kakashi has a better sense of smell than Kiba, by far, and there’s another indicator that we’re given very plainly. Actually, there are eight of them. Sakumo had nothing tying him to ninken, and yet Kakashi raised eight of them from the time they were pups. Those two in combination heavily, heavily imply that his mother, who we sadly never get to see, was an Inuzuka.

With that in mind, I have two words to fill in a surprisingly simple explanation for why he wears a mask (and sometimes also a scarf) as a child, and why Sukea has a scarf as well: Sensory. Overload.

It’s probable that Obito had the same thing going on auditorily before having, uh, ninja-god DNA spliced into him.

And with that, I think, possibly? Those are my most prominent HCs and theories about Sukea. I’ll only add that, hoo boyo, writing Kakashi and writing Sukea are entirely different experiences, and the few times there’s a slip on Kakashi’s part? It’s absolutely hilarious. One such instance resulted in a momentary complete lack of concentration and nearly falling on his face as a result.

50 notes - Posted July 11, 2022

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