#mesoamerican inspired

[drowzydeer]

A handful of finished icons! Took me a lot longer than I intended due to classes but I really like how these came out nonetheless. I got two more to post but I'll save those two homos for later lol. Kudos to whoever guesses correctly!

[navii-blaze]

Thinking about her the other day

[cryptvokeeper]

its my oc's and i get to make up incorrect quotes abt them:

Fisher: How do you not know??? Peck: I never learned!!! Wren, leaning toward Sedge: *whispers* what are they fighting about? Sedge: *also whispering* Peck is illiterate Wren: what Sedge: yeah she cant read Fisher: what do you MEAN you never learned your people literally invented the writing system!!! Peck: I WAS A PEASANT FARMER AND PUBLIC SCHOOL HASNT BEEN INVENTED YET CUT ME SOME SLACK

[loveaetingkids]

Speaking of two headed serpents that represent the ultimate evil heroes have to overcome in order to win:

[foefire-flame]

Ik we dont see the dif citadels in game but itd be cool if they had very clear different architecture...I know we actually see this with the blood keep but brick vs Metal isnt enough to me. I want to see some very clear differences, Like itd be cool to see clear nods to Roman architecture in the Blood Keep Like arches and pillars and more symmetrical designs. Although if it were up to ME id actually go with Mesoamerican architecture bc meesa loves noneuropean representation and I actually do think itd fit the blood legion well + the sharp edges and the like

[sweenstar-reblogs]

I stopped playing genshin upon the release of Sumeru and its complete lack of respect for the South Asian regions the devs claimed it was inspired by, but i hope any indigenous fans r doing ok rn 😭

[skunkes]

hi one quastion ✋️

how old is the crinkled tissue man . im curious bc hes a vampire i wish to know the lore, apologies if you have answered this b4 :]

he was turned when he was 29 (tho this number keeps changing LOL) and he's maybe over 400 neow? ^_^!

(dis is also still open to change as he's a New Oc im still cooking in brain)

[pupuseriazag]

A friend told me about the Murata leak for Natlán and if its real I am going to be so fucking disapppointed but sadly not surprised.

I've been expecting them to AT FUCKING LEAST do some fucking research on mesoamerican fashion and not just do stereotypical eagle warriors (or worse, doing whatever the fuck is going on with that Murata leak). And listen if thats supposed to be the archon I m going to fucking explode

So many good designs could come just by taking the Mexica pantheon as reference. Since shes supposed to be the god of war she could take some symbolism from Huitzilopochtli! Since, you know, HE IS THE GOD OF WAR IN THE MEXICA PANTHEON

Thats of course assuming we were right about Natlán being based in Mesoamerica (which by the name makes sense since the suffix -tlán is often used in Nahuatl meaning "place of ---" (examples from my country: Suchitlan, Cuzcatlan, Usulutan, Amatitlan.) -tan being the Nawat variant.)

I just hope they dont go that fucking route or keep it a level where the most we can get is the traditional garments acquired AFTER the spanish conquest, ponganle un poco de empeño por la gran puta, que hay un REVERGASAL de donde sacar si se ponen a investigar por lo menos una pinche media hora leyendo codices y libros sobre mesoamerica.

And thats assuming they would only use the mexica culture as main inspiration tho, if they are planning to take ALL mesoamerican cultures (or at least, the ones we have more archives and info about) its going to be more difficult considering the differences in clothing/myths/makeup/weapons.

I am killing myself if they dont add weapons made from obsydian tho. A macahuitl at fucking least or a long tecpatl as sword

[alien-tidays]

anyone else just randomly get hit with that reoccurring realization that every fuckin aspect of the fantasy genre is just choked and suffocated by european centralism

[gumjamin]

I can tell you that the Ronkan ruins and pyramids have this vague mesoamerican/mayan inspiration, but that's only in the small area north of the Viis' home and Qitana Ravel itself. The greater Rak'tika greatwood seems to be inspired by the jungle areas like Chíapas and Yucatan in Mexico where you can find most of the temples from those civilizations (teotihuacan for example) but it feels a little.... Vague? Like it was inspired by it, but not necessarily cohesive with the rest of the vibes in Rak'tika??? Idk.

Tho that might have more to do with like... The ways things are named lmao. Imo they should've the Ixal or their equivalent in the First instead of the Qitari but that's a whole other can of worms.

Im trying to take note of real world influences in XIV for some projects going forward, like languages used in areas (French names in Ishgard, Roman terms in Garlemald) or like in aesthetics I suppose (like Radz-at-han in particular reminds me of Istanbul), and I'd like to hear others' thoughts about those kinds of influences that they've noticed

(little more context on things im working on under the cut)

right now this has a lot to do with things like stamps lmao I have in fact gotten kinda into stamp collecting now and I'd like to design some for XIV areas based on similar irl counterpart countries? like regular stamps and stuff like a sort of Garlean version of US postal war savings stamps? so having irl countries to reference for stamp styles would be helpful to like figure that stuff out

and honestly all of this is just part of making a physical copy of Q'ihnn's journal more complicated than it needs to be but never let it be said that I dont have a love of unnecessarily dense world building

plus by having a list of reference countries I can also build out other kinds of like, souvenirs? in the journal from the places visited across msq - a lot of things I see people keep in journals, especially travel ones, are stuff like wrappers or other packaging, pieces of maps, receipts (that's its own rabbit hole ive gone down), ticket stubs, and other various little paper things along with photos and drawings (which are much easier to manage in comparison)

cause a lot of this shit doesnt extensively exist within the game often beyond a mention in a stray line of dialogue or two so there's advantages to having irl cultural and historical reference to make something that feels real - plus im often off in lala fantasy land in my head because im stuck at home a lot, im not exactly well traveled, so im sure its easy for me to miss especially like language use in certain areas (I didnt even notice how French Ishgardian names were until someone else made a joke about it, it just doesnt occur to me)

like some of these influences are fairly obvious, right, like Doma and Kugane being Japanese inspired and Greek influence around Sharlayan (which the Greek/Roman dichotomy that Sharlayan and Garlemald have going on is its own whole thing I could go into btw they're so similar yet different in such interesting ways) - but places like Ul'dah?? not a clue. Ala Mhigo? no idea. The Crystarium and Eulmore in the first??? oh I'd put my head through a wall trying to thing of a real world counterpart for reference

granted now having said that someone is going to point out something obvious that I just entirely missed some way or another lmao but like that's why im asking, right? anyway if you have nerd ass thoughts too just hit me up

[guardianbee]

I think wakanda forever actually altered my timeline for the better so thanks for that, ryan.

[dreadfutures]

my mythal redesign, part of my whole mesoamerican-inspired elvhenan designs, i will probably change the colors but for a start design i'm finally kind of happy.

i wanted some of morrigan's colors (purple), flemeth's (the red), and elvhenan (gold, lyrium) and mythal specifically (the rainbow, the "flowers"/"eyes" on her belt are inspired by spirits, as well as her mosaic, and her the design on her belt's tassel, her brooch, and the center of her overskirt, represent her dominion over the pillars of the earth.

edit: oh and also i wanted to incorporate some andrastian vibes, since they literally end up building a temple over mythal's temple

i also really wanted her to look like a very severe telenovela mom. lmao

she's not wearing vallaslin - she's wearing war paint. after defeating the titans and building an empire, the war paint she and her family wore to protect the People became the basis of the vallaslin slave brands used to keep the People in line.

[centrally-unplanned]

Time for a pet peeve take response - let me capture our target below:

[Unpopular Fantasy Opinion Take:] The fantasy genre by-and-large took the wrong takeaway from Tolkien, and has been generally spiraling since as a result. They took his surface-level aesthetics and fantastical elements, and left his engagement with real, historical texts, his philology & his moral seriosity. In a different timeline, subsequent authors would have adopted Tolkien's erudite love of language and mythology and applied it to other cultures & mythologies - not just superficially, but by engaging with the great Chinese novels or the Shahnameh like he did with Beowulf. Even when you *do* see more recent novels "inspired by" other cultures, they are very blatantly just taking the (degraded distillate of the) Western, Tolkien-esque tradition and coating it in a thin veneer of Chinese or Mesoamerican lore.

This is not the first time I have seen this specific take, and it is part of a "fallen literature" genre that is always confusing supply & demand, with a hefty bout of selection bias for good measure.

To get the obvious out of the way, the "lessons" people took from Tolkien are entirely what audiences want to read, and were never going to be any other way. Most people don't wanna read hard, heavy books! Even if they want that sometimes, for every one Gravity's Rainbow they are gonna read a dozen Gone Girl's as a palette-cleansing snack, which means by-the-numbers the latter will dominate. Fantasy did not invent the genre of adventure stories and swashbuckling heroes and hot maidens to woo and mystical mumbo-jumbo; people stapling tried-and-true genre tropes onto elves and orcs once they took off was a given. The "shallow" part was the only part that could have changed; a world where the median fantasy novel is dealing with theological issues could never have been.

And to top this all off, no disrespect to Tolkien at all, but like...he isn't that deep? The "moral seriousness" of the Lord of the Rings is very simple - characters are often cartoonishly evil or blatantly good, the conflicts they face are often black and white, and in particular the moral dilemmas faced by characters boil down to tests of courage more than half the time. What Tolkien does have is his own unique interests? Like in Middle Earth the "act of creation", from art to life, is itself a moral undertaking with metaphysical implications. This is super cool - but it is also again very simple, it is barely even discussed in the novels and his ideas can be summarized in a paragraph. This is all good btw! The novels would not benefit from more complicated morality. But modern books are just as complex, and often more so.

Actually just a little aside here - a lot of people do this thing with Tolkien where they mention his letters and drafts like that is canonical story text? Yeah he wrote like an essay about the theological implications of the various orc origin stories, but he didn't publish that, it is nowhere in the Lord of the Rings and is barely in the Silmarillion. Other authors have notes like those; you just don't read them.

And the "other cultures" stuff is particularly egregious - I'm sorry, are we just not reading many modern stories? You think Spinning Silver isn't pulling great threads from Slavic folklore? You think the Chinese Gays in Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed aren't dropping refs to Daoism and the four classics in between their will-they-won't-they necromancy shenanigans? In response this author would, of course, pivot from their bailey of "no one references other traditions" to the motte of "and if they do it is shallow" with no definition of what qualifies as such, nor again any admittance that audiences care way more about getting the gays than the deep cut cultural refs. The fact that the median person in the west prefers their Dungeons & Dragons campaigns in a default Tolkien-esque setting because the point is to have a comfortable backdrop for ease of play of a combat dice game will just not factor into their analysis.

The elephant in the room for all of this is that foundational texts differ, structurally, from modern texts, because they were made in different environments. The Lord of the Rings probably wouldn't sell well today! The prose is wooden, the characters are flat, it throws random lore it never explains at you, Tom Bombadil is just there as a walking momentum-destroying plot hole, etc. People read it because it was a first in a world that didn't have books committing to this level of world-building & detail in a fantasy environment. And as a new genre, things like his crazy level of language building are appealing, it's all so new and different, something cool to dig into.

But imagine picking up your 185th elves-and-orcs sword & sorcery book in 1998 and reading "ah yes Quenya is just one of two alphabets for the Elven tongue and it is inspired by Finnish-Germanic and I write entire poems in it even though I never finished a cohesive dictionary or grammar system but I do have 15 pages of pronunciation notes"?? You would throw at it at a fucking wall, absolutely insufferable. It was cool the first time, and that is why you learn Elvish, just like you learn Klingon. That was never gonna keep as a zeitgeist - instead just popping up here or there as this or that series takes off.

You have to accept that audiences are in the driver's seat on this one - they have infinite stories to choose from, they are absolutely not being dragged along by willful writers. Which means genres will evolve and change over time - and that is fine.

[acmoorereadsandwrites]

Books to Try if You Loved the Grishaverse

If you liked the magical heists but you wanted more werewolves, vampires, nine-tailed foxes, and fae, try:

Zodiac Rising by Katie Zhao, a YA heist inspired by Chinese folklore.

The fountainheads of the zodiac families have been taken and Evangeline’s older brother has been found dead, with all signs leading to the fae being responsible for both. Evangeline gathers a team of three other students to help her get the statues back, but things are never that simple when you’re on a heist with your ex or enter the fae world.

If you wanted to spend more time inside The Fold and liked the complicated romances, try:

The Gods Below by Andrea Stewart, the first in an epic fantasy trilogy

Two sisters forced on opposite sides of a war when Hakara escapes a godly force that either kills or transforms anyone trapped in it and the younger sister, Rasha, is changed into the god’s image. One sister will never give up hope of reuniting and the other learns the world is a lot more cruel than she originally believed.

If you wanted more Queer stories about destroying your monstrous ex, try:

The Sins on Their Bones by Laura R. Samotin, a standalone MM fantasy inspired by Ashkenazi Jewish folklore

Dimitri was the Tzar, once, before his estranged husband took his place and forced him into hiding with what’s left of his court. With his new lover, Dimitri will destroy Alexey if it’s the last thing he’ll do. But Alexey is not ready ready to left Dimitri go and will do whatever he can to get him back.

You want the heist and the found family and addictive romance, but you wanted a contemporary with no magical elements, try:

Women of Good Fortune by Sophie Wan, a contemporary set in Shanghai

Best friends Lulu, Jane, and Rina plan a heist to steal the money gifted to Lulu and her fiancee on Lulu’s wedding day to fund their dreams. But as they plan, obstacles pop up and some parts of their lives are maybe not as bad as they originally thought.

If you wanted more time in The Fold, destroying your monstrous ex, and you loved the Eastern European-inspired setting but you wanted more witches and dragons, try:

Foul Days Genoveva Dimova, the first in a Bulgarian fantasy duology inspired by the Iron Curtain

Kosara is a witch who willingly gave up her shadow, and her magic, to escape her home and her ex, the zmey. But she’s dying without her shadow. The only way to save herself is to go back and face her past.

If you loved the complicated relationship, you really love the enemies-to-lovers witch x witch hunter romance found in Nina and Matthias’ story, but you wanted a fantasy romance, try:

Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli, the first in a YA/New Adult Romantasy duology

Rune is a witch in hiding who has been doing everything she can to save her fellow witches from the witch hunters. Gideon is the brother of Rune’s childhood best friend and a witch hunter out to kill every witch and was traumatized by one of the former witch queens. When the two agree to pretend to court, this cat-and-mouse game will reignite old attractions and heavy prices will be paid

If you loved what Netflix’s Shadow and Bone did with casting Alina and Mal as biracial but wanted more conversations around the complexities of being biracial during colonization and war, try:

Sun of Blood and Ruin by Mariely Lares, a YA historical fantasy first in a planned series inspired by Zorro and Mesoamerican mythology

Leonora has taken the manacle of Pantera, fighting the colonizers every chance she gets to free her people from their oppression while also reconciling with her own identity as a biracial woman in a world where she has to be one or the other.

If you loved the elemental magic and found family but you also love fairy tale retellings, try

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale, the first of a four book YA fantasy series

Princess Anidori is engaged to marry a man she has never met, Prince Geric. Her maid forcibly takes her place and sends Ani to become the new goose girl of the king. What the maid wasn’t aware of was that Ani has growing magical powers and that her kindness would win her allies to help get her throne back.

If you loved the angst of Kaz and Inej’s love story but want more tragedy, more poetic language, and less fantasy, try:

A Song to Drown Rivers by Ann Liang, a standalone romantic historical retelling the legend of one of the Four Beauties of Ancient China

Xishi is one of the most beautiful women Fanli, an advisor to the emperor, has ever seen, prompting him to ask her to distract the king so a coup can come and overthrow him. Xishi agrees but wanted neither expected was to fall for each other as they prepare to be separated.

[mekatrio]

the analysis in question. while it initially present itself as an analysis of mm's music, it really goes in depth about mm's development + the east asian cultural influences in majora's mask, particularly it's chinese influences, before it examines how it affects mm's music. like super in depth, which is really cool! i hadnt rly known abt the chinese influences in majora's mask, so this was rly interesting to read about.

im a bit wary of their usage of the terms "east" and "oriental", but aside from that this analysis is rly great. i wish i knew who specifically wrote this article, so i could know how they became familiar with all these topics (had they studied this formally?) very great read 10/10

smiling and shimmying cuz i found a good majora's mask analysis

[captainx-camino]

It's just genetic

it's written in your DNA

It's symptomatic

at least that's what the doctors say

It's in your nature finding darkness in the brightest day

But here we are

'Cause you were made from stars to live a life you'll never love

So, if this is the last night, and you're feeling hollow

I'll give you my half life so you'll see tomorrow

There isn't anywhere that I wouldn't follow

I'm chasing your last light to wherever I go

Oh, our elements change into chemical traces

Reactions that they'll never know

If this is the last time that we'll ever borrow

I'll give you my half life so you'll see tomorrow

Have some highlights (aka some of my favorite details in the piece)

1. Luffy's scar represented as star shaped markings on Nika's cheek.

2. Nika's arm cuff, inspired by the map he gives Buggy in Impel Down.

3. Nika's outfit loosely inspired by Luffy's Gear 5 first appearance outfit.

4. Buggy's body hair. (Djkskdkskdjej)

5. Their shoes - Nika's loosely inspired by pre-columbian mesoamerican cactles (obviously with some fantasy liberties taken) and Luffy's usual chanclas, and Buggy's inspired by his original poulaine style footwear.

6. Buggy's obi and dressings inspired from Buggy's Matsuri design on the vol 8 can badge button pin from 2015 (?)