#misread a wiki page i did

[sweaterkittensahoy]

Anyone out here who either 1) definitely knows me on a personal level or 2) has read a LOT of my fic who can start an alpha read on this Lemmons/Rosenthal fic?

I'm looking for someone who knows my style, is also maybe a little shocked I am eschewing historical accuracy, but is also just hear for the party while willing to make a note if I'm redundant/boring/dumb.

I feel good about things, but when I write this quickly and with this much internal screaming about emotions, it helps to have someone who is cheering for me but can also go, "Gayle, that sentence is very fucking long."

[spiribia]

I took a peek at marcille's wiki page right before reading the manga, and misread "marcille's familiars" as "marcille's family". So for the first few chapters I would occasionally just think to myself "damn, and she has to deal with her ma n pa turning into chicken nuggies later..."

well honestly somebody she loved did turn into a giant chicken. and also nuggets probably

[sniperdadmaccready]

Wait arent mick and ralph siblings?? Or did i misread the game

There's nothing in the game to insinuate that they are whereas any canonical siblings we see in the game (ie - the Garretts or Van Graffs) are pretty explicitly stated to be related. Furthermore, the wiki pages tend to list relatives and neither Mick nor Ralph have any listed. They do have each other under the Affiliations list, but that is an entirely different category.

Additionally, a quick search on their dialog pages doesn't yield any results for terms like "brother" or "dad" or "cousin" or anything of that nature in regards to each other (in fact I think Ralph only says the word brother once and it's when he's talking about Gloria Van Graff and Jean Baptiste Cutting).

I'd also argue that it would be extremely weird for siblings to be sharing a queen sized bed when there's more than enough space (and they have the resources) to each have their own.

I need to be VERY clear that I do not support incest ships but I also want to be very clear that there is no reason in game to believe that they are brothers (at least as far as I can tell). You can interpret the game any way that you'd like, which is the main reason I interpret them as a couple. They call each other "my partner" which could just be for business purposes, but as a queer person myself I get really heavy subtext that there is more there than just a business relationship.

If anyone has any definitive proof otherwise I'd be open to hearing it, but I researched the topic a LOT before I sat down to write my fic and I'm fairly confident they aren't related.

[wordsandrobots]

You mentioned a while ago a Gundam Eligos. I’d love to hear about your… process I suppose (how did you go about thinking it up, what influenced you decision to make it the Eligos, to arm it as you did etc.).

I mention it because I suddenly remembered a little while ago the existence of these two fake Ibo Gundam’s (I think that became popular around the second season) and I got curious on what your perspective would be on them, if any.

I apologise if you already mention this in one of your fanfics. I’m afraid Iron Blooded Orphans just isn’t really the sort of series I seek out fan fiction of (though if that ever changes, your stuff’ll be top of the list).

Oh, yeah, I quite like that fan-art (original links are these, I believe https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/60410296, https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/58286615?), though I feel the aesthetic skews away from IBO's baseline. Halphas in particular doesn't look right to me and I think that's because it's aping UC or 00 style 'suits too closely.

Anyway - no need to apologise; I get having things you don't seek fan fic out for, I'm the same. I'll note for the record that what I'm going to say contains spoilers but with one (highlighted) exception, they're broadly unimportant.

In total, I made up two Gundams, four pseudo-Gundams, and one adjacent 'new' mobile suit for Wishing on Space Hardware. If you'll indulge me, I'll go through the logic behind each of them in order of appearance.

The first Gundam is little more than a placeholder. I literally needed something to fit between Barbatos and Gusion in a line-up of frames for two characters to walk past. Due to misreading a wiki page, I originally labelled this Seere, which obviously is a Gundam that already exists, at the other end of the number sequence. But then I found this list which is easier to follow and renamed it Paimon (ASW-G-09). I described it as a scout model, slender and winged, which doesn't quite fit with the description of Paimon the demon. However, since that demon's rank is King, like Bael, describing it as similar sort of works. Clearly, my thought process on this one wasn't especially deep! The background I gave Paimon was that it had been in a private collector's war museum in a non-operational state. Some rich guy bought it from salvagers and put it on display. This seemed like a reasonable fate for a Gundam frame to have suffered and I used it later to bulk-out a list of extant frames.

The psuedo-Gundams are all copies of Flauros. Very easy! The idea behind them is that following The Incident, Gjallarhorn authorised an attempt to reproduce the Gundam frame with a view to better controlling the technology. A recovered Flauros was used as the template owing to the transformation mechanism, the Dainsleifs, and the fact that Shino very nearly killed Rustal Elion with it, which created a lot of shock-waves (it's a thread in my fics that this has as many long-term consequences as Barbatos' final rampage, while everyone kind of forgets about Gusion).

I hand-waved the difficulty of building new Gundam frames on the notion that 1) nobody ever tried before, 2) the problem of running two reactors in parallel gets solved over the course of the fics, and 3) the resulting 'Flauri' are technically inferior anyway, being less powerful and less resilient compared to a real Gundam frame (a fact that, as of writing, is about to become extremely important). All this said, the chief reason for making them Flauros-copies is thematic: this is a story where Shino narrowly survives and is taken prisoner. It's a big part of his arc that Gjallarhon takes everything uniquely 'his' and twists it for their own ends.

The Flauri start out as unpainted copies of Flauros' short cannon form, using Gjallarhorn railguns. F-4 remains more or less in this configuration throughout; F-3 switches out its guns for a laser cannon and an electro-harpoon weapon designed to disable enemy 'suits; F-2 is given the full original Flauros weaponry; and F-1 is refitted for melee combat with a set chainsaw/claw weapons in place of the stabiliser feet on the arms. Then, as the story progresses, F-2 gets outfitted the same as F-1, which in turn...well, that actually is a spoiler I don't want to share just yet! Point is, Gundam Flauros has a nicely 'neutral' design compared to a lot of the IBO 'suits, so it was very easy to picture how different weaponry would be bolted on. (Also, while Flauros becomes the template for the completed 'suits, development of the frame was based on an impounded Dantalion, so the idea of switchable equipment is there from the start.)

The long and short of this segment: I started with the thematic idea and thought about how far I could stretch it, following the logic I'd established in the story.

The 'new' mobile suit is another output of the above project: a Reginlaze-like frame that incorporates Flauros' transformation gimmick. The Leopard (named for Flauros the demon's common form) is basically an IBO equivalent of a Guncannon and sort of a joke that swings around to being serious. They were rolled out quickly as a way to shore up Gjallarhorn's relationships with the Earth blocs and Mars when there was a risk that the above Gundam-replication might be publicly exposed. As such, they've got a massively sub-par performance compared to actual Reginlazes. However, this doesn't stop a couple being stolen by terrorists and used for long-range sniping operations, or Gjallarhorn deploying their own, higher-spec models as fusiliers. The high-brow justification for this is as an illustration of more consequences of Tekkadan's actions, but honestly? I just thought mashing Flauros' design elements into a Reginlaze would work nicely.

And finally - to address your actual question! - Gundam Eligos.

OK, so, context: Eligos is not actually called Eligos for the majority of the story. It goes under the pseudonym 'Skoll', as in 'Hati and Skoll', the wolves who chase the sun and moon in Norse mythology. Being a 'moon-chaser' is a loaded double-meaning given that its pilot is one of the Tekkadan survivors. Likewise, due to who it is fighting for (a different terrorist group, apparently headed by a new 'Montag'), its modern appearance is patterned on the Grimgerde: red armour, swept-back fins, shields on its arms. That is principally why it has the armaments it does: shorter versions of the rare-metal blades built into the shields (which themselves flip around to reveal guns are the other end, because seriously, how many of those rifles did Mackie throw away?). It's also fitted with a booster pack for the majority of its appearances: big, triangular wings loaded with additional reactors to allow it to move incredibly fast compared even to normal Gundams. This thing is built for hit-and-run, designed to cut through enemy lines as swiftly as possible, because for a long time it's functionally the only mobile weapon this group has at their disposal. While it is later joined by 'Hati' (a Schwalbe Graze variant), that 'suit serves a very different purpose.

[To whit: Hati is equipped with the combination of a Dainsleif launcher with a beam-weapon, intended to negate the resistance effects of nano-laminate. The javelins it fires are hollow and filled with reflectors, creating a path for the beam. As you might imagine, this is a precision weapon to a frankly ridiculous degree, so Hati is functionally static while in operation. Ergo, Skoll has to handle any mobile suits in play while Hati targets enemy ships.]

The reason I'm starting with all this is because it's what came first. I made Skoll up before I picked which Gundam frame it was built around. I wanted a Grimgerde/Gundam hybrid that ran with Tekkadan's 'one man commando unit' concept. I decided it had been recovered with very little of its original armour intact, so its original identity was irrelevant in terms of what it could actually do.

However, obviously I couldn't leave it there! So: which to use?

I wanted a relatively low number, because the backstory I settled on was that this Gundam had been involved in the battle that left Barbatos (ASW-G-08) abandoned on Mars. Strictly, there was no reason to focus on the low-end of the sequence since I roped Flauros (ASW-G-64) into the same scenario, but it was a way to narrow things down. Another thing I used was association with the colour red (because Skoll is very much the 'rival' machine for these fics).

This led me to the page on that same roleplaying wiki I linked above for Eligos. Which is absolutely not an academically rigorous source. I spent a good fifteen minutes just now tracing the source for describing this demon as wearing a red coat (apparently it's from 'The Red Book of Appin' though I don't have the energy this morning to confirm the exact quote). Fortunately, it doesn't really matter because Crowley's edition of the Ars Goetia is sufficient to explain my final reasoning:

ELIGOS — The Fifteenth Spirit in Order is Eligos, a Great Duke, and appeareth in the form of a goodly Knight, carrying a Lance, an Ensign, and a Serpent. He discovereth hidden things, and knoweth things to come; and of Wars, and how the Soldiers will or shall meet. He causeth the Love of Lords and Great Persons. He governeth 60 Legions of Spirits. His Seal is this, etc.

I'm not wedded to the idea that the demonic descriptions need to be a one-to-one match for the machines or the pilots, but there's some fitting stuff here. First, it's 'goodly' as in 'handsome', which is beautifully ironic for a variety of reasons. Second, the lance. As I fleshed out what had happened to this frame, I realised I needed to have it use a spear or lance, because while I'd decided the katana was Barbatos's original weapon, the circumstances I was inventing required it to wield a longer weapon at a dramatic juncture. Therefore, that needed to come from another Gundam. And third, there were the references to knowing the future and matters pertaining to wars.

(Due diligence note: slightly more major spoilers for the fic follow)

.

.

.

This is what solidified the pick. You see, something I omitted from my description of Gjallarhorn's Gundam replication project is that the frames are only part of it. They also wanted the means to reproduce the piloting abilities Tekkadan showed. This led to the creation of the 'Alaya-Vijnana Type Zero', an AI model fed on battle data from people (Shino) who used the A-V. This enables the creation of new Type E systems sans the necessity of wiring dead people's brains into a mobile suit. As a concept, this met with mixed success but it's relevant here because the group operating Skoll got their hands on a copy of the specs and incorporated it into their Gundam alongside a standard A-V. This ramps up the information processing capacities of the system so it can very precisely identify incoming threats and respond accordingly, allowing someone with only a single whisker to operate at the level of someone with two or three. It becomes a 'sixth sense' for the pilot, which fits Eligos' realm of knowledge perfectly.

(And to confirm the obvious: yes, it's a Gundam Wing reference.)

With this established, I back-filled what Gundam Eligos (ASW-G-15) had been like. In appearance, it takes cues from 00's Gundam Zabanya, having an articulated 'cloak' of shield panels used to deflect incoming attacks and let it muscle in close to its target. Its primary weapon was designed for skewering and it would probably have had beefed-up thrusters to enable this mode of combat. For its original incarnation, the connection to 'knowledge of wars' is that its pilot was strategist for Gjallarhorn's Mars contingent.

To summarise the finalised backstory: Barbatos, Eligos and Flauros were deployed to the Chryse Planitia to combat a squadron of Hashmals, but the mobile armours split up, forcing the Gundams to do the same. Flauros ended up using its Dainsleifs at very close range, burying itself along with the Hashmal that would later reactivate thanks to Iok. Barbatos and Eligos fought the remainder but were overwhelmed. In a last-ditch effort, Barbatos used Eligos' abandoned lance to puncture the Ahab reactors on one of the Hashmals. The resulting gravitational upset blew Barbatos into the middle of the desert and ripped the armours to bits. Eligos was caught in the blast and crushed by the wreckage, the frame left repairable but its equipment written off.

And to summarise the answer to your question: there you have it. A mix of ideas that I then matched to the entry in the Ars Goetia I felt fitted best with where I was going. I'm both a 'what would be cool' or a 'what serves the plot best' writer when it comes to creating stuff for fanfic/fanart, but I do like to work through a justification for whatever I invent, even if it doesn't get much focus.

Thanks for asking! I know I've rambled on a lot, but that's simply because it was fun to collate my reasoning in one place.

[Addendum: There is one additional 'new; 'suit I included (past obvious things like Shidens using the two-horned alternate mask from the options set and that one random Hloekk with forklifts for arms), which is the J-class Reginlaze, a high-mobility variant that's basically a normal Reginlaze with Julia-style wing-thrusters on its shoulders. This is mainly by 'rule of cool' logic: overall, I have been trying to resist throwing in new 'suits at every opportunity because I really enjoy IBO not doing that. But sometimes, the urge to be self-indulgent is hard to fight!]

[madeimpact]

Meta: why Subspace Lucas’s characterization sucks (kinda) and fanon Lucas sucks (a lot) and you should just play Mother 3 instead.

So, to know why subspace flopped in some areas ( and we’re just talking about Lucas here, never mind the rest of the characters ) and did well in others, you have to know the basic plotline of Mother 3. That information is on my pages and on wikis and whatnot ( cough, and in the game, cough ).

But just to briefly summarize it here for the purposes of having everyone up to speed for this meta: Lucas and company live in a utopian, low-tech village where money isn’t a thing and everyone just does things for each other just because. Lucas is the meeker between him and his brother and is branded as a crybaby by the other villagers until the tragedy with his mom and brother. Flint spends all his time looking for Claus. Pigmask army starts bringing in capitalism. Three years go by and Lucas is pretty much on his own. He decides he wants to get stronger.

He remains gentle and compassionate, but becomes much braver in those three years. This guy puts it pretty succinctly.

Fast forward a bit, and basically, because Lucas can use PK Love, and the commander in the Pigmask army can also use PK Love, both of them can pull the Needles that seal a dragon under the islands that can basically destroy everything, but will act according to the person’s heart. Basically, Lucas has to become stronger. Though he also wants to.

I won’t go into all the plot details here because that’s really not what I’m here to do. Basically, both because of the way he was after his mom’s death, and because, I mean...he was basically on his own in the three years after that, Lucas had to and wanted to be stronger. He wanted to be someone that wouldn’t have to hide behind his mom and brother.

Now, Subspace...kind of tries to take that entire arc and condense it into Lucas and Red’s portion of the storyline? With the boss fight with Porky and the confrontation with Wario being the “Lucas is the meek younger twin” part of his arc, and the climax of the fight with Galleom being the “Lucas is strong and can fend for himself” part of his arc.

Sorry for the shitty second screencap, Brawl was 2008, the cutscenes were 720p, and the camera in this part is REALLY fucking shaky.

Anyway, in that respect, Subspace does a pretty good job of conveying Lucas’s growth through his actions, considering that the cutscenes had literally no dialogue whatsoever. But the thing is...where exactly is this situated with respect to the Mother 3 timeline? The King P statue is a boss in the last chapter of Mother 3, Porky is the second to last fight in the game, Lucas already has PSI so this has to be after the timeskip...which is it? Am I reading way too deeply into the story of a beat ‘em up game that’s not even focused on story in the first place? Yeah, probably, but my point is that if you don’t already know the story of Mother 3 and know about Lucas’s character arc, it is very easy to misread his character based on Subspace alone.

I can talk about this from experience, because I also fell into the “umu shy sadboi hours” fanon trap after seeing / playing Subspace for the first time, and it wasn’t until I started actually getting into Mother and played Mother 3 that I realized, oh shit, this is actually kind of not accurate. Sure, there are still some shy, emotional elements to Lucas...

...But that’s not the only aspect of his personality.

So on one hand, I think Subspace did a good job recreating that growth in a really short storyline, if you’ve played Mother 3 and already know about said arc. I know I find myself being like “YEAH THAT’S MY SON!!!” every time he PK Thunders himself and Red out of Galleom’s hand. But on the other hand, that development can also be so subtle that it goes right over the heads of people that are unfamiliar with Mother, and leave them with the shy sadboi character archetype and not much more to go off of.

In all fairness to Smash, it’s really not a story-driven game at all, and I think Sakurai and co were on some level aware of what happened with Brawl and shifted Lucas’s characterization in each successive Smash game. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that Lucas’s Smash 4 reveal trailer is a direct nod to Ness’s role with respect to Lucas in Subspace.

If that’s the case, this could be considered character development between Smash games, i.e., Lucas got more confident after Brawl. But I dunno! Maybe just don’t characterize Lucas based on a single personality trait!

In short: Please fucking play Mother 3 I’m begging you.

[leggerefiore]

Just saw your reply post to another Anon about the twin's Italian names where you said

"also, Italian pokemon wiki doesn't trust 'ingoing line' as inspiration for Ingo's name. That gets a hard 'probabilmente'."

and somehow misread that to mean that 'probabilmente' is Italian for ingoing line

AND ARE YOU TELLING ME INGO COULD HAVE BEEN NAMED BABI. OH WOW DID THEY DROP THE BALL THERE

But no, my brain woke up and was like that's just the Italian word for probably you doofus. And now I'm sad.

Meanwhile going to double check that rumor that Ingo is the name of a fertility deity.

scusami??? dio della fertilità?????

yeah, nah i didn't even realise i used the italian word whoops lol. probabilmente is just probably

i think you're talking about Ing, or also known as Yngvi who is apparently just Freyr or Frey, who is fertility god apparently, sometimes. Another page him. Actually, I have a book about Norse mythology, so I guess I'll so some reading about him since he's in it.

interestingly, i pulled one of emmet's daughter's name from derivative for Ing, which was feminised.

[loserfuck]

Alright, enough of this bullshit slander, it’s been almost TWO YEARS and this little freak (Bree/retroskies/tiredretro/uraiby/toffee/toffeebuns/@pissingonthem00n (are you finding the numerous name changes suspect yet?)) was someone we considered a friend and art mentee years ago and is still so obsessively mad about us not forgiving her for her lies and backstabbing and overall simply not being her ultra-forgiving (forgetful) friends (personal servants available 24/7), she has continued to stalk/harass us and slander us as dangerous scum-of-the-earth predators/child abusers to anyone who will listen, these screens contained in this post are about 0.1% of her harassment and slander. You can ask her yourself for a list of “abusers”, she’ll send you back an entire wiki page worth of lies (and contacts, funny how that works).

“I got victim blamed!” “He got off scott free!”

He was 19, you were 17. You were in a non-serious relationship online for 2 months until he broke up with you over slandering him and threatening to hurt yourself if he broke up with you, all shit I shouldn't even fucking know, but have to in order to see the truth and now to defend myself. But you very much enjoy making people uncomfortable, that much I’ve learned. And now the rest of us have serious trust issues regarding discussing our art, ideas, and offering art help to anyone.

Your ex boyfriend is not a “pedophile” and the people who you manipulated and tried to get to believe something you admittedly misread and got mad about are not “pedophile defenders”. I have the receipts to prove it. Literally hundreds of them. And you know what all this “stupid proof” points to?

You were trying to isolate your boyfriend from his friends so you could control him more easily when he wanted to break up with you by convincing us he was “grooming” you. Which we were ready to believe until he defended himself with objective evidence you wouldn’t provide because you “forgot to take screenshots”.

And then later admitted multiple times you did, in fact, lie. (these screens aren’t even all the times she admitted this)

She got so mad about us not punishing her ex for her own admitted mistake and him refusing to get back together with her, that she -months later- blocked all of us. And then became so irate about us not circumventing that block (she apparently put up as a “test” because she wanted us to violate boundaries she set???), that she has convinced herself we’re abusive pieces of shit who hate her because she’s “autistic and hyperfixates on people” (is infatuated with us and wants us to parent/therapy/make art for her for free, something she does to every person who is foolish enough to believe her lies). And every couple of months for YEARS NOW, when another friendship (victim) falls through, she either comes to harass us directly or attempts to slander us, by name, privately in DMs to other artists who she believes are affiliated with us/fans of ours/happen to sort of know who we are/total strangers (who then come and ask us about it, which is how we find her after she nukes her accounts time after time, so much for us “stalking”), which explains this weird anon I got recently. Gotta come back and take it out on the depressed person who “uses their depression as a scapegoat” to not talk with you every waking moment? Simply can’t let your “abusers” go?

These are only SOME of the messages she’s sent us on sock accounts, circumventing our own blocks. When her lies don’t work, she tries to apologize and gaslight, when that doesn’t work, she moves on to threats and slander. When that doesn’t work, she has “friends” send the gaslighting and threats.

In hindsight, after learning about the sick shit she writes and draws, it all tracks, how else would a pathological liar justify her pedophilia and long-standing rape fetish? By fabricating an incident that “justifies” it of course! 

 Stop manipulating, deceiving, and coercing people online into playing along with your personal bullshit and paraphilias, it's sick. I am so tired of talking about this shit, of seeing your vile “art”, writing, and lies. I feel disgusting having ever even SPOKEN to you knowing what I know about you now.

This is a warning about and to the artist Bree/geebree/tequilabequila/inglorarity/retroskies/tiredretro/uraiby/toffee/toffeebuns. Is this what we're doing online nowadays? Harassing, slandering, and defaming people for YEARS because they won't be our friends? Because they won’t let us parasitize their personal works? Because they are uncomfortable when we draw incest porn of their personal characters? You are not traumatized and you are not a victim, you’re a vengeful, narcissist and a proven liar who lost control of the narrative, so you had to manufacture a new one where you are the sole victim instead of the sole perpetrator.

Every accusation she makes is a confession.

For the last time, back off.

[a-nonny-mouse-0]

Jin Sibling Au Part 3

Okay before I start on day three of writing the next three pages of this outline I wanted to make a quick note. I noticed that my current blog may not be best place to put my writing in. It is eclectic with humor and politics along with story ideas that I’m still working on. So I may make another blog and just reblog this along with the other Jin Sibling Au. Just a heads up, I just need to come up for a name. 

Welp ¯\_(ツ)_/¯on with the outline 

Meng Yao meets Wen Qing. It takes a bit of finagling, but he convinces her to help him. It takes a lot of finagling! Especially when Wen Ning helps Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian. As far as he knows as long as they can keep Wen Ning safe she is fine helping him. She doesn’t know what he is doing with some information, but she finally gets an idea, but it’s too late. If she tells Wen Rouhan, her brother may suffer the consequences. All she can do is help Meng Yao and hope it helps her in the long run.

Notes: Meng Yao sees how Wen Qing protects her brother while Wen Ning is nothing like her.

He asks Wen Ning if has ever been jealous of Wen Qings forceful personality. Wen Ning say’s no because he knows his sister cares and loves him. In fact, he compares it to a warm blanket of love that he can’t get enough of. Meng Yao thinks it’s too gushy ￣へ￣

This is right after Wen Rouhan’s defeat:

After Wen Rouhan’s defeat, Meng Yao becomes Jin Guangyao. Both brothers have not talked, but Guangyao knows that Jixuan may be upset with him.

The news about Meng Yao formally accepted into the Jin sect is met with mixed reviews. A majority thinks this is wonderful, including Xichen who know’s how hard Meng Yao Jin Guangyao worked to have Sect Leader Jin to acknowledge him.

Nie Mingjue is skeptical but keeps his mouth shut. He still remembers the actions that JGY did.

He tries hard to please his father (he did an excellent job with the banquet) but is conflicted when he’s tasked to ensure the elimination of the last Wens. He speaks to Jin Guangshan that he could not have done this without the help of certain Wen’s but his father would not hear of it.

Jin Guangyao is now hesitant to talk to Jixuan. Jixuan however has become quite stubborn and meets face to face with his brother. They argue first about not sending each other letters (they both agree that maybe it’s pointless to fight about that) Then Jixuan pleads to please be careful about following father’s every whim. He says’s he can talk to mother and convince her to have him under her care.

Guangyao refuses, he knows Madam Jin would rather swallow needles than protect him, and states he just needs to do what father order’s showing he is worthy. He’s trying to convince both his brother and self. Jixuan doesn’t accept his choice and runs off. Guangyao has trouble swallowing the guilt he feels. He shouldn’t feel guilty, after all the Wen’s aren’t family and his brother surely won’t know what he’s about to do, right? He’s now part of the Jin Sect, he can finally spend time with his younger brother and he’s sure he can get father’s love.

Jixuan meets Yanli who is there to help her brother’s. They end up talking which is sweet and say’s he envies Yanli. This makes her confused until he states that even though her brothers are a terror for him, he can see how much they love her and what they will do for her.

Yanli states that yes, her brothers are a handful but they are wonderful to be around with and is grateful to have them in her life.

There is a lot of blushing and Jixuan may have wondered what it is like to hold her hand a lot. Then he remembers that he has yet to give her a formal apology for his accusation during the war. Yeah no, that simple apology is not good enough she deserves better.

Meanwhile, Xichen realizes that Guangyao is upset and suggests that they walk to talk in private. It’s okay, thinks Guangyao, after all it’s great to catch up with a friend.

They end up talking, which leads to a sweet, unexpected kiss. Xichen is excited and confused. He didn’t expect his feelings to lead to this, but it makes him happy. With Guangyao, however, he feels horrified. This will not work. His father will find out and cast him out and the cultivation world will have another reason to look down on him, after all he is the son of a prostitute (seriously his issue with this irks me, but I can see why he is hung up about it. It pisses him off no matter how much he tells Jixuan to not worry about it, however it will still be something that bothers him. I will unleash the sibling love from Jixuan as soon as they both stop arguing!)

Guangyao leaves abruptly, leaving a brokenhearted Xichen. o(TヘTo)

Nie Mingjue still does not trust, even though Lan Xichen tells him that he needs to give Jin Guangyao a chance. Mingjue is quick to bring up how Guangyao is now ignoring him. This does hurt Xichen but makes no comment on it.

In order to ensure that he can keep an eye on his competitors, Jin Guangshan wants Jin Guangyao to talk to them.

In an act of desperation Xichen asks for the vow of brotherhood Mingjue agrees and Guangyao is forced to smile and agree.

Xichen: Want’s to at least have a connection with Guangyao. He may not be interested in him romantically but maybe still be there for him as a friend and show Mingjue  that he is a good person.

Mingjue: Knows that something is going on and believes that Jin Guangyao is planning something.

Guanyao: Follows his father’s wishes to have some sort of alliance and keep an eye on both sects. He refuses to think about that kiss, even though he has taken a few careful glimpses towards Xichen’s direction.

Even though Jixuan is upset with Guangyao, he does end up going to him for advice:

        “Guangyao, I need your assistance!” Jixuan winces. He didn’t mean to make it sound like an order, but for sure his brother can tell not to take it to heart. The courtesy bow proves him wrong.

        “Of course, How may I be of service? (❁^◡^❁)” Jixuan frowns. This was not going how he thought it was going to go. ಠ_ಠ 

        “Stop that!” He orders placing his hands on his brothers arms, maybe a bit too forceful, so he did not have to bow. “I may be mad at you, but you're still my brother, not a servant.” 

         Guangyao surprised but nods. Jixuan goes back to the topic at hand. 

         “Anyway, help me, please.” Guangyao laughs. Jixuan looked embarrassed, it must not be easy for him to also for help, the question is why? He never had trouble asking for help on his education or phrases he did not understand in the common folk. 

          “All right, I will help you, brother. Now what can I do to help.” Guangyao replies, interested to find out why his brother is so nervous.

          “Better! Well, I need help-” he gets nervous visibly, hands behind his back, looking everywhere but Guangyao as he paced back and forth “-normally I go to mother but I don’t want to hear her nag at me again. I know you will too, but it won't sound as irritating.”

          “What does Madam Jin-” Begins Guangyao then instantly puts the pieces together. “Does this have to do about Lady Jiang Yanli?” Jixuan is silent, stopped pacing to look at his brother but his face is red. Guangyao laughs at him and retorts at him.

           “I told you so!” 

           Jixuan looks betrayed and then grumpy. Is this how brothers really interact? You fight with each other, but can still talk to one another and then betray you when you ask for their help?

          Once his teasing is done Guangyao smiles at him. “Tell me what do you need help with exactly?”

         “I need to woo Yanli, I did her wrong and accused her unjustly. I apologized, but only simply. Now I want to do her right, that apology doesn’t feel enough.” Then in a rather meek voice, “Please help me.”

          Something in that voice, how Jixuan is treating him now (no he’s done it before just never in public but wasn’t for the lack of trying) warms his heart. It also reminds him of how Xichen Zewu-jun treats him. No, that’s wrong. Is Jixuan looking up to him? That’s a little ridiculous. Shaking his thoughts away, he agrees to come up with a proper formal apology. Who knew he would seriously take his advice with ‘I’m sorry’. He may need to be careful with his teasing.

Okay, So I wrote more of the outline but still need to figure out some kinks here and there. I almost had a few events mixed in, that I had to consult the wiki. I love the web series, but I am not spending a lot of time going through it. So I do know that Jin Jixuan is older (Thank you @minutemarch for the correction :-D), but in this au universe he is now younger! You can thank my confused self who misread the wiki page and other sources.

So yeah, love interest for both siblings but still a hot mess for all parties involved. After all, Yanli may have received an apology, but after all the indifference she received from Jixuan, he will need Guangyao to help him. Especially with Yanli’s brother’s in her corner ready to defend her. (I don’t mean to make them sound horrible but this is in the point of view of Jin siblings so it comes across that way ಥ_ಥ)

And we are not forgetting Guangyao and Xichen. I feel that it will be extremely angsty at their end too. Tbh I have more written for them but I keep finding myself adding more for Jixuan and Yanli.

Next part: Jixuan tries his hand at helping Guagyao with Xichen... you should probably ask the right people and not the ones who’s sister you’ve made upset.

Note: the next part will be on my new blog @lolmouseywriting

[pricechecktranslations]

I have a question about a certain debate that's going on in the fandom. Is Michael Arklow a dead name for Michaela Arklow and is it disrespectful to refer to them as such in the 2nd period? The wiki has made some changes in regards of this and they're saying Michael started taking the name 'Michaela' even in the 2nd period. What are your thoughts on this?

I would share my thoughts except I have no desire whatsoever to enter this particular debate due to how contentious it is. I’ll argue facts all day long but at this point in time I am really really not up for any arguments on something that could easily turn personal and subjective. Honestly, I thought the matter was closed when they did the changes on her page, and I thought these things were hashed out pretty well in the discussion leading up to them.

Point of fact though, Michaela does start using the name in the Second Period, because that's where it came from. Held misread her name and the nickname stuck enough that she still went by Michaela even when reincarnated as a genderless forest spirit. It's also worth noting that even at the end of the world, where people all have their memories back and are reconnecting with their old identities (such as Nemesis acknowledging her past as Levia and Elluka), Michaela never does.

[sleepy-crypt1d]

Thanks for responding to me. I would love to give you more stuff to speak of for I have been hyperfixating on Homestuck for 4 years. But never finished due to my ADHD. So I’d like to hear from someone who’s just as passionate as me. What are your thoughts, opinions, and headcanons on the Dancestors? Who’s your favorite? Who was written poorly? Who was written the best? Who do you think is overrated and Underrated? and If there was an official story about the Alpha trolls game would you read it?

You don’t have to thank me! I love talking about Homestuck, especially since I just got into it recently and no one I personally know has read it, it’s sucked not having someone to talk about it with. With the Dancestors, I don’t have many headcanons but I definitely have some strong opinions about how they’ve been treated.

Favorite Dancestor? Probably Rufioh, I know he isn’t a favorite among the fandom but I don’t really think that’s fair?? Just like Tavros, he was majorly misread by the fandom. Anyone who thinks that Rufioh is an awful person, I encourage you to go read his wiki and reread the section that he’s in, it may change your mind. At least I know it changed mine. At first I definitely felt the same as a lot of people and thought that Rufioh wasn’t a good person and felt bad for Damara, but after rereading their interactions and reading through his wiki page?? I feel more bad for him than Damara, lemme explain. Most people hate Rufioh because he cheated on Damara, it’s the same reason why a lot of people don’t like Horuss, but you have to look at why he cheated. On surface level, yeah, he looks like a prick, but she was abusing him? If you remember, Damara was the one to paralyze Rufioh, and it happened while they were together. From what Rufioh says, it seems like the reason this happened was because Damara was jealous of someone flirting with Rufioh, or even Rufioh flirting with someone else, so she paralyzed him. And even after they broke up, she continued to torment him?? And it’s treated like a joke in canon and by the fandom but like?? What the hell, right?? She even takes Tinkerbull away from him and locks him in a box, which is even more messed up when you realize, based off what Rufioh says, that Tinkerbull is a major comfort for him and that if he’s away from his Lusus for too long, he has panic attacks. This is something that Damara would know. I’m not trying to say that him cheating on her was justified, but once you actually look at what their relationship was like, it starts to make sense why he did it? I feel the same about him and Horuss’ relationship, I don’t really think it’s healthy? Also, you have to remind yourself that Horuss, Damara, and Rufioh all grew up together as part of the Lost Weeaboos, he probably doesn’t love them in a romantic way, but convinced himself that he did, and when the relationships went on longer and longer, he slowly realized that he didn’t actually love them the way he thought he did, which might also be why he openly flirts with an Aradiabot while still together with Horuss, his romantic thoughts and feelings are all jumbled and he just, doesn’t really know what he’s doing. But who knows, maybe I’m just biased because of my love for Tavros, honestly I just have a lot of love for the Nitrams, they get overlooked a lot :((

The most poorly written Dancestor? I actually don’t really know? I’d probably say either Cronus or Mituna, I love their characters but something about their dialogue is just, kinda choppy to me? Like they’re trying to get their personality down to a T just by one simple conversation, that may be the reason why the fandom dislikes them so much, simply because we only got to see one aspect of their characters and didn’t really get to see the depth of what they had to offer. But I also absolutely love Mituna and Latula’s relationship, that’s god tier stuff right there. I’m pretty sure Mituna is the only character with stable quadrants too? Would have loved to have seen him and Kurloz to properly interact though :// Would have also killed to see Cronus interact with someone who didn’t hate him, the Amporas are. . .interesting, huh?

Who was Written the best? I’d put my bet on Meenah, though that’s probably just because she’s around the longest and has the most character development. Something that I do really enjoy about Meenah is that she knows she isn’t a good person, unlike some certain blue-blood we all know and love. She’s an actually morally grey character, unlike what the fandom thinks morally grey means, while yes she was the one who got the other Dancestors killed, she did it so that they wouldn’t have to leave each other. And while yes, she did abandon Doomed!Vriska, she regretted it and acknowledged that she was a bad person and that it was a horrible thing to do. She does bad things with good intentions, and she knows that they’re bad.

Underrated and Overrated? Personally, I think Damara is overrated? There just isn’t much to her character other than, ‘oh, shes angry and her boyfriend cheated on her’, something about her just didn’t click with me, I guess. And with an underrated character, once again, I’d have to say Rufioh. The Nitrams seem to get overlooked a lot in the fandom?? They always talk about how important the Signless is and the importance of their mutations and the revolution against the Grand Highblood, but they never mention The Summoner?? He continued the rebellion after the Signless died, he owned Redglare’s dragon, he was also a mutant who was outcast from society and he, ya know, led an army?? They talk so much about how important the Troll ancestry is and how Karkat has to grow up in the Signless’ footsteps but Tavros and Rufioh don’t get the same treatment?

If there was an official story about the Alpha troll session, would I read it? Absolutely. The Dancestors did not get enough screen time for us to get a super accurate read on their characters, they also have a lot of missed potential! I would love to see the Dancestors as fully fleshed out characters, as well as seeing what happened in their session because it. . .doesn’t look pretty whatever happened. We could also learn more about what happened to Mituna, which would be really cool!

Sorry this reply is so long! Geez, I didn’t even think about that, I just have a lot to say ^^” I hope this answered your questions, though! And feel free to ask me any other HS questions you have, I’m always here to talk!

[sampos-catgirl]

hold on a sec i thought this took place a year before soul eater??? why does black☆star look older. did i misread the wiki page

[gentletwin]

Meta: why Subspace Lucas’s characterization sucks (kinda) and fanon Lucas sucks (a lot) and you should just play Mother 3 instead.

So, to know why subspace flopped in some areas ( and we’re just talking about Lucas here, never mind the rest of the characters ) and did well in others, you have to know the basic plotline of Mother 3. That information is on my pages and on wikis and whatnot ( cough, and in the game, cough ).

But just to briefly summarize it here for the purposes of having everyone up to speed for this meta: Lucas and company live in a utopian, low-tech village where money isn’t a thing and everyone just does things for each other just because. Lucas is the meeker between him and his brother and is branded as a crybaby by the other villagers until the tragedy with his mom and brother. Flint spends all his time looking for Claus. Pigmask army starts bringing in capitalism. Three years go by and Lucas is pretty much on his own. He decides he wants to get stronger.

He remains gentle and compassionate, but becomes much braver in those three years. This guy puts it pretty succinctly.

Fast forward a bit, and basically, because Lucas can use PK Love, and the commander in the Pigmask army can also use PK Love, both of them can pull the Needles that seal a dragon under the islands that can basically destroy everything, but will act according to the person’s heart. Basically, Lucas has to become stronger. Though he also wants to.

I won’t go into all the plot details here because that’s really not what I’m here to do. Basically, both because of the way he was after his mom’s death, and because, I mean...he was basically on his own in the three years after that, Lucas had to and wanted to be stronger. He wanted to be someone that wouldn’t have to hide behind his mom and brother.

Now, Subspace...kind of tries to take that entire arc and condense it into Lucas and Red’s portion of the storyline? With the boss fight with Porky and the confrontation with Wario being the “Lucas is the meek younger twin” part of his arc, and the climax of the fight with Galleom being the “Lucas is strong and can fend for himself” part of his arc.

Sorry for the shitty second screencap, Brawl was 2008, the cutscenes were 720p, and the camera in this part is REALLY fucking shaky.

Anyway, in that respect, Subspace does a pretty good job of conveying Lucas’s growth through his actions, considering that the cutscenes had literally no dialogue whatsoever. But the thing is...where exactly is this situated with respect to the Mother 3 timeline? The King P statue is a boss in the last chapter of Mother 3, Porky is the second to last fight in the game, Lucas already has PSI so this has to be after the timeskip...which is it? Am I reading way too deeply into the story of a beat ‘em up game that’s not even focused on story in the first place? Yeah, probably, but my point is that if you don’t already know the story of Mother 3 and know about Lucas’s character arc, it is very easy to misread his character based on Subspace alone.

I can talk about this from experience, because I also fell into the “umu shy sadboi hours” fanon trap after seeing / playing Subspace for the first time, and it wasn’t until I started actually getting into Mother and played Mother 3 that I realized, oh shit, this is actually kind of not accurate. Sure, there are still some shy, emotional elements to Lucas...

...But that’s not the only aspect of his personality.

So on one hand, I think Subspace did a good job recreating that growth in a really short storyline, if you’ve played Mother 3 and already know about said arc. I know I find myself being like “YEAH THAT’S MY SON!!!” every time he PK Thunders himself and Red out of Galleom’s hand. But on the other hand, that development can also be so subtle that it goes right over the heads of people that are unfamiliar with Mother, and leave them with the shy sadboi character archetype and not much more to go off of.

In all fairness to Smash, it’s really not a story-driven game at all, and I think Sakurai and co were on some level aware of what happened with Brawl and shifted Lucas’s characterization in each successive Smash game. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that Lucas’s Smash 4 reveal trailer is a direct nod to Ness’s role with respect to Lucas in Subspace.

If that’s the case, this could be considered character development between Smash games, i.e., Lucas got more confident after Brawl. But I dunno! Maybe just don’t characterize Lucas based on a single personality trait!

In short: Please fucking play Mother 3 I’m begging you.

[dyspfanblog]

Post #133 – Could Yui from K-ON! have Dyspraxia?

Welcoming Yui!

Yui from K-On! is the newest addition to my on-going ‘potential dyspraxic character’ project. It’s been a while since I’ve done a potential dyspraxic analysis, although not from a lack of content, just Yui zoomed straight to the top of the list. For starters, Yui is a character I consider to be a strong contender for the potential dyspraxic title. Then there’s the point that I finished ‘K-On!’ fairly recently so felt I should get my thoughts out while it’s still in my head! Plus I wanted to do something light because these recent months have been tough, both personally and globally. Got to be honest though, you can’t get much more light-hearted than K-On!!

Originally, this post was going to be fairly short, however as I looked into Yui as a character more and more talking points seemed to sprout up! I’ve gone ahead and added her profile to the Potential Dyspraxic Character page and simply listed everything out if you rather a quick reference version. Link is at the bottom of this page.

Potential Dyspraxic Characters

For those unfamiliar with my blog, just a quick sum up what this is all about. This kind of post is for me to show how I perceive certain characters and the possibility that they could be dyspraxic. We have unique ways of connecting with fictional characters and sometimes we can relate to them in unusual ways. Seeing as dyspraxia is a combination of certain human traits, it means there’s a possible that characters may end up with a ‘dyspraxic combination’ purely by accident. In no way is this trying to discredit the original creation, but to see them in an alternative light. Take this, and any of my analyses, with a pinch of salt.

DISCLAIMER: With these character profiles I may bring up key-points and moments from their franchise, so potential minor spoilers ahead! Also as I’ve only seen the anime this analysis will leave out anything exclusive to the manga.

Yui and K-ON!

‘K-On!‘ is a popular slice-of-life manga revolving around the lives of the Light Music Club’s members, that got an anime adaptation. The anime has spanned several seasons, specials, spin-offs, a movie, and a library of music to date. For what this post is worth, if you want something light-hearted to get absorbed into then I highly recommend K-On! to you.

Could Yui Hirasawa be Dyspraxic?

Yui Hirasawa is the protagonist of ‘K-On!’; she is a member of the Light Music Club and the band Ho-kago Tea Time (After-School Tea Time). She is the lead guitarist and lead vocalist for the band. On the outside, Yui is your classic ditsy anime character; she’s easily distracted, sometimes forgetful, and gets into little accidents frequently. With other dyspraxic-type traits revealing themselves, it got the gears in my head turning and it simply clicked together for me that Yui could well have dyspraxia.

Co-Ordination and Clumsiness

Yui is really clumsy and has the habit of falling over, dropping things, tripping up, and bumping into people and objects. Over the course of the series, Yui shows she has balance issues. especially when she’s carrying something, like a tray of mugs or something bulky like a speaker. She’s a messy eater too as seen on a few occasions. On top of this, Yui sometimes has other slight issues with gross motor co-ordination.

On the flip-side, when it comes to fine motor skills Yui doesn’t have any real issues with it. After all, she has a certain talent for playing guitar.    

Oh Yui, I feel your pain!

Thought and Memory

Given that Yui’s short-term memory is awful and couple it with the fact she gets distracted ever so easily and you have a perfect recipe for disaster! When she learns something new, it often pushes something she memorised previously out of her head.

Yui’s time-keeping is pretty bad, although a few times she misread her alarm clock and arrived at school incredibly early. The first occurrence happens in the first episode where she even got distracted along the way…twice! The people around her have picked up on her unorthodox time-keeping skills and easily distracted nature, so it is fair to conclude this is a common occurrence for Yui.

Yui is quite forgetful too; whether it’s forgetting to do her homework or leaving her guitar at home on the day of a concert, she certainly doesn’t discriminate against what to forget! She struggles to remember music terminology and plays using intuition and her self-taught approach. Similarly, many people with dyspraxia find their own ways to learn and achieve when conventional ways are too difficult. At some point in the series she lost a mitten too, because of course she did! 

Yui struggles with multi-tasking and this is something that others are well aware of. At first, she found it impossible to sing and play her guitar simultaneously. Although, after some 1-2-1 tutoring she was finally able to crack it, but still has difficulty to do both sometimes.

A line extracted from her Wiki Bio: “She cannot do more than one thing at a time, but to make up for that she can be highly focused on a particular subject and once started, can advance quite substantially.”

When it comes to her academic abilities, Yui struggles tremendously with it. In one exam, she was the only one in her class to fail and had to retake it. With effort and support from her friends and sister she passed it second time around. However, not only did she pass it, but she absolutely aced it! While this alone isn’t exactly a dyspraxic trait, it embodies the spirit of dyspraxia quite nicely; especially when the other factors of Yui are taken into account.

Despite being viewed as stupid and an air-head, Yui is really observant and alert. A few times, she realises an issue before anybody else has.

We get a little bit of extra character building in K-On!’s spin-off series, ‘Ura-On!’. In one episode, we see that Yui gets lost easily and judging by her personality it wouldn’t be surprising if this is actually the case. I am unsure if ‘Ura-On!’ is canon or not, but it does seem faithful to the characters, so I’m going to count it.   

Perception of Senses

Yui has an aversion to both hot and cold temperatures and can’t deal with them very well. She’s also sensitive to air-conditioning units. Quote from Yui: “I’m scared of hot and cold. In winter, I hide under the heating table and in summer, I lie in bed and do nothing.”

As mentioned previously, her spatial awareness is something she struggles with as she does bumps into people and objects pretty often.

Something to note: Yui has the rare gift of having ‘perfect pitch’. Wikipedia states it as: “Absolute pitch (AP), often called perfect pitch, is a rare ability of a person to identify or re-create a given musical note without the benefit of a reference tone”. Wikipedia then goes on to state: “There is evidence of a higher rate of absolute pitch in the autistic population.” Dyspraxia and autism have overlaps, so there could be more to Yui than at first glance. In short, this helps solidifies an autistic side which by proxy, helps to cement a dyspraxic side.

For the Wikipedia page on ‘Absolute pitch’ click here

Emotion and Behaviour

Yui has difficulty controlling her emotions and can get overwhelmed easily. Even with positive news she can struggle processing it and have a mental overload. She can get overwhelmed if she has too much information to process, which can lead to an emotional breakdown. The Light Music Club members understand she has this difficulty and do their best for her. Mainly by explaining things to her in a way she’ll understand and also help calm her down when she has a meltdown.

Yui dozes off often as she does get tired fairly quickly. Although, there are times where she’ll go to bed late due to getting absorbed into practising guitar or revising. Additionally, she can have a short attention span and she gets distracted easily.

Yui has some social awkwardness to her and I think she struggles at picking up on non-verbal cues, like on some occasions taking jokes literally and sarcasm can fly over her head. Also, Yui sometimes hugs a little too hard because she lets her emotions get the better of her, but there is a possibility that there’s a co-ordination difficulty at work too.

Speech and Language

Sometimes Yui gets stuck for words and stutters, which is a link back into her getting overwhelmed. She has shown that sometimes she can get words mixed up too. These issues don’t crop up too often though.

Yui Overall

Yui has a strong connection to dyspraxia and in my opinion scores incredibly favourable overall. In fact, she tops the list! Yui’s prominent clumsiness, getting easily overwhelmed, and a pure heart make her a character that those with dyspraxia can probably relate to quite easily. While she can lose interest easily and gets distracted even easier, with the right help or push she can, and does, succeed. While it would seem no one has brought up a possibility of Yui having dyspraxia online, at least as far as I can tell, some people have raised the idea that she could be on the autism spectrum and/or have ADHD. With certain overlaps it isn’t a stretch to believe that she could be dyspraxic too.

Yui is an embodiment of Dyspraxic Fantastic at its core and holds a certain spirit of dyspraxia. What sets her apart from other characters on my list is a certain depth and richness to her character.

And to wrap this post up, a nice sentimental quote from Yui: “To the me back then, you don’t need to worry. You’ll soon find something you can do, something you can set your heart on.” 

Thanks for reading this post and please check out some of the links below for more information.

Extra Reading

Dyspraxic Characters Encyclopedia

Dyspraxic Characters Project Post

Yui Wiki Fandom Page

K-ON! Home Site

The post Post #133 – Could Yui from K-ON! have Dyspraxia? appeared first on DyspraxicFantastic.com.

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[thejackmeister-mongolhistory]

So I have come across this trivia several times already but I have failed to find it everywhere or even seen historian grant it more than half a sentence (which is funny, because outside of this I think I have never seen any physical description of Genghis)... Did Genghis Khan actually have red hair?

Good question Annedey! I too have seen this pop up on the internet from time to time, on several occasions being used to argue that Chinggis Khan was white! But let me clarify matters:

When people bring up the ‘red hair,’ online, the few times they bother to provide any details beyond that they present the source as Persian historian Rashid al-Din (who wrote in the early 1300s, a vizier for the Ilkhanate), in a section wherein Chinggis meets his grandson Kublai (born 1215) for the first time.  The story goes that Chinggis remarks with surprise that Kublai did not inherit his red hair.

Or so it goes on this online iteration. But when we actually look in this segment in Rashid al-Din’s work, we find the exchange is translated rather differently:

“It so happened that two months prior to Mögä’s [the son of Kublai’s nurse] birth, Qubilai Qa’an [Kublai Khan] was born, and when Genghis Khan’s gaze fell upon him he said, “Our [Chinggis Khan’s] sons are all of a ruddy complexion, but this boy [Kublai] is swarthy, just like his maternal uncles. Tell Sorqaghtani Beki [Kublai’s mother] to give him to a good nurse to be brought up by.”” -Rashid al-Din/Thackston translation, 415.

“It chanced that he was born 2 months before Möge, and when Chingiz-Khan’s eye fell upon him he said: “all our children are of a ruddy complexion, but this child is swarthy like his maternal uncles. Tell Sorqoqtani Beki to give him to a good nurse to be reared.”” -Rashid al-Din/Boyle translation, 241. https://archive.org/details/Boyle1971RashidAlDin/page/n245

To clarify, for those unaware, ruddy means “for a face to have a red colour,” while swarthy is dark-skinned.  Boyle and Thackston’s English translations are highly regarded, and while Boyle’s is considered the more accurate, both provide almost the exact same translation. Rashid al-Din is not saying that Chinggis had red hair, but a reddish face and complexion, perfectly understandable given that he lived his life entirely exposed to the elements: cold wind and exposure affect the capillaries in the face, and many Mongols today who still live as nomads will have quite red cheeks.. The statements that Rashid al-Din describes Chinggis Khan with red hair are therefore false, as he isn’t describing hair but facial complexion. It seems a misreading or mistranslation somewhere along the way turned that line into Chinggis having red hair.

It would not be impossible though for Chinggis to have had red hair. Contrary to some belief, Asians can have light brown, blonde and even red hair naturally. That red won’t be the shade of your stereotypical Irish redhead, but it would be recognizably red. Kazakhs and Kirghiz are well noted for their light haired individuals. A passage from the Secret History of the Mongols is sometimes taken to imply that one of Chinggis’ ancestors, Alan Qo’a, was impregnated by a Kirghiz (Kirghiz armies marched through Mongolia in the 9th century, toppling the Uighur Khaghanate):

“Every night, a resplendent yellow man entered by the smoke hole or the door top of the tent, he rubbed my belly and his radiance penetrated my womb. When he departed, he crept out on a moonbeam or a ray of sun in the guise of a yellow dog.

How can you speak so rashly?

When one understands that, the sign is clear:

They are the sons of Heaven.

How can you speak, comparing them

To ordinary black-headed men?

When they become the rulers of all,

Then the common people will understand!”

The Secret History of the Mongols/ Rachewiltz translation s. 21, pg. 4.

https://cedar.wwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.youtube.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1003&context=cedarbooks

The ‘yellow man,’ is taken by some to be a man with blonde/light brown/red hair (and therefore a Kirghiz?) in comparison to the ‘ordinary black-headed men’ (i.e, regular Mongols). How literally are we meant to take this passage? It should be noted that Yellow and White were colours associated with holiness and divinity. In some renditions, rather than a Yellow man it is a yellow ray of light which impregnates Alan Qo’a (who for context, was recently widowed and was telling this story to her sons, some of whom were born after her husband’s death). When we remember the importance of eternal Blue Heaven to the Mongols, this can seem to be implying a ‘divine conception,’ rather than literal human being (in some Moghul versions, Chinggis’ mother Hoelun takes the place of Alan Qo’a). How literal the passages in the Secret History are supposed to be taken is a matter of debate, and I would be hesitant to rely on this section heavily for any argument.

In regards to your statement on descriptions of Chinggis Khan’s physical appearance, there are actually a few. Just not from first hand accounts and they are more ‘idealized’ than anything. Generally they describe him as taller and broader than other Mongols, with a long beard (Mongols generally don’t, or can’t, grow beards). “Cat’s Eyes,” are sometimes mentioned, though whether that means he had vertical pupils or they were a colour associated with the colour of cat’s eyes (yellow?) isn’t always included. Rashid al-Din and (I believe) Juvaini mention that Chinggis’ hair turned white during the Khwarezmian campaign, giving him a very regal appearance. Most of these statements are repeated in both Chinese and Persian sources, (such as a Song Dynasty envoy who spoke to those who had seen Chinggis), but these are pretty basic,idealized depictions of kings. Most of the Chinese physical descriptions of Chinggis aren’t dissimilar to their depictions of the first emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi. To them, that’s just what a King looked like! It is notable that it is still rare for a modern depiction of Chinggis Khan to depict him without facial hair. A long beard is often associated with wisdom, masculinity and kingship, and would be natural to depict him with one for medieval chroniclers. In medieval Europe for example, most portraits of Kings (until about the late 14th/15th centuries) were showing  very idealized, general versions of monarchs rather than a specific person’s facial features.

The closest we’ll ever get to Chinggis Khan’s appearance is the late 13th century (generally dated to 1278) portrait from the Yuan Dynasty, made on the orders of Kublai Khan. This image is the basis for most modern artistic representations of Chinggis Khan:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:YuanEmperorAlbumGenghisPortrait.jpg

We see a ruddy (!) faced man, with a long grey beard dressed in a simple white deel. While it is true there were still a few alive who had met Chinggis by the 1270s, it had been 50 years since his death. Half a century is a long time to accurately remember the face of your grandfather when photography doesn’t exist, so it would be best to think of it as an approximation. Kublai was himself about 12 or 13 when Chinggis died, and had likely only met him a few times. This image shows no trace of red hair, and neither do any of the similar Yuan era portraits of Chinggis’ successors, who are generally shown in their younger years.

Personally, I find it extremely doubtful Chinggis had red hair: the medieval sources make no such distinct implication, and one would have to explain why none of the portraits of the Yuan Emperors depict anything other than typical Mongolian features. No source indicates Chinggis Khan looked anything other than a Mongol to his contemporaries. A minority have argued that Chinggis was Caucasian/Tocharian based off Rashid al-Din’s  statements (sometimes even saying long beard: must be a westerner! Asians can’t grow beards!), but as we saw above those statements were misunderstood, and generally come from poor utilization of primary sources.  I believe these opinions also come from self interest, from people wanting to dismiss the Mongols as ‘primitives,’ or not want to admit that their ancestors lost to those ‘orientals,’ and therefore the great Mongol leader was not actually a Mongol. There is no evidence from this period to support such a conclusion, however. Furthermore, even if Chinggis Khan did have red hair, this would not even indicate that he wasn’t Mongolian, as Mongolians can have reddish hair!

[type40fangirl]

A few additional thoughts...

A few additional thoughts…

Of course Thirteen reminds me of Ten: she’s got his gob and his tendency to sorry. On the other hand, her awkward attempt at small talk in Yaz’s flat is very Eleven. The TARDIS Wiki page for Yaz claims that she is “in no way a practicing Muslim.” Yet in Rosa, she specifically refers to attending mosque. Did I misread that? or does someone on the Wiki take issue with Islam? I personally have no…

[elisa74]

A few additional thoughts...

A few additional thoughts…

Of course Thirteen reminds me of Ten: she’s got his gob and his tendency to sorry. On the other hand, her awkward attempt at small talk in Yaz’s flat is very Eleven. The TARDIS Wiki page for Yaz claims that she is “in no way a practicing Muslim.” Yet in Rosa, she specifically refers to attending mosque. Did I misread that? or does someone on the Wiki take issue with Islam? I personally have no…