#reddit and tumblr are more self-explanatory

[zoloteh-volossya]

BG3 Fanfiction Statistics, Part 1

I’ve seen some discussions of BG3 fandom trends floating around tumblr that spoke from experience but lacked hard data to refer to. As a fan of Baldur’s Gate 3, fanfiction, and graphs, I therefore thought it would be neat and illustrative to go through AO3 and document some of the statistics this fandom.

I did a similar exercise back in January and posted the results here. However, I was a bit unhappy with this analysis – it was missing some data that I consider to be relevant, I didn’t end up discussing the results much, and I only posted it to reddit. Most discussions for the creative side of fandom seem to happen on tumblr, so I made this account to post it here.

I will try and be as transparent as possible when discussing how I obtained and processed this data. A copy of my spreadsheet can be found here and contains all of the data I will be discussing. Most of the data I feature in this essay will be presented as graphs. Below each graph I will discuss the patterns shown in the graph and provide what I believe to be some relevant and/or interesting number values. If you want to see all the numbers, please refer to my spreadsheet. If you don’t care about the numbers and/or my thoughts about them, feel free to skim through and just look at the charts!

A note before I start – I gathered this data between July 21, 2024 and July 24, 2024. It is out of date as of my writing this and will be even more out of date by the time you read it. However, I believe the general fandom trends will hold up over time – the same patterns that I observed in January are largely still present in July.

Due to the tumblr post image limit and my preponderance of graphs, I will be breaking this behemoth of an essay into two parts:

General Fandom Statistics, the Player Character, and the Women

The Men, a Character Comparison, and a Pairing Analysis

We are currently in part 1. Part 2 can be found at this link. The rest of part 1 is below the read more because this is very long.

GENERAL FANDOM STATS

This information was found by looking at the side bar when browsing Baldur’s Gate fics. Therefore, this data set includes fics from the previous two Baldur’s Gate games. However, given that the games were released in 1998 and 2000, respectively, most of the fanfiction for them was likely posted to FF.net and the error from including what little fic for them was posted to AO3 is likely small.

At the time of my data gathering, there were 31,043 Baldur’s Gate fics on AO3.

RATINGS

To the surprise of nobody in the BG3 fandom, Explicit fic is the largest category, at 38% of all fics produced. It’s followed by Mature (24%), Teen and Up (20%), General (12%) and Not Rated (6%). Not all of the Explicit and Mature fics are necessarily horny – those warnings also apply to extreme violence (hello, Dark Urge). But let’s be real, most of them are tagged that way for sex.

WARNINGS

Speaking of extreme violence, let’s take a look at the warnings used for fics in this fandom.

Just about half (50.2%) of BG fics have no warnings at all. About 17.6% have warnings for graphic depictions of violence – lower than I would have expected, honestly, for a video game that features as much murder as this one does (at least, how I play it...). About 5.4% of fics feature a warning for rape, 4.7% feature major character death, and 0.5% feature underage sex.

CATEGORIES

AO3 allows users to select any categories from a list of possible options (F/M, M/M, F/F, Gen, Other, and Multi). F/M, M/M, and F/F are pretty self explanatory, Gen fics don’t focus on a relationship, Multi fics focus on a relationship between three or more people, and Other is a catch all for fics that don’t fit into any of the previous categories very well. For shipping with nonbinary (NB) characters, I have seen a variety of approaches. Some people select the category closest to the NB character’s presentation, some select multiple categories, and some select Other.

One very useful tool that I will be introducing here is the use of “otp:true.” When “otp:true” is entered into the “Search within results” bar while filtering tags, AO3 will only return fics that have just one pairing tagged. This filters out all fics that have background pairings or multiple focus pairings. Results with “otp:true” are typically solely focused on that particular pairing.

With all that explanation out of the way, the results:

We can clearly see that the most common category for Baldur’s Gate fics is M/F, with 43.3% of all fics featuring a M/F pairing. 36.4% of all fics feature a M/M pairing, 10.6% feature a F/F pairing, 11.7% are more General, 8.0% feature Multiple people in a pairing, and 10.9% are Other. These percentages add up to more than 100% because a fic can be tagged with multiple categories.

Things change a bit when you filter for “otp:true” and only include fics that focus on just one pairing. In this case, M/M predominates, with a whopping 46.0% of fics. M/F follows with 31.2%, F/F with 11.1%, 7.7% are General, 9.7% are Other, and 3.0% are still tagged as Multi (presumably for fics where the only pairing is a threesome or such).

CHARACTERS

As a last look at more general content before I begin a deep dive into looking at the various characters, I took a look at the 30 most popular character tags.

This was a surprise to me the first time I looked at it in January. In the previous two video game fandoms I was in that had a player character (Mass Effect and Fire Emblem: Three Houses), the player character was the most popular character tag in that fandom. In this case, though, Astarion has the most fics that feature him, and by a pretty significant margin (~5,000 more fics than Tav). He appears in 63.0% of fics. Tav is next, at 46.7% of fics. Then we have the rest of the six Origin characters: Gale (34.5% of fics), Shadowheart (23.7%), Karlach (20.5%), Wyll (18.6%), and Lae’zel (15.9%), as well as Halsin (15.8%) and the Dark Urge (15.3%). That they all are next to each other makes sense, as fics that focus on one character or pairing will often tag the entire ensemble. Lae’zel only showing up 16% of the time seems low, though, for a member of the main cast. To me, this indicates that not many fics are true ensemble fics that include all of the main cast.

After this block of main characters, we drop a bit to Gortash, who shows up in 7.4% of fics. He’s the most popular villain by far, followed by Cazador (4.7%) and Raphael (4.6%). Orin only shows up in 2.9% of fics and Ketheric is featured in only 1.1% of fics.

Jaheira shows up in 4.4% of fics, but her values may include fics from the earlier Baldur’s Gate games. Poor Minthara is the 16th most tagged character and only shows up in 2.5% of fics. Rolan (a tiefling NPC) shows up in more fics than she does.

Despite being featured in previous Baldur’s Gate game fics as well as BG3, Minsc does not seem popular – he’s #25, being tagged in 1.3% of fics.

One thing I did note was the comparative lack of focus on the overarching plot of the game in BG3 fics. I’ll use the Emperor as a barometer for this, as it’s inextricably interwoven into everything having to do with the Absolute, the mysterious artifact, and our protagonists’ immunity to it. Yet, it only appears in 535 fics of over 31,000 – approximately 1.7% of all BG fics. This tells me that there isn’t much engagement with the actual illithid plot of the game in most fics – at least not to the extent where major plot relevant characters are being tagged.

CHARACTER PAIRING STATISTICS

Most of my time for this analysis was spent collecting data for the various pairing tags. I went through the top 300 pairing tags by order of popularity (ending with Mystra/Cazador, of all things) and recorded how many fics each rating had and how many fics each category had both with and without “otp:true” applied. Coincidentally, this included all the pairings with 5 or more fics in them at the time – by sheer luck the 301st pairing tag had only 4 fics. I judged that I could ignore pairing tags with fewer than 5 fics without affecting the results of my analyses too much (also it had taken 4 days to get this far and I was tired).

However, a lot of authors tag their fics with both, say, Astarion/Tav and Astarion/F!OC. But for this exercise I’m not really looking at how authors refer to the Tav/Dark Urge/self insert character in their tagging nomenclature. I’m more interested in how many fics exist for, say, the pairing of Astarion and the player character.

To this end, I combined the numbers for Tav, Dark Urge, OC, F!OC, M!OC, NB!OC, Reader, and You for each character ship. In order to avoid double counting fics, once I had added the numbers for a particular tag I excluded that tag from all future counts.

[X]/PC = [X]/Tav + ([X]/Dark Urge with the [X]/Tav tag excluded) + ([X]/Original Character with the [X]/Tav and [X]/Dark Urge excluded) + ([X]/Reader with [X]/Tav, [X]/Dark Urge, and [X]/Original Character excluded) and so on.

This process dropped the total number of pairings from 300 to 162. However, it also introduces an error. Some fics ship characters with an OC who is not a Tav/Dark Urge/self insert. In condensing all pairings with original characters to the “PC” supercategory, I am ignoring that and counting their original character as a Tav/Dark Urge equivalent. Unfortunately, this is just something I have to live with in order to be able to make the data more manageable, as there is no way to tell which fics are using the OC tag to represent a Tav/Dark Urge and which are not on a mass data scale. I don’t think it will skew the results too much, at least.

I pulled out the top 20 ships for each major character in BG3 (Tav, Dark Urge, the PC, Shadowheart, Karlach, Lae’zel, Minthara, Astarion, Gale, Wyll, and Halsin) before and after I combined the player character tags into the PC supercategory. For each character, I then determined how much of each fic category (M/F, M/M, F/F, Other, Multi) they had, both for all of their pairings and for their pairing with the PC specifically.

Let's start by looking at the player character and its two representatives.

TAV

Tav is in 71 of the top 300 ship tags in the BG3 fandom.

Astarion completely dominates Tav’s ships, with a whopping 9,235 fics (1,839 otp:true fics). In fact, in order to be able to see the tiny little boxes that represent everyone else, here’s another version of this chart, this time with Astarion excluded.

There, that’s a bit more legible. The next highest is Gale, with 2,909 fics (652 otp:true) – less than a third as many fics as Astarion. Halsin comes third with 1,304 fics (207 otp:true) and Shadowheart is the first canon woman to show up, with 806 fics (132 otp:true). Astarion has more than 11 times as many fics with Tav as Shadowheart does. Karlach comes next, with 724 fics (186 otp:true). Raphael comes sixth, with 176 more fics than #7 Wyll who has 442 fics (100 otp:true). Lae’zel is #11 with 300 fics, under Gortash, Rolan, and a threesome with Halsin and Astarion. Minthara is the least popular main character to ship with Tav. She’s #15 with 146 fics (33 otp:true), and has fewer fics with Tav than Zevlor, the Emperor or Haarlep. In a marked improvement from the state of affairs in January, however, she no longer has fewer fics than Kar’niss.

Taking a look at the fic category breakdown, we can see that M/F and M/M predominate for Tav, while there is very little F/F. Dividing the values by the total number of fics, 59.8% of all fics and 50.2% of otp:true fics are tagged M/F, 35.6% of all fics and 34.9% of otp:true fics are tagged M/M, 7.6% of all fics and 4.4% of otp:true fics are tagged F/F, and 13.2% of all fics and 14.2% of otp:true fics are tagged Other. As the proportions of M/F and F/F fics drop when otp:true is applied, I assume that it is more common for M/F and F/F pairings to have background ships or be a background ship (remember that if it is not otp:true, we have no idea if the pairing with Tav is the pairing category being counted.)

THE DARK URGE

The Dark Urge is in 38 of the top 300 ship tags of the BG3 fandom, a bit over half as many as Tav.

While Astarion once again is the most popular character to ship with the Dark Urge (2,165 fics), this time he actually has competition! Gortash/Dark Urge comes in at a very respectable second place with 1,594 fics (about three quarters of Astarion/Dark Urge’s total fic count) and actually beat Astarion by over 100 fics once you apply otp:true (562 fics for Astarion vs 691 fics for Gortash). But after Gortash we once again drop down to numbers we struggle to even see on the chart. Gale is the most visible with 402 fics total (Gale has fewer fics total with the Dark Urge than Astarion or Gortash have with otp:true applied). After that we have a group of Halsin, Shadowheart, and Karlach, all with between 120-150 fics. No other pairing has over 100 fics.

Dark Urge/Tav (99 fics) and Dark Urge/Orin (87 fics) have more fics than Dark Urge/Wyll (83 fics) or Dark Urge/Minthara (80 fics). For Wyll, this is a sign that his pairing with the Dark Urge is not very popular (he drops from #7 with Tav to #9 with the Dark Urge). For Minthara, however, this is a significant climb in the rankings – she was #15 with Tav and #10 with the Dark Urge.

But what’s really interesting to me is the fic category breakdown for the Dark Urge.

The Dark Urge has noticeably more M/M content than Tav does (47.0% vs 35.6% for all fics, 56.9% vs 34.9% for opt:true) and slightly more F/F content than Tav does (10.2% vs 7.6% for all fics, 5.2% vs 4.4% for otp:true), and correspondingly less F/M content. At 13.4% for all fics and 12.8% of otp:true fics, the proportion of Other fic stays just about the same as for Tav.

THE PLAYER CHARACTER

The PC is a combination of Tav, Dark Urge, Original Character, Reader, and You. The PC is in 64 of the top 162 pairings of the BG3 fandom (losing 5 pairings from Tav as I combined Tav/Tav, Tav/Dark Urge, Tav/Reader and so on into one PC/OC category).

The player character was involved in 76.0% of all pairings and 62.1% of otp:true pairings (that is, if you add up every fic for every pairing which the PC is in and divide it by sum of all fics for all BG3 pairings I tracked). This means that over three quarters of shipping in the BG3 fandom is with the player character. It’s not surprising, but it is notable – that’s a very large proportion.

Holy smokes, Astarion! He dominates the rankings even more than before. This time, I was curious to see how much. See below for a proportional representation of all of the PC pairings (note: because many fics have multiple pairings, this circle does not represent the total number of fics but rather the total number of times any pairing with the PC has been tagged).

Astarion composes a full 45% of all pairings with the PC, Gale is bit over 13%, Gortash is 7.3% for all fics and 11.3% of otp:true fics, while Halsin has the opposite trend with 6.3% of all fics and 4.9% of otp:true fics. Shadowheart, Karlach, Raphael, and Wyll all are between 2% and 4% (with Raphael once again beating Wyll). Lae’zel is down at #11 with 1.4% and Minthara is all the way at #16 with 0.9%.

Out of curiosity, I went through all of the PC’s pairings and sorted them by the gender of the person being shipped with the PC.

Oof.

85.7% of all PC ships are with men, 10.4% are with women, and 1.9% are nonbinary beings (Haarlep, the Emperor, and Omeluum). When you apply otp:true, 87.1% of the player character’s ships are with men, 9.9% are with women, and 1.3% are with nonbinary beings.

SHADOWHEART

Welp! Let’s take a look at that 10%, starting with Shadowheart.

If you add up all the fics for all the pairings that include Shadowheart and divide that by the sum of all fics for all 162 pairings I collected, you can see that she is present in 7.0% of pairings. Interestingly, this is true both for all fics and for otp:true fics. She is in 30 of the top 300 ship tags and 24 of the 162 pairings that remain once the player character tags are consolidated.

(I have shortened Shadowheart's name to SH and Shart in various charts to keep the labels from taking up too much room in the graph.)

Lae’zel/Shadowheart is in close competition with Shadowheart/Tav. When all the player characters are condensed into the PC, though, that gap widens.

Shadowheart has 980 fics with the PC, 694 with Lae’zel, 226 with Karlach, 111 with Gale, 61 with Astarion, 51 with Nocturne, 36 with Halsin, 26 with Minthara, and 21 with Wyll (her least popular ship with a main character, at #12). 7 of her top 20 pairings are threesomes – Aylin/Isobel/SH at #8 with 35 fics, Karlach/PC/SH at #9, Karlach/Lae’zel/SH at #10, Astarion/PC/SH at #13, Halsin/PC/SH at #14, Karlach/Wyll/SH at #17, and Gale/Lae’zel/SH at #18.

Lae’zel/Shadowheart has an unusually high number of otp:true fics – almost half of its total fic count. It seems more popular to ship Shadowheart with women than men – both her ships with Lae’zel and Karlach are more popular than Astarion, Gale, or Wyll and her threesomes with women have more fics than her threesomes with men.

The fic category breakdown for Shadowheart matches this expectation.

Boy howdy is Shadowheart fic gay! She has over twice as much F/F fic than M/F fic, just looking at raw numbers of fics. Looking at the proportions of her total fic count, F/F fic represents 71.4% of all of her fics, M/F fic is 35.2%, Other is 10.0%, and Multi is 18.8%. (These percentages add up to more than 100% because many fics tag multiple categories.) This also means that we can’t know that these numbers necessarily include Shadowheart – witness the numbers of M/M fics. All it means is that these categories were on fics in which a Shadowheart pairing was also tagged.

Looking at the otp:true numbers gives us a better picture of what fics where only Shadowheart is in a relationship are like (though this not necessarily an accurate idea of patterns for her overall, as less than a third of her total fics are otp:true). 76.4% of otp:true fics are F/F, 19.8% are M/F, 3.8% are Other, and for some reason 1.2% (9 fics) are M/M. Over three quarters of Shadowheart’s otp:true pairings are femmeslash.

Shadowheart’s fics with the PC character follow pretty much the same pattern as her ships more generally, albeit with slightly less F/F (likely from the loss of the relative behemoth that is Shadowheart/Lae’zel).

32.9% of her pairings with the PC have the M/F tag, 68.1% are tagged F/F, 11.3% are tagged Other, and 18.5% are tagged Multi. Applying otp:true, 25.7% are M/F, 62.6% are F/F, and 12.3% are Other (this likely includes a substantial portion of nonbinary PCs).

KARLACH

Karlach is present in 6.0% of all fic pairings and 5.4% of otp:true fic pairings. She has 31 ship tags in the top 300 ship tags, which condense down to 26 pairings when all player character stand ins are combined.

Her second most popular ship after Tav is with Wyll, though unlike with Shadowheart the pairing is not popular enough to give Tav a run for his/her/their money. Condensing all the player characters widens this gap significantly.

The PC is overwhelmingly Karlach’s most popular ship, with 890 fics. Wyll is second, with 327 fics – less than half as many. Shadowheart and Astarion follow with 226 and 157, respectively. Dammon is next, with 91 fics, and then Lae’zel has 65. She then has a number of threesomes, Minthara (#9 with 32 fics), and Gale (#11 with 18 fics). Halsin is her least popular pairing with a main character, coming in at #15 with 11 fics.

Surprisingly, for all that Karlach is fairly butch, her pairings with men are relatively more popular than we see with the more femme Shadowheart. The category statistics illustrate this clearly.

Compared to Shadowheart, Karlach has a lower proportion of F/F and higher proportions of M/F and Multi fics. F/F is tagged on 51.8% of her fics, M/F on 42.5%, Other on 12.3% and Multi on 27.7%. (Remember that fics can be tagged with multiple categories and that just because a category is tagged doesn’t mean that Karlach is involved in that category.) Looking at otp:true gives us a look at fics where she is the sole focus. F/F is 55.0% of her otp:true fics, M/F drops to 34.4%, Multi drops to 6.1%, and Other stays fairly high at 10.4%.

In Karlach’s pairings with the player character, things change significantly.

It immediately becomes clear that the large number of M/F fics in her general pairings were largely due to her relatively popular ships with Wyll, Astarion, and Dammon. F/F dominates Karlach’s pairings with the PC with 64.0% (67.8% with otp:true applied) of fics, which puts her at just slightly less than Shadowheart. M/F is tagged in 28.5% of her fics with the PC (14.0% with otp:true applied), Multi is tagged 19.4% but drops to 1.2% for otp:true, and Other remains high with 18.0% of fics and 20.2% of otp:true fics with the PC.

Back in January, I noted that of the main cast, Karlach had the highest proportion of ships with nonbinary OCs. I didn’t track the breakdown of OC subcategories this time, but the high numbers in the Other category bear it out.

LAE'ZEL

Counting all fics for all pairings in which Lae’zel is tagged, she is in a mere 3.8% of BG3 pairings, though it rises to 4.5% when otp:true is applied. She is in 23 of the top 300 ship tags, a number that drops down to 18 when I consolidate the player character tags together.

Shadowheart/Lae’zel has twice as many fics as Lae’zel/Tav. Looking at the situation with the PC does not change this much.

Unlike any other main character, Lae’zel’s most popular ship is not with the PC but with Shadowheart. She has 694 fics with Shadowheart, 355 with the PC, 65 with Karlach, 26 with Gale, 26 with Wyll, 25 with Astarion, 16 with Minthara, and 12 with Halsin. She is in an unusually low number of threesomes – only 4. It’s notable though how skewed her numbers are towards women – a threesome with Karlach and Shadowheart has more fics than any of her pairings with a canon man. The various whole team multiship pairings, none of which have more than 11 fics, comprise most of the tail end of her ship list.

Speaking of the tail end of her ship list, what happens when we condense the player character tags is that Lae’zel does not reach a full 20 ships – she drops to 18 pairings. She has more than this, of course, but my methodology ignores all pairings with fewer than 5 fics (which means that my friend’s Lae’zel/Astarion/Tav fic is not counted). Therefore, Lae’zel’s 19th and 20th most popular pairings have 4 fics or fewer. I have represented these missing pairings with little :( emojis, because this is a sad state of affairs.

This is a symptom of a state of affairs in which Lae’zel is just not very popular in the AO3 side of BG3 fandom. Her most popular ship is Shadowheart’s second most popular ship, and the numbers crater after that. No Lae’zel ship other than Shadowheart and the PC has more than 100 fics.

Lae’zel’s most popular ships being women is demonstrated clearly by the fic category breakdown.

Wow! At a whopping 76.3% of all of Lae’zel’s fics and 88.9% of Lae’zel’s otp:true fics, Lae’zel has a higher proportion of F/F fic than Shadowheart. Granted, they’re both sizable portions of each other’s total F/F count. 26.1% of Lae’zel’s fics have the M/F tag, though this drops to a mere 7.1% when otp:true is applied. Other is tagged in 11.6% of fics but drops to 2.0% with otp:true. 18.1% of her fics are tagged Multi but this likewise drops to 4.4% with otp:true.

The pertinent question for Lae’zel is how much of her F/F count is due to her pairing with Shadowheart? How gay are her pairings with the PC?

The answer is... still pretty gay! F/F is not quite as dominant, with 67.3% of all her fics with the PC and 80.0% of her fics where only Lae’zel/PC is tagged – but 80% is a still a really high proportion! This indicates to me that a lot of the M/F in the “All Fics” chart likely does not involve Lae’zel. M/F is tagged in 33.5% of her fics with the PC, a number which is more than halved to 12.7% when otp:true is applied. 13.2% of her fics are tagged Other, which drops to 5.5% with otp:true – much less than for Shadowheart and Karlach. It seems either Lae’zel is not as popular for nonbinary OCs or that a large proportion of the Other tag is from mind flayer Tavs/Durges and people don’t write Lae’zel with a mind flayer love interest.

One other notable fact is that Lae’zel is the only female companion without any otp:true M/M PC fic. It could be due to her low fic numbers in the first place, but I prefer to think that Lae’zel fans are simply more fastidious about correctly tagging fic. It certainly fits her character.

MINTHARA

Ah, Minthara. Unquestionably the least popular of the main romanceable characters in BG3, her pairings only comprise 1.1% of all BG3 fanfic pairings, a number that rises to a whopping(/sarcastic) 1.4% of otp:true pairings. She has only 14 ship tags in the 300 most popular ship tags for BG3, a number that drops further to a mere 9 pairings once I’ve combined all the player character tags.

What’s notable about Minthara’s ship tags is the popularity of the Dark Urge relative to Tav. Minthara has 146 fics with Tav and 80 with the Dark Urge. This is a higher proportion than other main characters have. It may be because more people write her on evil routes (which likely disproportionately feature the Dark Urge) or because she has some very good lines for the Dark Urge and their Slayer form.

Another observation is the lack of primary non-PC ships. The other characters that I look at all have a major non-PC ship – Shadowheart/Lae’zel, Karlach/Wyll, Gale/Astarion, Wyll/Astarion, Halsin/Astarion. Minthara doesn’t really have that. Her most popular non-PC ship is Orin, at #5 and with a mere 45 fics. This is illustrated clearly once all the player character tags are combined.

The PC dominates Minthara’s pairings to an extent not seen with any other character, not even Astarion. She drops from 234 fics with the PC (65 otp:true) to 45 fics with Orin (26 otp:true), 32 with Karlach (16 otp:true) and 26 with Shadowheart (11 otp:true). Every other pairing has 16 or less fics. Tying into that, Minthara has very few pairings with 5 or more fics. She does not even have enough for a top 10! I have replaced her missing pairings with the :( emoji because this is sad.

Another notable thing about this chart, though, is how few fics Minthara has just in general. Lae’zel and Wyll, the other neglected companions, both have at least 500 fics with their most popular partner. Minthara does not even break 250. In fact, none of her pairings with someone other than the PC have over 50 fics.

Another interesting fact is that Minthara is the only character in this analysis to not have any threesomes or moresomes in her pairings with over 5 fics. She doesn’t share, it seems.

For some reason, Minthara has 8 ships with Councillor Florrick of all people. And it’s not all by the same author, which is what I would expect for a somewhat out there pairing. Presumably someone out there wrote a really good fic which then inspired others to play with the idea. In a small fandom like Minthara’s, one fic like that can make quite a difference.

As can be expected, Minthara’s fic categories are pretty damn gay.

F/F is tagged in 79.0% of her fics (77.6% of otp:true fics). M/M is tagged in 21.3% of her fics (17.1% of otp:true fics), Other in 6.1% (4.6% otp:true), and Multi in 8.9% though it drops to 1.3% of her otp:true fics. With these numbers, Minthara is arguably the gayest major character in the BG3 fandom by fic count, though Lae’zel beats her when you take otp:true into effect.

This pattern holds true when looking at her ship with the player character. 77.8% of her fics with the PC are tagged F/F (73.8% of otp:true fics), 23.5% are tagged M/F (15.4% otp:true), 8.5% are tagged Other (10.8% otp:true), and 9.4% are tagged Multi (3.1% otp:true). The latter is a bit confusing given that she has no multiship pairings. It may include collections of Reader/[X] fics that include Minthara.

PART 2

Welp. I’ve run into the tumblr post image limit. For part 2 of this essay, which discusses Astarion, Gale, Wyll, and Halsin and then compares all 8 of the main characters against each other on a variety of metrics, see this link.

[damnfandomproblems]

Fandom Problem #5106:

Twitter fandoms and Tik Tok fandoms. Self-explanatory. Of course not everyone that has a Twitter or Tik Tok account is toxic, but there is too much toxicity on those two websites. Even more than Tumblr and Reddit at times. To the point where if I were a parent, I would not allow any kids of mine to have an account there. There has got to be some changes there.

[reginalusus]

Retro tutorial?

Disclaimer: Tumblr, for some reason, likes to dullen the colour of the screenshots, just know that they're actually a bit more saturated and brighter than how they appear here.

So, after posting my recent retro drawings on Reddit, and getting some comments that genuinely made me cry (/pos), I noticed I also got quite a few comments asking me how I actually do these drawings.

Er, I'm not the best teacher, really, and honestly, there's probably an easier, faster way to do it. But, this is my way of doing it, lmao. I work on a Gen 2 iPad Pro with a Gen 1 Apple Pencil, just in case you're wondering.

Firstly, here are the four apps I use for this kind of drawing:

From left to right: Sketchbook Pro, Pixlr, Photoleap and CapCut. Sketchbook Pro is what I use to draw everything. You could honestly use any drawing app though. We will talk about the other three when we get to them.

Step 1: draw whatever it is you want to draw.

I'm going to use the first drawing I did in this style to help me explain: my simpy Spamton drawing! Firstly, basically draw whatever your little heart wants. Get your sketch layer down. Here's what my sketch layer looked like:

Looks bad, no? Lol, it always starts that way. Just get your drawing down first. I rely heavy on references for clothing. I found this particular pose on Pinterest. Pinterest is great for finding references.

Notice that I have some spaces filled in with the word 'black'. This is literally just to remind me that the particular space will just be filled with a solid black.

This particular pose and setting is tricky, I'm just using it as an example and because I still have the original files for it. I recommend maybe starting with a portrait or a face first.

Step 2: fill in and clean your lines. This is important, especially for the anime look.

When I do linework, I tend to make the lines thicker wherever they meet one another. For this style, it doesn't really work, and I had to train myself to stop doing that.

As you can see, I made some changes along the way, such as making Spamton's expression softer and making him grin instead of smirking. How do I know when to make something solid black? This is mostly for clothes. If you are following a reference, and you notice that some of the shadows are darker than others on the reference, make those darkest shadows your solid-blacks.

So, here we have the finished lines! Remember: no making the lines thicker where they meet! Keep the lines thin all around. If you're wondering what brush I use in Sketchbook for the finished lines, it's this one:

This is the ONLY brush I use for the retro drawings, besides a pencil for the sketch layer. It provides a nice, solid, thin line.

Step 3: Filling Flat Colours.

The easiest step IMO. Choose your colours, fill those babies in.

Unfortunately, I think I deleted my flats layer (I have no idea why, but I cannot find it, lmao), so I don't have an image to show for this step. But, it's self-explanatory. Just colour it in with your flats.

You can choose saturated colours if you wish, but we'll be editing that sort of stuff later.

Step 4: Shading.

Ooh, the tricky stuff. But this is what will make or break the look of the drawing. Besides lines, shading is important as fuck for this style. I recommend pulling up some screenshots from actual 80s/90s anime. For this Spamton drawing, here's some of the ones I used as a reference:

Remember to make your shading on separate layers! You may want to change their tone and opacity later, as I did.

The shading in old anime is usually done with one colour, which is cooler-toned than the flat it is based off. Remember to keep the shading as simple as you can if you want to actually make it look like a screenshot from an anime or cartoon.

For shadows, I used the multiply tool or the overlay tool. You can mess around with these to see which one suits your drawing best. It mostly depends on the colour.

For 'lights', I used either the soft glow tool or the overlay tool. However, I don't recommend spending too much time 'lighting' your colours. Retro anime tends to focus more on shadows rather than lighting (obviously there are exceptions).

As you can see, the only 'lighting' I used on Spamton was a small section of his hair, and a shine on his suit. The rest is either shadows or flats:

For clothing, follow a reference or follow where your light is coming from. For this, I followed the reference.

Step 5 (Optional): Adding Gradients.

You don't need to do this, but to help with the 'mood' of the drawing, I added a gradient over the top of the layer. I chose a dark purple/blue to give that city vibe, then I used the darken tool and turned the opacity down. So, it looks like this:

The difference isn't much, but it will add a lot to the vibe!

Step 6 (Optional): Backgrounds. *Shudders.*

I'll be real, I can't do backgrounds for shit. Well, I can sort of do them, but I definitely don't enjoy it. If you can do your own backgrounds, this will probably come easier. I have a sneaky, maybe cheaty method, however, to make it look good.

Firstly, make sure any 'windows' or areas in your drawing that you want to add a background to are empty. The windows in Spamton's car here are transparent. You'll want to put your background layer at the very bottom, behind everything else.

Firstly, I choose a solid colour and fill the entire layer. I chose a navy/purple for this one, since it's always dark in Cyber City.

Then, and here's the cheat part, I find a stock image of a city skyline. I deliberately picked one that had sort of 'basic' buildings. Put this on top of your solid colour and use the hard light tool.

The hard light tool tends to focus on the lights and basic outline of the image. I did do some smudging and added some lights to give it that 'retro' feel. The lower quality it looks, the better. So then it looks like this:

But the car needs windows! Easy. I chose a blue colour with the soft glow tool and added them like so (on top of all the background layers):

Step 7: Editing in Pixlr.

Now, this is my favourite part: the editing to really make the image pop! Firstly, we are going to use Pixlr, so save your image and open it up in Pixlr.

So, in Pixlr I only do two things: choose some overlay editors and up the saturation. Firstly, the overlay editors. The ones I choose for the retro look are:

Antonio - this blurs the lines somewhat, and makes it overall darker/softer. I obviously do not use it to its full capacity (there's a slider you can mess around with under each tool to find your desired effect, though I recommend using Antonio only a little.)

Hagrid - this will make it look slightly more saturated and sharper. It also adds a sort of 'burn' effect on each outline of the colours. Again, I use this one only slightly.

Ivan - One of my favourites for Big Shot Spamton. Again, I only use it slightly. This one will add an orange effect and 'fix' some of your shading. Though, it only works to its full potential if you have your shading as best as it can be.

Sara - Another really good one for retro anime. It's sort of like Hagrid, but softer. Depending on your colours, it will also add a soft 'glow' effect. Because of this, I only use it a little, as older anime does not have the intense glow you see in more recent anime, in general.

There are lots of other options. You can play around to see which one will suit the vibe you're going for best!

Then, we go into the general menu and up the saturation if needed!

Step 8: Editing in Photoleap - then back to Sketchbook!

Why the fuck do you use two editors? Simple - Photoleap has some cool options that Pixlr does not, and vice versa. We won't be spending as much time in Photoleap compared to Pixlr.

Now, Photoleap does NOT allow screenshots within the app, so I just have to explain it without any images.

In Photoleap, we're only going to be doing two things, and one of those things are optional. Firstly, using the grain tool. This will really add to that 'old' look. Don't go too hard on it!

The optional thing you can do is add a red chromatic abberation. It's under the 'effects' tab in Photoleap. However, sometimes this will take away from the retro look, so use it carefully. I only used the tiniest amount for this drawing to make the lines look 'cleaner'.

Once I'm done in Photoleap, I save the image and export it back into Sketchbook. This is where I'll add/fix some things, such as adding a shine in Spamton's eyes, a shine on the car window and the smoke coming from his cigarette. I also bring the gradient layer back up and mess with the colour a bit (optional).

Have you noticed the large, black border to the right of the drawing? Yeah, that'll be cropped. I decided to make the overall image smaller and, unfortunately, Sketchbook Pro does not allow you to change the canvas size once you've started a drawing (please add this option, Autodesk!)

Step 9: CapCut Editing.

This will seriously be the cherry-on-top to actually make this thing look like a screenshot. Save your image and open it up in CapCut.

Firstly, you'll want to add an 'effect' to the photo. Under 'retro', I personally choose 'frosted quality', because it adds a moving grain and gives an 'old cartoon' feel, which is what I'm after. There are lots you can choose from, it's up to you to play around with it! You can also adjust the effect as you wish. I tend to turn the blur completely off.

Then, the last step in CapCut: adding a caption, if you want. I make the text yellow and add an italic effect to make it seem like an actual subtitle.

Step 10 (Final): Exporting.

That's us basically finished! I'll export it as a video from CapCut, crop it using my iPad's default editing software in the gallery, then export it as a GIF. Exporting it as a GIF lowers the quality a tad further, which is a bonus for this type of drawing. Viola! You now have a retro-anime-inspired piece!

Final Notes

Again, I'm not a good teacher and this is kind of all over the place, lmao. But, I hope it can guide those who wish to try this style!

If you do try it, maybe tag me and let me see if my tutorial worked for you? Or maybe you were just curious, lmao. There's a LOT of steps here, lol, and I'm not a professional artist by any means, so...

Anyway, that's all from me for now!

[fandomwe1rd0]

The Rick and Morty fandom is insane. You've got some good parts and some bad parts, allow me to put them into groups! From the best to the worst! Feel free to reblog or comment with your own rankings!

MY FOLLOWERS Y'ALL ARE THE GREATEST! MWAH! MWAH!

2. Rick simps aka Rickfuckers, they are pretty chill tbh, I don't simp for Rick, but Rickfuckers are like one of the most chill, normal parts of the fandom, even though I question their taste in men, they cool.

3. People like meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee hi! I'm not exactly chill or normal- But yeah basically people who foam at the mouth over Rick not being a complete ass to Morty and who write fics, analysis, stuff like that.

4. Mostly normal people, they find moments of Rick caring about Morty sweet, but don't go insane over it like me, they make fics and anaysis and stuff like that, I follow these blogs a lot, they're cool. They are honestly probably tied with me, but some people may like them better since their energy is more subdued, meanwhile I excergate it for entertainment purposes.

5. Normal people, basically people just watching for the humor and don't really care about the emotional part or the character development which is fair, got no strong opinion on them tbh. So they are a great neutral point of the list, everyone else is above this is positive, and everyone below this is negative.

6. Ugh, dudebros. The people who get mad at Rick for changing and going to therapy, it's real ironic that they complain about this when Rick is literally pansexual and autistic, and the majority of the main cast is bisexual but whatever. Especially if they stopped watching due to Dan rightfully firing Justin Rolliland and if they defend Justin Rolliland, despite the fact that he talks to minors and beats his wife.

7. These people are less prevalent, but they are still there, the fans that claim haters of the show are not "smart enough" to get the show or that they are the only ones smart enough to get it, I feel like this one is self-explanatory

8. Rickortys shippers or Morty simps, clumping these two together because both of them disgust me <3 To make myself clear, I am talking about people simping for 14-YEAR-OLD Morty, I don't get a problem with people simping for adult Morty. But yeah, do I really gotta explain why they are dead last? I have encountered these people on Reddit AND on Tumblr, and neither was a pleasant experience. Some even reblogged my posts, and one followed me biefly, gave me a scare.

[nami-moittli]

Uuhhhhh twst characters I think would use/have tumblr

Idia: self explanatory. Uses dark mode

Ortho: uses it bc Idia does. When she learned that the CEO or wtvr was transphobic/transmisogynist she asked her parents to buy the site. Yep, the Shrouds own two hellholes now. True Blue

Lilia: Uses it bc Gloomurai (Idia) suggested it. He’s having a grand old time. Idk what mode he would use, so he probably changes it whenever he feels like it. Tho I have heard that there’s a vampire mode? That’s probably his default mode

Jade: one word: Mushrooms. He loves it here. Uhhh idk system default? Doesn’t realize/care that he can change it

Floyd: Will regularly forget that this site exists. When he does remember though it’s just a wave of random ass shitposts that comes directly from his brain the moment he thinks of them. Again, changes on his mood, but I wanna say goth rave I think it’s called

Cater: used to use it a lot in middle school. Has since switched to instagram though so he barely uses it anymore. Maybe deactivated. Goth rave, or if he were to start using it again, pride

Rook: total fanboy. Runs two separate fandom blogs about Neige and Vil respectively. Does usual fanboy things like rave about their newest movies, theorize and just general fandom shenaniganary. Pride mode

Vil: Ortho actually got them to use it bc 1) Ortho just wants more IRLs to interact with and 2) tumblr is tumblr. You don’t have to be celebrity Vil Schoenheit, you can just be another user on the site. Vil rarely uses it, but he follows both the Shrouds. Worries about Idia’s mental health lowkey. Goth Rave

Deuce: I once made a text post/meme where Deuce was a Reddit refugee, and I still think that’s hilarious, so I’m adding it. Either true blue or dark mode

Maybe Ortho convinces the other freshman to join? But other than that, my TWST tumblr hcs

Oh yeah, honorable mention: Chenya, pride mode

[douknowanoah]

SUPER DUPER LATE INTRODUCTION POST🎉🎉

[SUPER DUPER LATE INTRODUCTION POST]

Hi-llo!!! Welcome to my blog. Here’s some basic stuff about me. The rest is under the cut because no one likes scrolling 10k banana lengths (yes I am a redditor 🥲). Basically a Q&A. Have fun meeting the me!

What do I call you?!

For simplicity’s sake, call me Noah or some other variation of my username (douknowanoahnoah). Honestly, I don’t care. You can even call me dookie.. 🥲

Pronouns?

I’m alright with any out of she/he/they, but I do prefer she/her since I’m more used to it.

Activity Level?

I’ll be a little inactive (reposting mainly, and only posting little memes) on basically all my socials, not just Tumblr because I’ve gotten more into reading lately :D So if I disappear for a bit, im just getting all my happy brain chemicals from fanfic or published work

Blog Mood?

I’m not a serious blog. Everything here is very lighthearted. In the past I have posted about some serious subjects (personal overdose/drug abuse, therapy) but I try to smother it was humor to keep it low-key. I don’t post about that stuff often, if at all, anymore.

If you found this account from r/exfor from my abandoned Reddit account u/justNormi, then just beware that I posted about serious stuff on that account (self-harm) in case you’re sensitive to that sort of thing. I’m cautious about that part of life touching my tumblr, so it will most likely not be here

Fandoms?

Lately my blog has been more like a little diary for myself, but it started out as a place for me to post about my Expeditionary Force pirate AU (which I haven’t abandoned btw!! I’ve just been focusing on other things. I plan on continuing that AU in the future)

OK. No more rambling. Here’s a list of fandoms I’m into (but don’t necessarily post about)

- Expeditionary Force

- Starkid

- 9-1-1

- All For The Game

Issue is, I usually drop a fandom the second the original media ends or after I’m saturated myself in it too much. My interests revive after a while tho 👍

Expect fanart reblogs and occasional meta-analysis

Other Socials?

- AO3: douknowanoah

- To be added :D

Timezone?

Well I live in New York so Eastern Standard Time (EST). As of writing this, it’s 5:46 PM!

Blog Organization?

It’s currently not organized, but I’ll try to organize this sort of stuff in the future. My previous posts will not be organized because there’s just too many.

#personal -> bite-sized life updates, random thoughts, etc

#art -> reblogs of beautiful fanart and sometimes my own shit

#[fandom name] -> self-explanatory. Fandom specific stuff

#meme -> my own lazy memes or stuff I reblog

Wrap-Up

This blog is a safe-space for anyone who isn’t unsafe towards others (looking at you transphobes :/)

Sometimes I vanish for a while (more often recently) but I always come back like a stray cat.

Mutuales, feel free to tag me in things! Even if I don’t reply, it IS appreciated. I’m probably just overthinking what to say until it’s too late lol

The rest of this will just be random things about me so..

If you don’t want to read more, you can stop here. Thanks for reading!!

[IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ MORE, YOU CAN STOP HERE. THANKS FOR READING!!]

Hobbies?

READING 💯, writing, binge watching shows and fanfic, shopping

MBTI?

Last I checked, it was INTP or some other IN

Misc. Facts

I love denim jackets. I have ridiculously long hair (seriously, it reaches my upper thigh when wet). I like to eat Lays chips with Kraft cheese. I don’t have a numerical password.

I take 1-3 hour long showers. I chew my fingernails. I like to eat vanilla ice cream with the following toppings:

-Chocolate syrup

- Pepsi

- Jell-O powder

- plain cornflakes

Current obsession?

All For The Game by Nova Sakavic 💯 Who knew I’d fall in love with a gay trilogy about a fake sport and the mafia?

Current Songs on Repeat?

[greengaybubbles]

FEDIVERSE INFO/GUIDE

TLDR: Info/guide about decentralized social media alternative if people would like to move away from Tumblr. Also I'm sorry for info-dumping.

### INTRODUCTION(ig i'm doing a chapter thing) Hi, it me, one of the little gay people in your phone. It's been a little since us 196ers have moved over to Tumblr. Over the first few months it felt like Tumblr became a place for our little community to settle down for the years to come but after the entire drama with Predstrogen getting banned by the CEO himself, life on this platform has seemed rocky to me. I was happy to see the community here was outraged and rallied against these actions but it feels like once again we are on a site that doesn't value or respect us. One question that I saw a few times during this event was if we should migrate to another platform and where to if so. This was met with not much of an answer because where else is there to go? Back to Reddit? Twitter? Somehow move to Instagram? To those who feel like there is no where left to turn let me introduce you, the two people who are actually read this, to the Fediverse.

### WHAT IS THE FEDIVERSE

In the most basic terms it's a group of individual servers that are connected to create a bigger social media platform. It's kind of like if you could view and communicate with people on Instagram and Reddit while on Tumblr and vise versa just with a lot of smaller independent servers.

This allows for a lot of smaller servers with unique communities and rules to mingle and thrive without needing to worry about advertisements, algorithms, or higher-ups from randomly banning your account for just existing(I mean that can happen if there's a bad admin but then you can just create a different account on a different server).

I feel like this corner of the internet would be perfect to harbor the 196 community. Below is a guide on how to set up an account and a little bit about the interface to anyone who would like to try. At the very bottom is also a great video that goes over everything here just better I would say. If you would, give it a try. It would make my heart warm to see the 196 tag on there.

### HOW TO MAKE AN ACCOUNT

# STEP 1: Pick a server

The first step in creating an account is picking the a server. This in the end won't matter that much as if you create an account on a niche server you will still be able to see the content on all other servers connected to the Frediverse. The two main things you will want to be looking at while choosing a server is: 1. Join or apply: Some servers you will need to apply to get in while others are open to anyone. I've never tried to apply to any servers so I can't say anything about the process, but it is something to keep in mind if you would just like to create an account and instantly start posting.

2. The rules: For rules that should be self explanatory. If some of y'all want to do hornyposting, which please do, then you should make sure the server you choose is okay with that type of stuff.

3. Character Limit: Every server will have a character limit for messages which is the only downside when switching from Tumblr. For most servers this limit is 500 character but it can be more. I don't know how to see this per server but if it's a bigger server it's more than likely it'll be a 500 character limit. Below are two links to help with server hunting: 1. The main page with some of the most popular servers.

2. A tool that can help you sort ALL of the servers.

For this tutorial I'll create an account on neovibe.app to demonstrate but feel free to join any one that catches your eye even if it's a general server like mastodon.social(that is a perfectly fine option).

# STEP 2: Fill out the info

Once you have picked a server go to it's page (so for me I'll put neovibe.app into my URL). Then once the page loads hit the 'create account' button.

Now you will be taken to the rules of the server. Double check they are good with you before hitting accept.

Now you will be taken to your usual social media fill out page. Fill the information and hit sign up. Next you will be prompted to verify your email and after that you should be ready to start posting.

# STEP 3: Enjoy

Once you've created your account you can now start posting. This works a little like Twitter but less toxic and isn't a in a spiral right now.

Here are some descriptions of the tabs you will use most: Home - Your home tab will show you things the people you follow posted along with tags you follow. Explore - The Explore tab I believe shows you what's trending today. Live Feed - The Live Feed shows you the newest things. It can be sorted between the server you are on, other servers, or all the servers.

When posting remember if something is NSFW or gory remember to add a content warning.

If you have any more question please let me know and I will help as much as I can. I love talking about open source projects that work towards a better and more open internet and helping people use this stuff.

For more info this video talks more in depth about how stuff works and how to use the platform:

[livingroombeat]

Living room beat progress update 12\16\23

Hi gang, are you ready for your scheduled progress update? I sure am the worlds most consistent writer. well anyway ive been doing some planning for a4 and im gonna kinda explain my current roadmap here.

-do end of a3 animation

Yeah i havent done it yet, ive just been procrastinating. Anyway though its gonna be a short one and it wont take long so this isnt like a major deal or anything.

-do a4

I have the events of a4 planned in detail already in a text file so all i have to do is write the dialogue and turn it into comics. Ive said it before and ill say it again: a3 was WAY too many comics. There were so many comics that were just a couple of words and thats just completely stupid. A3 couldve been like 100 comics but instead ended up at 300+ because i did it like an idiot. But im not gonna do that with a4, it will be pretty short in comic number but each one will have loads of dialogue. It will be super efficient.

-post

I might actually post a3 before finishing a4, but again a4 is going to be super short in page count so it probably wont take TOO long to actually make, so waiting til after its done isnt completely unreasonable.

-do new website

Blogger sucks, its a terrible platform, so im gonna make a new website and host it on github pages. It will be made so that it is super easy for me to bulk upload LOADS of new pages at once so that i wont keep putting it off like ive been doing with the rest of a3. It will be all automatic and everything so i dont have to spend multiple hours on it lol. I will also be able to do bulk changes to the page format so i dont have to go individually through each post and change it. Maybe even a back button????

-do a lot of the story

This is a super vague bullet point but i just kinda want to make my way a fair chunk through the story before doing the next point because it would be kinda annoying to just be halted after a4 for ages.

-go back and redo a0 through a3 (and maybe a4, well see how that turns out)

Ive already said it in this post but a0 through a3 kinda just suck, theres loads of changes i would make now if i made them, so i plan to go back and change them. This would also make lrb more accessible for new readers because they dont have through over 100 pages for it to get 'ok'. I also plan to have a summary page to catch people up on the story of a0 through a4 quickly so that they can get into a5 and beyond. I will probably only keep that summary page until ive finished remaking a0 through a3, but i will post it after a4 as a4 is a good break off point in the story (youll see).

-do rest of the story

This is pretty self explanatory. Theres loads of story to go.

Among all of these points is also planning a5 and beyond as what i said before isnt true. I originally wasnt going to change the actual story i had planned but i changed my mind on that, the main story is being changed quite a bit.

The thing is i noticed the problems with the structure but didnt notice the ROOT cause of those problems, the fact that the characters act as too much of a conglomerate and have literally 0 independence.

Ok what do i mean by that. Well basically all of the alternate reality versions of streve and brian, and even streve and brian themselves, could be compressed into 1 character reasoning their decisions out with themself. They have 'disagreements' but they dont have any REAL disagreements, they always come around and end up acting as a group in the end.

Now is this because im a bad writer? Probably but i can (try to) fix it in future parts of the story. So im gonna do that.

I also plan to make more social media for the comic rather than just tumblr and reddit. Like a twitter even though that site is dying.

I also also need to come up with a name to sign these posts with. All webcomic authors have some name they go by, i dont. So ill come up with one. Anyway thats all i have to say for this progress update. This one ended up being super long so hopefully that makes up for me missing so many. See you next saturday.

[greetings-inferiors]

Reblogging this so my tumblr based mutuals get to know about the culture exchange!

I used to frequent r/196 years ago (although I didn’t post nearly as much as I should have 😂) so it’s really cool to see! When I was there it wasn’t nearly as left leaning and femboy obsessed as you say!

It’s funny because it feels like tumblr and Reddit are literal countries with refugees. Idk why it feels so accurate. And I guess that makes me a Reddit native who moved to tumblr and got a Tumblr citizenship. It’s nice to see my Reddit siblings making the trip!

I’m also getting an influx of new user followers (but they’ve all reblogged!!! I’m so proud 🥹) so I might make one of my Reddit refugee posts a pinned post for a while, or maybe just make my pinned post more friendly and self explanatory.

a summar(ule)y of 196 culture

since the tumblr veterans have been kind enough to introduce us newbies to their site and culture, i think it is only fair that we explain the culture of our glorious former home to any tumblr users who might be interested in the #196 tag. keep in mind, all these things are based on my perspective of the situation.

first of all, some general information (that you might’ve already heard):

196 (r/196 on reddit) was a subreddit with only one (official) rule; "post before you leave." it was mainly a meme/shitposting sub, but it cultivated a large queer and left-leaning community. in protest of the recent api chances in reddit, 196 has shut down indefinitely until reddit reverts these changes.

now for some culture/references that you might come across

spronkus kronkus:

spronkus is this yellow, rabbit-like creature.

they were the mascot of our subreddit. their appearance can vary from images to image, but as far as i’m aware, their full outfit consists of a bandanna in the colours of the trans flag around their neck, a gun labelled as such (other wise you obviously wouldn’t know what you’re looking at), and an axe also coloured like the trans flag.

r/place:

this is a rare event on reddit where the entire website gets a huge white canvas and can start creating pixel art on it. 196 participated by collaboratively creating our mascot, spronkus with "196!" written next to them.

this version of the pixel art was recreated by me as i couldn't find a nice image of it. there were some changes between the first version and the end result, so this might not be exactly how it looked in the end

post titles/"rule":

reddit forces it's users to title every post they make. as most of the posts on 196 spoke for themselves, many user instead titled their posts "rule", to indicate that they followed the subreddit's only rule. some people also tried to make puns with the word or tried to include it in words that shared some letters (example: wor(ule)d).

anarcho-stripperism:

as the amount of cropped porn jokingly posted to the subreddit increased, the moderators decided that porn would be banned from the sub, with one exception: anarcho-stripperism. she made food fucking videos, in which she jokingly tested the fuckability of different food items (fruits, pasta, etc.)

bigotry showcase:

bigotry showcase was a post flair (basically the reddit equivalent of tags) on the subreddit and was later restricted to only be used on saturdays. under this flair people posted instances of different forms of bigotry to make fun it.

eating babies/hungryposting:

at some point, the subreddit started to pretend to like eating babies, which started a variety of memes regarding the subject. even a post flair called "hungrypost" was added because of this

goblinhog:

goblinhog is the most prominent and well-known member of the 196 moderation team. besides this, on 196 he was mostly known for changing people’s flair if you enjoyed him enough about it.

flairs:

flairs are little tags that are displayed under your name in posts or comments, they are also subreddit specific. most subreddits give their users a palette of preset flairs and the option to make your own custom flair. however, in 196 you only had the option to customize your flair during special events. if you wanted to customize your flair outside of those events (which was basically the entire time), you had to ask a mod to do it for you.

punching nazis:

from time to time, the same gif of a person with a nazi armband getting punched in the face, and promptly falling to the ground, was reposted to the subreddit. this became a sort of tradition.

discourse/drama

wasp discourse:

the wasp discourse was a one to two weeks long heated discussion that generally divided the subreddit into two factions. one side said that they were justified in killing wasps if they were attacked by them, while the other claimed that since wasps are just animals, they aren't aware of what they're doing in the same way humans are, and therefore should be spared.

drama about the british:

there was a time when jokes along the lines of "ew, british" became pretty frequent on the subreddit. as a response, some user claimed that this was akin to racism and tried to get others to stop with the jokes. a debate over whether or not it was important or necessary to stop followed afterwards.

pillar discourse:

this was a debate over which type of pillar should be considered the best (ionic; doric; corinthian). i have seen the question "which pillar is the best?" being used as a sort of greeting between 196 refugees on here.

related subreddits

195:

195 was the predecessor to 196, and also was a social experiment with the same premise as 196 (one rule, post before you leave). as the creators of 195 ended the experiment, the community wanted something with the same vibe to continue posting, and thus 196 was born.

197:

197 is another part of the 196 ecosystem and is commonly understood to be the more politically right-leaning and bigoted as 196, as some people who were banned from 196 continued posting there. besides that, the subreddits were essentially the same in terms of how they functioned.

19684:

this subreddit adds a second rule which banned all mentions of sex (that’s why it’s name is a pun on 1984). some people took this as banning all discussion of sexuality, which resulted in a community that was slightly less accepting of queer people. it is currently still up and running as the 196 moderation team wants a way to stay in contact with the community.

amendments to the posts:

femboy expert:

another well-known 196 user. as the name suggests they're an expert on the subject of femboys, with their flair on 196 reading "phd in feminine boys". as the subreddit was somewhat obsessed with femboys, it's no wonder that they became popular.

shitcum_backup:

this was the main account of a pretty popular shitposter on the subreddit. although i didn't see them as much in the last few months, i remember them sometimes having a unique speaking pattern, in which they referred to themself in the third person.

monko74:

i must admit that i didn't know about this person beforehand. they seem to be quite popular. some research reveals the even a few subreddits dedicated to them. they seem to be known for the quote "Me balls burn [sic]"

691:

a sister subreddit that inverts the rule of 196, here you would be (temporarily) banned for posting. some time ago the members of this sub initiated a rebellion/revolution against the bot who performed all the bans (roomba).

it's going to be very interesting to see which aspects of 196 culture are going to survive the tumblr migration, and which aspects won't be applicable on this site.

i'm obviously not the ultimate scholar on 196 lore. if i’ve missed or left out anything, or said something wrong, please comment it.

[bleachbleachbleach]

Please, I would like to see your bingo card for the greatest adjutant, Abarai Renji.

@whipplefilter:

ALT

They are soooooo cool looking: Self explanatory. Renji just looks cool, whether he’s a skrunkly little howler monkey or flashing the most ludicrous drip that could only ever look good on him, or when he’s covered in blood, or sleeping in a warehouse in the middle of a blood war. Best-dressed in all of Soul Society, and also Karakura, and Hueco Mundo, and Hell.

They’re deeper than they seem: Like the Ukitake and Kyouraku one, I waffled on whether to choose this one or not, because I think Renji is exactly as deep as the text suggests he is. There is plenty of depth right there on the page. But I think about how Renji might come across to general audiences who don’t have weird Tumblr hyperfixation illnesses of the brain—like, what impression my mom would come away with if she were to watch random episodes of Bleach on TV—and that version of Renji is a less interesting Renji, if perhaps an easy one to end up with.

A bit ago I ended up on a Reddit thread (after Googling "when was the Quincy genocide?"—as one does) that was a bunch of people complaining about how… useless??? Renji???? was???? (Well, they were complaining about both Renji and Hitsugaya, but this post is about Renji.) I mean, I disagree, but I was fascinated by what the thread’s frames of reference were, and what assumptions they were built on. It was a very different world from the one that floats around in my head. It had a lot to do with kill counts and win/lose ratios. I don’t say this because I don’t care about the fighting element of Bleach (I like the fighting quite a bit). But I also feel like if you don’t die, and no one else dies, then that counts as a win for a shinigami. They’re fighting monsters, not participating in some kind of sports tournament. XP Even irrespective of that, though, Renji is easily one of the most capable and dependable out of all of these fuckers, both because he has a giant bone snake AND because he’s "deeper than he seems." Aggressive and quick-acting, yes, but also kind of a planner? He clearly thinks about all of these things a lot. He thinks a lot about both bone snake things and about things in general. And he has about 80% of all the interpersonal skills in the entire Gotei. He has character depth and roster depth.

Didn’t Get Enough Screen Time: Okay Renji probably got a lot of screen time, but I feel like we could have done with more, right? Always more. He is in my Top 5 Favorite Characters, which obviously means I’m completely unbiased when it comes to how much Renji I think should exist. Where’s my filler episode about Renji instituting the 6th Division Caper Chart, where’s the futsal episode (don’t you dare @ me, Episode 132), and idk, I would have loved to have seen him have more interesting things to do in the Hueco Mundo arc. That was a great arc for Rukia, Orihime, and Ichigo, but I don’t really remember what anyone else got to do (minus Byakuya, but I attach that to Rukia). I mean, Renji looked good in a travel cloak, so there’s that. But if that arc lacked for something it was probably in excellent and plentiful Renji content, I guess? For comparison, please bear in mind exactly how many chapters we spent on that ELEPHANT ARRANCAR GUY. 

I want to carry them in a handbag like a tiny dog: FORTY YEARS.

--

@ippoddity

They are So Cool Looking/If They Were Real I Would be Afraid/Why Do They Look Like That: We all know Renji looks cool. 90% of the time, he’s the one bringing the swag. He looks awesome, and honestly I think he knows it. At the same time, you have to admit he looks terrifying. He is 6’2”, built like a brick wall, has flaming red hair, and intimidating tattoos. He also works as the equivalent of a Soul Society cop. If I were to just meet this guy on the street, I’d be afraid. This also brings up the age old question — why does he look like that. What’s with the tattoos that he is so proud of, but also very sensitive about? I’ve seen lots of head canons about Renji’s tattoos and I think they’re all very fun to consider. (But also lol consider that maybe the tattoos are something that happens every time Renji gets drunk. It’s like a series of low inhibition decisions are just being displayed for the world to see, but deep down he never would’ve gotten them if some part of him didn’t also think they were awesome.)

They’re Deeper Than They Seem: I’m a bit conflicted on this, because I don’t necessarily think Renji is any deeper than he is presented in the series. Which is not to say he doesn’t have plenty of depth. But I also think this because I have spent a long long long time thinking about Renji and picking apart his every appearance, and I don’t think most people have spent quite so much time doing so. During my first brush with Bleach, Renji was one of my favorite characters, but it was because he looked cool and acted flashy and beat people up. He has a freakin awesome zanpakuto that’s a skeleton snake! It wasn’t until this time around that I began to appreciate Renji for his thoughtfulness, leadership skills, and friendship. I’ve mentioned this before, but one of my favorite Renji moments is when he has the group do an old-fashioned team chant in Hueco Mundo. It’s so defining for how conceive of him, and why I think there’s a lot more to him than initially meets the eye.

They’re Like a Blorbo/They Didn’t Get Enough Screen Time: Look, I love Renji. He’s definitely in my Top 5 Characters. I might even go so far as to say Top 3? I spend a lot of my idle time thinking about him just because. And we have plenty of Renji screen time, but I could always do with more. Like, I would love to see more about how he spent his time in 11th. Or, as whipplefilter said FUTSAL EPISODE.

Free Space: I’d love to learn more about his relationship with Byakuya. Because at the time story starts, Renji has been Byakuya’s vice captain for what, a month? And even by the end of the series, it’s barely been a couple of years. In the shinigami scheme of things, that is a relatively new relationship (consider how long Yamamoto and Sasakibe were working together). I’ve seen quite a lot of fic that touches on how Renji’s presence influences Byakuya, but how much does Byakuya influence Renji? Certainly Byakuya has influenced Renji quite a bit from afar (in fact Byakuya was a major contributor in Renji’s life trajectory for 40yrs), but that was more Renji’s conception of Byakuya. Now that Renji works with real flesh-and-blood Byakuya, what’s changed?

They Work Better as Part of a Dynamic: Don’t get me wrong, I think Renji stands his own perfectly well as an individual agent. To be honest, his fighting style and zanpakutou type don’t really lend themselves all that well to group fighting. BUT, I love Renji in a team. Hueco Mundo Team Chant. Renji’s futsal team. I really love the Ishida & Renji vs Szayelaporro fight because of the teamwork involved. These two barely know each other, but they make it work (largely because of Renji, I think). Now imagine what Renji and Byakuya could look like 5-10yrs down the line. I still think Hitsugaya and Matsumoto are Captain/Vice-Captain Teamwork #goals, but I’d love to imagine a future where Byakuya and Renji have conceived of some kind of Senbonzakura/Zabimaru bone-snake/cherry blossom tornado or something.

[pyrten]

Post about Tumblr etiquette and basic stuff that I'm trying to make as entertaining and colourful as possible because I have the attention span of a stick and if I saw long paragraphs like this too, i would go " I will scroll ".

Part 2: here you go. it’s very short, i think. 

CW! Twitter discourse (indicated, Techno's boundaries being broken. sleepytwt disbanding??, it's short, don't worry).

Hi hi hello to you all coming from Twitter after whatever the fuck happened. Sit down have a drink, take a sip, have a cookie (...cept for chocolate chip, those are mine). It's pretty safe here as long as nobody drags in the cousin we all dislike.

Tags, hashtags, not shopping tags.

We use the tags as a filtering system, basically. Like stuff about:

Tubbo in general? #tubbo .

Stuff about character Tubbo? #c!tubbo / #c!Tubbo .

Stuff about content creator Tubbo? #cc!Tubbo / #cc!tubbo.

etc. etc.

We try to keep positive stuff in the main tags (in general tags), occasionally there will be stuff about Twitter or negativity about them but generally, as far as I've seen, they aren't heavy, or they are but they're pretty solid arguments that aren't like, loud, yelling, or gives off that vibe, I suppose.

#cw!__ / #tw!__ / #neg!__ / #__ crit+ more can be tagged if needed or requested (as in, if the tag isn't already there). Depends on who runs the blog. Whether you need to send in a ask, or just reply to the post, or DM. Up to the person to runs the blog.

-- if there's more I'll add, when I think of them later --

Reblog button my beloved

I'm not : hey I study the algorithm I know shit!

But IG and Twitter runs on likes / retweets. Tumblr runs on reblogs. yeah, yeah, that small button that's like, circular next to the heart.

Looks like recycling, something the government failed to incorporate well. Looks like the recycling symbol doesn't it? yeah it just lacks one arrow and it's not a triangle.

Liking posts? Great that's nice buddy, thank you (not /s)

Reblogging? Mmmmmmm THATS THE SHIT. SEEING THAT IN MY NOTIFS? serotonin. absolutely.

please, it's like the one thing that's keeping this platform afloat and information / works spreading. also it helps spreads the post. Liking doesn't do much, most it does is be a bookmark just so you can look for that post later.

"but I don't want my blog to be flooded with stuff I reblog!" No, no, dude (gender neutral), that's how you get people to follow and find your stuff. You really worried about people being annoyed, can't find what you actually post? Refer to part 1, tags as a filtering system. Make a reference post or whatever, pin it to your profile or make a Carrd, link that stuff. If people are really that lazy to go to the hashtag, doom scrolling works for them.

Filtering, yes great mechanic.

Filtering, now, this isn't for other people to find your stuff and save them time of scrolling. It's somewhat related to the tagging system of Tumblr but it's for yourself this time, very cool.

- Gear icon. Top right corner of your profile.

- Account settings.

- Filtering.

Two options : tag filter and content filter.

Tags filter is self-explanatory. You enter the tag you don't wanna see, and done. You'll never see that tag, or any posts that have that tag again.

Content filter filters posts with certain text content. Certain- as in the text you've entered, and decided you never wanna see em.

Congratulations, your eyes didn't lose HP today.

Bruh when was this posted.

Haven't used Tumblr on a laptop for a while, but I'm pretty sure it says, uh somewhere.

But on phone:

Three dots. Top right of the post.

There it is, like, rightttt there, above that rectangle pop up thing, there's the date. Have fun seeing how dead some blogs are.

My post is getting drowned :(

Uh, reblog your own post or pin it to your own profile. That works.

So does the post drowning and disappearing into oblivion. Tapping a button requires a lot of work and if ya don't want to, shruggie.

Ayo, if you're gonna justify something about someone or any situation, be specific and as clear as you possibly could, if you mess up a little with your argument, that's fine. Edit button is a pencil on the post, you can make another post or reblog the OG post to clarify.

Use tone indicators. There are neurodivergent people on this platform, like, every platform basically. Save us some worrying and head scratching.

Use the tone indicators, and don't use them as a joke (unless it's between like close moots, and your uh following gets it then yeah I suppose that's fine, but clarify in the tags would be great).

Typing out /insert_acronym_here isn't a time consuming thing. ( A simple Google search of Reddit tone indicators can give you a list if you need it ).

Last thing I can really think of is: the hashtags is where all the short hot takes, that good shit, is.

Not just in general, in posts too ;) .

also why are people on Twitter spreading the #kick____ with saying that you shouldn't do that. Your intentions are great m8, but uh, ಠ◡ಠ that's a... It's a method.

k welcome to tumblr. Each app has their like etiquette, this is Tumblr's or the most I can think of. no you can't have my chocolate chip cookies, have a good stay.

I'm going to bed like man, I'm sleepy. (Also since people is coming in because of like, the stuff related to SBI going on twitter, gonna mainly tag that. Hope that's chill)

Also, it's Ramadan. claps, Ramadan Mubarak, have a good one y'all. (whispers hey, hey send some love to fellow Muslims, hope you're doing well.)

Edit:

15/4/2021 , 6.42 PM --- Filtering (new section)

[kagrenacs]

Explaining the Iceberg #4

I covered most things in this, but not everything. Every previous post I’ve made describing the tes iceberg I found on google image search can be found here x

Lorkhan’s purposeful failure: Lorkhan was the first spirit to go beyond the universe to see the tower, but didn’t achieve CHIM. He likely did this on purpose to show others how not to do it, and to demonstrate that it was difficult for et’ada to achieve this state because they simply don’t have the boundaries (such as death) that mortals do.

The World-Egg: The universe and the 12 previous Kalpas, everything within existence

The Khajiit Tower: this reddit thread https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/3oh7wf/the_khajiit_tower/ for everyone’s sake i’ll spare you the details of Jungian psychology, TL;DR the khajiit are a ‘tower’ made to hold up the universe and aspects of this

The Grabbers: Mentioned in the 36 lessons, a race of people in Lyg who are said to ‘have never built a city of their own’ there are theories that these are in fact Magne-Ge, due to their connection to Lyg by Mehrunes Dagon

AE: ‘is’ in ehlnofex, can be interpreted as a state of being

Shezzar became Akatosh: The only solid reference i could find was this thread, that immediately discusses how this is probably incorrect http://www.gamesas.com/could-lorkhan-have-jyggalag-t74581-25.html

The Monkey-Truth: Markuth’s teachings, also a website of tes fanfiction writers and roleplayers 

Red Moment: The potential Dragon Break at Red Mountain

The Provisional House: Mentioned in the 36 Lessons, called ‘a space that is not a space’ that Vivec observes the events of Nirn from. It may possibly protect Vivec from dangers associated with this.

Alandro Sul: The Shield-Companion to Nerevar. Sometimes called ‘the immortal-son of Azura’. After being blinded by Wulfharth, he went to live with the Ashlanders of Vvardenfell and is credited with spreading the idea that the Tribunal killed Nerevar

CHIM: To put simply, the process and state where a person realizes their place within the universe and is able to manipulate the laws of the universe as they see fit. Often associated with the concept of ‘Love’

Skaal Secrets: Discussed in the Dragonborn DLC, it’s unknown what their secrets are, but the Skaal report that they’ve kept them a secret from Hermaeus Mora for generations

The World’s Teeth: Mentioned in the 36 lessons of Vivec, sermon 17. Vivec takes Nerevar to the edge of the world, where they see ‘the bottom row of the world’s teeth’ as Vivec states. This may possibly reference a glitch in Redguard. (as a side note: The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, a game that’s confirmed to have taken inspiration from the Elder Scrolls, has an area on the map, near the edge of the world with a row of spikes similar to what’s described here. This might be just coincidence, but I sure enjoy it)

Dagoth Ur’s Endgame: Speculation on what Dagoth Ur’s final plans actually are. He speaks of his desire to remove the Empire from Morrowind, and unite the Dunmer under the 6th House, but beyond that there’s little to go off of.  Ultimately this is just speculation and theories, mostly on what he plans to do with the Anumidium, and how that could possibly have adverse affects on reality.

Pelinal Cyborg from the Future: Another bit of obscure MK lore that’s not implemented in-game. This derives from the description of Pelinal having a ‘left hand made of a killing light’  ‘PELIN-EL [which is] "The Star-Made Knight" [and he] was arrayed in armor [from the future time].’ and his survival of being decapitated. While the text directly states he is from the future, there’s no ingame canon text stating he is a cyborg.

Reymon Ebonarm is Reman: The thought that Ebonarm, a God of War is the same person as Reman, emperor of Cyrodiil. There’s several theories dedicated to this, with different variants on the specifics.

The Enantiomorph: Directly tied to the concept of mantling and the Fourth Walking Way. Put simply, there are three participants in this. Two combatants who are very much alike and trying to become the ‘Ruling King’ and an observer who determines who wins, this observer usually becomes maimed as a result of this. 

The Third Moon: Two different things, a metaphorical or literal secret moon important to the Khajiit that only appears when Masser and Secunda are aligned, preceding the birth of a Mane. The second option is the Necromancer’s Moon, the godly form of Mannimarco.

The Walkabout: A concept in Yokudan religion. The process of spirits surviving one Kalpa to the next, facilitated by Tall Papa

White-Gold Doomsday device: I remember reading this theory a few years back, unfortunately I cannot find the exact page for the life of me. The Tl;DR on this is the White-Gold Tower is a weapon of mass destruction, either literally or in metaphysical terms (being connected to Akatosh and it’s status as a Tower). The closest thing I can find to it is this thread which describes the motives of Umbra in the novels, and how it could potentially take over Tamriel using the White-Gold Tower http://www.gamesas.com/doomsday-scenario-t69430.html

Jiub was the Nerevarine: Self explanatory, headcanon that Jiub was the Nerevarine, similar to a headcanon on tumblr that stated Teldryn Sero was the Nerevarine

House Dwemer: Mentioned as a House within The War of the First Council (which is written by an Imperial for Western Scholars) and The Lost Prophecy (written by a Dunmer) This could be interpreted in a couple different ways. A) The first book was certainly written for western readers, while there is no evidence for this being the case for the latter, it can’t be ruled out. ‘House’ is used as a simplification B) The Dwemer were considered a house, but perhaps not in the way we would initially think (being on the Great House Council)  They were grouped into a singular entity, rather than distinct clans within a cultural group (either during the First Council or posthumously) 

When Dead Gods Dream: https://www.imperial-library.info/content/when-dead-gods-dream referencing this thread. Discusses the mechanisms of Dagoth Ur’s godhood, the thread explains it better than I can here, TL;DR Dagoth Ur is not alive, but he is within the realms of gods and therefor is able to ‘project’ himself onto Tamriel and the minds of his followers.

Khajiit ended the Metheric Era: Nothing found for this

Parabolic Kalpa: A parabola is a symmetrical U-shaped curve. This theory essentially tries to explain why Skyrim is so low magic, compared to it’s history or even ESO. The thought is that as time goes on, the world becomes less connected to Divinity. Towers are destroyed and the gods are gone, but eventually things will begin to kick off again, and there will be a rise in magic, technology and the connection to these beings. Essentially tries to explain why C0da and Loveletter from the 5th era are more high magic compared to the actual games. 

Sithis: Secret Lesson from Vivec: Connects the both Sithis with the 36 lessons by terminology (The Sharmat, false dreamer ect.) and proposes Vivec may have written the book

Bendu Olo: Colovian King, may have been related to Olaj Olo, nordic demigod of mead. Also used as a placeholder name for the player character in Oblivion and the name of the dev’s test character in Skyrim

Trinimac still lives: An ESO lorebook states the Ashpit, realm of Malacath, extends into Aetherius. Some orcs also believe Malacath is nothing more than a demon presenting himself as the remnants of Trinimac. A r/teslore theory states that Malacath wears two faces. While I assume this is the Iceberg author’s sole reference, I propose this could (should) refer to another theory. (Another theory is similar to this on teslore, proposed around the same time, but this one connects the dots)  https://boethiah.tumblr.com/post/621058598373588993/tsun-is-the-shield-brother-of-shor-and-trinimac 

The Aedra are Dead: Seemingly a common topic on teslore. A basic concept in tes, the Aedra gave most of their powers to Mundus to stabilize it.  Their bodies remain as planets, and they can only have limited interactions with Nirn. 

Divayth Fyr was the Hero of Battlespire: An old theory that looks at artifacts in Divayth Fyr’s possession and ties them back to the tes spinoff Battlespire. There are holes in this theory (Divayth Fyr was a seasoned mage at the time the hero was an apprentice)

Three Talin’s: The default name given to the Eternal Champion is Talin, a character creation scenario proposes that their father was also named Talin, and finally Uriel Septim VII’s general was named Talin Warhaft.

Pelagius I was killed by the Underking: The Arcturian Heresy states that the Underking appeared as an advisor to Pelagius I, who was assassinated by the Dark Brotherhood. This theory is a possibility considering the amminosity between Tiber Septim and both components of the Underking. 

Tsaesci Goa’uld: Goa’uld are a species from Stargate that are parasites towards humans. This theory proposes that the Tsaesci are similar, explaining the inconsistencies of their appearance within the lore.

Lunar currency: The thought that the Aedra and Daedra use mortal souls like currency

Historic Star Inconsistencies: Possibly referring to the variations of the number of days within the year in Arena, not sure about this one

Mnemoli/Star Orphans:Mnemoli is either a specific Magne-Ge (spirits that fled the creation of Mundus after Magnus), or a group of them that only appears during a Dragon Break (often nicknamed the ‘Blue Star’) MK states that they’re the writers and distributors of the physical Elder Scrolls (however this contradicts ingame books, so take it with a grain of salt). Star Orphans may or may not refer to Magne-Ge as a whole. Vehk’s book of hours state's them as a ‘group or tribe’ regardless, Mnemoli falls under this secondary classification (along with Merid-Nuda and Xero-Lyg, I have my own thoughts on this which would be better explained in another post) 

Bosmer Hircine worship: Seemingly referring to a thread on 4pleb, I will not be summarizing this theory here because I’m smart and not going onto 4pleb of all places. But from canon content, Bosmer do not worship Hircine, and consider him a force that goes against Y’ffre and wants to return everything to it’s original state of chaos before the earthbones (Y’ffre being among them) stabilized things 

Septimus Signus Zero Sum: The theory that the aforementioned zero-summed at the end of Discerning the Transmundane in Skyrim. Essentially Septimus is in a fragile state, delving into the secrets of the universe and is being pushed by Hermaeus Mora, who may see him as a lab rat, into discovering things he isn’t meant to handle as a mortal, and consequently Zero-Sums. There’s holes in this, namely Zero-Summing supposedly removes all trace of existence. 

The Soft Doctrines of Magnus Invisible: A very obscure text by Douglas Goodall, discusses the binding of various gods

Abnegaurbic creed: An overly fancy word basically meaning religious beliefs, seen in Nu-Hattia Exerpt 

Dunmereth: A Nordic term for the area of Morrowind, during their occupation of it

Fifteen-and-One Golden Tones: A Dwemer term, possibly referring to the spheres of the Daedra, counting Sheo/Jyggalag as a singular entity. Also, the Dwemer swear by these 

Ideal Masters are God of Worms remnants: As Mannimarco is often said to be the first Lich, the existence of the ideal masters seems to contradict this (similar story with Azidal) this tries to rectify this by proposing that the Soul Carin is the Necromancer’s Moon, and the ideal masters are remnants of Mannimarco. This theory doesn’t hold up when examined, but is cool nonetheless. 

Sermon 37: Found in ESO, an extra sermon to the 36 lessons, ties in concepts present in c0da like amaranth. (interestingly on this list Sermon Zero is never mentioned, despite it being older and more interesting imo, but to discuss that would require lots of work)

Flying Whales: Mentioned in Aldudagga. A now extinct species. The bone bridge of Sovngarde could potentially be a reference to this.

Joy-Snow: It’s cocaine 

Mankar=Tharn: A theory that Mankar Cameron is Jagar Tharn, doesn’t hold much weight and relies mostly on the connection of Mehrunes Dagon

Sharmat: A term used to describe Dagoth Ur, an opposite to the Hortator, a force uniting people for evil. Implied to mean or be associated with ‘the False Dreamer’ a person whose view of the universe is similar to someone whose achieved CHIM, but sees themself as the center of it all, rather than a droplet in the ocean of the universe.

Pankratosword: A forbidden Yokudan sword technique that could ‘cut atoms’ similar to our modern day Nuclear Fission. A bit of etymology here, ‘Pankrato’ seems to refer to the word ‘Pankrator’ meaning all-powerful or almighty. 

Landfall: A concept from MK, a future event where Nirn is destroyed by the Numidium, and the people remaining relocate to the moons. 

Cylarne: The oldest ruin in the Shivering Isles, rumored to be the original capital. Home to the Cold Flame of Agnon

[estoyeepy]

@scorpiathevirgo thinks thoughts: gender edition

some relevant context: i'm afab, sapphic and identify as a woman. i'm quite possibly neurodivergent (though admittedly undiagnosed, but i think it's pretty likely), which could provide an explanation for my experiences and my feelings on the matter

_______________________________________________________

When thinking about my own gender, the first thing I concluded is that I see two types of "gender":

The first one is basically what you see yourself / identify as (the commonly accepted definition of "gender"). In my case, I see myself as a woman on the basis that my body is female, that my experiences are often affected by that fact, and I wouldn't change that. my gender matches my biological sex, which would make me cis. I'll call this one "mental gender" for the sake of this post.

The second one is one I'll call "social gender". It's basically more about the role you play in society, which therefore affects how others perceive you. In my case, I was never really close with people of either gender in school. I was a girl, so I obviously wasn't one of the boys. But the girls didn't really consider me one of them, either. I dunno how to explain this, so I'll leave screenshots of a Reddit thread I stumbled upon, as well as a TikTok someone posted on Instagram.

_______________________________________________________

Context for screenshots: The original post was a screenshot of a Tumblr post from a trans man. He describes how women generally felt safe around him pre-transition because they perceived him as one of their own, but he noticed that women now act more distant from him now that he passes as a man, perhaps because they see him as a threat(?). I don't completely remember the post, as I'd have to look for it. I'll leave credit here if I ever find the post.

UPDATE: Anna Akana made this video the other day discussing the Tumblr post in question: https://youtu.be/nNME0cloyyM

Although these people's experiences vary slightly based on their gender and cultural circumstances, I relate heavily to them (especially u/iveroi and u/hipster_doofus_ , as well as u/AnIndianGuy38's point about same-gender people not engaging in platonic intimacy with him).

_______________________________________________________

Credits for video: Original video by @/mariatheflowerchild28 on TikTok; reposted by @/actuallyautistictiktoks on Instagram.

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CcdtmKTAiRf/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

This one is pretty self-explanatory. She basically described my relationship with femininity (except the overweight and bullying parts). I cut my hair short a few years back though, which makes me look more androgynous, which in turn plays yet another part in this sort of exclusion from femininity. I know it's not quite the same thing as fatphobia, but you get my point. Also, while my interests often aligned more closely with those of the guys I knew, I wasn't really particularly close with them, either. And that line about "not having the right to participate in femininity"... that hit hard. Although I often switch between presenting more femininely and more masculine/neutral (and genuinely like doing both), I still feel "not feminine enough" when I present fem. In part because of the hair, but also because of the role I've played to everyone else in society, which was "not one of us women". Womanhood should be my birthright as a woman, but I feel like I'm often denied that right, whether that's because of circumstances out of my control (the neurodivergence, to an extent my queerness), or as a result of my leaning into being in this "other" category (the haircut and masc/neutral presentation).

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Given these circumstances, that makes my "social gender" something along the lines of genderqueer: too female for maleness, and not woman enough for womanhood. Depending on what type of gender you look at, I'm either a "cis woman" (physically and mentally/psychologically) or a "genderqueer/nonbinary woman" (socially).

As for pronouns and gendered terms, I go mainly by she/her (ella/la in Spanish) and prefer feminine language (daughter/hija, girlfriend/novia/jeva, etc.), although I don't mind (and actually kinda like) they/them and neutral terms.

[hellenic-reconstructionism]

Hellenic Online Groups/Forums to Avoid

Figured given COVID and everything, it’s worth it to make this a separate post as religious activities will be online only for the time being (hopefully).

Hellenistic Polytheism Amino - Run by a deeply islamophobic racist. You have to have an Amino account to join/see proof that it’s the same person but if you check both the Atheist Amino account I linked and the Hellenistic Polytheism Amino, you can see it’s the same account with a different display name (because Amino lets you do that). More here, with her old username as she keeps changing it up. Mods are complicit. There’s really no good information on it anyway that you can’t Google/DuckDuckGo.

Pagans and Witches Amino - not necessarily Greek only, but I include it here because it’s pretty sizeable (enough to have its own independent app for a while on iOS). The mods are kind of corrupted, promoting newer mods over older ones with more experience, cultural appropriation is tolerated if not encouraged, and misinformation is rampant. A lot of people who are unable to distinguish UPG from historical sources and get angry if you point it out, as well as a lot of kids who think they are dating a god. Just...a mess, and toxic. I used to help run a chat and the chat was taken from us by mods without warning, likely because they didn’t like how we tried to get people to acknowledge when things were UPG or made-up. It’s hard to include receipts without implicating my friends who used to be there as well (it’ll end up just being receipts on individual users instead), so if you wish to see what I’m talking about you can take a look, but it’s honestly very corrupt and on its way out, IMO.

r/Hellenism, HellenicFaith and HellenicFaith.com - Run by Klaytonos AKA u/AzoresHeliokles on Reddit who fetishizes being trans and literally worships an emperor of the Roman Empire (a violent and colonizing force).

HellenicGods.org - ahistorical nonsense about how ancient Greek religion survived. Compares anti-Indigenous violence with the usage of the word “pagan”.

Here’s my list of Hellenic pagan religious groups (i.e. groups that meet in person and do rituals and such) and their issues. Some of these may have forums and the like but I’m not a part of them and thus have no idea.

The Thiasos of Dionysus - Discord server run by someone who defends the neo-Nazi Sannion, his wife Galina Krasskova and Sannion’s usage of the Sonnenrad, a WWII Nazi symbol. Right-wing members abound (including mods and the owner). The owner is creepy and allows minors to view sexual content in the channels which are not age-locked. He has also encouraged harassment of a minor.

The Elysian Fields - pagan Discord server run by Loxias and co. Pretty self explanatory standard right-wing Islamophobic and antisemitic server that poses as moderate/centrist.

Elysian Fields - Discord server run by khthoniaa, the rebrand of nightshadeandroses. A search on Tumblr will yield more people exposing her cult leader aspirations.

As always, this is a work in progress and I’ll try to keep it updated whenever I can.

[defineyouarticles]

                                            APPLYING M.I.P.I TO LIVE YOUR DREAM                                                       BY: OPIYO VICTOR OMONDI Lincon Burrows is a death row inmate. He has been accused of killing the vice president`s brother, Mr. Terrence. The system understands that Mr. Terrence is alive, and Burrows has been set up, I believe you understand the system in context. Burrows` brother, Michael Scofield, is an engineer by profession. He decides to rescue his brother from the Ilinois State Prison before he is executed for a crime he did not commit. He robs a bank to be in the prison so that he rescues Lincon Burrows, hence, The Prison Break. We all want to be great and elite people in our realms of interest. Some get to achieve their dreams while a majority fails. Why do you think this happens? Or is it a default system to have a one winner  and fifty losers? What if we get a model that will propel us to become the people we aspire to be? The first step into living your dream is to have a motivating factor. Michael Scofield is motivated by the quest to rescue democracy from trial. He is also inspired by the fact that his brother has a son and his execution means a big loss to his son. e is inspired to break a record by being the first person to break from the prison. What inspires you? We have different motivating factors. Kenyan models are inspired by the great royalties that Lupita Nyong`o makes from modelling abroad. Jeff Bezos is inspired by the thought of creating abundance by making Mars habitable. Ensure that you have a source of motivation, and a source that creates the urge to pursue what you wish to be. After receiving an inspiration, have a quest for information. I always believe that information is relatively the cheapest product to outsource in the market, almost free. Michael Scofield has a lot of information on matters physics and mathematics. He is an engineer from a certified institution from the States. I also believe that the most powerful man is not the President of the United States of America, or Russia`s Vlamidir Putin for fearlessly invading Ukraine, but rather the man that posses unmatched qualitative and quantitative levels of information. A person aspiring to become a great entrepreneur should acquire information on what happens in the business sector. Unlike the twentieth and the centuries backwards, the twenty first century is highly informed and more technological advancements mean easy access to information. You can acquire information from social media platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Google and Tiktok. The more informed you are on what you want to become, the easier the preparation into becoming what you aspire. Preparation forms the next bit into living your dream. Imagine how difficult it is to break from a State`s Prison, bearing in mind that it is the most protected and preferred to confine high profile criminal offenders. That shows you the level of preparation Michael did to manage to break from Ilinois State Prison. He went to an extend of tattooing  the geography of the prison on his body. That brings the question,how much are you willing to do so that you achieve your goal. How hungry are you to get what you want? Preparation is a fundamental that is driven by the information someone has. Before you become fit to undertake military missions in the battlefield, you certainly have to be trained both physically and psychologically to thrive in war. That is basically  being prepared to be the best of you in that area. This vice versa to this explains matrimonial fallouts and business declination. Inadequate or lack of proper preparation means failure. The main hack is to gain a lot of information. Lastly, the implementation stage. This is a more self-explanatory concept. However, it is important to note that a cow conceives a calf, not a cub. This means that you implement in line with your preparation. Try to filter out your motivation, information and preparation to the best so as to implement concepts easily and achieve quality results. Of course, Michael Scofield did it. M - MOTIVATION I - INFORMATION P - PREPARATION I - IMPLEMENTATION DefineYouArticles Opiyo Victor Omondi