#region basics

[chaosspelledwrong]

Heyyyy guyysssss

[lgbtlunaverse]

What kind of saber is baxia anyway?

I love my bloodthirsty princess of a cursed blade, and in my heart of hearts i am nothing but a sword nerd, so i've been extremely fascinated by Baxia and how we know frustratingly little about what she actually looks like!

I mean, look at bichen, right?

Bichen in the donghua:

Bichen in the drama:

They're clearly not exactly the same. The scabbards are different, and the guards have a different shape. But these are recognizably different iterations on one theme, right? Thin jian with a white grip silver guard, light blue tassel and silver mounting accents on the scabbard.

Now this is baxia in the donghua:

And baxia in the drama:

????????

THAT'S A COMPLTELY DIFFERENT WEAPON

it doesn't stop there either, the audio drama is kind enough to give us ANOTHER COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BAXIA

pretty! But how is that he same sword??

And when we go back to the novel, we get very little information on her appearance other than the fact that her blade is tinted red with all the blood she's absorbed. Which none of these designs incorporate.

This is not a dig on the designs itself, they're all quite gorgeous in their own right and i'm going to spend a while discussing all of them! Because isn't it fascinating how, since we know little about novel baxia beyond "saber" all of these designs ended up so different? What kinds of sabers are these, anyway?

So, a chinese aber, aka a "dao" (刀) just means a sword that has only one cutting side. As opposed to a jian, which has two.

You can see how that leaves a LOT of room for variaton.

I've actually seen some people get confused because Huaisang's saber in the untsmed is thin and quite straight, making it superficially resemble the jian more than drama!baxia, but it is still clearly a saber!

See? only one cutting blade!

This, to me looks a lot like a tang dynasty hengdao

credit to this blog for providing his image and being a great source for all this going forward.

TANGENT: during all this I found out the english wikipedia page for dao is WRONG! Ths is what they about the tang hengdao!

So that sounds like the hengdao was called that during the sui dynasty, but then, after that, started being called a peidao, right?

WRONG

I LOOKED AT THE SOURCE THEY USED AND IT SAYS THIS:

IT WAS CALLED THE PEIDOU UNTIL THE SUI DYNASTY, AT WHICH POINT IT WAS CALLED A HENGDAO. Which would carry over to the Tang dynasty. This was the source wikipedia linked! and it says something else than they say it does!

Anyone know how to edit a wikipedia article?

ANYWAY

BACK TO BAXIA

Since we're already at the drama, let's look at drama baxia: She's also straight! the general term for straight-backed saber is Zhibeidao, but that's a modern collector's term, and doesn't really say anything about which historical kind of saber baxia could be based on. Another meta i found on the drama nie sabers already went on some detail here.

I'm gonna expand on that a little: The kinds of historical straight-backed sabers we see resemble the hengdao a lot more than they do baxia. They don't go to their point as harsly as she does (she's basically a cleaver!) and they're all way skinnier.

No, my personal theory is that instead of being based on any kind of historical sword, drama!baxia is based on a Nandao.

I mean, come on, look at it!

Baxia!

The Nandao... isn't actually a historical sword. It was invented for Wushu forms. There's a really fascinating article about its conception, but that's why the swords in the images look a little thin and flimsy. Wushu swords are very flexible and light, they're dance props, not weapons to fight with. There are actual steel versions of Nandao, but they're recreations of the prop, not the other way around.

So That's one way in which Baxia differes from the Nandao: she's actually a real weapon. The other is that, as you can see above, the nandao has an S-shaped guard. Baxia doesn't. She's also much more elaborately decorated, of course. Because she's a princess.

Now: audio drama baxia!

This is much easier. with that flare at the tip?

Oh baby that's a niuweidao, all the way!

There are more sabers with that kind of curved handle, but the broad tip is really charcteristic of the niuweidao. The Niuweidao is also incredibly poplar in modern media, often portrayed as a historical sword, but it originated i nthe 19th century! And it was actually never used by the military!

That's right, the Niuweidao was pretty much exclusively a civilian weapon! That makes its use here anachronistic, but so is the nandao, and considering that the origin story of the Nie is that they use Dao intead of Jian because their ancestors were butchers, portraying them with a weapon historically reserved for rebels and common people instead of the imperial military is actually very on theme!

Finally, Donghua/Manhua baxia. These two designs are so similar I'm going to treat them as one and the same for now.

Unlike both previous baxias, The long handle makes it clear this baxia is a two-handed weapon, though Nie Mingjue is absolutely strong enough to wield her with one hand anyway. Normal rules don't count for cultivators.

Now, this is where things get tricky, because there are a lot of words for long two-handed sabers. And a lot of them are interchangable! This youtube video about the zhanmadao, one of the possible sabers this baxia could be based on, goes a little into just how confusing this can get. This kind of blade WAS actually in military use for many centuries, making it the most historically accurate of all the baxias. But because of that it also has several names and all of those names can also refer to different kinds of blades depending on what century we're in.

So here's our options: i'm going to dismiss the wodao and miandao, because these were explicitly based on japanese sword design, and as we can see manhua baxia has that very broad tip, so that won't work

(Example of a wodao. According to my sources Miaodao is really just the modern common term for the wodao, and the changdao, and certain kinds of zhanmadao... do you see how quickly this gets confusing?)

Next option: Zhanmadao.

Zhanmadao stands for "horse chopping saber" so... yeah they were anti-cavalry weapons. meant to be able to cut the legs and/or necks of horses. That definitely sounds like a weapon Nie Mingjue would wield. But if you watched that youtube video i linked above, you'll know the standardized Qing dinasty Zhanmadao looked very different from earlier versions. It was inspired by the japanese odachi, and more resembles the miandao than its ealrier heftier counteprarts.

Earlier Ming dynasty Zhanmadao on the other hand were... basically polearms. the great ming military blog spot, another wonderful source, says these are essentially a kind of podao/pudao (朴刀) which looked like this

Now that blade looks a lot like baxia, but the handle is honestly too long. Donghua!baxia straddles the line between sword an polearm a little, but while zhanmadao have been used to refer to both long-handled swords and polerarms, this was undeniably a polearm, not a sword.

If you want to know what researching this was like, I found a picture of this blade on pinterest-- labeled as a "two-handed scimitar"-- and the comment section was filled with people arguing about whether this was a Pudao, Wudao, Zhanmadao, Dadao, Guandao, or a japanese Nagita.

So... that's how it was going. This has kept me up until 2 AM multiple times.

However! Thanks to this article on the great ming military blog I found out there have historically been pudao blades with shorter handles!

Specifically, Ming dynasty military writer Cheng Ziyi created a modified version of the pudao to work with the Dan Fao Fa Xuan technixues-- aka technqiues for a two-handed saber, which would alter heavily influence Miaodao swordmanship-- thereby, as the article points out, essentially merging the cleaver-polearm type Zhanmadao with the later two-handed japanese-inspired design.

This is the illustration for the Wu Bei Yao Lue (武備要略) a Ming dynasty military manual

This blade shape in the illustration doesn't match Baxia exactly, but since it's a lengthened Pudao-like blade and we've seen above that those can match Donghua Baxia's shape, i'm gonna say that calling Baxia a Zhanmadao with a two-handed grip isn't all that innacurate!

However, because all of these terms are so intertwined, there are a dozen other things you could call her that would be about equally correct.

To show that, here's a lightning round of other potential Baxia candidates:

Dadao (大刀)

Which are generally one-handed and too short. However!

Another youtube video i found of someone training with a Zhanmadao that resembles baxia a little also calls it a "shuangshoudai dao" (雙手带 刀) shuangshou means two-handed, and while 雙手带 seems to refer to a longer handled weapon, when looking for a shuangshou dao or shuangshou dadao (双手大刀) we find a lot more baxia-resembling blades like here and here

I also found that, while the cleaver-like Dadao is strictly a product of the 20th centuy, since dadao just means big sword or big knife, it has been used to refer to loads of different weapons! Some people could've called the zhanmadao and pudao "dadao" during the Ming dynasty as well.

Another potential baxia candidate that mandarin mansion classifies as similar to the later dadao (though longer, as seen in the illustration below) is the "Kuanren Piandao"

Which piqued my interest because this diagram classifying different tpye of Dao:

Claims that a Kuanrenbiandao (diferent spelling, same sword) is the same as a modern day Zhanmadao.

(So once again, all of these terms are interchangable)

Another opton Is the Chuanmeidao/Chuanweidao (船尾刀) below you can see a diagram, based on the Qing dynasty green standard army regulation, of blades all officially classified as types of "pudao"

The top middle is the Kuanren Piandao, and bottom left is the Chuanweidao.

Both of these have a lot of baxia-like qualities.

So there you go! live action baxia is based on a Nandao, audio drama baxia is based on a Niuweidao, and Manhua/donghua baxia is some kind of two-handed Zhanmadao/Pudao/Dadao depending on how you want to look at it.

I'm honestly surprised no one has made the creative decision to portray Baxia as a Jiuhuandao, aka 9 ringed broadsword yet.

I mean look at it! Incredibly imposing. Would make for a great Baxia imo. (@ upcoming mdzs manga and mobile game: take notes!)

[filurig]

i decided to change a little bit about the bäckahäst humanoid form, and realised that they have some superficial similarities to skogsrå, so heres a thing ironing out their differences a little

[maxaroniiiii]

lian time

[bluejulius]

soooo I answered an ask about him earlier but I’d like to properly introduce another HTTYD OC, Jev the Jumbled (aka Jev!)

Jev lives on NoWhere, an isolated island far away from Berk. He’s mainly an inventor, a jack-of-all trades enthusiast with several doom piles of work-in-progresses in his cluttered house. He’s considered an outcast, living on the outskirts of the village in a shabby house on a hillside. His ultimate goal is to invent something that will improve peoples’ lives! (he’s not been very successful thus far) You will often find him holed up in his house, leaning over work in his assumed shrimp-posture, or testing out his experiments with the local village folk (terrorising them, unintentionally)

More about him below the cut 👇

He is best friends with Sif, who washed up on the shores of NoWhere one day. Jev was the only one in the village who helped her recover from her ordeal. Sif does lots of fetch quests and helps Jev run errands, as thanks for saving her life and giving her a home.

He has an elderly Nadder named Stoven (AKA Stove) who helps him light fires for experiments (and also insta-cooks his dinner when he forgets to eat). The village is wary of dragons but tolerates Stoven, as he is useful protection and lives with Jev on the outskirts of the village. Stoven is going blind, and so his spine shots are never accurate. Jev also uses his nadders’ shed spines as a makeshift way to put his hair up!

Jev has fibromyalgia, a condition that would not be discovered for hundreds of years. (He is based off my friend who has the same condition and came up with a lot of his character traits!) All he knows is that his joints hurt all the damn time, and he has serious fatigue spells. Jev has created a few mobility aids for himself to get around, and he helps Sif build saddles for their dragons.

[vynnyal]

Stuff I've made on my phone, I guess? Of varying levels of "quality"

[front-facing-pokemon]

[badgopher]

friday

They rebranded my Vons as a Pavilions and stopped selling the pickles I like and they don't sell them at Ralphs so now I have to go somewhere else for my groceries.

They rejiggered the $2 lottery game into a $5 lottery game so now I save $2 a couple times a month.

I picked up this week's book based solely on the author + narrator combo since I loved their last book and, well.

Maren Morris is coming to town in a couple months and I absolutely will not miss it this time. No pandemics. No calendar goof ups. I am going to see her show in. my. town. this time. For real. It’s gonna happen.

How is it May next week?

I'm going to see Regency Girls tomorrow night. I don't remember what it's about, but the disclaimer at the top of my order confirmation makes me think chose well: This production includes strong language and mature themes, including issues related to sexuality and reproductive freedom.

[thisonelikesaliens]

A little note on the Liang Shan Bo & Zhu Ying Tai story told in ep20:

So this is a folktale from Jin Dynasty (266-420 AD) that has been retold over generations and adapted into various forms of media (plays, operas, movies, songs, etc. you name the type and it's probably been done), and you'll find regional and artistic differences if you go looking for all the variations, but the core remains the same: it's a tragic romance where Liang and Zhu did not end up together in life.

A quick summary of the rest of the tale, continuing from where Gu Jin Yu stopped: Zhu went home before completing her studies, and when Liang visited he finally found out the man he fell in love with was really a woman. He wanted to propose, only to find out Zhu's father had already arranged her marriage to another man. Heartbroken, Liang died from an illness not long after. On Zhu's wedding day, when the wedding procession passed by Liang's grave, strong winds prevented them from moving forward. Zhu left her palanquin to pay respects at the grave, and when it suddenly split open, Zhu jumped in without hesitation to join her love, and from the grave emerged two butterflies.

Gu Jin Yu stopped where she did because she was going to write a different ending for them (which maybe the production team already hinted at in ep2):

(Feel free to look up "butterfly lovers" for more info. There's a ton out there, but sadly I haven't found one that touches on the bisexual awakening of Liang, which is my personal takeaway from this story.)

[fifteenloove]

Posting obscure videos of Jannik until he comes back from war (suspension)

Day 35: Jannik being interviewed by Marco Mazzocchi ahead of Davis Cup 2021🇮🇹

(🎥: thanks to JannikSinner_Up for being the best archive😭)

FIVE WEEKS HAVE PASSED! And the first m1000 without Jannik will have ended when this gets posted😔how did it go?

[shininganthracite]

[mollysunder]

I know people have tried using Caitlyn's map to understand Piltover and Zaun's geography, but I think Silco's map in Zaun offers a better view. When you piece together the brief shots of Silco's own map, including after Jinx vandalized it, you can make out more details in Piltover.

For example, in the area designated as Upper Piltover, there's a yellow highlighted path called Gold Way in parenthesis that leads to the Council's building. Upper Piltover likely most likely contains the Blue Wind Court, the district home to the wealthiest families in Piltover.

If you tie all the shots of Silco's map together, you get something like this. I find it interesting that Silco's map shows that there's two smaller bridges that connect Zaun and Piltover across the river. They don't appear as prominent the main bridge, they might even be in disrepair, but they are present on a Silco's map chose to keep. Are these bridges no go zones for Zaunite trade? Are they smaller commuter corridors perpetually out of service? Who knows, at least we know they exist now, and so does Jinx.

Someone made a cleaner version of the map for an rpg site. The map mixes Arcane's new geography of the two cities, but still applies old and unconfirmed names for sections of both cities, so it'snot completely accurate. I thought it would be good to include because it gets the shape of the fissures right.

[all-seeing-ifer]

Holy fuck speaking of the fates its actually making me feel crazy slash pos that this cast with the five mains from the obc but the fates and chorus from the west end cast is the one that's getting proshotted. Like hey girl don't cry trans people AND regional british accents in the hadestown proshot

[fiore-region-appreciation]

All Rangers in Almia must be Ranger School educated.

Rangers in Fiore meanwhile can enter an apprenticeship of sorts, though this is at the base leader's discretion.

[neurotonic]

Hello! :D

I was hoping to take you up on the offer and as some questions about the Phillipines for my Phoenix! (but no pressure ofc)

I've found it sort of difficult to find resources that aren't big-picture historical facts or tourism info lol

• What holidays do you celebrate, besides the standard Catholic ones?

• And I guess on that note, are religious celebrations a big thing? Baptism, patron saint's day, etc

• Culturally, is there a strong focus on family ties? (Curious bc it's very different on two sides of my own family)

• Do you have any recommendations for figuring out a name for my Phoenix? Are there common trends in naming, resources you know, or anything like that?

• I read that English, Spanish, and Tagalog were all the national language at one point - is it common for people to speak all three?

• Also, any sort of miscellaneous cultural things that you can think of would be really helpful!

• And I guess, if there's anything you think someone writing a Filipino character should know! Stereotypes that should be avoided, anything like that

Thank you so much in advance!! ^-^

Hiya hello !! I'll definitely try my best to help, because I agree - shit's hard to look up ;-; !!

Lots of these are based on my own experiences LOL but also I hadd to double check many historical details. Also this got way too long AKSJDHF

What holidays do you celebrate, besides the standard Catholic ones?

Aside for the Catholic ones, a lot of our local holidays are either birthdays (and deathdays) of famous Filipinos, major historical events, like Independence Day on June 12, the EDSA Revolution on February 25 (though this occurred in the 80s IIRC), and the Day of Valor on April 9, OR more localized holidays about when a province/city got established and such. Honestly these don't have a loooot of special stuff you have to do during that day, unlike Christmas for example. They're not days that you have to Celebrate(tm), but if you're aiming to put your character in a period close to these events, then you could technically give meaning to them :3c Though that'll require a bit more research heh

And I guess on that note, are religious celebrations a big thing? Baptism, patron saint's day, etc

Religious celebrations are def a big deal...Depending on your religion of choice, of course LMAO In the Philippines, Roman Catholic is the biggest religious domination, but there's also a very big Islamic population here especially in Mindanao. There's also INC (Iglesia ni Cristo) that I can't say much on because I'm personally not part of this group, but I think it's a variant on Christianity ?? Anyways, talking as someone who was born in a Roman Catholic household: people spend a lot of time and money into these celebrations. there are festivals for saints, church weddings are a pretty big deal too but I think that's common across a lot of cultures.

Culturally, is there a strong focus on family ties? (Curious bc it's very different on two sides of my own family)

Oh, absolutely! Like it's a thing where people say Asia in general has a lottt of collectivist cultures, and the Philippines is no exception. It's veryyy common for one household to house multiple generations of families, and I've even heard stories from friends where their extended families literally live next to each other in a street/subdivision LMAO There's a lott of focus on listening to your parents and looking out for your family, doing what's best for your family vs what's best for you is an interesting contrast to give to your Phoenix if you choose to go that route. Of course, it differs between families, but I've noticed family-first is a very big thing here.

Do you have any recommendations for figuring out a name for my Phoenix? Are there common trends in naming, resources you know, or anything like that?

Honestly, even I have trouble looking up new Filipino name ideas LOL there's not a lot of resources out there, but I'll still share stuff that I found useful :] BUT FIRST ! The naming trend in general is kind of loose and flexible! I've noticed that English/Spanish first names are very common, then they're either paired with a surname of Filipino/Spanish origin. You don't have to look too far for an example: IEYTD 2 has Chancellor Chelsa (English origin. I think?) Magpantay (Filipino origin) . Filipino first names are harder to come by these days and it's a shame </3 This is also entirely optional but Filipino full names include middle names (your mother's maiden surname) as well! For example, names are usually written like: Jose P. Rizal, with P(rotacio) being Rizal's middle name.*

*little aside, but Rizal's full name is actually much longer... but it's because he lived during the Spanish occupation. You can give your character multiple first names honestly that's also a thing I noticed SDKJFH but Firstname Lastname is usually satisfactory

For traditional Filipino name resources, Behind the Name has a few examples for first names, but you may notice some of them are just literally what they mean - "Ligaya" is happiness, much like how Joy is a name people have LMAO so stuff like that you can use as inspiration :] For my own Phoenix, Adarna is a legendary bird from a traditional epic, so mythological inspos are cool too - unfortunately that stuff is also. SO hard to find for. Fuck colonization lol

FOR traditional surnames, I actually found this webpage really interesting !! The info isn't complete but these are some legit surnames, considering I've seen a lot of them used by people I've met/known. Some of them have regional origins too which is very handy!

I read that English, Spanish, and Tagalog were all the national language at one point - is it common for people to speak all three?

Okay, so this bit HEAVILY relies on the era you want your Phoenix to live through. Spanish was the national language during the Spanish Occupation (from 1565-1898, that's more than 300 years!), but after the PH gaining "independence", spanish was pretty much dropped instantly as a national language...... Mostly because spain actually sold the PH to the US. OOPS !!! LOLLL as an attempt to fully make the PH their "own" thing, the US just kinda swept any Spanish rules and declarations away once they got ahold of the country, including making the Spanish language mandatory. So from 1898 onwards, English and Filipino are the national languages of the PH. Despite Filipino having a lot of Spanish loanwords, Spanish hasn't been declared a national language since then, and thus has never been a required study. Your Phoenix can read the time in Spanish if their parents/grandparents refer to time like that (like my own parents do), but unless they voluntarily study Spanish, they probably wouldn't consider themselves a Spanish speaker from that alone.

So um tl;dr due to politics, it's uncommon for Filipinos to speak all three, unless under special circumstances. If you're going for the common fanon of 1960's, Filipino and English are your best bet.

Also, any sort of miscellaneous cultural things that you can think of would be really helpful! And I guess, if there's anything you think someone writing a Filipino character should know! Stereotypes that should be avoided, anything like that

HOKIE !! as a general rule, you can write a Filipino character the same way you write any other character: give them a well-rounded personality and a solid motive, their own interests and all that jazz B) I'm actually not familiar with Filipino stereotypes specifically, ngl?? There's a lot of overlap with Asian stereotypes and discriminatory opinions against immigrant workers, Especially those coming from "third-world" countries. I'd also suggest avoiding making them too "mystical" or "exotic". I don't know how helpful this part is, specifically. Just make sure to make them their own person with flaws, strengths, and personal motivations, and you should be good. sniles.

[goatsandgangsters]

me and my wool outfits against the world