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wtfforged · 14 days

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my campaign hiatus has gone on for too long so to cope ive combined my interests at their maximum potency and had some dnd-strawhats thoughts

thoughts in depth under read more... :)!

this is SO self indulgent. their designs literally did not change. but i am a firm believer that dnd doesnt have to be european high fantasy. and also one piece literally IS fantasy. no changes are necessary to fit into dnd. ive already imagined plenty of campaign/oneshot ideas inspired by one piece. so this was basically just an exercise of trying to replicate their canon abilities in dnd 5e as much as possible without totally homebrewing everything. well. aside from luffy. you just cant take away or change his stretching.

LUFFY: (human monk. drunken master subclass. outlander)

the only plain human of the crew to balance out with the fact that he still has rubber powers. obviously a monk. but drunken master subclass specifically because i think the flavor(not the fact that its about being a drunkard) and abilities both fit him really well. this line in the subclass' flavortext especially fits him: "A drunken master often enjoys playing the fool to bring gladness to the despondent or to demonstrate humility to the arrogant, but when battle is joined, the drunken master can be a maddening, masterful foe."

ZORO: (tiefling fighter. samurai subclass. bounty hunter)

a fighter with the samurai subclass is so very incredibly obvious... but i actually had a lot of fun geeking out while comparing the abilities to what he can do in canon; Fighting Spirit, Rapid Strike, and Strength Before Death especially! tiefling is also pretty on the nose for his demon pirate hunter shtick and asura form, but i thought he'd be really human-passing for a tiefling and theorized about his tail getting cut off at some point or another before joining the strawhats. initially wasnt gonna give him a feat, but i gave sanji a feat so i thought itd be unfair to not give him one as well, so sentinel fits the bill pretty well i think!

NAMI: (tabaxi rogue. arcane trickster subclass. criminal)

cat burglar -> full grown literal humanoid cat. this one is INCREDIBLY self indulgent... i love... cats... theres nothing deeper to this and no other reasoning. i took cat burglar and ran with it. can you tell that i love izutsumi dungeon meshi? rogue for the aforementioned burglar-ing as well, and the arcane trickster subclass for when she picks up climatact! the mage hand will be very useful for her pickpocketing. in the future as she levels up with timeskip, i can totally see her multiclassing into wizard as well! weather wizard!

USOPP: (lightfoot halfling artificer. artillerist subclass. urchin)

I HAD SO MUCH FUN THINKING ABOUT HIS CHARACTER SHEET. halfling's Naturally Stealthy ability lets him hide behind his crewmates since theyre (almost) all bigger than him, so its perfect for hiding behind zoro or sanji all the time. Lucky is also perfect for him, and I think Brave fits pretty well too when he puts on the sogeking mask. artillerist artificer is also very fun! tinkering and making magic items for his crew, and i think Eldritch Canon or Arcane Firearm could both be easily reflavored as kabuto or any of his inventions. for emphasizing his sniper-ness, the spell sniper feat was also necessary. i think hes my favorite of all the concepts. big ears and long nose combo is so cute to me.

SANJI: (half-elf monk. drunken master subclass. guild artisan (cook!))

race was mostly based on vibes i wont lie. squints. and that vinsmoke balogna or whatever too ig. but mostly vibes. along with the idea that i think a dwarf zeff raising him would be really funny and cute. monk is also obvious, and same subclass as luffy for mostly the same reasons. though the flavor fits him much less, i think the abilities still fit him perfectly, and this blurb specifically; "Your martial arts technique mixes combat training with the precision of a dancer." i really wanted to give him a different subclass from luffy, but i dislike all the other monk subclasses a lot and i found none of them fit him as well anyways, so to try and give them SOME differences, i gave him the crusher feat.

CHOPPER: (awakened deer(shifter statblock) cleric. life subclass. hermit)

this ones definitely a mouthful im sorry. awakened deer for obvious reasons, but due to magic instead of devil fruit stuff. when i was struggling with his race, i looked a lot at shifter because of his forms, but it occurred to me that itd be super cool if he could shift between all of the different shifter options instead of being stuck with just one to replicate his rumble balls. something like heavy point/guard point=beasthide, horn point/arm point(?maybe?)=longtooth, walk point/jumping point=swiftstride, and brain point=wildhunt. hed definitely need some kind of nerf though to balance out that homebrew... and cleric for class. duh.

ROBIN: (high elf wizard. order of scribes subclass. criminal)

robin is definitely the one i struggled the most with just because of her class. elf came pretty easily- shes very elegant and i think shed look cute with super long ears- and i landed on high elf instead of wood elf for the int-based abilities. i was really on the fence between sorcerer and wizard for her because i knew shed be a full spellcaster, but i didnt feel that any of the subclasses really fit her. i ended up going with wizard for order of the scribes since it focuses on texts and knowing everything. but also because robin with a flying talking sentient book would be crazy cool. it could also be similar to how she spawns mouths and eyes places to talk to or watch people. my "fuck it, why not. this would be rad. its my house" mindset kicked in with her i will admit. also the One with the Word ability made me cackle out loud when i read it. thats the funniest ability ever. anyways, i cant really think of a way to replicate her powers, but maybe we could just reflavor a bunch of spells to be her limbs or clutch; hold person, maximillian's earthen grasp, or evard's black tentacles. thatd probably work okay, and theres a handful of spells to replicate her ability to spawn eyes or mouths. unrelated, but i imagine nico olvia to be a drow. why? her hair is white. i am a simple man!

#had a full on fixation explosion with this one Dont even look at me im posting this at 4am for a reason.#I HAD FUN THATS ALL THAT MATTERS. I MISS DND SO BAD. CAMPAIGN HIATUS OVER SOON. I MUST LIVE #not really like an au or redesign or whatever but i wanted to draw a lineup anyways to show just. very miniscule differences #i guess. mostly an excuse just to draw a lineup of the strawhats. i fucknig guess #will probably do a part 2 cause i have more thoughts; franky+brook+ace+vivi are on the menu boys #its bothering me so much that usopp and nami are both orange in the read more. but there is no yellow text-fill on tumblr. sad #also just fist fought this post in the drafts for an hour bc i dont understand the character limit #so if i fucked this up im moving to the mountains #wtf... art #one piece fanart #dnd #dnd 5e #mugiwara crew #straw hat pirates #monkey d luffy #luffy #roronoa zoro #zoro #cat burglar nami #nami #usopp #black leg sanji #sanji #tony tony chopper #nico robin

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ryssbelle · 2 months

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Drew a bunch of Marinettes in a bunch of different artists styles it was a lot of fun!!

Artists who's styles I mimicked: @buggachat @hamsternamedmarinette @ladybeug @sabertoothwalrus and @anna-scribbles all epic artists 🤟😎

#my art #marinette dupain cheng #miraculous ladybug #miraculous fanart #style mimic #sorry for the @s btw #yall should go follow those artists if you dont already also #this was sort of inspired by a post the three artists on the top row made #i think they all got together and drew with one another #which is really cool #but i was genuinely confused because i mimic styles a lot #and ive seen others do it too so i was just like #wow they really know each others styles really well #until i thought about it and read their posts some more #style mimicking is really freaking fun and i think its really good practice #and a good way to explore other ways of doing things #like you really have to learn new techniques and get out of your comfort zone #also anna scribbles i could not find a recent pic of marinette in her main outfit #so thats the only marinette i drew in different clothes cuz i couldnt find a more recent ref of you drawing it #anna scribble marinette has privileges thats the others dont #but ye #i also threw my own style in there as a frame of reference to what me draw like #ive drawn marinette before just not in a loooong while #sabertooth walrus was the hardest for me to mimic cuz they have a broad range in their style #so its like which sabertooth do i wanna be in this pic #Buggachat has such a distinct style thats very clean and consistent which is amazing so they were easy #being easy or hard arent bad things either it also has to do with like styles meeting up with one another #buggachats and mine arent too too different in some shapes and aspects #so yeah itd be easier plus they drew marinette like 3 sec ago so i have more recent of a ref #as opposed to sabertooth who i have a recent ref of ladybug but not marinette so we got two diff styles in one

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markscherz · 8 months

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Bad Newts: Amphibians are in Serious Trouble

My colleagues and I have just had a paper published in Nature, based on our efforts to assess almost all amphibian species for the IUCN Red Lists. The major takeaway messages:

It is a bad time to be an amphibian

Two fifths of all amphibians are threatened with extinction.

Salamanders are the most threatened group; three fifths of all salamanders are threatened with extinction!

Climate change is a major driver of amphibian declines globally

Habitat loss, especially due to agriculture, is a problem for the vast majority of amphibians

Chytrid pandemics have caused and continue to cause catastrophic declines of both salamanders and frogs

Protected areas and careful management are working as strategies! They are actively improving the outlook of some species

As many as 222 amphibian species may have gone extinct in recent times; of those, 185 are suspected extinct but not yet confirmed.

Our paper is Open Access, you can read it here!

Photo of Atelopus hoogmoedi by Jaime Culebras, used with permission

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hellenhighwater · 1 month

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Genuinely being a single woman in my thirties, living alone, is such a mixed blessing sometimes. I do love my house and when I'm here I literally never want to leave. But on the other hand, I do get tired of leaving to go hang out with people, even though I love seeing them. Especially because I have such a great group of friends but they live all over the place, geographically, and therefore most of them don't know each other. And I actually really love hosting? But I never have people in my house because logistically it's always more practical for me to go to them than vice versa.

But sometimes I buy new old dishes and wanna just have a little fancy wizard party, but all my guests are far away. Please may I have the teleport spell. Or a high-speed commuter rail system.

#Hazard of moving to a city where i dont have people locally i guess #a very insular city at that #and honestly i am not lonely! I have lovely freinds! But I do miss the college days of everyone basically living in walking distance #in one city #as opposed to now #where DND takes me the width of the state on a weekly basis #usually the only time there are groups of people in my house is around christmas for the family holidays #and like...in the overall balance of my life this works #me going to my people is the logical choice #and its not a bad thing #but most of my friend groups are...local clusters where I am the out-of-towner these days #which again: fine; i knew that going in when I decided to move where I did and overall its the best call #but also sometimes I want to just load up the whole crew in detroit and tell them we're heading to mine this time #dont worry there'll be fancy little finger sammiches when we get there #just give me an excuse to use the wizard plates

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zecoritheweirdone · 1 month

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wanna preface this by saying that i am. So normal. anyway i just spent the last week redrawing scenes from mystery skulls animated but as that hermitcraft au i posted about a couple times. you guys should watch msa it is. so so good.

#my art #hermitcraft #mystery skulls animated #geminitay #geminitay fanart #ethoslab #ethoslab fanart #falsesymmetry #falsesymmetry fanart #ignore the fact that etho's hair changes literally every drawing #poses + expressions are traced a bit; and backgrounds aren't mine(well; except for the second one; which you can prolly tell;; sksnsks)#and also (with the help of sap bc i'm bad at color theory) edited the truck bg colors a bit #but even so;; i am!! very very happy with how these turned out #mystery skulls animated spoilers #<- honestly that's mainly for the murder mystery one #granted anyone who hasn't seen the future at this point prolly won't have that tag filtered #etho's murder mystery form(no i don't have a name for it)'s collar tag is a mix between a mable leaf and a vex!#cuz reverb is cub in this au #hence all the blue and stuff;; skdhkdnkd #you'd think that last pic would have been the hardest for me to draw; with how complicated etho's design is #but surprisingly; it doesn't even place top three in terms of how long it took to draw #no; instead it was that Fucking. Truck.#WHY did that take me eight and a half hours #the second longest was only five!!!#the others barely even top 4!#also #WHY are the deadbeats(which are mini tillies here) so deceptively hard to draw #every time i struggle with them orz #anyway. images 3; 6; 7; and 8 are my favs <3 #if false and/or pearl see this. o/ hoi

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twinstxrs · 3 months

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so much happened in this whole episode but i’m still on fig infiltrating ruben’s dream, making it look like the place where his friend was murdered, and then disguising herself as kipperlilly & repeatedly saying different variants of “somebody needs to take the fall for this, and it’s not going to be me. it’s going to be you.” while adaine as the elven oracle shows up next to her. can you imagine waking up from that, the idea of a horrible truth being pinned on you by your friend to save her own skin while the personification of fate and destiny stands there, almost as a promise that this is GOING to happen to you. we don’t even know if this kid is guilty. my god.

#fantasy high #dimension 20 #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #fantasy high junior year #fig faeth #ruben hopclap #lucy frostblade #the rat grinders #adaine abernant #kipperlilly copperkettle #watching fig terrorize him like girl!!! we don’t even know if he’s guilty!!!!#this might just be for me but i do not think 5 teenagers willingly brutally killed their friend idk #like there just has to be some other element to it and i am very scared to find out what that was #what if they were put in a position where they felt there was/there was no other choice… like oh my god #my comedy brain is having fun but my ‘this is a teenager’ brain is in such deep distress all the time this season #the rat grinders i trust brennan to not make u cartoonishly evil so i am holding u as gently as i can in my confused shaky hands #also with the devil’s nectar i’ve been wondering why they all seem so well-adjusted & now i’m curious if they’ve been intentionally-#changing their memories in a way so that either the trauma is lesser or they think they aren’t guilty. idk #but it seems like from how gertie was talking she was making it more recently so the well adjustedness from early jy doesn’t quite add up #they could have another source maybe??? idk i’m just low stakes 4 a.m. spitballing here #there’s also the strong possibility that they’re aware of what happened but they weren’t the ones who killed lucy. idk who knows #the way you could probably devil’s nectar yourself into believing it wasn’t your fault someone died… CRAZY IMPLICATIONS!!! CRAZY IDEA!!!#anyways the bad kids & the rat grinders don’t ever have to like each other but i do wonder if at least some of those kids deserve a chance

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juniemunie · 7 days

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[Abandoned by the Lightners, his heart became cracked with hatred.]

Hitting a lil' too close to home?

#junie art post #ink sans #error sans #utmv #errorink #implied. but yea not the focus #this has been turning around in my mind for quite some time. im glad to finish it lmao idk if my ramblings make sense even.#so like listen. do you ever think about how similar the function of the utmv is to the dark worlds in deltarune.#in a meta narrative to fandom sense? idk the word #we are making exaggerated expanded worlds of the ordinary tools and entertainment of the real world and make it into something more #isnt that very very interesting?#and we explore every sort of possibility in that creation. both good and bad #and when all is said and done. every possibility found and the entertainment and secrets has all run out #we put it away. abandon and leave it behind #what is left? what happens to the world and characters we have created? can it sustain without us?#what of the ones left in the dark?#idk if yall saw me a few months ago but i reblogged comyet's old post of ink begging us not to leave him alone and to keep creating #yea that never left me #and seeing exactly THAT SCENARIO in deltarune made my brain iTCH #imagine an ink in King's position.... wait isnt that just underverse #mmmmmmm. darkner ink.....#also error is here too. not just for errorink or that i can't separate these two to save my life #but error is also one of the few people to be able to GET IT?? he can hear the creators too. ink cant #but hes pretty much programmed himself to avoid having a mental break down to this via reboot memory loss.#and ink has his own internal coping mechanism (hooray for short term memory loss)#these two idiots will do anything but confront truths lmfao #ahhh my favorite idiots. never change #mmmmm #deltarune

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hinamie · 10 days

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atla!au designs part 3 !! one of these things is uh. not like the others

first year trio gojo/choso/nanami

#my art #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #fanart #jjk fanart #jjk atla!au #geto suguru #yuta okkotsu #mahito #lmhs #atla!au: design #squints at mahito i think i might b trying a bit too hard fr preliminary designs.......#they keep getting progressively more detailed OOPS #atla!au: art #i feel like no one will complain tho so ! anywayyyyy #thank u hisuian zoroark fr ur weird hair n bad posture. stole that 2 put on this freak n gave him some soul orb hair ties #idk if his design adheres very faithfully to anything that can be considered atla canon....but i like it so much ok sue me #i would unironically like mahito more if he looked like this #let him lean more Monster.......pl..pls.......#dont dig too deep into that statement . anyway.#this whole page is full of chars i just Never draw but i dont have a least favourite here ???? all of them look rly good imo??#waterbender garb suits geto's design so well he gave me No trouble #yuuta on th other hand i was Concerned for on account of th aforementioned Orange on a very monochrome char in jjk canon #but i think i made it work? he looks great in th tattoos also??????#maybe th rumors r true and im good at what i do GHFGHGHL #(oh ya after mahito i didnt want to draw Another monster-spirit so i omitted rika but she exists. probably looks similar 2 canon also!)#(sighs ill deal w her later. priorities !!!!)

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imqueenofthecastleowo · 24 days

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I've seen a lot of takes saying stuff like "Why did Ivy had to die for being a little mean to Mazey once".

Guys. Ivy had to die because she was part of the group actively trying to bring an apocalypse to Elmville, revive a corrupted rage God and fuck up everything in the process. She shot The Hangman without hesitation. SHE WOULD HAVE TRIED TO KILL THE BAD KIDS IF GIVEN THE CHANCE.

We can sit here and talk all day about how the Rat Grinders are just teenagers being manipulated by adults they trust (which they are! don't get me wrong, I know that!), and how they deserve a second chance. But also. The Bad Kids are teenagers too. They're teens trying to save the world. Of course they're gonna kill the bad guys, if they don't, everyone they know will most likely die, themselves included! Fabian being petty for Mazey's sake was just an added bonus, not the sole reason for his attacks.

#also this is just a silly d&d show #to quote one very wise siobhan thompson: 'If you don't want us at our goofiest you don't get us at our crying'#don't get me wrong i don't hate the rat grinders and i wouldn't mind if they got redeemed! it would be tight!#but also what were you expecting the bad kids to do???? let the bad guys kill them?????#dimension 20 #fantasy high junior year #fantasy high #fhjy #d20 #fhjy spoilers #d20 fhjy #d20 fantasy high #dimension 20 fantasy high #fantasy high junior year spoilers

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pierog · 2 years

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tiny comic about eating toast with friends

#i have sooo many more thoughts about this but i couldnt be arsed making a longer comic..a few ppl seemed to relate so i will put it here #comic #art #artists on tumblr #axolotl #studyblr #academia #<-why the fuck not. it's set at uni #furry #mine #personal #i do wish i spent more time on this but i got 80hd #anyway the experience of loved ones + food is so important to me #and those little moments which you don't realise are so special until they're gone #i'm very bad at living in the present.. always have been.. gotta learn to appreciate wot i have #my hall experience was a mixed bag - loads of fun but also problematic as an institution and i dont miss it #im lucky to have heaps of friends who i love :)#but it's my first year as a Real Adult outside of academia and im trying not to be scared of growing up

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turtleblogatlast · 3 months

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I love Raph and haven’t said that enough so to be more specific I love that Raph is a soft boy who loves bear plushies, a gross boy who eats an assortment of things that are definitely better left alone, a smart boy who is more than capable of taking down villains through planning and fortitude alike, a strong boy who is dedicated to training his muscles and fighting prowess, a teenage boy who loves his brothers but is more than happy to tease and roughhouse with them, an angry boy who sometimes lets his anger take a hold of him to cover the fear, a gentle boy who is generous with hugs and affirmations to those he loves, a capable boy who takes on more than should ever be expected of a teenager, a good boy who just wants to be a hero and slowly comes to realize the cost of that duty, a good boy who has no reservations about putting himself in the way of harm coming to his family, a good boy who’s a great brother and son and person and deserves only the best the world has to offer.

#rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt raph #rise raph #he’s so wonderful frfr #my poor boy is traumatized but still so proud of what they accomplished because they’re HEROES #what started as something fun - Saturday morning cartoon-like heroes vs villains esque - soon becomes his calling #and he loses himself a little along the way #because the world is TERRIFYING now #if they don’t do something about the bad things in the world then worse things will come #and Raph CARES too much to let it happen #even at the expense of his own happiness and youth #and he luckily reigns back that fear - knowing his family is there to keep an eye out with him #and he finally lets himself be a kid again #he’s very well rounded and his flaws are so good because (like the others) they are ALSO his strengths #I like how it’s softly implied that bears are his fav animal too bc that’s cute af #headcanon that he likes them so much because a stuffed bear was the first toy splinter managed to get Raph #but yeah one of my favorite things about tmnt is that the characters are well rounded and rottmnt exemplifies that immensely #with raph being no exception!!#amazing big brother and character #there’s a REASON in my tmnt main character tierlist he’s S tier!!!!#hot take but in terms of who should be leader I think it should be less who’s the better leader-#-and more who’s the better leader FOR THIS SPECIFIC MISSION #bc all four can be great leaders fight me on that #APRIL can as well 100%#doesn’t need a designated leader for them to succeed #they just need ~communication~#one of my favorite things tying Raph and Leo together is that they both *hide*#I’ve talked about Leo’s many masks a lot but Raph has one too #and it’s the mask of a hero - the mask of the protector

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tofixtheshadows · 12 days

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Hot take: Laios wouldn't actually mind an arranged marriage. Obviously "reluctant royal being pressured into marriage" is very fun for shipping purposes. But I have harlequin blood, so bear with me. Join me on this journey of character theorizing/shipping nonsense that makes it abundantly clear I have a Scrivener document I'm neglecting.

Laios was promised to someone from a young age. He and Falin both were; it's probably how their parents ended up together. They both broke it off by leaving their village, but it didn't seem to be a factor in Laios's own decision. And when Marcille, presumably, asks about his hypothetical love life (bicorn chapter), he not only brings it up readily, but actually seems kind of flattered? lmao

I love when smug Laios comes out. Underrated factor of Laios's personality for me is how much he enjoys being seen as cool. I think you'd expect Laios to be embarrassed or uneasy over this line of questioning, and the fact that he isn't is fun to me.

So when Yaad and his other old advisors bring up his need for a wife, Laios is ready to go along with it. Not necessarily thrilled by the prospect, but he was raised to think of marriage as a business arrangement you do because it's beneficial for your household/bloodline (as was often the case historically). He's already made the big step to claim a throne, and the idea of becoming village chief after his father seemed to have been vaguely in the back of his head all his life. Besides, if he has to do it anyway, I think he'd take comfort that there was a formalized process for an otherwise socially messy undertaking.

This dovetails neatly with my personal headcanon that Laios is gay but unaware of it. He comes from kind of a repressed culture- or at least I can imagine he does based on context clues- and has spent most of his life being ostracized in one way or another, feeling like he's on the outside of humanity. So he doesn't realize that his lack of attraction to women is unusual- he assumes that nobody really enjoys romance that much. It's not like his own parents married for love. It's just something people play up for stories, right?

It's all tangled up with his fraught desire for human connection and platonic companionship anyway. Meanwhile he's blithely unaware that the things he says about Toshiro are not normal bro things. Oh you'd totally marry Toshiro, Laios? Tell me more.

I see this in Marcille too. Firstly due to her unstable development, which has only recently allowed her to reach maturity (I headcanon her as somewhere between 20-22) and secondly due to her being a half-elf (infertile+a too-long lifespan), I think she has the expectation that she's simply not destined for love. The half-elf character she relates to in her favorite books says as much. So she, too, confuses a genuine lack of heterosexual attraction with the belief that this is just because of her half-elf status distancing her from it. Plus, she spent over a decade as a student/researcher in a nice little sheltered academic bubble, at an all-girls academy populated by adolescents. She's the most sheltered of all the characters: she's only spent the past year in the "real world", and she still focuses all her romantic attention on living vicariously through her favorite characters or her friends (except for Falin, conveniently!).

And Marcille would absolutely want to live vicariously through Laios and his future wife. She would not want him to go through a dispassionate formalized process: she wants her bestie to have a fairytale romance! What is the point of being a heroic king in a mythic castle if you can't even get a love story for the ages out of it?

This would result in a lot of Laios meeting with eligible bachelorettes at Marcille's urging, looking to Kabru for help the entire time and being grilled by Marcille afterwards about what he liked best about each girl. "She had nice, um, teeth?" They're both so close to getting it.

Kabru, meanwhile, is agitating for Yaad and the other advisors not lock the country into a hereditary monarchy, they have the chance to do something radical here, to break away from the systems that the elves and dwarves uphold. At the very least, let Laios marry for love, or formally adopt an heir and name them his successor if he wants, he's already sacrificed enough for the sake of Melini. Don't make him jump through these circus hoops for the chance of some trade agreements, we can get those without a royal marriage. And even if Laios was willing to go along with it, he does look at Kabru like he's his hero for sticking up for him.

The vague unhappiness Kabru feels at the idea of Laios being married off is easy for him to ignore. Kabru didn't actually get better at honoring or even recognizing his own wants just because he's moved past the dungeon. And Laios hasn't gotten the hint about his crush on Toshiro and is still 50/50 on saying casually shocking things, so when he remarks that he doesn't need a wife anyway when he has Kabru, he has no idea why that gets him the looks it does. After all, where he's from, men marry women to run their households, but Laios has castle staff for that, and Kabru is handling the rest?

That comment alone ticks one month off their collective gay awakening countdown.

Anyway. How many repressed gays in their twenties does it take to run a country?

Answer: Yaad can tell you.

#dungeonposting #DUNGEON MESHI SPOILERS #I always have to use that tag for the dumbest reasons. because of my harlequin blood.#Labru #you get that tag because that was the point of my post it just took awhile to get there #also pretend I made some kind of joke with a pun about screwing at the end. believe in me.#Golden Country trio #^tag for ME. rotating scenarios with them in my head is a personal treat.#I haven't figured out where Kabru falls yet #he's very bad at introspection and very good at denying himself #but god knows what a guy like Kabru who moves through society the way he does experiences #several possibilities present themselves and I haven't yet decided which one is most plausible. or funniest.#pairing: to be human

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lgbtlunaverse · 5 months

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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!)

#mdzs #mdzs meta #nie mingjue #baxia #cql #the untamed #long post #I HAVE SO MANY TABS OPEN. FEEL MY SUFFERING #I understand that asking a gigantic region with thousands of years of rich history and many different subcultures #to have one standard naming convention is basically impossible #But could they do it anyway? for me? 🥺#i also want to buy one of these... so bad #or even just a plastic trainer so i can practice the techniques #but i know that once i start buying swords i'm not gonna stop until my money runs out #Being a sword nerd is a very dangerous not phyisically but for your wallet

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