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babytarttdoodoo · 9 months

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Please (if you want to) expand on what you said about the different ways Roy and Jamie swear because that is extremely fascinating

I mean, I'll start by saying I am in no way a linguistics expert. I also lack the cultural and social background to speak about the swearing habits of Mancunians and Londoners with any authority. (Again, to clarify, I am Scottish.)

However, being familiar with the accents in question, being immersed in British media my entire life, and having had voice training does mean I have an instinctual 'feel' for what sounds right for their characters... or what does for me, at least.

Swearing and rambling under the cut.

Beyond just swear words, the cadence and tones of Roy and Jamie's voices are vastly different.

Jamie talks faster, for one. It is a bit of a trend that the further north you go in the UK, the speedier the speech gets. I slow down a lot, even if I'm just visiting England, in order to be understood by non-Scots.

Therefore, Jamie uses longer words or phrases more casually in conversation (if not always correctly, bless his heart) because the rhythm of his speech allows for it. This also means that if he swears mid-sentence, it's basically just punctuation and comes across as a habit.

Adding adjectives adds emphasis. So when he is intentionally swearing directly at someone, he would call that someone a "big hairy baby twat" rather than just a "twat".

(I will also point out that I think "fucking dickhead" is criminally underused by Jamie in both canon and fanon.)

Roy, on the other hand, has a slower rhythm. He still swears very naturally (obviously) but is more likely to use single syllable words i.e. "fuck", "prick", "shit".

The way that vowels sound in his accent also plays a part here. For example, he says "fah-ck", as opposed to Jamie's softer "foh-ck", which is immediately more tonally aggressive (the different way they draw out the vowels is important too but I can't think of how to describe it).

Roy doesn't need to add on anything extra because the harder tone of his voice gives every swear a weighty impact. However, that's not to say he can't get creative.

Let's take Roy calling the woman harassing Jamie a "nutty arsemonger" in the Protective RoyxJamie fic. I agonised over what Roy was going to say because when he takes a second to think about how he's going to insult someone, things get colourful.

Cultural influence plays a bigger part in these scenarios.

The use of "nutter" is pretty widespread in the UK. "Nutty" as a descriptor, however, is a bit more specific and something I'd personally associate with the South.

That has to be paired with something and, particularly as he's talking to a woman, that makes things complicated.

Now, if I'm being brutally honest, in reality, someone of Roy's background and age would probably have said "cunt". It's very much not as big of a deal over here as I know it can be in the States. Tat said, it still felt a bit harsh to me as something someone in the 'Ted Lasso' universe would say. It's also very gender-charged and if Roy were going to use it, he's more likely to say it to another man.

For similar reasons, I discounted him calling her a "cow" or a "bitch". Less severe, but still not quite right for a man in his (at this point) early 40s who goes out of his way to be respectful to the women he knows. (Moments of idiocy aside, of course.)

That brought me to "arse". Anyone can be one. Great.

But he can't just say "nutty arse" and call it a day. Firstly, because "s" is a soft sound, especially in a deep tone, and the insult sounds incomplete in Roy's voice if he doesn't end on a hard note. Say it to yourself, try out your best Kent impression - it isn't right, is it?

Jamie absolutely could just say "arse" because the "ah" sound is very harsh in his accent and the "s" is more pronounced by his higher voice.

But Roy needs something more to round out the phrase. I landed on "arsemonger" eventually because of the meaning more than anything. (Generally used for someone without class, implies promiscuity.) Introducing that "ger" at the end also sounded a lot better and more natural.

I don't know if I'm making any sense here but hopefully this communicates a bit of what I meant?

If you're looking to delve a bit deeper (without the swearing), a good point of reference might be the Ninth Doctor and Rose's era of 'Doctor Who'. It's not perfect (Christopher is from Salford, Billie from Swindon) but it's another really good example of North/South talking habits.

'Only Fools and Horses' might give you a good idea of the language Roy grew up around, just bear in mind it's more in tune with his parents' generation.

'Coronation Street' is the obvious touchstone for Manchester accents but I haven't watched it in a long time. The kids in 'Waterloo Road' might be a bit more relevant as contemporary examples.

#the art of swearing #I could be talking nonsense #jamie tartt #roy kent

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angevinyaoiz · 2 months

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saw Dune 2 (2une?), and since I don't have my dune blog anymore I'll post here, since blah blah this is my place for posting about Dynastic Weirdos. This is long but NO MAJOR SPOILERS, except about like, small detail things that aren't plot things but whatever

Tbh it was disappointing. It had all the correct elements to be liked but one thing grated on me the whole time...the Bad Dialogue and lack of Elevated Speech! Why the hell were all these characters saying stuff like "these guys" "we're ok" and "literally" it took me out of the fantastical world sOOO bad. Super bummer because what I loved about Dune 1 (D-uno?) As someone who went into it before reading or knowing anything was how much it didn't explain, how it let the visuals and the world unfold before you, and how serious and somber it was in a way that gave it a sense of scale and time.

I can only wonder if WB saw all the complaints and tweets about people being like "we didn't understand the first movie!!! It wasn't funny and quippy!!!" And decided to simplify it down so characters just SAY things really obviously and inelegantly. The writing has some competence in moving the story forward but there's no poetry or rhythm to the way characters say things, it's serving "Rings of Power" scriptwriting to me lmao. And it's not like any of the actors are bad? I've seen them do well in the previous movie and in other things, so wtf was going on with the direction. I know people complained Abt Villeneuve saying that whole thing about being more into visuals than dialogue but maybe he was right...there needed to be LESS WORDS. bc much of the words we had were NOT GOOD.

Positivity: the middle and latter part was where the movie picked up for me. The Harkonnen Freak Villain behavior was everything I could have wanted! Finally instead of EXPLAINING everything obviously we got to see a LOT of character building, for Feyd specifically in a very short amount of time. I know a lot of us complained about Bald Feyd-Rautha but Mr Elvis did a very good job. And we got Madame Fenring and weird scifi femdomming finally, which is Essential for the Duniverse! Wonderful fantastic no notes.

Of course, getting back to our heroes, I anticipated this 2 years ago sadly and it was true...the Fremen were badass but SWAGLESS. More Learned ppl have already written about the frustration with the erasure of the Arabic/North African cultural presence so I won't reiterate that here since I'm not super knowledgeable about the specifics of that but even as a casual watcher there was a weird emptiness to the way I feel the society was portrayed. There were individual good character moments, such as fun bantering among the Fedaykin etc, but for Pacing or Whatever they cut out the community aspects that served to make them feel more like well, a People rather than just either Grizzled Soldiers/ Religious Fundamentalists aka Marks/Panicked refugees. I have to guess this was ppl were like "we can't show a culture too cool and colorful and the part with Harrah (Jamis' widow) would feel too ORIENTALIST!!! But the result is something sadly very dry. At least in more older orientalist works, the interest comes from when the ~exotic~ stereotypes figures are able to have charming personalities and personalities and be known as people despite the cliches sometimes but this sadly wasn't even like that....

Jamis' funeral is a good example of this; in the Book, it's a moment where you first get a good look of what rituals are like in this world, and how people relate to each other and to the dead. In the movie, the funeral is looks more foreign and even a little creepy as the water is extracted from the body. There's not really a Personal or community connection aspect to it at all.

The ending was pretty good as it satisfied all the Cool Dune Moments I think we all wanted to see, and also did literally the end of The Godfather Part 1 Framing which was hee hee heh. Anyways, Messiah is MY favorite book of the series personally so curious how they get to that.

Maybe I've been too spoiled by Cool Historical Fiction lately? I've been watching too much of The Devil's Crown where action happens mostly off screen but the dynastic drama is written and acted so compellingly, the historical mindset and setting so alien and yet so human and relatable, it's frustrating to see when works try to do the opposite? Idk??? Dune books themselves is fun in how action is mostly an "offscreen, offstage"' thing.

*if ANYONE in the Universe is a quippy Bastard, it should be Leto II esp in God Emperor where he literally has nothing to do all day but quip all day to terrified acolytes

#Dune 2 #dune part 2 #dune 2024 #2une #Long post #My writing #Not really spoilers in this?

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alpaca-clouds · 2 months

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DnD's World Problem - It's a bit of a waste

Okay, let me talk about the main world of DnD: Toril. And about the thing that it mostly gets reduced to Faerûn - which is in fact a continent - and specifically the Sword Coast, so the western coast of Faerûn.

And that is exactly what I want to talk about: There is an entire world there - but DnD has barely done anything with it in 4th edition and nothing with it in 5th edition. And I absolutely understand why, but I also think that ignoring these parts of the world is not the best way to go about it.

A World filled with Clichés

Now, anyone who knows a bit about the worldbuilding of DnD, will be able to tell you that this worldbuilding is not exactly creatives in the regard of the different continents. We basically have the following:

Faerûn = Fantasy-Europe

Anchorome = Fantasy-North America

Maztika = Fantasy-Meso America

Katashaka = Fantasy-Africa

Zakhara = Fantasy-Arabia

Kara-Tur = Fantasy-Asia (let's face it: Mostly Fantasy-China and Fantasy-Japan)

Osse = Fantasy-Australia

Faerûn has a lot more worldbuilding to it than any of the other continents. More than that: Faerûn is the one continent that is not based mostly on (racist) clichés of some non-white culture. Duh. Because Faerûn is obviously the European part of the world, and the mostly white people constructing this world were able to imagine a "European world" with a lot more details than they were able to imagine any non-white fantasy world.

And let's make this pretty darn clear: These other continents are not only fairly loose in terms of worldbuilding - a lot of it really is just "this is Fantasy-China, so just... uhm, imagine China but as fantasy!!!" Anchorome and Osse are probably the parts of the world that are most underdeveloped, with nearly no information available that goes past "Oh, this is pre-columbian North America with tribes living on the land" and "Yeah, Australia, uhm, yeah, that's it!"

And yes, this is very much "these parts of the world as imagined by white people in the 90s", as the 80s and 90s were the time when most of this was being created. And yes, that means all the problematic stuff that you imagine now about it... Yeah, that's true.

Let me tell you...

Racist Stereotypes

Okay, fellow white person. When I say "Africa", what do you imagine? I will take a guess: Savana, animals like lions and elephants, people living in mud huts and dressing in like, animal pelts or something. The typical racist "Africa is a country" thing that we saw in a lot of media and still see today, even though recently it has gotten a bit better with some own voices getting to create this media.

Meanwhile Kara-Tur is basically the boiled down version of the China and Japan popularized in Western Kung Fu movies - with maybe a bit of the Jackie Chan stuff thrown into it. It is really just the kind of western stuff, that if you grew up with Marvel comics for example you can find there, too.

Like, Katashaka is basically that Africa that some of the older Black Panther stuff displayed. And Kara-Tur is the kind of Asia that once upon a time Dr. Strange travelled to - and that the Mandarin came from. Like, it really is that bad.

Which probably is why they have not used any of these settings outside of Faerûn since 2000 with very few exceptions. Because by now people actually interacting with this, would rightfully call them out for the racism in it.

So, basically what they are doing right now is, to just act as if those settings do not exist. But... I actually do think that is in a way a bad thing for several reasons.

First and foremost it is obviously a bit iffy that the world got now reduced onto only the "European" part of the world. And sure, Faerûn is supposed to be quite diverse ethnically diverse, but that does not change the fact that it is "medieval Europe, with some Rennaissance stuff thrown in" for the most part.

Because it basically also implies that any non-white cultures are... unimportant for the world.

WotC, take a page out of Marvel's book

Okay, so, what should WotC/Hasbro do, if they actually cared about the franchise (which they clearly do not do, but that's beside the point)?

Well, simple: Do, what Marvel at some point did.

There is a reason I took the Marvel stuff as a reference above, because Marvel at some point realized that what they had done in the way they depicted basically anything that was not mainstream western culture was not okay. So... They hired people from the respective cultures to write about these non-western cultures, do the art and so on.

With all the criticism I have on the MCU, this did show there as well. With Black Panther being the most obvious example of course. A movie that went ahead to actually honor and even celebrate different African cultures.

And... well, DnD could do the same thing. It could not only help to actually worldbuild the entire world of Toril some more, but it also would create super interesting campaign settings for it as well.

Because I could absolutely imagine some interesting campaigns that could take place within an Africa-inspired setting, or some Indigenous-American-inspired setting. That could be very, very fun to play in, if the cultures were created by people from the real-world equivalent of those cultures.

And yes, this brings us back to the issue of: "For fuck's sake, let's just do a bit more with the lore?! Please!"

*sighs* Of course I know that this will probably not happen under Hasbro, because Hasbro mostly thinks about how to implement micro transactions into DnD... Yeah...

#dungeons & dragons #dnd #dnd lore #faerûn #90s racism #racism #worldbuilding #lore #marvel comics #black panther #fantasy #baldur's gate 3 #baldurs gate 3 #bg3 #hasbro #wizards of the coast #wotc

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edge-oftheworld · 28 days

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thinking about the way when i interact with fellow aussies on here I see so much disappointment about how they didn't come here on their last tour. how sydney 5sos fans are a different brand of human i'm not really sure how to describe (we all freaked out when we went to the same concert lauren was at for example). thinking about how the australian leg of take my hand tour felt like it was almost its own thing, sandwiched between the gap after the bulk of the tour before it and that short gap before they announced the most recent tour after it--almost as if it was meant to bridge both of those tours. how they played in newcastle and on the gold coast and it wasn't quite cairns or coffs but it was a bit more than your state capitals headline tour. how, with the exception of the big four, we often don't realise how small our cities are on a global scale. there are only 27 million of us on this desert island.

thinking about how they wrote easy for you to say and had to perform it on tour six months before its actual release, it was so important to this setlist, to the vibe, and how it's about nostalgia and missing sydney and they finished the tour in sydney and it makes me wonder, i can kind of guess when the song means the same thing to me, how much it hurts to be able to perform here and yet not be able to stay for longer than a holiday. and yet they do do that for us, put on shows about as regularly as any other artist does. even if they didn't play splendour in the grass. or falls festival. even if it's been four years since fire fight australia, it was only months ago sierra was promoting beyond blue as a charity to donate to. friends of friends did some fundraiser for a youth centre in blacktown: maybe I have to look to see it, but I can see the impact they've left.

and then I see how happy they all seem to look when they've gotten a chance to hang out in australia. ashton covering songs in the heat. calum obviously having a blast. luke dropping sydney pics that were assumedly from before it got really hot, looking carefree, a familiar skyline and familiar urban graffiti. the way when michael arrived in perth for the first time after lockdown he simply had to tell us all right away. and i've always kind of seen them coming back here for good? heck, joel madden even assumed right on his podcast some of them might have already. the way ashton doesn't have a dog in the states, and how i've always seen him with an aussie. the way luke integrates seamlessly into the life and culture of the inner west area; and calum carries blue mountains vibes with him wherever he goes, as michael does with the sydney pop punk scene. we know brandy and sierra at least love australia--i was actually fangirling about sierra in their comments with the veronicas just the other day (bless them for deciding my comment was something that needed to replying to). while crystal does have a massive group of usamerican friends and family I can see her enjoying the vegan places in melbourne and brisbane (they're coming to sydney too. the inner west and parts of the north side are almost there) and maybe being a little more hopeful about politics. I can also see it being a really healthy place to raise lua.

maybe it's the hopefulness of an urban designer who sees the impact of art and culture and having people around who create for a living on our cities, but maybe I see myself in 20 years bringing my kids to see them play and being able to tell the story of a series of songs (red desert, efyts, whatever is next in the theme in the works for 5sos6 as well as the solo stuff like a lot of wfttwtaf and boy) and how they figured out what we all have to, how to find and create a place that's home to you--because it's actually a pretty likely event. and i love seeing the evolution from the 'let's get out' / 'worked every weekend just to get out of town' vibe of self titled and sgfg to now. I really do want them all to feel like they can relax now after so many years of working and depriving themselves of the love that comes from belonging (I do feel like we've heard more about it from luke and ash specifically) and I also get the subtle vibes of where that might happen. and how much it might hurt when they don't get to have that. what did they do for aussies? gave us hope that we could make it, in whatever we want to do and whatever success means for us. maybe it's just me though. for now. maybe i've got the expectations of someone who grew up unable to afford things like concerts mixed with the anticipation for this june. I hope i'm not projecting, but also, the empathy I feel when I see myself in someone is usually spot on.

so idk. one day i'm gonna design some really classy public housing made to unfuck the status quo and i'm gonna raise money to build it and sierra will write a song and say she's doing a donation to this charity in australia doing things about homelessness and the class divide and it's gonna help me fund it. that's just one option of something i can see going down that's not completely unrealistic if very very optimistic but it's how i live my life. but i'll go to a 5sos concert eventually. i'll play their songs i've arranged with an orchestra one day too and we'll do it impressively, noticeably. i don't really know what else i'm supposed to expect? I know my experience is worlds away from many people's. but these guys inspire me to create and I don't really need anything else to do that.

#will add that i think if they were to move back here it would be something that would require work to be better than as kids #because it was never perfect for them to begin with and we do all deserve better than to pick the less uncomfortable uncomfortable option #fr though sierra + the australian music industry is just #like i really feel like she's at home there. more so than 5sos even #australia #5sos5 city #what am i talking about #i feel like it's just my experience really #official efyts post #nfattne tour brisbane #5sos #5 seconds of summer #luke hemmings #ashton irwin #calum hood #michael clifford #sierra deaton #almondmilkhunni #crystal leigh

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survivalove · 7 months

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the thing with hama is that at this point, she doesn't seem to really "care" about the water tribe. obviously she does, that's her home, and who she is. but it's changed so much, and she's become so deep in her revenge that i can't see her ever assimilating fully back into her home. the people there are desperate for some sort of peace, and hama doesn't want nor care for peace, she wants revenge. I kind of wish somebody would explore this idea more because yes a lot of people would have sympathy for what she's suffered, but I can imagine a lot of people, like sokka, would not like her (especially if you consider the fact that from the southern water tribes point of view, she attacked katara and sokka, two children of the tribe and that the majority of these people have never met hama). idk I think this is a very fascinating concept to explore bc it shows a more realistic side of the war in that some people, even if they thought they wanted it to end, can't live without it because of the traumas they endured. and like you said, the swt is a majority nonbenders society and one that's inherently changed. hama comes from the southern water tribe before most of the raids, and back then the culture was more closely linked with the northern water tribe. as the raids went on, water benders were lost, the culture developed to fit these conditions. we see in north and south that a lot of people do not like northern intervention, and changing the south pole to fit its standards, and since hama was from a time where cultural wise the south mimicked the north a lot more, I can imagine that would also be a point of strife

same, I think it would be a great concept to explore in a fic since it would bring up a lot of contention among the tribe (because I do think there will be at least a few people like kanna and hakoda who will advocate for her rehabilitation) but also between sokka and katara. at the end of the day, katara is a waterbender and she has this power, she and sokka both know what it feels like to be bloodbended but she’ll never be in sokka’s place where he literally couldn’t fight back against it at all if he wanted. i think sokka would hate her and would to hate to have to live with her in his home where he’s supposed to feel safe and I don’t blame him.

also katara once again feeling like an other because she’s the only other bloodbender in the tribe and most people don’t know that she’s bloodbended after that either. and what if the tribe decides hama can’t come back? what does that say for someone like katara who’s done the same thing?

the water tribe post war is truly one of the most underexplored parts of canon (!!!) i just imagine aang being invited to the council meeting trying to reconcile all these conflicting ideas lol. knowing him he’d probably want to give hama a chance but it’s not up to him. and it’s be a great problem for hakoda to reckon with too because as you said, most of the tribe is not going to want her back, and the swt is a democracy at the end of the day.

the southern water tribe in hama’s time does seem to be very different, aesthetically and culturally, from the north tho so that’s probably where i disagree. i think it’s more that she will miss her friends and everyone she knew. the presence of northerners would probably upset her the most. that being said, I think hama would want to go to back. I mean she fought hard for her tribe (another way the swt and the nwt is so different) and it’s not their fault she got taken so i don’t think she will hold any malice in her heart upon arrival. but i do think it will be a rude awakening for her to realize everything is so much different than it once was, once she gets there.

if i were to write the story, i’d probably end it with hama living on the outskirts a few miles away from Wolf Cove, where she can’t be a threat to anyone but still be close to where she grew up.

ugh the potential character development for katara, sokka, hakoda, kanna, hama and even aang for a story like this is literally limitless. sigh

#atla #katara #sokka #hama #kanna #hakoda #aang #southern water tribe #my asks

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atopvisenyashill · 2 months

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sort of tangential to what you've been posting, but idt rhaenyra/jace or anya waynwood/her sons are special cases. arys oakheart's mother is a ruling lady and the wiki makes clear he's her youngest son, so surely his bros, esp the heir, have the oakheart name too. we also see this in the hornwood crisis, where one of the tallharts is married to the late lord's sister and offers to have one of his sons take the hornwood name to inherit his hornwood mother's old home. and there's harry the heir, with the arryn sigil in his personal arms and being called "the young falcon", i'd say there's a clear intention for him to take his grandmother's maiden name to inherit the arryn lands and titles if sweetrobin dies. that's the only way these old houses can survive with the same name for thousands of years, even when a lady isn't put in charge, a female-line male heir must use the name going with the titles he's taking. (see also, king joffrey lannister, who was not born a lannister but took his wife's name when she was her father's last surviving child. or the bael the bard story where a wildling's bastard inherited through his mother and took the stark name.)

definitely a fair point. part of my fixation is more

first names - because these are typically the "man's domain" even when the woman is an heiress (like Rhaenyra's boys for example) and i think it's wildly fascinating to analyze that aspect.

a sort of forced, idk, feminization i guess? of these fathers - when we have an heiress, we get characters who only think of their mothers (doran, arys) in a way that ned only thinks of his father and i find this pattern really fascinating in what it says about How The Family Operates

i mean...the thing is that "Andal Law" is really only like "Andal Tradition" and even then, "Andal Tradition" is more like a guide line than a strict rule and I think its interesting what cultures treat it more like a rule and what cultures treat it as a guide line. I think it's interesting how the North gets really fucking touchy about how they swore a vow to Rhaenyra, and then cause a massive succession issue with a string of unworthy heirs usurping their likely much more worthy and much more prepared aunts and cousins, because partaking in some borderline incest is lichrally better than a woman being in charge (god forbid). But then you have the Vale, which for some reason regularly has female line heirs with absolutely no issues or usurptions and I think it's really fascinating to think about why especially with the North having so many female line heirs in the "current" era (because all the men are dead). It's similar but different to the aftermath of the Dance - whereas the Dance had a rule by widows, the North will simply be ruled by heiress' taking up their father's seats after their brother's and cousins have died.

Also (imo) different when it comes to Valyrian husbands marrying heiresses because of the Valyrian supremacy thing as well as Jacaerys walking a very fine line here between claiming and overclaiming the Velaryons when he has no actual blood relation to them. As you say, there's probably plenty of second born sons or lower born husbands who are happy to take their wives' names if it means they get access to more privilege (I know Genna takes Emmon's name, obviously, as do their kids, but we see Emmon is more than willing to take a backseat to Genna's politicking if it will benefit him. I mean, that's the point of marriage, is to gain access to more stability or privilege, after all! Pride only lasts so long in the face of jealousy or even hunger!) but Daemon isn't exactly a normal second son and then there's the added issue of Rhaenyra being crown princess.

#great point about arys tho as being another point of comparison.#ladystoneboobs #replies #gender politics in asoiaf

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ichabodjane · 2 years

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The Halbrand Theory of My Heart

(This was partly inspired by a suggestion in a post tag that I can no longer find so if it was you, please let me know so I can tag you here!)

So the popular theories for Halbrand's identity center on him being [Snake Hiss] or eventually becoming a [pterodactyl screech], basically that he's either already evil or will go that way. And these make sense for the dramatic potential.

HOWEVER

I would like to lay out an alternate, slightly more optimistic theory that is kinder to my tired heart: the Proto-Rohan Theory!

Obviously a lot of Rings of Power is about setting the stage for the events of LotR. We're already getting to see the basis of Hobbit culture with the Harfoots, the big human kingdoms with Elendil and fam, the Southlands becoming Mordor, etc. So it makes sense to have the Rohan forerunner in there, too. We all know this is not going to end well for the Southlands and that the Southlanders who haven't been captured are evacuating. The lore suggests a lot of them end up north of the mountains around Mordor, east of Mirkwood, which is made up of grassy plains that foster their horse-y culture. Much later on, Eorl the Young then leads them to the aid of Gondor and they get the land of Rohan to settle.

First off, we have musical cues. The music we hear for Halbrand and the Southlands prominently features the nycelharpa (aka Scandinavian keyed fiddle).

youtube

Where else do we hear this? The original Rohan theme.

youtube

From a production design standpoint, the architecture of the Southlands (thanks @screen-2022 for the still) is already looking pretty Rohan-esque:

Halbrand's armor, which we see here in the character poster, is red-brown leather-looking with "fish scale mail" style, much closer to the armor of the Rohirrim than what we see Numenoreans wearing, and the sword has the horse head pommel. (I know the armor and sword actually come from Numenor but it's about the look here).

We know from trailers we are in for some Halbrand Horse Riding + Spear Feats, also something we see from Rohirrim.

Also for comparison: Halbrand's Screaming Fighting Face:

vs Eomer's Screaming Fighting Face:

And of course, horse metaphors (thank you @bluetiefling for the gifset):

I rest my case.

In conclusion, it would make sense story-wise to show the beginnings both of the Dunedain kingdoms and Rohan since these are the main human cultures that appear later in LotR. It's a nice way to show the redemption of the human cultures that allied with Morgoth in the past. It doesn't necessarily mean Halbrand doesn't become one of the Nine. But it is a nicer theory for us poor, tired souls that would like to enjoy a normal human-level grey morality with a fun hot horse boy character instead of him being secretly evil. If that's your thing.

#halbrand #the rings of power #otp: bind yourself to me #the rings of power theory #like we all know how doomed the ship is #BUT WHAT IF THEY WERE JUST HAPPY FOR AWHILE AND THEN HIS PEOPLE BECAME ROHAN #what if we just did that #for me and my heart #rings of power spoilers #rohan #rohirrim #the southlands #Youtube #rop #trop #lotr: the rings of power #lotr: trop

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goaliekisses · 2 years

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It’s never only about hockey for Malkin. Never has been. If only it could be.

Instead, there was extortion to keep him playing for his hometown Russia club, Mettalurg Magnitogorsk. There was a clandestine escape to North America so he could pursue his NHL dream. There was learning English, and American/Canadian cultures. There has been playing second star to rival Alex Ovechkin in Russia and friend Sidney Crosby in Pittsburgh. There were major injuries. There were down seasons. There was marrying Anna and the birth of Nikita, each of which occurred during the 2016 Stanley Cup Final. There were the stressful negotiations with Penguins management on a four-year, $24.4 million extension that wasn’t finalized until after he decided to test free agency for the first time. There is choosing the best living situation for Nikita (Pittsburgh, Miami or both?). There is getting visas for his parents so they can see his 1,000th NHL game early this season. There is keeping that creaky knee ready for action. There is the war between Russia and Ukraine.

It’s a lot.

It’s a lot more than playing hockey.

Even when it’s only playing hockey, it’s more than that because Malkin can’t merely play hockey. An alternate captain with the Penguins, he wants to help his buddies Kris Letang, also an alternate, and Crosby, the Penguins captain, lead another Cup run. They are tied for the longest-tenured teammates in major North American sports history, according to Elias Sports Bureau. Their legacy is secure, but they want more, and they need each other at their best.

“Yes, it’s about team,” Malkin said. “I need to be a leader. I need to score points to be the best leader — the team needs me to score, of course, play the right way, for us to win.

“I know I’m still a good player. Last year was rough; I wasn’t strong. I had a good summer to train. I feel like myself for the first (time) in a long time. We have a good team in Pittsburgh. I want to win. I want to show I’m still a good player, show teammates we still can win.”

Crosby wants what Malkin wants, too.

They share a need to compete, as individuals and as centerpieces for a franchise that will one day retire their respective numbers. Since they teamed up in 2006-07, Crosby and Malkin have guided the Penguins to the most team points, playoff appearances and titles in the NHL. They’re Superman and Batman to their hockey generation and French fries and coleslaw on a sandwich in Pittsburgh. Sid and Geno are a modern-classic pairing as much as they were a smash-success duo. Also, they’ve become close — “like a brother,” Malkin said of Crosby.

Like a brother, Crosby can be protective of Malkin, and, like a brother, he supported Malkin this summer when negotiations with the Penguins had Malkin feeling as though he was becoming the odd man out in Pittsburgh. It’s likely why Crosby downplayed Malkin’s assertion that he must score like he did when he was younger to provide worth to their team.

“He puts a lot of pressure on himself like that, and it’s not easy,” Crosby said. “The thing about G is he doesn’t need to always put up big numbers to help us. When he’s best, it’s not always him getting points — he’s hunting the puck, and when he gets it you can’t get it off him. When he’s playing like that, it’s helping us even if he doesn’t get any points.

“But that’s tough to balance. When he scores, that’s obviously helping us. Goals aren’t easy to come by in this league, and not a lot of guys anywhere create chances for himself or people he plays with better than G. But a lot of times, people only look at your points, so I get why he might feel that pressure.

“He means more to us than that.”

ohhhh 🥺🥺🥺

#feeling tender emotions #sidney crosby #evgeni malkin #pittsburgh penguins #hockey

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uboat53 · 14 days

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I had a discussion with a friend of mine in the (US) military recently and it reminded me that most people in the US and, in fact, in the world, are almost entirely unaware that there is a new Cold War taking shape. I think more people should be aware of it, knowledge is power after all, and knowing about something gives you the opportunity to help shape it, particularly if you're a citizen of a country where your voice has an impact in government. I hope this LONG RANT (TM) helps someone better understand.

INTRODUCTION

As I said, there's a new Cold War beginning, and, like the previous Cold War, there's a strong component of ideology to it. Specifically, the world is beginning to fracture between liberal democracy and autocracy.

What makes this conflict particularly complex is that we're at the early stages. When thinking about the Cold War, capitalism vs communism, it wasn't until the 1950s, 1960s, or even the 1970s in some cases that it was really clear which side most consequential nations would end up on. It was pretty obvious that the Soviet Union and the United States would be the major communist and capitalist powers, respectively, but the status of many other nations didn't become clear until long internal political debates and outside interventions had a chance to play out.

So, without further ado, let's get into it.

WHY IS THERE A CONFLICT AT ALL?

This is one of the key questions and, honestly, it all comes down to the interconnectedness of the modern world. You see, modern autocracies that don't rely on the divine right of kings to justify their rule generally justify it by results. In order to make sure the results come out correctly, they control the information available to their people to ensure that their people are told that the autocratic rulers are giving them the best results, whether that's in terms of economics, culture, religion, or whatever else they want to focus on.

As my old boss used to tell me a decade and a half ago, "North Korea can't afford to allow YouTube to get to the average person even if the average person just watches stupid videos because it's going to become really obvious that, yes, this person is an idiot, but that idiot has a fridge, a TV, a car, and has obviously never missed a meal in their life; they can't possibly be poorer than us."

In the olden days that would be fairly easy. Radio signals only travel so far, so as long as you control the TV and radio stations and limit the ability of printed media to spread too widely, you could completely control what information your population receives.

Nowadays, however? Well, that's very different. The internet allows people from all over the world to talk to each other in an instant and it can even go a long way to easing language barriers. The advent of satellite internet means that even efforts to control internet traffic such as the so-called "Great Firewall of China" will be increasingly limited in their effectiveness.

Today, in order for an autocracy to control the information their people receive, they not only have to control the information environment in their own country, they have to control the information available in other countries as well. That's the reason you're seeing things like the Saudi Arabia's murder of dissident Jamal Khashoggi, Russia's poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and Sergei and Yulia Skripal, a Chinese attempt to kidnap dissidents in the US, India's alleged killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, and it's attempt to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.

All of these were killings or other physical violence that took place in liberal democratic countries (except for Khashoggi who, though American, was lured to the Saudi embassy in Turkey where was killed) where what the individuals were doing was perfectly legal. This is the driver of conflict today, authoritarian nations attempting to maintain their monopoly on the information their citizens receive in a global information environment.

THE EARLY DAYS

We're currently in the early days of this autocracy vs liberal democracy competition and there are numerous nations currently in conflict over which side they're going to be on including, unfortunately, our own. In order to explain that, I need to get a bit technical over the difference between "democracy" and "liberal democracy".

Democracy, basically, can describe any situation where leaders are elected by some kind of popular vote. If you look closely at that for a second, you'll realize that it's such a broad category that even the autocratic Soviet Union technically qualified. Obviously, a category broad enough to include actual autocracies isn't really in opposition to them.

Liberal Democracy, on the other hand, is a Democracy, but with a whole bunch of other things as well. In general, a Liberal Democracy will feature multiple distinct candidates and/or parties in their elections, some sort of separation of powers between branches of government, the rule of law (law that applies equally to all), an open society (one in which individuals make choices rather than being controlled by tribes or other type of collectivism), a market economy with private property, universal suffrage, and the protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and political freedoms for all people.

(That definition borrowed almost entirely from the Wikipedia article on Liberal Democracy, check it out if you're interested.)

In other words, Liberal Democracy is more than just "do people vote for leaders?", but encompasses just about everything we'd associate with individual rights and liberties and the structure of institutions to ensure them. People in an Illiberal Democracy may technically vote for their leaders but, without all of these other rights and protections, they can hardly be said to have truly chosen them. And, when you define it clearly, you can see that there's a bit of a disagreement about that in American politics right now.

The Republican Party, and particularly its MAGA wing, is increasingly of the mind that not everyone's vote is legitimate and has been putting in place barriers to voting that disproportionately affect disfavored groups. In addition, they're pushing to end much of the separation of powers, putting more unchecked power in the hands of the president at the expense of checks, balances, and sometimes guarantees of individual liberty. Democracy would continue, but Liberal Democracy would end.

To be clear, this isn't just an American problem, but one that is faced by nearly every Liberal Democracy today. As part of autocrat's efforts to control information outside of their own borders, they've been attempting to influence politics within Liberal Democracies and promote internal autocratic movements; usually right-wing nationalists. From the Republican Party's MAGA wing to France's National Front to Germany's Alternativ Fur Deutschland, just about every Liberal Democracy in the world now has a fundamentally autocratic right-wing party that is doing much better than it did just ten or twenty years ago and, if you scratch the surface, you will find support for them, both financial and otherwise, from autocrats around the world.

Of course, it's not just the far-right either, autocrats have been promoting the far-left in Liberal Democratic countries as well. While the far-right has had much more electoral success and is much more politically organized in the west and, thus, has received more attention, we can't ignore the fact that autocracy is largely neutral on the political scale and operates anywhere that conspiratorial thinking can take hold and distract people from the removal of their freedoms or even convince them that those freedoms hold no value in the first place.

WHERE WE GO FROM HERE

Well, that's the trillion dollar question, isn't it?

Conflict will likely continue between autocratic and liberal democratic states, but the complexities are growing. Much like communism vs capitalism, autocracy vs liberal democracy is more of a spectrum than a hard binary and many states are actively sloshing around along that spectrum.

There's also the uncertainty of how different countries react to incidents like the ones we're seeing. Technically, killing a person on the soil of another country is an act of war, but not many people in the modern world are willing to go to war for the killing of one person. Most likely what we'll see is a gradual hardening of blocs as liberal democracies react to provocations by slowly pulling back from cooperation and connection with autocratic nations.

We're also likely to see countries switch sides. Unlike the rapid shift in allegiances that we saw during the Cold War, however, these are likely to be more gradual shifts like what we've seen in Hungary and Turkey where individual rights are stripped away gradually and a governing autocrat is slowly ensconced in power rather than a hard and fast coup. We could, of course, see countries go the other way as well, as in the case of Ukraine which has slowly strengthened individual rights and overthrown its autocrats.

All of this, the solidification of blocs and the shifting of countries within this spectrum, is going to create the opening situations for this particular conflict. Whether it becomes a conflict of more rigidly defined blocs or even sparks proxy wars remains to be seen.

CONCLUSION (TL;DR)

The days of a fairly open world, both in physical travel, the movement of goods, and in communication, is starting to come to an end as that openness begins to threaten the hold of autocrats on power. Those autocrats are attempting to keep both the openness and power by working to control the information available in countries that practice Liberal Democracy and generally guarantee individual liberties.

Over the next several decades, it is likely that we will see increasing separation between a bloc of autocratic nations and a bloc of liberal democracies, much as the Cold War saw separation between pro-capitalist and pro-communist countries. Some of that separation will likely not go smoothly and we will likely see at least some military tension and possibly even armed conflict as leaders react to changes or even try to distract from them with military force.

Just as importantly, we are likely to see tension within countries all over the world as autocratic political parties attempt to take control of liberal democracies and pro-democracy movements attempt to overthrow autocrats.

I'll admit this isn't the most hopeful vision of the future that we'd like to see, but I think it's fairly realistic given the current realities we see. I hope that this gives you some insight into what's going on and allows you to plan accordingly.

As always, let me know if you think I missed something or got something wrong, I'm always up for adjusting my thoughts, and I hope you enjoyed the read.

#politics #international politics #liberal democracy #democracy #individual rights #autocracy #cold war #new cold war #long rant (tm)

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aegor-bamfsteel · 2 years

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Which countries would you map to seven kingdoms of Westeros?

My primary area of medieval knowledge is France and England, and Spain to a lesser extent. Fortunately, GRRM admits that as a monolingual English speaker, most of his medieval knowledge comes from English sources (though he admitted to having figurines of Peter the Cruel and Henry Trastamara, which interested me because of the parallels between Daeron II and Daemon Blackfyre). Furthermore, GRRM uses parallels from other countries/cultures (Ned’s daughters get Sanskrit names while his name is pseudo-German, the Parisian Oldtown has the Lighthouse of Alexandria aka Hightower in it) often with no regard to where they came from or how they fit, much like the worldbuilding of his fantasy hero, Robert Howard. Many of the world building elements are more stereotypes or taken from pop culture than reflective of real world history (looking at the Dothraki and the Mongols. GRRM used the Pax Mongolica quote…to describe the north under the Starks). Furthermore, GRRM admits that he also uses “a hint” (or a lot) of his imagination in some worldbuilding, so he wasn’t directly inspired by real life (you could say the same for places inspired by fictional works such as Lovecraft’s or Moorcock’s, such as the island of Leng and the Patrimony of Hyrkoon). All I can do is guess the inspirations and draw parallels if he hasn’t said anything.

The North: a really big Northern England/Southern Scotland, maybe some Icelandic, due to the Wall being inspired by a trip to Hadrian’s wall

The Riverlands: maybe Brittany, a frequently fought over and invaded part of modern North France

The Iron Islands: I wrote a meta on how they are very stereotypical Vikings with some hints of depth; there’s also some Scottish Isles influence

The Vale: maybe Wales, due to the sheep herding and mountains?

The Westerlands: southern/Middle England, considering how the Reyne-Tarbeck rebellion is modeled after the Montfort rebellion

The Reach: Central/Southern France with its emphasis on chivalry, except with Paris included

The Stormlands: Northern Spain, for its frequent clashes with the Reach and Dorne, its stony shores and excellent sailors

Dorne: Southern Spain, due to the conquest and rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, the silk veils, the Tabernas desert, the variety of phenotypes. GRRM has mentioned other countries as influence

Keep in mind that I’m limited by knowledge of other regions, as well as by space (I’m sure if I had enough time, I could go over some of the other details GRRM took from history)

A note about Essos under the cut:

The places of Essos are easier to identify as one culture/region because he doesn’t spend as much time building them (that most of them include what Americans would consider people of color makes his thin sketching that much worse); significant to my interest in ASOIAF is the Kingdom of the Three Daughters; despite some Greek names (and that lazy “gonfaloniere” Fire and Blood included in Lys, which is just an untranslated title for a communal office in Florence), Tyrosh is obviously based on Tyre, Lebanon, which was famed for its dye; Myr is based on Sidon, the oldest of the Phoenician city-states and famed for glass making; and Lys, despite the Rogares being uninspired Diet Medicis, is Cyprus, the Island of Love (it was the legendary birthplace of Aphrodite), a fertile island, that had the most Greek influence of the three due to its proximity. All three were governed by judges aka magisters called shofret, Sidon and Tyre were United for a time, they lived off of trade, and though there were old families the common people also had a voice in government. Further east the cultural comparisons get more obvious, with Magical!Crete as Qarth, Scythians as Sarnori, China as Yi Ti…GRRM’s worldbuilding is not his strong point, but as long as he wasn’t focusing on it (instead of letting it eat up too much of his writing), I could deal and just focus on his interesting characters.

#grrm criticism #ask #parallels #history #opinion #essos #asoiaf #westeros #gif

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narrie · 6 months

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Not to start something with your anon but maybe they should read a little on NK? America killed one third of Koreans on earth during the Korean War. One third of a whole race. Most of them in the north. It destroyed between 50-90 percent of all cities in the north of Korea, so it ethnically cleansed a whole culture. Then america propped up people like Yeonmi Park (pro Israel btw) who has been proven to falsify numerous claims about her escape from NK and who became a pro American propaganda piece. No one is saying NK is “good” but if you listen to other defectors, many of them are much more balanced and funnily enough they don’t get to speak at the UN at the behest of the US. They say things like “well I am more free here in that I can move around and say what I like but I’m also much poorer and no one cares that I’m this close to being homeless”. One defector said “there’s good things about NK and SK and we will never know peace until people stop treating NK like this monolith”. That’s the story the US isn’t interested in people hearing.

Basically america did to NK what it would like to do to Palestine and to this day even leftists refuse to acknowledge that because the tone against NK is so intensely severe that people won’t even acknowledge the Korean War was a deliberate genocide.

oof i think we can ALL agree the us has committed and gotten away with the most war crimes as well as spreading propaganda but from my LIMITED knowledge of the korean war, which was obviously a huge tragedy, it was much more complex than "a deliberate genocide" by the us. obviously every issue/conflict/war has different povs and contexts and there are prob some similarities u can make between what happened then and what's happening now but the set up alone is sm different, as well as the response by scholars and human rights bodies. anyway i'm not well read on the topic so i don't wanna get into it too much, i was only going off of what that anon said and they mentioned kim jong un and if that's part of the arguments then...

#ask

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rwbyazre · 1 year

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How about Team RWBY’s families?

We definitely have the families for Team RWBY, they’re the second important team in AZRE lmao

Both Ruby and Yang have the same family, since they’re, you know, sisters, so they’ll share this section together.

Taiyang Xialong is the still the dad for both Ruby and Yang, and his design doesn’t actually change from canon. The only things I changed with him is colouring issues.

His skin is obviously darker than what it looks in canon, even with the varying skin tones he has. Really, the cloest would be how he is in RWBY Chibi, since he’s considerably darker than his daughters and his RWBY counterpart. Plus, his hair is less desaturated and just lighter than Yang’s bright golden yellow, since it got lighter as he got older.

His eyes are also a more purplish indigo than the actual blue he has in the show.

The last thing is his pauldron on his shoulder. I changed it from silver to gold, since the silver metal clashed really badly with his overall warm pallete. Nothing too crazy for Tai’s redesign in AZRE, just a few bits and pieces so he’d look better in my vision.

I also gave him a little design for Beacon, just so he had a keychain with Summer for my sister and her fiance.

He still has the overall colour scheme as his older self, and uses reddish browns and oranges compared to Yang’s more stark black and reds. It makes him seem more warm and mellow to contrast the dangerous fire that Yang embodies. He also had an undercut.

I actually answered a whole ask for Summer’s design alone, you can find it here!

What I will say is that I primarily redesigned her so that she could both be Ruby’s mother and her own character, so her design has her with features that Ruby took (such as the hair and eye colour) while being different in other ways (she’s pale skinned, has wavy hair texture, and even her clothing style is, while gothic like Ruby’s, far more sexy.

Which is where Yang actually gets her fashion style from. Plus, the yin necklace is directly connected to Yang’s necklace, so Summer has something for both of her daughters regardless of her blood relation to Yang.

Raven was redesigned to move away from the Japanese style clothing, and play more into her Norse/Celtic allusion and naming. The in-universe reason I gave for them being in Anima is simple migration; the Branwen Tribe was originally from Northern Vale, like other Celtic inspired tribes such as the Ankou, before they migrated over the frozen seas to Solitas and Anima collectively.

So the Branwen tribe has their own fashion and culture to the majority in Northern Anima, especially since they actually travel across the entire continent rather than seemingly remaining up north.

But back to Raven specifically, I kept the mostly black and red colour scheme to contrast with Qrow’s lighter pallete, since it sells a more dangerous and deadly look for Raven in fitting to her character. She now also has a cape as a subtle connection to Summer, who she had a conflicting relationship with, and to add some more of a leader vibe to her now.

She still has the rainbow sheath, but her katana was swapped for a more European Carolingian sword, which were only used by those of higher status since they were more expensive to make; hinting to Raven’s higher status in her tribe.

Her sash over her stomach was also reminsicent of an obi, which does at least connect Raven to her home in Anima, but I added feathers and her emblem on it to connect her to her namesake. I think I’d redesign her bottom half honestly, it’s a bit plain and I’m not a fan of the shoes.

She obviously still has most of her characteristics; her pale skin, feather textured black hair, her red eyes, and her bandana. I also gave her face scars to add to the dangerous look and because I wanted to.

Qrow’s outfit is very much the same. I only added some details to give him a more dishevelled look, like his body hair/eyebags, and made his eyes the same red colour as Raven’s than the pinkish red he has in canon.

You can’t see it in the full body, but he wears a ring on his right hand that Winter gave to him.

It’s silver but with a green gem, to match her green eyes.

I actually haven’t designed him an Atlas outfit. I already talked about how I felt about his canon Atlas outfit, since I like how it looks but feel that the colouring brings it down, so I’m unsure on whether I’d take more inspiration from that and just make it more suitable for Atlas along with fixing the colouring.

Qinri Xiaolong is the only original character I made for the Xiaolong family, the one that appears anyway, who lives with Taiyang and his daughters. She thre great grandmother, but raised Taiyang as a child and so is seen more as his mother and grandmother of Ruby and Yang instead.

She lived before the Great War, and actually fought in it as a teenager, so her style of fashion is more of the traditional Tang Dynasty hanfu compared to her more western grandson and great granddaughters. Her blue and more water themed design is a contrast too, since she embodies the traditional chinese dragon with rivers and water compared to yang embodying the more western fire dragon.

Very much the grandparents who grew up in their native home compared to diaspora grandchildren.

The crests on her shoulders as well are the Taoist symbols, since she very much is a firm believers in the ancient ways rather than more modern beliefs that others might have.

Now that Ruby and Yang’s are done, we can move on to Weiss.

Weiss’ grandparents aren’t shown, and Nicolas himself is important, but I haven’t settled on a design for him yet. I like the idea of his red scarf, but his canon design with the armour looks a bit too out of place, especially for the more Victorian style I’ve put in Atlas. He might get a design, he might not, his appearance isn’t really that important since he’s already dead.

Biggest change for Jacques in AZRE is that his defining colour was changed from white to blue, so his design was changed to really bring this colour forward with the darker blues and greys to offset him from Weiss’ lighter blues and whites.

His all white business suit was changed for a more defined over coat and crevat, similar to what Willow wears, since Atlas as a city takes more after rich Victorian fashion. His sleeves also have his style of the Schnee emblem, while the belt buckle and shoulder pads have the traditional emblem. He’s very proud and adament to keep the Schnee family in power and continuing strong, so he slaps the emblem everywhere to show it.

The bottom of his coat tails also have white crystals on them, just like Willow and Weiss, to connect to his family business in Dust.

With his physical features, his blue eyes are still the same, which Weiss inherited, but his natural black hair is still shown, just greying with most already turning white to show his age.

Willow’s design is very similar with the purple vest, skirt and crevat, but I did change some things around so that Whitely and Weiss have aspects of her design in their own.

She has the shoe gems, crystal decals on her vest, and painted nails that Weiss obviously has in her Beacon outfit, while having the frilled sleeves and crevat that Whitley wears. I also have her eyes be indigo, which Whitley inherited rather than Jacques’ blue eyes. Willow’s hair is still naturally white, explaining Winter/Weiss/half of Whitley’s.

Not much to say since I kept it so similar, just adding bits to connect her to her children.

Winter’s AZRE outfit had changed from her canon ones, mostly so that her uniform is closer in style to the uniforms worn by other upper ranks in the army.

Now her story is different in AZRE than in RWBY, since I combined my Winter Watts! AU with AZRE to have this Winter who stays in Atlas rather than being taken by Watts in her backstory. This is why she has tanned skin and green eyes rather than her canon pale skin and greyish blue eyes. It also makes her only Weiss and Whitley’s half sister.

Now her outfit still has the white coming through with the large overjacket and fur trimmed boots, but she also uses more darker blues than Weiss, with the royal blue and periwinkle, very similar to Jacques’ blues than Weiss’ ice blue. She can try to cover up his effect on her but it’s still just under the surface.

Similar to Jacques, I gave Whitley a bit of a redesign to move away from the boring vest and tie, so now he’s obviously taken heavily from Jacques’ own design, since Whitely really doesn’t have a say in what he wears.

He’s also the Mirror to Weiss’ Snow White in AZRE, so he has the mirror in his crevat, along with the gem having the colours seen in the mirror in the Snow White Disney movie. The inside of his coat is also the same shade of purple that Willow wore, so while Jacques dresses Whitley up to be a mini him, Whitley does keep some bits of Willow.

Especially since Whitley is the only one to inherit Willow’s indigo eyes, and has split black/white hair. I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t a copy of Weiss like the Schnee siblings are in RWBY.

Klein is considered part of Weiss’ family, but his design is still the same in AZRE since I liked it enough and couldn’t be bothered redesigning him.

The one original character for Weiss’ family is actually Winter’s daughter; Winijay, or Jay for short. I don’t have a design for her as a child, but here’s her design as an adult.

I had actually drawn her before starting AZRE, so her design hadn’t changed from it all that much. She very much has Winter’s features, skin tone, and eyes, but Qrow’s black hair and fashion sense, since she’s closer to Qrow than she is to Winter and idealises her father.

Still, the sleeves are similar to the sleeves of Winter’s first canon outfit, and her boot was changed from the all blue thigh high to a fur trimmed black one instead, since it contrasts with the mostly blue prosthetic. Her colour scheme is meant to mimic the blue jay, another corvid like Qrow.

She’s actually one of my favourite designs, I’ve always loved Jay’s look.

Finally, there’s Blake’s family. Hers is actually the smallest, since most of her family members actually died before she was born, and her mother was an orphan who joined the White Fang just as it started.

Both Ghira and Hajimu were done here for Adam’s section, since they’re his adoptive parents.

But there is one more person who wasn’t included for Adam, since she died just before he was adopted and never got to meet him.

Chandra Devi is Blake’s paternal grandmother and where both she and Ghira get their Indian heritage from, since Aurelé is French. She came from Eastern Anima originally, similar to Kaanchana and Sienna, where she and Kaanchana take inspiration from Haryana clothing specifically.

Since she’s connected to the moon, her colour scheme reflects that with the pale whites/blues and blacks, plus her moon patterns on her headdress. She also has the bindi as a married woman, similar to Sienna having the same bindi.

Really, I designed her to take heavily from Ghira and Blake, she’s the one with the black hair and panther traits, as she has the ears, slit pupils, and claws that her son and granddaughter have as well. Though, the gold eyes came from Aurelé rather than her, since Chandra has purple eyes instead, and she’s noticebly more darker skinned than Ghira and Blake.

And that’s it for Team RWBY’s families!

#rwby #azre #taiyang xiao long #summer rose #qrow branwen #raven branwen #qinri xiaolong #jacques schnee #willow schnee #winter schnee #whitley schnee #winijay schnee-branwen #chandra devi #answered #luke.txt

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the1975attheirverybest · 11 months

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in response to the independence point - we had an independence referendum in 2014 where 55% of scottish people voted to remain in the uk, who we do still answer to on reserved matters like economy and national security as you said (transport and education, among other things, are devolved matters that the scottish government can control). said 55% were majority older people who were (and this is fair enough) worried as to how scotland would fare as an independent country and economy, because we haven't been one for quite honestly hundreds of years (we actually only got our own parliament in the late 1990s). the feeling is that we put a lot into the union with the rest of the uk for very little benefit - subsidising england/westminster with a lot of money (made through an actually very sustainable/substantial economy), only to be shafted and disregarded when it comes to policy-making in westminster and, culturally, taken the piss of a bit by the english (mostly those in the south - historically, scotland and northern england were all fucked by thatcherism, so there's less animosity there i think. and as matty said, he's from the north and wants independence - westminster cares about southern england and that's it, really). post-brexit, more people expressed a want for scottish independence - we voted overwhelmingly to stay in the eu, but we're being dragged out anyway - and the constant failures of a ruling conservative party we didn't even vote for (most scottish votes went to the scottish national party) have continued to increase our want to just get the fuck out (because we're smaller geographically, we've less say in uk-wide elections, so we end up drawing the short straw fairly often). there's also a lot of socio-religious-political problems in scotland that kinda complicate ideas of identity and the overall want to be independent, but i won't get into those now because we'll be here for AGES lmao

politically, matty saying that scotland should be independent on the bbc - who are MEANT to be impartial but are basically government lapdogs in disguise - is quite brave of him, especially for someone who has no real connection to scotland other than liking being there and working there lmao (like it would probably be less dramatic politically if ross, who's of scottish heritage to some degree, had said it). i hope this makes sort-of sense - it's hard to explain concisely because it's so rooted in history AND current politics lol

Wow. That’s such a complex, mired issue. Thanks for taking the time to educate us! So, at the risk of being reductive, let me see if I understood you: basically, Scotland doesn’t get too much of a say in who’s in charge but has to follow along with the conservatives rule (who aren’t even populist/ popular but they’re in charge, unfortunately - don’t we in the US know what that’s like, smh) and contributes significantly to the economy with very little reward? So it would be in its best interest to be independent at this point, especially after Brexit means they don’t get to be part of the EU cuz the UK isn’t anymore (not that y’all have had much of say in that choice either since, as we just said, Scotland’s votes end up not having enough weight)?

Is that more or less it, or have I misunderstood?

If so, then bro Matty’s chaotic energy is finally paying off haha. Love that he doesn’t give a fuck and said it into the BBC camera lens. Though I’m sure we’ll wake up to a weird tabloid headline tomorrow.

And, yeah, idk. Obviously, as an American I’m not qualified to speak on this but the brexit thing alone/ not being allowed into the EU would piss me off if I were a voting person in Scotland. Gosh. Feels like social and political choices are crumbling across the globe. Excuse me while I go replay Love It If We Made It.

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survivalove · 7 months

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What do you think of how AtLa/Lok portrays multicultural families?

Something that has unfortunate implications is that pretty much every time people from different cultures marry, their children/ descendants often mainly only focus on one of the cultures while ignoring the other.

In Atla, Katara didn’t even know where her necklace or her grandmother came from, aside from how it used to belong to Kya and Kanna. In the comics, the Southern Tribe became in Katara’s eyes, just a copy of the Northern Tribe.

In Lok, Tenzin’s kids don’t care about their Mother’s heritage nor their water tribe roots and neither does Tenzin.

Yeah completely agree anon. The writing in LoK is so lazy although I have to disagree with the Southern Tribe, in LoK we see it looks more like the Southern Tribe of Hama’s time than the North, so that’s something.

And the necklace thing I think is a whole different story because Kanna ran away from home so obviously she’s not gonna go around telling them about the necklace since it’s a northern tradition. Kanna to me, seems like the kind of person who would wanna forget everything about her past and just move forward which is why I think she gave it to Kya too.

But yes the depiction of multicultural families especially the cloud babies is frankly just lazy both writing and design. I don’t know why Tenzin wouldn’t wear some blue?? or why Kya is the only brown child. Bumi is the only character design I like but even then I would have preferred it if he was the airbender and Tenzin was the nonbender but with the same personalities.

I hope they address fans’ complaints in the kataang movie, they already seem to make an effort design wise with kataang wearing each others’ colors (so we assume).

I actually headcanon that at least Jinora is very interested in water tribe culture and asks Katara to tell her stories whenever she visits 💖

As for Pema, her character development is pretty nonexistent outside of Tenzin so I guess that’s why they don’t mention her background at all. At least in the postcanon content, she has an actual purpose among the air acolytes but yeah still nothing about her own culture :/

LoK in general to me just feels like the writers had a bunch of boxes they felt the need to fill and then gave the supporting characters the bare minimum outside of Tenzin and maybe Lin. The cast in general is just not as developed as ATLA outside the main character and the lore itself for some reason is more individualistic and western as the timeline gets closer to the present day. I don’t know why they felt the need to do that 😵‍💫

#atla #lok critical #anti bryke #justice for cloudfamily #kanna #jinora #headcanon #my asks

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dwn024 · 10 months

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well at least i only have a year left before i graduate and can live in the US again for good. i like north america even if i have to move away from jersey again for work (cuz there are more big TV animation studios in california and canada than NYC) i am staying in north america this is my home i like it here i don’t see a reason to Leave a place i Like Living In ESPECIALLY to move to a place i HATE living in like the UK. if you have the Choice and you’re gonna move somewhere why would you Want to go somewhere worse i’m sticking to the continent that has dunkin and sheetz and eggo waffles and big open skies and fireflies and people that know what a jughandle is and informed consent HRT clinics that i don’t have to wait six years minimum to get approved for and states with trans protection laws and the ability to legally change my name and sex without even starting HRT or getting surgery first and people that have the same regional dialect as me who can actually understand what the fuck i’m saying without gawking or me having to repeat myself eight hundred thousand times and without that pretentious fucking condescending attitude that’s just ubiquitous in british culture i would rather take overly-friendly northeastern americans who are way too casual with you and don’t look scandalized if you say fuck in public and fucking 7-11 SLURPEES!!!!!!!! i love living here i don’t want to leave this is my Home not only do i LIKE it here but i can’t fathom why anyone would choose living in the UK over the US. like okay sure healthcare but the NHS gets worse and worse every year ESPECIALLY when it comes to trans healthcare and plus: that is only One reason you have to consider all the like quality of life shit such as “would i be happy living here fulltime” “does the gruel you can buy at the supermarket make me want to kill myself” “am i so homesick it’s physically painful” “are there things i like here” “is there anything to do here that is better than the other place” “How Easy Is It To Transition” and of course the US is so goddamn big that there’s so much variety within those aspects especially these days on the trans safety front which obviously sucks shit but at least moving to a different state within the same country is way easier logistically than moving to an entirely different fucking country where you have to deal with the foreign immigration laws and acquiring citizenship VS the US to move from say new jersey to minnesota it’s still the same country you don’t need to pass international borders and since it Is the same country even though there are regional differences in culture it’s definitely WAY WAY WAY WAY more similar than moving to a whole different country. texas and minnesota are LEAGUES more similar to each other than the US and UK or even the US and canada have pretty significant differences but the US and canada are still more similar to each other than the US is to the UK. i can’t speak for the similarity to mexico cuz i’ve never been there but i would still rather be in mexico than the UK because at least it’s CLOSE to home. god even the air is different

basically tl;dr i cannot wait to graduate and never ever go back to the UK for any reason ever holy fuck i hate it there so much it will never be my home like north america is Especially the northeast ESPECIALLY new jersey no one has any goddamn idea how fucking homesick i have been the past SIX FUCKING YEARSSSSSSSS i wish i could do all my classes remotely the last year so i can just stay here and graduate online that’s basically how i graduated high school the last year cuz of how i got kicked out

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