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anipgarden · 9 months

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What Kind of Plants to Add

This is my sixth post in a series I’ll be making on how to increase biodiversity on a budget! I’m not an expert–just an enthusiast–but I hope something you find here helps!

I’d love to be able to give a quick and easy list of things to add, but frankly I can’t do that. I can strongly encourage you, however, to look at these categories of plants and do further research to discover what’s native to your area, so you can plant things that’ll have the most impact in your particular area.

With that being said, I will mention a few plants as examples. This is in no way, shape, or form me telling you that you have to or even should buy these specific plants. Not every plant works well in every place in every garden, not to even mention across countries. Above all, if you’re wondering what plants you should be adding, I can wholeheartedly say plants that are native to your area--or at least nonnative non-invasive.

Flowers

Flowers are some of the most common ways people work to increase biodiversity in their gardens, and who can blame them? Seeing pops of color out your window, and directly seeing the impact via butterflies and bees visiting the garden? It’s a win-win for us and the wildlife!

Flowers--especially native wildflowers--are a quick, easy, and cheap way to increase wildlife traffic in your garden. Perennial gardens are more likely to get you the most bang for your buck, as they’ll come back year after year if you treat them well. But don’t dismiss annuals--if you get ones that easily reseed, they’ll eagerly return on their own! If you can, do your best to ensure that the flowers you plant all have different blooming periods--that way, your garden can support wildlife throughout the year instead of for just one brief season.

Flowers are environmental super boosters. Their nectar and pollen can feed insects and birds, their stems and leaves can provide nesting materials for all sorts of creatures, and their seeds are a popular food source among birds at all times of the year.

Climbing Plants

Climbing plants can be fantastic options for maximizing your impact. If you have limited ground space, growing up can provide interest as well as additional habitat for all kinds of creatures.

Training plants up a trellis, fence, or bare wall offers food, shelter, and habitat. Trumpet vines, passionflowers, honeysuckles, and more will provide sweet nectar for pollinators as well as nesting and hiding spaces for other wildlife like birds, bugs, and lizards. Do note that in some cases, climbing plants can actually affect the structural integrity of walls and roofs if allowed to climb too much and too far along a house, so be careful.

Bushes/Shrubs

Bushes provide shelter for creatures, which then provides hunting grounds for other animals. Their fallen leaves and petals can be food and shelter for detritivores, amphibians, reptiles, and small mammals--and they also provide good cover for moving around the garden, for creatures who like to stay hidden. They can be a bit more pricey to obtain--unless you get cuttings or seeds and are willing to wait--but they’ll definitely be worth it, and they’re typically low-maintenance once they’re established.

Bonus points if you get a flowering and fruiting bush, like bottlebrush, serviceberry, lilac, or others. This’ll make your bushes not only a place of shelter, but a food source as well--and depending on the kind you pick, may be food for you too! Making a garden border with a series of bushes can be a great option to providing lots of habitat, if you can manage it.

Shrubs with pithy or hollow stems are excellent options for supporting solitary bees. Some examples you could look into are elderberry, raspberry, blackberry, or sumac.

Trees

Trees have a high up-front cost and take awhile to grow, but once they’re settled in place they provide crucial habitat to all kinds of creatures! Insects will be attracted to flowers they may provide, or to nest in the wood. Others may eat the leaves as food, or use them as nesting materials. Birds will perch and nest in trees, and feed off the fruits and seeds and insects that also use the tree. Squirrels also use trees as nesting places, piling up dead leaves into huge clusters to raise their young in, and will absolutely feast on any nuts the tree may provide. Mice, badgers, and more will feast on fallen fruits or seeds, and bats roost in the trunks when given the chance. Detritivores eat fallen leaves and decomposing fruits, providing further food for hunting creatures. Trees can also be good for us--they help block out noise and air pollution, and are the poster child for taking CO2 and making it breathable oxygen. Not to mention they can provide plenty of food for us, too. Nesting grounds, hunting grounds, shelter from weather, and more--trees are, in my opinion, likely to be the best way to boost biodiversity long-term. If you can get your hands on a sapling for cheap and can care for it for awhile, I’d definitely give it a shot! Make sure the tree won’t get too big for where you’re growing it, though--you’ve definitely gotta plan for the long-term before you plant any.

Some trees can be grown in containers. Though they won’t become gigantic branching behemoths, they’ll still do their part to support all the life that depends on them. Growing a tree from seed may take awhile, but could be an easy option to getting one if you have the patience--the trees are more than happy to help you, as they drop tons of seeds and fruit in fall for you to gather.

Groundcover

Bare soil is the enemy of microbial life in the soil, and while small pockets of bare soil can be great nesting places for bees and other insects, having swaths of empty soil should be avoided. Groundcover plants grow low to the ground in a sprawling habit, and will often spread quite easily on their own. This is a great way to provide shelter, keep soil temperatures cool, block out weeds, and give your soil life a chance to thrive.

Sometimes, ground covers don’t even have to be planted in the ground. Shallow-rooted plants like succulents, ferns, and alyssum can be planted into cracks in stone walls, and moss can be planted by making moss graffiti and painting it onto a surface. As with climbing plants, do make sure that you don’t cause extra damage to important walls and housing foundations.

Host Plants

Host plants get their own section, because plants of all kinds can be host plants for different creatures! It’s common to think only flowers can be host plants in the beginning, but in reality, many bushes and trees are host plants to dozens of species of butterflies and moths. Honestly, I feel that factor's not talked about enough. Look up what insects live in your area and what kind of host plants they need, and plant some if you can! Bonus points if you can plant a variety of them--I know that there’s hundreds of kinds of milkweed, each one flowering and leafing up around different times of the year. Planting several varieties of milkweed, then, would provide monarchs with food through several seasons, allowing many more of them to grow up in your garden!

Nectar Plants

Plants that provide nectar to insects is a great foundation to increasing biodiversity! This is, of course, many native wildflowers (and even nonnative wildflowers, though be sure they aren’t invasives who’ll do more harm than good), but many native bushes, vines, and trees will also provide nectar to hungry pollinators!

Keystone Species

To be frank, some plants can have a bigger impact than others in a landscape. By all means, every bit helps, but if you want to boost biodiversity quickly there are a few plants that can essentially serve as the backbone of local ecosystems that you can grow in anything from a balcony pot to a small patch of your backyard. These plants can be different depending on where you are, so do your research to find out what would be best to grow in your area. If you can’t get them all? That’s alright! But even hitting just a few of these target species really can do a lot.

That’s the end of this post! My next post is gonna be about things to keep in mind/continue to do once you get plants in the ground! Until then, I hope this advice was helpful! Feel free to reply with any questions, your success stories, or anything you think I may have forgotten to add in!

#biodiversity #solarpunk #gardening #outdoor gardening #ani rambles #out of queue #the biodiversity saga #sorry its been 2 months since I last posted to this series #I literally have everything drafted out I just got Busy because maannnnnnn animating a grad school capstone project all by yourself....#i should really start using my youtube channel to post my animations but they never feel Done so I just Dont #i dont have as many links in this one because... they weren't in the draft and any tumblr posts that came to mind I couldn't hunt down #either way i hope this was Helpful and Lit and All That Jazz #I might just post the other parts tomorrow so I can stop having that hanging over my head #and so I can get my sources masterpost out there so people can like. see I'm trying my best not to just talk out of my ass #anyways see yall

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callmegaith · 6 months

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Down the Rabbit Hole pt.4

LOOP CONCLUDED

Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3

comic/David playlist

thank u everyone so much for joining me and David on this small trip. Hopefully there will be more to come in the future :D

And again, thank u for encouraging me and supporting me to create something so special about a character that I love so deeply 🥰

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critter-of-habit · 3 months

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I recently scrolled through all your marvel art and wanted to say it is AMAZING.

The Peggynat ones in specific are feeding my gay ship obsessions.

Have a good day

Eeee thank you so much :3 I'm glad you like the Peggynat art, I will definitely make more.

#tumblrs been a real let down with with the numbers recently so notes like this are really really appreciated #I know numbers aren't important REALLY but I like to be validated #I'm needy lol #also its just wild that with over 40k followers I can't even hit 200 notes with new art??#thats like #not even 1% of my followers interacting #just throwing gays into the void and hoping something gets seen I guess lol #tumblr aint what it used to be #wait I have 44k followers #thats WORSE #rant over thanks for coming to my tedtalk

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camels-pen · 4 months

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the difference between zosopp and sanuso (romantic OR platonic) is that Usopp is Zoro's specialest little guy and Zoro is someone Usopp hangs out with and looks up to and hides behind when things get scary, but Sanji and Usopp are best friends. They horse around, they beat each other up, they confide their worst fears trying to one up each other. Usopp hides behind Sanji sometimes, sure, but idk, Sanji's weaknesses are more obvious (bugs, fighting women, etc) so there are times when Usopp has to stand in front of Sanji too, yknow?

Like, how do I say this, all the crewmates are equal- Usopp and Zoro are equals- but with Sanji it feels like more... comradery? Zoro's a rock in a terrible storm- even rocks tend to get weathered and chipped and worn down, but they overall stay strong and steady. He has trouble being vulnerable and there are times when the burden he's placed on himself to keep the crew safe is crushing his chest. Usopp would help with that and be very understanding, but the point I'm trying to get with that is that those moments are few and far between. So I feel like Usopp, especially after Water 7, would take Zoro's lead on something like that, and keep most of his worries to himself or only talk about them sparingly unless they're really bad and/or he can't hide them.

Sanji is like a tree in a storm; he can be strong, yes, but it feels like he bends and sways with the storm, and has more obvious breaking points. He can relate more to Usopp's struggles rather than resorting to blunt honesty that might border on callous like Zoro. And while, with Zosopp, I tend to think of scenarios with Zoro being blunt like that as a good thing- because sometimes when you're spiraling, it's nice to have someone say exactly what's great about you and shoot down all your worries with straight facts that you can't argue with- I can also see this as being a bad thing. Anxiety can really twist up your brain sometimes, you know? And despite the words, the tone could still mess someone up if they're already feeling like a burden on others in some way.

With Sanuso it's a lot more understanding and thoughtful words. It's distractions and comfort food and patience- the kind reserved for Usopp- until Usopp talks about whatever's troubling him. Compared to Zosopp, it doesn't take as long for Usopp to open up, since he's done the same thing to Sanji at times and it's more familiar to him to talk and commiserate with Sanji about his worries and doubts and such. However, there are times stuff like this has absolutely no effect and Sanji will end up at a loss, no idea what to do or how to help over the course of several days with Usopp being quiet and keeping his distance, and he'll end up working himself up about it which will only serve to make Usopp feel worse and. yeah. bit of a vicious cycle with them.

So it's like. Usopp can be weak with both of them, but since I see Sanji as the type of guy who'd be more open with his worries (at least compared to Zoro), there's less of a need to 'perform' and be his best self around him. He's comfortable around Zoro, yes, but he is constantly wanting to show that he won't be a problem to him. On the other hand, while he's more open with Sanji, and Sanji with him, they tend to relate a bit too much with each other and they both have issues with causing trouble for others and being 'deserving of love' so failed attempts at consoling one hurts the other and creates an unpleasant cycle of misery and avoidance before some other crewmate (Zoro) tells them to quit being stupid and just fucking talk to each other.

#one piece #sanuso #zosopp #long post #nemotime #does this make sense or is this the ramblings of a person who's only got 3 hrs sleep #bc thats me. 3 hrs sleep. ugh #listen okay its like. zosopp has their own growing pains to get through yknow? zoro will eventually get the whole #'oh usopp isnt as open with me bc he wants to seem tough and is also kind of doing the same thing i do. thats bad for him'#and it'll be a whole thing about making a promise between the two of them to try and be more honest with their fears and seeking help #when they need it #the sanuso thing is like. i hope i didnt mean to make it seem like sanuso is 'better' or w/e bc its just a different thing #sanuso got their own problems to sort out. 1. Sanji's everything 2. boundaries on special treatment-#i'm not gonna go seriously into this but both relationships start out not the best and get better over time yknow #also i know usopp's afraid and freaking out a lot but for this post i meant his deeper fears and insecurities #not 'i've got can't-go-on-this-island disease' lmao #the tl;dr of this post is: Usopp is more closed off with Zosopp. Usopp and Sanji have similar issues that cause problems with Sanuso.#also the way i see these ships will probably change at some point. who knows #there was a post i saw recently that was like 'hey sanuso bc romance trio were already chill with each other so sanuso became chill with #each other in an 'alone together' type of way and also they have the same issues' and i thought 'wow so true bestie' and here we are #also. man. usopp taking on / copying the behaviours of his loved ones regardless of his age is just. my jam. in a positive or negative way #maybe i'll make a post about that explaining it more. maybe

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fauchart · 8 months

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GRIEF

Tarasque learns of the Papas' demise

It's brutal news, especially with Primo having been his biggest anchor since his very first days in the Ministry.

Dewdrop's words will stick - as the head of security, he should have known, should have done something, should have stuck with them every single minute just in case, he thinks. Doesn't matter that the very top of the Church made sure no word got out until the deed was done. Made sure nobody who would try to stop things would be around.

Also, ever wondered why Dewdrop's horn fell off on-stage one time? Yeah, that's why :] It held on a while but had to break eventually after sustaining so much damage and suffering Dewdrop's headbanging and jumping around during shows.

#ghost bc #the band ghost #nameless ghouls #dewdrop ghost #dewdrop ghoul #ghoul oc #dragon ghoul #tarasque #ocs #fanart #my art #YEAH UH. LONG TIME NO SEE TARASQUE HUH #GBFHGBH twas about time i did something with this lad again #started this back in june and finally finished it so this comic is kinda all over the place #and it feels like the artstyle changes a billion times through the ten pages but hopefully its just how it feels to me as the artist #and it aint too noticeable or at least isn't a bother while reading #anyway hi ghost fandom i'm still here lmfao #was so nice to do something w tarasque again i've missed him #hope yall like it ♥

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neverevan · 6 months

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Inspiration Saturday 🎄

Aaand this would be the aforementioned second christmas fic; the rough draft is already done and it's just over 2k so I expect it to total out somewhere around 3-4k. Anyway, please enjoy this tiny snippet:

Buck sat in the waiting room, his eyes vacantly following the line of fairy lights running under the edge of the reception desk. They flickered every now and again.

Well, not just every now and again, but every thirteen seconds. Buck counted it out 67 times already.

He just started again, but he only got to six when he heard the voice he was waiting to hear for nearly 15 minutes now.

tags under the cut 💛

I was tagged by the lovely @daffi-990 @thewolvesof1998 @watchyourbuck @disasterbuckdiaz @giddyupbuck thank you my dears and for all the bunch of people tagging me for FIF too mwuah 💛

✨no pressure tagging: @malewifediaz @spagheddiediaz @jesuisici33 @jeeyuns @ladydorian05 @steadfastsaturnsrings @eowon @heartshapedvows @nmcggg @rainbow-nerdss @jamespearce9-1-1 @evanbegins @eddiebabygirldiaz @theotherbuckley

#there is no fluff without angst #the ski fic being the fluff lmao this one will be a little less cheerful though it has its moments and happy ending ofc!!#the ski fic is already at 5k btw and I'm only hoping that it won't go over 8k #there's also a possible third christmas fic that I don't think will be done on time but we'll see #also I feel so incredibly bad for neglecting the mudslide fic #which has been sitting at 40k the past month cuz I was busy writing everything else under the sun lmao #ANYWAY #I'm just rambling about word counts cuz I'm trying to motivate myself #buddie #911 #wip #the hospital fic

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glasswingowl · 1 year

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caught in your own web, just like your mother

#murder drones #murder drones fanart #murder drones uzi #md uzi #uzi doorman #murder drones nori #nori doorman #glasswingdraws #i've mentioned before how the parallels between nori and uzi are interesting to me #and i really hope we get to see more of what nori was like when she was alive #or just more nori in general because we've all gone insane over the implications of her lmao #most of uzi's papers are copied directly from her conspiracy board #i had to make up/copy most of nori's because we don't know what info she actually had #i had a lot of fun writing articles for the fake newsletters :)#its a shame i made 85% of them too small to fucking read :)#and text editing in medibang paint is a fucking hassle so i'd have to go back and rewrite all of them :)#it's fine i'm fine #also this piece taught me a valuable lesson about layer management #the entire time i was like where is that layer why is that in the lineart folder why is that in the background folder #anyway. hopefully lesson learned #see ya'll after ep 4 drops

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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 1 year

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Do you think Wei wuxian listens to weezer?

I don't know...I don't know...I really don't know.....

#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #wei wuxian #lan sizhui #blood #I mean this in the most sincerest way possible: This ask has become my 'does bruno mars is gay' to me and anyone in close enough proximity #I first read this after having just woken up and it rattled me so intensely #would he???? I don't know??? It's dad music but it also sort of works for someone a little bit out of step with time?#I'm a bit of a wwx kinnie and I love music but I don't really have any headcanons for what modern music he'd like #other than 'unironically classical music and its one of the first things he bonds with lwj over as teens'#(they get into very heated arguments about composers and arrangements)#but also. the concept of wwx really liking wheezer to the point its the first thing he's gotta check in on after 13 years dead?#*that* did me in real good #I hope people enjoy this one as much as I did #'Does wwx listen to wheezer' Please oh god wheezer and mdzs fans please come together to tell me what songs wwx would like #my money is on 'lost in the woods' its so campy #EDIT: just been informed weezer doesnt have an H in it..this is how much i know. thank u everyone who left weezer recs in comments and tags

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demigod-of-the-agni · 2 months

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Spider-Man India, but... where from India?

A SUPER long post featuring talks of: cultural identity, characterisation, the caste system, and what makes Spider-Man Spider-Man.

I’m prefacing this by saying that I am a second-generation immigrant. I was born in Australia, but my cultural background is from South India. My experiences with what it means to be “Indian” is going to be very different from the experiences of those who are born and brought up in India.

If you, reader, want to add anything, please reblog and add your thoughts. This is meant to be a post open for discussion — the more interaction we get, the better we become aware of these nuances.

So I made this poll asking folks to pick a region of India where I would draw Pavitr Prabhakar in their cultural wear. This idea had been on my mind for a long while now, as I had been inspired by Annie Hazarika’s Northeastern Spidey artwork in the wake of ATSV’s release, but never got the time to actually do it until now. I wanted to get a little interactive and made the poll so I could have people choose which of the different regions — North, Northeast, Central, East, West, South — to do first.

The outcome was not what I expected. As you can see, out of 83 votes:

THE RESULTS

South India takes up almost half of all votes (44.6%), followed by Northeast and Central (both 14.5%) and then East (13.3%). In all my life growing up, support towards or even just the awareness of South India was pretty low. Despite this being a very contained poll, why would nearly half of all voters pick South India in favour of other popular choices like Central or North India?

Then I thought about the layout of the poll: Title, Options, Context.

Title: "Tell us who you want to see…"

Options: North, Northeast, Central, East, West, South

Context: I want to make art of the boy again

At first I thought: ah geez. this is my fault. I didn't make the poll clear enough. do they think I want them to figure out where Pavitr came from? That's not what I wanted, maybe I should have added the context before the options.

Then I thought: ah geez. is it my fault for people not reading the entire damn thing before clicking a button? That's pretty stupid.

But regardless, the thought did prompt a line of thinking I know many of us desi folk have been considering since Spider-Man India was first conceived — or, at least, since the announcement that he was going to appear in ATSV. Hell, even I thought of it:

Where did Spider-Man India come from?

FROM A CULTURALLY DIVERSE INDIA

As we know, India is so culturally diverse, and no doubt ATSV creators had to take that into account. Because the ORIGINAL Spider-Man India came from Mumbai — most likely because Mumbai and Manhattan both started with the same letter.

But going beyond that, it’s also because Mumbai is one of the most recognisable cities in India - it’s also known as Bombay. It’s where Bollywood films are shot. It’s where superstar Hindi actors and actresses show up. Mumbai is synonymous with India in that regard, because the easiest way Western countries can interact with Indian culture is through BOLLYWOOD, through HINDI FILMS, through MUMBAI. Suddenly, India is Mumbai, India is a Hindi-only country, India is just this isolated thing we see through an infinitely narrow lens.

We’ve gotten a little better in recent years, but boy I will tell you how uncomfortable I’ve gotten when people (yes, even desi people) come up to me and tell me, Oh, you’re Indian right? Can you speak Hindi? Why don’t you speak Hindi? You’re not Indian if you don’t speak Hindi, that’s India’s national language!

I have been — still am — so afraid of telling people that I don’t speak Hindi, that I’m Tamil, that I don’t care that Hindi is India’s “national” language (it’s an administrative language, Kavin, get your fucking facts right). It’s weird, it’s isolating, and it has made me feel like I wasn’t “Indian” enough to be accepted into the group of “Indian” people.

So I am thankful that ATSV went out of their way to integrate as much variety of Indian culture into the Mumbattan sequence. Maybe that way, the younger generation of desi folk won’t feel so isolated, and that younger Western people will be more open to learning about all these cultural differences within such a vast country.

BUT WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH SPIDER-MAN INDIA?

Everything, actually. There’s a thing called supremacy. You might have heard of it. We all engaged with it at some point, and if you are Indian, no matter where you live, it is inescapable.

It happens the moment you are born — who your family is, where you are born, the language you speak, the colour of your skin; these will be bound to you for life, and it is nigh impossible to break down the stereotypes associated with them.

Certain ethnic groups will be more favourable than others (Centrals, and thus their cultures, will always be favoured over than Souths, as an example) and the same can be said for social groups (Brahmins are more likely to secure influential roles in politics or other areas like priesthood, while the lowers castes, especially Dalits, aren’t even given the decency of respect). Don’t even get me started on colourism, where obviously those of fairer skin will win the lottery while those of darker skin aren’t given the time of day. It’s even worse when morality ties into it — “lighter skinned Indians, like Brahmins, embody good qualities like justice and wisdom”, “dark skinned Indians are cunning and poor, they are untrustworthy”. It’s fucking nuts.

This means, of course, you have a billion people trying to make themselves heard in a system that tries to crush everyone who is not privileged. It only makes sense that people want to elevate themselves and break free from a society that refuses to acknowledge them. These frustrations manifest outwardly, like in protests, but other times — most times — it goes unheard, quietly shaping your way of life, your way of thinking. It becomes a fundamental part of you, and it can go unacknowledged for generations.

So when you have a character like Pavitr Prabhakar enter the scene, people immediately latch onto him and start asking questions many Western audiences don’t even consider. Who is he? What food does he eat? What does he do on Fridays? What’s his family like, his community? All these questions pop up, because, amidst all this turmoil going on in the background, you want a mainstream popular character to be like you, who knows your way of life so intimately, that he may as well be a part of your community.

BUT THAT'S THE THING — HE'S FICTIONAL

I am guilty of this. In fact, I’ve flaunted in numerous posts how I think he’s the perfect Tamil boy, how he dances bharatanatyam, how he does all these Tamil things that no one will understand except myself. All these niche things that only I, and maybe a few others, will understand.

I’ve seen other people do it, too. I’ve seen people geek out over his dark brown skin, his kalari dhoti, how he fights so effortlessly in the kalaripayattu martial arts style. I’ve seen people write him as Malayali, as Hindi, as every kind of Indian person imaginable.

I’ve also seen him be written where he’s subjected to typical Indian and broader Asian stereotypes. You know the ones I’m so fond of calling out. The thing is, I’ve seen so much of Pavitr being presented in so many different ways, and I worry how the rest of the desi folk will take it.

You finally have a character who could be you, but now he’s someone else’s plaything. Your entire life is shaped by what you can and can’t do simply because you were born to an Indian family, and here’s the one person who could represent you now at the mercy of someone else’s whims. He’s off living a life that is so distant from yours, you can hardly recognise him.

It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does, yeah? But, again, you’re looking at it from that infinitely narrow lens Westerners use to look at India from Bollywood.

AND PAVITR PRABHAKAR DOESN'T LIVE IN INDIA

He lives in Mumbattan. He lives in a made-up, fictional world that doesn’t follow the way of life of our world. He lives in a city where Mumbai and Manhattan got fucking squashed together. There are so many memes about colonialism right there. Mumbattan isn’t real! Spider-Man India isn’t real!! He’s just a dude!! The logic of our world doesn’t apply to him!!!

“But his surname originates from ______” okay but does that matter?

“But he’s wearing a kalari dhoti so surely he’s ______” okay but does that matter?

“But his skin colour is darker so he must be ______” okay but does that matter?

“But he lives in Mumbai so he must be ______” okay but does that matter?

I sound insensitive and brash and annoying and it looks like I’m yapping just for the sake of riling you up, so direct that little burst of anger you got there at me, and keep reading.

Listen. I’m going to ask you a question that I’ve asked myself a million times over. I want you to answer honestly. I want you to ask this question to yourself and answer honestly:

Are you trying to convince me on who Pavitr Prabhakar should be?

... but why shouldn't i?

I’ll tell you this again — I did the same thing. You’re not at fault for this, but I want you to just...have a little think over. Just a little moment of self-reflection, to think about why you are so intent on boxing this guy.

It took me a while to reorganise my thinking and how to best approach a character like Pavitr, so I will give you all the time you need as well as a little springboard to focus your thoughts on.

SPIDER-MAN (INDIA) IS JUST A MASK

“What I like about the costume is that anybody reading Spider-Man in any part of the world can imagine that they themselves are under the costume. And that’s a good thing.”

Stan Lee said that. Remember how he was so intent on making sure that everybody got the idea that Spider-Man as an entity is fundamentally broken without Peter Parker there to put on the suit and save the day? That ultimately it was the person beneath the mask, no matter who they were, that mattered most?

Spider-Man India is no less different. You can argue with me that Peter Parker!Spidey is supposed to represent working class struggles in the face of leering corporate entities who endanger the regular folk like us, and so Pavitr Prabhakar should also function the same way. Pavitr should also be a working class guy of this specific social standing fighting people of this other social standing.

But that takes away the authenticity of Spider-Man India. Looking at him through the Peter Parker lens forces you to look at him through the Western lens, and it significantly lessens what you can do with the character — suddenly, it’s a fight to be heard, to be seen, to be recognised. It’s yelling over each other that Pavitr Prabhakar is this ethnicity, is that caste, this or that, this or that, this or that.

There’s a reason why he’s called Spider-Man India, infuriatingly vague as it is. And that’s the point — the vagueness of his identity fulfils Lee’s purpose for a character that could theoretically be embodied by anyone. If he had been called “Spider-Man Mumbai”, you cut out a majority of the population (and in capitalist terms, you cut out a good chunk of the market).

And in the case of Spider-Man India? Whew — you’ve got about a billion people imagining a billion different versions of him.

Whoever you are, whatever you see in Pavitr, that is what is personal to you, and there is nothing wrong with that, and I will not fault you for it. I will not fault you for saying Pavitr is from Central due to the origins of his last name. I also will not fault you for saying Pavitr is from South due to him practising kalaripayattu. I also will not fault you for saying he is not Hindu. I also will not fault you for saying he is a particular ethnicity without any proof.

What I will fault you for is trying to convince me and the others around you that Pavitr Prabhakar should be this particular ethnicity/have this cultural background because of some specific reason. I literally don’t care and it is fundamentally going against his character, going against the “anyone can wear the mask” sentiment of Spider-Man. By doing this, you are strengthening the walls that first divided us. You’re feeding the stratification and segmentation of our cultures — something that is actually not present in the fictional world of Mumbattan.

Like I said before: Mumbattan isn’t real, so the divides between ethnicities and cultural backgrounds are practically nonexistent. The best thing is that it is visually there for all to see. My favourite piece of evidence is this:

It’s a marquee for a cinema in the Mumbattan sequence, in the “Quick tour: this is where the traffic is” section. It has four titles; the first three are written in Hindi. The fourth title is written in Tamil. You go to Mumbai and you won’t see a single shred of Tamil there, much less any other South Indian language. Seeing this for the first time, you know what went through my head?

Wow, the numerous cultures of India are so intermingled here in Mumbattan! Everyone and everything is welcome!

I was happy, not just because of Tamil representation, but because of the fact that the plethora of Indian cultures are showcased coexisting in such a short sequence. This is India embracing all the little parts that make up its grander identity. This scene literally opened my eyes seeing such beauty in all the diverse cultures thriving together. In a place where language and cultural backgrounds blend so easily, each one complementing one another.

It is so easy to believe that, from this colourful palette of a setting, Pavitr Prabhakar truly is Spider-Man India, no matter where he comes from.

It’s easy to believe that Pavitr can come from any part of India, and I won’t call you out if the origin you have for him is different from the origin I have. You don’t need to stake out territory and stand your ground — you’re entitled to that opinion, and I respect it. In fact, I encourage it!!!

Because there’s only so much you can show in a ten minute segment of a film about a country that has such a vast history and even greater number of cultures. I want to see all of it — I want him to be a Malayali boy, a Hindi boy, a Bengali boy, a Telugu boy, an Urdu boy, whatever!! I want you to write him or draw him immersed in your culture, so that I can see the beauty of your background, the wonderful little things that make your culture unique and different from mine!

And, as many friends have said, it’s so common for Indian folks to be migrating around within our own country. A person with a Maharashtrian surname might end up living in Punjab, and no one really minds that. I’m actually from Karnataka, my family speaks Kannada, but somewhere down the line my ancestors moved to Tamil Nadu and settled down and lived very fulfilling lives. So I don’t actually have the “pure Tamil” upbringing, contrary to popular belief; I’ve gotten a mix of both Kannada and Tamil lifestyles, and it’s made my life that much richer.

So it’s common for people to “not” look like their surname, if that’s what you’re really afraid about. In fact, it just adds to that layer of nuance, that even despite these rigid identities between ethnicities we as Indian people still intermingle with one another, bringing slivers of our cultures to share with others. Pavitr could just as well have been born in one state and moved around the country, and he happens to live in Mumbattan now. It’s entirely possible and there’s nothing to disprove that.

We don’t need to clamber over one another declaring that only one ethnicity is the “right” ethnicity, because, again, you will be looking at Pavitr and the rest of India in that narrow Western lens — a country with such rich cultural variety reduced to a homogenous restrictive way of life.

THE POLL: REINTERPRETED

This whole thing started because I was wondering why my little poll was so skewed — I thought people assumed I was asking them where he came from, then paired his physical appearance with the most logical options available. I thought it was my fault, that I had somehow influenced this outcome without knowing.

Truth is, I will never really know. But I will be thankful for it, because it gave me the opportunity to finally broach this topic, something that many of us desi folk are hesitant to talk about. I hope you have learned something from this, whether you are desi or a casual Spider-Man fan or someone who just so happened to stumble upon this.

So just…be a little more open. Recognise that India, like many many countries and nations, is made up of a plethora of smaller cultures. And remember, if you’re trying to convince Pavitr that he’s a particular ethnicity, he’s going to wave his hand at you and say, “Ha, me? No, I’m one of the people that live here in the best Indian city! I’m Spider-Man India, dost!”

(Regardless, he still considers you a friend, because to him, the people matter more to him than you trying to box him into something he’s not.)

#long post + more tags that kinda spiral away BUT expand on the points above AND kinda puts everything together concisely #BROS THIS IS AN HONEST TO GOD ESSAY #THAT HAS BEEN COOKING IN MY HEART FOR A WHILE NOW. SIMMERING FOR MONTHS BEFORE FINALLY BOILING OVER IN THE LAST WEEK #genuinely hope you read MOST of it because yes it has Quite A Lot Of Exposition but it all matters nonetheless #put in a lot of thought into this so i expect you to do your part and challenge your thoughts as well #you see how i'm not asking for you to listen to me. but to actually Think. i want you to cook your thoughts and add some spice and flavour #and give it a good mix so you can come out of this a little more wiser than before #because!!! yeah!!!! spider man india is just that!! he's indian!!!!! we don't need to collectively agree on where he comes from #bc it gets rid of that relatability factor of spider man. at the most basic level #think of it as a schrodinger's. he is every single culture and none of them at the same time. therefore none of us are wrong!! sick!!!!#pavitr's first priority is making sure HIS PEOPLE are safe. that's probably as far as we can go that relates him back to peter parker spide #he loves his people and working in the name of justice to FIGHT for HIS PEOPLE is just the duty/responsibility he takes up #it makes sense that he loves everyone and every culture he engages with bc that's the nature of spider man i suppose #if peter parker spidey acts as the guardian for the regular folk.. then in my mind pavitr spidey stands as the bridge uniting the people #because society as its core is very fragmented. and having pavitr act as a connection to other folks.... mmmmm beautiful #that's what i'm talking abouttttt !!!#anyways guys this is literally 3001 words on my document EXCLUDING THE TITLE. THAT'S 7 PAGES AT 11pt FONT. i'm literally cryingggg wtf #pavitr prabhakar #spider man #spider man india #desi #desiblr #atsv #across the spiderverse #atsv pavitr #indian culture #india #desi tumblr #what the fuck do i tag this as #agnirambles

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