#but so many artists have hidden early eras

[xirae]

I hope I’m actually able to make the vision for my personal art a reality. If I start making songs they will probably be kind of simple at first. Genuine but simple. You have to build skills, the tragedy of art…….

[cherrylng]

Great Guitarists 100 - The Edge, Thurston Moore, Prince, Brian Setzer, Peter Buck, and Johnny Marr [CROSSBEAT (November 2009)]

The Edge Today, U2 have a strong image as a 'popular band' and are not so much a player's band, but when they first appeared on the scene in the 80s, their political lyrics and The Edge's unique post-punk guitar, which combines Irish melancholy and sharp-edged distortion, attracted a great deal of attention. It brought excitement, especially among rock fans who were concerned about the rise of show-stopping metal guitars and synthesisers, which were often seen as inorganic, and who thought, "Here's the rock guitar that should be here!" Later, the Edge's post-punk guitars acquired an earthy, dry sound with their pilgrimage to America in 'Joshua Tree', and evolved to express the warm human touch behind the modern technology. From the 1990s onwards, U2 themselves were no longer in the position of 'youth culture bearers', and their musical influence was difficult to see because the band had become so big, but in the 2000s they were joined by a new generation of artists such as Coldplay, The Killers, and Kings of Leon, who proved once again their influence by developing a direct lineage to The Edge. Many people, including Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, have listed Edge as one of their guitar heroes. -Taiyo Sawada

Representative albums "Boy" (1980, photo) U2 "War" (1983) "Joshua Tree" (1987)

Thurston Moore Since their formation, Sonic Youth have reigned as the kings of the US alternative scene. The heart of their sound is, needless to say, their noisy, chaotic guitar sound. Thurston Moore, who was active in a garage band at the end of the 70s, has musical roots in the New York punk and garage sounds, as evidenced by the episode where he got the band name from former MC5 guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith. The band's guitar style, which includes the Fender Jazz Master given to them by Patti Smith, as well as Jaguars and Mustangs, is lyrical, but always with a freaky, experimental spirit. One of the most distinctive features is a special tuning called irregular tuning. This enabled him to create overtones and dissonances that could not be obtained with a normal guitar. Of course, the interplay with Lee Ranaldo and Kim Gordon = guitar orchestration is one of the band's greatest attractions. Their dry yet deep guitar sound had a profound influence on future guitarists such as Kurt Cobain, Kevin Shields and Graham Coxon. -Takanori Kuroda

Representative albums "Daydream Nation" (1988, pictured), Sonic Youth "A Thousand Leaves" (1998) "The Eternal" (2009)

Prince He is a mixed-race black and white guitarist. Prince is often compared to Jimi Hendrix for this reason alone, but as a guitarist he has stated that Santana was rather a major influence on him. His long-sustained, sensational lead guitar is certainly reminiscent of Santana in the 1970s. Even in his early recordings, he developed a self-absorbed improvisation style that sounded like a mix of Santana and fusion. The closest he came to 60s rock, including Jimi Hendrix, were 'Purple Rain' and 'Around the World in a Day'. The latter's "America" sounds like Jimi backed by the JBs. Although not often mentioned, Prince is also a virtuoso acoustic guitarist. The unique chord work heard on tracks such as "For The Tears In Your Eyes" is strongly influenced by his admirer Joni Mitchell. -Masatoshi Arano

Representative albums "Purple Rain" (1984 photo), Prince & The Revolution "Around the World in a Day" (1985)

Brian Setzer Made his UK debut with rockabilly trio Stray Cats at the height of the New Wave era. Their sound, produced by Dave Edmonds and infused with punk nuances, was enthusiastically received and triggered the neo-rockabilly movement. Setzer's Gretsch-based playing is rich in vocabulary, with an eye on punks such as the Clash, but with no hidden jazz or country influences. He also shows flashes of genius on fast lead phrases. His versatility was fully realised later in the Brian Setzer Orchestra. After the band broke up, his solo debut, "The Knife Feels Like Justice", was produced by Don Gehman, who had worked with John Mellencamp and R.E.M., and went down the American rock route. A good album with a taste that pioneered alterna-country, but sadly neglected due to poor sales. -Masatoshi Arano

Representative albums "Stray Cats" (1981, photo) Stray Cats "The Knife Feels Like Justice" (1986) Brian Setzer

Peter Buck In the early days, R.E.M. was buried in a vocal ensemble, with Peter naturally taking the lead role in the songs. On the first mini-album 'Chronic Town', his sharp, post-bunk appearance played a big part. The traditional Rickenbacker sound, which relied neither on gain nor vibrato, was skilfully combined with a modern rhythmic feel, and greatly inspired the 60s revivalists of the same era. However, it was not until around 'Lifes Rich Pageant' that this style came to the fore. From 'Document' onwards, when Michael Stipe awakened as frontman, the band played freely in line with his evolution. "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and other hard-hitting tunes, he shows off his driving backing. His acoustic guitar precision can be heard on the masterpiece 'Automatic for the People'. -Masatoshi Arano

Representative albums Chronic Town (1982, photo) R.E.M. Automatic for the People (1992)

Johnny Marr Marr is a guitarist, composer and arranger in The Smiths. The main focus of his playing was to bring out the best in the songs. He filled in the gaps between notes with fluid single-note playing, and even went so far as to drop a knife into the guitar for sound effects on "This Charming Man". "Bigmouth Strikes Again", with its high-position cutting using a capo (transposing instrument), is a powerful tune. The delay on "How Soon Is Now?" is a real blast. The frequent use of higher tunings showed that the band were still seeking a sense of tension in their songs. However, the guitar remained in the background, with the singer and the song always taking centre stage. This behind-the-scenes quality blossomed after the break-up of The Smiths, giving The The, Modest Mouse, and The Cribs their greatest hits respectively. After The Healers, in which he played a leading role, ended in mediocrity, he wisely returned to the background. -Masatoshi Arano

Representative albums "The Queen Is Dead" (1986, pictured), The Smiths "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" (2007) Modest Mouse

[krisnb485]

As the CEO of Villain!Explorers, I'm delighted to announce that me and the MHA AU crew have finished working on the Explorers for this AU.

MHA X Horizons AU:

The Explorers

The Explorers are a villain organization created by Gibeon Kuroshima, foundator of the Quirk Investigation Facility Exceed who was believed to have been quirkless and have died a century and a half ago. He was the sidekick of one of the first vigilantes of the quirk era, Lucius Sasaki, helping him understand his quirk better and even making some early Hero Gear items with his limited mechanics knowledge. Both him and Lucius saw the prime of All For One's empire, and became part of the resistance against him.

Lucius' quirk made him able to absorb people's souls to make spiritual links with them and have them aid him in battle by having them use their quirks. With this in mind, Lucius took the souls of six brave Heroes who trusted him with their lifes, all with the intention of defeating AFO and bringing the world to peace. However, both he and Gibeon underestimated the Symbol of Evil's overwhelming power, and Lucius died in battle.

When Gibeon was taking Lucius to a nearby graveyard to give him a proper burial, he touched his body, and at the moment he did, he felt something. The Six Heroes' souls were stuck in his friend's body, and they were in pain. And among all that pain, Gibeon was able to recognize vestiges of a familiar figure, his greatest treasure. He swore he would take Lucius back and help him reach his dream of a world full of light, a world which Gibeon would make sure they both ruled for eternity.

There was a problem though, how would he bring Lucius and the Heroes back to life? He theorized it had something to do with Lucius' quirk, so he decided to dedicate himself to studying quirks from now on, and founded the Quirk Investigation Facility Exceed. He gained wealth and fame and made great advancements in the area of quirk science. He found out that he did have a quirk; one that extended his lifespan twice a normal person's in exchange for physical prowess, and developed a pink mist from his own quirk that could extend his lifespan even further. He even bought a mansion for himself and got a butler named Hamber. a At 80 years old, Gibeon faked his death and left the business in hands of his son, with the son knowing his father was still alive.

Thanks to his public discoveries and his own private research in a hidden facility below Exceed which was connected to his mansion, Gibeon understood what he had to do. He needed to mix two quirks into one and put the new quirk into Lucius' body. The necessary factors were: a Lucius descendant's quirk that functioned by powering itself up with the power of others, and a quirk that could affect and take souls. That way, the remnants of Lucius and the Six Heroes would react and bring Lucius' soul back from the dead as a living dead, as himself but being under the control of Gibeon. With this power, Gibeon plans to submit heroes and villains' souls to make Lucius allmighty and create their wished utopia, a world of light with no darkness to be found.

And so, Gibeon starts working on the first factor of his plan. The soul affecting quirk. He makes the women of his family have children in quirk marriages for the purpose of giving birth to that child, and many decades later, he succeeds, and Amethio Kuroshima is born as his great(x2) Grandson.

He erased Amethio's parents off the map and tricked the young boy into thinking they abandoned him, turning him into a villain who wishes for revenge in a world that's wronged him. Along with that, Gibeon would recruit four persons; Spinel Asunama, an Exceed higher-up who found out about Gibeon's secret and offered himself to his cause; Sango Sakurai, a candy-addict criminal with no place to go to; Onyx Oba, a hero course dropout who wanted to eliminate the impure heroes that were tainting the idea of heroes; and Agate Agawa, an ex-martial artist whose entire dojo was killed with poison by an enemy dojo and swore to take vengeance on those who do wrong under a cover without any consequences.

These four people and Amethio would become the five Admins of the Explorers, with many other criminals with nowhere to go taking the place of grunts and Gibeon himself as the leader, with Hamber being his right hand. Knowing a young girl had been born in the Sasaki family with a special quirk, and that the girl had enrolled in UA with hopes of becoming a Hero, the Explorers were finally put into action.

The Admins are:

Amethio Kuroshima

Quirk: Soul Warrior.

Amethio has a specially powerful soul. He's able to manifest the power of his soul into the physical realm in the form of ghostly, purple flames which he can manipulate at will and function as an extension of his body. As an extra function, these flames are able to absorb lifeforce out of a person's body upon contact to power Amethio up or heal him. He can create walls and shields of flames for defense, use them as projectiles for long distance combat, boost his speed with them and mold them into the form of two fire swords to use for close quarters.

By covering himself in flames and "burning up his own soul", Amethio can enter a ghostly state in which he's invisible and can freely float around the air. He can go back to his physical form whenever he desires by covering himself in flames and "reigniting his soul". The only way of forcing him out of this state is to guess where he is and consciously hit him. When in this ghost form, Amethio is able to enter a person's spirit realm and directly interact with their soul there. He's able to directly kill and absorb a person's soul with his flames when in their spirit realm. He can only stay in ghost form in the physical world for 3 minutes; otherwise, he will be unable to become corporeal once more and his soul will quickly lose power until dying away.

Spinel Asunama

Quirk: All-Seeing Eyes.

Spinel has 9 eyes spread out throughout his body; four on his face, one on each of his wrists, one on the outside of each of the two small angel wings he has on his head and one on the back of his neck. These eyes all function as normal eyes; however, by closing off one eye and making physical contact with a non-living thing, Spinel can put an eye mark on that surface. By blindfolding himself with his head wings and looking on the inside of them, Spinel can look through each of the marks that he's placed, no matter where they are. He's also able to use the eye marks as gateways through space for him and his comrades to travel from one mark to the other.

Sango Sakurai

Quirk: Sweets Power

By consuming candies and drinks that have sugar, Sango can acquire a special ability for three minutes depending on what she ingested. The power of the ability depends on the amount of that specific candy/drink she ingests. The abilities are:

Pop Rocks: She can create explosions out of the tips of her fingers, as well as make candy granades and control their explosion timing.

Taffly: She can create and manipulate a sticky and moldable substance, useful for defense, mobility and setting up traps.

Pixie Sticks: These can allow Sango to move and react up to 10 times faster.

Toxic Waste: By ingesting this sour candy, Sango can become up to 10 times stronger and durable.

Gummy worms: She can manifest a 5 meter long, 1 meter wide giant gummy worm which she can ride and control. Normal ones are strong and durable, while sour ones are fast and can segregate a paralyzing poison from their skin.

Soda: Sango becomes able to emit high-pressured soda from her hands. Useful for mobility on the air and keeping enemies at range.

Energy Drink: by drinking an entire energy drink can, Sango enters a powered up state in which she becomes 20 faster and stronger, becoming even more hyperactive and aggressive than usual. Pixie Sticks and Toxic Wastes don't stack up with this effect, only going up to the energy drink's times 20. After the effect ends, Sango gets great headaches and becomes numb and weal for 24 hours.

Sango can only use up to three of these special effects at once, and is unable to cancel them immediately without the time counter reaching 0.

Onyx Oba

Quirk: Salt

Onyx can manipulate salt in his surroundings at will. He can make salt constructs for attack and defense, as well as transmute anything he touches with his hands into salt he can manipulate.

Agate Agawa

Quirk: Aura Arts

Agate is able to control and manipulate her Aura, the life energy of her body. She can utilize her Aura under four main principles, which are:

Envelop: By controlling and stabilizing her Aura flow, Agate can create a thin veil of Aura around her body. This veil works as protection for the mind and spirit, and the stable Aura flow extends her lifespan due to reducing waste of energy. She can also extend this veil of energy to objects to reinforce them with Aura as if they were part of her body.

Supress: By closing off her own Aura nodes, Agate completely nullifies her own Aura and hides it inside her body, erasing her presence and helping with recovering stamina.

Enhance: By amplifying her own Aura, Agate can power up her physical stats by reinforcing her body with said powered up Aura. She can reinforce specific parts of her body and direct the Aura throughout her own body at will, reinforcing the properties of certain parts of her body, such as the eyes to have a better sight or the ears to hear better.

Action: It is Agate's personal expression of her Aura to use it to accomplish a specific task. By developing this expression, she's been able to develop a set of special abilities which use her Aura in a way unique to herself. She can only use one of the two abilities at a time.

- Aura Arts: Style of the Six Limbs. By transmuting and manipulating her Aura connected to her body, she can create a second pair of arms made of Aura to add up to her Martial Arts style. When using this technique, Agate has access to less Aura for reinforcing her main body.

- Aura Arts: Style of the Steel Fist. Agate can conjure up two black gloves on her fists, which power up the impact of her punches by 10 times when she uses them. She's unable to open her hands when using these gloves, and she must not kill when using them in battle, or else she'll lose a lot of Aura from her body and become unable to use any of her Actions.

[dreamingwithneopets]

Greetings, Neopians!

The Neopets Team (TNT) has ground-breaking news to share that’s even more exciting than a Hidden Tower clearance sale! We are delighted to announce a phenomenal change that we are confident will usher in an incredible new era to Neopets. Drum roll please…

TNT is thrilled to be operating under the guidance of a brand new leadership team! With the support of this new leadership, TNT now has access to assets that will empower us to breathe fresh life into Neopia.

For most of the last decade, the The Neopets Team has been under the management of JumpStart Games, which, over time, has struggled to find success for Neopets. Beset by ageing site features, a waning user base, and a lack of resources, TNT had to work tirelessly just to barely keep the site afloat. The resources available to us simply weren’t substantial enough to sustain the level of growth and development that the site needed to keep up with the times, resulting in bugs, unconverted pages, broken games, and a lack of new content. Despite these challenges, TNT pushed onward, guided by an unwavering belief that this iconic brand that has meant so much to so many truly deserved better.

Enter the new leadership team, headed by Dominic Law. A fan himself, Dom spent hours on Neopets.com in the early 2000s earning Neopoints to care for his beloved Shoyru. He became reacquainted with the brand in 2020 after joining Jumpstart’s parent company, Netdragon. Eager to revisit his old digital stomping grounds, Dom put together a team of passionate and like-minded individuals to help NetDragon strategize on the best way forward to revitalise the Neopets brand.

As many of you may have seen, Jumpstart was shut down on June 30th, 2023. Prior to this shutdown, Dom pushed NetDragon to save Neopets. A management buyout deal was struck, allowing the two Neopets teams to combine forces and become an independent company. Free from the corporate baggage that existed in the past, the newly united TNT has now been entrusted with the decision-making and overall brand strategy of Neopets, enabling them to work solely on the betterment of the entire Neopets game and community.

Until this point, Neopets has been running at a loss for over a decade, making it hard to enact any major overhaul; however, in early 2023 Neopets raised $4M in funding from various investors with plans to nurture a shared dream of an immersive, community-driven gaming experience. In tandem with additional funding from the management buyout, TNT has been primed to enact real, actionable change for Neopets. We truly want more for Neopians! This magical community deserves to thrive, not just survive. Thanks to our new leadership direction and the fresh source of funding, it finally can. The Neopets Team is, for the first time in over a decade, equipped to make meaningful changes in pursuit of a Neopian renaissance.

The funding raised from our management team and external investors will allow us to revive the brand as a whole. We’ve already hired a handful of new developers and artists. From fixing the many issues on the classic site to reevaluating the direction of mobile games like Island Builders, these skilled new additions to TNT are already working hard to show Neopia the same devoted care our players have shown to their beloved Neopets over the years.

So, what’s next for Neopets?

The first thing we did was review the most pressing community requests. We have begun exploring the use of Ruffle to resolve the issues caused by the end of Flash in hopes of speeding up the process of bringing functionality back to our beloved games. We’re also working our way through numerous page conversions and bug fixes, tackling the mobile browser compatibility issues, and making improvements to our customer support protocol.

We also took a long, hard look at community feedback on Neopets Metaverse, and it quickly became clear that the game just didn’t line up with everything that made Neopets… well… Neopets! We constantly see references to KeyQuest, NeoQuest, and Habitarium (see, we do read your comments!) and we want to design a game that’s more in line with what the community has been asking for. Taking all of this into account, our new leadership made it their priority to listen to TNT on how to move forward into the future with Neopians in mind, so together we went back to the drawing board.

The Neopets Team rolled up their sleeves and set out to foundationally transform the project into something entirely different by bringing on additional designers, developers, and writers to help craft a game that the Neopian community would embrace. Most recently, the decision was made to transition to a mobile app and rebuild from the ground up as World of Neopets, a social life-simulation game in which you live your ideal Neopian life from the perspective of a Neopet! Decorate your Neohome, explore iconic Neopian lands in 3D, discover secret treasures and knowledge, or play mini-games while you party with your Neofriends — all while you interact and quest with a collection of your favourite Neopian characters!

But these aren’t the only changes we have in store!

Going forward, Neopets will be under the control of a new, unified entity: World of Neopia, Inc. Don’t worry, the Neopets.com that you know and love isn’t going anywhere; in fact, there are great things on the horizon for the classic virtual pet site that started it all. Bringing all of the Neopets products under the direction of one company will allow the different departments of The Neopets Team to communicate more effectively about how to best serve users and realign Neopets with the core values of the Neopets community.

We are thrilled to be working together as one unified team guided by principles of transparent communication and community-centric product development. We want to create games that the Neopets community will love, and that means listening closely to what users have to say. In fact, we already are — we want to bring Neopets back to its glory days as much as all of you, and we’re committed to making it happen.

We have already seen early successes: our customer support ticket backlog has decreased by more than 80% and our work on the roadmap put forward at the end of last year has begun to accelerate. From cleaning up the Neoboards to lowering the Altador Cup threshold by 25%, TNT is committed to continuing a two-sided conversation with the community that addresses user concerns head-on. Moving forward, TNT will begin releasing monthly updates, hosting regularly scheduled AMAs, and launch an exciting new brand ambassador program. This brand ambassador program in particular will help to bridge the gap by enabling key members of the Neopets community to serve as liaisons to TNT, helping make Neopets better for everyone by advocating for the wants and needs of players. To learn more about all of our plans, check out our newly updated roadmap.

Where can you see this roadmap? We are thrilled to announce that, on July 20th, 2023, we are launching our unified Neopets homepage! This central hub for Neopets will serve as a one stop shop for all brand announcements, links to our different games and products, a repository of Neopets articles and related links, and anything else Neopian you can think of!

Fellow Neopians, we are on the precipice of a new era. With the 25th anniversary of Neopets approaching next year, we have snowager-sized plans up our sleeves to celebrate. A relaunch of Island Builders, an exclusive virtual concert, and a brand new plot (yes, you read that correctly) are just a few of the exciting plans we have for the near future! However, we aren’t out of the (haunted) woods just yet. To make all this happen, we need your support — log into the site and play, follow us on socials, download one of our mobile games, and tell your friends to join. Please! We want to bring as much awareness to these fabulous new changes coming to Neopets as possible, so we’re launching a contest to encourage user engagement.

Starting today, new and existing Neopets players can enter our 2,000,000 Neocash giveaway contest. To participate, users can complete tasks like logging into the site, following our socials, and referring friends to Neopets. The more tasks you complete, the more NC you might win! This is one contest you won’t want to miss, and it’s what we hope is just the tip of the iceberg for the many ways we plan to give back to the loyal players who have stuck by Neopets for so long. The contest ends on August 6th, 2023, so act fast!

Well, Neopians, thanks for listening to our (slightly lengthy) tale. We hope that you feel as optimistic as we do, and, as always, we hope to see you in Neopia.

Signed,

The Neopets Team

[adryien6]

Breaking the Stigma of the First Album

Many believe that Unknown Pleasures is what started it all for Joy Division. Technically speaking, this is true as it was the band’s first album; however, there is too much evidence to say that it was the only contributor to their rise in prevalence. In the same sense, it is not enough to conclude that Joy Division only had an everlasting effect on the music industry either. 

From my perspective, the band’s popularity still remains strong despite only having two released albums a little over forty years ago. I find it utterly fascinating that regardless of the amount of time that has passed, we are still seeing new and old fans alike keep this band alive and prospering.  “But why?” you may ask. Why does a band this brief and this “old” still receive this much love and support?

For me, I know that I was exposed to Joy Division from a very young age via my mother. It was something that she listened to while growing up–along with The Cure, New Order, The Smiths, and the Pet Shop Boys. She is what kept this band alive for me and inspired me to explore the topic a little more. Although there are many who can relate to my story, it still does not answer our question upfront. Instead, it requires a little more digging. For instance, did you notice a trend within the bands I listed? Each band not only came out after Joy Division, but also harbours similar stylistic choices and genres within their music. 

Joy Division marked the beginning of the post-punk era of music influenced by the increased use of synthesisers, jangly guitars, pop hooks, Angular sounds, and a whole lot of emotion hidden in between lyrics. Individuals at the time found this evolved genre to be intriguing and unique which is why they rose in popularity so quickly. In future years, their workings only inspired countless artists worldwide, many of which hold the utmost respect for the band. (this is explored more thoroughly in another post) 

Likewise, there is one more thing I would like to add before closing this introduction. I also believe that another prominent contributor to Joy Division's eternal flame is the humanity that they expressed through their music and backgrounds. In truth, they did not know what they were getting themselves into when they decided to form the band. They were all young–late teens to early twenties–individuals, balancing their own unsatisfying jobs and greyscale lives with an opportunity that had unbeknownst outcomes for all of them. Moreover, they had their own struggles and hardships–especially lead vocalist, Ian Curtis– which they managed to convey throughout the workings of their music. Thus, allowing for others to relate to these feelings for endless years to come.

Sources:

Coombs, Charlie. “How Joy Division Changed Music - Thred Website.” Thred Website, 18 June 2019, thred.com/culture/how-joy-division-changed-music/. Accessed 30 May 2023.

[sakuraswordly]

Maya civilization created distinct artworks and fully developed complex writing system before Common Era. Their creativity was more advanced than many contemporary cultures of old world : Archaeologists have uncovered a wealth of information about Maya civilization through discoveries and deciphering of Maya art and writing. Deciphering of knowledge gained from these primary sources often results in scholars having to push back timeline of Maya inventions and achievements. A prime example is discovery of Maya writing from Pre-Classic period on stone near San Bartolo. Humidity in most of Maya areas wreaked havoc with their books, painted buildings, and artworks. So much seemed lost and then archaeologists started discovering beautifully painted murals and other art in deepest levels of Maya structures. Their habit of building new structures over and around older ones, often more than once, had done an excellent job of preservation in many cases. Maya art included stone, wood, clay, and stucco sculptures and decorations. Exquisite carvings and jewelry were made of wood, obsidian, jade, bone, shells, and stone. Action scenes were portrayed on slipped ceramic vessels, murals and reliefs. Artists made moldings, statuettes, portraits of rulers and more. Their tools included stones, obsidian and jade carving instruments, and paintbrushes. Paint for Maya art was made from pigment and water, bound with clay. Color pigment was obtained from berries, plants, fruits, ores and even insects. Special technique of Maya civilization for making “Maya blue”, a rich turquoise blue, was lost in 16th Century, sometime during Spanish conquest. Four cardinal directions were associated with colors by Maya civilization in Maya artworks: red for East; yellow for South; black for West; white for North. Favored colors were blue, representing water, wind and sky-gods and green representing vegetation and life. Only faint traces of magnificently bright colors are left on statues, monuments, temples, pyramids, houses and miscellaneous artifacts that are exposed to elements. Once archaeologists discovered hidden substructures above ground and excavated inside underground structures, they discovered well-preserved art and decorations going back throughout Maya eras. Scholars believe that royals employed full-time artists during some eras of Maya civilization. It is speculated that artists came exclusively from elite classes. Maya civilization decorated architecture with all kinds of art. A typical city center with its plazas and precision placed pyramids, adjacent buildings and monuments, were often plastered with stucco and painted red. Buildings and plazas were decorated with colorfully painted stone or stucco sculptures and sometimes murals. A chance discovery by a scuba diver in 1998 of an underwater Maya religious center led to archaeological investigations in 2007 of a sunken city in Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. It is now named Samabaj, sometimes called Atlantis of Guatemala. It was a large religious center on an island in middle of lake before it was flooded, probably after a volcanic eruption. It is frozen in Maya Pre-classic time – un-looted, and undamaged by the elements, and one can only imagine what beautiful sculptures, pottery, and other wonderful art are yet to be discovered there. Several magnificent murals have been uncovered, excavated, and restored in this century alone. These murals were painted on walls of temples, public buildings, and houses. Bonampak murals depict scenes of daily life, war, ceremonies, mythology, and more in brilliant or muted colors and use excellent techniques that outlasted elements when protected. Calakmul murals include scenes from daily lives of commoners. Oldest San Bartolo murals discovered in 2001 depict scenes from mythology and royal court. They are dated to around 100 CE.

Photographer: Glyphs on red stele from Temple of Inscriptions, early Classic period, Tikal, Guatemala (Penn University Museum)

[tattoobali]

From Rice Fields to Tattoo Studios: Canggu's Transformation

Canggu, once a hidden gem on Bali's southwest coast, epitomized the tranquil beauty of rural Indonesia. Its lush rice paddies, framed by gently rolling hills and quiet beaches, offered a peaceful retreat far removed from the clamor of urban life. This small village was a place where time moved slowly, and life revolved around the rhythms of nature and the age-old traditions of Balinese culture.

The allure of Canggu lay not just in its scenic beauty but also in its sense of community. Here, neighbors knew each other by name, and the days were marked by the communal activities of farming and religious ceremonies. The simplicity of life in Canggu was its greatest charm, offering a stark contrast to the rapidly modernizing world outside its boundaries.

The Rise of Tourism in Bali and Canggu

The first whispers of change came with the surfers. Drawn by Bali's legendary waves, they ventured to Canggu, finding in its pristine beaches a surfer's paradise. These early visitors were captivated by the perfect breaks and the untouched beauty of the coastline, which soon became a hotspot for the international surfing community.

This influx of surfers marked the beginning of a new era for Canggu. The word of its idyllic shores and perfect waves spread like wildfire, attracting more and more visitors, each seeking a piece of this unspoiled paradise. As the surf culture grew, so did Canggu's reputation as a must-visit destination for those in search of the ultimate wave.

The surge in tourism brought with it a fusion of cultures. Backpackers, digital nomads, and expatriates from all corners of the globe began to settle in Canggu, drawn by its laid-back vibe and natural beauty. This blend of nationalities and backgrounds transformed the village into a cultural melting pot, where traditional Balinese customs met a more cosmopolitan way of life.

As international influences grew, they left an indelible mark on Canggu's cultural landscape. New businesses catering to the diverse tastes of its visitors sprang up, offering everything from yoga studios to organic cafes. This cultural infusion brought a vibrancy to Canggu, turning it into a lively hub where East met West in harmonious coexistence.

The Transformation of Canggu: From Rice Fields to Trendy Streets

The physical transformation of Canggu was as rapid as it was dramatic. The once endless stretches of rice fields began to recede, making way for chic boutiques, luxury villas, and trendy eateries. This metamorphosis was fueled by the increasing demand for accommodation and entertainment options to cater to the growing number of visitors.

Amidst this development, the landscape of Canggu underwent a complete overhaul. The serene rural vistas gave way to a bustling, vibrant locale, buzzing with activity. The transformation, while bringing prosperity, also altered the very essence of what once made Canggu a haven of tranquility.

The change in Canggu's landscape had a profound impact on its local community. For many, the influx of tourism brought economic opportunities previously unimaginable. Locals found employment in the burgeoning service sector, and many were able to start their own businesses, benefiting from the new market the tourists provided.

However, this transformation was not without its challenges. The rapid pace of development put pressure on local resources and infrastructure. There were concerns about the sustainability of such growth and its impact on the traditional way of life. The community found itself at a crossroads, balancing the economic benefits of tourism with the need to preserve its cultural heritage and natural environment.

Tattoo Culture in Canggu: More Than Just Ink

One of the most striking symbols of Canggu's transformation has been the rise of tattoo studios. These establishments have become a cornerstone of Canggu's modern identity, attracting artists and enthusiasts from across the globe. The studios are not just places of business; they are cultural hubs, blending the artistry of traditional Balinese designs with contemporary tattooing techniques.

The growth of these studios reflects a broader shift in perceptions of body art. Once seen as a fringe element, tattoos in Canggu are now celebrated as a form of personal expression and art. The studios have become gathering spots for a community of artists and clients who share a passion for ink, each with their own story to tell.

The tattoos created in Canggu are more than mere decorations; they are a testament to the cultural fusion that characterizes the village. Artists draw inspiration from Balinese mythology, local flora and fauna, and the island's unique aesthetic, combining these elements with diverse international styles. This artistic expression captures the essence of Canggu – a place where tradition and modernity coalesce.

The popularity of tattoo studios in Canggu has also given rise to a new form of tourism – tattoo tourism. Visitors come not only for the beaches and the nightlife but also to get inked by renowned local artists. These tattoos serve as permanent reminders of their time in Canggu, a unique blend of art and memory etched into skin.

The Role of Social Media in Canggu’s Transformation

The role of social media in shaping Canggu's transformation cannot be overstated. Platforms like Instagram have been instrumental in broadcasting the 'Canggu look' to the world. This aesthetic – a blend of tropical paradise, bohemian chic, and urban cool – has become synonymous with the village, attracting a steady stream of visitors eager to experience it firsthand.

Instagram has not only promoted Canggu's physical beauty but also its lifestyle. Posts featuring trendy cafes, yoga studios, and beach parties paint a picture of an idyllic, carefree existence. This portrayal has played a significant role in boosting tourism, as people flock to Canggu to capture and share their own slice of paradise.

Influencers have amplified Canggu's allure, attracting followers with their picturesque posts and aspirational content. Their portrayal of Canggu as a hip, happening destination has had a tangible impact on its popularity. This phenomenon has led to a self-perpetuating cycle – as more influencers visit and share their experiences, more people are drawn to the village, eager to replicate the scenes they see online.

However, this influencer-driven narrative has also raised questions about authenticity and sustainability. The glossy images often mask the challenges of rapid development and the strain on local resources. There is a growing conversation about the need for responsible tourism that respects the local community and environment.

Canggu’s Culinary Scene: A Blend of Traditional and Modern

The transformation of Canggu is perhaps most deliciously experienced through its culinary scene. From humble warungs serving traditional Balinese fare to trendy cafes offering global cuisine, the food landscape in Canggu is a reflection of its cultural melting pot. Visitors can indulge in a variety of flavors, each telling a story of the village's evolution.

The growth of the food scene has been both a cause and effect of Canggu's popularity. As more tourists arrived, there was a demand for diverse dining options, which in turn attracted more visitors. This culinary evolution has become a key part of Canggu's identity, showcasing the fusion of traditional and modern that defines the village.

Challenges and Controversies

Canggu's rapid development has not been without its environmental costs. The conversion of rice fields into commercial properties has raised concerns about the loss of traditional landscapes and the impact on the ecosystem. There are worries about water scarcity, pollution, and the loss of biodiversity, prompting calls for more sustainable development practices.

Efforts are being made to address these concerns, with initiatives focusing on eco-friendly construction, waste management, and conservation. The challenge lies in finding a balance between development and environmental stewardship, ensuring that Canggu's natural beauty is preserved for future generations.

The influx of international visitors and residents has also sparked discussions about cultural sensitivities. As Canggu becomes increasingly cosmopolitan, there are concerns about the erosion of traditional Balinese culture and values. The challenge is to ensure that development is respectful of local customs and heritage.

This has led to initiatives aimed at promoting cultural understanding and integration. Local community leaders and stakeholders are working to ensure that the village's cultural heritage is celebrated and preserved, even as it adapts to a changing world.

The Future of Canggu: Preserving Identity Amid Change

Looking to the future, Canggu stands at a crossroads. The village has gained international fame, but this popularity brings with it the challenge of managing growth sustainably. The key question is how Canggu can continue to evolve while preserving its unique identity and heritage.

The future of Canggu lies in striking a balance – embracing the opportunities that come with its newfound status, while safeguarding the cultural and natural assets that make it special. This delicate balancing act will determine whether Canggu can maintain its charm and character in the face of relentless change.

[leilzzy]

Leila Bourcier

The Birth Of Venus

The birth of Venus, by the amazing artist Sandro Botticelli in the mid 1480’s (unconfirmed when) is a painting made during the early era of the renaissance. In this painting we see the birth of Venus, or as some may know her from Greek mythology, Aphrodite. Venus (or Aphrodite) had just arrived at shore after her birth, where she is seen fully grown and emerged from a seashell. This painting is well a part of the realism spectrum as almost all paintings are in the renaissance art era.

For the birth of Venus i feel as if i could use,

Color: The birth of Venus and the surrounding objects or people are made in very soft hues, making the scene seem more ethereal.

Line: The lines in the painting are graceful and flowing (as we see in Venus’s body figure or the curling waves). This makes it seem as if there's a sense of movement and rhythm

Pattern and repetition: The pattern of Venus’s hair flowing, the waves and the shells on the ground create a sense of visual appeal and repetition in the painting.

The birth of Venus was an iconic and amazing piece that I have always loved since learning a little bit of the renaissance art period. So my reaction to this piece is shock because I'm just in awe about its beauty and backstory. It had a lot of controversy as Venus is portrayed naked and it wasnt so much normalized yet. Well there isn’t really any hidden message in the birth of venus as it’s exactly what its called, the birth of Venus. But as some people (like myself) may see some small details like empowerment or being brought into a new world. Honestly my views on the painting have always stayed the same as I’ve known about it for a while.

So in conclusion, the birth of Venus is an iconic painting that many adore (including me). The birth of Venus continues to be loved for its beauty and the way it connects to the past. It's a lovely reminder of how art can change our views on the world.

[yessadirichards]

Taylor Swift returns to Nashville, reveals 'Speak Now' date

NASHVILLE, Tenn.

Taylor Swift is playing catch-up with her fans this year in a massive and impressive stadium show that embraces her artistic reinventions.

Nearly two months into the 52-show Eras Tour, Swift returned Friday to the origins of her musical career in Nashville, Tennessee, a city she outgrew as a country starlet destined for pop stardom.

In front of 70,000 fans, Swift dropped the news that she would be releasing a re-recording of her Nashville-era 2010 record, “Speak Now,” on July 7.

Swift started releasing new versions of her early albums in 2021, after a dispute over the ownership of the masters, which were sold to — and then by — music executive Scooter Braun. “Speak Now,” Swift's third album, will also be the third “Taylor's Version” recording — she released the re-recordings of 2008's “Fearless” and 2012's “Red” in 2021.

“Speak Now” was an album she wrote entirely by herself and she performed one of the singles, “Sparks Fly” after her announcement, followed by “Teardrops on My Guitar,” from her 2006 self-titled debut record.

The tour started chaotically with a breakdown of Ticketmaster’s ability to withstand the demand of fans, who were eager to see Swift after an extended hiatus from touring due to the coronavirus pandemic. Those who were lucky enough to get into the first of three shows in Nashville made sure to show out in their cosplay outfits inspired by Taylor’s songs, ranging from marching band geek to cardigans and cottagecore.

“I moved to Nashville nearly 20 years ago,” she told the crowd. “And this dream I had since I was so little I can’t even remember even first having it, this dream came true because of this town and the people in it.”

She started off the nearly 3.5-hour show with a line from “Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince” as a gentle spring rain sprinkled on the crowd: “It’s been a long time coming, but it’s you and me, that’s my whole world.”

The Eras tour theme is a natural fit for an artist whose music is often so self-referential, winking and smiling at the previous Taylors and their moments. The show is broken up into acts, not moving chronologically through her discography, but instead presenting like a house with many rooms. The color schemes, choreographed dancers and outfits support the overall feeling of musical theater, with a stage that incorporates rising platforms and hidden trap doors she can disappear through.

With over 40 songs on the setlist from her 10 albums, Swift hits a lot of the highlights of her singles, ranging from “You Belong With Me,” “Shake It Off,” “Bad Blood,” “Anti-Hero” and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” But she also made time for special songs, like her 10-minute fan favorite “All Too Well,” and brought back opening act Phoebe Bridgers to perform their duet “Nothing New,” a vault track released on “Red (Taylor’s Version).”

It was a five-year wait to see all the glittering chapters of Swift’s career on stage together, but the pop star’s marathon performance carried fans through to the last notes.

[hyuck-xix]

Hi for the kpop asks I want to know about 127 :>

hi! thanks for asking! <3

✦ my first bias: technically, probably mark because he was the first nct member i learned about, but it quickly became taeyong after i actually started getting into nct, and taeyong was my bias for the first three or so months of being an nctzen!

✦ my current bias(es): haechan! he is my ult, i love him so very much. probably slightly too parasocially attached to him but i'm not going to worry about it lol...

✦ my album and/or era ranking (or favorite of each): 127 has so many albums, and i decided to write my reasoning behind each one...bear with me... from favorite to least favorite:

Cherry Bomb: this is a masterpiece of an album. Cherry Bomb is SUCH a good song, the music video has that artistic scrappy Neo identity, the styling is so cool in my opinion, and the album is full of great songs. When i think of nct 127 this the era i think of.

We Are Superhuman: okay, i just personally love this album. Superhuman was what made me an nctzen. I feel so fond of it, it's my baby. Superhuman and Highway to Heaven are such feel-good songs! And I love the concept/styling/photobook.

Limitless: Limitless is a song that's really grown on me recently. The "Rough vers. MV" was truly ahead of its time. The styling was... questionable lol. Poor haechan's hair! But this album also gave me Back 2 U, which is maybe the best 127 b-side ever.

Regulate (Simon Says): I love Simon Says, it was another early favorite of mine in my baby nctzen days. The styling for this mv was immaculate, I still dream about yuta's grey plaid skirt thing and the vans shoelaces tied around the ankles.

Loveholic (Gimme Gimme): Maybe it's because I got into nct in this era, but loveholic is really special to me. The concepts for the photobook really speak to me (especially the rain one, but i also find the bright green and orange color scheme of the album cover sooo satisfying) and 'right now', the last song on the album, is my ultimate favorite 127 b-side, i almost feel a little possessive over it >.< the gimme gimme mv was a little lacking but i like the song itself!

Chain: the chain music video!! omg. Also the b-sides dreaming and 100 are such hidden gems. I also really vibed with the styling (shout out to the stylists for giving taeil that sexy haircut lol). 127's japanese releases hit different for me.

Neo Zone: I mean... neo zone is iconic. i feel like i should love it more than i do? kick it is a banger, the mv is soooo well executed, i love mullet hyuck and mark's stripey hair, i love the concept and outfits, and the photobook is crammed full of really cute photos... but there's something about it that i don't feel as nostalgic or lovey about compared to the albums i ranked above it. i think most of the b-sides feel slightly bland to me? and sometimes i feel like neo zone was a little too perfected, like it lacks some of that original 127 crunchy absurdity.

Neo Zone: The Final Round (Punch): I actually am fond of Punch, she's underrated imo. there's something about that song that i find really satisfying. the styling isn't anything to write home about, but it works well in the context of the concept.

Regular-Irregular: Confession...I don't really like Regular *winces*. i'm too anti-capitalist for it lol! but that said, the music video is delicious. And the song itself is really catchy... if i look past the lyrics. although... maybe the lyrics are supposed to provide a negative commentary on our money-obsessed culture?? are they that deep?? i'll have to think about this...

Sticker: When this album came out i remember liking it a lot. But as time has gone on, it's gotten more boring for me. The song and music video weren't bad objectively, but i feel like it marked a significant shift in 127's artistic voice, a change i didn't really want... although shout out to the seoul city version of the photobook, which i still think is gorgeoussssss

Awaken: I cannot get through Wakey-wakey. it is SO grating to my years lol. however! i am obsessed with ‘end-to-start’, the outro song of the album. i get chills every time mark says “the origin will begin”. i’m also giving it bonus points because i like the way haechan was styled :P

2 Baddies: The biggest reason why this album is so low is that i really don’t like most of the songs on the album. For the title track, the song and mv aren’t terrible. i like that it’s playful, i really enjoy jaehyun’s rap, and the styling is really cool! but... idk, there’s just something about the whole thing that makes me disappointed, like i feel like it had potential to be better.

Favorite: oh lord... its only saving graces for me are: the catharsis photoshoot, the cool forest set that taeyong and mark rap in in the mv, haechan singing ‘your love, your love’ in the outro, and love on the floor being one of my top guilty pleasure songs. The rest was just not it for me.

Fire Truck: hey, i guess ranking their debut album last means they’ve come a long ways?? I don’t really care for any of the songs on this album. the fire truck music video was... interesting... i do love the styling (i might be the only one who does, but i actually sincerely do!), and i like the choreography, but that’s about it.

✦ how i got into them: at the time i was really into shinee, and i remember watching this mashup and i was blown away by superhuman, and that was the beginning! but i didn’t quite consider myself an nctzen then. i think a month or so later when i was leaving for an internship and i was really anxious, i started listening to all the 127 title tracks to help me feel strong and tough and i think that’s when i really formed an emotional connection to 127 itself and got to know the members better.

✦ which member would be my best friend: oh god, this is hard because i’d want to be friends with all of them! i think personality-wise, i’d probably get along the best with taeyong. i see a lot of myself in him.

✦ something i associate with them (or with a bias/any member): with 127 as a group: neon colors, leather fingerless gloves, messy hair, science fiction. with taeyong: fish, furiously scribbling in a notebook, the subway/metro. with haechan: falling asleep with your head on someone’s shoulder, scuffed favorite sneakers, lambs and baby goats, the concepts of soulmates and fate, the golden hour.

 📥 send me a kpop group & i'll answer

[octaviasdread]

any girls! dark academia movie recs? i really struggle to find anything not about a group of boys (as much as I love them)

SO MANY!!! This is probably a far more detailed answer than you were expecting but this is a popular question and I want to keep a list for myself and others.

Feel free to add to it/give opinions. I've tried to give a tw for anything I can remember

Girls! Dark Academia Movies/TV Shows

Mona Lisa Smile (2003)

1950s Women’s college

Art professor! Julia Roberts

She’s legit the female Mr Keating of the art & college world

Feminism vs. Tradition

Maggie Gyllenhall x Ginnifer Goodwin; their characters were more than friends. Fight me.

Does not end how you expect

Strike!/All I Wanna Do/The Hairy Bird (1998)

MY FAVOURITE!!!

Free on YouTube under one of its various names

Comedy

1960s all girls boarding school

Young Kirsten Dunst

Group of girls plot to sabotage a merger with a boys school less prestigious than their own

Secret attic clubhouse meetings of the D.A.R aka Daughters of the American Ravioli (eaten cold, ew)

girls get political & advocate for their rights using ANY elaborate and chaotic scheme

TW: eating disorder, vomiting & creepy male teacher but the girls plot against him too

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)

based on a short book I read for uni by Muriel Spark

1930s girls school in Edinburgh

Scottish teacher! Maggie Smith, controversial with a focus on romantic ideals

Spoiler alert, the liberal teacher is actually a fascist

Her group of fave students has cult- vibes and it’s fascinating

Picnic at Hanging Rock

1970s movie or 2018 mini series

Never watched either but I plan to

Wild Child (2008)

00s romcom every UK teen girl loves

Emma Roberts as the spoiled rich American teenager sent to a strict English boarding school

Plots to get herself expelled but oh no she’s making friends with the girls who help her

And the headmistress has a hot son, and he’s nice??? Double oh no

ICONIC SCENES

Everything! Goes! Wrong!

omg she burns the school down

Feel good, comfort, nostalgia

St Trinians (2007)

English girls boarding school

The kids are all criminals, no joke

So are the teachers

CHAOTIC

gay awakening for british girls

Art heist pulled off by school girls

Government tries to shut them down but oh no, the education minister & the headmistress are ex-lovers

Colin Firth x Rupert Everett in drag

Superior cast: Jodie Whittaker, Gemma Arterton, Juno Temple, Stephen Fry, Colin Firth, etc...

embodies the phrase 'problematic fave'

St Trinians 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold (2009)

Mystery, pirate ancestors, hidden treasure

omg Shakespeare was a woman

girls disguised as boys to infiltrate and rob the posh boys school

Villain! David Tennant in that ICONIC boat scene

Teen girls vs. ancient misogynist brotherhood

like the first film but MORE chaotic and BETTER!???

The Falling (2014)

1960s all girls school

best friends! but its unrequited love

Agoraphobic + distant mother aka mommy issues

Sudden death and the school suppresses/ignores the students grief, sparking mass hysteria & a fainting epidemic in the girls

Cast: Maisie Williams (GoT) & Florence Pugh (Little Women) & Joe Cole (Peaky Blinders)

TW: teen pregnancy, death, vomiting, underage s*x, sibling inc*st, past s*xual assault

READ THE PLOT SUMMARY FIRST

The Book Thief (2013)

Based on an amazing book by Markus Zusak

set in 1940s Nazi Germany

Daughter of a communist whose family were taken by the Nazis/died is fostered by an older couple who teach her to read & she paints a dictionary on the basement walls

Coming of age story about a compulsive book thief. No joke, this kid steals books from banned book burnings and breaks into the mayor's library through the window

Family hides the Jewish son of an old friend in their basement and he helps her to start writing about her experiences in the war

TW: death, bombings, WW2 anti-semitism

Mary Shelley (2017)

Overall good & roughly biographical

Pretty costumes and aesthetic

Modern feminist take on Mary Shelly in her own time period

So many INACCURACIES for the drama so don’t take it as truth

Percy Shelley slander and not all of it is justified

Cast: Elle Fanning, Douglas Booth, and Maisie Williams

The Secret Garden (1993)

Based on a fave childhood book

1901 colonial India & Yorkshire, England

Orphaned, spoilt & neglected girl sent to live with her reclusive Uncle in the English countryside

Gothic elements, mysteries, secret doors/passages/locked gardens

local boy with a flock of animals, magic, kids chanting around a fire and all around immaculate vibes

Happy ending!!!

Hidden Figures (2016)

African-American women as mathematicians for NASA

1960s space project

Women balancing a career and family obligations

Deals with racial & gender discrimination

Loosely based on the lives of Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan who worked for NASA as engineers & mathematicians

Anne of Green Gables (1985) & sequel (1987)

Adaptation L.M. Montgomery’s ‘Anne of Green Gables’ books

Canada (late 1890s/early 1900s)

Highly imaginative & bookworm orphan is adopted by a reclusive elderly brother and sister duo

Small town & school years comedic drama

Unrequited Enemies -> Friends -> lovers

Inspiring new woman teacher

Girls re-enact Tennyson’s poem and nearly drown for the aesthetic™

Dramatic poetry reading with INTENSE 👀eye contact👀

Writer! Anne & English teacher! Anne dealing with unruly girls school antics

Collette (2018)

biographical drama on french writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Collette

Victorian & Edwardian era France

More talented than her husband so she ghostwrites for him

Fight for creative ownership of her wildly successful novels

Affairs with a woman called Georgie and also with Missy, born female but masculine presenting

Cast: Keira Knightly, Dominic West, Eleanor Tomlinson (Poldark)

Enola Holmes (2020)

Netflix book adaptation

Younger sister of Sherlock Holmes

Victorian era! feminism/suffragettes

Mother-daughter focus

Mystery, adventure, secret codes, teens running away & escaping from (and eventually fighting) assassins

Cast: Helena Bonham Carter, Henry Cavill, Sam Claflin, Fiona Shaw, Millie Bobby Brown

Ginger & Rosa (2012)

1960s England

best friends since literal birth navigating troubled teen years

poet & anti-nuclear activist! Ginger

off the rails but also catholic! Rosa

Shout out to Mark & Mark the gay godfathers we all want

family troubles 

TW: older man has an affair with a 17 yr old

Testament of Youth (2014)

based on WW1 memoir by Vera Brittain

young woman (writer & poetry lover) escapes traditional family & goes to study at Oxford University

abandons to become a war nurse

romance, tragedy and war trauma

Cast: Alicia Vikander, Kit Harrington (GoT), Taron Edgerton (Rocketman), Colin Morgan (Merlin)

Little Women (2019)

Writer! Jo & Artist! Amy

Mother/daughter focus and sister dynamics

the March sisters’ theatre club is *chefs kiss*

champagne problems edits of Jo x Laurie are a mood

Ambivalent ending perfectly captures Louisa May Alcott’s dilemma with the book the movie is based on

set in 1860s America

ALL STAR CAST and a Greta Gerwig masterpeice

Lady Bird (2017)

coming of age in early 2002/2003 Sacramento, California

all girls catholic school

writer! Christine aka Lady Bird wants to get outta town and start her life again at college 'in a city with culture'

Mother/daughter dynamics - so realistic!

I live for that Jesus car stunt & the nun's reaction

school theatre program

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Timothee Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein

Another Greta Gerwig gem

Beguiled (2017)

Virginia, civil war era

Girls school with only five students and two teachers left

Find an injured Union army soldier & bring him inside

Women & teenagers want his attention (v. problematic) before uniting against him

(tbh you'll either love it, hate it, or watch once & forget it)

Sofia Coppola film so its very feminine gaze

TW: violence, death, underage

Legally Blonde (2001)

No questions will be taken

Elle Woods was the blue print

TV series:

House of Anubis (2011-2013)

I know it’s a kids/young teen show but I still unironically love it

ANCIENT EGYPT!!!!

Modern day with Victorian era links to treasure hunters & Egyptian research expeditions (stealing from tombs)

Chosen one plot lines, curses, kidnapping, mysteries, secret tunnels under the school, elixir of life

Teens have investigate & protect themselves cus oh no the TEACHERS are involved in some shady stuff

new American kid at British boarding school is the actual premise not just a fanfic au

Nostalgic, light-hearted, funny, and kinda cheesy but I will accept no criticism

The Alienist (2018 -now)

Mid 1890s, New York

Woman’s private detective agency (Season 2)

Serial killer mystery

Woman secretary turns detective and teams up with a criminal psychiatrist and a newspaper editor to solve crime

TW: violence, child pr*stit*tion

Cast: Dakota Fanning, Luke Evans, Daniel Bruhl

The Queen’s Gambit (2020)

Woman chess prodigy

1950s & 1960s

TW: drug & alcohol abuse

Gentleman Jack (2019 - now)

Based on the diaries of Anne Lister

Victorian Yorkshire, England

Upper-class lesbians

Confident, suit wearing! Anne Lister x shy! Ann Walker

Business woman! Anne running the family mines

Cast: Suranne Jones (Doctor Foster) & Sophie Rundle (Peaky Blinders)

TW: violence

Gilmore Girls (2000-2007)

bubbly/ambitious single mom + intelligent daughter

bookworm! Rory Gilmore gets into a prestigious private school and then an Ivy League college

Small town drama is comedic gold

Fast dialogue packed with pop culture and literary references

Comforting & nostalgic

TEAM JESS

Anne with an E (2017-2019)

Loose adaptation of L.M. Montgomery’s ‘Anne of Green Gables’ books

they completely change the plot lines but it’s still very good content!

Orphan girl with trauma and a love of books/poetry is adopted by an elderly brother & sister duo, bringing light and fresh ideas to a rural community

Feminism, girls writing club, lgbtq safe spaces, girls eduction, black/indigenous representation

Miss Stacy as THAT inspiring teacher

Aunt Josephine’s lavish gay parties have my heart

TW: creepy male teacher tries to marry a student, racial discrimination, indigenous assimilation school

Victoria (2016-2019)

Adaption of Queen Victoria’s life

Victoria navigating her political, royal, and personal life

Albert’s involvement with The Great Exhibition, 1851 (on cultural + industrial innovations)

Alfred Paget x Edward Drummond is exquisite

Gorgeous costumes and aesthetics

TW: bury your gays trope

Derry Girls (2018-now)

1990s Northern Ireland during the troubles

Comedy, episodes 20-25 mins long

English boy sent to an all girls Catholic school with his cousin

✨Dead Poets Society parody episode ✨with a free-spirited female teacher

Sister Michael, the sarcastic nun who hates her job & reads the exorcist for giggles

Wee anxious lesbian! Clare Devlin (plus her friends wearing rainbow pins)

Badass with bad ideas! Michelle Mallon

Main Character! Erin Quinn

Lovable weirdo who would fight a polar bear! Orla McCool

Wee English fella & honorary Derry girl! James Maguire

Dickinson (2019-now)

Loose adaption of the poet Emily Dickinson’s life

Set in 19th century Massachusetts, US

Historical drama with modern dialogue & music that works SEAMLESSLY

gives a great understanding of Emily Dickinson’s poems

💕Vintage gays! Emily x Sue💕

Theatre club, writing, poetry, dressing as men to sneak into lectures, love letters, teen drama, feminism, and an underground abolitionist journal as a brief side plot in season 2

Wiz Khalifa plays death in a horse drawn carriage

TW: opium use

A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017-2019)

Based on great childhood books

Bookworm! brother, Inventor! sister, and baby sister with sharp teeth

Mystery, secret organisations, orphaned siblings figuring things out & fending for themselves against the villain after their fortune

Adults either cartoon evil, comedically incompetent, or SPIES

Boarding school, library owner, scientific researcher, and theatre episodes

Ambiguous time period which is really fun to try and pin point

Killing Eve (2018-now)

Classic detective who has homoerotic tension with the assassin she is tracking down

British Detective! Eve Polastri figures out the notorious assassin MI5 are investigating is a woman, is fired & then put on a secret MI6 case with a small team

Assassin! Villanelle, a psychopath with a tragic past and a mastery of both accents & fashion

Woman MI6 boss! Carolyn Martens, head of Russian section

Travel Europe following Villanelle’s killings and escaping the assassins sent by Villanelle’s organisation

‘You’re supposed to be my enemy and moral opposite but omg you’re the only one smart enough to get me and why am I obsessed with you????'

🚨 GO IN FOR A KISS AND THEN STAB YOUR ENEMY 🚨

Cable Girls/Las chicas del cable (2017-2020)

Spanish drama set in 1920s Madrid

Four young women at a telecommunications company form a group of friends and help navigate the difficult situations they are all in

Secret identities, dangerous pasts, murder, crime, lgbtq couple & throuple, trans man character, feminism/suffragists

girls commit crimes for humanitarian reasons and cover! it! up!

UNDERRATED SHOW!!!!

Gorgeous costumes and set

Haven’t finished it yet and I’m catching up

TW: abuse, violence, death

Outlander (2014 - now)

haven’t watched yet but plan to

Woman time travels to Scotland, 1743

Rebel highlanders, pirates, British colonies, American revolutionary war

Time jumps between 18th & 20th century

[jerryb2]

“Anakin knew he wasn’t ready to be trained with a lightsaber yet, but this one held a special interest for him. Obi-Wan Kenobi had been Darth Vader’s Jedi teacher, and his Uncle Luke’s first teacher, too. Anakin ran a finger up the ridged handle and over the power stud, but did not press it.

(...)

Thunder boomed from the speakers hidden in the walls, but Anakin did not stop until he stood directly before Orloc. Then, pressing the switch on the handle of Kenobi’s blade, Anakin ignited the lightsaber. The blade hummed in his hand, a bright pure blue sending its light through the darkness.”

- Junior Jedi Knights: Vader’s Fortress & Kenobi’s Blade, by Rebecca Moesta

~~~~~~

As something of a follow-up to my most recent post, here we have what is perhaps the ultimate example of the “How it started vs. how it’s going,” meme. 

Growing up in what is arguably the Golden Era of Star Wars media, aka the mid-90′s to 00′s, both of these sabers exist as touchstones of their respective eras. Between having an electronic toy of the former (circa the year of our Lourd 2002), and watching ANH religiously, these sabers are etched into my mind with astonishing clarity. They also go on to further illustrate the dichotomy between the Prequel Era and the Original Trilogy, offering insight into the mind of George Lucas:

In an era when few people had the imagination to dream of a far-off land of action, adventure and daring-do in the face of an evil empire, we see Lucas borrowing from the older traditions of storytelling, upon which to hang the framework of his Space Opera. The 1970′s was a time of incredible cultural upheaval; the United States had just lost the war in Vietnam, and the nation was facing an identity crisis. This was an era when dower, heavy films like Taxi Driver and first two Godfather films came out - a far cry from the fairy-tale-like imagination which infuses the Star Wars saga. In those early years, Lucas sought to create a lived-in world, turning over his vision to talented production designers like Roger Christian to bring his world to life. The design of the actual props & sets are owed to Christian & concept artists like Ralph McQuarrie as much as Lucas himself. That’s not even to mention his collaboration with incredible screenwriters like Leigh Brackett & Lawrence Kasdan. 

In stark contrast, the Prequel Era was conceived in its entirety by Lucas and - some could argue - for Lucas. Unlike the collaborative art from adversity that characterizes the Original Trilogy, Lucas wrote, produced and directed each of the Prequel films. This much narrower, myopic view makes the Prequels feel so much cleaner & sterilized, when compared to the OT. It lost some of its humanity, as it were. Granted, this does serve as a pretty effective narrative thread; the Prequels present us with a Utopian vision (on the surface) of the Old Republic so often alluded to in the OT, where the Jedi are many and powerful, when all the while, it’s rotten to its very core. The OT gives us a world that’s almost dystopian; everything is old, rusted, greasy & oil-stained. This universe has seen better days, long long ago - but at its heart, the story and by extension the protagonists, are all morally good - and light triumphs in the end. 

With the benefit of nearly twenty years of hindsight - and seeing what others can do with Star Wars - this really is a wonderful idea. It’s just really hard to enjoy the Prequels because of literally everything else going on in them. From the questionable casting choices, stilted dialogue, CGI effects that have not exactly aged gracefully & Lucas’ strange desire to attribute the Force to Midichlorians or whatever that was, they’re just bad movies. 

But you know what? I’ll still take them over the Sequels. 100%.

At the very least, you can tell that there are ideas behind what Lucas was trying to do with the Prequels, despite the fact that he just forgot how to make movies. The sequels don’t have any trace of connecting tissue, aside from a handful of characters that all happen to share names across three tonally, completely different corporate vehicles. 

Circling back around to the relevant topic at hand; here, in a single pair of images, we have the entire philosophy & production design of the Star Wars Saga distilled to their most basic elements. Likewise, they tell the story of a young Jedi who became a great Master, only to witness everything he sought to protect and build up, torn down and destroyed. And while I have little faith in Kathleen Kennedy’s producer-ship (and the fact that she said early drafts of the Kenobi scripts were too bleak), I can’t help but be just a little excited to see Ewan McGregor play Obi-Wan Kenobi again. 

Here’s hoping. 

[evanescentjasmine]

Writing Egypt and Egyptian Characters: Rusty Quill Gaming Edition

I’ve finally caught up with the Cairo arc of Rusty Quill Gaming, which I was anticipating and dreading both. Fiction set in my country usually reduces it to a caricature of itself, especially when it takes place in the Victorian era, but considering everything they’ve said in their metacasts I was hoping Rusty Quill Gaming was the exception.

It wasn’t. 

I’m aware the game world plays fast and loose with history and setting, but the problems in this case are more than just inaccuracies. However, because I want to help fic writers and artists be able to portray Hamid and his family well, this resource will be split into two parts. The first part will tackle details I’ve been asked about with regard to the setting; it may touch on things RQG went wrong, but I’m writing it primarily as a resource for artists and writers. The second part will be my criticism of RQG, and why I found the Cairo arc actively harmful. This includes discussions of Orientalism and some racist text.

I should also preface this by saying I’m not a historian. Everything I say in this resource is a combination of what I grew up with and what I remember from school, supplemented by Google and guesswork. I’ll be explaining my thought process throughout, which can help you see what’s actual history and what’s my extrapolation.

Part One: On Egypt

Historical Context:

Figuring out the history of Egypt in RQG terms is a bit complicated, so bear with me because this will take a while. 

In real-world history, Egypt was a Roman then Byzantine province from 30 BC to around the mid 600s AD, at which point the Arab conquest swept through and Egypt became Muslim. 

What this means is that when the Meritocrats took down Rome and took over the world, Egypt was still a Roman province. That gives us a several hundred year gap before the Arabs that may have maintained the same culture? Or morphed a little back to some pre-Ptolemaic Ancient Egyptian, given their Meritocrat, Apophis, is named after a great Pharaonic serpent?

Either way, given Hamid’s name and the fact they live in Cairo, the city built by the Arabs, we can assume the Arab conquest still happened somehow, despite having a Meritocrat in Egypt. Maybe a Meritocrat out there is Arab and settled in Egypt for a bit with or before Apophis? Maybe it took a couple-hundred years for the Meritocrats to get all the previous Roman areas under control? Maybe there was a whole war and the Arabs won and settled and eventually they got to a truce or got absorbed into Meritocratic lands?

Many Muslim dynasties ruled throughout the period from the mid 600s to the 1500s. Given the lack of Islam in this world, probably the Arabs were unified by some Pre-Islamic deity/deities and brought them over as well, because I refuse to just sweep everything under the broad Greek God rug. 

In the 1500s, another Muslim dynasty took over--this time, from outside of the country, which is why it’s considered separate from all the rest. At this point, Egypt became part of the Ottoman Empire until the 1800s, which is when the Mohammed Ali dynasty started to try and secede and rule independently. And there was a brief blip of the French occupation for two years around then as well.

And, of course, we can’t forget about British colonisation, which started in the late 1800s with a veiled protectorate.

Presumably, since France and Britain are also Meritocratic and it seems like Apophis is currently ruling, we can disregard everything from the Ottomans onward. This changes, or should change, a ton, because Ottoman rule informed a lot of things from fashion to slang to nobility and so on. 

What we’re left with is most likely a Cairo that is still Arab but with much more Pharaonic influence, as Apophis is in charge, as well as continuing Greek influence due to the Gods. I am not a Coptic Christian, so I cannot speak to how these changes in history and religions would affect the Coptic language and culture, but no doubt it would still be around.

There would also be a bigger, more long-standing connection to other Meritocratic countries. This explains why Hamid was British-educated and so many people speak such good English without a British occupation to create the power disparity that would make that necessary to rise in Egypt and such a mark of status. 

However, this presents several confusing and contradictory aspects of the world building:

Why doesn’t this go both ways? Why aren’t there people in England and France who know Arabic or are influenced by Egypt? All we get is that the Tahan family are big. That’s it. If these countries are equals, it sure doesn’t look like it.

If Apophis is pharaonic and Ancient Egyptian culture and knowledge are so ubiquitous...why would they hollow out a pyramid to put a bank inside? It’s a tomb. It’s made to bury dead kings in a way that follows possibly still-existing cultural and religious beliefs. It’s the equivalent of someone building a bank inside a mausoleum. It’s bizarre.

Relatedly, if Ancient Egyptian culture and knowledge are so ubiquitous, why is Carter mentioning the Rosetta Stone? Why would the knowledge necessary to translate hieroglyphics have been lost? 

I mention these questions so fic writers can keep them in mind while writing and, of course, it’s entirely possible to create a workaround. For example, maybe the Rosetta Stone is supposed to be translating something else, like an ancient hidden magic?

Describing Cairo:

I want to make one thing very clear: Cairo is not, despite Alex’s description, like Vegas. While we do certainly have hotels and casinos, to reduce the city to only that is very harmful for reasons I’ll go into at the end of this resource.

Cairo is a very old city with a mix of architectural styles and is very heavily Muslim in real life. In Arabic, its tagline is often “city of a thousand minarets,” so clearly RQG Cairo will be fairly different. Given Apophis’ influence, Ancient Egyptian styles might be more prevalent in Cairo, but very likely not in the form of pyramids unless those pyramids were for the dead. In real life, some buildings do incorporate Ancient Egyptian flavour, usually just in the form of lotus columns or hieroglyphs. These would only be found in public institutions, however,  or, frankly, tourist-bait. 

Residential buildings tend to be clustered very close together and, since it’s an old city, streets are crowded and winding as the city keeps building on itself and spilling out of its previous bounds. Estates do, of course, exist, but I’d suggest against using Bryn’s example of Alhambra as a setting for the Tahan home. Alhambra is a palace fortress in Spain and, although it’s Andalusian and therefore influenced by Muslim architecture, it’s very different than anything in Egypt. It’s as absurd as saying a posh British character lives in a house that’s basically Versailles and leaving it there. I’ve included images of some Egyptian residential estates below, all from the 1800s to early 1900s.

And here are some photos of Cairo in the 1800s:

As you can see, not quite Vegas.

A fic set in Cairo can certainly still have the Cairo strip with all the casinos, since that’s an aspect of canon, but a place like that would probably be geared more to tourists and foreigners than locals. So long you’re aware of this while writing, and that Cairo would exist beyond it, you should be fine. It might also be worth having characters explore the actual city.

Weather:

The stereotype is that Egypt is just hot and sand year-round. It isn’t. The further south you go, the hotter it will get, so that Upper Egypt (which is in the south, yeah), is hotter than Lower Egypt, which is where Cairo and Alexandria are. Alexandria, by virtue of being on the Mediterranean, has fairly cold (for us) and rainy winters and mild, humid summers. Cairo gets very occasional rain and has harsher summers but is also dryer.

And, of course, a thing to remember is that even in the depths of the desert, the morning might be quite warm but the night will be quite cold as well.

Sandstorm season (called khamaseen) takes place from April - May but in the middle of Cairo it’s more of an annoyance than anything else.

Language:

Since they speak Arabic, it’s important to note that spoken Egyptian Arabic is very different from written Classical Arabic. Egyptian is a mishmash of Arabic, Coptic, a bit of Greek, and a bit of French (and, in the real world, some Turkish too) all smashed together. Accents differ from city to city, and Cairene Arabic is best known for the fact we pronounce the letter jeem as geem (so all soft Gs are turned into hard Gs) and tend to replace the letter qaf with a glottal stop.

This means that a Cairene wouldn’t be called Jamal, they’d be Gamal. A Cairene would pronounce burqa as bur’a.

Since religion plays a big part in language, RQG Egyptian Arabic may be a bit different. For instance, the greeting most people associate with Arabic is “Assalam alaykum” but that’s very specifically Muslim or at least associated with Islam, and might not have been as wide-spread given...y’know, that Islam doesn’t exist. I’m not saying it’s incorrect to use, just explaining the context.

Alternatives could include “Sabah/masa’ el-kheir” which means “Good morning/evening,” and “Naharak/Naharik saeed” which is, “May you have a good day.”

Fashion:

Although this didn’t really feature in RQG, I’ve received a lot of questions about the period’s fashion and honestly it’s my favourite thing ever so I probably would have touched on it anyway. I’ll only go into broad strokes, as there are plenty of regional variations and, again, I’m no expert 

Women

Egyptian women covered their heads and sometimes their faces not out of religiosity but out of a cultural expectation of modesty. This may well have come about as a result of the Arab/Muslim cultural majority, as to my knowledge this wasn’t the case in the Greek and Roman periods, but women of all religions covered their heads so that would likely still be the case in RQG’s Arab Egypt.

This isn’t with the hijab we know today. It may have been a cloth or kerchief tied over their heads and then the melaya laf (which is larger cloth, almost a sheet) that they wrap around themselves and over their head, as follows: 

The black face-covering was called a burqa or bur’a (not the same as a Muslim burqa, which serves similar modesty functions but is a separate thing) or a yashmak and may have been opaque black, white, or netted, such as in this picture:

Underneath the melaya they would be wearing a long, loose, patterned dress:

Upper class Egyptian women tended to wear Western dresses with a white yashmak that covered their faces and heads. A yashmak is Turkish, however, and without Ottoman influence this style and name might not have caught on in Egypt.

Men

While the melaya laf and yashmak have disappeared from Egypt, the traditional men’s gallabeya and ammama, or turban, are still seen widely today. The gallabeya (or jellabiya, outside of Cairene Arabic) is a long, loose garment with wide sleeves and no collar. It’s in muted, neutral colours, usually lighter ones like white or beige in the summer and navy blue or grey in the winter. You’ll have seen examples of it in the pictures of Cairo above, and here’s another one: 

Middle to upper class men and civil servants, however, tended to wear English suits with a tarboosh, or fez. Since fezzes were also a result of Ottoman rule, RQG Egyptians might not wear them.

And yes, impressive moustaches were also very much the fashion.

Names:

The running joke is that Hamid’s name is unnecessarily long, but my name is longer, and I don’t think that’s particularly unusual. We don’t usually go around introducing ourselves with all of them, admittedly, and I’m not sure whether Hamid does this as a way to indicate he’s overly fancy or because Bryn doesn’t realise it, but four names is not long. My ID boasts five, and I know of at least one more.

Arabic naming conventions use patronymics for all children, regardless of gender. What this means is that my name and my brother’s name is identical except for our first. 

Mine is Jasmine + Dad’s name + his dad’s name + his dad’s name + his dad’s name

And my brother is also First name + Dad’s name + his dad’s name + his dad’s name + his dad’s name.

Egyptians do not typically have last names, but an important family may all choose to identify under a name and use that as their last, such as the Tahans. In my case, I use my fifth name as my last name and introduce myself in everyday life as Jasmine Fifth Name. Notably, my brother does not, and goes by First name + Dad’s name instead. This isn’t unusual. On paperwork, however, we still have the same name.

Additionally, Egyptian women do not take their husbands’ last names in marriage, nor do children take any of her names. 

I’m not sure why, according to the wiki, Hamid’s sisters seem to have taken their mother’s name. Following Arabic naming conventions, they would all be First Name Saleh Haroun al Tahan, and their father would be Saleh Haroun al Tahan. A possible workaround might be that halflings have their own naming conventions that mean daughters have matronymics and sons patronymics. 

A note to podficcers: please google name pronunciations beforehand because Alex and Bryn’s are actually often wrong. Ishak, for instance, is not pronounced Ee-shak. It’s Iss-haaq or Iss-haa’, because of quirks of the Egyptian accent I mentioned earlier.

Part Two: Criticism

I understand it can be difficult to portray a country different from yours with accuracy. I understand the RQG crew will not have had the perspective on Egypt and Cairo that I do by virtue of living here. I do also acknowledge that I’m sure none of this was actively malicious or on purpose.

But it doesn’t have to be on purpose to hurt, frankly, and given how often the RQG crew have talked about their responsibility with a game that’s intended for an audience, I expected better. Bryn has spoken about not wanting to fall into stereotypes for Hamid and, to be fair, by being a non-religious fancyboy Hamid does neatly avoid the religious zealot and the noble (or ignoble) savage routes. Unfortunately, he falls into another, which was hammered home by the portrayal of Cairo and the Tahans as a whole.

Our first glimpse of Cairo, after the sandstorm clears, describes it as “basically Vegas,” with hotels and garish casinos catering to the rich all along the “Cairo strip.” From then on, our only other images of Cairo are vast estates and a pyramid in the desert. 

The only named Egyptians we meet are the Tahan family, who are introduced through an absurdly lavish estate compared to the palace fortress of Alhambra, a gambling problem that apparently runs in the family, murder, and corruption, as the head of the family who has already covered up a crime for one son then turns himself in to protect the other.

Then, to top it all off, Hamid is apparently utterly incapable of understanding why letting his brother get away with murder is an issue until the paladins point it out.

Do you see the pattern, here?

I understand this was aiming to be a criticism of the rich and powerful, but the fact remains that the Tahans are the only representation of Egyptians we get. While this may not be harems and hand-chopping levels of Orientalism, the image presented is of Cairo as a den of excessive wealth and vice, and Egyptians as corrupt and immoral.

This isn’t new.

The Middle East and North Africa (as well as India and China and everywhere else considered “the Orient”) has often been tied to images of wealth and overt splendour, usually hand-in-hand with the Oriental despot and corruption. This view went beyond just fiction and influenced the policies with which we were ruled. 

Cromer, Consul-General of Egypt, wrote books called Modern Egypt. He had this to say about us:

“The mind of the Oriental, on the other hand, like his picturesque streets, is eminently wanting in symmetry. His reasoning is of the most slipshod description. . . . They are often incapable of drawing the most obvious conclusions from any simple premises of which they may admit the truth.”

In his opinion, our inability to follow logical reason led to us being inherently untruthful and, therefore, immoral. Similarly, British statesman Balfour was of the belief that:

 “Lord Cromer’s services during the past quarter of a century have raised Egypt from the lowest pitch of social and economic degradation until it now stands among Oriental nations, I believe, absolutely alone in its prosperity, financial and moral.”

Egypt was under British colonial rule from 1882 - 1952.

You can see, I hope, why a storyline focused on an Egyptian family’s corruption in an Egypt characterised almost entirely by its casinos and one lavish mansion was very uncomfortable. The fact Azu was one of the people trying to explain morality to Hamid keeps it from sliding into a clear East vs West dichotomy, but the fact remains this is a British show featuring British players and this is the story they chose to tell. 

The rest was just salt in the wound, really. 

I expect mispronounced names and pyramids and jokes about camels in most media, but rarely do the makers of said media then go on to pat themselves on the back for doing their “due diligence” on a metacast about sensitivity.

I see weird naming conventions and mispronounced names and “basically Vegas” and “crocodile steak” and “camel’s milk froyo” and I do not see due diligence.  

I see a setting that barely looked past Cleopatra and I do not see due diligence.

I see a storyline that shows only excess and immorality and corruption and I do not see due diligence.

I see a disregard for me and mine, and I do not appreciate it. 

Literature I’ve referred to in writing this criticism:

Orientalism (1978), by Edward W. Said

Orientalism in the Victorian Era (2017), a paper by Valerie Kennedy

Orientalism in American Cinema: Providing an Historical and Geographical Context for PostColonial Theory (2010), a thesis by Samuel Scurry 

Popular Culture, Orientalism, and Edward Said (2012), an article by Robert Irwin

[strawberryamanita]

Sorry, started ranting about live-action adaptations and corporate dilution of artistry, Can't Help Being A Capricorn or whatever

Discourse is allowed, just don't add something like "wow OP/prev you're a fucking reprobate I hope something happens to you that compromises your health" thanks ✌️😘

I'm also not tagging this, so if it breaches containment it's not my fault lmao

If I could be so bold.

I think the reason there's just so nauseatingly many live-action adaptations out right now, and over the past 12 years, is because there were quite a few fan-casts made over the years, whether by one person or a small group brainstorming together. Like if you search "[series] fan cast"***, there's a very good chance you'll find people still having fun with the idea of matching a celebrity up to their cartoon lookalikes, even today. Not corporations trying to drum engagement, not stark and barren listicle websites, but individual human beings who haven't been paid to say what they're saying or do what they're doing. Even after we've seen just how little Hollywood actually does with the concept 95% of the time, people are having fun with hypotheticals and being creative without restraints.

***The exception is live-action adaptations that have been officially made. If you look for things that have not been tainted adapted yet, it's like looking into a portal to a time before all This Shit started happening.

I think the main issue is, nobody who's making those fan-castings is imagining, like, a full-on movie to go with it. It's more like, who would look cute cosplaying as that character. The extent of the idea is a PhotoShop job, and that's it.

Not whatever vortex of billion-dollar soullessness we've been tossed around in for the past decade.

The Nihilist part of me wants to say: "This kind of open discussion online is gonna keep convincing Hollywood that these ideas are guaranteed to birth successful films, so we should just stop having these convos publically" -- but that's an incredibly stupid thought. I'm not gonna try and convince people that creating is something to be ashamed of and hidden away; in this Capitalist Hellworld, where artistry is minimized to keep profits high, commercial-free creativity often feels like our last stand.

I don't really have a solution at this time, myself. Nor do I think I'm responsible for providing one -- the majority of people I've tried to make a big artistic project with can tell you I'm not the most experienced nor the most confident director. But I do know that this is what the culture of media has been since the early 2010s, and all I aim to do with this rant is bring that fact to the forefront.

In the 80s and 90s (and some of the 00s), companies had no problem churning out fun visuals and engaging soundtracks and worldbuilding that took honest-to-God effort by the dozen. I mean we have nostalgia over commercials from those eras, and it wasn't just because we're susceptible to consumerism; if that were the case, we wouldn't roll our eyes and groan whenever we hear the Unholy Trio of a ukulele, glockenspiel and someone whistling over whatever fucking hunk of plastic they're trying to shove in our faces now.

The 00s had a more laid-back vibe to it, particularly with videogame commercials. This was the Era of Grimdark and goths and embracing darkness because it felt more real than anything else, or whatever the fuck I was writing about whilst crying over MCR songs. But even so, a good chunk of 00s media had effort put into it. Yes, more than half of it was horribly problematic and exploitative; I'm not telling you it was good, I'm telling you there was effort. Even the shit with deadpan narration and cheap mascot costumes and out-of-place toilet humor had some sort of creative writing team, had some sort of vision, had some sort of direction.

Then the Internet started ramping up in quality and bandwidth, and people actually could speak loud enough that companies would hear them. To anyone who's too young to remember a world before the Internet being pushed into every corner of everyday life: it wasn’t this way 15+ years ago. Media slowly became more collaborative over the era of AOL and MySpace, because consumer feedback became easier and easier to access. And then with the advent of YouTube in 2006 -- which, as shitty as it is now, was revolutionary at the time, being a place where you could publish videos without needing to audition for anyone -- access to free ideas had very suddenly become exponentially faster. More and more Internet stars were popping up on TV (think "Web Soup" and "Tosh.0"), and then Google bought YouTube and decided to monetize it and now everyone's a rockstar and Andy Warhol's laughing at us from beyond the grave.

Fuck off, Andy.

...Now, I know it feels like I took a million detours -- and I agree that it does, because driving around in my brain feels like zig-zagging between five lanes at once -- but this all came from my theory that the ideas for media are in the hands of unpaid creators. We went from production teams being creative as Hell in the 80s and 90s, to an intentional cynicism in the 00s, to a fizzling-out of ideas and corporations holding their hands out for scraps of ideas from the consumers in the 2010s.

Money isn't trickle-down, but culture sure as shit is trickle-up.

Again, I don't have any ideas on how to fix this. Capitalism breeds a culture that allows exploitation of every fundamental part of human existence, and it knows how to adapt. With every new slew of ideas I have on how to combat it, it worms its way through anyhow. It's like fighting a hydra, and it gives me agita if I think about it for too long.

I don't know.

I remember a time when adaptations were fun to think about, but they almost never came from the minds of people looking to profit off nostalgia. They came from impassioned, vision-driven fans who wanted to try retelling their favorite stories through a different lens... and I think that's a beautiful thing. All fanart is -- fanmade drawings, fanmade covers of songs, fanmade films, cosplay, and fan-casts.

I don't really know how to end this rant neatly. Just... next time you're on your way to watch the latest diluted, regurgitated corporate shlock that's trying to profit off your nostalgia, just remember that there's probably some unpaid, good-natured rando out there that took your favorite media to new heights without any executive meddling. Maybe save a buck or two from not buying a ticket.

Or just watch the original story again, since everyone seems to have forgotten what a re-release is.

I'm taking a nap. Thanks for sticking it out, if you made it this far into whatever the Hell this is.

[goldtracing]

Part IX – England: The Victorian Era (1830 – 1901)

So now we come to the instalment of the series that I’ve been looking forward to a lot – the Victorian era. Buckle up and enjoy.

England:  

First of all, I’ll be topping this off with the infamous Vatermörder. It was a high, white collar, very fashionable in the early Victorian period that was starched and tightly woven to the point that it was very stiff. The translation of the name is “Father Murderer” and it does it justice – imagine dear old Arthur getting to intoxicated at a ball or at a pub and suffocating on his own collar just because he couldn’t hold his head straight. All the more the shocker when he would have returned from the dead after motionlessly lying there for a few minutes. Thankfully, this clothing article eventually went out of fashion.

Another development was the mandatory wearing of long trousers. This was because men’s calves were sexualised, and public decency commanded they be hidden. Breeches were only allowed at costume balls and while horse riding. Knickerbockers in combination with long socks were meant for outdoor sports. Not the best thing for Arthur Kirkland, the traveling imperialist, who would have spent a lot of time in warmer countries. Although, granted – in the latter part of the 19th century the army allowed soldiers to wear shorts. This also became a trend amongst explorers.

Trousers themselves came in various designs – from plain black to colourfully striped or checked. Black was reserved for evening wear, while the other patterns and colours were meant for day wear. Now folks, try to imagine England in blue-yellow checked trousers.

This was also the era from whence all those beautiful waistcoats come from. They were often made from the same material women’s dresses were – silk, satin, velvet,… – and in some cases matched them in opulence. Since this was the only article of men’s wear where relative artistic freedom was allowed in terms of style, many seized the opportunity.

And naturally, any text on Victorian men’s fashion would be incomplete without the coats. Coats were a whole science of themselves and underwent many changes over the course of the century. In the first few decades of the period frock coats were all the rage – single as well as double-breasted – before they lost popularity in the 1850s. It also had a pinched waist in the way of showing off the male physique while not being scandalous.

Tail coats came into fashion in the 1840s, but were reduced strictly to evening wear by the 1860s – black, as the trousers. In the stead of the frock and tail coat, morning coats and jackets appeared on the stage as formal wear. These were a step closer to the suit jackets and smokings of the modern day, both becoming fashionable in the 1890s.

Hats were also an essential part of a gentlemen’s outfit, with top hats being the most common. Bowlers were invented in the 1860s, quickly becoming very popular due to being more robust and smaller than the top hat. However, I see Arthur sticking to top-hats, since he would have been convinced that they gave him a more aristocratic appearance than the bowler.

Another important piece of clothing would be gloves. Men and women back then wore them daily if they had the money, with dark gloves being day time gloves and white gloves being a uniform part of evening wear. Of course, these weren’t worn indoors except for a ball or a public gathering.

Boots were common, usually going right up to the knees in either a Hessian or Wellington cut. Besides that, it is from this time that we have all the fancy shoes that are part of the standard suit now – such as Oxfords.

They were also a number of other fashion inventions that originated from this era. Starting with the corset – I’m convinced that England would have at least temporarily worn one in order to appear more slim and thus athletic. Also ties, suspenders and cuffs. Pyjamas were also invented in this time, in the 1890s to be exact.

 Part I – On the fashion attitudes of England and America

Part II – England: The early years (950 – 1400)

Part III - America: The early years (1600 - 1700)

Part IV - England - The Tudors (1400 - 1600)

Part V – America: Independence (1700 – 1800)

Part VI – England: The Stuarts (1600 – 1700)

Part VII – England: The Georgian Era (1700 – 1830)

Part VIII – America: The Civil War & The Gilded Age (1800 – 1900)

Part IX – England: The Victorian Era (1830 – 1901)

Part X – England & America – Edwardian Era to Roaring 20s (1900 – 1929)

Part XI – England & America – Great Depression to post-WWII (1930 – 1949)

Part XII – England & America: Cold War Part I (1950 – 60)

[vvanite]

Art Deco and TAZ Graduation

- Episode 30 "Take your Firbolg to Work Day

I know Travis probably made his choice to have the H.O.G. headquarters be designed with Art Deco for aesthetic purposes and didn't think of its function to the world of Nua BUT his choice is a really great accidental component that adds onto the world building in Nua and to one of the core problems that Graduation addresses involving the systemic nature of Nua. In this essay, I-

(And then I proceed to actually write the essay hidden below. FAIR WARNING: This is extremely long. If you want to learn about Modern Art History and how it ties into Graduation, this is your lucky day.)

This analysis/essay is going to be meta in terms of using evidence from real world events but it is needed to explain the history behind Art Deco and help us relate to the themes of Graduation. I think it’s clear to see how the systems and people in power in Graduation are influenced from the way our governments are now so I don’t think these connections are distant, rather closer together than we think.

Also, before we continue, I want to direct you to this lovely post made by a dear user and friend, Michelle/ fitzroythecreator, LINK HERE

She explains what she believes to be a core theme of graduation that I agree with and have integrated into this essay. Check it out <3

Before I can explain how Art Deco is tied into Graduation's core theme, I need to lay out definitions and context to art movements in the early 20th century. Along the way, I will make connections to the world of Nua and how real-life events in the early 20th century actually can relate to Graduation and its worldbuilding.

Let’s address what is Art Deco. Art Deco started as an art and architecture movement during the early 20th century (1900s). Most people are familiar with its aesthetics of geometric designs and influence of industrialization because of the roaring 20s era and many media influenced by it. Do you wonder why it was popularized in the US? It’s because during the great depression in the US, public buildings, more importantly federal government buildings, were commissioned to have this aesthetic thus it would have more publicity and access to the public. The H.O.G. headquarters could easily be compared to this event because it shares similar attributes of being a public government building.

With this information, it would be really interesting to imagine the timing of Graduation being set around the early 20th century. Art Deco gives us a time period to compare what kind of social events Nua could have faced similar to the real world. The modern period of the 1850s-1950s was a time when people were disinterested and scared of the changes that industrialism made in their daily lives. People were frustrated with the changes made in their lives and sought out ways to cope with the changes through escapism. In Graduation, I would argue that we see this skepticism and wariness in the characters about the changes Nua’s Socioeconomic systems made in their lives and society in general. A good example would be the student NPCs and their insistence that their hero and villain titles are just labels since they have been stripped from their original meanings. They still somewhat criticize the structure while upholding it. As the campaign progresses, we meet various characters who are very critical to Nua’s current orderly system such as Order and Gordie. In fact, despite their roles in society being vastly different, they both share the same opinions that the system is unjust as it hurts people thus there needs to be a push for change. I am not trying to label the time of Graduation to be around the 1900s, rather whatever year Graduation happens is in parallel to the events of the 1900s.

When I first heard Travis say, Art Deco, I was interested but disappointed it wasn’t Art Nouveau. My original thinking was because of Art Nouveau’s elitism of making the architecture more artistic and complex that only educated rich people can understand and less functional for the average citizen. A lot of the art displays during the art movement were held in house museums that were limited to rich eyes. I thought this reasoning made sense in terms of the H.O.G. headquarters being this elite building common people can’t comprehend. However, with continuous thought, it clicked. Art Deco fits so well.

Art Deco was meant to be a direct response to Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts movement. (And many more but for the sake of simplicity, sticking to these two major ones) Both movements share similarities of the desire to make total works of art.

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For art Nouveau in architecture, that is more on its aesthetics of stylized curving forms, thus it creates uniqueness with the architecture. For the Arts and Crafts movement in Europe, they focused on the importance of the craftsmanship and quality. The thing about the movement is that it’s heavily influenced by socialist values and the distaste for industrialism. Both art movements were diverse in style and locations globally. Because both took place internationally, there was no determined manifesto or structures for artists to adhere to. Another thing is both movements had lots of ornamentation which takes great skill and time to put into the works. By doing this, it would make the works more unique aspects to its character, however more time consuming and difficult to replicate.

Art Deco takes response to this because critics felt like these movements were outdated for the growing industrialism happening during the early 20th century. Art Deco focuses on sleek geometric design meant to be reproduced easily thanks to industries and have more emphasis on its function rather than aesthetics. It’s meant to be functional to accommodate for the new technologies of the 20th century.

So, let’s recap, in the late 19th century, two movements, focused on the style which had no concrete structures to adhere to and had the goal to make total works of art that is reliant on itself, are then replaced by Art Deco, a movement focused on its aesthetic to be mass produced easily and have a stronger focus on the form of the architecture to serve its functions. Does Art Deco sound similar to a number of Socioeconomic systems placed in Nua?

One of the key ideals of Art Deco is Functionalism. Art Deco is one of the many architectural movements in the early 20th century that decided to focus on function rather than aesthetics. What is functionalism? It is the idea that everything works as an integrated whole and that all the different components of a larger system are designed to work together. It is orderly. Architecture in the early 20th century was designed to suit the needs of the space. For example, each element of an office buildings would be designed and organized to suit that place. This ideal is more emphasized after the Great Depression in America where architects shifted their focus on the Streamline Moderne, where they aimed to make structures practical to the demands of real life and remove the emotional aspects of expressionist art.

Travis’s little choice to pick Art Deco is tied to a core theme of Graduation of dismantling the standards and structures set in Nua. It’s so brilliant yet unintentional. I know Travis hasn’t read up on modern art history. I hope by reading through, you can spot Art Deco’s need for creating limitation to focus on the functions and how it benefits the whole system. It doesn’t allow for the emotional aspects that Art Nouveau and the Art and Crafts movements held. Nua’s system follow the same thing. Everyone has a function in the socioeconomic system that has limitations meant to exploit the work labor and functions of the individual. The system leaves no room for indivduals to have growth to create real change. That’s not a flaw of the system. The system is literally designed to be that way with its many rules and standards. It's impossible to break away from it without being punished by the system itself. You need to function within its rules and have practical skills to contribute to the system. Your independent nature is stripped away. By having Art Deco be a core aesthetic design for the H.O.G. Headquarters, Art Deco ITSELF is just another element in the architecture meant to serve its function of upholding the ideology of order that H.O.G. and the world of Nua has. This orderly system has replaced the wild world that Higglemas in episode 12 remembers.

“I remember... the world when it was wild. Not sophisticated and ordered and... bureaucratic, like it is now.”