#context : ww2

[hesbuckcompton-baby]

just because i'm super curious

if you answer this please consider reblogging, I'm really intrigued so it'd be great if this could reach as many people as possible

(and if you answered no - what is your favourite?)

[rockstarvenus]

Found this old convo between me and my friend😭

[poppy5991]

I’m so curious about the international geopolitics in MHA. Is this happening in the background of the war?

[queenlucythevaliant]

Also for the record, the whole White Witch-enchanted food thing still would have worked regardless of when the story was set. Kids like sweets, especially magic ones that symbolize temptation. The WW2 sugar rationing is not the pivotal element here

[dionysus-complex]

handshake meme of my mom and me both having academic interests in historical periods that tend to be co-opted by far-right military buff types but both of us are more interested in the social/cultural history of these periods and dynamics of propaganda and how the art and literature produced during and immediately after them grappled with legacies of violence and trauma

[fumojuno]

no context

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Things I was never taught in [U.S. high school & college] History Class

(Especially since that history painted the U.S. and the Allied Forces as the Heroes and Saviors of WW2, rather than backhanded co-conspirators)

[From a Wikipedia article link provided in this post]

The Haavara Agreement (Hebrew: הֶסְכֵּם הַעֲבָרָה‎ Translit.: heskem haavara Translated: "transfer agreement") was an agreement between Nazi Germany and Zionist German Jews signed on 25 August 1933. [...] The agreement enabled Jews fleeing persecution under the new Nazi regime to transfer some portion of their assets to British Mandatory Palestine.[2] Emigrants sold their assets in Germany to pay for essential goods (manufactured in Germany) to be shipped to Mandatory Palestine.[3][4]

"Church Lady" Voice: How Convenient!

Seriously, click through and read up on the history of Mandatory Palestine, too, while you're at it (or not, if you just can't stomach any more British and French Colonial politics, right now).

[general-sleepy]

Finally watching Overlord with AD. Already noticed an interesting choice of wording, with the narrator using "Nazis" and "Nazi soldiers" instead of "German soldiers." You could argue it's less technically accurate, but serves a purpose, and it's a reasonable decision in the context of the story. Audio description is cool.

Edit: They use a combination of "Nazis," "Nazi soldiers," "Germans," and "German soldiers." The choice is still significant.

[ask-the-usa-manor]

Did any of you dress up in drag during World War Two?

“Wh—?” Florida chuckled, carefree, “Oh, no, soldier shows weren’t really our thing—”

He immediately dragged the Anon closer and lowered his voice.

“Who do you work for?” He interrogated quietly, “I thought we lost that photo album years ago—”

“We?” California, who was walking by, paused and looked up from her phone, “Who’s we? What are you—?”

“…I’ve said too much.”

With that, an expressionless Florida turned and walked away.

California stared after him for awhile, then looked to the others for an explanation.

“…What the hell did I miss?”

“Bah,” Louisiana waved his hand, “Ignore him. He’s just pissed that I wore it better.”

“What?”

“What?”

[spark-circuit]

"this well-mannered girl [x] is interested in the resident bad boy [y] at school-"

*bangs head against wall*

"it's [x]'s first summer vacation and she sees that both the kind boy [y] and the bad boy [z] are looking at her differently-"

*bangs head against wall again*

"this girl and this boy are making each other jealous for each other by cheating on them with other people-"

*BANGS HEAD AGAINST WALL REPEATEDLY*

[lanayrutower]

now. why would you make him say that.

[partrin]

oh no, another writing idea: i've read so many fics about rin and haru in australia, rin and haru in japan (for obvious reasons), rin and haru in america, and other non-asian countries, but i've never read a fic about them being based in a southeast asian country (but to be fair, i've obviously not read all the fics there are available under their tag so i wouldn't know for sure).

today, i was thinking about the local sports scene—primarily football (as in soccer), because 1. when i think of sports, my favourite one is football. i enjoy football, used to even play it regularly, but i mainly watch the english premier league, and on occasion the la liga, and 2. i was wondering, "why is albirex niigata, an originally japanese team, playing in the singapore (where i'm from) premier league?"

so i found out that albirex niigata singapore fc is the satellite team for the original albirex niigata of japan, and even so, the team is made up of all (but one) japanese players.

and then i thought:

what if, in some alternate universe, rin is a football player on albirex niigata singapore fc, a player on loan, and haru is an exchange student studying in a local arts academy (idk, either the NAFA/nanyang academy of fine arts or la salle college of the arts or SOTA/school of the arts)?

and what if, one day, haru is dragged to a football match by his classmates who thought it would be a splended idea since it's the premier league finals and albirex niigata, a club that has been dominating the table, is playing, and haru, you're literally japanese—you should support your fellow countrymen even if you're in singapore right now? and haru (begrudgingly) relents, so here he is, in a stadium full of people, munching on shrimp chips and witnessing a sport he has little care for.

rin is a bench warmer. and after the finals are over, haru bumps into him in the washroom. he recognises him from the match because of his vibrant, carmine hair, even though rin's barely had any play time, and he feels obligated to congratulate him if only for the fact that he wants rin to know that he, too, is a japanese man in a foreign country. he wants to connect, desperately, to some who reminds him of home. but there's only one problem:

haru is mute.

so he resorts to fishing out a notepad he always carries along with him in case of occurrences such as these (because he can't assume that he knows japanese sign language) and quickly scribbles out a congratulations—in hiragana, because he wants rin to pick up on the fact that they're both from japan. at first, rin thinks he's merely an excitable fan who's showing off the fact that he's learnt japanese to a player of his favourite club, but no, haru quickly clarifies in messy characters, and they fall into a natural conversation.

one conversation turns into many, face-to-face and text, conversations and eventually meetings. haru, despite being somewhat of a technophobe, burries his dislike for technology and abandons the notebook in favour of typing out his responses whenever they converse. (rin asks him to tear out the pages where he'd first scribbled in hiragana to him so he can keep it, for memories' sake). he finds that he likes rin's company, and finds his voice beautiful—and after several visits to rin's trainings and official matches, he starts to feel sad because the cheering at his matches are a loud cacophony of voices, and he knows his will never be a part of it. he falls further into despair when he finds that having rin read off a screen would pale in comparison to him actually being able to speak his mind, emotively, expressively. he wants, so badly, for rin to be able to hear him speak—to hear rin's melodious, sing-song voice, or his child-like laughter in response to something haru says.

and so he makes a decision.

and he isn't sure if rin would approve of it.

[digitalcactusblog]

oh man finally gotten to bed after packing hell so IT'S TIME FOR OPAL

opal. is my most MOST dnd pc. by a massive margin. my god. i love them to bits, but they are so much in every possible direction at all times

to summarize them in one quick phrase, you can think of opal as a barbie sephiroth powerpuff girl winter soldier. none of these words belong in one phrase together, yet we've gotten it there anyway!!!!

under the cut bc i expect this to get quite long 😂

god, where do i even start with opal. imagine the platonic ideal of a manic pixie dream girl, add in a touch of airheadedness, then give the entire creation the attention span of a magpie on crack.

that's what opal is like.

opal is also the clone of the princess of the enemy country to the country the party is currently traveling through.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!!!

opal is a top secret government project created as a gift to the royals of that country, a tribute to wizard hubris, and a proof of concept for a devastating military weapon that will win this country the war.

because opal isn't just a clone of the princess (her name is vasya). opal is a marble statue of the princess, carved into shape, then engraved with the magical principles and equations to bring that statue to life. opal wasn't just made to be a genetic clone of vasya. opal was made to be vasya. a complete clone, down to the skills and memories of the original vasya.

imagine, if you will, an army. there are people in it. and people die. people have families they'll never return to, loved ones who'll miss them, and, quite frankly, they're pretty freaking expensive to keep as functional soldiers!

now, i must copy paste the description block for the spell True Polymorph.

"Choose one creature with at least 1 hit point or nonmagical object that you can see within range. You transform the creature into a different creature, the creature into an object, or the object into a creature (the object must be neither worn nor carried by another creature). The transformation lasts for the duration, or until the target drops to 0 hit points or dies. If you concentrate on this spell for the full duration, the transformation becomes permanent."

imagine, if you will. a quick, easy, and cheap way to mass produce True Polymorph, without the need for a high leveled wizard to cast a level 9 spell every time. all you need are a handful of pebbles, and boom, you have sentient, sapient, competent soldiers.

this is what opal was a proof of concept for.

SO, to summarize so far:

peppy, sunny attitude! that's the barbie part

devastating military superweapon person: sephiroth

entirely artificial being, yet extremely cheerful about it: powerpuff girl

devastating SECRET military superweapon. is also from a russian empire-inspired fantasy country: winter soldier

also we named opal's creator after rasputin. yeah, that rasputin. yeah, like ra ra, russia's greatest love machine? yeah, we thought it'd be funny. her name is grigori and she has a lot of problems (opal is the cause of most of them 😊)

anyways, so opal gets created, and is, for all intents and purposes, a carbon copy of vasya. but as a prototype for this weapon, there are still some kinks to work out, one of being that, to maintain the same memories and whatnot as vasya, they need to essentially get regular software updates. but otherwise, perfect vasya clone!

except grigori starts noticing little discrepancies. little anomalies. the clone isn't a perfect vasya clone. the clone is developing a nascent personality—a nascent personality that keeps getting overwritten with every download.

the clone isn't a hollow clone.

the clone is alive.

"my god," grigori says, horrified, "what have i done? i have created life; not in the mundane, mortal way. i once posited myself on par with the gods, and now i have created life, just like they do.

"...i am so fucked."

and so, with that religious and moral crisis in her pocket, grigori decides to steal the clone and scram.

it's time to be fugitives!!!!!

grigori is a genius, if, at this point, a genius with extreme anxiety. and so, grigori has several contingencies ready, on the off chance she needs to bail. the one she goes with now is a classic wizard tower, hidden from prying eyes by magic and a beautiful grotto where no one goes. think tangled, the tower in the grotto that rapunzel lived for most of her life

and during this entire fugitive road trip, without regular downloads from the og vasya herself, the clone's vasya memories start to fade, but their new mannerisms start to stick. and now we have opal, who could not be more different from vasya in demeanour if they fuckin tried

also now, after much work on grigori's part, opal has been true polymorphed (even more) to look like someone entirely different! vasya is a magenta-y purple-y tiefling with tall horns, whereas opal is now a lanky purple drow around the height of vasya's horns. they got to customize their Look heavily (perks of having a high level wizard who can cast ninth level spells regularly).

oh also, chronologically, opal is only 6 years old 😊 when they were 'born,' they were created as the then-teenaged vasya, and while the memories of being vasya has mostly faded (not everything), the rough mental age and whatnot remained the same, so technically opal is like 22? but chronologically 6, so you bet your ass i'm so ready for the day i get to drop that bombshell 😂

OH YEAH and most recently, much to grigori's distress, opal has broken out of the secret wizard tower to go explore the world. it'll be fine grigori i'll be so careful!!!!!!!!!!

(they were not, in fact, careful)

mechanics-wise, opal is an echo knight, and while i'm not yet privy to all the deets (there are discoveries to discover and i can't wait :3) their echoes are like, something something potential versions of opal? mechanically, this just means that every time i summon an echo, i roll on a random table to see what form the echo takes, with some dnd species having higher probabilities to show up. and yes, if i roll tiefling, i then roll a d4 to see if vasya herself shows up. EXTREMELY NERVEWRACKING AND WONDERFUL!!!

also the first time i described how opal looked to the entire party, and that they were wearing a long, black coat with silver buckles all up the front, everyone was like "..............hey olive? is this sephiroth?"

and that was the first time i realized that opal dresses like pirate sephiroth. they even have a scarlet macaw familiar. shoulda named it genesis, methinks. (her name is actually ariadnoula)

GOD WHAT ELSE THERE'S ALREADY SO MUCH

opal is so freaking much i love them. last session they gave the other pc (vae) a minor religious crisis by asking too many questions about the logistics behind death rites. they tried to ambush-slam a flower crown on vae's head and ate shit when he dodged. they impulse-held a woman's hands as she went nuclear and died because they didn't want her to die alone and afraid. one of their life dreams is to swing on a chandelier.

oh also opal may have just started ww2. maybe.

[paunchsalazar]

Oppenheimer made me laugh….

[unnecessarycraziness]

Victory Belles just dropped all these fucking bombs in the space of like 2 minutes… I guess Lugin wasn’t kidding when he said he’d get us a bomber huh

[jacquelinemerritt]

On my Realist Tendency

Originally posted March 4th, 2015

My Film Criticism professor was certainly correct in his suggestion that I have come around to the Realist perspective, and seeing it as valid. And in fact, while I do not denounce Formalism, I have certainly moved away from it, but the reasons for this shift have less to do with a change in perspective on these paradigms of filmmaking, and more to do with a realization of where my natural paradigm lies.

See, I have written a feature film that squarely fits into Zavattini’s perspective on Realism, and I wrote this before I knew what Realism and Formalism were. It’s a feature film about a man suffering from depression who creates a bucket list of all the things he wants to do before he kills himself (which I am working on producing this summer), and its goal was to be a realistic depiction of depression, and what it can do to a person (while also partially serving as a “how to” guide for someone to begin to work through those issues).

While it is meant to serve as a very realistic depiction, it also delves into the psychological in a manner very similar to Fellini in 8 ½, as there are multiple scenes where the realistic portrayal of events is skewed significantly to fit the perspective of the protagonist (which while technically qualifying as formalism, still fits in the Neorealist paradigm). All of this I wrote into the film before knowing about Neorealism, simply finding it the best way to portray the message that I wanted.

So when I said that I don’t know whether I am more of a Formalist or a Realist, it is because the Formalist paradigm logically makes sense to me as the best way to make film, but when actually attempting to make film, what I end up producing falls significantly more on the Neorealist and Realist paradigm than the Formalist paradigm.

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