#european games

[retrocgads]

UK 1987

[lewanarta]

SKI JUMPING IS BACK

TODAY

FOR FIVE DAYS IN A ROW

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Shiryn Ghermezian

An Israeli team of artistic swimmers won the gold medal on Friday at the 2023 European Games in Oswiecim, Poland, near the site of the former Auschwitz concentration camp.

The 11-person female team took home the top honor in the team free routine combination finals, marking Israel’s first-ever European gold and second European team medal overall, according to the European Games. The team swam to the theme of “Modern Spanish Dance” and became European champions with a score of 248.6083, while their performance was also awarded the full Degree of Difficulty (DD) of 35.0.

Israeli Olympic Association Chairperson Yael Arad, who won Israel’s first Olympic medal in 1992 in judo, noted the symbolism of Israel’s historic gold medal win near the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp, where nearly 1 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.

“There is nothing more symbolic than standing with your head held high and singing [the Israeli national anthem] Hatikvah just 10 minutes from Auschwitz,” said Arad, according to Israel’s Channel 13. She added that the whole team had “tears in our eyes.”

“We promised to carry the memory of our Jewish brethren and that is what we are doing,” she noted.

Germany won the silver with a score of 163.3205 for its “Monster Party – Greetings from the Addams Family” routine and Turkey took home the bronze medal with a score of 135.7999 after swimming to the theme of “The Rhythm.” Only three countries participated in the finals.

While this year’s European Games are officially being held in Krakow, the aquatics competitions took place at the Aquatics Centre in the city of Oswiecim, where the former Nazi concentration camp is located, which is now the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.

“We were very focused before the competition as we knew we had a chance to win this event and that gave us huge motivation,” said Israeli swimmer Shelly Bobritsky following her team’s gold medal win. “We were really determined, felt the energy in the water so I think our swim was quite good. We wanted to catch the judges’ eyes, do our best and we just did that. It was so nice to hear our national anthem played at the end.”

On Sunday, a smaller team of Israeli artistic swimmers won the bronze medal in the team free finals at the 2023 European Games, which is taking place from June 21 to July 2.

[iliketheusual]

so all the French parents literally decided to go all french on their child's name

[freesiahubiga]

thanks to natalia we went from 7th place to 1st. during mixed relay race. this woman!!❤️‍🩹🇵🇱

[doesephs]

using team bonding to rule out potential banksy suspects you are safe, jeremy knox.

[musicallisto]

tumblr communists' reaction to the situation in venezuela, especially those from the US or western europe, is extremely bizarre. OF COURSE the united states is responsible for a good portion of the political turmoil latin america has suffered in the past century (countless coups to set up puppet governments, the somoza dynasty in nicaragua, the chicago boys in chile, etc) and i hate american imperialism as much as you do, but refusing to acknowledge the violent dictatorship and repression that's currently going on in venezuela is a stupid and lowkey infantilizing take... like, you know a leftist man, thrust in any position of power, no matter how "progressive" he may call himself, can (and more often than not WILL) be greedy and corrupt. you know a socialist government can be authoritative and violate human rights. you know this right.

[nidbaesenpai]

back at it again with the viet beam feat. jackpot combo against the king!

[sappho-ilmarinen]

Eastern European games inspired by this post.

[porcelaintoybox23]

Is eastern Europe okay?

Edit: no absolutely the fuck not

[centaurianthropology]

One thing that I think a lot of Disco Elysium meta misses (likely because a lot of it is very clearly written by young Americans writing from an intensely American-centric cultural perspective without even really realizing it) is that one of the singular and central themes of the game is massive-scale generational trauma in a home that is economically collapsing as its resources and people are being drained by an occupation.  People have noted that no one tries to help Harry, despite the fact his mental illness is incredibly obvious to everyone around him.  He tells Kim that he completely lost his memory, and Kim politely asks him to focus on the work.  He tells Gottlieb that he had a heart attack, and Gottlieb tells him that if he’s still alive it couldn’t have been that bad.  That he’ll drop dead sooner or later, but then so does everyone.

And that’s the most important thing: so does everyone.  Look at Martinaise.  Look at the world in which Harry lives.  It is not our own, but it is adjacent to ours.  More specifically, it is clearly adjacent to the states of the Eastern Bloc: overtaken and occupied by a faraway government that clearly doesn’t care about Revachol or its people.  And that is obvious in every tired face, every defeated citizen, everyone trying to eke out a little happiness or meaning in spite of the overwhelming trauma and damage around them.  The buildings are still half-destroyed.  The bullet holes are still in the walls.  The revolution was decades before, but it still feels to the people there like a fresh wound.  The number of men of Harry’s generation who are not alcoholic or otherwise deeply fucked up are very few.  Some, like Kim, hide it better, but the deeper you dig into his history, the more you realize how damaged Kim is.  He’s more than a little trigger happy, and hates that about himself, but he is a product of his environment: Kim’s entire life is seeing people he cared about shot and killed, so his instinct now is to shoot first himself, to protect those few people left who still matter to him.

Harry is not unique in his trauma.  He is a distillation of an entire culture of people who tried to rise up and make something beautiful, and were instead routed and occupied.  He is trapped between the occupation and the people on the ground, along with all the rest of the RCM.  Their authority comes from the occupying government, but it is implied that they were formed out of the remnants of the citizens militia which sprung up from Revachol itself as a way to try to mitigate some of the horrors being committed on its streets.  The Moralintern sure as hell wasn’t going to get their hands dirty, so they happily conscripted (and therefore could better control) this group, who are only recognized in certain places, and whose authority mostly amounts to giving out fines.  The RCM is corrupt, but it is corrupt in the same way its culture is.  Bribes are considered standard with them, not a moral failing, but a necessity, so long as those bribes are correctly logged as ‘donations’.  It’s how the RCM stays afloat, and the rest of Revachol completely understands that.  Everyone would take a bribe if it meant they kept eating.  Everyone would take a little under-the-table money if it meant keeping a roof over their heads.  The officersof the RCM certainly don’t make enough to see a doctor.  They have an in-house lazarus, and if he can’t fix them they just die.  Mental health care?  What mental health care?  Harry doesn’t get it for the same reason no one else does: it doesn’t really seem to exist.  There are no counselors, no psychologists, no psychiatrists.  How would they even start?  If the world is what is broken, if everyone is suffering a similar catastrophic amount, it makes sense that Harry’s trauma would simply get rolled up with all the rest.  Kim asks him to get on with the job because Harry’s suffering is not remarkable in Revachol.  He is one of an entire generation who have an astronomical number of orphans from the revolution, and so many younger people are left more or less orphans as their parents drink themselves into oblivion like Cuno’s father.  So Harry’s truly unique attribute is embodying all that trauma, having it all inside of him, filling him to bursting.

To really engage with the themes of the game, engaging first and foremost with the reality of Revachol is imperative.  Imposing our own reality onto Revachol, particularly if coming from an American perspective (which tend to have the habit of both viewing the world through an American lens and not realizing they’re doing it because they’ve never experienced a different lens), will always feel shallow to me because of this.

All that is to say, I would love to hear some more explicitly European meta about this game, and especially Eastern European meta.  If anyone can point me to some good, juicy essays from that perspective, I would be grateful!

[retrocgads]

UK 1987

[lewanarta]

Anže + Dawid 🥺

[kevinarthur64]

ДаркСталкерс

[yourfavsasdragondescriptions]

I finished playing through the game Mouthwashing the other day and I couldn't help but turn Anya into a dragon in a medieval setting. She deserves so much better than what she got...

This dragon stands at a staggering twenty feet tall at the shoulder and is about a hundred feet long including the bullwhip-like tail. However, despite its imposing stature and length, this dragon seems to be a rather gentle giant. Most of its scales are a dull slate blue color except for the scales on its head and neck, which are patterned in numerous multicolored stripes that almost seem to shine in the light. Its wings are bat-like, and its wing membranes are patterned with dark red horseshoe-like shapes and golden yellow patterns that are present closer to the edge of the wings. If you squint, you swear the patterns almost say something, but you can never quite figure out what they say… Its horns, which are similar to those of a Manx Loaghtan sheep in appearance, are a deep black color and almost look like they're made of obsidian.

While this dragon has a habit of raiding villages like most other dragons do, it doesn't do it for gold to hoard or food. Instead, it takes great care to not harm anyone and it exclusively targets soft materials like wool, various fabrics, cotton, yarn and even silk. What it does with the materials are unknown, but some theorize that the dragon is constructing a nest with them. This dragon rarely uses its breath weapon as it prefers to flee or attempt to bargain rather than fight (much to the irritation of many a wannabe dragon slayer), but when it does use its breath weapon, it spews a viscous, foul-smelling acidic tar that almost resembles a mixture of blood and vomit. Any poor soul hit by this foul mixture will suffer a brief but agonizing death. Wherever the tar lands, it carves a shallow basin in the land, scorching the earth and killing almost all vegetation in the immediate vicinity. Naught but the hardiest and most unpalatable of vegetation will grow in the immediate vicinity of the acrid mire left behind.

[dykedvonte]

Do you have anything you've been thinking on but just haven't made a post about it yet? Also I'm really enjoying your fic!

I have a few things but it's likely mostly headcanons that I consider somewhat disconnected from my analysis.

Curly's parents had him old, only child, died shortly after he graduated and got the pony express position. It was the last big thing they saw him do which is a reason he stayed for so long.

Doesn't admit how much their death affected him

Jimmy has a largish family. One of the cases of too many kids to keep tract of, parent never really noticed any of them nor their behaviors

Anya lived in a lot of houses growing up, regular supportive family that just struggled to support themselves.

Became a nurse largely to avoid their financial struggles but mostly because she felt too many people weren't being cared for and advocated for in the world properly

Swansea likes high top sneakers most. Likes how snug they fit and how they shield his ankles at work

Curly has a bit of a caffeine problem since he can’t sleep. Can occasionally be found wandering the ship at “night” when he had some too late or just couldn’t sleep.

Daisuke knows a little about a lot of things. Starts conversations with “did you know” a lot but please don’t ask him deeper questions

Curly has known Jimmy longer but has worked with Anya and Swansea longer, met them during his middle years, met Jimmy shortly before college.

Swansea rents a house, Daisuke’s family lives in a big nice apartment, Curly has a condo, Anya live in a small one bedroom apartment and Jimmy has a studio.

Curly's home is very disconcerting. It's too normal to a like uncanny degree.

Anya is ambidextrous but prefers her left.

Anya and Curly are both not native English speakers so occasionally they forget words and bond over the mutual mocking they get from the rest of the crew. Daisuke knows some Japanese but is still learning, never picked it up as a kid

Only Swansea and Daisuke know how to drive, Earth in my mind is very post capitalist so only older people and like the extremely wealthy can afford cars.

It's also like walkable just due to how many businesses are in your face. Probably strict living vs shopping districts

I have more but the way that I headcanon about them is like too long.