#not 50s accurate but neither is the show

[icecappen]

 Ik he was probably the whitest man to ever live but let me pretend EAsian Vox is real for a sec 

(Btw he’s supposed to be Korean American here but I was too lazy to draw the American flag LMAO)

[bobbimorses]

what do you think of matt fraction's hawkeye run? obviously its very highly regarded but i have seen criticisms on how he portrayed clint's character and that some people also had issues with it because all the mcu fans used it as substitue characterisation after avengers 2012 left them with not much and "became insufferable about it." also that other good hawkeye comics were ignored in favour of it.

well idk if i would characterize "became insufferable about it" with regards to reading a comic as it is released bc comics have so much trouble succeeding. but i think what you're getting at with pointing to 2012 is a sort of revisionism that's occurred. and it has! i think many have forgotten, and many more are now unaware (bc time disgustingly marches on for all of us) that the avengers movie, in fact, came out before hawkeye v4 (the fraction & aja run we're discussing) even began.

i would like to gently grab you all by the shoulders when i say this--bc i realize we've reached a point where some of you were literal kindergarteners when this movie came out and don't have the cultural consciousness to know not only was hawkeye not (never!) a household name, but neither were "the avengers" for the most part--but whenever you say "i can't BELIEVE the mcu didn't include/start with [storyline from hawkeye v4. page from hawkeye v4. panel from hawkeye v4. dialogue/"catchphrase" from hawkeye v4. relationship from hawkeye v4. retconned backstory/fluency from hawkeye v4 ]" regarding clint, know that that literally did not exist at the time.

mcu clint showed up wearing all black in 2011. mcu clint in the movie "the avengers" wasn't even wearing purple. mcu clint was actually not even that clinton francis barton. the mcu started off as the ultimates. "i can't believe the mcu didn't make clint like clint barton in this page from 2015." mcu made clint like clint barton from an entirely different line of comics, the ultimates, with an entirely different clint barton, bc the 2010s had just started crawling out of the Grit and Realism and We're All Wearing Black Leather of superhero movies from the 2000s. and practically none of those were comic-accurate. the mcu still isn't by god but a current mcu movie can resemble a specific storyline and have a recognizable costume whereas a lot of superhero movies in the 2000s (not you spider-man and hulk costumes) were like "here is the character, bulleteater foxtrot. he is based on the celebrated indie comic where someone shoots at a lonely boy making friends with a fox in the forest and, after a bullet grazes his face and kills the fox, he avenges his friend by championing the survival of forest critters over encroaching aggressive habitat destruction. in this movie, some hitman in the mob that eats shrapnel-os for breakfast every day gets intel from a woman named foxy and 35% of the scenes are in a seedy club with gratuitous dancing. nobody has the same name as a single character in the series. 80% of our viewers will not know this was based on a comic when it airs at 10pm on showtime. godspeed."

digressing psa over. that wasn't your question at all but we went through that journey just now together.

ANYWAYS i see what you're saying about "substitute characterization." when clint had so little non-mind controlled scenes and characterization available from the mcu at all, you can understand people pulling from the comics for their characterization. as they should! comic book movies have characters from comic books! whooo, comics! it's fair that people were reading the currently releasing comic to supplement their fanworks of this character with a lacking portrayal. and bc of the popularity and acclaim of the series, well that just made it easier. but these elements combined meant past portrayals of clint were kind of overshadowed, bc people were unfamiliar with the clint barton of the past 50 years. why? bc clint barton wasn't a household name! hey, it all ties back! that digression wasn't a digression after all!

well as you all know, the avengers made a billion dollars. people did not know clint barton, but now people do. only they don't know clint barton, they know the name, clint barton. oh cruel household name irony, our journey is not over. and the people reading hawkeye v4, perhaps even their very first foray into comics (or still unsure of how to access comics so they see piecemeal panels of it second-hand), now that they're curious about all this? well they're like "hey, wait a second...where was this clint barton?" so now you can have vocal contingents of fans of popular and acclaimed comic hawkeye v4, like "yo, that's not clint barton!" people would like comics portrayed accurately in movies that are purported to be comic books based. god knows that would be wild. but using hawkeye v4 as all examples means our purple-masked friend is, well, purple-maskless. but them's the breaks.

now back to your actual question. i've actually typed way too much explaining this weird set of circumstances about mcu vs 2012 bc i think it helps explore the second part of your...statement? but as to your actual question, which i think would be more comics-centric than criticisms with mcu fans, i've touched on that a few times before. not to link to other questions to answer your question, but yeah. it's a great comic. there's a reason it did so well. it just so happens that that may have led to historical portrayals of clint being eclipsed with subsequent writers trying to replicate its success haphazardly. no reason for us all to do the same. we love reading the source material don't we folks. for more unnecessarily long tangents about clint barton, feel free to peruse my meta tag. we are all lovers of a certain clint barton on this here planet earth

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

Oh okay, thank you for clarifying! I have seen quite a few polls on tumblr and on ATLA’s youtube page going hard Kataang over Zutara, that’s why I was asking. I think the best example is the one made by @hundredyearavatar here on Tumblr. Someone had a very interesting take in the comments though, saying that when the show aired the kids liked Kataang better, but the teens with online access preferred Zutara. Now, those kids grew up and everyone is on the internet, so this is why Kataang is more popular nowadays. It’s relatively hard to find a poll online where Zutara is far ahead of Kataang, I’ve seen most either at 50/50 or with a clear Kataang preference. If you judge by fan art and fanfics however, yea, there’s way more zutara stuff out there, but again, that tends to happen with non-canon ships. Ships that could have been tend to get more fan attention and stand out for people not familiar with the show, I agree with that, but I’m not sure if you downright were to ask people they’d mostly say Zutara is their favourite over Kataang. Does that make sense?

Polls are not an accurate reading of how an entire fandom feels, it's just impossible to make everyone not only see it, but also vote it (especially in polls that only have Kataang OR Zutara as an option, without "both" or "neither" as that excludes some nuance).

Polls are, at most, a way to tell in which corner of the fandom you found yourself in. If I, an anti-zutara blog, whose posts tend to be seen/shared almost exclusively by people who have some issue with the ship/shippers, were to make a poll asking people if they liked Zutara the winning answer would obviously be " HELL NO!" If a zutara blog, whose posts are seen/shared mostly by zutara fans, asks the exact same question the winning answer will obviously be "HELL YES!"

The official Nickelodeon accounts tend to have pro-canon results because they (mostly) post about canon content. People who wouldn't change that much about ATLA are their target audience, aka the ones voting. You'll find the zutara fandom in spaces like change.org, making petitions to make the ship happen in the Netflix version.

That being said, I don't think think it's fair to dismiss Zutara's popularity in places like AO3 or FF.NET (or especially in pre-internet era fandom) as being a natural consequence of it being "the non-canon option." There are tons of fandoms where the canon pairings are highly popular and have tons of fan works, even if the story shows us all the "main" things that happen in a romance (first meeting, moment they realize/admit their feelings, first kiss, first time, wedding, having kids, etc). Not to mention, Zutara is not the only non-canon ship in Avatar, so it having been THE most popular for over a decade, and still being super popular today, to the point that it is one of the things even people who never watched Avatar know about, cannot simply be explained away with "people gonna write what the show didn't give them."

I also don't think "Kataang kids got internet now" explains why it became more popular/zutara isn't treated as untouchable anymore. The internet wasn't as wide-spread in the mid 2000s but it did exist, and both ships had fans who were kids, teens and adults. I think this change happened because of three things:

1 - People change their minds sometimes, especially if they watch the same stuff over and over through the years.

2 - The zutara fandom got way too smug about being popular and way too bitter about not being canon, to the point of harrassing others over it, and thus people that were previously indifferent to the ship (or actually liked it, but weren't die-hard stans) grew to dislike it. I used to not care for either Kataang or Zutara, but seeing one fandom be mostly reasonable in their arguments in favor of their favorite pairing while the other was super entitled made me look at both differently.

3 - A LOT of the people in the fandom right now weren't fans back when it first aired (some having not even been ALIVE), but had already heard about Zutara: and watched the show expecting it to be an actual romantic possibility that was taken seriously and got lots of screentime, but simply ended up not being canon at the very last second due to executive meddling. Instead they saw Kataang being set up from the start, Maiko being set up since season two, both having big roles in the story... while Zutara had a few fanservice-y moments. They went in expecting a love triangle in which they'd have to decide if "Katara made the right choice" only to discover she never even CONSIDERED dating Zuko - who also never thought of her like that either. It was a pure "THAT'S IT? IT WAS A PURE FANON THING? THAT'S ALL THERE WAS TO IT?" Expectation is the mother of disappointment.

[arc852]

13. Betwixt

Definition: between

Summary: During one of their weekly movie nights, Joel finds a movie about borrowers called The Secret World of Arrietty. They decide to watch it.

G/t: Grian and Joel are normal-sized, Jimmy is a borrower

Word Count: 3169

AO3 Link

I'm gonna be honest about this one guys, I didn't exactly follow the prompt. It kind of got away from me. It's still a good one though! Another installment in the BBBCAU!

Also, I'm sorry if you haven't seen The Secret World of Arrietty. I highly recommend it if you haven't but hopefully this isn't too confusing without having seen the movie.

And fun fact, I actually rewatched the movie while I was writing this to be more accurate with what they were reacting to. Because I did this, this prompt probably took me the longest to write out of all of them. I did have a lot of fun writing it though!

I hope you enjoy!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 “Alright! It’s time for a movie night!” Joel exclaimed, grabbing his laptop off his desk and opening it up to set up their movie. The three of them had just finished having dinner and, since it was a friday night and neither human had any classes for the next two days, it was time for their weekly movie night.

 Jimmy loved it. Not only did he enjoy spending time with Grian and Joel but he also looked forward to watching the actual movies themselves. Living in the walls of the dorms, he had only ever managed to get glances at some of the movies the humans would watch. And with no sound, since most humans would watch them with headphones on. But now, he could watch all the movies and Grian and Joel were more than willing to show him the classics.

 Grian stood up from his chair and started on the popcorn and Jimmy waited patiently on the table for somebody to grab him and bring him over to where they would be watching. Usually it would be Joel, who didn’t take long to set the movie up but it seemed he was taking a bit longer this time. So by the time the popcorn was done and dumped in a bowl, Jimmy was still waiting on the table.

 Grian gave him a confused look and then looked over at Joel. “Have you not picked the movie yet?” He asked as he held the popcorn in one hand and used the other to scoop Jimmy up.

 Joel looked up from his laptop briefly to look at the two. “I have, I’m just trying to find it. Bloomin’ streaming services…” He mumbled the last bit under his breath, still clicking and searching through the movies.

 Grian sat down on his bed and let Jimmy off onto the plush surface. Jimmy gained his balance easily enough and now all they were waiting on was Joel. “What movie is it?” Jimmy asked Joel, looking over to Grian briefly to see if he knew, but the other human just shrugged.

 Joel was quiet for another moment before he suddenly exclaimed, “Ah ha! Found it!” Joel finally looked away from his laptop and addressed Jimmy’s question. “Okay, so the other day I was looking to see what movie we could watch and I came across, well, this.” Joel flipped his laptop around in order to show the screen to Grian and Jimmy. On it was the poster for the movie in question.

 “The Secret World of Arrietty?” Grian read off but as he did so, Jimmy’s breath hitched at what he saw. A girl, only a few inches tall, behind a jar with a human looking down at her.

 “Yep. It’s about, get this…borrowers.” Joel revealed and both Grian and Jimmy’s eyes went wide. Jimmy’s with a bit more panic.

 “What?! B-But how is that possible? Do they know? How are we just hearing about this?” Jimmy asked, panicking at the thought of his people being found out. 

 “Whoa, whoa! Jim, calm down.” Joel tried, setting his laptop down and going to sit on the edge of the bed. “I was worried when I first saw it too, so I did some research. Apparently, this movie is based on a book from the 50s. And it’s regarded as completely fictional.”

 “A book…Oh! I knew the term borrowers felt familiar!” Grian exclaimed, referencing something from back when they first met Jimmy. 

 “So…everyone who knows about these movies and books thinks borrowers are fake?” Jimmy asked, calming down a bit.

 Joel nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I can’t speak for the original author. Knowing what we know now, I wouldn’t be surprised if her book was actually based on a true story. But all the material that came after that and all the people who have read her books think it’s nothing more than fiction. So I think you guys are safe.”

 With that, Jimmy let out a breath and relaxed from his tensed up position. “Oh, okay, that’s good.”

 Grian nodded along. “That makes sense. Besides, if borrowers really were found out, I think we would be seeing it all over the news instead of in the form of a movie from…” He checked the date on the screen. “2010.”

 “Right, right, sorry.” Jimmy said, feeling sheepish at his reaction. He looked down, rubbing the back of his head. “I just, ya know, heard the word borrower coming from a human made thing and panicked.”

 “Which is completely understandable.” Joel said. “I felt much the same when I first saw it. I probably should have announced it in a better way though. That one might be on me.” Joel admitted and Grian snorted.

 “Yeah, you definitely could have done that a lot better.” Grian teased and Jimmy couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. Despite the fact he was still trying to calm down from his initial panic. 

 “Yeah, yeah, it’s my fault.” Joel said with a roll of his eyes, though there was a sense of sincerity in his tone. He really did blame himself for making Jimmy panic like that. “Did you guys still want to watch it? I understand if it might be too much for you, Jim.”

 Jimmy thought about it for a moment. On one hand, watching something about his kind made by humans made him nervous. On the other hand, he was curious to see what kind of stuff they got right and wrong and in how much detail they went into about a borrower’s life. So, despite himself, he nodded. “Yeah, I want to see what these humans came up with.”

 “Got to say, I’m a bit curious too.” Grian admitted and Joel nodded and set up the laptop properly at the edge of the bed. 

 Once that was done, Joel turned off the lights and went around the opposite side of the bed to Grian. He picked Jimmy up so as to not worry about where he was when he settled down, and layed down on the bed. Grian did the same next to him so that both humans were on their stomachs facing the laptop.

 Once they were situated, Joel let Jimmy back onto the bed, the borrower now between the two humans with the best spot to see the screen.

 Jimmy would never admit out loud that this was his favorite spot for other reasons as well. He’d get teased into next week if he revealed he liked being this close to the two of them. It just gave him a sense of safety, being between his two friends, a barrier on either side protecting him from anything that might be dangerous to someone like him.

 It was so cheesy and cringy just in Jimmy’s own head, he could never imagine saying it out loud.

 While Grian and Joel were laying down, Jimmy decided to sit criss-cross instead. The popcorn bowl was placed a little bit behind him, so it wasn’t in his way, and then he was handed a piece of popcorn by Grian as Joel pressed play on the movie.

 Jimmy took a small bite of the food, still nervous for what the movie had in store for him.

 It started out simple enough. The animation was beautiful and Jimmy couldn’t help but be a bit jealous of Arriety’s home. His little nook within the walls of the college dorms were nothing in comparison to the grand home Arriety’s family had made for themselves. Maybe he could have had that too if he hadn’t decided to live in a place like this. But it had been the best option for him by far. 

 The term ‘beans’ got brought up, which, of course, Grian and Joel couldn’t just ignore. “Beans?” Joel asked with a raised brow, looking down at Jimmy.

 Jimmy felt his cheeks heat up. “It’s-I mean, it was an old term used by borrowers to refer to humans.” Jimmy crossed his arms and very pointedly did not look at either human. “I haven’t heard it in ages though and I never used it myself.” He added on, trying to make himself look better.

 “Yeah, but how did you even come up with beans anyway?” Joel asked, still trying to figure it out.

 Jimmy bit his lip. “Well…” He was cut off.

 “Wait. Human beings. Human be-ings. Human…beans.” Grian slowly figured out and then grinned. “Oh my gosh.”

 “Aww, that’s actually kind of adorable.” Joel teased, grinning as well.

 Jimmy felt his face heat up even more and he covered his hands with his face. “Can we please just get back to the movie?”

 The two laughed but they did turn back towards the screen.

 There was some mention about children shortly after. About how dangerous they were, even more so than the adults. Jimmy himself shivered and found himself nodding in agreement despite himself. Grian and Joel noticed but didn’t say anything. 

 A few seconds later, something else was revealed. 

 “I’m sorry, did they say 14?” Joel asked incredulously.

 Jimmy nodded. “Yeah, that’s usually around the time borrowers start to fend for themselves. Although I think it’s gotten earlier and earlier.” Jimmy thought back. “I went off on my own at 12, but that was mostly…because…” Jimmy trailed off as he caught Grian and Joel’s eyes. There was that indescribable emotion again. Jimmy didn’t know what it was, but he didn’t like it. “Nevermind.”

 “Jim-” Joel started but stopped when he saw Grian subtly shake his head. He mouthed ‘not now’ and Joel huffed but didn’t say anything more.

 Back to the movie, Jimmy was suddenly and inexplicably hit with an existential crisis. He tried not to think about other borrowers. But it had been a long time since he had seen any himself. Sometimes, he also wondered how many of his kind were even still out there.

 Grian and Joel pointedly did not say anything.

 The borrowing scene played out, which Jimmy supposed was fairly accurate. Although he couldn’t help but wonder why they would be borrowing when there were still human’s awake in the house. One of the humans could have suddenly opened the drawer they were in. Or walked into the kitchen. It didn’t make sense.

 Meanwhile, Grian and Joel were in a bit of awe. The movie did a great job giving a borrower’s perspective on things. And a little too well. Joel felt a bit dizzy at the height and he didn’t even mind them usually. It was also just incredible, to see how intuitive borrowers could be. Grian made a mental note to ask Jimmy how accurate it really was later on.

 They got to the dollhouse and Jimmy couldn’t help but feel a bit uneasy. Especially when Arrietty’s dad pointed out how they weren’t toys. He couldn’t help but feel, just a little, that the dollhouse had been some sort of…trap or something, for the borrowers.

 He shook his head and continued watching. Arrietty and her dad had left the dollhouse and were now grabbing the tissue paper they needed. And then-

 The human saw them.

 Jimmy couldn’t help but jump and gasp, almost the same as Arrietty did. He couldn’t help it. Those eyes felt like they were pointed right at him. 

 He briefly heard Joel mutter an “oh no” before turning his attention back to see what would happen.

 The boy spoke, and Jimmy couldn’t help but compare his words to when he first met Grian and Joel. It was similar, at least in the beginning. Don’t be scared. We’re not going to hurt you.

 He wasn’t sure how to feel about it.

 When Arrietty left, he let out a sigh of relief. “He didn’t grab her.” Jimmy said to himself, both as a fact and in wonder. Any other human, knowing a borrower was there, would have at least attempted to catch them. At least, that’s what Jimmy believed anyway.

Unbeknownst to him though, Grian and Joel had heard his remark. They sent each other a look, also reminded of their first meeting with Jimmy. Joel was starting to regret putting this movie on.

 “That’s weird.” Jimmy said a few moments later, this time loud enough he was sure Grian and Joel could hear. One of them hummed in response, he couldn’t tell which one. “It’s weird the dad would just brush off what just happened. They should be packing up their things and moving after being seen like that.”

 You didn’t. Grian almost said the words out loud but he stopped himself. He didn’t want to bring it up now. “Oh.” He said instead, a simple response to let Jimmy know he had heard him.

 The movie went on and eventually got to the scene at the window. Jimmy was tense the entire time, a fall from that height would be fatal or a smack from the bird could have done a lot of damage as well. And then, Arrietty was grabbed and everything in the movie slowed down and became quiet.

 Well, grabbed was putting it too strongly. The human more had her cupped in his hand, not restricting her at all really. Which came into play a moment later, when Arrietty was simply able to get away.

 Again, Jimmy thought it was weird. It felt like the movie was downplaying the fear borrowers had towards humans.

 Joel flexed his hand subconsciously, looking down at it and then over at Jimmy. He was always aware of how small Jimmy was in his grasp. But seeing it in a movie…it felt weird.

 “There it is.” Jimmy said as Pod finally revealed they needed to leave. “Took them long enough.”

 They got to the other dollhouse scene, where the humans were discussing it. So not…really a trap then. The humans had good intentions it seemed like. And honestly, the house looked really nice, especially with all the working appliances in it. But it still felt wrong.

 A bit later into the movie, Jimmy felt horrified when the human tried to help by ripping out their old kitchen for the new one. Again, the human had good intentions but…

 Grian and Joel seemed to think the same. 

 “That’s bloomin’ terrifying.” Joel said, and when Jimmy looked over he could tell Joel’s shoulders were tense.

 “How did he think that would be a good idea? Honestly?” Grian said, exasperated and honestly annoyed at the character.

 Jimmy couldn’t help but chuckle a little. It was kind of funny having two humans reacting like that.

 They continued watching and got to the part where Shawn saw Arrietty for the first time. The mood was down and Joel decided to try and lift it. “I can tell you right now Jim, neither of us thought you were beautiful when we first saw you.”

 The sudden quip made Jimmy laugh out loud and Joel smiled in victory. “Hey! I take offense to that, you know. I’m very beautiful.”

 Grian snickered, glad for the short break. “Sure, you keep telling yourself that.” Grian said and then reached over and ruffled Jimmy’s hair.

 “Hey! Stop that!” Jimmy said, but was laughing at the same time, trying to push Grian’s finger away. 

 The scene changed in the movie, bringing their attention back to the screen as Hara discovered the borrower’s home. The mood dampened again. The look on Hara’s face when she saw Homily. It sent more than a shiver down Jimmy’s spine.

 “Okay…I take back what I said before. That is terrifying.” Joel said, wondering if that’s anyway how him and Grian looked…before. He looked over at Grian, who’s eyes remained on the screen, his brow pinched.

 Jimmy could only nod at Joel’s statement.

 Homily was grabbed and Grian’s hand clenched in turn. Jimmy, thankfully, didn’t notice. Too caught up by what was happening on screen.

 The look of fear on the borrower’s face made Grian feel…guilty. Was that how Jimmy felt, way back then? Did he still feel that way? Grian and Joel had made it a habit to just…pick Jimmy up whenever they pleased. Jimmy never said anything about it before. But…was he just too scared to?

 Grian rubbed his head, closing his eyes for a moment. He silently cursed Joel for finding this movie in the first place. It was making him question too many things.

 When Homily was put in a jar, Jimmy could only be thankful that that had never happened to him.

 When Arrietty went to Shawn for help, Joel couldn’t keep in his questions any longer. “What’s it like being held?”

 Jimmy, startled by the question, looked up at Joel with wide eyes. “To be…held?”

 “You know…” Joel suddenly felt a bit self-conscious for asking and was blatantly ignoring Grian’s look. “In a hand. In one of…our…hands.”

 “Oh.” Jimmy couldn’t help but look down at Joel’s hands at the question causing Joel to self-consciously tuck his hands closer to himself. The movie must be getting to them more than Jimmy originally thought.

 He couldn’t really blame them though. It was getting to him too, just a little bit.

 He thought about it for a moment, trying his best to come up with the right thing to say. How to explain it…?

 “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.” Grian chimed in, glaring at Joel from above Jimmy. “You can just ignore--”

 “It feels safe.”

 Grian shut up.

 Jimmy continued, looking down at his own hands. “I guess it didn’t always feel like that. It was constricting before, overwhelming, I felt…well, I felt helpless. I can feel the strength in your hands, I know how much damage they can do.”

 “Jimmy…” Joel started but Jimmy didn’t stop.

 “It’s still overwhelming, not gonna lie. I don’t think that will ever go away. But it’s different now. The…I guess, the uncertainty is gone. I know you two mean well, I know you two would never hurt me. And I feel…protected. So…yeah. It feels safe. I-I guess.” Jimmy added on the last bit, suddenly feeling flustered by what he had just said. 

 Jimmy braced himself for the teasing but was surprised when it didn’t come.

 “O-Oh.” Joel said, his voice a bit watery. “That’s uh…I-I’m glad.”

 Grian didn’t say anything but he was happy to know his earlier thoughts held no substance. Jimmy was fine being picked up and wasn’t afraid of them and Grian blames this movie entirely for making him second guess that.

 Actually, scratch that, he blames Joel.

 They watched the rest of the movie play out. Arrietty and Shawn saved her mom, Hara was seen to look like a crazy person, and Arrietty said one last goodbye to Shawn before leaving.

 The three friends were silent as the credits rolled.

 “Well that was…a lot.” Jimmy broke the silence.

 “You can say that again.” Joel said, letting out a little sigh.

 It was silent for another moment.

 “All in favor of banning Joel from picking any more movies?” Grian asked, raising his hand.

 “Me.” Jimmy said, also raising his hand.

 “Wha-? Hey!”

[paganimagevault]

Sassanid silver plate 7th C. CE. Decorated with a figure seated on a couch in a crescent moon and a figure standing in an archway. Found in Klimova, Russia in 1907. The base of the vessel appears to have runic script scratched into it. This item is sometimes referred to as The ‘Clock of Khosrow’ or The ‘Throne of Khosrow’ Plate. Diameter: 21.6cm.

I'm just going to do a brief summary of what caused Persia to fall to Islam.

The Islamic invasion of Persia began sometime between 628-632 CE. From 541 CE to this time Persia had been exhausted by an almost constant state of war. Most of the fighting was with the Byzantine Empire in the west: The Lazic War (541-562), Byzantine–Sasanian War of 572–591, Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628.

However, there were also wars with the Turks to the north and the east: Perso-Turkic war of 588–589, Perso-Turkic war of 606–608, Perso-Turkic war of 627–629. In this final war the Byzantines and Turks were allies. This alliance took time to come into being but had been sought out by the Turks almost immediately after they destroyed the Hephthalites, indicating they planned to do to the Persians what they had done to the Huns. The medieval historian Movses Kaghankatvatsi described the war of 627-629:

"At the arrival of the all-powerful scourge (universal wrath) confronting us, the invaders [Turks], like billowing waves of the sea, crashed against the walls and demolished them to their foundations. [In Partaw], seeing the terrible danger from the multitude of hideously ugly, vile, broad-faced, without eyelashes, and with long flowing hair like women, which descended upon them, a great terror (trembling) seized the inhabitants. They were even more horrified when they saw the accurate and strong [Khazar] archers, whose arrows rained down upon them like heavy hailstones, and how they [Khazars], like ravenous wolves that had lost all shame, fell upon them and mercilessly slaughtered them on the streets and squares of the city. Their eyes had no mercy for neither the beautiful, nor handsome, nor the young men or women; they did not spare even the unfit, harmless, lame, nor old; they had no pity (compassion, regrets), and their hearts did not shrink at the sight of the babies embracing their murdered mothers; to the contrary, they suckled blood from their breasts like milk."

Ironically, the Sassanid ruler Khosrow I had married a Turkic princess to win an alliance with them so the two could destroy the Huns together in 560 CE at the Battle of Gol-Zarriun. Khosrow I chose his Turkic progeny, Hormizd IV, as ruler over his Persian children. From Iranica Online:

"Hormozd’s character displeased everyone. He antagonized the Zoroastrian clergy, allegedly killing many of them, even the chief mowbed, and alienated the nobility by killing thousands of them (Ṭabari, I, p. 991; tr., V, pp. 297-98; Balʿami, ed. Bahār, pp. 1072-73; Masʿudi, Moruj, ed. Pellat, sec. 632; Šāh-nāma, Moscow, VIII, pp. 319 ff.). In diplomacy he showed inflexibility, even poor judgement. He disrupted the peace negotiations with the Byzantines and made demands (payment of “tribute”) that the Romans could not accept (Menander, frag., 23.9-24-12529). His contemporary, Menander Protector, lamented that “the Romans and the Persians would have made peace, had not Ḵosrow left this life and his son, Hormisdas [Hormizd IV], a truly wicked man, assumed the crown” (tr., pp. 207-9)."

Finally the Sassanid Empire went into a civil war from 628-632 CE where it had become politically decentralized. The Plague of Sheroe also occurred in 627-628 CE, most heavily devastating the populations in the western provinces with some areas experiencing a 50% mortality rate. Afterward, the Arab Muslims flooded into an already ravaged Persia like bacteria infesting an open wound.

[plazmafields]

V's a living legend at the Afterlife, he's got a stylish new mansion, and his head is one consciousness lighter. And he's not handling it well. V knew Johnny had to go or they'd both die, but he wasn't prepared for how empty he'd feel. Emotionally and...physically? Psychologically? The turn around between Jackie dying and Johnny getting wiped was too quick, V hadn't had time to process all of it. Any of it, really. He could say he feels numb, but that's not right. He feels too many emotions all at once, but he can't express anything. "System overload" would be more accurate.

When a room is quiet for too long, V can almost hear Johnny's voice in the back of his head, an indecipherable murmur. When he's alone and hears a voice, he assumes it's Johnny's. He replies accordingly, often to the room's confusion. Sometimes he responds in his head, forgetting he has to move his lips and vocal cords for others to hear what he's thinking.

It's been a long and difficult adjustment, but Kerry understands. He remembers hearing Johnny's snide, critical remarks echo with every strum of a cord. He remembers staring at his guitar from across the room, listening to a repeating memory of Johnny's fingers on the strings. Distinct. Inimitable.

That doesn't mean it hurts any less when V calls him "Johnny" by mistake. After 50 years of trying to escape that Silver shadow that loomed over his life and career, and finally succeeding, it feels like a major step back. Kerry's been patient--something V has profusely thanked him for--but he's snapped more than once.

Kerry wonders if this is how V felt when they first met. He had such a hard time separating the two in his mind at first, despite being able to tell them apart easily. V's a rebel, an anarchist, an edgerunner to the bone, but not in the same way Johnny always was. V had expressed, when they started dating, that he didn't want to play second fiddle to Johnny. If there had been--or still was--anything between Johnny and him, Kerry ought to come clean. V tended to be a little sensitive to comparisons at the time, but since Johnny's removal, he hasn't shown any signs of insecurity.

Insecurity is now Kerry's burden to bare. He knows in the forefront of his mind that each time V uses the wrong name, it's simply an accident. The last person around him day in and day out was Johnny, so it follows that after moving in together, V occasionally uses the name of his previous "housemate." But Kerry's feelings of inferiority hiss and screech on instinct, like a bat brought to the light, each time he hears the late rocker's name. He's never held his tongue before, but he holds it for V. The marc apologizes ad nauseum each time it happens, and Kerry tells him it's alright.

And it is, he thinks. They've each gotten better; Kerry's reactions are less visceral now, and V is getting used to it being Kerry in his peripherals. Neither will ever be completely without Johnny, much to their dismay, but he's less a part of their daily lives now.

Life, as it were. They've adjusted well to living together. Both men are busy frequently; V's thievery is better done under the cover of night, and Kerry's shows run late due to multiple encores. But when they converge at home in the wee hours of the morning, the world stands still for them, giving them a precious moment to bask in what little time they may have left together.

V's still looking for a permanent cure. Kerry worries his lover won't outlive him. What an odd thing to hope for, he realizes, to die long before V. Before he finds his first grey hair; before he begins feeling the weather in his joints; before he starts groaning whenever he stands from the couch.

V's eyes catch on Kerry's from across the living room. He hadn't realized he'd been staring.

"Wha'cha thinkin' about?" V asks, inquisitive hazel eyes adjusting like a camera shutter around void-black pupils.

Kerry smiles as he replies without hesitation, "Thinkin' about how much I love you."

They haven't said it a lot, only when things get really bad. When V wakes up searching for Johnny, when he has nightmares of Jackie bleeding out and not being able to stop it. When Kerry gets another email from his custody lawyer, when he battles with his label to renegotiate ownership of his masters.

V rises from his seat and joins Kerry on the couch, kissing his forehead as he sits. "Everything okay?" He rubs his hand firmly up and down Kerry's thigh.

"Sure," Kerry lays his arm across the back of the couch, coaxing V to lean into him. "Just feel like I don't remind you enough, that's all."

V grins as he scoots closer. "Well feel free to remind me as much as you want." He grabs Kerry's free hand in his, interlocking their fingers and squeezing tightly, whispering as he leans in for a kiss, "I love you too, Ker."

[zeldahime]

Zelda Liveblogs a Lancet Paper

Following this post, I am now going to liveblog reading the Lancet paper cited by the Economist article to predict worldwide fertility to drop by 3/4s of its current position if current demographic trends continue. It is an Open Access article, so the entire thing is open for anyone on the internet to read.

Citation:

GBD 2021 Fertility and Forecasting Collaborators (March 20, 2024). Global fertility in 204 countries and territories, 1950–2021, with forecasts to 2100: a comprehensive demographic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021. The Lancet, 403(10440), 2057-2099. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)00550-6.

I refuse to use Chicago style. This is mostly because I memorized APA and don't want to learn a new one.

First, my background: I am not a demographer; I am not trained as a demographer; I have studied it auxiliarily to my other academic pursuits. I fall in a sort of educated in-between. I am currently a Master's student in library and information sciences, and my undergraduate degree was in political science, both at USAmerican universities. However, the field of economics is also very close to my heart, and I would have double-majored in it if the opportunity and financial costs had not been too high to justify it. During the five years I was a college drop-out, I studied economics independently, reading broadly within the field and taking non-certificate courses online. I've been taking non-certificate courses in economics through correspondence or online since I was about nine. I'm not an expert! I do, however, think I'm a fairly well-informed amateur.

And a note on language. This paper refers to birthing parents as mothers and to the demographic that gives birth interchangeably as female and women. I acknowledge that this is a cissexist patriarchical viewpoint that erases transmen, nonbinary and intersex people, and probably others I'm not thinking of. For consistency between my reflections and the paper and ease of reading, I will do the same. I'm conscious I'm part of the problem here, but don't see a way around it without making my bits harder to understand than they have to be.

With that out of the way, here we go:

Methodology (Summary)

This is where me not being a demographer is an important thing to know. I neither know nor normally care about the statistical methods used to determine demography, just that the demographers aren't retracting papers over it. However, I do know that in general the CCF50 (total cohort fertility before the age of 50) is a neater and more accurate measurement to build projections on than the TFR (total fertility rate by year) and that's the methodology the paper's authors went with. This is good and promising. TFR for known years and CCF50 projections sounds like a solid method. 👍

We additionally produced forecasts for multiple alternative scenarios in each location: the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for education is achieved by 2030; the contraceptive met need SDG is achieved by 2030; pro-natal policies are enacted to create supportive environments for those who give birth; and the previous three scenarios combined.

I'm very hopeful about these forecasts! They'll show a few different hopeful scenarios.

To evaluate the forecasting performance of our model and others, we computed skill values—a metric assessing gain in forecasting accuracy—by comparing predicted versus observed ASFRs from the past 15 years (2007–21). A positive skill metric indicates that the model being evaluated performs better than the baseline model (here, a simplified model holding 2007 values constant in the future), and a negative metric indicates that the evaluated model performs worse than baseline.

This is a very responsible thing for the authors to have done, and I am interested to see how this is reflected in the models.

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Findings (Summary)

During the period from 1950 to 2021, global TFR more than halved, from 4·84 (95% UI 4·63–5·06) to 2·23 (2·09–2·38). Global annual livebirths peaked in 2016 at 142 million (95% UI 137–147), declining to 129 million (121–138) in 2021. Fertility rates declined in all countries and territories since 1950,

(Emphasis mine. The numbers in parentheses are the confidence interval.) I think this is the most important takeaway from the whole damn paper. Makes sense, since it's the first line of the findings. If you read nothing else, read these three sentences. Global birthrates are barely above replacement (which, if you recall from my other essay, is generally considered to be ~2.1). To me, this implies lot of problems that traditionally have been considered solvable with population redistribution (meaning, mostly, immigration) may not be solvable that way even if fertility were to stop declining today and hold constant for the rest of the century.

Future fertility rates were projected to continue to decline worldwide, reaching a global TFR of 1·83 (1·59–2·08) in 2050 and 1·59 (1·25–1·96) in 2100 under the reference scenario. The number of countries and territories with fertility rates remaining above replacement was forecast to be 49 (24·0%) in 2050 and only six (2·9%) in 2100, with three of these six countries included in the 2021 World Bank-defined low-income group, all located in the GBD super-region of sub-Saharan Africa.

Holy shit. I cannot emphasize enough how low a TFR of 1.59 is. This is approximately the current TFR of the United Kingdom, and they're beginning to freak out even though they have relatively easy sources of additional replacement recruitment through the Commonwealth. Imagine that for the whole Earth. With only six countries as a potential source of surplus population to be redistributed.

Funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Makes sense. This is the kind of thing that foundation funds.

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Introduction

Low levels of fertility have the potential over time to result in inverted population pyramids with growing numbers of older people and declining working-age populations. These changes are likely to place increasing burdens on health care and social systems, transform labour and consumer markets, and alter patterns of resource use.

Oh man, I wish I'd gone through this paper earlier, I could have just quoted this bit and been done instead of trying to explain it from scratch! 😂

The UN Population Division estimates of past fertility are not compliant with the Guidelines on Accurate and Transparent Health Estimates Reporting (GATHER) statement in important respects; notably, they do not provide all code for statistical models or explicit details on criteria for exclusion or adjustment of primary data sources. Furthermore, the validity of UN Population Division projections has been questioned due to the assumptions applied in countries experiencing low post-transition fertility dropping below replacement level.

YES GO OFF 👏 The UN Population Division is so much more cagey about their data than the World Bank, it's so annoying, and they keep predicting increases that don't happen. I thought it was so weird as an undergrad but figured it was because of ~bureaucracy~ or privacy laws or whatever. It's nice to be vindicated [redacted] years later.

Our forecasts also suggest that, by 2100, the largest concentrations of livebirths will shift to low-income settings, particularly a subset of countries and territories in sub-Saharan Africa, which are among the most vulnerable to economic and environmental challenges. Extreme shifts in the global distribution of livebirths can be partially ameliorated by improved female education and met need for modern contraception. Outside of this subset of low-income areas, most of the world's countries will experience the repercussions of low fertility, with ageing populations, declining workforces, and inverted population pyramids, which are likely to lead to profound fiscal, economic, and social consequences. National policy makers and the global health community must plan to address these divided sets of demographic challenges emerging worldwide.

This is such an important point for them to make. Demography isn't a vacuum; it has significant real-world effects. By 2100, most babies born will be born in Africa, and we need to plan for that now. By 2100, most countries will not have enough workers, and we need to plan for that now. 2100 is not that far into the future. I, personally, will live to see the beginnings of the effects of this demographic shift, and I'm an adult who pays taxes and has a college degree and shit.

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The Data Sources and Processing section is pretty standard and unremarkable. Good job.

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Fertility Forecasting

We produced forecasts of fertility using an updated modelling framework (appendix 1 section 3) that improved on the methods in the 2020 study by Vollset and colleagues. In our updated methods, we used not only estimates of female educational attainment and contraceptive met need as covariates, but also estimates of under-5 mortality and population density in habitable areas to account for a larger variation in CCF50 across all countries in the sub-models (appendix 1 section 3.1, appendix 2 figure S2). Similar to Vollset and colleagues, we continued to forecast fertility with CCF50 rather than TFR, because modelling in cohort space is more stable than in period space.

Niiiiice. Covariates are things that, well, vary, alongside the thing you're trying to measure. For fertility, the most obvious one might be age of the mother at first birth; if someone is 16 at first birth, she probably will have more kids than someone who is 30 at first birth, for example. This model also includes how much schooling the mother gets, whether she has contraception, the mortality rate (that is, how many of them die) of children under five, and population density! That's a lot of statistical crunching and their model will be more precise for it. Precise isn't the same as accurate, but I think that with the variables they selected, they will travel in the same direction.

What a pretty equation. I don't understand it, but it's got a certain je ne sais quois.

For the education SDG scenario, the forecasts assume that by 2030, all people will have 12 years or more of education by the age of 25 years and then maintains the same rate of change as the reference scenario up to 2100. For the contraceptive met need scenario, to reflect the SDG scenario of universal access, the forecasts assumed a linear increase in contraceptive coverage to reach 100% by 2030 and then stay constant up to 2100.

I love how optimistic these scenarios are 😂 This truly is the best-case scenario for both the education forecast and the contraceptive forecast! I do hope everybody has 12+ years of education and 100% contraceptive coverage by 2030. Make it happen, António!!!!

(Joke explained: António Guterres is the current Secretary-General of the United Nations, and these goals are absolutely not going to be met by 2030.)

In the pro-natal scenario, we assumed a country will introduce pro-natal policies, such as childcare subsidies, extended parental leave, insurance coverage expansion for infertility treatment, 33 and other forms of support for parents to afford high-quality child-care services, once TFR decreases to less than 1·75. We then made three assumptions on the effects of such policies. First, we assumed the full effect of pro-natal policies will be to increase TFR by 0·2. Second, it will take 5 years after the policy is introduced for the full increase in TFR to occur, and TFR will rise linearly over that time span. Last, we assumed that both the policies and the increase in TFR by 0·2 will endure for the remainder of the century.

The pro-natal scenario is also incredibly optimistic. This kind of response simply hasn't happened in any country that's tried pro-natal policies as envisioned by the authors (my reference cases, just off the top of my head: Japan and France).

The optimism makes sense. They represent extreme cases, in order to contrast possible outcomes versus the reference case. This is good practice! It's just also funny.

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Results

The Reference Case

I hate the embedded tables. They have the confidence interval in the same cell as the estimate. How very dare they, that's incredibly inconvenient for me personally.

The chart in Figure 1, however, I think speaks volumes:

It speaks so many volumes that I'm gonna go up and put it above the cut, brb. This chart shows the reference case; that is, it shows the fertility rate if the fertility trends of 1950-2021 continue into the future.

At the national level, estimates of TFR in 2021 ranged from 0·82 (95% UI 0·75–0·89) in South Korea to 6·99 (6·75–7·24) in Chad, with below-replacement levels of fertility (TFR <2·1) in 110 of 204 countries and territories (table 1, figures 2A, 3).

I think this range is neat and goes to show that while the trend is world-wide, it's still not even. Chadian women still give birth to about 7ish kids on average. That's more than 3x replacement, and more than 8.5x the average fertility of South Korea. South Korea is going to have different problems than Chad; Chad probably doesn't have to worry as much about their workforce being unable to sustain a large elderly population. (Don't look so cheerful about it. They've got lots of other stuff to worry about. 😬)

These charts are fascinating to look at to me. I think this really showcases just how dramatic the projected decline is. It's not just the Europe, it's not just wealthy post-industrialized countries, but everywhere. It's in Eswanti, it's in Indonesia, it's in Burkina Faso, it's in China. It really shows just how much Chad is an outlier (adn should still be counted, btw, just because it's an outlier doesn't mean we should discard it; it's dependent on study structure and you can't just throw out entire countries because they have high birth rates on a study of birth rates).

Our estimates indicate that there is approximately a 30-year gap between the time when TFR falls below 2·1 and when the natural rate of population increase turns negative. We forecast that 155 (76·0%) countries and territories will have fertility rates below replacement level in 2050; by 2100, we project this number will increase to 198 (97·1%), with 178 (87·3%) having a negative natural rate of increase (figure 3).

A 30-year gap sounds reasonable. That's about how long it takes for people to have/not have kids, and for their own parents to potentially die, in about equalish numbers (on a global scale, anyway). I do think this gap number is likely to increase as healthcare improves in places that are worse today and as fertility technology increases the age at which people can become pregnant, but 30 is a perfectly respectable number with actual statistical backing.

Alternative scenario fertility forecasts

This is the part I'm really excited about!!!

The first scenario, which assumes meeting the SDG education target by 2030, is estimated to result in global TFRs of 1·65 (95% UI 1·40–1·92) in 2050 and 1·56 (1·26–1·92) in 2100 (table 2). The second scenario, which assumes meeting the SDG contraceptive met need target by 2030, will produce global TFRs of 1·64 (1·39–1·89) in 2050 and 1·52 (1·21–1·87) in 2100. The third scenario, which incorporates pro-natal policy implementation, is forecast to yield global TFRs of 1·93 (1·69–2·19) in 2050 and 1·68 (1·36–2·04) in 2100. The combined scenario, in which all three other alternative scenarios are applied, is projected to result in a global TFR of 1·65 (1·40–1·92) in 2050 and 1·62 (1·35–1·95) in 2100.

So recall the reference scenario projections: 1·83 (1·59–2·08) in 2050 and 1·59 (1·25–1·96) in 2100.

I find it interesting that all cases are so incredibly close to reference, with overlapping confidence intervals. Functionally, there's not a lot of difference between a TFR of 1.68 and 1.52. They're both still well below replacement. It's about the difference between Sweden (1.67) and Russia (1.51). Russia, you may have noticed, is waging war about it.*

*This is not a stated goal of the Russian Federation in the Ukraine War. This is me personally making an assertion that the shifting demographics of the Russian population, including the below-replacement birthrate beginning to put pressure on their lacking social safety networks, has contributed to the many complicated and interconnected reasons why the Russian Federation invaded Ukraine, but please do not take me to be the final authority on the matter or interpret this statement as implying that demography of all things is the sole or primary reason for the war.

Discussion

The aforementioned changes in fertility over the coming century will have profound effects on populations, economies, geopolitics, food security, health, and the environment, with a clear demographic divide between the impacts on many middle-to-high-income locations versus many low-income locations. For nearly all countries and territories outside of sub-Saharan Africa, sustained low fertility will produce a contracting population with fewer young people relative to older people before the end of the 21st century. These changes in age structure are likely to present considerable economic challenges caused by a growing dependency ratio of older to working-age population and a shrinking labour force. 42 Unless governments identify unforeseen innovations or funding sources that address the challenges of population ageing, this demographic shift will put increasing pressure on national health insurance, social security programmes, and health-care infrastructure. These same programmes will receive less funding as working-age, tax-paying populations decline, further exacerbating the problem.

This is why the Economist article talks about birthrates the way it does. It's not about white babies or whatever people in the notes are sarcastically ascribing to an article they haven't read. It's about the whole world. There are 150 countries outside of the Sub-Saharan Africa region, and 44 of the 46 countries within Sub-Saharan Africa are projected to feel the many or all of the same effects as well.

It's about the way social security nets are structured and how they're going to fail. It's about the way that elderly people are going to be treated by our societies. It's about me, and it's about you, and it's about making sure that there are enough humans to take care of the other humans that need taking care of.

If we don't increase global fertility rates above replacement, which it increasingly looks like we won't, we need other solutions. The fertility one is easy fuckin' pickings compared to a complete overhaul of society, and you saw how little difference it actually makes. So did the authors:

To date, one strategy to reverse declining fertility in low-fertility settings has been to implement pro-natal policies, such as child-related cash transfers and tax incentives, childcare subsidies, extended parental leave, re-employment rights, and other forms of support for parents to care and pay for their children.49, 50 Yet there are few data to show that such policies have led to strong, sustained rebounds in fertility, with empirical evidence suggesting an effect size of no more than 0·2 additional livebirths per female. [...] Moreover, although pro-natal policies primarily aim to increase births, they also offer additional benefits to society, including better quality of life, greater household gender equality (ie, more equal division of household labour),53 higher rates of female labour force participation,54 lower child-care costs,55 and better maternal health outcomes,56 depending on policy design and contextual factors. In the future, it will be beneficial to perform an in-depth analysis on varying impacts of pro-natal policies in selected countries that have a meaningful impact on population. [...] Importantly, low fertility rates and the modest effects that pro-natal policies might have on them should not be used to justify more draconian measures that limit reproductive rights, such as restricting access to modern contraceptives or abortions.

I just want to highlight that the study authors explicitly argue for certain pro-natal policies that increase quality of life and caution against pro-natal policies that limit rights. These people aren't heartless.

They also discuss at some length the implications of the changing distribution of live births, where by the end of the century most live births will take place in the poorest nations, which are also the ones that will be hardest-hit by climate change. These nations already face famines, military rule, civil wars, terrorism, and climate changed-caused severe heatwaves, droughts, and floods. They advise politicians to take this into account when making policy decisions but don't go into what policy decisions should be made, which is wise since they're demographers and not political scientists, but disappointed me, the political scientist reading the demography paper and hoping to find something to criticize.

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My takeaway:

Incredibly interesting paper. As a non-demographer, I think it's very convincing and hope that it sparks a serious conversation about the paths we need to take forward, in our own countries and as a global community. I especially hope that it inspires us to take bold action to drastically change our systems of elder care, which are already being pushed to the limit and will simply break under pressure if fertility rates continue to fall.

[marciabrady]

What is Cinderella's hair color?

This is totally up to interpretation! Ilene Woods was pretty much the basis of everything when they were creating Cinderella, from her temperament to her facial structure to her coloring to her sayings to her eye placement when she smiled, and even Ilene's hair color is hard to read. She was definitely objectively blonde- she was referred to as such on radio shows and even in the press announcement that was released when she was cast as Cinderella. But in a lot of photographs, her hair appears brunette on camera- and there's a few reasons for this. First and foremost, the relatively primitive nature of cameras from that time period really couldn't capture nuances in natural tones- so unless your hair was platinum white or bleached, it would probably read brunette, and everything else would register as darker, inevitably. Plus, we're used to seeing people with bleached/colored hair these days, so what is truly considered a natural blonde- albeit dirty or a darker or just a more "natural" toned blonde- many contemporary people refer to, on a superficial lens- as brunette. So, I think Ilene was a dirty blonde, even though I've seen pictures of her later in life where she looks like a neutral blonde that is neither very light or very dark.

When it comes to Cinderella's intended/official hair color, that's also a can of worms. So, people are quick to discredit the platinum blonde Cinderella has appeared with in the 80s/90s/2000s/2010s merch and say she's a 'strawberry' blonde. They claim this is because of how she looks in the 'original' movie, but they're using the 2013 blu ray/2005 dvd master to go off of, which is even influencing current artwork of Cinderella in the Disney Princess franchise, and that master- beyond scrubbing all the linework out of the film (see screenshot below- look at how even the 1988 VHS maintains the lines in the bedding better than the 2005 and 2013 rubbery effect) also had inaccurate representations of the color relationships between elements in the film, which- again- means that you're not going to see what was intended.

The team that worked on remastering the current 4K edition of Cinderella that came out this year (which I love btw! I'm still not super pleased with certain changes BUT it's a MASSIVE, MASSIVE improvement over the 2005/2012 master that had been done in 2003 and is far more pleasing to look at and, generally, my favorite restoration Disney has officially done) said that they referenced the original cel artwork, as well as promotional materials like lobby cards to better understand what the artistic intent was...and that's tricky. Because, while they interpreted it better than remasters of the 2000s/2010s which sought to LITERALLY make the film look exactly like the raw cel art, these movies were not meant to be viewed as, I do think they still stuck too close to the cel colors. Due to the nature of technicolor, a lot of color tests had to be done so that the artists could see what the finished product would look like after it had gone through the process of being printed on film- because it was always apt to differ greatly from the artwork on cel. A good example of this is the fact that blonde hair didn't read so the artists had to color it with a green tint on the original cels (see first screenshot below) so that it'd appear blonde on camera. However, again, I think the team looked too deeply into this and now we've ended up with a master, a gorgeous one, but a faulty one that depicts Cinderella's hair as almost green in 2023 (see right screencap from 4K remaster)

When it comes to lobby cards, they're not going to be accurate either. I've seen lobby cards that were released in 1959 that depict Aurora as a brunette, blonde, and redhead, and they even change the color of her peasant dress to green, blue, pink- anything you can think of. And Cinderella's hair differs greatly in the lobby cards from the 50s themselves

The funny thing is, it really seems to be decade dependent. I actually have access to a 1973 print and I think that's what the basis for the 2005/2013 master was, because the colors are very similar to that strawberry blonde and even the hues of the hallway in the chateau look nearly identical to the 2005/2013, and we never seen those colors again outside of those two masters. It's so odd it premiered in the 70s, that specific master, because in that decade, and in the 60s, they marketed Cinderella more as a brunette and gave Aurora the blonde title (which was reversed in the 2000s, where they almost made Aurora a light brunette and made Cinderella platinum beyond belief):

You can even see Disney's confusion at what her hair is supposed to be; in the sequel, they gave Cinderella the platinum hair of the marketing at the time, but in the third movie, they tried to be more 'faithful' and cinematic and went off of the current, faulty, master of the time...which resulted in an unappealing turnout, imo? Like her skin and hair shouldn't be that close, color relationship wise, on film? (again, merch is always a different color)

Also in House of Mouse, which is generally accurate with a lot, they make Pete put a red wig on when he's in Cinderella garb, indicating they thought that was the color of her hair at that point:

Also, I feel like she's not supposed to be a true redhead or lean as close to strawberry blonde or people say she is? Again, cels shouldn't be viewed strictly for the color themselves, but if we observe the color relationship between her hair and that of Anastasia's- who is a true redhead- there's a huge difference:

There are also a few production notes that we do have that can help a little. We know Cinderella's Prince was made to have much darker hair to contrast hers, so they could be visually striking with one another, again leading us to the conclusion that she does have light hair (which kinda dodges the 60s/70s artwork where she's a dusty brunette). We also know that Disney tried to make the Prince in Snow White sandyhaired, but it came across on camera as dark brown and didn't provide that much of a contrast to Snow White, which they were able to capture more successfully in books of that era, all through even the 80s/90s. I, personally, really love this book especially and I find the colors of everything- the interiors, Cinderella, her dress, etc- ring true to me, personally:

And this color can be seen anywhere as brunette to some, to sandy, to blonde, to dirty blonde, to slightly red- and that's how I think Cinderella's hair is. I think she's a warm level 7, if we're going by a professional hair chart, and it's like a russet blonde color? Hints of red that could make someone see her as a redhead, or just a blonde, or to some who view blondes as solely being platinum, she'd almost even appear as a brunette. That being said, Aurora is definitely a blonde and in the current master we have, her skin appears pink/red and her hair looks greenish, so if anyone who's working on the future 4K master of Sleeping Beauty could fix that, it would be greatly appreciated!!

[othernaut]

Character Creation Challenge 2025, Addendum: The Nostalgiaturgy Adept School

Nostalgiaturgy AKA 90's Kids, Lost Boys, Re-Enactors

It's an unfortunate fact of mortal existence that, yes, the years start coming and they don't stop coming. No matter how much one might desire a return to innocence, time keeps on slipping (slipping, slipping) into the future. But there, right there, in that subtle space where the ugly back-aching realities of the present struggle against the dream of an idealized past? Power lives there, and don't we all know it. Nostalgiaturgy takes that feeling of longing and looms it on the wheel of magick. Anything that evokes that soft and subtle memory of another time - the sight of an undemolished arcade, the bodyfeel of a period frock, the taste of the old McDonald's fries with the beef tallow - that draws on a fragment of that great universal longing, manifests it in, at times, overpowering degrees. And crucially, you don't have to have actually lived through that time in order to yearn to return to it - anyone who has ever scowled at something on social media and muttered, "I was born in the wrong decade," they're as subject to the power as anyone else. Nostalgia doesn't concern itself with the past entire - that's too big for the lens of human longing - and neither do nostalgiaturges. Each nostalgiaturge chooses a decade to be the focus of their fervor and draws their power, theme, desire, and a significant portion of their whole self from that specific time. This makes nostalgiaturgy paradoxically a very modular and very restricted practice, as certain spells only click with a certain decade and others might weave themselves whole cloth out of one specific weirdo's obsession with, like, 1820. Individual nostalgiaturges may be aware of, but unable to access, certain powers common among their peers - but at the same time, find gaps opening where they can express their own, Vaseline-lensed vision of the past.

Generate a Minor Charge: Spend an hour fully immersed in a period-appropriate activity. These can be performed back-to-back. If your 50's-obsessive nostalgiaturge binges four hours of Perry Mason, that's four charges. On the other hand, the immersion needs to be total. No listening to Fleetwood Mac on the drive, unless you're driving your Trans Am on the backroads near your hometown, like you used to.

Generate a Significant Charge: Make a noticeable attempt to return the world to your idea of the past. Write, record, and perform an 80's hair metal song. Ride your penny-farthing to the park and promenade beneath a parasol. Go down to your local protest and start putting sunflowers in gun barrels. This needs to be at least a three-hour time investment and, crucially, seen by other people.

Generate a Major Charge: Restore a significant portion of the world to what it used to be. This has to be big, noticeable, and permanent - a postering spree or a one-night showing of Casablanca won't even begin to do it. Save the old mall. Tear down the condo that replaced the old bowling alley and build it up just like it was before. Get a new season of MythBusters on the air, with all remaining original cast. Rescind the laws allowing women to vote. This is going to be a massive undertaking, by design, and there are three elements to it: Destruction, restoration, appreciation. Before anything can be regenerated, the base and disappointing matter of the modern day must be eliminated. Your vision of the past can't exist alongside the modern; you can't build a period-appropriate speakeasy into a modern five-over-one. Next, the thing you recreate must be accurate. If you are restoring something physical, like a building, then you must hew as closely as possible to original schematics and pictures, modern safety codes be damned. Finally, you can't build your monument in the desert. Others have to not only live your nostalgia, but celebrate it. There's gotta be teenagers in that food court again. You can't just make it real - you have to make it live.

Taboo: Nostalgiaturges lose all charges when they own and operate anything made after their chosen decade. Both need to be in effect - a nostalgiaturge can ride in a modern car so long as they don't own it, and own a modern cellphone so long as they never turn it on. But everything else dings you. No modern reproductions - you gotta have the original, with wear and tear repaired with period-appropriate methods and materials. You buy a set of Temu pillows for your 70's conversation pit? You use a modern repro paper block inside your 80's dot-matrix printer? Goodbye, charges. Some flavors of nostalgiaturgy find this taboo more onerous than others. There is an ocean of difference between a Victorian re-enactor who struggles to live in and maintain a period-appropriate manor house and a 2000s-era later millennial who gets to own a BlackBerry. Unfortunately, the difficulty of the taboo matters not a whit to magick. Same rules apply. Sorry.

Random Magick Domain: The particular feel, taste, and values of your chosen decade - school cafeteria square pizza, polyester, eugenics, whatever feels right. Antiques. The overwhelming sensation of loss and homesickness. The dreamy, imagined qualities of the past in paradox to their more unsavoury realities. Time - oh god, time. The stretching of time, the persistence of memory, the desire to regain what was lost, to experience it all again. Changing the past. Retro causality. Ideals over history, memory over reality, and yeah, the return to innocence.

Nostalgiaturgy Minor Formula Effects

They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To Cost: 1 minor charge Yeah, sure, that car might be a broken-down rusthole today, but back in the day? God, you could see the world with her. This spell channels and focuses that feeling of nostalgic whimsy, making an old object behave as well as you remember. The object in question has to be over 10 years old, and yeah, a car's about the size limit for it. On the other hand, the object doesn't run at peak performance - it runs how it was remembered, which is universally better than it actually did. In function, the object runs about 10% better than a modern equivalent would - your blazing fast 1996 beige-box computer with 8MB of RAM is now fully capable of streaming on Twitch; your 80's brick cellphone now connects swiftly with modern networks. It'll confer a +10% bonus to relevant rolls for a scene before the dream wears thin again.

Blast From the Past Cost: 1 minor charge This is the nostalgiaturge minor blast spell (sorry). By fixing a person with a stare and symbolically snapping or crushing a nostalgic totem (an antique matchstick, a political pamphlet, an old Taco Bell sauce packet), the victim psychically and physically relives an old injury. It's not immediately apparent to onlookers, but to the guy crumpling up around the ghost of an old suckerpunch, it feels exactly as it did when it first happened. For an extra charge, you can learn exactly what caused that injury, too, and if it's healed weird or has any other lingering effects.

Living History Cost: 1 minor charge Every place in the world is important to someone. Every scrungy parking lot, nondescript patch of woodland, or empty spit of interstate is somewhere someone dreamt, loved, or died. Any lost boy knows that memory is a persistent radiation, that it soaks into the world and stays. You can tap into those emanations, relive them just as real and true as if they had happened to you. By sitting cross-legged, anywhere, and contemplating the little marks of wear and entropy inherent in the location - those scrapes up there, high on the wall, how'd they get there? - you can sink into the memory of that place and let it reveal three elements of its past to you. The memories revealed will always be at least 10 years old. You can kind of prompt it a bit - "Remember the night Andre Jorges died?" - but that only affects one of the three memories that come to you. The other two are at the whim of the inscrutable tides of universal recall. Also, these memories aren't just information downloaded into your head. You really feel them, reliving them as if you experienced them, and if those memories are particularly bad ones, this can prompt an appropriate stress check.

Mom's Spaghetti Cost: 1-4 minor charges One thing about nostalgia: when it hits, it's overwhelming. The smallest things can set it off, too. Bits of an old song. The smell of diesel gasoline. The remembered chalky taste of purple Flintstones vitamins. It can stretch time backwards, taking a person out of reality, losing them in a half-imagined memory. And you know how to weaponize it. Select one person as your target and spend up to four charges. That person has to make an immediate Self stress check of rank equal to the number of charges spent. If they succeed, or have enough hardened notches in Self that it doesn't matter, then they shake off the feeling with nothing more than a wistful smile. If they fail, though, they're wholly overwhelmed by nostalgia. They drift off into memory, not really paying attention to the world around them. -20% to Notice, at least, and it may prompt a fuckup if they're doing anything that requires really finicky attention, like driving a car in an intense police chase or performing surgery. Doesn't work on kids; they're still building the things they'll dream about when they're old and sad. Pass or fail, you know exactly what sensation spurred the nostalgia attack, and if you cast this spell again on the same person while actively wielding or invoking that sensation, that Self stress check is two notches higher than the charges you spent to invoke it.

Take Your Time Cost: 2 minor charges If there's one thing undeniably revealed in the scatter of old Polaroids, the blur of tintype mementos mori, the ever-relatable scrawl in diaries of relatives centuries dead, it's that time and perception are inextricably tangled, so close as to be near the same thing. Time stretches, agonizingly slow, at the start of an onerous endeavor. Time flies when you're having fun. Music, love, a good shroom trip - timeless things, both pinned in an unchanging moment and somehow transcendent of moments entire. By that logic, by altering perception, time itself can be altered - and adepts are unchallenged masters of stretching, molding, and shaping their perceptions. Relax. Take a breath. Truly take in this moment in time. Spend those charges. Roll 2d10, and sum them. You have now created a bubble of rubber time equal in minutes to the sum of the roll. At the center of the bubble - that's where you are, it having formed around you - time is stretched, doubled. Time takes twice as long to tick over. You have twice as long to crack that safe, burn that body, write that really good email. People can communicate in and out of the time bubble just the same as usual; it's your perception of time that makes it what it is. When you check your watch, you'll find that nearly no time has passed at all. But when time's up, or when you exit the bubble, time snaps back with a vengeance. It takes back what it's owed. Half those minutes you spent in the time bubble (round up!) now pass twice as fast as they normally would. This is where the real disorienting shit happens, like traffic zipping around at double-speed. You might want to sit down.

Berenstein, Berenstain Cost: 2 minor charges What happens when memory contradicts fact? What happens when we have all that evidence right in front of us, but no, no! We know the truth! What happens when we are absolutely sure the Fruit of the Loom logo had a god damn cornucopia on it? Half the time, we double down. We trust our experiences over the evidence. We get in truly disgusting arguments online about it. The other half, we trust reality, but hey - that's why there's arguments. This spell injects a bubble of doubt into the boggy substrate of public memory. Pick a subject, an event, a thing - it has to be famous enough that enough people will remember it, and like all nostalgiaturge stuff, it has to be over 10 years old. Sic the Mandela Effect on it. Get 'em to remember wrong. You can be a bit intentional with this, like spelling someone's name wrong or convincing the world they worked on one specific movie when they didn't even start their career for two more years, or you can trust the whims of fate to fuck 'em up real good. The effect is subtle, but brother? It's got global reach. People will start remembering inaccurately two continents over. And there's no restriction on subject. You can really get in there, convince the Europeans that 9/11 used the messed-up American year-day-month system and actually occurred on November 9th. It'll fuck up some Google searches and pundit speeches, for sure.

You Never Forget How To Ride a Bike Cost: 1 minor charge If only fanboying over something actually conferred expertise in that subject, right? Well, that's why we have magick. For the low price of one minor charge, you can channel obsession into actionable skills, and like all magick, it's real and true and testable. Roll a d10; for that many days, your adept identity substitutes for one specific skill relating to your obsessive decade. Of course your 20s-obsessive nostalgiaturge can brew bathtub gin! Of course your 17th-century nostalgiaturge can build a log cabin! Of course your Y2K nostalgiaturge can program in HTML, have you seen their Myspace page?

Nostalgiaturgy Significant Formula Effects

They're Here Cost: 1 significant charge Do you remember? How you used to turn the lights off in the bathroom at summer camp. All the other kids ran away by the second Bloody Mary, but you stayed all the way through. Do you remember? Sitting in front of the TV static, hoping to see a face. You never got your wish, back then, but you always knew you could. It was just waiting for the right technique. Now you know how. To cast this spell, you must first prepare a scrying surface, and it must be appropriate to your decade. A coke-caked shaving mirror. A television tuned to a dead channel. A silver-backed mirror in your cabinet of curiosities. Turn most of the lights off, but set one to flickering: a jerky fluorescent in the corridor outside the bathroom, the plain static of the neutral TV, an anointed candle. Say the words. You remember the ones. They'll come. They're already here. What this spell does is call any normally invisible and intangible entities that might be hanging around the area into the scrying surface. You can talk to them, but there's always some restriction, which you always know implicitly: you have three questions but so do they, everything you say has to rhyme or the spell breaks, you have to be alone. These entities are restricted to interacting with the scrying surface, they can't smash through and get you, but they also have no compulsion to be truthful in any information they give you, including what they are. The spell is also indiscriminate: You might call out for Miyazuki Hana, who died in this apartment, and something might appear that wears her face and speaks with her voice, but brother? That was just whatever was hanging around. That doesn't mean it isn't Hana, but it doesn't mean it is. Scry responsibly.

Where Were You When Cost: 1 significant charge Do you remember? Sitting around the TV, watching that man die. We all do. This is the nostalgiaturgy significant blast, and this time the bat it's wielding isn't personal trauma, it's collective. You pick a significant event from your obsessive decade, a famously horrible memory that immediately flashes to mind, and then that exact same thing happens to someone you can see. The exact same thing. Yeah, that guy you're pointing to, he didn't just get shot in the head - he got JFK'd. The exact right caliber of bullet entered his head at the exact same velocity and trajectory.

The Old Apartment Cost: 3 significant charges Do you remember? This place looks so different now with all the furniture gone, but at the time, it was our entire world. They still haven't fixed the stain from when you dropped all that soup on the floor. Do you remember? If you close your eyes, you can still smell the weedsmoke and Nag Champa. Why not throw a bit of magick into the mix? When you open your eyes, it'll be like no time has passed at all. This spell recalls a bounded space (like a house, or a hotel lobby; no casting it in public parks!) to what it used to be at a specific moment in time. Like all nostalgiaturge stuff, the target time period needs to be more than 10 years ago. And for 3 charges? It's time-fuckery to a powerful degree. For 33 minutes, the place you're in swaps temporal locations with itself in the past, just as you envision. It's not just like it was, it IS how it was. Not a replica, but limited to the bounded space; you leave, time puts your toy back in the chest. You can mess with things all you want, loot the fridge for old snacks or retrieve your old gun from under the bed, but when time snaps back, those changes will still be in place. And like all time-fuckery, ripples occur, and they can have unintended and ass-biting effects. You don't have to cast this on a personally nostalgic place, or even one from your obsessive decade (though why would you want to relive someone else's nostalgia?), but you do have to have a strong idea of what it looked like and felt like to be there, enough to convincingly walk around the place in your mind. The GM is free to impose penalties if the location underwent significant changes between then and now, or all you have to work with is a blurry Polaroid and a dream. But if you're in, say, a burial cavern, and you have a friendly archaeologist with plenty of good sketches and an evocative manner of speech? Brother, you can get paleolithic.

Moonwalk Threshold Cost: 2 significant charges Do you remember? How easy it is to forget all those years. You've never really felt like anything but a teenager in an old body, haven't you? Sometimes the past feels so close you could blink and you'd be right back there, right as you were. But you know enough now to know it'd never be that easy. Even if you could go back, you'd still be exactly as you are, with all that pain filed away in the archive of your memory. What this spell does, then, is give others the blessing that you can never have for yourself. It takes the years away. Spend those charges. Reach out and touch somebody. Roll a 2d10, bumping it to 10 if you roll below. That's how many years you take away from them. You wipe it right out of their memory, returning them to the self they were so long ago. The memories return at a rate of one year every day or so, but that's a Self or Unnatural check equal to half the years lost, at that. And worse (or better, depending on your perspective): If you roll a matched or critical success on the casting and they fail that stress check, those years are gone forever. Memory struck clean. They're 17 again, except for the fact that the world tells them they're 33. How nice it must be.

Born in the Wrong Time Cost: 3 significant charges Do you remember? How easy it was to program your first website, with frames and spinning background gifs and a looping .wav? How you learned Victorian cane-fu from that PDF you torrented? How that one documentary on World War 2 spun off into this thing that is now your life? Wouldn't it be nice if it was that easy, for everyone, always? If you could teach people flower language and speak through bouquets? If everyone knew just what the AIDS crisis really meant? You can do it, you know. You can shear off a part of yourself and make it someone else's situation. To cast this spell, you first choose one of your own identities - it doesn't matter which one, memory is a fungible substance - and reduce it by 5%. Someone within sight, and they gotta be willing, gains a new identity (that you choose!) relevant to your obsessive decade at 15%. You can do this over and over again, actually, transferring a part of yourself for an experience check in an ability this spell granted them. You're an 1890's obsessive? You need everyone you know, literally everyone, to understand how to perform a medicine show? You got this. You can do this to yourself, too, translating Paralegal 55% into Pro Skateboarder 15%, at the cost of a fucking whopping Self (8) stress check. You know exactly what you're doing to yourself. The question is how much you care.

Flash Back Cost: 2 significant charges Do you remember? How it felt to hold that He-Man action figure in your hands, the weird wide-legged stance it had, how the joints would pop out if you wiggled it wrong. There's nothing so significant to nostalgia as stuff, after all. There's a quality to it that's all it's own, a period of time frozen in the fucked-up ingredients on the side of children's soothing syrup from 1845. What if you could do that right now? What if you could be nostalgic for this very specific moment? To cast this spell, you gotta source an item. Pick any random handheld thing from your environment. Hold it, focus on it, make it the only real thing in the room. At any time during the next 33 hours, if you (you, it's gotta be you) intentionally destroy that item, time snaps back to the moment you cast the spell. This doesn't just hold true for you, but anyone on the scene with you at the time. You take your positions on the stage, frozen just at the moment that psychic flashbulb went off. This, too, is time-fuckery. Weird divergent causality could happen if, say, a few members of your cabal were off scene when you cast it and a few others were. The universe doesn't like time-fuckery, but sometimes it's gotta roll with the punches. It may ripple, and those ripples may return as tsunamis, but hey - you cast the quicksave-in-reality spell, you knew what you were getting in to.

We Can Remember It For You Wholesale Cost: 1 significant charge Do you remember? When that old guy who hung around the high school broke down crying in front of the gates. You never knew what that was about, you never asked, and then security escorted him off like ten minutes later. You always wondered what was up with him, what private hell brought him to so public a disgrace. You can find out, you know. It's not even hard. All you have to do is want it bad enough. Reach out and touch someone. They've gotta be either willing, unaware, or restrained such that they can't really do anything about it. Spend the charge, and then their whole inner world is on display. Specifically, their memories play back, and not just for you, for everyone on the scene. Roll a d10: on a multiple of 3 (3, 6, 9) you can prompt three specific memories to play; on a multiple of 2 (2, 4, 6, 8, 10) you can prompt two, and on any other (1, 5, 7) you can prompt one. Any unprompted memories are randos, things that the subject remembers strongly or significantly. And you, along with everyone else in the room, really do feel those memories, remember it like it was part of yourself, which might prompt a stress check if they're particularly grisly ones. What's more, if this recall does prompt a stress check, it prompts it for the subject as well - three points higher. There's internalizing the shit you've seen, and then there's reliving it in perfect detail.

Major Charge Effects

Fuck up a single person's memory to specific, exacting, year-by-year detail. Create an artifact, bring it from the imagined past into the awful truth of reality. Create a private otherspace where time stopped at a specific year and will never ever progress. Freeze time in reality for a single, perfect day.

*****

And there it is.

I took on this character creation challenge as a lark, but it quickly became something of a personal effort - an excuse to write more every day, an excuse to engage more with the role-playing games I love. And this, this has been something in my mind for a long time. I've loved Unknown Armies for a long time, after all, and I've been contemplating my own toxic relationship to nostalgia for a long time. Putting it in the frame of rules, of a thing you can do to other people, that actually does help. That felt like a thing I needed to do.

Also, this is your warning: This thing is extremely not playtested, as in I finished writing it like 15 minutes ago and only edited it for basic readability. If you fuck up your game by allowing a player to time-screw your plot out of existence, that's on you.

But as stated plainly in the rules, there is a power in nostalgia. There has to be, else I wouldn't have done this. This has been living in my head long enough for it to be nostalgic for itself, which is a weird and utterly appropriate thing to occur.

Remember well.

[byneddiedingo]

Two Takes on a Hardy Novel

Julie Christie and Alan Bates in Far From the Madding Crowd (John Schlesinger, 1967)

Cast: Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Terence Stamp, Peter Finch. Screenplay: Frederic Raphael. Cinematography: Nicolas Roeg. Production design: Richard Macdonald. Film editing: Malcolm Cooke, Jim Clark. Music: Richard Rodney Bennett.

Matthias Schoenaerts and Carey Mulligan in Far From the Madding Crowd (Thomas Vinterberg, 2015)

Cast: Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts, Tom Sturridge, Michael Sheen. Screenplay: David Nicholls. Cinematography: Charlotte Bruus Christensen. Production design: Cave Quinn. Film editing: Claire Simpson. Music: Craig Armstrong.

Almost 50 years separate these two adaptations of Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd, and the differences between the two owe as much to film technology as to changing tastes. As always, translating page to film involves compromises. Screenwriter Frederic Raphael remains faithful to the plot, with the paradoxical result that characters become far more enigmatic than Hardy intended them to be. We need more of the backstories of Bathsheba Everdeen (Julie Christie), Gabriel Oak (Alan Bates), William Boldwood (Peter Finch), and Frank Troy (Terence Stamp) than the highly capable actors who play them can give us, even in a movie that runs for three hours -- including an overture, an intermission, and an "entr'acte." These trimmings are signs that the producers wanted a prestige blockbuster like Doctor Zhivago (David Lean, 1965), which had also starred Christie. But Hardy's works, with their characters dogged by fate and chance, don't much lend themselves to epic treatment. David Nicholls's screenplay for the 2015 film is much tighter than Raphael's, and about an hour shorter. Nicholls makes most of his cuts toward the end of the film, omitting for example the episode in which Troy (Tom Sturridge) becomes a circus performer, one of the more entertaining sections of the Schlesinger-Raphael version. I think Nicholls's screenplay sets up the early part of the stories of Bathsheba (Carey Mulligan) and Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts) much better, though he has to resort to a brief voiceover by Mulligan at the beginning to make things clear. His account of the affair of Troy and the ill-fated Fanny Robbin (Juno Temple) is less dramatically detailed than Raphael's, but in neither film is their relationship dealt with clearly enough to make us understand Troy's character. John Schlesinger, a director very much at home in the cynical milieus of London in Darling (1965) and Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) and New York in Midnight Cowboy (1969), doesn't show much feeling for Hardy's rural, isolated Wessex, where the weight of tradition and the indifference of nature play substantial roles. What atmosphere the film has comes from cinematographer Nicolas Roeg's images of the Dorset and Wiltshire countryside and from Richard Rodney Bennett's score, which received the film's only Oscar nomination. And where atmosphere is concerned, Thomas Vinterberg has an edge thanks to technological advances: In Schlesinger's film, despite the fine cinematography of Roeg, the interiors seem impossibly overlighted for a period that resorted to candles and oil lamps for illumination. The change in film technology now makes it possible for us to see the way people once lived -- in a realm of darkness and shadows. (We can almost precisely date when this change in cinematography took place: in 1975, when director Stanley Kubrick and cinematographer John Alcott worked with lenses specially designed for NASA to create accurately lighted interiors for Barry Lyndon. Since then, the digital revolution has only added to the arsenal of lighting effects available to filmmakers.) So cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen's adds an element of texture and mystery to Vinterberg's version that was technologically unavailable to Roeg, and not only in interiors but also in night scenes, such as the first encounter of Bathsheba (Carey Mulligan) and Sgt. Troy (Tom Sturridge), when he gets his spur caught in the hem of her dress. The scene is meant to take place by the light of the lamp she is carrying, which Christensen accomplishes more successfully than Roeg was able to. On the whole, I think I prefer the newer version, which is less star-driven than Schlesinger's, but in the end the best version of the story is Hardy's novel.

[controversial-blorbo-bracket]

Hi! I saw the posts wondering about how to put together the polls, and as an aspiring data analyst and current PhD student myself, i had some contemplations to share!!

Unfortunately i think the BEST way to go about it would require 64 options, as you would need to account for all the combinations of:

Know Character A (yes/no)

Know Character B (yes/no)

Opinion on Character A (Love/Hate/Both/Indifferent)

Opinion on Character B (Love/Hate/Both/Indifferent)

Which would be a 2×2×4×4 poll.

HOWEVER i had an idea. Accounting for the pollgoer knowing character A or B is pretty much non-negotiable if you want to preserve the quality of the data. So in a 10-option poll, that means we only really have room for two options past "which character are you more familiar with".

HENCE, i propose something similar to the following setup:

Two polls per pair of characters. A round 1A and round 1B if you will.

Round 1A: (for the purpose of determining strength of opinion)

[More familiar with A; Stronger feelings about A]

[More familiar with A; Strong feelings about both]

[More familiar with A; No strong feelings about either]

[More familiar with B; Stronger feelings about B]

[More familiar with B; Strong feelings about both]

[More familiar with B; No strong feelings about either]

[Familiar with A, or equally familiar with A and B; Stronger feelings about B]

[Familiar with B, or equally familiar with A and B; Stronger feelings about A]

[Familiar with both/neither; Strong feelings about both]

[Familiar with both/neither; No strong feelings about either]

.....just barely squeezed that into 10 options. I condensed "Familiar with A, or equally familiar with A and B" and vice versa into one option because i felt that having an opinion on Character B while knowing neither, both, or the opposing character better, was basically the same.

Point being, that poll would tell you who has the strongest feelings surrounding them, since you could take ratios to determine the true percentages of votes from people familiar with the character. I think this could be good for elimination; maybe you could do the bottom 50% or bottom 25% of people that got opinionated votes. Then after that maybe you could have a second set of polls that were individual to the characters that weren't eliminated, like a qualifier, again dropping out the lowest X% of characters that had too many indifferent votes.

Sorry for the ramble i just. I love data and polls and i majored in math and . Yeah. I hope literally any of this is helpful or sparks some ideas?? I just thought it would be neat to have each round have a matchup half and an individual half, honestly, because i love both of those ideas. It does sound like twice the work though. Whatever you decide, i am definitely looking forward to it!! Best of luck!!!

-sincerely, a fellow data freak (?) that literally would just clean and preprocess and analyze data for ages recreationally

Holy shit this is awesome. In a perfect world I would absolutely love to do a 64 option matchup tourney. But unfortunately I think this ideal solution shows how a matchup-style tournament with a maximum of 10 options will be inherently biased (in addition to causing scroll fatigue, which is something I, as a poll fanatic and accurate data lover, forgot that most people WILL stop reading past the first few answers if every poll is super long like my and your proposals. Thank you to all my followers who pointed this out- working in this field can make me lose sight of that lol).

So in that sense, thank you for helping me come to the conclusion that the best way to do this IS to have individual polls! Maybe in the future I’ll set up several hundred google forms and link to that for voting, so it’s not limited by tumblr polls. And that way people could even select multiple options! I would seriously consider running that if after this tournament people are still interested in a second one that’s matchup style instead. But for now individual polls seems the most fair way to go about it that complies with tumblr’s limited poll options!

[sissa-arrows]

While you are of course correct that the "Jewish Golden Age of Spain" was under Muslim rule, that isn't to say that all of Muslim rule in spain *was* the Golden Age.

In fact, most people give it as 910-1060 (+/- 50 years) when Muslim rule began in 700 (ish) and ended in 13-1400 (ish).

During those years was the Granada massacre, and Maimondes (probably one of the greatest Jewish scholars) was forced to flee the area lest he be forced to convert.

I didn’t say it was during all the period? When the regime change happened Jews were targeted and it’s fucked up but once the new regime settled they went back to having freedom of religion and could get back to Judaism.

They weren’t flourishing as much (neither were the Muslims albeit on a smaller scale) but Al Andalus was still a major pole of Jewish culture even after the Golden Age. North Africa was ruled by the same dynasty and that’s still where a lot of Jewish people chose to flee when Christian Europe was also an option showing that it wasn’t a generalized persecution but only during the Dynasty change in a specific area which was filled with internal fighting.

Again it doesn’t justify what happened in Granada at all but if one want to be historically accurate presenting all of Al Andalus as oppressive and horrible and presenting the Reconquista as some sort of rightful amazing thing all while pretending to care about Jews is fucked up. It’s not only fucked up it’s actually Islamophobic and just plainly racist as fuck because it paints Arabs as savages and whitewashes the Reconquista. Saying “while the Golden Age was during Al Andalus, some parts of it were not good at all and Jews were persecuted and the Reconquista didn’t help they just persecuted Jews even more” is accurate. Saying “Al Andalus was horrible Arab terrorism persecuting Jews and the Reconquista was good” is not only inaccurate it fits the Zionist tendency to whitewash European antisemitism and put the blame on Muslims or more precisely on Arabs. They even do it with the holocaust.

The point of my post was to show that tendency. Zionists prefer for Jewish people to be persecuted by white Christians than living in relative peace with Arabs or Muslims. Denying that it’s how Zionists see it shows a huge racist bias against Arabs and Muslims.

[the-plagueis-crew]

Chant, The Singer

NAME: Chant (Redacted)~

AGE: 25 years old, and I'll live forever more in my songs! (For a lore accurate Orc in Faerun she's nearing the equivilent of 50 or some shit, but Faerun Orcs are not my canon so fuck it she's just 25 out of a possible 80-100)

RACE: Full blooded Orc, Dear.

HEIGHT: I am a tall lady, it helps to keep eyes on me during my opera pieces! In layman's terms, I am 6'7"

GENDER/SEX: She/Her, darlings!

CLASS: I am a Bard of the college of Creation, but of course! One of the most famous Opera Singer in the world! (Level 14)

EXTRA INFO: Chant is specifically made to be a married gal, so her last name is (Redacted) because it's supposed to be either your Muse's last name or her default last name, Axeborne.

STATS:

STR 10 (+0) INT 13 (+1)

DEX 10 (+0) WIS 12 (+1)

CON 16 (+3) CHA 20 (+5)

BACKSTORY:

Chant was born near a Church shortly after her mother had disbanded her orcish warband, having chosen to give birth to her twin daughters in the safety of human civilization, not on the road with her fellow orcs. The very first thing that Chant ever heard was the religious singing and, well, chanting of sisters and clerics inside the Church and she found it beautiful. Growing up Chant realized that she had a beautiful voice and a talent for the bardic arts that neither her mother nor twin possessed, and decided to pursue such talents.

A heartfelt goodbye from her mother and the legal renaming and disowning of her former name later, Chant set out to find a college of bards. She wandered, giving shows and honing her craft for most of her teen years before returning to civilization, a fully-fledged Opera Singer (Bard) of Creation A/n/d///////////

Split timeline.

Choose the route you wish to follow.

The Bitter Cheater (NTR focus)

And marrying a deadbeat moronic and abusive orc named Axeborne, Chant had become a bitter wife who only feels alive when eyes are on her in the stage of the operahouse, earning all the money of her home she—I seek thrills only nights of passion with men who are not my husband can bring. I seek a man who will save me from my dead marriage and this has led me to a promiscuous lifestyle. Still, perhaps someday I'll meet someone who I'll truly fall for, be it love or lust.

The Loving Wife (Wholesome Lewds)

And marrying her Darling Husband (Your muse) has become a more vibrant and happy woman, faith—Faithful to my hubby and eagerly singing for him any time he asks! Be it a song of my voice or my moans, only my husband can bring me the joy of true creation, he is my muse, my reason to create! And I shall treasure him forever! Perhaps someday soon I'll even bring a little one into the world~

[blogofblogofblogs]

50 CELEBRITIES YOU (MAYBE) DIDN'T KNOW HAD TIES TO PRO WRESTLING

Even before Mr. T got involved in the first Wrestlemania, celebrities of one form or another have been stepping into the squared circle. A list of those well-known famous folks appearing just on WWE shows over the decades would be near-infinitely long, let alone once you add the ones that showed up in WCW, ECW, IMPACT and, now, AEW. But this list/article, which I first started putting together over five years ago, is an attempt to go beyond the more mainstream publicity stunts. With only a couple of exceptions, this list is going to be a little different, covering 50 of the movie stars, athletes and even politicians who appeared outside of those notable promotions. Now, in fairness, some on the list were wrestlers first and foremost, but I feel their connections with popular culture outside of the squared circle qualifies them for such a list. And now, the list:

50. BELA LUGOSI

Kicking things off is Dracula himself. One of the earliest examples of a celebrity taking part in a wrestling show, Bela Lugosi appeared on one show managing/seconding NWA legend Lou Thesz. While this may sound unreal considering Thesz' stance on theatrics in wrestling, Lou himself verified it on his old message board. It was essentially a publicity stunt (as all these things are, honestly) arranged by Sandor Szabo, as all three men with ties to Hungary had been acquaintances prior. Sadly, beyond Thesz confirming it happened, little else of the match and event have surfaced; no date, venue or opponent (possibly Szabo?) is known, nor is whether or not Bela wore his famous Dracula cape to the ring.

49. KIWI KINGSTON

Lugosi wasn't the only Universal Monster to get involved with pro wrestling. Unlike Bela, New Zealand-born Erine "Kiwi" Kingston was a wrestler first - with a 20+ year career stretching back to the late 1940s. - but his turn as the Frankenstein Monster in the Hammer/Universal co-production THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN (1964) late in his career is undoubtedly what he is most well-known for today. He would have two more unremarkable cinematic outings and wrap up his wrestling career by 1969. He may not have been the most well-known Frankenstein Monster in either the Hammer or Universal series, he is technically the final Universal one, so that counts for something.

48. MAX PALMER

One of the legit giants of the wrestling ring, Max Palmer's billed height ranged anywhere between 7'7" and 8'2 While neither is likely accurate, he was still a tall, tall boy. Palmer originally took his massive frame to Hollywood, but only managed to snag a handful of (known) roles while there. Mostly used for sight gags on comedy shows starring the likes of Martin & Lewis as well as Jimmy Durante, Palmer would become somewhat iconic as one of the more prominent Martians in INVADERS FROM MARS (1953).

Palmer was also the titular monster in the B-movie KILLER APE (1953), sparring with Johnny (Tarzan) Weissmuller's Jungle Jim. Leaving Tinseltown behind, Palmer would soon find another calling in the squared circle. Originally billed under his real name, he would soon alternate between it and Paul Bunyan (and later, a third gimmick - Hercules) as he worked territories across the country, including (what would eventually be known as) Mid-Atlantic, CWF, AWA and Tri-State/Mid-South often taking part in battle royals and 2-or3-on-1 matches, but also working with the likes of Verne Gagne, Bobo Brazil, Dory Funk and Angelo Poffo. While it lasted longer than his acting stint, wrestling was also not Max's ultimate calling; he would retire from the ring after only five years. After that, he became an evangelist billing himself as Goliath For Christ. Most of us just know him as a classic movie monster.

47. TOR JOHNSON

An icon to bad movie buffs everywhere, Tor Johnson's wrestling career isn't *that* big a secret, especially if you watched Tim Burton's ED WOOD (1994). However, I'm a petty bastard and I want to use this as a platform to set one of that lovely film's many, many factual errors straight. While the movie shows the inept director discovering the brutish Johnson at a wrestling show and convincing him to be in a movie, the truth is Johnson's acting career (and to a degree, his wrestling career) were much more robust than Burton's take on things. In truth, by the time Wood and Johnson met, Tor had not only been wrestling for 23 years, but had been acting for 21 of them as well. With over two dozen film credits to his, er, credit prior to the Wood films, Tor had appeared (albeit often uncredited) in the films of W.C. Fields, Erroll Flynn, Abbott and Costello, and Bob Hope. His rasslin' career was nothing to sneeze at, either, with Buddy Rogers being the wrestler Tor worked with the most during his career. Very little of his actual ring work exists (the image used above is from a movie in which he portrayed a wrestler), which is a shame, but how many wrestlers can say they were a Don Post mask?

46. HAROLD SAKATA

Since we're kind of in the "actual wrestlers, just more well-known for some one-off in Hollywood" zone, let's continue with one of the most famous examples. First gaining some amount of fame winning a silver medal in weightlifting for the U.S. at the 1948 Olympics, Sakata began a wrestling career that would span nearly 30 years, working under his own name and as Tosh Togo. During that time, he traveled the world, worked over 2000 matches on record, feuded with the likes of Nick Bockwinkel and helped introduce Rikidozan to the business during a tour of Japan. In 1964, Sakata was cast in his first acting gig as the villainous henchman Oddjob in the James Bond film GOLDFINGER (1964). The film proved a massive hit, eventually amassing $124 million off a $3 million budget. With his sudden demand in Hollywood, Sakata would lighten his grappling schedule over the years as he took on more roles; while most of the films he appeared in were most of the B-movie nature, he fared better on television, where his instantly-recognizable appearance saw him cast in everything from the ROCKFORD FILES to GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. A memorable parody of Sakata's Oddjob would appear decades later in the first AUSTIN POWERS film, proving this great wrestler's legacy in the cinematic world doesn't look too shabby, either.

45. MACH FUMIAKE

Mach Fumiake (born Fumie Watanabe) is a legitimate legend of the ring. Starting off as a teenage singer and television personality, Mach would joining All-Japan Women's before she was 15. While her career was brief, she became a legend - winning (and losing) their top title, the WWWA World Championship before she turned 16 and retired before 18, leaving behind a legacy that influenced a number who followed and flourished.

BUT...as that may all be well and good and awesome, she's mostly known to western audiences as the lead superhero alien Kilara in the 1980 kaiju film GAMERA SUPER MONSTER. Sadly, little footage of her in-ring work has survived, so even many of those who know of her career have only ever seen her in this film.

44. / 43. LITTLE MAN MACHAN / LITTLE FRANKIE

Moving from Gamera to Godzilla, we have two wrestlers most widely known for portraying the Big G's son. Portraying Minya throughout the original Showa era staring with SON OF GODZILLA (1967), Masao Fukazawa - better known professionally as Little Man Machan - had been a theater performer and professional wrestler before stepping into a rubber suit and his most famous role. Sadly, very little is known about Fukazawa's wrestling career other than he apparently had one.

On the other hand, his successor Little Frankie (real name Masanobu Okamoto) had a very well-documented 10-year career, working for All-Japan, DDT and FMW. Two years into his wrestling career, he was hired to portray Little Godzilla in GODZILLA VS. SPACE GODZILLA (1994), essentially the same character as Machan's Minya in the rebooted continuity.

42. PAT ROACH

Another ring veteran with a long and storied career, Pat Roach enjoyed four decades as a mainstay on the British wrestling scene, stretching from 1960 until he retired in 1998 and holding the British World Championship in the mid-'80s. Nearly a decade into his grappling career, Roach was hired to play a small role in Kubrick's A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) and spent the next thirty years working the two professions concurrently with pretty decent success. He ended up appearing in a number of notable films including three different Robert E. Howard adaptations (CONAN THE DESTROYER (1984), RED SONJA (1985) and KULL (1997), Harryhausen's CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981) and the James Bond vehicle NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN (1983). But there would be two roles in particular that would imprint Roach in wider social awareness, the German Mechanic in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) and WILLOW (1988)

Roach's appearance in the first Indiana Jones film - he actually appeared in all three of the original trilogy in different roles - was brief but memorable, as his eager but ill-fated hulking mechanic spars with Indy for a few before eating an airplane propeller. It would prove memorable enough that his character received action figures, including a vintage Kenner release at the time of the film. Toward the end of the '80s, Roach would step before the camera again as General Kael for WILLOW, and while the film did not reach the heights of Lucas' previous STAR WARS, it was still marketed heavily and Kael's fearsome visage was plastered all over it.

41. MIKE LANE

Mike Lane may not be that well-known in either the wrestling or film worlds, but he definitely deserves a spot on this because, let's face it - how many wrestlers got to be villains on the 1966 Batman TV show? (Spoiler: There was at least one more, featured later on this list). Lane was a tall man - billed at 6'8" - and turned his size into a career, starting off as a circus act before getting into wrestling, where he was billed as Dick Hollbrook for a time before switching to Tarzan Mike. Throughout the 1950s, Lane worked mostly California promotions, battling the likes of Mad Dog Vachon, Hard Boiled Haggerty and Duke Keomuka.

But not long after getting into wrestling, Lane's height landed him a role as a boxer in THE HARDER THEY FALL (1956), which was Humphrey Bogart's final film role. While still wrestling, Lane picked up a side gig as an actor, parlaying his frame into multiple roles as the Frankenstein monster (FRANKENSTEIN 1970 (1958) and the 1976 television show MONSTER SQUAD) and Hercules in one of the many peplum films made in Italy at the time. Oh, and he was a Batman villain. Sure, he was just one of the "goons," as Tallulah Bankhead's Black Widow was the main villain for the two-episode story, but Lane's goon was a rarity in that he got his own villain name: Daddy Long Legs. Mike would bring his wrestling career to an end at the start of the '60s, devoting more time to appearing in the likes of KOJAK, KNIGHT RIDER and THE MONKEES, though he apparently returned for one single match in 1985, facing Outlaw Ron Bass.

40. RUSS FRANCIS

Moving away from movies to sports, here's one that has some of you saying "Wait, I thought we weren't counting WWF appearances and everyone knows this guy was in the Wrestlemania 2 battle royal." Well, yes, that's true, but here's what's also true: Russ was something of a "ringer" for the match. Russ was the son of wrestling promoter Ed Francis and teamed with his brother Bill for a number of years in the mid-1970s (all while playing football at the same time), even winning the NWA Hawaii Tag titles.

39. ERNIE HOLMES

And Russ wasn't the only ringer on the football side of that WM2 battle royal. About five years before taking part in that spectacle, two-time Super Bowl winner Holmes had previously dabbled in the wrestling territories, working a little over a dozen matches for the Georgia territory (feuding mostly with Baron Von Raschke), a tag team match with Buck Robley against the Freebirds (Hayes & Gordy) in Mid-South and a few sporadic appearances at a smaller Texas territory.

38. OTIS SISTRUNK

From a Super Bowl-winning Steeler with ties to the Freebirds, we turn to a Super Bowl-winning Raider with ties to the Freebirds. A Pro Bowler, Sistrunk's time in professional wrestling was fairly short. After a one-shot for Mid-Atlantic against Big John Studd, Otis went to Georgia, where he was recruited by Michael Hayes to help him against Terry Gordy and Jimmy Snuka. The ad hoc pair ended up winning the tag titles, but the business proved not to be for Sistrunk, as he would suddenly vacate the title and retire from wrestling after half a dozen or so matches.

37. WOODY STRODE

Few of the football players on this list are as legendary as Woody Strode. When the NFL finally allowed Black men to compete, Strode was one of two such men who broke the race barrier in 1946. Alongside a healthy film career (Woody was nominated for a Golden Globe for his role in SPARTACUS (1960)) that saw him appear in around a hundred roles in 55 years, Strode featured in Tarzan/jungle and Hercules/peplum movies, westerns, and was even a Batman villain at one point, as the Grand Mogul (told ya Mike Lane wasn't the only Bat-Villain on this list).

But before Woody ever played professional football, he was a pro wrestler. Strode first jumped into the squared circle in 1940, working the California area for a short time before his football career took off. Once touchdowns were in the past, Strode would again return to wrestling in 1949, spending the next eight years working the likes of Gorgeous George as he traveled everywhere from Hawaii to Canada. After a brief comeback half a decade later, Strode finally hung up the boots and focused on acting.

36. ALEX KARRAS

Few football players on this list had a more controversial career than four-time Pro Bowler Alex Karras. For about six months, Karras turned to pro wrestling between his college and NFL careers, having matches with the likes of Wilbur Snyder, Dick the Bruiser, the original Nicoli Volkoff, Don & Jackie Fargo, and Bronco Lubich. In the early '60s, Karras admitted to gambling on NFL matches, a serious no-no for an NFL player. With nothing else to do while serving out his suspension, Karras went back to his old grappling stomping grounds, joining the AWA for a losing effort against Dick the Bruiser before returning to the gridiron. Now, while a 4-time Pro Bowl player might be enough to get someone like Karras on the list, it's really what happened after both of his sports careers ended. See, Karras discovered he was only a pawn in the game of life.

Alex turned to acting, and in-between smaller roles in films like M*A*S*H (1974) and PORKY'S (1981) had two breakout roles that endeared him to millions. His supporting role of Mongo in 1974's BLAZING SADDLES and later starring with Emmanuel Lewis on the hit show WEBSTER (1983-87) as George Papadopolis. Oh, and he was the Hooded Fang in the children's cult classic JACOB TWO-TWO MEETS THE HOODED FANG (1978). Not bad for a guy that started off making some bad bets.

35. JACK DEMPSEY

While football is the most common sport one transitions from to wrestling, boxing isn't far behind it and some of the biggest names in the game have dabbled in wrestling as well. In the modern era, we have the likes of Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali and Tyson Fury, but the legacy goes way back. In the 1920s, Jack Dempsey - while still World champion - would take part in public exhibitions with his friend Luigi Montagna, aka Bull Montana the wrestler to entertain crowds before his title matches. In 1925, the two fought at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum as part of a celebration for military athletes and personnel, with Dempsey tossing Bull out of the ring to win the match. After his heyday, Dempsey would do some referee work in wrestling, apparently reffing at least one match between Lou Thesz and Buddy Rogers, and by the 1940s, he would occasionally pop up on North Carolina wrestling cards in straight-but-semi-worked boxing matches.

34. JOE LOUIS

Dempsey was only a pioneer in the pugilist-to-wrestler field, and many World champions would follow. Joe Louis, whose title reign still holds the record for length, found himself in the same place as his boxing career drew to a close. Shortly after retiring from one ring, Louis stepped into a new ring in 1954, working across the Midwest, but his life as a grappler would be short-lived, as an injury in '56 led to his retiring from active competition as well. Joe would then become a referee before he returned to active wrestling in later '60s, usually as part of tag matches, and retire from the ring for good in the mid-70s.

33. JOE FRAZIER

Knocking out the boxing round of this list, Joe Frazier. The first man to defeat Ali, once Frazier was done in the ring (for a time, he attempt multiple comebacks), he found himself in the world of wrestling. While many are aware of his shots as referee for the Flair/Dusty match at the second Starrcade and as cornerman for Mr. T at Wrestlemania 2, Frazier had been part of wrestling for years prior. As early as 1979, he was reffing for Carlos Colon in Puerto Rico. He would put on the tights himself in April of 1984, having matches against Colon and Victor Jovica before refereeing a match between Colon and Bruiser Brody that same month (with the finish seeing Brody taking a punch from Frazier).

32. BABE RUTH

Few names on this list - or many lists, for that matter - are more legendary than the great Bambino, Babe Ruth. Still considered by many to be the greatest baseball player ever, Ruth remains an icon many decades later. After his days as a slugger were over (and even during them, according to the Bleacher Report), Ruth spent some time in 1945 as a celebrity referee in the Maine, Boston and Portland areas, and as pics suggest, would get more physical with the wrestlers than many refs of the era would.

31. TONYA HARDING

After finding herself exiled from figure skating after her husband orchestrated an attack on a fellow skater, Tonya Harding became a tabloid regular in the mid-'90s. Seeking to exploit her notoriety, wrestling promoters quickly began courting her. Weeks after the attack, the WWF made her an offer to appear at Wrestlemania X (she declined) and soon after, Takashi Matsunaga offered her $2 million to work for All-Japan, but for whatever (likely legal) reason, that did not pan out. That didn't stop wrestling from wooing the disgraced skater.

On June 24, 1994, Harding would make her wrestling debut in less grand fashion in Oregon, agreeing to appear on a bizarre show comprised of Portland-territory regulars and lucha libre stars, with even the press conference for that getting air time on CNN. For one night only, Harding was the manager of Los Gringos Locos (Eddy Guererro and Art Barr) and their trios partner Brian Cox, facing off against Blue Panther Jr, Perro Aguayo and Konnan. Things got really odd, as the promoters never had time to procure a manager's license for Harding, so after the ring introductions, she had to spend the match sitting in a chair halfway down the entrance aisle. That would be it for Harding's time in wrestling for over a decade, during which she found a new calling as a professional boxer. Around 2008, while competing for a boxing promotion in Arkansas, Harding was confronted in the ring by local wrestling personality Boss Campbell, who trash-talked the crowd and Tonya before she punched him out.

[breitzbachbea]

25 fruk kiss ?

30 sicire kiss ?

I feel like both are classics for the respective ships but what can I say I love reading the same thing over and over when it comes to fiction :D

NEVER TOUCH A RUNNING SYSTEM!!! IF IT AIN'T BROKEN DON'T FIX IT! That being said, after the day I had in Lecce, I could totally see this swapped, though. Michele and Harry sucking face while Catania is flooded. Doesn't even need to be rainy Ireland. For the latter I have to inquire with my sister, who went to South France for her holiday.

50 Kiss Prompts

FrUK - Wet kisses after finding refuge from the rain.

"Seriously, going outside without an umbrella?! Are you mad?!" Arthur ranted after they had fled into the nearest Métro station, which was packed due to everyone else having the same idea. "If anything, I would have expected you'd take one because you're afraid of your hair being messed up by the rain! Are there any brains in that STD-raided brain of yours?!"

Some bystanders were looking at them, but François was used to it at this point. He just beamed, even though the embarassment of the situation - the situation mostly being Arthur's non-existent filter - still there in the quirk of his eyebrows. "I'm very glad to spend the weekend with you, too, mon chéri."

Arthur still glared at him, his briefcase above his head. "I'm seriously considering going straight to Dover via Calais. At least that tunnel is dry!"

François sighed. Instead of escalating their argument further, he cupped Arthur's face - wet skin on wet skin, cold fingers on warm cheeks - and leant in to kiss him hello. He could feel the other pout against him and chuckled, but at least Arthur didn't refuse him.

"We definitely have to change clothes once we're home," François said and now Arthur, ironically, blushed even harder. "Don't plan on spending the weekend with a cold."

Arthur lowered the briefcase, which still dripped from its corners, much like a few of his wheat-golden strands of hair. "Yes, me neither," he said.

François wrapped an arm around his shoulder, which Arthur eyed with a frown, but the blush stayed the same until he spoke up again: "Because if we're sick, how will I be able to kiss and cherish you all weekend!"

He leant in closer, while Arthur's cheeks radiated enough heat to probably dry him within minutes. "Although, if we're both sick, then I suppose it wouldn't matter and I could kiss you all the time, anyways." With that, he cupped one of the wet, warm cheeks and pressed a loud kiss - he made a kissing sound at the top of his throat, to make sure - to his other cheek. He could feel and taste the faintest hint of cold rain water.

"I'll trip you onto the tracks, then your concerns won't just be limited to this weekend," Arthur said as he stared straight ahead, across the tracks and to the métro station's other side.

He was fascinated with how red his ears were. So he laughed and made no show of releasing Arthur, who clung to his briefcase as if his life - or more accurately, his honour - depended on it. "But chéri, you will only make more concerns for yourself this way. Since if I am gravely injured, I will need someone to take care of me - and you wouldn't leave such a task to my poor Maman and Arielle and Désirée, would you?"

He laughed while Arthur's lips pressed into a thin line and he was surprised that neither steam was shooting out of his ears nor that the rest of the rainwater simply evaporated off of him.

He thought about extending the list of potential caretakers by dragging the Scots into it, but was sure that this could actually end with him on the tracks. So instead he smiled and patted Arthur's other cheek before he put his hand on his chest. Sadly, the other was too layered up to feel his heartbeat. "No, you wouldn't, mon lapin, so let's just get to my appartment, change out of these clothes and occupy ourselves with more pleasant activities for this evening. There's a lovely little restaurant that opened up around the corner, trés chic, so I could make a reservation, if you'd like."

It took a few more laboured breaths, but then Arthur deflated. "Yes, sounds good," he said. When François put his hand back onto his cheek to turn his face, he said: "Oh, you can't be helped, can you?", but answered the kiss to his lips.

SicIre - Weak, sweaty kisses because it’s unbearably hot.

By this point, Harry was doing himself no favours. With the amount of times he kissed Michele's neck, the sweat he licked up must have dried his throat out.

"Beddu ..." Michele said and moved his head to the side. They sat in the shade of his terrace, on the cold stone tiles. Harry leant against the wall, Michele in his lap. Next to them on a tablet were the granite Michele had made them.

Harry tried to speak, but as predicted, his voice gave out. Michele lifted one of the glasses up and helped but the straw into Harry's mouth, who greedily sucked up the thick sugar crystals infused with lemon juice.

Once they had been finished weeding the fields and Michele had done some emergency repairs on an eggplant, because Angelo's chicken would have been able to break out and into the fucking aula bunker of the Ucciardone, Harry had ditched his shirt, shoes and socks in the shade. Michele had followed suit with the shirt, so that his back and Harry's stomach now stuck together.

"Thanks darling," Harry said after he had released the straw and Michele looked at the pitiful rest of granita with a raised eyebrow. He put naughty thoughts about Harry's sucking strength aside like the glass and picked up another one to cool himself down.

It was too hot for naughty thoughts anyways. With the way that the walls enclosed his property, there was barely a rush of wind to cool them down, not to mention that the further away one got from the seaside, the more oppressive the heat.

Thusly, once Michele released the straw and turned his head to look at Harry, they only managed pecks on each other's lips. They turned their heads sometime and every now and then a tongue darted out to swipe across lips and prod the tip of the other's, but everything else seemed like too much work.

"Mhm, are those strawberries?" Harry asked after one such playful meeting of tongues. He licked his own lips.

"Mhm," Michele hummed in agreement and put the straw back between his lips to suck up more of the strawberry granita. It was unclear if Harry's hazy, yet desirefilled stare was related to the granita or naughty thoughts that involved Michele's mouth.

"Knock yourself out," he said. "That's why I made so many." He put the straw to Harry's mouth, who blissfully closed his eyes and made short work of the granita.

Michele softly kissed the pulsing cheek, his lips barely brushing skin and more the fine hairs and the faintest traces of an emerging five o'clock shade that Harry would have to shave tomorrow.

~*~

The Ucciardone, properly the carcere dell'ucciardone, is a high security prison in Palermo. The aula bunker is a court building on its premises which had specifically been constructed for the Maxi Trials of the late 80s and early 90s, which saw nearly 500 mafiosi on trial.

[andreagreyshaw]

Okay guys so here the summary of the lore videos of Reverie Audios. I am not sure if I can call it a summary because I literally wrote down everything lol. Also go check the videos if you have time amazing art right there.

here we go!

REALITIES:

There are theoretically an infinite number of realities. Some people call them alternate realities but in reality there is no one true or standard reality. (Without a "normal" reality there can't be alternate realities). Humans can't travel outside of their own reality so the information from other realities comes from the beings that can travel between realities.

There are four known realities.

"Cunae" is the name of Humanity's reality.

People called the beings from other realties ‘’Demons’’ in the past now the name stuck.

These beings (demons) are categorized in three; Benevolent, ambivalent, or malevolent. (There are variations within each populations just like humans.)

FLAME DEMONS

The most known reality is ‘’The Inferno Dominion’’. The dominant species known as ‘’Flame Demons’’ frequently visit Cunea to make contracts, pacts or deals with humans.

The land is always dusty, and they have two suns, but neither is ever directly above, and the landscape is mostly rocky and mountains with no large bodies of water.

The Inferno Dominion is ruled by a monarchy. Also, there are regional government systems.

The monarch: Saaa'rthan (non-gendered)

Inner circle of advisors of the ruler: The derevan

Outer circle that resembles aristocracy: The derathal

Flame demons’ flame is like their soul. They are able to use and control it, but they also need to nurture it. Most of them have horns (shows the region they are from) and marks (shows they successfully reach adulthood) like tattoos. They are able to live up to 800 years old and their adulthood starts at 40-50. They are categorized as ambivalent, but they are quick tempered and prideful.

ICE DEMONS

Their reality is called ‘’Crystallis’’. They don’t contact humanity as much as flame demons. They have a kind of bad history with flame demons. Each region has their own monarch and there is a monarch council to rule the Crystallis. The world is almost covered with ocean and most of the wildlife is aquatic. Despite their name there is not much ice. They are categorized as ambivalent; they tend to be logical and neutral. Their average life span is almost 1000 years.

VERDANT DEMONS

Their reality is called ‘’Home of the Mother’’. All of the information on this place comes from Flame Demons. Flame Demons avoid and basically hate this place. It is like a huge tree called The Mother and demons living on the tree. Apparently the tree births the Verdant Demons. They don’t have a government system. They rarely leave their reality because they are so connected to each other and The Mother. They are classified as benevolent cause they only fight in self-defense. They live so long but we don’t know how long.

MIMICS

Their reality is called Venseus. We don’t know anything about them except they are so creepy, and they can change their looks. The less we know the better, but the landscape is similar to earth, and they are classified as ambivalent.

BLOOD AND DECAY DEMONS (It’s only one kind of demon don't let the name fool ya)

Their reality is called Metamorphose. Again, we don’t know much about them. They behave like mushrooms in the sense of rebirth. And they can reborn themselves (???). There are few of them but technically they can live forever. They are classified as ambivalent. Fun fact: only human meeting to blood and decay demon described them as beautiful, horrifying, and biblically accurate.

CHAOS DEMONS AND PUPPETRY DEMONS

Their reality is called Land of the Unlighted. These two demons are so dangerous, and they are malevolent and should considered to be active thread. We believe they live a symbiotic lifestyle. Just run for your life basically.

THE CROSSPOINTS

This is so complicated omg. ‘’Imagine a patchwork quilt and each patch is a reality. In between these patches are gaps. These gaps are like highways in between realities, and these ways are called cross points.’’ The abilities of being in one reality can be spread to the beings of another reality. (As in weakened form). And the power of the attuned comes from there.

THE ATTUNED (Humans with magic abilities.)

They are called the attuned because they are more closely attuned to the cross points.

Apparently, the powers initially come from the cross points but nowadays it is mostly hereditary.

Two categories of attuned: mystical and magical (technically it can be 3 categories with both mystical and magical.)

Mystical: their physical being is paranormal.

Magical: their abilities are paranormal.

ESSENCE EATERS

It is believed their powers come from Blood and Decay Demons. They are classified as both mystical and magical. The Institute was founded to study them. There are multiple legends and stories about them. succubi incubi vampire etc. essence eaters can feed from life essence, blood essence, and sexual essence. They also have a resistance to toxins poisons and illnesses. When they are recently fed they have a higher pain tolerance and increased strength. They have been demonized for years and they tend to stick together in ‘’circles’’. The children can feed off other essence eaters until they reach full maturity. They almost live up to 160 years old. They generally take another essence eater as a mate. Essence eaters can turn their non-essence eater mate. It doesn’t make the mate essence eater, but it makes them the essence eaters primary eating source this extends their life span. A mate is chosen only once. There is also going feral. It rarely happens when an essence eater loses their mate. Because of this most essence eater doesn’t take the risk of taking mate. Other reasons for getting feral are not known and are so rare.

SHIFTER

It is believed their powers come from Mimics. they can shift into one specific kind of a living being that is native to our reality. And the life systems should be similar to ours. Also, there is like a dominant DNA thing going on between the shifter kinds. The longer shifter stays in their shifted form the least likely they want to shift back.

THE ELVEN

(Hello Cyril ily)

They made approximately 13% of the attuned. It is not known where the Elven come from. Some people think the Elven aren't a result of other realities, but Cyril thinks those people are wrong lol. The Elven are considered to be mystical beings (but it is possible that an elven can also be a sorcerer which makes them both mystical and magical.) They are known for their ears. The Elven keep themselves hidden throughout history to live comfortable but nowadays there are many resources to assist in assimilation into "normal society". There are still many Elven prefer to isolate themselves. They can live up to 120 years old. Not long ago the elven were forced to alter their appearances if they wished to live amongst non-elven. They have a good memory, and they are more reasonable and logical than the average human.

TIME-JUMPERS

They are the only humans capable of entering the cross points. But they can’t travel to other realities. They briefly enter the cross points and re-enter Cunea at another time. They are the rarest type of the attuned (3%) and they are hard to keep track of. All of the time jumpers come from non-attuned parents, and they can’t reproduce themselves but why? We are not sure.

SORCURERS

Their powers don’t manifest until they are 10-12. And the powers are mostly genetic. Sorcerers can branch out (lol) into other branches with enough training.

4 main branch+1.

Mending Sorcery: Healing or fixing things. Overuse of their powers can take from their own health. Also, essence eaters dislike receiving mending magic. There are three specializations: healing, pacifying, and rebuilding(undo).

Divination Sorcery: ability to see into the future. Some people can clearly see guaranteed events. Some can see vague premonition. Some can see a wide variety of potential future. there are two types of divination. One can see the future with only their mind’s eye. The other needs tools (like water, fire etc. to see the future.

Cognitive Sorcery: their powers come from the land of the unlighted. There are four specialization: obscuration(invisibility), telekinesis (mentally moving objects), memory alternation (alter or wipe the memories) and telepathy (hearing the thoughts of others).

Elemental Sorcery: earth, fire, water, flora (also called vegetation), and storm (air + electricity).

Recasters: the plus one branch. They have no specialization. They have strong connection to cross points. They rely on what belled into our reality from faults. They can reshape the existence material. (Wow this was more complicated than all those realities.). Also, they need to register to SPAAB.

Faults: small tears in the fabric of our reality. (Not literally)

THE INSTITUTE: The Mysticality Institution of Research

The Institute has existed since 1713. It is not like an ordinary university.

SPAAB: Services for the Protection and Assistance of Attuned Beings. (Social Services for the magic people)