#soviet wizards

[heey-i-came-for-memes]

Okay, hear me out

I have a few headcanons about Grindelwald and Dumbledore.

And I will share them with you. Because I can.

Okay. Let's start with a fact that it isn't entirely my headcanon. Because I was largely inspired by one fanfic. I can't share it, because I cannot remember which one it was. Just that the author was Vladarg. So thank (or curse) him.

The duel between Grindelwald and Dumbledore happened on November the 2nd 1945, according to Harry Potter Wiki.

And after that Grindelwald was just imprisoned. Why "just"? Well, Sirius Black was sentenced to Dementor's kiss just for the murder of three wizards and thirteen muggles. And that if we were to count James and Lily. It is obvious that in the War with Grindelwald many more people lost their lives.

So the first part of my headcanon is that it was Dumnledore who made sure for Grindelwald to just be imprisoned. Old feelings and all that.

The second part consists of two parts: one major and one less major. Let's start with the second one.

The Grindelwald (just as Voldemort) is the obvious allegory for Hitler. And in his case it is even more obvious that in Tommy's. Here similar not only the speeches of a superior race, but everything down to the clothes and hair.

So I present to you the idea that Grondelwald worked with Hitler. He did not control him. Because fuck every idea that in any sense makes Hitler less responsible for his crimes.

Then a few facts from canon:

First: Grindelwald knew about the Holocaust. He knew about it twelve (or something like that) years prior. He had the power to stop it. Especially if we remember that Rowling is an idealist (in philosophical sense) and it is her universe.

Second: In "Harry Potter and Half-Blood Prince" it is shown that British Ministry of Magic works with Prime Minister. I don't see why the same logic wouldn't apply to Germany. So even if Grindelwald didn't support Hitler from the get-go, he worked with him after he came to power.

So, my major headcanon sounds like this:

Grindelwald knew about Hitler because of his powers. But they began their semi-official cooperation only after 1933 and it lasted till Hitler's death. Therefore, wizards under Grindelwald also were involved in Germany's position. Including the War time. Including on the Eastern front.

And they were worse than non-wizards there. Because magic gives power, great and horrible at the same time.

Soviet wizards wanted Grindelwald's head.

But Dumbledore dueled him. And kept him alive.

The conclusion? Dumbledore can't come to Soviet Union, because he will be executed immedeately.

That's all for today. Tune in at some other random day for more headcanons

[iljowicz]

Black brothers bby!

I want to draw jegulus and my marauders au but this is all I can show you right now ;n;

[super-ion]

Aug-UST Day 17 - From rival factions

Some original fiction of character ideas that have been rattling around in my brain for a while now, based on a prompt from @thepromptfoundry

---

I heave against the barn door and in a horrible cacophony, it grinds closed. It's still cold as hell, but at least we're out of the wind and snow.

I should probably place wards on the doors... and windows... and...

I glance up at the roof of the barn where wind whistles through more than a few holes that need patching. Yeah, no amount of warding is going to make this place defensible. Honestly, it's probably better not to use any magic at all, lest we give away our position.

That and I'm completely exhausted, I very much doubt I have any effort to spare for a half decent ward.

Getting eaten by zombies on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain was not how I imagined myself going out.

A hiss of a match brings my attention back to the here and now. Katerina is stooped over a glass lantern that shortly casts a sickly yellow light over the room. For a moment, I get that same brief impression of too many shadows around her. Spending a week with her has done little at temper the strangeness of her magic to my senses, that blend of traditional Eastern European craft and whatever the hell the Soviets have been dreaming up.

She straightens, bearing the lantern aloft and peering around the room as she carelessly brushes the curtain of her dark hair behind her ear. The flickering lamplight casts her bony features in sharp relief, and it really isn't that hard to imagine her as some witch living in a hut in the woods that walks around on chicken legs. There's something hard yet beautiful about her. She's...

"Elizabeth, you are bleeding," she says cutting through my thoughts.

I raise a hand to the wet spot on my temple.

"It's just a scratch," I reply. "It looks worse than it is."

She frowns and strides towards me.

"Let me see," she demands.

"It's nothing," I insist, probably sounding petulant, which is not at all my intent.

"It is not nothing if those beasts hunt by smell."

Damn, she's got me there.

She sets the lantern on the ground and takes my head in her hands. Her touch is surprisingly gentle as she makes her examination.

My heart speeds up at the touch.

Get it together Liz, I tell myself. She's the enemy.

Is she though?

Only a few months ago, our two nations were bearing down on one another in the waters between Cuba and Florida. Even the mundane world understood how close everything had come to all going to hell.

Right now though? Here in this barn in the East German countryside? We are just two witches, just two women united against a common enemy.

She murmurs something in a language I don't recognize and a blessed warmth flows through me, centering on the cut on my scalp.

Her eyes meet mine, those dark pools of intensity captivating me. The gaze lingers. The gentle touch of her fingers against my cheek linger. Her eyes flicker to my lips briefly, erasing any doubt that she hasn't felt the exact same feelings that had been haunting me.

Unbidden, my breath hitches. We are so close, it would be the easiest thing in the world to close that distance between us.

This is...

This is a terrible idea. At the end of the day, common enemy or no, we are still agents of rival governments.

I watch as the exact same thought plays out in her head. Something in her expression closes off and she jerks her hands away.

"We should get some rest," she mutters. "We will both need all our strength in the morning."

"Yeah..." I agree reluctantly.

[andmaybegayer]

a TV. would be nice for the Thicket so that I can have people over for movies. But for the cost of a TV one can purchase many soviet era microscopy equipment.

[moss-in-hiding]

(i’m making basically translation of my previous post that’s fully in Russian) 

today I watched an old Soviet two episode show called Ordinary Miracle, which I haven’t seen since I was a kid. however, while I was watching it, I realize that two of the characters the Wizard and his wife are basically just Howl and Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle.

because the wizard is on one hand trying to live normally, but also turned a bear into a human just for his own amusement? (but also it’s heavily implied he did it because he wanted the bear to feel love and get to be human) and his wife, who is ginger by the way, just like book Sophie, is basically his conscience telling him that it’s inhumane to force the bear to be human if he doesn’t want to be.

oh, and also the movie starts off with the line my wife who I’ve been in love with since I was a boy- which is literally Howl.

but yeah, it’s on YouTube if you’re into subbed surreal soviet musicals from the 70s!

[ttoshaaa]

Oh-uh, looks like i’m having bisexual panic

[txttletale]

You've helped expose me to a lot of theory that I hadn't read before, and I'm realizing i need to read more theory for real, like. Actually. That being said; The more I start to lean into communist thoughts and not just anti capitalist, I find myself becoming warped and joyless. How does it not take a tole on you? The constant reminder of the endless suffering of the oppressed? How do I enjoy art when I am forced to see all of it as a coerced product, suffering for my entertainment? The constant guilt of life is something I dont think I can stomach at all times. Am i supposed too? (BTW; I mean this more so as an ask of how you do it, not to argue that because suffering is hard to look at we should actually just go back to the status quo and ignore it. I'm just like. Not sure how to deal with it, I guess.)

i don't really feel guilty about anything so i don't know how much i can help. i guess i just think that using communism as like a lense to judge your own individual morality as many people like to do is bound to make you miserable to no real avail. that's not the purpose of communist theory, the point of communist theory is to analyze society and history and guide mass-scale poltical action, not tell you if you're evil for watching the new star wars or whatevsies.

i guess i also personally find that reading socialist history and the more practical, grounded-in-praxis types of theory is liberatory and fills me with optimisim--reading about, e.g., social systems in cuba or people's democracy in the early soviet union is helpful in dispelling the 'oh, everything's going to be horrible forever, socialism is just a utopian pipe dream' insinct that i think liberal hegemony instills in most people, by showing how people took actual sensible pragmatic steps to introduce things like workplace democracy, universal healthcare, women's equality, mass literacy, etc. post-revolution. it helps you understand that communism is not a magic wizard who will come and save us all but yknow something that is doable and achievable by human beings.

[catgirlforeskin]

Since Wizards of the Coast is torpedoing all the good-will they have with DnD to wring more money out of it, I want to make a guide for people who recognize they should jump ship, but don’t know alternatives.

If you’re deeply invested in DnD and want something as similar as possible, Pathfinder 2 is what you want. It’s the next biggest game in the tabletop scene (in the US), you can find physical copies in stores easily, and Paizo allows free resources online to exist without constant threat of being taken down like WotC does. It will remain free to play on any VTT while DnD will require you to subscribe to their proprietary one.

Most importantly, though, it improves on almost every aspect of DnD. Combat and class balance is extremely well thought out and makes all combats engaging and difficult in a fun way, requiring teamwork and clever thinking. Roleplay is integrated into character creation and play better, and you no longer have to choose between being good in combat or exploration or roleplay, you get to play and feel useful during all aspects of the game. It’s hard to emphasize how much better it is without just playing, if you still want something like DnD, play Pathfinder 2.

If you like high fantasy adventuring but are willing to get more out there, Fellowship and Dungeon World are good options. Fellowship is a more free-form adventure game focused on creating a cinematic experience over getting bogged-down in rules-heavy play. If you want to play a Lord of the Rings style campaign and have it feel like the movies, Fellowship is the way to go.

Dungeon World is called “Powered by the Apocalypse” which means it was inspired by Apocalypse World, an amazing ttrpg that revolutionized the scene and became the gold standard for interweaving roleplay and gameplay. Dungeon World is meant to be a bridge between DnD and indie rpgs, and it’s good for that, though there are better PbtA games. It’s a good introduction to principles like failing forward and playing to find out what happens (and hell, a good introduction to games having principles lol). There’s also an Avatar the Last Airbender licensed PbtA game that’s very good, if that’s your thing!

Speaking of licensed games, Free League Publishing sets the benchmark for rpgs built for existing intellectual properties, and while I haven’t played all of their games, I’m a big fan of what I have played. They also have independent settings, like Twilight 2000, a really good apocalypse survival game set in a collapsing warfront between an alternate-history NATO and Soviet Union as the two dying empires bring all of society down in their death spiral. I’m using it as the base for my Halo rpg, it’s very good.

Blades in the Dark is another big name in the indie scene, and for good reason. It’s a heist game that has been adapted to lots of other settings (games that say they’re “Forged in the Dark” take inspiration here) and it’s clear to see why so many have used it as a foundation once you’ve played, it’s an exciting crime procedural where you play a group of scoundrels punching above your weight and facing the consequences

There’s a million other amazing rpgs I could mention here, and I’m sure people will talk about plenty of lovely ones I’ve missed in the notes, but I think the most important thing I want to convey with this is that there’s a whole world of diverse and interesting rpgs at all levels of production, from big corporate teams to one girl with a laptop who barely knows how to make a pdf, and there’s no better time to start exploring them.

A common refrain is that DnD can be modified to do anything, but once you’ve played other rpgs you’ll see why that’s not true, and why those creative efforts would be better spent in other systems. Hacking rpgs is as old a tradition as rpgs themselves, but if the only tools you know are DnD, you’re being limited with what you can create more than you could possibly know. There’s no better time to leave this Plato’s Cave and see the beauty and wonder of the whole ttrpg scene

[lizardthirty]

Ideas for Monkees episodes

- Micky, Peter, and Davy stage a prison break after Mike is arrested for tax evasion

- Davy falls down a storm drain and has a Big Adventure

- They find the secret fifth member of the band, Bill, living in a crawl space. He is played by an actor who has no record of ever existing and the character is never mentioned again.

- Davy gets carried away by a giant bird and the rest of the band has to save him from being eaten by the bird’s horrible wretched offspring (this one is partially @androcola’s)

- Body Swap Episode. Mike ends up in Peter’s body, has a panic attack, and locks himself in the bathroom. Davy in Mike’s body has a great time getting things off of high shelves. Micky is in Davy’s body and takes the opportunity to follow his dreams of fitting inside a shipping crate but it goes wrong and he gets sent to Quebec. Peter is in Micky’s body technically but he doesn’t even notice that anything is going on.

- Micky wants to learn stage magic so he apprentices himself to a guy who turns out to be a real literal wizard

- Davy falls into the space between his bed and the wall and they just lose him for a week

- an episode from the perspective of the ambiguously Soviet agents sent to kidnap the boys for stupid microfilm reasons. They consistently fail due to mishaps indirectly caused by what the boys are up to, which is of course attempting to wrangle the several dozen snakes which have been let loose in the pad for reasons which are never disclosed to the audience. The boys never even notice that there is somebody trying to kidnap them.

- the boys go to Connecticut to visit Peter’s extended family. It turns out that Peter’s folks are deeply unpleasant old-money New Englanders and also are members of an “Innsmouth” style cult, who try to sacrifice Micky to their god, Shmagon.

- Peter gets lost in a parking garage (scary)

[inbabylontheywept]

Master Post of Writings and Series

HFY Science Fiction That Isn't a Ship, It's a Cannon with FTL! Military fiction revolving around space pirates and a railgun someone strapped an FTL drive to. There are three parts, the link above should let you scroll through the whole series. Like Sharks A short fic based on the prompt "Humans are the only ones to actually develop FTL. Everyone else just uses wormholes." The Scattering Experimental piece. I normally do prose, but I tried a poem. Inspired by the Dark Forest Theory. "So...What's the biggest gun you've ever made?" First installment starring Earl, a weapons designer. In this episode he explains the basics of fission-based fusion weapons, their applications in throwing things into orbit. Also stars a horny lobsterman. "R&D? More like R&Deez Nuts" Second installment starring Earl. This is a laser tag fight starring the R&D division, accounting, and sales. There will be male bonding. Or else. "Yeah, sure, and I shit thermite. Be serious." Earl drinks until he pukes. Aliens learn that humans produce hydrochloric acid for digestion. The Vengabus is Coming! A pinned down group of soldiers has to call in a human tank for backup. Shock and awe does not begin to describe it. Hold Your Breath and Burn The bad news is that he's gonna die in space. The good news is that he can make it count. "I will solve you if I must." The last tool of diplomacy is threats. Burning Bridges You don't have to kill a soldier to keep them from being a combatant. "I think we underestimated the scale of the human species by eight or nine orders of magnitude." In which humans turn out to be the swarm. Party Favors Humanity solved mortality. It did not solve boredom. Now it's everyone's problem. Starring my creepiest humans, a lot of drugs, and the leasy sexy descriptions of sex I could make.

HFY Fantasy Small, Fragile, and Destined to Die There's something to be said for spitting in the face of death. Sometimes, literally. "Healing+Lightning=Wizard Launcher" Unconventional spell uses let a wizard punch above his weight. And bite. And kick. Human wizards make a lot of ruckus. An Honorary Troll A wizard fights a troll. It is not a very wizardly fight. I considered it a very loose sequel to the story above it, but both can absolutely be read separately. Dale of the Dales A two part series about a human protecting a town of halflings from an army of gnomes with the power of hospitality, and also being comparatively massive. Why Human's Can't Cast On the properties of superconductors and golden gods. The Thunder God of Honnillee A human is adopted by a halfling. What Talon and What Dreadful Claw Tragedy with a man and a spynx.

Unsorted Fictions Leviathan A necromancer scours the depths of hell for a soul worthy of his creation. He finds more than he bargained for. Odysseus in Space (It's very, very good) Biographical Pieces Soviet Birds A comedy of errors is resolved by the Vessel of Bird Sacrifice. The Kitchen Labyrinth of Missile Science Why does a classified facility with 30 people at it have 7 kitchens? What would you do if I told you it has seven of every kind of room? The Fridges. Oh my God, the Fridges. It also has 20 fridges in it. Obviously. Kevin vs. Intro to Quantum You would be surprised at the kind of intellectual challenges random bystanders can take. I certainly was. Layman walks in and becomes the class mascot. The Condom Bomber In which I fuck up. Videos None of these are narrated by me, but I thought I'd list them here for anyone that prefers listening to reading. Like Sharks, read by Grey Voice. He focuses on smooth reading. Like Sharks, read by Aggro Squirrel. He has a theatrical voice. Like Sharks, read by NetNarrator. He has a fast, clipped style. The Vengabus is Coming & Burning Bridges 2 for 1 by Aggro Squirrel. "Yeah, and I shit thermite. Be serious." by Net Narrator. "So, what's the biggest gun you've ever made?" by Aggro Squirrel.

[plasmometer]

in half asleep state i remembered that the wonderful wizard of oz was not translated, but rewritten for soviet audience, and feel pity for people who don't know EXCLUSIVE LORE bc volkov wrote like five additional books. so we had an aspiring dictator who wanted to occupy the emerald city twice, and after two failures decided to settle for gardening. and he was fucking good at it. we had underworld noble drama. we had magical chemical weapons. we had fucking aliens. i just remembered it for some reason and i feel that it needs to be told

sad that the article doesnt include the plot of the follow-up books and i don't remember them well

[sixty-silver-wishes]

lit crit nerd here to set the record straight!! "death of the author" does not mean what you may think it means.

so, I often see "death of the author" used to justify someone liking a work made by someone who has done something morally wrong. for example, if a Certain Rich Lady wrote a book about a Certain Wizard Boy and turns out to be a Certain Massive Twatwaffle, some people will say "death of the author" to mean that while they disapprove of her, they still like her book and want to enjoy it. and like, whether or not it's ethical to engage with that book, or the right or wrong way to engage with it, isn't the point of this post. but that's not what "death of the author means" in media criticism.

"death of the author" is associated with formalist theory (which just so happens to be another term that was famously misappropriated in the soviet union, but again, that's another issue altogether). formalism essentially suggests that interpreting a work relies on the subject of the text, not its outside influences, such as the author's intentions for the text or the historical context which it was written in. "death of the author" is what allows formalism to work; according to formalist theory, whatever an author wanted to say in their work is irrelevant once it reaches a reader. instead, the meaning of the text is derived from what the reader interprets from the text itself. it has nothing to do with the ethics of consuming media by a certain author, but rather how we interpret that media for ourselves, regardless of how the author wanted it to be interpreted.

to use the same example, let's say that jk rowling intended for her transphobic views to be clearly expressed in the harry potter series. (it's not likely that they were, as she was not vocally transphobic until after they were published, but this is a hypothetical based on a well-known example.) however, due to death of the author, according to formalist theory, it doesn't matter whether or not jk rowling intended to be transphobic. what does matter is what the reader gets from the text. it's entirely possible for one reader to view the text as transphobic, but for another reader to view it as pro-trans. hell, this did happen within the harry potter fandom, as many queer people, including trans people, felt that the books resonated with their experiences with regards to being queer. both readings- of harry potter as an anti-trans and harry potter as a pro-trans text- may have been concluded from the same paragraph in the book. according to the idea of "death of the author," both interpretations would hold equal validity, because they're both supported by the text.

"death of the author" does not mean it's automatically okay to engage with creators like rowling without any care for the implications of monetarily supporting her, nor does it mean we shouldn't think critically about her work and what she intended. in fact, I would argue that it's important to understand the author's intentions, if possible, even if they may be different from your own interpretation. it's also just as important to understand interpretations that may be different from your own, as long as they're based in the same text. I'm just sick of seeing this term misused, as a lot of terms from theory often are.

[therealvinelle]

Odds of Tom starting a communist revolution if he was sorted into Hufflepuff ?

... I'm guessing this is a reference to @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin's taken down fic Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus, in which our main character is living in Muggle Britain in 1985 and, on hearing about Lord Voldemort who led a violent political uprising, says "Ah, so like a communist!"

There's a running theme/joke in that fic of various incarnations of Tom Riddle being nicknamed for major Soviet figures (Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin), but the Tom Riddle of that fic was never actually a communist. He just gave up on correcting a stubborn five-year-old.

I for a series of reasons don't see Tom Riddle ever becoming a communist, in part because he grows up at a time where Bolsheviks are those dangerous lunatics who think everything is fine and dandy in Soviet Russia and we should do the same thing here, in part because I don't think the core tenets of communism would appeal to him in the slightest.

If the Wizarding World was susceptible to the ideology he might claim to be a comrade, but they famously already have their pureblood ideology so he doesn't have to go through the steps of creating class consciousness among wizards and inspiring a class war. Wizards who, having magic, can duplicate, summon, conjure, and transfigure what they like and as such lack the basic motivator for a class-based uprising, which is having nothing to lose and everything to gain. There's a reason why the French peasants rebelled and the modern working class doesn't even though the wealth distribution is even worse now, and that reason is living standards.

Better to use a pre-existing, readily accessible to wizards, ideology, even if he's to use something other than pureblood supremacy.

As for whether sorting would make a difference- honestly, so many things would factor in there that the best I can say is, "Write the fic!"

(Important note: Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus was taken down as Muffin wrote an original version of the book under the pseudonym Jane Doe @janedoewrites. Buy it here!)

[frosted-night]

The Rotgoc fandom is no stranger to misconceptions, like somehow saying Jokul Frosti is Jacks norse counterpart when Jokul n Frosti are two seperate spirits etc. You guys know that I'm sure.

One that nags at me is the notion that Jack Frost and "Father Frost" are the same person or spirit. In my research for the Christmas spirits, I've learned quite a bit about Father Frost, and its very clear that he isn't Jack. Father Frost is North, or related to him.

Father Frost comes from a Russian Folktale that goes as follows;

A stepmother orders her husband to take the stepdaughter out in the wilderness to die. The girl is freezing at the foot of a tree and Father Frost appears. Instead of fearing him she's said to be nice to him despite her circumstances. Touched by the girl, Father Frost dresses her in warm fine linens to keep her warm and gives her a chest full of gems. The Stepmother sends her husband to fetch the girls body to bury and to his surprise the girl is just fine. Stepmother is enraged but curious how the girl got such nice things. So, she sends her own daughter out in the same place the stepdaughter nearly died in, to get the same valuable stuff. Father Frost appears but the girl is rude to him, probably demanding the same things as her stepsister. Insulted, Father Frost punishes her by allowing her to freeze to death.

Moral of the story is don't be greedy ig. So whats the connection to North? Father Frost sounds more like a winter spirit than Santa right? Ehhhh kind of. Father Frost is based off of the Slavic counterpart of Santa, Ded Moroz(This is the Russian spelling of his name.) Ded Moroz is said to be either a winter wizard, snow demon. Back then he was mostly called "Morozoko" or "ded". He was reformed to resemble more of Santa around the time of Soviet occupation.

Now, the early iteration of Ded Moroz could resemble Jack Frost, why the literal translation for his name is Grandfather Frost. However, just because Frost is in his name doesn't mean they're related. Ded Moroz resembles Santa more these days or St.Nicholas...so who's Ded Moroz?

Keep in mind I'm not Russian or Slavic, Eastern European countries have differing versions of Santa/St.Nicholas that could just be aliases for North. A reasonable assumption is Ded Moriz is an alias for North. I suppose if you stretched it maybe Ded Moriz could be seperate from Jack or North but due to the evolution of Ded Moroz's character it makes it hard to split him from Santa.

Regardless, I can kind of see why some would tie him to Jack Frost but if you read more about Father Frost/Ded Moroz, it's pretty clear the two barely have any association.