#zeitgeist imagines

[danishpastri]

Happy Valentine’s

BTD/TPOF As Your Valentine

Strade

He’s surprised at first. You got him chocolates? Where did you even get them? The collar on your neck made it so you couldn’t leave, and you didn’t know your address.

He shrugs it off and starts eating the chocolates immediately. He almost didn’t see the note next to the heart-shaped box, but when he finally reads it.

He smiles, “Ah… I’m going to wreck them later.” He hums as he eats with his mouth full of chocolate.

“Ooh, this one’s filled with caramel.”

Lawrence

He’s starstruck

“H-Huh? Valentine’s Day? Uhm… thank you. I didn’t get you something though. I-Is that okay?”

He’s all red and nervous, constantly fighting with his hands as he stares down at the chocolates. He doesn’t want to eat them. They were a gift from you, and it would feel wrong to eat.

So he doesn’t… he never opens the box and lets it become a decoration piece, letting it rest up against a wall.

You make a reminder to yourself to just give him a card next year.

Ren

He’s so excited. He got you chocolates as well, fox themed.

He has a whole date planned with you. Movie time together is always fun with him, but he actually chose a romance movie to watch instead of the usual gore.

It’s a special day, one where you two can be together for as long as possible.

He’s also definitely going to give you head.

He’s between your legs with a knife against your skin, and he’s carving a heart into your upper thigh.

Rire

“Oh? You know, I have heard of a Valentine’s gift before, but I never thought I’d actually receive one.”

He’s gives you a small kiss. “I’ll make sure to keep this for as long as I live, darling.”

You and him then proceed to have a long night filled with red wine, a fine dinner, and love making.

You wake up the next day with bruises and bite marks littering your shoulders, back, thighs, and arms.

Sano

He got you flowers, roses with thorns. He gets down on one knee to give them to you.

He’s quite romantic, taking you out for dinner at a restaurant.

He bought you an outfit as well as one for himself. He wanted both of you to look as dashing as possible while you ate.

He’s holding your hand while you eat, making it quite hard to cut your steak.

Once you two reach home, you take a shower together then go to sleep.

But who says there weren’t naughty times occurring during that shower

Vincent

He’s astonished. He finds you laying in bed with new lingerie that he didn’t know you bought.

You don’t go on a date or anything fancy.

Just countless hours of breeding until all of your holes are leaking.

He does give you tons of aftercare, giving you a hot bath afterwards while he rubs you up and down with a towel.

Cain

He’s going to make you the nicest steak dinner in the whole world.

He’ll eat you out afterwards too. He gets two nice meals that day >;p

Lots of romantic shit. He gets in with you in your bathtub, makes you food, makes love to you.

All the romantic date cliches

Derek

You gave him chocolates? He’s not too grateful. You give him flowers? He doesn’t care.

“Oh? It’s Valentine’s Day? I didn’t know. Whoops, guess you aren’t getting anything ‘till next year.”

He doesn’t really care about the holiday, but he’ll still fuck you (he already does that practically every day though).

Celia

Just like Sano, she’ll take you out for dinner. She’ll wear a beautiful dress while she does; it’s black with velvet material, and it doesn’t show much skin.

She’ll bring you home afterwards and gladly sit on your face.

You shower with her after making love, and you both can’t stop touching each other.

You fall asleep naked while in each other’s arms and smiles on your faces

Mason

“Darlin? I’m sorry; I didn’t know it was today. I, uh… was planning to give you this on your birthday though.”

He hands you a wood-carved heart; although it’s not cute and stylistic. It’s an atomically accurate replica of a real heart but made out of wood.

He’s trying hard to be romantic. Just give him time. He’s used to only having murder on the mind.

You two will get chairs and sit by the lake, watching the sunset go down together as you hold hands and talk about your days.

[anghraine]

elizabethwydevilles replied to this post:

'Most "corrections" of Padmé's characterization I've seen essentially want to make her [...] not a tragic figure except by wild mischance or the missteps of other characters.' I honestly think people have a really hard job accepting that the prequels are a tragedy for *everyone* involved (except Palps). You see it in response to characters like Obi-Wan; the refusal to engage with the idea that a character can try their best and still screw up is hard to swallow.

Yes, very much so! In some ways it's even more marked with Obi-Wan, I feel, because ROTJ so clearly set him up as someone who failed tragically in the prequel era and who took away the wrong lessons from his own mistakes. OT/PT Obi-Wan is a kind, self-sacrificing, and well-meaning person who is not motivated by malice, but there is a moral arrogance to him, a hubris, that plays a significant role in the larger tragedy he is part of and that hubris lingers in the OT even after his death (with potential for further tragedy!).

I think there's a temptation to cast all these characters with fundamentally tragic flaws as solely victims or villains, but an important aspect of this kind of tragedy IMO is how these kinds of flaws collide and contribute to something far worse than any of its parts. The kinds of mistakes and flaws that we see in these characters lead to consequences that are both inevitable and unpredictable; no single one of these tragic figures could independently control or foresee what was going to result from all these different dynamics and maneuverings and choices, but at the same time, these choices do inexorably lead towards disaster. So you get the "well [x tragic choice] isn't what really caused the tragedy, because Palpatine" or "we need to fix [x tragic choice] because it makes the character Bad" without really engaging with the complicity (conscious or unconscious) of all these characters and the significance of their complicity to what the PT is doing as a story.

I don't object to "I want to imagine a happy ending for my faves" at all, btw—I do that all the time and it's not what I'm getting at. But when it comes to insisting that something must have been what "really" happened for the story to "make sense" or be "fixed" in the face of all evidence and basics of story structure, I find it tedious.

[ellydraws]

(20/01/2021)

This is a piece of a commission of a character who I played in a D&D campaign called Zeitgeist: The Gears of Revolution who is half-my-character and half-NPC, requested by the author of the campaign for publication in another campaign set in the same world.

It is both the character Kasvarina Varal, whose story I did not write, and my own character, Summer, Eladrin bard, who over time remembered and confronted the fact that she was indeed that very same Kasvarina Varal, pictured here.

Our GM was posting updates to a forum that the author of the campaign watched and commented on, and when I came into the game a little late, the two of them decided in secret to me, and in an act I would forever consider One Of The Coolest Things To Ever Happen To Me, that my character had accidentally fit several criteria for an extremely plot-pivotal NPC, and that I would from then on being playing that NPC.

Five years later we finished the campaign and I began drawing a piece that I uploaded to the internet as a work-in-progress and I never returned to it. Three years after that, the author of the original campaign reached out to me and asked me to complete it for publication.

I was extremely happy to be given the opportunity not only to finish this piece but to give it the time and care that matched my feelings for it and this character's place in my life.

[doghartzy]

when the poll ends do you mind sharing what you vs your friend thought the key hockey concept was? I'm so curious !

yes !! so skill play ended up winning, but if you combine the two categories of fighting and physical play, they add up to way more. this came up because i'm currently going through a whole emotional journey around violence in sport and the way personal choice, bodily autonomy, and the monolith of sports culture can overlap and conflict. that's not super important but i think more people should think about it because it's a really interesting and tough topic. anyway, i was talking to my friend from rural BC, and we were talking about violence/physicality as an inherent part of hockey or if there was a way to mitigate dangerous injury while still maintaining the spirit of hockey as a sport.

she was of the opinion that physical play, fighting, all of that were essential to hockey, and there was no way to play the same game without them. i'm still working on what my opinion is, but i'm finding that more and more i come down on the side of, hey, all of these injuries are unnecessary and there's no reason for hockey -- contact sport though it may be -- to be this dangerous and injurious. there's a lot of reasons i feel this way, but one of the biggest ones is that when i think of hockey -- when i think of the most important, joyous, exciting moments in hockey, moments that made me genuinely love this sport and the place it holds in my life -- i think almost entirely about skill play. what makes hockey worth watching for me is the speed, the skill, the insane passes and bad-angle goals. kirill kaprizov sidney crosby trick shot type shit. when those players have room to play, i love this sport like nothing else.

my friend, on the other hand, isn't wrong when she says that overall, the impression people have of hockey tends toward violence. even if they haven't thought about it enough to pass judgment, the vast majority of people think first of checks and fights.

the problem i have is that a lot of times, skill players are stifled by physical play. i like puck possession, but checking turns that into an almost irrelevant part of nhl hockey, and i like when superstars have space to do insane things, but if they're injured half the year because every fourth liner in the league pretty much has free reign to headhunt without the refs blowing the whistle, i don't get to see any of that. it's the same reason i'm annoyed with the way kirill's been treated in the league -- he's a phenomenal player who can do unparalleled things on the ice, but his production has been down because he got injured a couple seasons ago and hasn't had the space (or protection from further injuries, looking at you, dops) to heal it fully and get back to form. in what world is that the best that hockey can be? i'd rather every skill player gets long, obnoxious nhl careers than keep fistfights in a sport that really doesn't need them, but i'm aware i'm in the tiny minority there.

[gumptionauthor]

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Gumption Commander

[lucidseduction]

Relatable.

[mcmansionhell]

we've found it folks: mcmansion heaven

Hello everyone. It is my pleasure to bring you the greatest house I have ever seen. The house of a true visionary. A real ad-hocist. A genuine pioneer of fenestration. This house is in Alabama. It was built in 1980 and costs around $5 million. It is worth every penny. Perhaps more.

Now, I know what you're thinking: "Come on, Kate, that's a little kooky, but certainly it's not McMansion Heaven. This is very much a house in the earthly realm. Purgatory. McMansion Purgatory." Well, let me now play Beatrice to your Dante, young Pilgrim. Welcome. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

It is rare to find a house that has everything. A house that wills itself into Postmodernism yet remains unable to let go of the kookiest moments of the prior zeitgeist, the Bruce Goffs and Earthships, the commune houses built from car windshields, the seventies moments of psychedelic hippie fracture. It is everything. It has everything. It is theme park, it is High Tech. It is Renaissance (in the San Antonio Riverwalk sense of the word.) It is medieval. It is maybe the greatest pastiche to sucker itself to the side of a mountain, perilously overlooking a large body of water. Look at it. Just look.

The inside is white. This makes it dreamlike, almost benevolent. It is bright because this is McMansion Heaven and Gray is for McMansion Hell. There is an overbearing sheen of 80s optimism. In this house, the credit default swap has not yet been invented, but could be.

It takes a lot for me to drop the cocaine word because I think it's a cheap joke. But there's something about this example that makes it plausible, not in a derogatory way, but in a liberatory one, a sensuous one. Someone created this house to have a particular experience, a particular feeling. It possesses an element of true fantasy, the thematic. Its rooms are not meant to be one cohesive composition, but rather a series of scenes, of vastly different spatial moments, compressed, expanded, bright, close.

And then there's this kitchen for some reason. Or so you think. Everything the interior design tries to hide, namely how unceasingly peculiar the house is, it is not entirely able to because the choices made here remain decadent, indulgent, albeit in a more familiar way.

Rare is it to discover an interior wherein one truly must wear sunglasses. The environment created in service to transparency has to somewhat prevent the elements from penetrating too deep while retaining their desirable qualities. I don't think an architect designed this house. An architect would have had access to specifically engineered products for this purpose. Whoever built this house had certain access to architectural catalogues but not those used in the highest end or most structurally complex projects. The customization here lies in the assemblage of materials and in doing so stretches them to the height of their imaginative capacity. To borrow from Charles Jencks, ad-hoc is a perfect description. It is an architecture of availability and of adventure.

A small interlude. We are outside. There is no rear exterior view of this house because it would be impossible to get one from the scrawny lawn that lies at its depths. This space is intended to serve the same purpose, which is to look upon the house itself as much as gaze from the house to the world beyond.

Living in a city, I often think about exhibitionism. Living in a city is inherently exhibitionist. A house is a permeable visible surface; it is entirely possible that someone will catch a glimpse of me they're not supposed to when I rush to the living room in only a t-shirt to turn out the light before bed. But this is a space that is only exhibitionist in the sense that it is an architecture of exposure, and yet this exposure would not be possible without the protection of the site, of the distance from every other pair of eyes. In this respect, a double freedom is secured. The window intimates the potential of seeing. But no one sees.

At the heart of this house lies a strange mix of concepts. Postmodern classicist columns of the Disney World set. The unpolished edge of the vernacular. There is also an organicist bent to the whole thing, something more Goff than Gaudí, and here we see some of the house's most organic forms, the monolith- or shell-like vanity mixed with the luminous artifice of mirrors and white. A backlit cave, primitive and performative at the same time, which is, in essence, the dialectic of the luxury bathroom.

And yet our McMansion Heaven is still a McMansion. It is still an accumulation of deliberate signifiers of wealth, very much a construction with the secondary purpose of invoking envy, a palatial residence designed without much cohesion. The presence of golf, of wood, of masculine and patriarchal symbolism with an undercurrent of luxury drives that point home. The McMansion can aspire to an art form, but there are still many levels to ascend before one gets to where God's sitting.

If you like this post and want more like it, support McMansion Hell on Patreon for as little as $1/month for access to great bonus content including a discord server, extra posts, and livestreams.

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[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

So this is a weird ask but I figured an Actual Welsh Person would be the person to go to, and you've been pretty gung-ho about the language thing. So I hope I'm not bothering you with this.

Is there a cultural consensus on foreigners learning Welsh? I'm American and I don't have a single shred of Welsh ancestry. My family is historically German, and we've been here since the English Colony days, so it honestly seems really weird even to try to claim some tie to German heritage.

Anyway, my point is, I have absolutely zero legitimate claim to the Welsh language. I don't plan to travel to Wales in the foreseeable future. I have no reason to learn Welsh except that it sounds pretty and I enjoy a challenge.

Putting aside the issue of "lmao it's gonna be stupid difficult to learn an endangered language if you don't have anyone to speak it with" (I have a loose plan for dealing with that, and the experience of learning two languages to "can read most novels without needing the dictionary" level without anyone to speak them with in person already) entirely, do you reckon it's okay for me to study Welsh? I know Americans are really, really bad about just kinda assuming the whole world belongs to us, and I'm trying not to do that here. Especially because Welsh IS endangered.

I imagine your average Welsh person probably doesn't care what some random American does. But like, for people who care about the language...Would it be considered disrespectful or overstepping for me to study it? I don't expect you to speak for the entire country, of course, but I respect your opinion and I feel like you'd have a grasp on what the general feeling towards a foreigner like me might be.

Thanks for your time.

I honestly, truly, do not understand how the discussion around cultural appropriation has been twisted in the cultural zeitgeist to such an extent that people now feel anxiety about learning other languages.

This is not a personal attack on you, Anon - the gods only know that you clearly care and want to do the right thing, and that's beautiful and wonderful and also I will come back to extolling your personal virtues at the end of this post, so stay tuned. But I do want to take a moment here to talk about the broader issue at play, which I have seen echoed multiple times elsewhere, because fuck me what are we doing to ourselves.

Learn. Languages.

That is what languages are for! To be used for communication. If you don't learn languages, you are forcing everyone else to use yours. How have we somehow, as a culture, twisted that into being the less selfish option? How have we done that? I posted my favourite Welsh idiom recently, and someone reblogged it and wrote in the tags that they loved the idiom and would start using it, but they would do so in English because their "Welsh pronunciation would make their Welsh grandmother spin in her grave."

What kind of mental gymnastics is that?

How the fuck do you twist it so badly that you think taking a Welsh idiom for your own and exclusively using it in English is less offensive than saying it in Welsh but maybe a bit wrong? I've literally had people proclaim to me that they're learning Welsh on Duolingo but they never speak it because they're too self-conscious, and they tell me this not to highlight a massive flaw in themselves that they need to work on, but as though I'm supposed to pat them on the head and thank them for... still making me speak English to them.

There was that post where a Deaf blogger received an anonymous ask saying learning sign language is cultural appropriation, as though Deaf people haven't been calling for Sign to be taught in schools. As though a Deaf person being entirely isolated in everyday hearing society unless they have an interpreter with them is less offensive than a hearing person being able to use BSL.

Like, these are not sacred or religious languages. The purpose of Welsh or BSL or what have you is not to perform the Eleusinian mysteries. It's a living everyday language, same as English -

Except it's not the same as English. As Anon here so rightly points out, Welsh is endangered. That means we are desperate for people to learn it. That's how it will survive. That's how we reversed it from 'dying language' to 'living language', in fact - we managed to get lots of people to learn it. You know what is a threat, though? People not learning it because, like poor Anon here, they've been somehow convinced by Western society that you're only allowed to learn languages if you personally have a historic or cultural connection to them that you can prove via six forms of ID and a letter of recommendation from a druid. Or people never using it because they're too embarrassed to try and risk losing face by getting it wrong, or maybe sounding a bit silly, and thus forcing us to use English anyway. Those are threats.

Anon. Listen to me, feel the sincerity of my words: we adore you. We adore you. You cannot imagine how appreciated it is when someone learns Welsh. You cannot imagine how touched we are that you wanted to, that you tried, that you respected us enough and considered us valid enough that you made the effort. Our closest neighbours are the very people who are still trying to stamp out Welsh to this very day. Do you know the number 1 reaction I get, by a country mile, when I tell English people that I speak Welsh? It's some variant on a scoff, and the sentiment "Why? What's the point? Bit useless, isn't it?"

By a country mile. That's the reaction I expect, and brace for, and is overwhelmingly what I get.

So when someone who isn't Welsh actually chooses to learn Welsh?

Imagine what that feels like! To go from not-even-hidden disgust, from outright mockery and often active suppression campaigns, to a foreigner earnestly telling me that they love and respect my language so much they're trying to learn it. Imagine how that feels.

Please learn Welsh. Please learn it. We will love you for it. We will build you a statue. We will bake little Welshcakes with your face on in icing sugar. We will write you poems in complex rhyme. We'll name an Eisteddfod prize after you. We'll name at least, like, three sheep after you. Thank you, thank you so much for even wanting to learn. You're a delight and a marvel and a wonder. Your hair looks great today, as it does all days. You're a strong, independent human being of immense wisdom and compassion. If this were a Welsh myth you'd be a wise salmon the heroes came to for advice. What a fantastic human.

The welcome awaits if you choose to learn

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Halloween

REFERENCES (Banshee; Ghost; Ghoul; Goblin; Haunt; Specter; Vampire; Wraith; Origins of Halloween)

Banshee

A female spirit in Gaelic folklore whose appearance or wailing warns a family that one of them will soon die.

Banshee came from combining the Gaelic words meaning “woman of fairyland,” but any positive associations with fairies ends there.

Are female spirits that, if seen or heard wailing under the windows of a house, foretell of a death in the family that lives there.

Today, the word is most frequently heard in the idiom “scream like a banshee” or “wail like a banshee,” which shows the power of myth and the imaginative power of language, since probably no one has actually heard one.

Ghost

Most common meaning today is “a disembodied soul” or “the soul or specter of a deceased person”, which came next, a meaning based on the ancient folkloric notion that the spirit is separable from the body and can continue its existence after death. It originally meant “vital spark” or “the seat of life or intelligence,” which is still used in the phrase “give up the ghost.”

An older spelling of ghost, gast, is the root of aghast (“struck with terror, shocked”) and ghastly (“frightening”).

The German word for ghost, geist, is part of the word zeitgeist, which literally means “spirit of the time.”

Ghoul

A legendary evil being that robs graves and feeds on corpses.

Ghoul is a relatively recent English word, borrowed from Arabic in the 1700s.

Because it’s spelled with gh-, it looks vaguely like the Old English words ghost and ghastly (which share a common root in the Old English word gāst, meaning “spirit” or “ghost”).

In fact, it comes from the Arabic word ghūl, derived from the verb that means “to seize,” and originally meant “a legendary evil being held to rob graves and feed on corpses.” The word was introduced to western literature by the French translation of Arabian Nights.

Goblin

An ugly or grotesque sprite.

Usually mischievous and sometimes evil and malicious.

Haunt

To visit or inhabit as a ghost.

However, this is not the original sense of the word.

For centuries, it had a perfectly unfrightening set of meanings: “to visit often” and “to continually seek the company of.”

In the 1500s, it began to mean “to have a disquieting or harmful effect on,” as in “that problem may come back to haunt you.” The meaning here is simply the lingering presence of the problem, not the possibly scary nature of the problem itself; it is applied to thoughts, memories, and emotions.

The noun haunt retains this fright-neutral definition, “a place that you go to often,” as in “one of my favorite old haunts.”

A lingering idea, memory, or feeling may have led to the ghostly meaning of haunt, or one by a disembodied or imaginary spirit.

Specter

A visible disembodied spirit.

Specter originally meant “a visible disembodied spirit” in English—a good synonym for ghost. But, unlike ghost, the notion of being visible is paramount in specter, which came to English from the French word spectre, which developed directly from the Latin word spectrum, meaning “appearance” or “specter,” itself based on the verb specere, meaning “to look.”

Specere is also the root of many English words that have to do with appearance: aspect, conspicuous, inspect, perspective, and spectacle.

Vampire

The reanimated body of a dead person believed to come from the grave at night and suck the blood of persons asleep.

Legends of bloodsucking creatures go back to Ancient Greece, with harrowing tales of them rising from burial places at night to drink peoples’ blood before hiding from dawn’s daylight. These stories were popular in eastern Europe.

Originally comes from the Serbian word vampir, which then passed from German to French, coming to English in the 1700s.

The extended senses of vampire, “one who lives by preying on others” and a synonym of vampire bat, were both in use within a few decades.

Wraith

The exact likeness of a living person seen usually just before death as an apparition. The distinguishing quality of a wraith, compared with other ghosts, is its specificity.

Originally, it referred to either the exact likeness of a living person seen as an apparition just before that person’s death as a kind of spectral premonition of bad news, or a visible apparition of a dead person.

When referring to a living person, it’s a synonym of doppelgänger, or the “spirit double” of a living person (as opposed to a ghost, which refers to the spirit of a dead person). Doppelgänger is now frequently used in a broader sense to mean simply “someone who looks like someone else.”

When referring to a dead person, wraith is a synonym of revenant, which originally referred to a ghost of a particular person and subsequently has been used for a person who returns after a long absence.

ORIGINS OF HALLOWEEN

The traditions of Halloween have their origins in Samhain, a festival celebrated by the Celts of ancient Britain and Ireland.

Samhain marked the end of summer and the onset of winter, and occurred on a date that corresponds to our November 1st.

It was believed that during the Samhain festival, the world of the gods was visible to humans, and the gods took advantage of this fact by playing tricks on their mortal worshippers. Those worshippers in turn responded with bonfires on hilltops and sometimes masks and other varied disguises to keep ghosts from being able to recognize them. Things tended to get spooky and dangerous around Samhain, with bloody sacrifices and supernatural phenomena abounding.

Samhain chugged along for centuries, until Christianity poked its nose in: in the 8th century CE, All Saints' Day, a somewhat new Christian holiday, got moved from May 13th to November 1st.

The evening before All Saints' Day became a holy—that is, a hallowed—eve. Within a few centuries, Samhain and the eve of All Saints' Day had been merged into a single holiday. Protestants of the Reformation and all that came after largely rejected the whole thing, but the holiday persisted among some communities.

19th-century immigrants to the U.S., including many from Ireland, brought their Halloween customs with them and deserve no small amount of credit for the holiday as it's celebrated in the U.S. today.

More: Writing Notes & References ⚜ Word List: October

[bookofmac]

not a kiwi but Evernesance's two big 2004 hits (Bring Me to Life and My Immortal) were on the radio all the time in Australia in the 2000s. checking Wikipedia, Bring Me to Life was a pretty major hit in both countires, in the top 10 year end in Aus and top 50 year end in Aotearoa. so it wouldn't just be the memes

Tamsyn Muir said she headcanons Jod as Taika Waititi, so this happened

[sepublic]

I have generally understood Tails as the young precious boy sidekick to Sonic, who looks up to him as an idol and an older brother. In most games his gameplay style is meant for little brothers too, with Tails unable to take damage and capable of flying around as he pleases; A casual supporting role for your friend. Sometimes Tails can fly a plane and do some mechanic work. That’s what I’ve gleaned from the cultural zeitgeist.

So imagine my surprise to find out that in Sonic Adventure 2, one of the defining games of the series, Tails’ gameplay centers entirely around him piloting a walking death mech that he uses to blow shit up. And this is done to parallel his gameplay with Eggman. Tails is just as capable of choosing complete and utter violence like the main villain, who represents industrialism, does.

The juxtaposition with this wide eyed cartoon fox and his semi-realistic gun machine with detailed textures is insane, and of all the cartoonish animal characters to pilot it they chose the one most… unusual in tone, even if it makes sense in-universe. Everyone’s using goofy kicks and punches and meanwhile you have Son Boy happily dancing in his stomping tank that fires military-grade weaponry. This is played completely straight in the series that gave us a hedgehog with a gun of course, though at least he was edgy.

[wizzard890]

this is my interest in Russian cultural history showing, but I think it's really fascinating that the characters in Scorsese's Goncharov exist as imagined Soviets, particularly as articulated from an American perspective in the early 70s.

Scorsese was, then as now, a great appreciator of world cinema, and he absolutely was aware of how the archetype of the Soviet man underwent a transformation during Gorbachev's Era of Stagnation. Gone was the clean-cut, traditional wartime hero, always holding Soviet values aloft. Even the fictional Soviet woman became more adrift, lost in a modern tide of isolation, loneliness, and individual despair. (This is so so brilliantly brought to bear in Katya, and really gives lie to the old canard that Scorsese doesn't imagine the inner lives of female characters.)

Goncharov is a grey, almost temporally unmoored character, one that was previously unimaginable in Soviet cinema, and what does it mean that this new archetype was articulated, by perhaps THE American director of the late 20th century, at such an intentional cultural remove?

Idk, I think the resurgence of interest in the film really gives us an opportunity to ask questions about a piece that has previously only been discussed through a broadly Marxist lens, instead of reckoning with wider forces within the Eastern European imagination. Put more simply, what did it mean for Americans to watch a transformation of the Soviet zeitgeist through a glass darkly, and what light does that shed on the "Russian" in the American mind today?

[spirantization]

I'm surprised at the hate that Sokka's character arc from NATLA is receiving. To me, Sokka's development and characterization was one of the strongest adaptations the series made.

In the original ATLA, Sokka's character arc revolves around him unlearning his own misogyny. He makes pointedly sexist comments throughout the early episodes like "Leave it to a girl to screw things up!", "There's no way a bunch of girls took us down!", etc.

Sokka's comments have a strong narrative purpose: they give a platform for women in the show (Katara & Suki mostly) to refute his attitude. Katara emphasizes traditional "women's work" (cleaning, cooking, sewing, etc), which forces Sokka to confront its inherent value. Suki is able to prove to him that women can fight too and he learns to respect female warriors. It's a great character arc and it's well-executed.

It's also characterization that is in direct response to the culture and feminism of the 90s and early 00s. The representation of women in the media at that time was...oof. It was not great. One-dimensional love interests whose only purpose is being saved by the male protagonist, mostly. Female protagonists were not as common, and certainly not ones who were depicted as being able to fight, and certainly not in cartoons. Female protagonists in animation were almost exclusively princesses.

ATLA was progressive in this regard. Katara was a complex female character in a time when there were not a lot of them, in media in general but especially in animation and kid's shows. (I grew up in the 90s; there were no characters like Katara in animation on screen for me.) ATLA incorporated the zeitgeist directly into the story, which is why we have Sokka learning to overcome his sexism in his interactions with Strong Female Characters.

If you go back and watch the original cartoon now, Sokka's sexism feels a bit dated. It's a very 90s, Girl Power, "girls can fight too" style of social commentary. It doesn't match with the media landscape of today. We've got 20 years of media with female superheroes behind us. If your message is "girls can fight too!" the response for the most part is going to be "yes, we know that. And?"

So imagine you're adapting the original ATLA for a live-action remake. You want to keep Sokka's character arc intact, but you want to update it for the 2020s. So what do you do? You look at the conversations that are happening today.

The 90s were about "girls can do everything boys can do", but the 20s are over that. The conversation is more about gender: gender expression, gender roles, gender dynamics. What does is mean to be a woman? What does it mean to be a man?

Sokka's character arc in NATLA is focused on this question: What does it mean to be a man? At the beginning of the series, it's his identity as a warrior that defines him. He needs to be the warrior, the protector, the leader. He's constantly trying to reaffirm this part of his identity, and it's completely tied up in his perception of his value as a man. Instead of his interactions with Suki being about "how could girls possibly be warriors", it shifts to Sokka saying "I'm ALSO a warrior" and trying to justify that to Suki (and mostly himself).

His arc over the series is about him accepting other aspects of himself and relearning how to define his masculinity. He can still have value as man without being the greatest warrior. He can still have value as a man by using his skills as an engineer. He can still have value as a man by offering compassion and kindness to others, like the little girl with the doll & Yue in her final moments. Instead of rigidly defining himself by a specific set of gender roles & expectations, he learns how to define himself through his own strengths and qualities.

I know there are a lot of people who are upset at this change to Sokka's characterization, and the most common thing I see is that it results in changes to Katara's character and her anger in response to Sokka's comments. I think there are valid criticisms to be made about how the show handled the adaptation of Katara's character, but I won't go there with this. In terms of Sokka and his characterization, it was well-done and thematically consistent with the original. It's not an exact port, and it never needed to be. It's still a feminist arc that centres on unlearning harmful misogynistic worldviews, but the focus has shifted from external (roles of women) to internal (his role as a man). And his journey is one that people would benefit from seeing represented.

[sitp-recs]

Part I: hymn to the sea

thank you @eleadore for creating this gorgeous art for @citrusses’ The Isle of Ogygia and for inspiring this rec list!

Sometimes all I want is the quiet. After a year of ups and downs feeling very introspective towards fandom, I found a lot of comfort in contemplative fics featuring the sea. They take me by the hand and get me immersed in a beautiful, mysterious setting in a way that I find deeply soothing, and even cathartic. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels instantly drawn to this theme, so I made a short rec list with some of my favorite titles. May September be kind and healing to us all. Enjoy!

🌊 On The Shore by @skeptiquewrites (T, 3k)

Draco takes up wild swimming. Harry joins him.

🌊 Saltwater Stain by @the-starryknight (M, 9k)

Seven days stuck on a boat investigating a rogue ghost wouldn't be so bad if Harry didn't want Draco so much.

🌊 The Isle of Ogygia by @citrusses (E, 13k)

There is an island, far out in the sea.

🌊 The Oceans They Did Rise by disapparater (M, 18k)

Finding post-war life more difficult than he'd imagined, Harry travels halfway around the world to find some peace.

🌊 if you've changed your mind, orphaned (E, 20k)

The first Draco knows of the whole thing is Harry Potter standing in his broom shed.

🌊 The Isle of Discussion by @shealwaysreads (E, 22k)

Harry and Draco arrive at the shores of Loch Leven to record the magical history of the land. They’re friends now, but up there in the Highlands, amidst the trees and sky and that wild expanse of water their own past is more present than ever; a gap they still can’t bridge.

🌊 Simulation Theory by @starquestingfordrarry (E, 35k)

An offer to test out a new invention for Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes turns into a whole lot more when Harry discovers who has the other part of the paired set.

🌊 What Shall Not Be Unearthed by @iero0 (E, 49k)

At the northernmost point of Shetland, surrounded by pointed cliffs, towers the Ootsta Lighthouse on a small isle in the middle of the open sea. Little does Harry know that he's not the only new lighthouse keeper.

🌊 Antediluvia by @lol-zeitgeistic (E, 56k)

Everyone always forgets about the Merpeople. So did Harry until the day his, Lee’s, and Hermione’s Portkeys land at Reagan National Airport’s Arrivals dais. He’s just had to leave a job he loves and pack his entire life—literally—into his luggage. Then Malfoy and his subplots arrive, and suddenly, saving the world again, one Mermaid at a time, sounds like the perfect excuse to do something he’s always wanted.

🌊 I Am Not Who I Became by mab_di (E, 93k)

Draco left England after the trials and has travelled the world meeting wizards and Muggles from different cultures and with vastly different relationships to magic, each other, and the natural world. Now he's a fisherman in Finland on commercial vessels. Harry has been struggling since the war and has become a recluse while trying to write his autobiography.

[sexymemecoin]

Meme Coins: The Fusion of Humor and Cryptocurrency

In the ever-evolving world of cryptocurrency, a new and exciting trend has emerged: meme coins. These digital assets, inspired by internet memes and cultural phenomena, have captured the imagination of investors and enthusiasts alike. Meme coins represent a unique fusion of humor, community engagement, and financial innovation. Among the rising stars in this vibrant ecosystem is Sexy Meme Coin, a project that exemplifies the potential of meme coins to revolutionize both the crypto world and internet culture. You can learn more about this exciting project at Sexy Meme Coin.

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The Future of Meme Coins

The rise of meme coins like Sexy Meme Coin signals a shift in the cryptocurrency landscape. These projects are not just about financial speculation; they represent a new way of thinking about digital assets and community engagement. As meme coins continue to evolve, they have the potential to influence mainstream culture and finance in unprecedented ways.

However, it's essential to approach meme coins with a level of caution. Their high volatility and reliance on social media trends mean that they can be unpredictable. Investors should do their due diligence and be prepared for the inherent risks.

Conclusion

Meme coins are more than a passing fad; they are a testament to the power of community, culture, and creativity in the digital age. Projects like Sexy Meme Coin are at the forefront of this movement, demonstrating that humor and blockchain technology can coexist to create something truly unique. As the meme coin ecosystem continues to grow, it will be fascinating to see how these projects shape the future of cryptocurrency and internet culture.

For more information on Sexy Meme Coin and to join the community, visit Sexy Meme Coin and become part of the revolution in the world of meme coins.

[gumptionauthor]

Need a way to break through creative blocks and tap into your full potential? "Etherealize the Enigma" is the guide you've been looking for.