#and German references

[rialtoir]

Nightmares The Deutsche Bahn has launched the project "East-West-Passage" to establish new railway lines and make travelling easier and connect Germany like never before. At the forefront of the exploration are the senior railway officials Crozier and Fitzjames, married for almost 25 years now. They not only have to supervise a ragtag crew of tired railway officials and rowdy interns, but they also need to plan their anniversary - which is next month.

For @swanfloatieknight, @asparklethatisblue and @vastwinterskies who helped me out with the pet names :)

[inky-duchess]

Fantasy Guide to Building A Culture

Culture is defined by a collection of morals, ethics, traditions, customs and behaviours shared by a group of people.

Hierarchy and Social Structures

Within every culture, there is a hierarchy. Hierarchies are an important part of any culture, usually do ingrained that one within the culture wouldn't even question it. Hierarchy can be established either by age, gender or wealth and could even determine roles within their society. Sometimes hierarchy can may be oppressive and rigid whilst other times, ranks can intermingle without trouble. You should consider how these different ranks interact with one another and whether there are any special gestures or acts of deference one must pay to those higher than them. For example, the Khasi people of Meghalaya (Northern India), are strictly matrillineal. Women run the households, inheritance runs through the female line, and the men of the culture typically defer to their mothers and wives. Here are a few questions to consider:

How is a leader determined within the culture as a whole and the family unit?

Is the culture matriarchal? Patriarchal? Or does gender even matter?

How would one recognise the different ranks?

How would one act around somebody higher ranking? How would somebody he expected to act around somebody lower ranking?

Can one move socially? If not, why? If so, how?

Traditions and Customs

Traditions are a staple in any culture. These can be gestures or living life a certain way or to the way a certain person should look. Traditions are a personal detail to culture, they are what make it important. Tradition can dictate how one should keep their home, run their family, take care of their appearance, act in public and even determine relationship. Tradition can also be a double edged sword. Traditions can also be restrictive and allow a culture to push away a former member if they do not adhere to them, eg Traditional expectations of chastity led to thousands of Irish women being imprisoned at the Magdelene Laundries. Customs could be anything from how one treats another, to how they greet someone.

How important is tradition?

What are some rituals your culture undertakes?

What are some traditional values in your world? Does it effect daily life?

Are there any traditions that determine one's status?

Values and Opinions

Values and Opinions are the bread and butter of any culture. This is the way your culture sees the world and how they approach different life hurdles. These may differ with other cultures and be considered odd to outsiders, what one culture may value another may not and what opinion another holds, one may not. There will be historical and traditional reasons to why these values and opinions are held. Cultures usually have a paragon to which they hold their members to, a list of characteristics that they expect one to if not adhere to then aspire to. The Yoruba people value honesty, hard work, courage and integrity. Here are some questions to consider?

How important are these ethics and core values? Could somebody be ostracised for not living up to them?

What are some morals that clash with other cultures?

What does your culture precieved to be right? Or wrong?

What are some opinions that are considered to be taboo in your culture? Why?

Dress Code

For many cultures, the way somebody dresses can be important. History and ethics can effect how one is meant to be dressed such as an expectation of chastity, can impose strict modesty. While other cultures, put more importance on details, the different sorts of clothes worn and when or what colour one might wear. The Palestinian people (من النهر إلى البحر ، قد يكونون أحرارا) denoted different family ties, marriage status and wealth by the embroidery and detailing on their thoub.

Are there traditional clothes for your world? Are they something somebody wears on a daily basis or just on occasion?

Are there any rules around what people can wear?

What would be considered formal dress? Casual dress?

What would happen if somebody wore the wrong clothes to an event?

Language

Language can also be ingrained as part of a Culture. It can be a specific way one speaks or a an entirely different language. For example, in the Southern States of America, one can engage in a sort of double talk, saying something that sounds sweet whilst delivering something pointed. Bless their heart. I have a post on creating your own language here.

Arts, Music and Craft

Many cultures are known for different styles of dance, their artwork and crafts. Art is a great part of culture, a way for people to express themselves and their culture in art form. Dance can be an integral part of culture, such as céilí dance in Ireland or the Polka in the Czech Republic. Handicrafts could also be important in culture, such as knitting in Scottish culture and Hebron glass in Palestine. Music is also close to culture, from traditional kinds of singing such as the White Voice in Ukraine and the playing of certain instruments such as the mvet.

Food and Diet

The way a culture prepares or intakes or treats certain foods are important to a culture. In some cultures, there is a diet yo adhere to, certain foods are completely banned. With Jewish culture, pork is prohibited along with fish such as sturgeon, along with shellfish and certain fowl. Meat must also be prepared in a certain way and animal byproducts such as dairy, must never be created or even eaten around this meat. This is known as kosher. The way one consumes food is also important to culture. In some cultures, only certain people may eat together. Some cultures place important on how food is eaten. In Nigerian culture, the oldest guests are served first usually the men before the women. In Japanese culture, one must say 'itadakimasu' (I recieve) before eating. Culture may also include fasting, periods of time one doesn't intake food for a specific reason.

What are some traditional dishes in your world?

What would be a basic diet for the common man?

What's considered a delicacy?

Is there a societal difference in diet? What are the factors that effect diet between classes?

Is there any influence from other cuisines? If not, why not? If so, to what extent?

What would a typical breakfast contain?

What meals are served during the day?

What's considered a comfort food or drink?

Are there any restrictions on who can eat what or when?

Are there any banned foods?

What stance does your world take on alcohol? Is it legal? Can anybody consume it?

Are there any dining customs? Are traditions?

Is there a difference in formal meals or casual meals? If so, what's involved?

Are there any gestures or actions unacceptable at the dinner table?

How are guests treated at meals? If they are given deference, how so?

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

The penultimate part of my story, The House of Glass. Tintin's investigation hits a wall. Follows directly from this!

If you're enjoying this comic, please consider donating to Eyad, he is a father of four trying to evacuate his family from the Gaza strip. His wife Amal, and their kids, Sami (11), Mohammad (9), Sarah (7) and Saad (5) are currently in a displacement school in the Zaytoun area. Eyad has been separated from his family, and is currently living in a tent in the Dier al-Balah area.

His blog is @abosamisblog

[lesbworth]

i feel like the tumblr perverts need to be aware of the forcefem novel written in 1901 by a trans woman patient of magnus hirschfeld, wherein:

a lesbian hypnotises her girly stepson into believing he is a woman

then she hypnotises his father her husband into shooting himself when he tries to stop her

then she proceeds to live as a man and convince her stepson that he is HER WIFE

AND THEN WHEN THE COUPLE WANT KIDS (AS SHE HYPNOTISED HIM TO) SHE HAS HIS CHILD AND CONVINCES HIM THAT HE GAVE BIRTH TO IT

AND DECIDES TO RAISE THE BABY AS A GIRL EVEN THOUGH IT WAS BORN MALE

AND THEN FINALLY ON HER DEATHBED CONFESSES EVERYTHING TO HER WIFE

WHO REFUSES TO BELIEVE ANY OF IT

the author's pen name is luz fraumann (yes she actually named herself "woman-man") and i wish i could tell her she's literally insane for this bestie and also how hard she would do numbers on tumblr dot com

(link to hirschfeld's profile of fraumann and extract from her novel, in german)

[morganbritton132]

Honestly, I think the best way to write Steve is as mostly right.

Like, he gets the big picture but messes up some of the details because the Upside Down is being explained with references to things he’s not well-versed in.

But Steve is very intuitive and strategic in a way that I don’t think other characters are. So, he’s not a genius like Dustin and he’s no Nancy, but he’s quick on his feet and that’s saved lives.

[pintoras]

Bertha Froriep (German, 1833-1920): Sleeping Beauty (via Dorotheum)

[x-amount-of-posts]

I NEEEEEEED Kurt shippers. or just Kurt insane people to know that the german word for tail is also german slang for penis

"You like my tail dont you" said in german ("Du magst meinen schwanz, oder?") will be read as "you like my dick dont you" by a german

this isnt to discourage people from using the word Schwanz, the oposite, i want people to write Kurt saying that because he WOULD

[literaryvein-reblogs]

A List of "Beautiful" German Words

for your next poem/story

Angsthase - "fear-bunny"; scared person

Backpfeifengesicht - “a face badly in need of a fist”; when another person’s bad behavior makes one angry—so angry that one wishes they could punch the offending person in the face

Fremdschämen - feeling embarrassed by another person’s humiliating public behavior, especially when this action reflects badly on you

Freudenschade - a mirror image of schadenfreude; it means the feeling of sadness one gets upon learning of someone’s good fortune

Glasklar - crystal clear

Lebensmüde - the feeling of being weary of life

Leidenschaft - sufferingship; passion

Luftschloss - "air-castle"; a dream that only exists in your head

Pusteblume - "blow-flower"; dandelion

Schadenfreude - "harm-joy"; the feeling of pleasure one feels from learning of the misfortunes of others

Schön - beautiful

Schreiben - to write

Sehnsucht - the melancholy feeling of longing for someone (or something) once deeply loved, but now gone forever

Traurig - sad

Verschlimmbessern - "to worsen better"; to accidentally make something worse while trying to improve it

Waldeinsamkeit - "forest solitude"; a feeling of quiet serenity while being alone in the woods

Wandern - to walk or hike

Weltschmerz - "world-pain"; world weariness and suffering from the world and its inadequacy

Zauberhaft - enchanting

Zeitgeist - "time-spirit"; the cultural and intellectual climate of a specific era

If any of these words make their way into your next poem/story, please tag me, or send me a link. I would love to read them!

Sources: 1 2 3 ⚜ More: Word Lists

[batarangsoundsdumb]

i know at this point i shouldn't be surprised at nationalism- but why is it so obvious in the wikipedia/google intro blurb of bicultural & multicultural celebrities.

[anghraine]

The Memory Alpha wiki is helpful at times, but also really frustrating, because yeah, it's a wiki, and it's limited by its users like any wiki. But I've got two major issues with it, one really major and one ... sometimes a big deal and sometimes minor, but annoying at best.

1— The big issue: the wiki tends to whitewash the production histories of the show while also providing the most convenient and broadly detailed histories of each episode's production. So it's easy to rely on their versions, but if you do so, you're going to miss some really important things. For instance, Memory Alpha mentions that Shimon Wincelberg, the writer of "Dagger of the Mind," used "S. Bar-David" as a pseudonym, and that he was Jewish (his family fled Nazi pogroms in the 30s) and that:

He incorporated several references to Jewish parables into the screenplay.

There's no explanation on either the episode page or the page for the Bar-David pseudonym as to why Wincelberg used a pseudonym, or what the Jewish references in the episode even are. But if you go to Wikipedia, the plot thickens:

Shimon Wincelberg originally wrote a reference to Hillel the Elder's "Torah on one leg" parable, but Roddenberry mandated an attribution to "the ancient skeptic." Wincelberg, incensed by Roddenberry's rewrites, requested a name change to S. Bar-David for the airing.

If you go back to the aired episode, the villain (Dr. Adams) specifically dismisses Kirk's (entirely justified) skepticism in the context of "the ancient skeptic who demanded of the wise old sage to be taught all the world's wisdom while standing on one foot." The line about "all the world's wisdom" is "the Torah" if you check the source of this, and "the wise old sage" is either Hillel or his rival Shammai. So Wincelberg's script explicitly associates the Adams-Kirk conflict with a very major Jewish figure whom Adams evidently expects Kirk to know about, and Wincelberg was angry enough about Roddenberry's excisions that he wouldn't put his own name to the script. But the reference to a science lab Christmas party on the Enterprise is allowed to remain, and Helen's surname Noel is an unsubtle reference to Christmas.

If you follow the Wikipedia citation from that discussion, you get a whole article from 2015 about the tension between Roddenberry's intense antisemitism and the influence of Jewish culture on Star Trek. The article includes a discussion of a conversation between its writer and Leonard Nimoy himself:

"Gene was anti-Semitic, clearly," Nimoy replied as my heart sank. "Roddenberry had Jewish associates; Bill (Shatner) and I were both Jewish, as were others. To be fair, Roddenberry was anti-religion. And apart from being a ethnic-cultural entity, Jews, to him, were a religious group. But I saw examples not only of him practicing anti-Semitism, but of him being callous about other peoples' differences as well."

The article's ultimate conclusion is not remotely "fuck Star Trek"—it deeply loves it, in fact—but the legacy is fraught and complex. So that seems rather a lot to just breeze past, and Memory Alpha does this pretty regularly (the references to Grace Lee Whitney's ouster are often incredibly vague, for instance).

2— A sometimes lesser but still significant issue with the wiki is that it takes a very contemporary, Wookieepedia-style, canon-welding approach to very different, not-especially-cohesive ST projects that ... I don't like as an approach to Star Wars, either, but which feels particularly egregious for Star Trek, which I think has traditionally taken a looser, healthier, less continuity-obsessed approach to storytelling.

So, for instance, in TOS, the conflict between the Federation and the Gorn is a tragic misunderstanding; the Gorn are defending themselves against colonization. The twist the entire episode is built on is the revelation that the Gorn are the injured parties and aren't monsters at all (when the Gorn is winning the combat, he tells Kirk things like, "Wait for me. I shall be merciful and quick" and "Captain, let us be reasonable"). The Federation erred in colonizing their homes. The culmination of the episode is Kirk's defiant refusal to kill his Gorn opponent, or have the Gorn ship/crew destroyed when he has the chance; he instead chooses to try and talk to them and negotiate peace. SNW has, let's say, a rather different take on the Gorn. If you project SNW!Gorn backwards onto "Arena" to weld it all into one canon, you basically have to sacrifice the whole sense and point of the original episode (which was criticizing colonialism!) in the interests of some forced, anodyne continuity.

Memory Alpha sometimes notes continuity "issues" like these, but is never really willing to treat different projects as distinct narratives apart from the alpha/beta distinction. If you look at the citations for various statements about "canon," for instance, you'll see TOS, the original movies, TNG/DS9/VOY, AOS, SNW, and others all thrown in together into some kind of canonicity blender, without it even being clear which statement belongs to which canon. And that approach to ST is especially hard on Trek that had something important to say that's been smoothed away in the modern era of glossy but often much less ambitious Paramount productions.

[aeroblossom]

narratively, it would make sense for our final destination to be L corp. L is the twelfth letter of the alphabet, and canto 12 belongs to faust. midnight is an important concept to walpurgisnacht, which is important to faust's theming. i don't think limbus company and lobotomy corporation having the same initials isn't on purpose either. the assumption thus would be that faust comes from L wing, and that would mean, that this whole time, it was based on germany. the horrifying conclusion here is that most of the lobcorp cast are german

[globgon]

Messing with some texture

Still trying to find my cartoony style

[stupidhany]

Posting this cause tbh this needs to be posted in here

I'm thinking of scanning these some time soon

[townslore]

whats people's opinion on beethoven's only opera being called "Fidelio" and realizing Where del ended up dying

[pintoras]

Camilla Zach-Dorn (German, 1859-1951): Floral still life with fan and Chinese vase (via Düsseldorfer Auktionshaus)