#i love when characters have no last names and people just use the source material as the last name

[veveisveryuncool]

misc deltarune doodles at 3 am

[genericpuff]

I’ve seen some people try and defend Lore Olympus by saying that movies like Hercules and such aren’t accurate to Greek myth, yet they’re still loved. And I somewhat get where they’re coming from, i really do.

BUT- I feel like part of the problem with LO is the fact that if you replace the names, you’d almost be right to assume it takes place in a completely different setting. Meanwhile, if you take away the names from the Hercules movie, you can still tell where it’s supposed to take place. (And who’s who, if you know your myths). Plus the writing of Hercules is 100% better than LO.

The difference between LO and Hercules is that Hercules clearly has respect for the source material put into it. It might not be accurate to the source material - because it's being retooled as a Disney movie for children - but you can tell there's still a lot of thought, love, and effort put into it. The team behind that movie did research on the art and culture of Greece, and adapted it into a movie that was entertaining and recognizable as a Greek myth adaption.

They put our home boy Heracles/Hercules in a tunic! Do you know how shocking that must have looked to American viewers who didn't know a shred of Greek myth and wondered why the big buff hero was being drawn in a skirt? Still accurate though!

LO, meanwhile, writes Greek myth as if it hates Greek myth for existing. It comes across more as a white woman using these stories purely for profit and colonizing it with American-esque culture. The outfits have become noticeably less Greek since the beginning, the characters never eat Greek food anymore, and the locations are left as vague as solid color backdrops to indicate "The Underworld" and "Olympus" without actually showing any set pieces or understanding of how these locations would look and feel in a modern setting.

All of these examples I gave are things we saw a decent amount of in S1. But since then it's just become talking heads on top of flat color backgrounds, eating Chinese food and dressing in American-style clothing. When was the last time we saw a mortal? There's just nothing Greek about the comic anymore because either Rachel has gotten so complacent that she just defaults to what she knows without any research (so what she watches on TV and in movies) or she only bothered with her research in the beginning to get people hooked and convinced that she's a "folklorist" so that they'd keep reading the series and giving her money on good will alone.

Using Hercules as an example of "well it's not accurate to Greek myth either!" completely misses the point of what people are getting at when they say that LO is a bad Greek myth retelling. Guess what else isn't completely accurate to Greek myth? Hadestown. Hades (the game). God of War. Stray Gods. They all take creative liberties with the source material in order to adjust it to the medium and audience they're creating it for, but none of those adaptions are quite as disrespectful as LO's. And God of War literally has little angry man going around and brutally murdering the gods. It still respects the setting of Greek myth more than LO, but unlike LO, it doesn't try to constantly sound smart with its inaccuracies, it knows fully well that it's a video game first and foremost.

And that's the beauty of myths. They can be adapted across generations and used to tell new versions of the same stories. So it begs the question, why bother writing a Greek myth retelling if you're going to make it so non-Greek that you could have just as well just written a normal soap drama and have it still be virtually the same?

Compared to all of the other examples, LO is the definition of confidently incorrect. It should have stuck to just being Greek myth inspired, not a retelling.

[mrghostrat]

"He needed an internet connection so he could download an app to draw with, but the whole point of setting the thing up in London was because he knew Crowley understood all of this a whole lot better than he did."

Okayyyyy I just got violent flashbacks to the s2 finale this is evil 😭😭

But in all seriousness, I LOVED the new bnf au chapter, I mean the kiss??? I audibly gasped, it was soooo good

I was wondering if the witch and the witchfinder are a canon couple in the nice and accurate prophecies? Or are they just a very popular fanon ship? Or is it like good omens, where people saw the romantic subtext in the book and where it was made explicitly canon in the show?

I just think all options would be really interesting, given that Crowley and Aziraphale are both middle-aged queer people and the book came out thirty years ago. So they either would have had some representation back then, or they recognised themselves in the story and even though it wasn't canon, maybe those ideas would later explicitly be confirmed by Agnes Nutter nonetheless? Since all these options have really interesting implications for the way they both interacted with the source material, I'm really curious what your thoughts on the matter are.

Thank you so much for all the beautiful things you create for the fandom, both your fics and your art give me life and I'm so grateful for them ❤

omg you have no idea how excited i am about this question 😭 as i've written BNF, i've been quietly fleshing out more about their fictional fandom, and accidentally gotten reeeeally invested and am dying to talk about it 😭😭

i'm actually tempted to make some fanart of the witch & the witchfinder, using michael and david as facecasts to go full meta thphptftf. in b4 i write it as a fuckin book series for real

buttttt i'll put all my N&A thoughts under a cut so i dont ramble too long on your dashes 💛

The Nice and Accurate Prophecy: Agnes Nutter's book series (turned play, turned film, turned tv series); the fandom in my fic Big Name Feelings

the idea of using Agnes Nutter's "Nice and Accurate" book for the in-fic fandom was taken from @tawnyontumblr's fic New Messages (i just thought that would be a fun fanon consistency to follow), but all the details about the story and characters are me.

N&A takes inspiration from Good Omens (as a story, and as a fandom) but isn't intended to be a direct copy of it. the original paperback series is a few books long, and each adaptation of the books are considered good, accurate, canonical content. the tv show (a HBO series) is the most recent, highest quality, and most popular. The Witcher style, high fantasy quality.

agnes is loudly supportive of the lgbt community just like neil/david/michael are. but i imagine that for the series to be so "marketable" over the last 30 years, there isn't an explicit queer relationship between the witch & finder. there are canon queer side characters but the witch & finder are a little more nuanced.

the witch and the witchfinder aid each other through time, working together to defeat the evils in the story (like Aziraphale and Crowley from GO). there's tension between them, but boundless love, and plenty of flirtation, despite the running "we shouldn't, we're meant to be enemies" theme. they would canonically get together at some point in the story, probably towards the end after they've spent some time dancing around each other.

the thing that makes this vague is: the witch reincarnates through the story, almost doctor who style. they're a trans icon, much like how the GO fandom looks at Crowley and all his gender ambiguity.

when they finally tryst with the witchfinder, they're female. it's by pure happenstance that they're female presenting at that stage of the story, but still widely critiqued over the years. the thing that canonises the mlm relationship is that the witch is said to carry their consciousness through each reincarnation— they're not a new person like The Doctor is when he regenerates.

the start of the book series spends more time on "Crowley and Aziraphale's favourite male reincarnation", while the movie and tv show only briefly montages through some of the witch's faces. the mlm side of the fandom most definitely lost their minds over the brief few minutes of screentime that they got of the male witch, and has absolutely gifsetted it to death.

i've done it like this because so much of (every) fandom has always been seeking out representation and filling gaps where the original content lacks. there's something to be said about the solidarity of queer fans creating more queer content for themselves. except, in the case of N&A, they're getting to work from a source material that is genuinely queer supportive, unlike fandoms like SPN and BBC Sherlock that are fighting against the tide of queerbaiting and buried gays.

it also gives aziraphale and crowley a chance to band together in the next chapter when they talk to a dickhead at the party:

i haven't exactly decided what happens with the witchfinder, like if the story takes place over hundreds of years and he keeps reincarnating as the same lookin dude (like how jack whitehall plays both Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery and Newton Pulsifer) or if it's set over one lifetime and the witch just gets killed and regenerates a lot. i do like the idea of there being some "through the ages" shenanigans, and a canonical "modern day" setting like GO has.

but i gotta be careful bc i genuinely can't stop thinking about this fake story that's barely mentioned in my fan fic or i'll end up writing the damn thing myself

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for telling my friend to not tell their crush how they feel?

TW: mention of suicide

So my (16 M) friend (16 M) who we will call T is a very close friend of mine despite us only being friends for about 7 months. He recently went through a super traumatic break up. Like he walked to my house crying and was threatening his life it was that bad, but I’ve always been there to try and help him. I’ve also introduced him to my friend group which consists of 5 boys and 1 girl, who we will call L. L and me had been friends for years. Since we’ve been 4. Me and her aren’t super close but she is definitely someone I would put in my emergency contacts. I love her. She is one of my best friends and her and my boyfriend are also super close. She also had just gotten rejected by her long time crush. She is a very skittish lady and romance isn’t her top priority. She also has just met T. Like. Very recently. They have had 2 conversations maybe and that was in the last 2 weeks.

Now, here is where I might be the asshole. So T tends to be very dramatic. He exaggerates a lot of things and makes them seem a lot worse than they actually are. Like for example, he said his family would make fun of his previous girlfriend, when actually they were just teasing him about even having one and saying he was a lover boy (I’ve heard these conversations myself) Recently, T has told me that he had a crush on someone in our friend group and that he was thinking about telling them. This concerned me, because 5/6 people in our group had partners, except L, who he barely knew. So when I asked him who, he made me do a bunch of tasks to find out, which annoyed me because I didn’t really care THAT much, but he insisted I did them. When I found out it was L, I was extremely confused, and I mentioned how he spoken a handful of words to her. He said that it didn’t matter because he was in love with her and was going to tell her. I strongly advised him not to, because he was far from her type, she would reject him, and future hang outs would be awkward or people wouldn’t want to come. He told me that he would think about it and one of our other friends told him to play the waiting game, which I reminded them that L had just got rejected and it would probably be awhile (like. Years) before she was ready to date again. T told me that I was discouraging him, which has started to make me mad. I’m starting to think he only likes L for her looks and not actually for HER. I recently asked him after one of his rants about her if he even knew her middle name, which he replied with “no, but we played Minecraft last night! I’m advancing into friend level!”

That irked me bad. You should ALREADY be friends with someone you have a crush on. I’m thinking about dropping him as a friend because he has said some kinda racist remarks about how black actors can’t play stereotypically white characters because it’s either “not historically accurate” or “not the same as the original source material” and this whole situation isn’t helping me. I just wanna protect my friends.

AITA??

What are these acronyms?

[theacecouple]

I didn't see anything from somerton until about a month ago when he popped up in my recs and I ended up binging his content for about 2 days, but something kept being off and I noticed some of the lies/ignorance, and there was something really dismissive and weird about how he talked about aspecs and women in particular... I stopped watching him cause I watched one of you guys' podcast and realized I also just felt like crap after his videos.

I did end up getting his rwrb video in my recs when it came out cause of the binge and I just remember leaving a comment about the way he talked about aces in it. It was especially upsetting seeing people in the comments who were simply happy he mentioned aspecs at all. He replied to me just saying his cowriter was ace. I don't reply to youtube comments but I just remember wanting to point out that same co-writer he was using as a shield said aces don't face discrimination or conversion therapy, and in that video wrote that aces have to have sex to find out they don't like it. Being something doesn't make you instantly know everything about it, as somerton himself demonstrates with his ignorant comments about gay history.

I'm not really one of his victims since I avoided him as soon as I found him, but I feel bad for all the people he tricked and/or guilted into believing him. I hope some other creators make videos exposing the weird way he manipulated the queer community, cause I think a lot of young folks could use a breakdown of it.

Anyways I just wanted to finish by saying I love you guys' work and learning from you. You helped me understand why certain phrases make me upset, and that and watching your podcast back to back with his videos helped me figure out what I didn't like about Somerton, so you helped protect me from him and not convince myself I was just being Weird as I often do when I get Bad Vibes from someone.

Thank you so much for reaching out <3

It's so fascinating that you stopped watching Somerton after finding us. We've tried to keep things as professional as possible these last 2 years by only citing directly harmful things he's done to us and direct members of our community, and even then it was sparingly and as kind as possible.

When we first spoke with him about including Asexual representation in his future Telos endeavors, he assured us that not only was there already an Ace in the writers' room, but that two real, fully-fleshed out Ace characters were already being written. This was encouraging! After all, we had no way of knowing if he was the kind of cis gay man who loathes Aces or doesn't view us as queer. Since this didn't seem to be the case and rep is important, we supported him. We now deeply regret not doing our research on him first.

Even before his video "The Queer Erasure of Asexuality", we started watching a few of his YouTube videos for the first time and some of the subtext was NOT kind to our community. Subtle things that we'd see get repeated by his fans over and over again, like how queer art is bad these days because all the "artists" and the "exciting queers" who "really lived" died in the AIDS crisis. Or the implication that the Interview with the Vampire reboot was *more queer* because the vampires actually had gay sex on screen, despite this being a complete departure from the source material and neglecting the fact that Anne Rice's vampires have always been undeniably queer *and also* sexless. In fact, we didn't say his name, but we did mention some vague "bad takes" we saw about the series in our podcast episodes 75 & 76 The Triumphs and Failures of AMC’s Interview with the Vampire Part 1 and Part 2...At least some of those came from James.

We did not see his rwrb video, because we had long given up on him by that point, but it is not at all surprising to hear that he had bad takes and also hid behind Nick once again to shield himself from any criticism. It was very much his MO, and yet we're also certain we've heard him chastise straight women for using the "I have a gay friend" defense.

It is so good to hear that our podcast has been helpful to you. There are FAR too many Aces who are willing to let bad behavior or ill-informed takes slide just because someone with a decent following noticed us. We deserve so much better.

[lucystark12]

mike wheeler and jaime lannister are the same character and that also means byler is real 🥳

my last post about game of thrones versus stranger things where i talked about writing and what went wrong with dan and david did pretty well so i figured id elaborate just a bit on my quick side note i had in there about mike reminding me of jaime because it’s something i literally cannot shake. they are so similar it causes me extreme amounts of stress. and im on a two hour flight so i have time to explain it all to you 🥳🤗

to begin, my favorite stranger things characters are mike and nancy and my favorite game of thrones characters are sansa and jaime. if you already see a pattern, then you’re on the right track, because yes, i am a believer in the misunderstood character who is widely hated amongst fans but is arguably the best written one in the given source material. sansa and nancy are both fundamentally similar characters- they both start out as naive girls who are very singularly focused on their reputation and how they’re perceived by the people around them. this is evident in nancy’s relationship with steve and with basically every single action sansa takes in season one of game of thrones. through being forced into a dangerous environment however, both characters learn to shed the ideas they had about what it means in their given world to be “successful” and “important.” i tend to love characters like that because their so realistic. even if we aren’t all being abused by kings or shooting demegorgans, most of us can relate to wishing we were something we weren’t and having to learn the hard way that it’s just better to be yourself

i just wanted to get the nancy sansa pipeline out of the way first before i talk about mike and jaime, because where nancy and sansa are similar, jaime and mike are practically twins.

let’s look at both characters at the beginning of their respective story-

- mike is 12 years old and knows close to nothing except for the fact that he wants to be able to protect the people he cares about. throughout the first season, we see mike’s guilt for not being able to find will metaphorically eat him alive, coming to a head at the cliff scene where when his other best friend is in threat of being harmed, he decides that he would rather die than not be able to save someone he cares about again.

- jaime is mike on a twenty year delay, but his story begins about where mike is at in ~season 3. however, when jaime was about 15, he was appointed to the kings guard, a position he partly sought out to be close to cersei (his affair partner (and sister but that’s a conversation for another day)) (also, mike acts the way he does when will goes missing partly because he’s lost somebody he subconsciously loves too and if you don’t think mike has been subconsciously in love with him this whole time ily but womp womp ur wrong) but also partly sought out because of his notions of what it meant to be a knight- it means that you’re fighting for the people and essentially saving as many as you possibly can. jaime is a character who cares very much about the people around him, similarly to mike. jaime’s situation comes to a similar head when he kills the king to prevent him from essentially bombing the capital city and killing half a million innocent people, which in doing so he puts his own life and reputation at risk

these characters are both so similar because they both value life. they are willing to sacrifice themselves and their reputation in the interest of other people. this is who they both are at the core of their person. however, at some point throughout their arc they both go back on their previous behaviors. they don’t so much regret the way they behaved, but the pressures about their roles that have been put on them by society lead them both to believe that their behavior is wrong in some way.

with mike, i’m talking about how affectionate (?) he was with will in season two. i’m naming what happened after the whole hospital “best thing i’ve ever done” sequence and before season three as mike going through the same thing jaime does in the period between when he kills the king and when the show starts. i think in both of these time frames, the two of them start to have this realization based on the people around them that what they did was wrong and won’t be widely accepted. jaime’s king slaying was treasonous and mike realizes that his love confession coded monologue to will in the hospital wasn’t necessarily normal behavior. this is also the exact time period in which the raegan bush election is happening. they literally probably voted during season 2. id also like to point out that both of them come from very rigid and strict families. and if you’re denying me this for mike, they have a raegan bush sign in their yard.

now we pick up in season 1 for jaime and season 3 for mike. this is where im going to bring up the singular most important part of both of their respective arcs- the love triangle. season 1/3 are the most important times for both melvin and jercei (?). melvin is at peak affection, and basically mike’s entire story for a good portion of this season revolves around her. this is basically the peak of jercei because it’s right before they get separated and their whole dynamic changes. but uh oh! there’s trouble in paradise for both! suddenly mike and el are broken up and jaime and cersei are separated by the war of the five kings. this next part bleeds into season 2/3 for jaime and season 4 for mike, when mike and el are quite literally separated.

so, both of them are separated from side one of their love triangle, who both are using as a gateway to solve what they think is their biggest flaw- jaime his narcissism and mike his sexuality. then, and this is one of my favorite little parallels, they are both literally escorted home by the other side of the triangle, where “home” (hawkins for mike, kings landing for jaime) serves to say the truth about who they are as people that they weren’t quite ready to face before they set off on their respective physical journeys. (mikes trip to california, jaimes push north)

obviously in stranger things mike and will literally go back to hawkins together. in game of thrones, jaime gets captured by the opposing army and is escorted back to the capital by a knight for the opposing army, brienne, under the condition that he will safely return the king’s sisters to him. throughout both of their returns home, they both are forced to come to terms with their feelings just a little bit. jaime admits the truth of his kingslay to brienne, and mike is given the painting. i don’t think mike has put ANY of the dots together on the painting yet, but once he does, this will serve as a HUGE influence on his character development and relationship with will (another thing i could talk about for hours). then they both get home, and jaime’s view starts to shift just a little bit… he starts thinking “hey wait… maybe brienne is onto something. maybe i don’t have to be so terrible all the time and conform to what society wants me to be.” now obviously we don’t know if mike is thinking this way yet, but my guess is that he probably will start having a similar thing next season.

the reason both brienne and will are so important to their character arcs are because in the context of the love triangle or decision their romantic interest is making, they serve to symbolize non conformity and embracing the truth about who you are and what you stand for. brienne isn’t conventionally attractive like cersei and actively goes against what was expected of women at the time. being with will would make him a part of a gay relationship, which was very nonconformist at the time. where cersei and eleven serve in the relationship to show pretending, insecurity, and lies since they are literally the exact opposite of brienne and will. and guess who doesn’t lie? FRIENDS.

so, what i’m saying is that will is essential to ending mike’s character arc just like brienne was to jaime, and that if stranger things fumbles the bag and doesn’t make it happen like game of thrones did, then mike will live in infamy as an unfinished character who had a stupid ending just like jaime did.

also, i am a “jaime should have killed cersei and then died in the fire with her” truther and similarly believe that mike should sacrifice himself in the last summer to come full circle to the sacrificial person he used to be. i also don’t believe in happy endings because they’re boring ❤️

this is why im SO FUCKING NERVOUS about mike. i’m literally having ptsd god help me! 🤗🤗 pls matt and ross learn from the mistakes of your elders and break the game of thrones curse!! as daenerys targaryen would say- BREAK THE WHEEL!!

[meowthefluffy]

An update on my unfinished au’s!

I have over the last few months fallen deeply out of love with the Sanders Sides series and as a result I have not updated any of my projects in some time. At the current point I am at I am only planning to do the final two installments in the cupid au (because I pretty much lost my affection for the ts series right before the big finale of the project!!) and the lust Roman au (as it is my longest running work to date and I want to comple the project as a show of dedication to my younger self) although it will most likely be on a much quicker time scale than I was intending originally! (Instead of the 11 more parts I was hoping to produce it will probably be closer to 5 and I will most likely skip a few parts of the story that weren’t as important)

I feel a lot of affection for the work I have created but not a lot for the actual series so I’m trying to find a way to rework the stories I’ve created for the au’s to become independent creations that I will enjoy continuing to make! (Aside from the Lust au which I feel is mostly a story I don’t feel the need to come back to/rework since it relies so heavily on the source material) Most of my au’s function as stories mostly separate from canon material except for the characters archetypes present in each, so I’ll be working on retooling/reskinning said work to be more original and workable as long term projects! (Since u guys were really invest in my plots which had almost nothing to do with the canon characterization)

I’m currently working on retooling the Zombie au (Which I used as heavy inspiration for my oc Sophia I sometimes post about and her girlfriend) the Cupid au (I’m putting together more creative designs for the characters so that I can hopefully redo the comic- since I’m super in love with the concept) The sleeping beauty au (since it functions entirely the same as a stand alone story- and I could use the designs of my princess characters from that comic I made a long time ago for Valentine’s Day ) and the Super hero au! (Which I never properly defined and thus have a lot of incomplete ideas for, and my only struggle is coming up with better super hero names for them)

The only one of my main au’s I probably won’t rework is the Evil king au- just because I’m not sure how I could retool it to not just be a story about abuse(I feel more comfortable creating a story where everything is horrible and bad and the people involved are just bad for eachother when it’s an au- because there is other work of those characters where they aren’t that way to balance it out- but if it were my own new characters I feel as though it wouldn’t be nearly as fun to read or write)

This is a series of decisions I’ve been trying to wait on for a long time because I have been hoping something sanders Sides related would come out soon that would re spark my interest but nothing so far has happened- and with the way the story is going I don’t think it’s something that is going to happen. I still love all the work I have created for this fandom and I am so proud of all the collaborative projects I have been able to create with you all! I will happily re-read your asks and comments on my comics and I am still really proud of the community I’ve been able to create!

I’m sad to let this part of my life go (it’s taken up a solid 4th of my lifetime) and I understand that a lot of you all won’t follow me to my new projects- because I understand you guys didn’t come here for random oc projects- or original comics. And Altho it breaks my heart to see some of you move on and leave my notifications I am happy I the time with you all that I did!

Thank you all for everything- and I’ll see you soon 💖

[hinasho]

This is the last thing I'll say in regards to the criticism.

James O'Barr is fine with new adaptations of his graphic novel.

He had joined on board the production process when there was going to be a 2014 adaptation of Eric's storyline with Luke Evans as the lead.

"[We're] not remaking the [1994] movie. We're re-adapting the book. My metaphor is that there is a Bela Lugosi Dracula (1931) and there's a Francis Ford Coppola Dracula (1992). They use the same material, but you still got two entirely different films. This one's going to be closer to Taxi Driver (1976) or a John Woo film, and I think there's room for both of them. Part of the appeal of The Crow comics, after all, is that they can tell very different stories."

James is not only fine with new adaptations, he's tired of how many he's wanted to see happen that unfortunately never got released.

Earlier this year on April 18, 2024, he sat down for an interview with The Legacy Of Nerd youtube channel.

(@ about 9 minutes & 38 seconds)

INTERVIEWER: "What do you think has been the most frustrating thing of seeing these projects lag, lag, and lag?" JAMES: "[...] A couple of them, ya know, I've met the directors and worked with them on the script. I've put a lot of effort and time into drawing things and re-writing scripts. And then at the last minute it falls apart and I have nothing to show for that." JAMES: "So it became frustrating to where, I just... If you're going to make a movie, go make it! I don't want to have anything to do with it. Go make the best movie you can, but I can't invest anymore time and effort into this thing. When nothing is going to happen."

And he's found it frustrating how many times he has to explain to skeptics and complainers that different adaptations do not harm the original story in any way.

(@ about 10 minutes & 30 seconds)

INTERVIEWER: "The '94 Brandon Lee movie is really hard to re-do—" JAMES: "Yeah, people love that character. But they understand though. Even the people that love the first film and don't want a new one, they understand. They're gonna go see it, just so they can have something to bitch about."

(@ about 11 minutes & 14 seconds)

INTERVIEWER: "...The Brandon Lee version has a very important feel to a lot of people and that's how a lot of people discovered The Crow. To go on and to read the books and read the comics and stuff like that. I can see why it's been so difficult to re-do over the years and I can see from a creator standpoint that—" JAMES: "When I was working on them, like the Jason Momoa one, having to explain to people that it's not... how many film versions of Dracula are there? There's like 60 of them. Everybody has their favorite. [...] It's the same source material but it's a different way to tell it. I spent a lot of time explaining to people that it's not going to take anything away from Brandon's movie. This is just a different way to look at it."

The only thing James does NOT want are people trying to remake the story in the same exact way.

"The Crow [1994] still holds up remarkably well. For a 10 million dollar film, it looks astonishing… it seems kind of pointless if you’re just going to be repetitious." - James in an interview with Supanova.

---

"If you read the comic, Eric and Shelley never have their last names revealed," he said. "Hopefully, this is one area the new movie being more faithful to the comic will come into play, and Eric won't be going by Eric Draven in the new film. "Luke Evans may play Eric, but Brandon Lee will forever be Eric Draven... No-one understands that fear more than me. Brandon Lee was a friend and I'd never do anything to hurt his legacy." - James in 2014 when he was working on the Luke Evans version.

As long as the re-imagining has it's own spin and doesn't try to copy beat for beat the same exact story as it's already been told, James is more than okay with it. He actively supports re-adaptations of his graphic novel as long as they're unique and refreshing in some way.

So if you truly care about the original creator's own thoughts on his own work... please get a grip.

[cath-lic]

Hallo! I was pleasantly surprised to open up your profile to find out you're both trans and catholic!! (This might be a long read)

I'm the same! But in recent years due to my transness/queerness + my criticisms of the church I've kind of distanced myself from the church. I still go to mass and receive communion and do what is expected of me (I'm in a very catholic family) but I do it with a hollow feeling in my heart.

Almost paradoxically though, I really like Jesus, I think he's a cool guy, I have unending respect for him + I take bible classes and I find it to be really fun and interesting, esp the gospels and I guess the new testament in general. Studying the characters, the setting and the meaning of the story is always so cool to me and I really really love it.

However, the environment i grew up in and the Catholics I grew up with gave me a really sour feeling and I feel a lot of spite because of the blatant hate they spew towards lgbtq people/ their hypocrisy at times (things like defending isr4el's actions vehemently even though they're contradicting themselves to their face when they preach about love and anti harm and stuff) umm I lost my sentence, basically I feel like lgbtq people would be the last thing Jesus would consider a problem and I'm just soo sick of hypocrisy among catholics and Christians that it's made me almost resentful but I'm not quite there yet

What I wanted to ask was, how are you keeping your faith despite all these things? Despite all the horrible actions people commit each day in the name of Jesus and Christianity (just look at, say, the treatment of trans people in the US, Project 2025, all that, book banning, just... Blatant misuse of the faith, I hope you know what I'm talking about). I feel like the more I hear about stuff like this, the less I want to associate myself with the church. I feel ashamed, I guess. I figure that I've lost myself in all this, but any advice? I'd love to hear your thoughts :)

this ended up being a long answer, so i'll put it under a cut!

hello my sibling, i know exactly how you feel. i was lucky enough to grow up in a non-hostile and fairly liberal environment, but for similar reasons, i am in the closet as well.

seeing the violence and vitriol that so many christians espouse on a daily basis is extremely upsetting to me. i absolutely despise the fact that christianity has become popularly associated with hatred. at the same time, i acknowledge that many christians have wielded our faith in such a way that they are absolutely deserving of that reputation.

what helps me is having catholic friends IRL and online that make me feel sane. building this type of community online honestly helped me in so many ways—i no longer feel like one of the few catholics in the usa that aren’t associated with the alt-right.

another thing that helped me was, ironically, finding a different church. though i am still catholic, i go to an episcopal church. it’s smaller and friendlier, and i felt much more welcomed there as well, and i feel comfortable knowing that these are people who share both my values and (most of) my religious beliefs.

i think i become more gung-ho about the faith when seeing the horrible things that people do in the name of christianity, actually. i tend to post more when i’m riled up about it, because i KNOW they’re wrong! so basically, when i’m feeling down, i turn to the source material. more often than not, they reaffirm my faith and reaffirm that god has sanctioned absolutely none of the shit that republicans are trying to pull.

i want people to know that being catholic does not mean being conservative, so i yell about it in my own space here. i don’t want to, you know, proselytize to people—so i make sure that this is a blog they can block. i would like to attend pride events and bring my own signs, and protect others from protestors at some point.

i’m sorry i don’t have a more succinct answer for you, my sibling. i can only assure you that you are not alone, and that so many of us trans catholics feel the exact same way. sending all my love to you ❤️❤️❤️

[bengiyo]

My Love Mix Up TH Ep 5 Stray Thoughts

Last week, Half realized he had let Atom down after getting the shit slapped out of him by Mudmee, and worked to apologize and reassure Atom of his friendship. After being falsely accused of cheating by his teacher, the teacher made Atom become the manager of the basketball team. This proved difficult for Atom, who was trying to get over Kongthap, but ended up feeling jealous of another girl he thought had a crush on Kongthap.

Oh, okay we're at a camp now.

The fantasy sequences are fun. Also amused at them running the guy on the stretcher, because that can't have been the best way to get him down.

Is this meant to be an ATOTS crossover since the actor's character is named Yod again?

They used PPL for the food sharing scene, of course.

Nice job saving the homie, Half.

I just skipped 30 seconds of built in ads to see a show ad. FFS

🎶 You would not believe your eyes if 10 million fireflies... 🎶

Fourth probably didn't have to act that much. He struggles with heights.

The spartan camp remains the weakest part of the KH story.

Okay, this outfit looks good on Fourth. I like having Aaron scare people.

Oh, everyone got fun outfits.

Hold on, they're letting them act! They let them have a few actual exchanges in the same shot without a cut.

Singing over the building tension is a bit heavy handed.

Why do those look like human teeth marks??? Is this a zombie flick now????

Congratulations. We have reached the talking stage.

The flash back to explain the shrine scene was a bit weird.

Next week the dating era begins.

Kieta Hatsukoi Thoughts: I don't want to be harsh to the Thai show this time, because I actually think this skiing trip in the source material is quite bad, so doing their own thing is fine. That being said, the withholding of food based on their performance feels especially cruel when it isn't a lesson in the strength of the collective that ends in a BBQ. This episode felt especially long for not that much gain. I also wish they hadn't broken up Atom's confession with the snake nonsense. It breaks the flow of Ida seeing Aoki properly.

[booksandabeer]

Catching up

I got tagged approximately one million years ago by @burberrycanary 💙 and @somanywords 💛. Sorry it took me so long! 😬

Last song: I don't know the exact song, but I've been listening to the album Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert a lot. I'm not a particuarly big fan of Bob Dylan, or a fan at all, really. However, I am absolutely a die-hard fan of Cat Power and I think that Chan Marshall is probably the best cover artist of...all time? Well, certainly of her generation. That's not to shade her original compositions, which I also love, but she's brilliant at taking songs that you thought you could no longer listen to because they've been played ad nauseam everywhere for decades, and then teasing something fresh and original and truly moving out of them. Listen to her covers of "I'll Be Seeing You" or "Mr. Tambourine Man" or even "New York, New York" and tell me they don't excite you in any way (if they don't, I suspect you have no soul). She's even great at covering herself! Please go and listen to her 2008 cover of her own 1998 song "Metal Heart" right now. It's one of my all-time faves and also, yes absolutely a Stucky song.

Relationship status: I have a person.

Sweet/spicy/savory: Everything all at once, please.

Favorite color: Blue, blue, blue. International Klein Blue to be precise. I cannot get enough of it. Also, I will die on the hill that chartreuse is actually a great color.

Last movie: The Last Stop in Yuma County which was a fun neo-western/crime thriller that didn't take itself too seriously and didn't outstay its welcome. Imagine that! A 90-minute movie. They still make those! Wild. If you like Tarantino and/or the Coen Brothers, but played at a faster, snappier tempo, you will probably enjoy this one too.

Last show: So many. Bodkin, which is the epitome of "this show doesn't know what it wants to be." Is it a quirky comedy? A crime show? A (very tepid) satire? It's not like you can't combine these genres, but the show doesn't combine them, it swings wildly between them. The ending was terrible. I've finally started watching Hacks (a delight!) and I'm still slowly making my way through Kings (only 2 episodes left). Also following along with the new season of IWTV, which remains an absolutely bonkers show. If *this* is what made it into the final cut, can you imagine what didn't? Oh, to be allowed to read the studio notes for this one!

Last thing I googled: The origin and meaning of a Norse/Russian name. For reasons.

Current obsession: The Terror brainrot is still going stong. I have learned so much about Arctic Exploration in the 1800s over the past few weeks. Also, in a curious turn of events, I have started reading Masters of the Air fanfic? I was unfortunately pretty disappointed with the show. I had hoped it would trigger a level-11 hyperfixation but instead it just kinda came and went and I didn't even think about it anymore. Then an author, who I still follow because they used to write Stucky, started posting one Buck/Bucky (yes, they are two different characters) fic after another, and one day I said, 'Why not give it a shot?' Well, here we are, tens of thousands of words later, and for the first time in my life I'm beginning to understand the people whose general fandom attitude is 'I don't care for the source material at all, but the fic! Oh the fic compels me!' I have been compelled. I'm now a person who reads fanfiction for a pairing that includes a character played by Austin Butler (sorry Butler heads, I just don't get it).

Wonders never cease.

--

Like I said, I got tagged for this ages ago, so I don't know who's done this (recently). I'm gently tagging @bromcommie, @aimmyarrowshigh, @zenaidamacrouras1, @shackleton2 and @hail-americas-ass. Also, I mean it when I say I want to know what everyone else is watching/eating/obsessing over/etc. Tell me! Open tag for everyone who wants to do this.

[centrally-unplanned]

I have begun watching House of the Dragon btw - it is fun! I like it just fine. I think the core cast is very good - Emmy D'Arcy & Olivia Cooke imbue a ton of pathos into their roles while keeping everything grounded, and Matt Smith, I mean he is Matt Smith I don't think anyone alive holds a candle to him when it comes to bringing aggressively compensating levels of caustic superiority to a character. They work these scripts really well.

I think the core of the changes are right. The Dance of Dragons, in the books, is a Madness of War story; everyone is an asshole. Rhaenyra is a murderous autocrat, Alicent is a scheming backstabber, both sides are run by awful people. Those awful people sometimes do glorious things, but their glory or loves are in service of foolish ends that destroy the Targaryen dynasty and ruin the country for the common man. It is told as a history book after the fact, and I really like it - I know some don't, but I think as a match to the medium it works well.

That was never gonna work on TV. There is the idea of doing the "everyman" approach, where the main characters are commonfolk soldiers trying to survive or the like. Not saying no one could make that work, but it is a problem of adaptation; the source material gives you nothing to work with there. It is a story of queens and battles, it would tonally be a mismatch to the previous Game of Thrones show as a brand, as an audience expectation, but (unlike say the Hobbit) a mismatch with the source material as well. And doing like a high concept "historian's tale" ehhhh again someone could do it but that is a risky bet. Telling a period drama is what the market can bear, and the story's details are amazing for a period drama; it just needs protagonists.

So you change up the characters. Rhaenyra is now motivated by justice and a desire to rule well alongside ambition, Alicent believes Viserys changed his mind at the last minute, miscommunications and the chaos of war cause the most heinous early actions as opposed to pure malice. I think this works well because the core darker elements are also preserved; the fear that Rhaenyra must kill Alicent's sons to preserve her rule motivates Alicent to roll the dice, her character doesn't matter so much for that dynamic, and so on for other changes. The story's core is still there, but now it has more depth to it, more realistic political dilemmas causing the level of tragedy.

I do think they are going a bit too far on a few of these tracks though? The latest episode (S02E03) screams of modern morality mucking things up as Rhaenyra, despite the fact that she murdered the King's son and the opposing faction is openly mobilizing armies to attack, is not only saying "let's give peace a chance" (that is fine) but refusing to do anything proactive to prep for the alternative. Her counselors propose flying around via dragon to make houses join her cause, and she is like "no, we can't use them, it's too violent"...then don't use them. Just threaten to use them, fucking bluff, get people on your side. Burn just one little household, as a treat. Be trying to make deals with Lord Paramounts, be gathering sellswords, show us something active so you don't look incompetent.

I feel the same way about Viserys deathbed statements to Alicent that trick her into thinking he changed his mind - why do you need this? You already did all that work showing me that Alicent felt she had to put her sons in power to protect them, that most of the council was already planning to do it, and all that season of buildup. Just let that good, justified stuff happen without a silly name mixup from a dying guy. Let Alicent be a little evil.

There is more than one whiff of "boys rush to war while women in their wisdom counsel restraint" in this show, and it is a bad look. For one it is a little sexist, and for two by mixing it with modern sensibilities, they look like rubes in their non-modern war. God forbid a woman do a single coup, that is my gender equality.

Hopefully they get this out their system as the war ramps up - I do think they will.

[divinecomedyproductions]

Fandom Woes: Why people are writing AUs and the scam of “being original”

Many objections I have noticed of reimagined AUs(such as RWBY) is how "they don't resemble the property" and should be "their own thing", and the movie Across The Spider-Verse with the whole Spider-Men AUs and the criticism of multiverses in general.

Speaking from personal experience, there's a reason why they don't make their own thing. It's often because literary snobs have set these people up into a conundrum.

If you make a reimagined AU, they go out of their way to lecture "this does not resemble this thing anymore, make it its own thing."

And if you tweak it, the character and world designs, the names, anything to make it its own thing...

The snobs use greedy reductionism/nothing buttery to reduce it down to the inspirations and influences, especially when it came from a place of distaste and disagreement, and call it "derivative" and "butthurt thinly veiled fan fiction." and tell you to use different source material and "learn to be more original."

The snobs won't let you win.

So if you just keep trying to be “original” and you let these people define what that entails, your just letting others manipulate your creativity and your just dancing around for them like a monkey

You make an reimagined AU, its no longer "recognizable" and you get criticized

You make it its own thing, the inspirations, influences, and motives are pointed out and deemed "derivative" so you also get criticized

You're going to get criticized either way, so you might as well make a choice and stick with it.

And what's more infuriating is these sophists are guilty of hypocrisy

Let me give a personal example with the success of Kamen America, a superheroine I've come to love

She was created as an active disagreement how Captain Marvel was handled, combined with other elements such as Sailor Moon and various Tokusatsu

Once she gained popularity along with her Kamen Corps, many starting bashing her as a "porno captain marvel rip-off" because the creators dared to actively disagree with how a concept was handled, and I was lectured for my concept being "hostile" to RWBY which was born out my disagreement and distaste how its characters and ideas were handled

Yet these very people would be supporting the Evil Superman concept like Homelander and other characters of The Boys

and the Anti-Narnian His Dark Materials Trilogy, the former written by a guy who hates superheroes, and the latter a staunch atheist who can't stand CS Lewis and Christianity

Both who have said things about both subjects that are the textbook definition of "hostile" and yet nobody bats an eye.

Because its not wrong when "the right people" do it towards "the wrong things"

And the excuse they snobs say because these make the concepts objectively "more interesting" backed up with a whole "we-know-better-than-you" attitude which is leading me to hate that word "interesting"

The "Right People" can do whatever they want, but us "Wrong People" gotta follow all these rules and only have what the "Right People" tell us what we can have, how we create, and what we enjoy.

Then they turn around and lecture you about being "entitled" when the only thing your often guilty of being "entitled" to is your opinions and feelings, which last time I checked, people are entitled to.

[multiplicity-positivity]

hey, most of our membs are introjects, and im curious, what pros/cons are there to seperating from your source? (being like, finding a new name and changing your looks more than just.. a slight recolor of the og media like ours are xD) like why do other do so, im curious :}

Hiya! I’m an introject! This question is kind of complex and the answer is really going to differ from system to system and from introject to introject! But here are my thoughts (I’m a fictive of Ralsei from Deltarune by the way! :3)

So for me (and I feel like I can safely say this for all my introject parts) a small amount of source separation is not only a good thing, but also healthy and necessary in order to live a happy life! Like, I still strongly identify with my source. I view myself as Ralsei and identify with the character strongly! But I recognize that I am not literally the character. I am a member in a system and not a figment of Toby Fox’s mind which only exists in a video game. I am a real person and I exist in real life! I am capable of growth and change, and there’s nothing keeping me held to the tiny box that my source has to fit in, because even though I identify with my source strongly, I am not him literally! This is source separation! And for the parts in our system, this is a really good thing! >w<

And here’s some reasons why parts in my system have chosen to source separate (whether slightly, like me, or more fully, like Cecil!)

They formed as an introject as a way to cope with trauma! And source separating happens naturally as they process trauma memories and come to understand themselves more as they are, outside of their source and the trauma that caused them to form!

They were uncomfortable with being compared to their source, treated as their source, or others assuming that they were big fans of their source material!

Their source is a different race or is from a different culture than that of our body, so they wanted to change as a sign of respect to BIPOC or those who actually belong to that race/culture!

They wanted to be able to engage with their source’s fandom in positive ways without feeling hurt and offended when people interpreted their source in ways that they don’t identify or agree with!

They just embraced source separation as it was already happening naturally!

And more! Folks can source separate for a huge variety of reasons! And every system is different, so many introjects may have their own personal reasons for source separating! >w<

As for the cons to source separation… the biggest one for us is that it sucks to source separate because others forced or expected you to! If you want to source separate, do it!! But do it for you and no one else. Feeling pressured to do something you don’t want to do can cause feelings of bitterness and resentment >_< So yeah, that for us is definitely the biggest con! And we can’t think of many more besides that, though we’re sure for some introjects there are more!

Ahhhhh sorry this got so long! I love talking about introject life and sources and source separation and all that stuff. The last thing we’ll do here is include Cecil’s post on source separation in case anyone might find it useful! :3

We hope this helps!! Best of luck to y’all with figuring out your sources and whether or not to separate from them in the future!! >w<

[natlacentral]

The Kiwi director bringing live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender to life

Netflix's live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender is arguably one of the biggest productions of the year. The project, which has a budget of US$120 million, has captured imaginations worldwide since its debut last month. Today, Netflix confirmed the series will be renewed for two more seasons.

One of the visionaries behind the new show is Asian-New Zealand creative Roseanne Liang. Serving as co-executive producer and director of episodes five and six, Liang knows the responsibility she carries in taking a beloved story from script to screen.

"It is a huge weight to bear," she says.

"We wanted to provide the best thing in the spirit of why we love the original Avatarand that's all we can really operate through. Have faith, trust our instincts that our hearts are pure, our minds are true and we're doing the best we can."

It all started in 2021, when Liang's agent called her about the show. Netflix was looking specifically for pan-Asian directors and her name was on the list.

"I knew about the show because all my friends had been saying 'you need to watch it' at various points. I was like, 'oh it's a Nickelodeon animation' and they're like, 'no, you don't understand. It is life, it's got one of the best dramatic arcs ever, you've got to watch this show' ... I watched the hell out of the three seasons and became a convert. Everything everyone told me was true."

Liang says there were huge challenges in adapting a 20-episode, half-hour animated series into eight hours of epic live-action television.

"The world is so rich, there's bending, there's all this flora and fauna and animals, it's this pan-Asian, indigenous world that is taking from cultures that seem familiar to us but are different and new. The challenge of that world-building was vast.

"It's also hard to get the tone into your head - you can do silly things like sucking frogs and cactus juice in the animation - because it's animation - but I don't know if you can have the tonal whiplash in a live-action like that.

"We'd always have to find that line. The dramatic can't be too dramatic, we've gotta undercut it with probably a quip or something, but the funny can't be too slapstick cause people will be like, what is this."

Liang says casting for the project also came with a bit of pressure. Season one follows a 12-year-old Aang, 14-year-old Katara and 15-year-old Sokka, and finding young actors capable of undertaking the roles was "scary".

"They're all teenagers. I think Dallas (Zuko) is a bit older but still young, just in his early 20s. It's all about casting the right actor - and person. Because the person needs to be able to deal with the pressure of what they're about to go through.

"The children had an incredible support network though. Dallas Liu and Ian Ousley (Sokka), they were best mates, they chose to room together in Vancouver where we shot and they were each other's support buddies. I just love their bromance, it's a beautiful thing when cast members look after each other like that."

The Netflix adaptation attracted some scrutiny after the creators of the original series - Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino - stepped away from the project citing creative differences after being involved for two years. Liang says their departure was "a source of pain and dismay".

"We cared so deeply about the source material ... at the same time, we know what we're doing it for. Some things won't live up to people's understanding, we're never going to be able to completely mimic or mirror the animation, but some things - I've gotta hand it to the writing team - some things they made even better."

A plot tweak in episode six, directed by Liang, follows Zuko's journey in a way that strengthens what the character stands for - Liang argues, better than the animation itself. While episode four features the addition of one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking flashbacks of the series, the funeral of Iroh's son Lu Ten.

"The Leaves from the Vine storyline about how much Iroh grapples with his part in the war and the cost of who he was in the army, the writers were like, we think we can add this moment in here to really cement the relationship between Zuko and Iroh.

"Zuko did an immense kindness to Uncle Iroh by sitting with him in mourning and it is a gift that Iroh repays. That relationship is one of the most rewarding, beautiful, fun, funny relationships of the whole series."

As a Chinese-New Zealander, Liang says it was a huge honour to be involved in a project that highlights the richness of a pan-Asian, indigenous world.

"It was the ethos of the entire production team that we do something new in this sphere that won't draw the silly, polarised calls of "wokeness" because it makes complete sense in this beautiful world that Bryan and Michael created in the original series. It was always diverse and that was their vision.

"All we had to do was serve that vision and it was just the most natural thing in the world."

While she hadn't worked on a project of this scale before, Liang could draw on rich experience from her involvement in local productions such as Creamerie (with RNZ's own Perlina Lau), Banana in a Nutshell and My Wedding and Other Secrets. She hopes her success inspires other New Zealand creatives to aim for the stars.

"Just because we come from a small country or are part of a diasporic community, that's no barrier to working at this level ... whether it's your ethnicity or your upbringing, don't let it limit you because you can get there."

In fact, Liang's "New Zealand-ness" was a strength on set. Wearing an 'Aroha Mai, Aroha Atu' shirt, she explained that the Māori phrase means 'love received, love returned' - an understanding that helped connect with the First Nations indigenous crew that worked on the show.

"The ethos that we have in New Zealand, the multi-cultural understanding of people and relating to each other, it helps - so much of my job is feeling people's energy and giving my own energy back to them and growing up in New Zealand where these - usually indigenous - ideas of how to serve people and act with love has served me so well.

"It's really been nothing but an asset to my entire process."

[vostok3-ka]

Hello!!! *throws these at you*

🕯️ ⇢ on a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you enjoy editing? why is that?

🎲 ⇢ what stops you from writing more in your free time?

🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

HELLO SADIE! Ahh, thank you so much for the questions, fella. Sorry for the late reply, it was Eid yesterday so I was so busy <3 (It was so fun!)

🕯️- I would have to say a solid 4. I do not enjoy reading back my work, I always cringe too hard, but the satisfaction of finding a little bit that is awkward and molding it into a better, much more seamless piece really strikes a chord on the satisfaction machine, and it's real nice. The only reason I gave it this low of a rating is really the inability to re-read my stuff. I wish I could do it without wanting to die in a hole, but alas! I cannot lmao.

🎲- Honestly, just lack of confidence and motivation. I always have a lot of ideas I really want to write about, and a lot of plots and directions I want my stories to take, but I don't have a lot of confidence, and then I just don't- write. I should probably gain a little bit more self-confidence with my writing, and then the words will probably flow well! Another reason is the fact that I do really struggle with getting the words down. I have the pictures in my head, but getting words to form those pictures down on paper (or screen) is incredibly difficult to do in a satisfying manner. I suppose I might be a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to writing in that I want my work to be perfect, which isn't really possible.

🍬- Oh boy I love these questions haha. Here is one that I think is somewhat controversial. I really appreciate the fact that in the panels of the show, they didn't change his name to The White Wolf. It sorta of, to me, shows that as much as he might not like it, he still was and till now is the Winter Soldier. Some people say that it isn't fair that Sam got his arc as Captain America and Bucky didn't get his transformation into the White Wolf, but I just- I don't know, I like the idea of him reclaiming the title Winter Soldier. He might try to run from it, or to hide his past, but in the end people still recognize him as the Winter Soldier, and people recognize Sam as the new Captain America. The show didn't show any parts of the White Wolf, and still showed how Bucky falls into his fighting stance easily and with grace. It shows the characters using the Winter Soldier title to advance in their mission, and it shows the fact that being the Winter Soldier is still a major playing factor in Bucky's life, whether it's the past coming back to haunt him, or the fact that he is still seen as a criminal (he IS a criminal that boy broke a terrorist out of prison and missed court mandated therapy LMAO). Idk, I just quite like it. I like the idea of Bucky realizing that he cannot escape his past, and that he can, even though he is the "former" Winter Soldier, he can still be good. Sort of like Natasha not giving up the title Black Widow even though she defected from the Red Room. Yeah. And I think that might be quite unpopular to some!

🔪- Oh one of the weirdest things I have had to research is veterinary medication and psychiatric treatments in the 1980s Soviet Union. I am still in the process of researching this for a current fic I am working on, but yeah. It's super absurd to me. It's such an odd topic, and it is incredibly difficult to find English source material, so I keep having to grind through texts with my A2 Russian and Google Translate haha. It's super interesting though, and in the process of this, I have fallen down several rabbit-holes including the common Soviet village house, Caucasian last name meanings and frequencies, and, my favourite, 80s Soviet music!

Thank you bunches for the ask, I had a lovely time thinking up the answers and writing them down!!! I hope you are having a lovely day/night!