#movies comic books and modern mythology

[mondoreb]

End Times Prophecy Headlines: February 20, 2023

End Times Prophecy Report.com HEADLINES MONDAY February 20, 2023 And OPINION “And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.” —Matthew 24:4 “The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison.” —Fyodor Dostoevsky ===INTERNATIONAL UKRAINE: Putin’s War Against Ukraine: The End of The Beginning RUSSIA: Russia’s War in Ukraine…

[apricops]

broke: marvel movies are like a modern mythological pantheon

slightly less broke: I wonder if watching the batshit world of comic books get sanitized for anodyne mass consumption is what it felt like to live in some newly-conquered Roman province and watch all your local deities get turned into different names for Jupiter

[neine]

References in 1670 (Updated)

General info

Names

Jan Paweł - is a reference to a pope, Jan Paweł II. He's considered "the greatest polish person", up to a comical point. So he turned into a meme.

Jakub - A reference to a saying "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". In polish "Jak Kuba bogu tak bóg Kubie". Literally "As Kuba to god, god to Kuba".

Jędrula - A reference to a show about Foster family, to a character that liked to drink whiskey.

Andrzej - A stereotypical neighbour, where he has everything better than you.

Żmija - A reference to Ojciec Mateusz, a show about a priest solving crime, played by Artur Żmijewski (hence the name). Żmija is from Sandomierz, that's where Ojciec Mateusz was set. (From multiple people, @rabarbarzcukrem mainly.)

Historical background

Poland was going into a sort of a recession. It used to be one of the most powerful countries in Europe. As well as Lithuania, of course. Time of the Commonwealth. The plague didn't hit the Commonwealth as much because it wasn't densily populated. The biggest issue (one of many) were the tatars, who just kind of lived there. Usually were bribed into gaining some power in the country so they won't couse trouble. Lithuania was getting Polonised, but it wasn't going as good as you could imagine. It's the time after the swedish flood, where the whole country was basically looted. It was considered a very open country, many Jews lived here.

Liberum Veto - it's just that one person can say no and whatever they voted on, won't pass. Also huge reason why partations later happened.

Culture

Drowning of Marzanna is a ritual that happens every year, on the first day of spring, to say goodbye to winter. Marzanna is a slavic goddess associeted with death, winter and nature. Marzanna is sometimes set on fire and then thrown into a river. + Interesting tags from @ukulelegodparent (From multiple people)

Hunting by nobles was also kinda a cultural thing. It was often described in the books from that time.

References

"Ała kurwa rzeczywiście" - reference to this

"Quo Vadis" - meaning, "Where are you going?", is a reference to novel by Henry SIenkiewicz. More known overseas from a movie adaptation from 1951. (From multiple people)

"My wife, Zofia" is a reference to a movie "Miś". (From @gdzie-rosna-poziomki)

"Do dupy z takim spiskowcem. Mnie kury szczać prowadzić, a nie spiski" is a reference to Piłsudski's "Wam kury szczać prowadzić, a nie politykę robić. (From @gdzie-rosna-poziomki)

"Ta zniewaga... oczekuje, abym ją wymazał stosując przemoc." - "This insult... expects me to earase it with violance." Reference to "Zemsta", by Aleksander Fredro, "Ta zniewaga krwi wymaga." - "This insult requires blood spill". (From @rabarbarzcukrem)

Measuring tassels - likely a reference to "Pan Tadeusz". In modern speach, tassels means dicks. (Also from @rabarbarzcukrem)

Jan Paweł walking on Zofia and Rozalia in bed, the deer antlers look like they're growing from his head. It's a reference to a saying "przyprawić komuś rogi" (also in use in multiple other languages). Which means to cheat on someone. (Multiple people, mainly @rabarbarzcukrem)

Equality march - It's how Pride Prades are called in Poland. (From @rabarbarzcukrem)

Henry kicking a fern flower is a reference to Slavic mythology. It symbolizes ferility and love. (Also from @rabarbarzcukrem) @misticfog adds to it here. (And some other things)

Stasia the mouner saying "Wszystkie kary na mnie idą" ("All punishments come to me") is a reference to this: (from @00midnightrider00)

(Quote happens in 1:20)

Thank you for all the additions!

Lorem Ipsum - is a placeholder text often used in web page design.

"Koń jaki jest, każdy widzi" - What a horse is everyone sees, is a reference to the first polish dictionary.

[frankendykes-monster]

There is a popular quote attributed to both Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek arguing that it is “easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” It is an odd thought to process while watching Rhys Frake-Waterfield’s Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, a schlocky horror film that reimagines A. A. Milne’s loveable anthropomorphic teddy bear as a hack-and-slash movie monster. Still, it’s something that bubbles through the film’s very existence. Blood and Honey can be understood in a couple of different contexts. Most obviously, it is a transgressive horror film that uses the iconography of beloved childhood figures in a grotesque and unsettling way as a shortcut to cheap thrills. There has been a recent spate of these movies, including The Banana Splits Movie and The Mean One. Later this year, Five Nights at Freddy’s will adapt the beloved video game, riffing on the same basic idea of cute childish things turned violent. However, Blood and Honey stands apart from these contemporaries. It isn’t a pastiche like Five Nights at Freddy’s, it isn’t a licensed production like The Banana Splits Movie, and it’s not an unauthorized parody like The Mean One. It is an adaptation of A. A. Milne’s beloved children’s classic, made possible by the fact that Winnie the Pooh has entered the public domain. Nobody has to pay to use the character, and no authority has the power to veto what can be done with him. Copyright law is an interesting thing. The Copyright Act of 1790 enshrined legal protection of an author’s right to their work for “the term of fourteen years from the recording the title thereof in the clerk’s office.” However, that period of protection would be expanded over the ensuing centuries. With the Copyright Term Extension Act, arriving in 1998, that protection was extended to the life of the author plus another seven decades. Of course, the reality is that copyright doesn’t always protect the artists. It often exists to enrich corporate entities. Much of the most lucrative intellectual property on the planet is controlled by faceless companies that ruthlessly exploit the artistry of their employees and contractors. Comic book movies are a billion-dollar industry, but key creative figures have to fundraise to pay medical bills, like Bill Mantlo. Creators like Jack Kirby or Bill Finger never got to enjoy the spoils of their labor.

Indeed, these extensions to the period of copyright were largely driven by companies holding these intellectual property rights. The Copyright Term Extension Act was known in some circles as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act,” reflecting Disney’s proactive lobbying in favor of the extension. Incidentally, Disney paid $350 million to buy Winnie the Pooh from the A. A. Milne estate in March 2001. It is ruthless capitalism, rooted in these companies’ desires to control the public imagination. The Copyright Term Extension Act ensured that no media entered the public domain between 1998 and 2019. As much as writers like Grant Morrison might argue that superheroes are the modern equivalent to the classic Greek gods, this ignores the fact that mythology is a public resource. The classic myths were not owned by large corporations that could use the threat of legal action to pull Vera Drew’s The People’s Joker from the Toronto International Film Festival after a single screening. This makes Blood and Honey a pointed act of transgression. The film comes from writer and director Rhys Frake-Waterfield, best known as a producer of low-rent schlock like Dinosaur Hotel and Dragon Fury. Realizing that A. A. Milne’s beloved childhood fable was entering the public domain, Frake-Waterfield sensed an opportunity. With a budget of under $100,000, he set out to make a quick cash-in slasher movie. Of course, Frake-Waterfield could only draw from elements included in the earliest stories. He had to avoid the iconic material added to the mythos in the years that followed. “Only the 1926 version is in the public domain, so those were the only elements I could incorporate,” Frake-Waterfield admitted. “Other parts like Poohsticks, and Tigger, and Pooh’s red shirt — those aren’t elements I can use at the moment because they’re the copyright of Disney and that would get me in a lot of trouble.” Blood and Honey is a bad movie. It is lazy, uninspired, and boring. It has no sense of character, theme, or basic structure. It’s a lazily reskinned version of Halloween or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre from a filmmaker who spent a significant portion of the press tour passive-aggressively complaining about how Halloween Ends took “itself too seriously.” There is nothing of any merit here, nothing to hold the audience’s interest. The film’s 84-minute runtime lasts several lifetimes. That said, there is a germ of an interesting idea in the central concept, which has an adult Christopher Robin (Nikolai Leon) returning to the childhood fantasy that he abandoned to go to college. He discovers that his childhood did not take well to this abandonment. Winnie the Pooh (Craig David Dowsett), now a feral and mute beast, chains Christopher up and tortures him. He whips the adult with Eeyore’s tail. However, Winnie the Pooh cannot kill Christopher. He must possess him.

It is too much to suggest that this plot is mirrored in the story of the film’s actual protagonist and decoy final girl, Maria (Maria Taylor). Maria is taking a trip into the country with her girlfriends, recovering from a traumatic experience with a male stalker (Chris Cordell). When Maria’s friend Lara (Natasha Tosini) spots Pooh lurking around the Airbnb, she assumes that he must be Maria’s stalker. Pooh’s psychopathic sidekick, Piglet, is also played by Cordell, to underscore this connection. At times, Blood and Honey seems like it might be a clever and subversive commentary on the way in which so much modern pop culture infantilizes its audience. Christopher has tried to grow up and leave his childhood behind, even planning to marry his fiancée Mary (Paula Coiz), but his childhood won’t leave him behind. Pooh needs Christopher, his validation and his love. However, that relationship is not as innocent as it appears framed through childhood memory. Many modern adults would empathize with this idea, as their childhood nostalgia is weaponized against them by streaming services and studios. Even if one lives in a remote cabin in the woods, franchises like Star Wars, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, He-Man, and X-Men: The Animated Series are inescapable. Entertainment that was once aimed at children is now aimed at the adults those children became. There is no indication that these corporations are ever going to stop. Of course, this gives Blood and Honey too much credit, suggesting that it can be read as a subversive commentary on the role that this sort of intellectual property plays in cultural stagnation. In reality, Blood and Honey is an illustration of just how pervasive this model of capitalism can be. Frake-Waterfield isn’t using Pooh to make a point about the cynical exploitation of these cultural touchstones. He is using it as a cynical exploitation of these cultural touchstones. Blood and Honey grossed nearly $5 million at the global box office, and one suspects that it performed very well on home media and streaming. There is already a sequel in the works with “five times the budget.” More than that, Frake-Waterfield has made a conscious effort to expand the brand into a shared universe built around similar properties. He will direct Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare and will produce Bambi: The Reckoning, which was sold to international distributors at Cannes this year. Frake-Waterfield doesn’t just have his eye on these sequels and spin-offs. He dreams of a bigger childhood horror shared universe. “The idea is that we’re going to try and imagine they’re all in the same world, so we can have crossovers,” he boasted. “People have been messaging saying they really want to see Bambi versus Pooh.” It’s incredibly ruthless and cynical. It is a transparent attempt to build a massive multimedia franchise from elements that the production team don’t have to pay for.

In theory, the liberation of these iconic characters from copyright should herald encourage creativity and ingenuity. It should allow for more projects like The People’s Joker or Apocalypse Pooh. There are certainly artists engaged in that sort of work. It also provides the opportunity for commentary and engagement with the modern media landscape. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is already salivating at the satirical potential of Mickey Mouse’s entry into the public domain. Blood and Honey suggests an alternative to these creative uses of works leaving corporate purview. Blood and Honey is just as cynical and ruthless in its exploitation of this intellectual property as Disney had been. Frake-Waterfield is clearly aspiring to exploit these properties in exactly the same way that Disney did, hoping to create a scale model of their production machine. It is a trickle-down shared universe, a reheat of a familiar meal constructed from pre-digested ingredients. For all the moral handwringing about how the movie “ruined people’s childhoods,” this is the real horror of Blood and Honey. It suggests the limits of creative imagination, an inability to conceive of an alternative to the model of intellectual property management that defines so much contemporary pop culture. The roots of this mode of thinking run so deep that it seems impossible to imagine any alternative. The public domain doesn’t free this intellectual property from endless exploitation, it just means somebody else gets to take a turn. If the rights to Winnie the Pooh are entering the public domain, why wouldn’t somebody use the brand recognition to make a quick and easy buck? After all, the business logic behind Blood and Honey is the same logic behind something like The Little Mermaid or Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. People recognize the brand, and that will make it easier to sell. Even this seemingly subversive and rebellious act is just a cheaper, more cynical, and less competent iteration of the larger processes that drive modern media. All things considered, the cynicism of Blood and Honey is a small price to pay for the possibility of more work like The People’s Joker. More than that, if it helps to undermine or shatter the brand loyalty that these corporations have cultivated among generations of movie-goers, it may serve some purpose. Still, it’s disheartening to watch Blood and Honey, realizing that these modes of exploitation are so deeply ingrained in pop culture that they perpetuate even in the public domain. Even as the end of copyright becomes a reality, the end of this intellectual property churn remains beyond imagination. Oh bother.

[preet-01]

I really enjoyed the last time I did one of the au prompts ask game so I decided to make one of my own with some of my favorites

Send me a letter and a ship (or not totally up to you) for a short ficlet

Feel free to use and reblog

A — Modern Royalty

B — Academic Rivals

C — Teachers (or Professors)

D — Tudor Era

E — Roaring 20s

F — Stuck on a Deserted Island

G — Fairytale

H — Game of Thrones

I — Model/Photographer

J — Mythology

K — Detective/Criminal

L — Superheroes (Comic Books)

M — Angel/Demon

N — Reincarnation (Doppelgängers)

O — Wizards

P — Driver/WAG

Q — Delayed/Missed Flight

R — Pirates

S — Hallmark Christmas Movie

T — Accidental Marriage

U — Single Parent(s)

V — Romeo and Juliet

W — Hunger Games

X — Omegaverse

Y — Time Travel

Z — Renaissance

[maya-chirps]

[ID: a screenshot of a reblog by @/fleurtygurl. It reads: "Omg instant follow! I need more Philippines facts in my life!!! 😭😭😭

If you have any facts about filipino myths? That would be amazing. But also I will literally eat up everything you post!

I'm in desperate need of reconnecting with my roots, but I've been so busy that I haven't had any time to do any extensive research...."

/End ID]

@fleurtygurl Decided to make a whole post based on this because I loooove talking about Filipino mythology and researching more about different mythologies within the country and I also hadn't gone around to looking through the things I want to learn about.

Filipino mythology is a pretty huge umbrella term considering that there are hundreds of cultures in the archipelago that have different beliefs, practices, and traditions and especially before the Spanish colonial period. I won't get too deep into it, but basically if you want to learn about some grander pantheon or some general overarching compendium of beliefs that all precolonial Filipinos believe in, you won't be getting that sine historically, Filipinos were not a unified people, but a bunch of different countries and communities that were placed under one governing body for easy management for the Spanish crown.

With so many Filipino cultures and, by extension, mythologies, the best way with trying to reconnect with your heritage, it might be best to figure out which ethnic group you may have connections too and start researching from there. In my case, for example, I would look up both Tagalog mythology, Bikolano mythology, and Ilokano mythology in order to get a good grasp of the mythology of my roots since I'm mixed Tagalog, Bikolano, and Ilokano, and those three have widely different beliefs and especially with folk religion.

I guess the main issue with this is a lot of sources related to Filipino myths are often difficult to find, are unreliable, or plainly just non-existent. Lots of books are often out of circulation and print, or if they are still in print, they are often only sold by specific retailers and often cost a lot of money. Research papers are locked behind a paywall or are only available through specific e-libraries you can only access if you have an affiliation with a university. Online articles may be unreliable and source places that are hard to fact check. Blogs, honestly including mine to be frank, may parrot wrong information from other websites and articles, with their best feature being the possibility that they may have come from oral sources but those are also very few.

Honestly, I was about to go on a long tangent about discussing at least the Tagalog pantheon and mythology because it had a lot of sources I've seen online, but after hours of research, I've found out that there was also a lot of unreliable sources in terms of information about that so I've decided against rambling on further about it for now.

(I am still going to write about my findings on the Tagalog pantheon later but after what I've found out, I might take some time to look through a lot more primary sources which means colonial era texts and harder to find archived works.)

I will say that a good way to connect with more general Filipino folklore outside of mythology itself is probably consuming media that explores folklore and traditional beliefs. I recommend Trese, a Filipino comic turned series on Netflix if you want to see Filipino cryptids being used in a modern-day story made by Filipinos. There are also other comics that focus on Filipino mythology like The Mythology Class and its sequel The Children of Bathala by Arnold Arre.

There's also series and movies that take inspiration from Filipino folklore and mythology with Dayo: Sa Mundo ng Elementalya (English name Niko: The Journey to Magika) as my go-to suggestion. I had also heard good reviews for Amaya, a series created by GMA 7, but honestly I don't think the series clicked with me.

[haljathefangirlcat]

Now that you mention it, the Volsung-Nibelung-Dietrich cycle would make a good sitcom if you just focused on the zanier parts. The Nibelung siblings Gullrond, Gunther, Gernot, Giselher, Kriemhild, and (maybe) Hagen, with all their pals. Nephews Dankwart and Patavrid; Gunther's incredibly athletic girlfriend Brynhild and her dog and horse; the Nibelungs' best pal and Brynhild's ex Sigurd, who would be the man you wished your man could be if not his moments of random philosophizing or idiotic life decisions despite knowing what was going to happen; Hagen's best pals, Volker the musician and Walther the nerd; local businessman Rudiger and his sweet, cutesy young daughter; socially maladjusted Dietrich and his gang of pals, who always pop up during hangouts despite nobody inviting them... With less murder and more mayhem, it sure would make a good show!

You know, one thing I will always be irrationally sad about when it comes to the Sigurd/Siegfried cycle and related legends is that... it just never gets any of the wacky, zany, "how tf did you even come up that" adaptations and reimaginings Arthuriana keeps getting.

I mean, sure, you do have adaptations with some humor in it, and different ways to mesh Norse and Continental and even Wagnerian elements, and very different perspectives on the same characters. But Arthuriana really has anything and everything from Disney movies to anime and manga to Monty Python movies and musicals to kids' cartoons to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and all its parodies to Young!Arthur/Young!Merlin Slashy Bromance shows to irriverent French sitcoms to loosely-inspired queer YA romance novels to a few recurring and even main characters in "all stories are true" fantasy series like Once Upon a Time or The Librarians. There's even those collector's edition Merlin & Morgana Barbies that were making the rounds on here a while ago!

Meanwhile, the wackiest, less "serious" stuff our Nibelungs get are:

The brief Siegfried & Fafnir cameo in the Mara and the Firebringer movie, where the main mythological figures are actually Loki and Sigyn (can't really say anything about the books, as I haven't read them)

A weird Hungarian (?? iirc??) comedy movie where Siegfried has a talking piglet as his animal companion for some reason and Kriemhild really doesn't like him but she apparently can't just tell him to get lost and stop courting her so she orders Hagen to drive him away from Worms and kill him, which I've only ever managed to "watch" in bits and pieces

The comedic operetta Die lustigen Nibelungen, which I've never managed to find anything about that wasn't in German, so I'm not even really sure what it's actually about

The 70s porn movie The Long Swift Sword of Siegfried, which... tbh, I'd rather stick to fanworks on the nsfw side of things, if the alternative is Siegfried with a pornstache

A Modern/High School AU fantasy romance self-pub I once found where, from what I remember of the summary and excerpt I read, Brunhild is a Mean Girl/Queen Bee who tries to steal Siegfried away from Kriemhild and Hagen is Kriemhild's shitty jealous ex-boyfriend (nothing against High School AUs, or romance novels, or alternative takes on the Kriemhild/Siegfried/Brunhild love triangle, or Hagen/Kriemhild as a ship... but tbh, I'd rather see all those elements handled in vastly different ways XDD)

A couple of old Italian Disney comicbook parodies featuring Donald Duck and his family (but those were mostly Wagner-based, iirc, and then again, an amazing thing about Italian Disney comics is that they will parody literally everything under the sun from the Divine Comedy to Twilight)

... Siegfried (or Sigurd?) showing up in one of the Fate anime series? Or novels? Or games? Not sure. I've only ever watched like two episodes of the Fate/Stay Night anime and then dropped it because I didn't like the normal guy protagonist always rushing to protect his (secretly Fem!King Arthur) supernatural sworn knight just because she was a girl

And... that's it, I think.

And on the one hand, I get it. With Arthuriana, you have adventurous romances and ridiculous (affectionate) quests and so many different bizarre canons and twists on them that even that cartoon where Morgan Le Fay sends an American football team back in time to Camelot (I think that was the plot, at least????) is just another "you know, this might as well happen" situation. I suppose that, at least by comparison, the Nibelungensage & All Adjacent Stuff may appear more grounded and less easy to play with and bring in whatever strange, unlikely new direction you want. Plus, tragic events like Sigurd/Siegfried's death, Brynhild/Brunhild being tricked into marrying a man she doesn't want, and Gudrun/Kriemhild's revenge, or even Dietrich's exile, are just central to it, so that's kind of a downer already, I guess.

... on the other hand, King Arthur's tale literally ends with him and his son killing each other at the end of a bloody civil war. And it's not like anyone's ever had any problem merrily ignoring THAT part to, idk, have everyone in the story be cats.

All this to say, I'd watch the hell out of a Modern AU Nibelung sitcom. Or even just a Nibelung sitcom set in the Middle Ages, or Late Antiquity, or a vague mishmash of the two. The dream for that would be a Galavant-style show with musical numbers and a lot of scenes poking fun at epic and heroic tropes, ngl.

Actually, let's be real: I wouldn't just watch it, I'd probably write fic and make gifs and fanvids for it!

[mask131]

Dionysos: Why paint him fat?

I want to talk of a strangely specific topic that is however not only surrounding Greek mythology fans but also essential to understanding the character of Dionysos (or Dionysus, as English people call him - I never understood where the “us” comes from). Around this seemingly trivial question there is a whole cultural evolution to talk about. And  this question could be summed up as: why is Dionysos fat? How come we went from an effeminate teen in Ancient times to a balding obese man in modern media? Let’s talk about Dionysos’ appearance.

As many of you know, in modern media, and that for quite some times now, Dionysos is depicted as a fat man. A fat drunk man, often balding or bald. The list of these large Dionysoses could be long, but as an example I’ll give you one iconic case: Disney’s take on Dionysos, which mixes the obese old man and the fat baby, and reflects how this “fat Dionysos” is associated with the joke that the god is just a useless and silly drunk here for background comical effect.

While you see this fat Dionysos in numerous recent-days movies, comic books and children books, it isn’t actually as “new” as we would believe. Before the 20th century it was already there. Most notably in paintings: Bacchus/Dionysos was often depicted as an obese man, either a ridiculous fat drunk or a grotesque ugly one.

This image is so prevalent in modern-day culture, it cannot be ignored. But the questions I want to talk about here are: why does this depiction exist ; and is it a “good” way to depict Dionysos?

Because this obese Bacchus is the literal opposite of how the Ancient Greeks depicted Dionysos. As with all Greek gods he was a man of a great beauty with zero body fat (because for Ancient Greeks fatness was ugliness, and the gods are supposed to embody the ideal of Greek beauty) - even more, he was usually an effeminate and androgynous youth. 

So how come this svelt teenage beauty became this old obese drunk?

A first answer is: the mythological confusion. Dionysos, in art, got confused with a close companion of his, the mythological figure of Silenus. Silenus, a satyr or man who was one of Dionysos’ besties, always with him, and who was attested as an old, fat man, constantly drunk to the point he often fell from the donkey he rode and had to be carried by others to stand up. 

And so, while for a Greek the two were definitively separate - with time, painters and artists started to confuse the two and thought that the fat, elderly, drunk clearly not able to stand up on his own WAS Dionysos. Hence how the god inherited all of Silenus’ traits: the “comic” relief nature, the silly drunkness, the baldness, the large belly... 

Plus, as times evolved and drunkness became condemned by modern societies as something vicious, dangerous and in general nasty, people saw this “Silenus portrait” of Bacchus as much more fitting: for them it represented everything drunkness and alcohol had to offer. Grotesque excess, laughable behavior with pathetic bodies, a waste through debauchery resulting in a god that doesn’t look like a god - a god becoming fat, bald and old among the slender and muscular youths. 

But just to place Dionysos’ fatness on Silenus would be over-simplifying a vast and more interesting debate. Because Dionysos was painted as fat long before he was confused with Silenus. You have quite a number of clearly Dionysian Dionysos, separate from the old satyr, youthful depictions of the god as a Greek god... but a chubby one. And that is because during the Renaissance era (to simplify the chronology a bit), ideal and beautiful bodies were painted - maybe not as “fat” as we would believe it today, but definitively plump and curvy. It was a tradition of the painting back then but also a different canon of beauty: skinny meant you were poor or vicious or ugly, having flesh on your body meant you were of good constitution, noble and healthy. People often limit it to the paintings of Rubens, who exemplified this “ideal fleshy body”, but it was something present among numerous painters across countries and centuries.

The Greek gods being the embodiment of beauty ideals, the living personification of aesthetic canons, their body weight also evolved depending on the culture depicting them. And so in Renaissance paintings you have soft-bellied Aphrodites with large hips, you have chubby Apollos, and you have fat Dionysuses. Randing from the god having chubby cheeks and a bit of pudge around the waist:

... to him being truly plus-size, with a big belly and fat rolls: 

Not only was this a different standard of beauty, but depicting Dionysos fat also brought forward connotations of youth. In this type of paintings, children and teenagers were usually depicted with what we would call today their “baby fat” or “freshman fifteen”. It was the chubbiness of youth, and so with gods supposedly eternally young, curves were needed. 

So, if we recap it all, Dionysos started as a slender youth in Ancient Greek, became a chubby youth in paintings, and then became the fat old guy we see everywhere today. But even more - we could say that Dionysos did a full barrel roll (no pun intended) from maturity to youth and back to maturity again. Because indeed, before being depicted as a slender effeminate youth, the older portraits of Dionysos in Ancient Greece depicted him as a mature, bearded man:

And so from a mature bearded god, we went to the androgynous teen, then to the plump young man, and then to the overweight old man. 

But now I want to raise another question: is it a “correct” or “good” depiction of Dionysos? 

This very question will make people scream because - and I agree with that - it should not be asked in such a way. In truth, people can depict the Greek gods any way they like because the gods are symbols and emblems before anything else - as long as someone gets the role, function, essence and symbols of a god, and as long as they show they understand the original Greek spirit, then they can draw the god in any height, size and color they like. But there is still a massive wave of people who want to “get things right”, who are not satisfied with just being faithful in spirit but want to be faithful to a T, and who will scream “IT WASN’T LIKE THAT IN ANCIENT GREECE!!”. And so I will answer them.

Yes, fat Dionysos is not how Ancient Greek mythology or religion would have depicted Dionysos. As I explained, gods aren’t fat in Greek mythology, because fatness is ugliness, and Dionysos was only depicted as either a mature bearded man or as a slender effeminate youth. BUT... it doesn’t mean fat Dionysos didn’t exist in Ancient Greece.

I present to you: Aristophanes’ The Frogs. A Greek comedy that depicts a parodic and humoristic take on Dionysos. Note that Aristophanes isn’t just any Greek writer - he was one of the “big playwright” that embodied Ancient Greek theater as a whole, and he was THE big writer of comedies who embodied the Ancient Greek comedy genre all by himself. (It helps that he was one of the few comedy writers preserved from Ancient Greece). So “The Frogs” isn’t just some random little thing, it was a popular, renowned and well-known play in Ancient Greece. And in it, Aristophanes presents us a caricature of Dionysos as a plump and rotund character, with a prominent, round belly, and who is called “fat” or “pot-bellied” by other characters. The whole point of making Dionysos fat was actually double. On one side, this fat Dionysos served the point of the play, as the plot was about comparing Dionysos and another famous half-god turned full god: Herakles. And Dionysos tried to emulate the strong, brave, muscular Herakles, when in fact he is a fat, lazy and cowardly figure. (Of course there is a commentary of how Herakles became adored through exploits, battling monsters and leading quests, Dionysos essentially became a god for very passive things such as getting drunk on wine). On the other side, making Dionysos fat was a caricature of Dionysos’ androgyny, as for Ancient Greeks fatness made the body of the man effeminate (the fat chest of a man is similar to the one of a woman ; a fat man’s belly is like a pregnant woman’s ; fatness makes the man’s hips wider and more female like, etc...). 

So yes, fat Dionysos did exist in Ancient Greece. A theatrical and parodic version of him, but still. 

In recent media the concept of the “old fat Dionysos” seems to have been gotten rid of, as most modern stories choosing to return to the more traditional depictions of him:

But hopefully fat Dionysos hasn’t been gotten rid of completely! Hopefully because while I don’t personally like Dionysos’ depiction as a “Silenus-like” character, I do think that the past of Dionysos as a fat god shouldn’t be entirely ignored, and could be reused in a world open to more body types in media. What is interesiting however is that recent media, when they keep fat Dionysos, actually play with it or justify it instead of doing the simple “old fat drunk” cliche. See Riordan’s take on Dionysos/Bacchus:

Or how Bacchus’ design evolved in Smite, going from a design originally influenced by the “Silenus-Bacchus” concept (bald, clearly loud and rowdy, with strong, stout, not traditionally pretty facial traits) ; to a new design reflecting more the historical Dionysos as the god becomes youthful, “prettier” in a more conventional way and softer/more delicate in features, while still being fat and bearded:

[turqrambles]

As someone whose taken quite a few college art history courses, Sir Daniel’s situation in MediEvil 2 is so fascinating to me. He has his own wing in the London Museum including a pedestal displaying his remains and a book recounting the tale of a knight that would rise once more to save the land from evil, so now I gotta wonder...

Just how big of a folklore figure is Sir Daniel Fortesque in this world.

Is Sir Daniel considered a Saint. Was he posthumously made a martyr by the Church. Do oil paintings from the Renaissance and Baroque period represent him with specific types of iconography, the kinds of things that people write entire books about, postulating that “Sir Daniel is commonly depicted with an arrow through the left eye in artwork of the 15th century to represent the perseverance of the holy spirit in the face of Evil” or something. Did he replace Saint George in this world and become a figurehead of Christian mythology. Did Shakespeare write a play about the Ballad of Gallowmere. Was Donatello commissioned to create a marble sculpture of Sir Daniel in Florence. Is the knight in shining armor trope in English literature now based off of the idealized version of Daniel.

...did Disney make a Sir Daniel movie in the 1950′s that later became a backbone of their brand? Could Sir Daniel Fortesque in the modern day (which he does visit in the comics) buy a stuffed animal of a Disney-styled version of himself right before he does that interview with that London historian?

[black-diamond1329]

⭐ Name: Sandra, but you can tell me Sandy 😉.

⭐Age: I feel like I'm 15 years old, I stopped counting at 19 and my friends say that I act like I'm 5 years old XD hahaha ... Nah! I just turned 23 years old this August n_n.

💔 Occupation: Being a universitary girl XD ... Yes! It's so fun! (sarcasm).

🩷 Some things that I love it: Read (I read all kinds of books and about my favorite ships on Ao3! 🤭), cook desserts, listen to music while I do other activities like my homework or when I read, Greek mythology (The love between us will never die! 💗).

⭐Saint Seiya (or Knights of the Zodiac). I found this beautiful serie when I was 7 years old. My favorite is the original serie, although I also like the Lost Canvas a lot and Episode G (because Aioria is the protagonist). Soul of Gold gives me mixed feelings. From Omega and Next Dimension, better don't ask me; my mind lives in denial. My favorite characters are the Golden Saints, especially Aioros and Aioria, being Aioria my super favorite.

Thanks to Saint Seiya I developed a great love for the stars 💫 and I have many scientific books on the subject, as well as books of myths and legends about the constellations ✨.

💥 I'm a Marvel Girl. I love those tormented superheroes and antiheroes. I basically grew up watching Marvel since Iron Man came out in 2008 and I immersed myself fully in the world of the comics, I have a lot of comics and books on my bookshelf 🤭. My favorites are: Iron Man ♥️, Captain America, Spider-Man, Loki, the X-Men, Black Widow and Scarlet Witch, in all their presentations and with all their charms and defects!.

🍿Series: Friends, Full House, The big bang theory, How I met your mother and How I met your father, Modern Family, Mom, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel... I love it K-Dramas like Goblin: The lonely and great God, Crash landing on you, Tale of the Nine Tailed 😋, I have also watched many animes like Sailor Moon, Ouran High School Host Club, Toradora, Code Geass, Inuyasha, Kaleido Star, Shaman King, Attack on Titan... it's a long list and I don't remember everything at this moment 🤔. Miraculous Ladybug (I know it's for kids, but ... there is Chat Noir 🖤).

🐉In my House of the Dragon era 🖤: Like many people, I was also terribly disappointed with the horrible ending of Game of Thrones, but I really loved Fire and Blood when I read it in 2020... so I decided to give the serie a chance when I saw the first trailer... and I don't regret it! 🥳. I liked Daemon and Rhaenyra so much in the book and absolutely loved them in the TV Show! (Matt and Emma are incredible! ❣️). Another character that I loved in the book and the one I always wanted to know more about was Jacaerys Velaryon and I must say that I am very pleased with the choice of Harry Collett 😍 (oh yeah baby! 🔥).

I really hope that the directors and writers do justice to this wonderful crown prince! 🥰, because for me he is already one of my favorite characters of all time! ❣️.

🎥 Favorite Movies: Troy 2004 (did I mention I'm a Greek mythology lover?), the Star Wars saga 💫 (1-6 only), The Great Gatsby, A Walk to Remember, Harry Potter 🪄 (books and movies), The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Hobbit trilogy, The Hunger Games saga ❣️(books and movies), The Twilight saga 😊 (books and movies).

I love Studio Ghibli movies with all my heart 💗 since my dad bought me the movie of Kiki Delivery Service when I was a 6-year-old little girl.

I love everything Disney and Pixar does 💗😘. (think of the happiest things, It's the same as having wings! 🎶)

🎧 Music: I have a very varied taste in music, some would say strange 😅, but if I like the rhythm and lyrics of the song I will surely add it to my playlist (mainly I like rock), AC / DC, Queen, Guns N' Roses, Bon Jovi, Linkin Park, Evanescence, Within Temptation, Imagine Dragons, Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran, Lana del Rey, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry. I enjoy classical music too 🩷.

⭐ Something more about me: I am an inveterate dreamer and extremely perfectionist. I express myself better by writing than talking 😚.

I haven't drawn anything in almost 5 years and when I did I used to draw with traditional media (watercolor, charcoal, colored pencils, gouche and acrylic paints 🖌️).

But since October (from last year), when I saw Harry Collett as Prince Jacaerys, I felt a desire to draw that I hadn't felt in a long time ❣️.

This is my first time trying to draw in digital media, I hope you like what you see! 😘 (YouTube tutorials don't fail me now! 😭). I spent the whole summer practicing🥺.

P.S: Sorry if exist some error, the english is not my firts lenguage.

[voidartisan]

Finishing up this book on the folklore of the British Isles and for a little bit the author talks about comic books’ (and the movie adaptations’) role in retelling and adapting mythology for modern audiences and she mostly focuses on Loki and Thor, but for me, this begs the question:

is Captain America a Sleeping Arthur story

[smythologies]

Adaptability of Mythology

When I took my first dedicated mythology class, my professor would talk a great deal about the “adaptability” of mythological practices and cultures, and how they grew and changed over time. At first, I didn’t really know what he was saying or really believed him, but then I started looking deeper and realized the truth behind what he said.

Take our media. Our books, movies, video games, etc., that are based in mythology. They’re filled with the romanticism and mystique of superheroes and caped crusaders. You can see it in their actions, in their mannerisms, in their personalities and backstories and, most of all, their powers. It’s not immediately visible, but once you see it, it’s hard to unsee.

For example, take the Rick Riordan books. In Greco-Roman or Nordic myth, demigods never really had special powers. In fact, most demigods in Nordic myth didn’t really have any powers, while in Greco-Roman myths, the powers of demigods and heroes tended to just be superhuman characteristics like speed, strength, intellect, etc., and almost never really relating to the domain of the demigod’s divine parents. Of course, in both Greco-Roman and Nordic myths there were exceptions, but the general case was as I described above.

But in Rick Riordan’s books, as well as other media, they all have powers based off the domain of the divine parent. When you consider superheroes, doing this actually makes a lot of sense. See, arguably, the biggest part of superheroes are their powers and mystique, and more specifically, the “genetic” component of that. Powers and mystique are passed down through generations, like Superman and his sons, or Batman and his Robins. The same thing happens with these books and media based of mythology, in which the powers and mystique of the specific gods are being passed down to their children in this way, giving them specific powers based off their divine ancestor.  

You may wonder why superheroes, but I feel the answer becomes apparent when you look at the history of the West. After WWI, superheroes became incredibly popular. They were used a lot during the Great Depression, they were used as a recruitment tactic by the US and Allied Forces during WWII, they were used after WWII as a method to show just how amazing capitalist countries were, etc.

Even in more modern times, superheroes have still played a big role, despite people who read comics being called “nerds” and ridiculed for a good 20+ years, from the 80s onwards. They’ve just become a huge part of our culture, no matter what anyone says, for better or for worse. Hell, even kids who have never once picked up a comic-book obsess over superheroes like Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, etc. Thus, I don’t think it’s any coincidence that we choose to reshape mythology in this way.

Sorry for the long-winded and maybe difficult to understand rant, just thought it’s really interesting. Have a great day y’all!

[poptart-cat-78]

Comfort piece of media (movie, show, book, etc) and why?

Oooooh interesting ask!

All of my comfort medias have helped me get through different school levels.

I technically don’t have a comfort movie but my top 2 are

1.) The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep - the story of a little boy befriending the Loch Ness Monster, it’s super adorable

2.) Up - As sad as the opening of this movie is, I just love the story. Doug and Kevin are my favorite characters but special shout out to Russel and Carl.

My comfort tv shows:

1.) Once Upon A Time - I often call this show my “soulmate show” and I know a lot of people even the fans, criticize the writing, this show means so much to me. I was a huge Disney fan as a kid, so to see these characters in a more modern story got me intrigued. LITERALLY when I first saw the trailer in a MOVIE THEATER, I got chills. I was instantly drawn to the show and started it back in middle school. It got me through high school. It’s the show I turn to the most when I’m anxious or stressed.I know a lot of the episodes by heart and I’m not sorry about it. My biggest comfort character and OTP come from this series: Emma Swan, and Captain Swan. I felt like I related to Emma on a very personal level, even if I didn’t share every experience she had. This show taught me about hope and optimism even in the most difficult circumstances. It taught me that True Love isn’t just “love at first sight.” In fact, it gave me the standards I have for how a Significant Other should treat me (so I have a pretty high standard). I can listen to the OST of this show and remember the scenes some of the songs played over, I also end up tearing up because of it. I don’t think there will be another show (I’m sorry PJO tv show, I still love you) that will hold my heart (HA) and soul as much as OUAT will, even the cast themselves were special to me. I remember seeing their interactions and interviews in the San Diego Comic Cons as well as the bloopers on the dvd versions of the series and I felt like they were a little family. I will rewatch it a billion times and never get tired of it. The finale still makes me break down in tears. Other fave OTPs: Outlaw Queen, Snowing, Belle with literally any other character besides Rumple

2.) NBCs Grimm - Started this show the same time as OUAT, in middle school and it got me through high school. I don’t have a comfort character here but the characters DO mean a lot to me, especially Monroe, Nick, Rosalee, Juliette and Trouble. This show is the reason I became interested in the Gabriel Knight series (it has an overall similar story). I learned about folktale creatures I had never heard about before,like Krampus. It has a lot of references to other stories (Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Bears, Frankenstein are just a few I can think of) with their own twist on it, but was different than OUAT. They also included their own lore for the creatures in the world as well as the titled “Grimm”, which made me even more invested in the story. I remember crying when I first saw the finale. This show also has writing issues but, honestly tell me a series that DOESNT have imperfections. Favorite OTPs: Monrosalee, Silverhardt

3.) Lucifer - The idea that the Devil can be redeemed? *Chefs Kiss* I don’t watch this show on repeat as often because of.. personal family reasons. This show got me through high school into early college. But I felt myself relating to Lucifer (ironically), and one of the episodes where he forgives himself? THAT made me cry. Chloe, Ella, Trixie and Rory are some honorable mentions, plus the parallels between Deckerstar and Captain Swan? *another Chefs Kiss* Favorite OTPs: Deckerstar, MazikEve (is that their ship name?)

4.) The Percy Jackson series (Including the tv series as well as the books + the Heroes of Olympus) - Got me through middle school and into early high school. I was a huge Greek Mythology fan so having this modern take on the gods and goddesses was really cool. When I found out that the Heroes of Olympus was a CONTINUATION. I HAD to read it, (if only for my boy, Percy). I actually had a birthday where my cake had the Camp Half Blood logo on it and I got the “Blood of Olympus” as a birthday gift. With the release of the new tv show, my love for the series has rekindled, I’ll even try to read the new books. Comfort character: Percy Jackson. Favorite OTPs: Percabeth, Jason x Piper, Leo x Calypso, Grover x that one forest Nymph whose name I forgot

My comfort video games

1.) The Gabriel Knight series (specifically, The Beast Within) - My most current hyperfixation; yes, I know it’s a 30+ year old point and click adventure game. I was introduced to it by.. let’s say an old friend..because I really liked Grimm and he told me it was very similar. Low and Behold, it WAS. It got my through the pandemic as well as the rest of college. The stories of the first two games are, personally, my favorite. Although the series is very tragic and not at all the “happy endings” I was used to, I was still invested, particularly after my comfort character became Baron Friedrich von Glower (even AFTER I learned he dies 🥲yes, I cried here too) became SO salty invested that I started writing fan fic, drawing and even buying the games for myself to fill the void and continue my denial. I also related to him on a very personal level. I call this series, “The One I Used Necromancy On” because I (personally) feel like I rose it from the dead (ironically considering my comfort character) and I continue to find people who like the series or are just getting into it. Favorite OTPs: Angelwolf/Klower, Gknight and now Knightamura.

2.) Alices Warped Wonderland - I was introduced to this by the same.. old friend.. that introduced me to the Gabriel Knight series. As you can guess by the name, it is a retelling of Alice In Wonderland, except with a bit of horror and trauma added to the story and this version of Alice is Japanese! The story is VERY emotional, especially the sixth chapter and the endings, I even cried in one of the endings. Although I kinda related to Alice more, my comfort character became Cheshire Cat. Favorite OTP: None, I ship Cheshire and Alice platonically though.

3.) Night in The Woods - Got me though high school, but didn’t become a comfort media until early collage. As someone who struggles with anxiety and depression, this game hit close to home. The Existential Horror/ Cosmic Horror beautiful ties into the struggles of mental illness, and the acceptance of change. Comfort Character: Mae Borowski, who I related to personally mainly because of her struggles with mental illness (although not the same). This game (along with the Gabriel Knight series) has some of my favorite dialogue, ever. A few other interactions between the characters, as well as the ending made me cry (see a pattern?). Favorite OTPs: Greg x Angus (idk their ship name).

4.) The Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask (SPECIFICALLY) - Even though I’m not the biggest LoZ fan, and I’ve only ever seen other people play this game, it still left an impact on me. How the whole story revolves around putting others happiness over yourself, even if it means doing it repeatedly to (seemingly) no avail. The fact that even after Skull Kid destroys Termania over and over again because he felt like his friends abandoned him and they forgive him and STILL consider him their friend? The true victory not just beating Majora, but saving and healing Termina and it’s people, including the Skull Kid? Chills. Goosebumps and tears EVERY TIME. Favorite Character: Skull Kid, this version of him SPECIFICALLY

Honorable Mentions:

- Criminal Case (mobile game)

- Undertale

- Super Paper Mario and Paper Mario: The Origami King specifically

Thanks for the ask!

[roy-dcm2]

Circe should be Diana's Arch

Like every comic book fan, I have my own ideas on how to change a character, and, for me, one of the biggest oversights is that The Cheetah is often depicted as Wonder Woman's archvillain.

I am convinced that the only reason Cheetah gets the spotlight is because she was on the Superfiends cartoon half a century ago. But it doesn't make any sense. An archvillain should be the hero's opposite, look at the other members of the DC Trinity -

Batman / Joker = Order vs Chaos

Superman / Luthor = Brawn vs Brains (or Altruism vs Selfishness)

Wonder Woman / Cheetah = Truth vs FURRY?

(Or you could make the stretch and say Peace vs Violence, or Humility vs ... doing things the easy way, which is what WW1984 went with.)

It feels so forced.

If I was in charge of DC Comics, I would put more emphasis on Circe, the Sorceress, as Wonder Woman's true archvillain. Think about it... what is Circe most famous for? She's a mythological character that transformed Odysseus' men into pigs during the Odyssey.

These transformations are lies. They're not a person's true self.

And Diana is the Spirit of Truth. She was even the Goddess of Truth, for a bit.

See how it makes for a better dynamic?

Not only that, but being an all powerful sorceress, Circe has access to more resources than the Cheetah. If Circe can't conjure something with her Magic, she can enchant people to do her steal it for her. She can turn men into beast warriors to serve as an army, or impart powers on women. (Like, I would change Silver Swan to be one of her minions.)

Finally, and the most controversial change, I would make Circe every bad idea about Wonder Woman.

Ignorant people have a skewed perception of what Wonder Woman is - a man-hating, lesbian that thinks women should be in charge, preaching peace through violence. (That's fascism.)

(You could also maker her a TERF)

Expanding on that, Circe thinks men are worthless, but regular women are still beneath her, and she can be vain and shallow. She mainly appreciates beautiful women, as long as they don't displease her. She likes to turn men into animals, but women she'll turn to stone, so she can still appreciate their beauty without having to put up with their personalities.

They say the opposite of love isn't hate, it's control. Circe wants to control everyone, make them bend to her will.

Diana's philosophy is "loving submission." Both partners need to out their trust in each other to look out for one another.

It would be a controversial change, since Diana's arch would come off like an obsessed, jilted lover, but here's always been homoerotic tones underneath Joker and Luthor's obsessions with their archrivals. In this modern era, we can get away being more upfront about it. You just got to tread lightly.

DC has played with it a little bit, using Circe as Diana's rival in the DC Trinity comic, but her appearances are still few and far between. Plus, we had Cheetah in the WW1984 movie, giving the audiences more exposure to that dead end.

Oh well, now that I said it, it'll never happen, but I like Tumblr as a place to post my fanfiction ideas.

What do you think? Who should be Diana's archrival? Are you a fan of the Cheetah. Feel free to leave a comment.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 11/1/22

watched a good movie made a good soup

listening

Witch for a Night by Sugar Pie DeSanto. i think any song that starts with the lines

I'm gonna be a party-poppin, show-stoppin, wig-floppin witch for a night!

will never disappoint you.

_

reading

The Markup did a huge crunchy report about how they figured out poorer, less white neighborhoods got slower, more expensive internet than their wealthy white neighbors, and a more accessible writeup.

they do absolutely exquisite data visualization.

good data viz really makes a fuckin difference. this is damning!!! look at this shit!!!

and none of the ISPs had anything productive to say about their methodology!!! not literally bulletproof but pretty damn fuckin close, since it's pulling price and address info directly from ISP sites.

_

watching

Saloum (2021, dir. Herbulot). this is a West African terror film with a good dollop of acid western stylization to create the world's tensest dinner parties as a curse does what curses do. i really really loved this bc if we take a "western" as any movie with a group of mercenaries in an arid colonized land, it is a fun take on what a modern spaghetti western can be with all the visual flair and pathos i love about this subgenre when it's good.

this is the kind of film tarantino loves to rip off. Herbulot cites two video games as direct influence and they are rdr2 and metal gear solid v.

i do want to underscore that the director is very clear about his "terror" categorization:

But the cursed king that they're talking about, it's a real story. It's real mythology. That is from the Saloum. And so this story is real. This myth is real. This curse is real. Now beyond that, what's the curse and how does it work? I don't know yet. I don't want to know (laughs). But that was our starting point. It was essential for me that, if we were going to shoot the Saloum region, we wanted to be as respectful as we could be, especially for [collaborator] Pamela, because that's her birth region.

this is a really fucking tight eighty minutes. apparently this was originally closer to three hours long, with a lot of backstory about the Hyenas (a gang of mercenaries extracting a drug lord and a briefcase full of gold) and Awa (the girl they meet in a tourist camp when their plane comes down in the desert after sabotage).

this is a film, like all my favorite spaghetti westerns, that is very concerned with revenge and what makes a hero. it frames most of this during the world's tensest series of dinner parties at this camp as they try to get fuel and resin to fix their plane. and then, of course, things go sideways.

this is a very beautiful and well-made movie (and not just Good For A Budget Movie, just straight up a good lookin movie) with a lot of care put into framing and setting up shots. the director used to be a comic book artist and used to shoot music videos, so the framing and shot setup is really thoughtful. this movie is simply fun to watch. it is very good at holding and building tension, everything unravels in slow motion until it doesn't and then it's a level of your favorite first-person shooter. it does suffer from the "the monster isn't actually as scary as the anticipation of seeing the monster" but this group of mercs looks so fuckin sick all the time it more than makes up for it imo. yes he is wearing white dishwashing gloves paired with a machete. also versace pants and shoes.

this podcast episode was very helpful bc their guest is from the Gambia and had a ton of important and useful context to give. this is fundamentally a "recap the movie and do some bits about it" podcast so your tolerance may vary.

i would strongly recommend signing up for a free week of Shudder with a burner email and watching this movie legally, bc it will almost certainly never see wide release :(

how'd i find this: like many other things, this is indirectly @morrak 's fault. last year he said "hey have you listened to this podcast episode dunking on the hyperloop" to which i said "no i have not" and then fell into the alice caldwell-kelly podcast cinematic universe. her podcast Kill James Bond is not my favorite, bc it is mostly a podcast recapping spy films and doing bits about them, which i have a limited tolerance for, but it is very good at going WOW THERE'S A LOT OF RAPE IN THIS BOND FILM and reminding me i should not rewatch literally any of the older movies, as much as i love daniel craig's outings.

_

playing

i did nick valentine's final companion quest in fo4 and cried my fucking eyes out, again. why won't they let me romance the robot and why is he trapped in this incredibly mediocre game :(((

_

making

red lentil soup with lemon bc i realized if i buy a bunch of soup-serving-size-i-like plastic off brand tupperware, i can have microwaveable soup lunch for much cheaper than just buying a lot of canned soup. and it does not require any more prep than setting an alarm to take a unit of soup out of the freezer and into the fridge the night before, which is good bc my brain is fuckin fried by 1 PM.

the leek and potato soup i made last month did Not freeze well. it's like edible but the texture is...not ideal. the internet said lentil soups freeze well, and even though this recipe is from the nyt it looked reasonable enough with some modifications.

recipe here. shit i changed:

not quite tripled, bc i wanted to use up an entire bag of lentils at once.

did not add red pepper flakes to the soup itself as it cooked bc i'm bad at estimating how spicy i like things.

added cumin until my heart said to stop, deffo far more than a teaspoon. probably two tablespoons? the fun thing i previously knew about lentils is that they absorb a lot like A Lot of flavor so just like. keep fuckin going with ur lil shakers.

the lemon is really crucial here, it's perfectly fine on its own with just salt/pepper/cumin, but the lemon does a lot of work

added in the entire 6oz can of tomato paste, bc i never remember to use half-cans up and then they mold in the back of my fridge and i get cranky about it. also like. one tablespoon??? really??? get the fuck out of here.

added in many carrots bc i like a stew-like consistency and also had a lot of really sad carrots in my crisper

threw in like five stalks of celery bc i bought a clump or whatever a unit of celery is called for something else and wanted to use it up

most of a bag of small-medium onions and like 4oz of minced garlic bc that was what my heart said on sunday night when i made this

still nursing along some green onions on my countertop, bought nice bread specifically for dinner. i buy the spreadable carton of brie bc i hate peeling cheese and i like brie, and i think brie goes well with this soup.

[thevindicativevordan]

This might be a bit out of your wheelhouse, but you've spoken glowingly about Kenan before, and I wanted to hear some of your thoughts.

What do you think it would take for DC to give Kenan the spotlight again, either in the form of his own comic or a feature role in an animated series? And how much do you think the sociopolitical optics of China impact his editorial interest/popularity or lack thereof? If Kenan was, for instance, Korean instead (an East Asian country that is generally viewed more favorably by the American public than the Chinese), do you imagine he would have gained more traction and gotten more coverage considering his powerset is not generic Kryptonian? Or do you think the fact that as long as he's a 'foreign' character, he's forever doomed to take a backseat to Clark, Kara, Conner, and Jon who are built in the All-American mold?

Also, as an addendum, do you wish his appearances in more mainstream title (Action Comics, etc) would feature more of his mystical and yin & yang elements of his design? What kind of potential do you think those powers give him compared to the typical Kryptonian flying brick?

Actually have spent some time thinking about this! Short version: Yang was too good at his job.

Kenan is steeped in both Chinese mythology and modern Chinese culture. If you're not someone who has spent a lot time studying the present and past of China like Yang has, it's going to be tough to use Kenan to his full potential. Sure there's other appealing traits Kenan has that make him stand out, PKJ mentioned in an interview that one thing about Kenan which interested him is that unlike the rest of the Superfamily, Kenan starts off as an asshole. He doesn't intrinsically lean towards good, it's something he has to struggle with, and that appealed to PKJ because it was a trait he could hone in on and keep in mind when writing Superfamily interactions. For a team book that's enough to make Kenan stand out, but for a solo book? You need more than that.

Think of how Kenan struggles to be a hero because of how he's torn between his father's democratic ideals and his mother's loyalty to the CCP. He doesn't have an inbuilt love for democracy, what does democracy mean to a young Chinese man who is more concerned with money, women, or food? Asking those kinds of questions about protagonists who aren't from America leads to interesting stories. Or look at how Yang explored the concepts of Yin and Yang in New Super-Man, how he avoided going for simplifying them as good/bad. That's the kind of mistake that someone not knowledgeable about Chinese culture might have made.

Most Big 2 superheroes tend to be American because that's what most of the writers working for DC and Marvel are. If Kenan were Korean instead, I don't think he would have gotten more use, it's that he's not American that intimidates some writers. And there's also the problem of Kenan being a late addition to a franchise that DC typically has no clue what to do with. When you don't even know what to do with your lead character Clark, who is one of the top 3 most iconic superheroes of all time, and you can't seem to stop screwing up other long-time Family members like Kara or Kon, no surprise that DC didn't know how to handle the latest addition.

Plus they already decided that Jon was going to be their guy for 5G, so why waste time pushing Kenan? He wasn't getting a movie or a cartoon or an HBO MAX show. Plenty of other attempts at adding new Superfamily members had disappeared, some like Linda Danvers had much longer runs on solo titles. What's Kenan's measly 24 issues to Linda's 80? I'm glad he was spared that fate because damnit, he's a much more interesting character than Linda or Cir-El or Chris Kent or any of those other guys were. He should be getting adapted outside of comics. In the wake of Jon being completely wrecked, and Kon still a question mark, Kenan is the best "heir" to Superman.

For now I'm just happy to have Kenan in Action, cemented as part of the Superfamily. Would I like him to get more focus, to see greater exploration on how his powers differ from the Kents/Els? Absolutely. If Yang was up for it, I would love a backup from him that explores Kenan's power and relationships. PKJ is taking influence from manga for Clark's fight scenes, would be great to see some of that same influence applied to Kenan too. All kinds of cool ways that Kenan's qi manipulation powerset could be showcased, I mean c'mon the Dragon Ball route is patently obvious. Kenan as the Goku of the Superfamily is a low-hanging fruit but what the hell, I think it could be fun!