Three Sorrows

What am I doing? I don’t know! You don’t know! Nobody knows!

[threesorrows]

Someone send prompts please.

It’s writer enrichment year(s)

[ziseviolet]

Please can you explain the difference of meaning between hanfu and huafu ? Sorry if you already got the question

Hi, thanks for the question, and sorry for taking ages to reply! (hanfu photo via)

The term “hanfu” (traditional Chinese: 漢服, simplified Chinese: 汉服) literally means “Han clothing”, and refers to the traditional clothing of the Han Chinese people. “Han” (漢/汉) here refers to the Han Chinese ethnic group (not the Han dynasty), and “fu” (服) means “clothing”. As I explained in this post, the modern meaning of “hanfu” is defined by the hanfu revival movement and community. As such, there is a lot of gatekeeping by the community around what is or isn’t hanfu (based on historical circumstances, cultural influences, tailoring & construction, etc). This isn’t a bad thing - in fact, I think gatekeeping to a certain extent is helpful and necessary when it comes to reviving and defining historical/traditional clothing. However, this also led to the need for a similarly short, catchy term that would include all Chinese clothing that didn’t fit the modern definition of hanfu -- enter huafu.

The term “huafu” (traditional Chinese: 華服, simplified Chinese: 华服) as it is used today has a broader definition than hanfu. “Hua” (華/华) refers to the Chinese people (中华民族/zhonghua minzu), and again “fu” (服) means “clothing”. It is an umbrella term for all clothing that is related to Chinese history and/or culture. Thus all hanfu is huafu, but not all huafu is hanfu. Below are examples of Chinese clothing that are generally not considered hanfu by the hanfu community for various reasons, but are considered huafu:

1. Most fashions that originated during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), especially late Qing, including the Qing aoqun & aoku for women, and the Qing changshan and magua for men. I wrote about whether Qing dynasty clothing can be considered hanfu here. Tangzhuang, which is an updated form of the Qing magua popularized in 2001, can also fit into this category. Below - garments in the style of Han women’s clothing during the Qing dynasty (清汉女装) from 秦綿衣莊 (1, 2).

2. Fashions that originated during the Republican era/minguo (1912-1949), including the minguo aoqun & aoku and qipao/cheongsam for women, and the minguo changshan for men (the male equivalent of the women’s qipao). I wrote about why qipao isn’t considered hanfu here. Below - minguo aoqun (left) & qipao (right) from 嬉姷.

Below - Xiangsheng (crosstalk) performers Zhang Yunlei (left) & Guo Qilin (right) in minguo-style men’s changshan (x). Changshan is also known as changpao and dagua.

3. Qungua/裙褂 and xiuhefu/秀禾服, two types of Chinese wedding garments for brides that are commonly worn today. Qungua originated in the 18th century during the Qing dynasty, and xiuhefu is a modern recreation of Qing wedding dress popularized in 2001 (x). Below - left: qungua (x), right: xiuhefu (x).

4. Modified hanfu (改良汉服/gailiang hanfu) and hanyuansu/汉元素 (hanfu-inspired fashion), which do not fit in the orthodox view of hanfu. Hanfu mixed with sartorial elements of other cultures also fit into this category (e.g. hanfu lolita). From the very start of the hanfu movement, there’s been debate between hanfu “traditionalists” and “reformists”, with most members being somewhere in the middle, and this discussion continues today. Below - hanyuansu outfits from 川黛 (left) and 远山乔 (right).

5. Performance costumes, such as Chinese opera costumes (戏服/xifu) and Chinese dance costumes. These costumes may or may not be considered hanfu depending on the specific style. Dance costumes, in particular, may have non-traditional alterations to make the garment easier to dance in. Dunhuang-style feitian (apsara) costumes, which I wrote about here, can also fit into this category. Below - left: Chinese opera costume (x), right: Chinese dance costume (x).

6. Period drama costumes and fantasy costumes in popular media (live-action & animation, games, etc.), commonly referred to as guzhuang/古装 (lit. “ancient costumes”). Chinese period drama costumes are of course based on hanfu, and may be considered hanfu if they are historically accurate enough. However, as I wrote about here, a lot of the time there are stylistic inaccuracies (some accidental, some intentional) that have become popularized and standardized over time (though this does seem to be improving in recent years). This is especially prevalent in the wuxia and xianxia genres. Similarly, animated shows & games often have characters dressed in “fantasy hanfu” that are essentially hanfu with stylistic modifications. Below - left: Princess Taiping in historical cdrama 大明宫词/Palace of Desire (x), right: Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji in wuxia/xianxia cdrama 陈情令/The Untamed (x). 

7. Any clothing in general that purposefully utilizes Chinese style elements (embroidery, fabrics, patterns, motifs, etc). Chinese fashion brand Heaven Gaia is a well-known example of this. Below - Chinese-inspired designs by Heaven Gaia (x).

8. Technically, the clothing of China’s ethnic minorities also fit under the broad definition of huafu, but it’s rarely ever used in this way.

From personal observation, the term “huafu” is mainly used in the following situations:

1. Some large-scale events to promote Chinese clothing, such as the annual “华服日/Huafu Day”, will use “huafu” in their name for inclusivity.

2. For the same reason as above, Chinese clothing including hanfu will often be referred to as “huafu” on network television programs (ex: variety shows).

3. A few Chinese clothing shops on Taobao use “huafu” in their shop name. Two examples:

明镜华服/Mingjing Huafu - sells hanfu & hanyuansu. 

花神妙华服/Huashenmiao Huafu - sells Qing dynasty-style clothing.

With the exception of the above, “huafu” is still very rarely used, especially compared to “hanfu”. It has such a broad definition that it’s just not needed in situations for which a more precise term already exists. However, I do think it’s useful as a short catch-all term for Chinese clothing that isn’t limited to the currently accepted definition of hanfu.

If anyone wants to add on or correct something, please feel free to do so! ^^ 

Hope this helps!

[clytemnestraaa]

one of my creative writing professors once said that to evaluate a work as good or not, first you ask what the work is attempting to do, and then you evaluate how well it does it. and this is how to judge everything from critical essays to romance novels to snack packaging to theory tracts.

[sqrt-73]

screw ray bradburys 6 word poem. here’s my 2 word one:

Keep reading

[phantomrose96]

You know, I always find it interesting when people make fics/art where Edward’s been promoted to some rank above major (which comes with the state alchemist certification). It’s interesting to think about sure, but Ed does literally nothing for the army. Mustang’s in Central putting in the effort and getting his name passed around the higher-ups and kissing ass while Ed does literally exactly none of that. He runs around the country with his brother and, begrudgingly, checks in from time to time. Not the sorta dude to be “highly considered” for promotion.

Though the one instance where he could reasonably get promoted would be in the event that 1) Mustang has some sort of opening in his sector and 2) Mustang feels like being a dick.

“Hey Fullmetal, long time no see.” “Yeah yeah Al and I are in a rush. We wanted to leave Central an hour ago so hurry up and spit it out what’d you call me here for?” “Oh don’t worry it’s good news. Wonderful news. You’re really making your way in the world. See Lieutenant Colonel Davis transferred recently to Southern Command–” “Oh no.” “–Which means there’s a spot for Lieutenant Colonel open here.” “No no no you didn’t.” “Longer hours, more responsibilities, sure. But better pay, and you’d get in good with some high-ranking people, assuming you know how to brown-nose.” “I will literally kick your ass, Mustang.” “For what? Brightening you future?” “No really I will kick your ass if you’re being real here–” “Is that a challenge, Lieuuuutenant Colonel Elric?” “I swear to God Mustang if you a c t u a l l y  d i d…”

And as it turns out Mustang’s completely bluffing and gave the job to some hard-working major under his command, but he couldn’t pass up he chance to see Edward’s reaction to dealing with the idea of having genuine responsibility to the Amestrian military. 

[phantomrose96]

Mustang knows he actually has relatively little power over Ed, because Ed is too important to the homunculi. Mustang can’t fire Ed (not that he would) or suspend him or dock his pay or dole out any punishment really for insubordination. If he tried, Ed could just completely ignore him, and no one under Bradley’s rule would try to enforce it.

This frustrates Mustang for some time, at least until Mustang discovers he actually is in possession of a real threat against Ed: Promotion.

This confuses a lot of people, who overhear fights between Ed and Mustang that end with Mustang menacingly discussing the better healthcare benefits of Lieutenant Colonels. Or the nicer pay. Or the guaranteed apartment housing in Central. 

Most soldiers start theorizing this is some kind of back-hand threat. Something like “You know Elric, you’re under consideration for Lt. Colonel and would get all these nice things. But if you’re going to be difficult, maybe we’ll give these to someone else? Think of what you’d be missing out on.” 

This theory loses all of its credibility one afternoon when Mustang’s soldiers overhear a loud, heated argument between the two of them from inside Mustang’s office. It ends with the sound of Mustang slamming both his hands down on his desk, kicking his chair back, and shouting, “I SWEAR TO GOD FULLMETAL IF YOU DON’T SHUT UP I WILL PROMOTE YOU!”

Most Central soldiers just stop trying to understand alchemists at that point.

[justsomeantifas]

call me ignorant but i genuinely don’t understand why sports have to be split up by gender.

[robobun]

@ everyone in the notes talking about physical performance: if that were the case, then sports would be divided by physical performance. that’s a thing you can measure. that’s a thing that varies by individual. a weak man and a strong man would be an unfair fight in boxing/wrestling/MMA, which is why they divide those sports up into weight groups based on physical performance. but they also further segregate them based on gender. chess is segregated by gender for no reason but sexism. if it’s actually about skill and physical ability, then measure those and separate people by those metrics. don’t do some bullshit gender segregation and pretend like men and women are inherently on different levels no matter their individual abilities.

[justsomeantifas]

💅

[aggrokawaii]

Remember that time a teenage girl struck out Babe Ruth? That’s fucking why. Men are afraid of being beaten by women.

[amuseoffyre]

Remember that time male swimmers were pulled out of training because Kate Ledecky was leaving them ‘broken’ by swimming better than them? Remember how she didn’t even notice, because she was busy actually training?

[notanadult]

Shooting is a sport that has no reliance on strength and so any allowance for gender variation is irrelevant. The last time there was a mixed competition (1992) a chinese woman named Zhang Shan won it.

[murderxbaby-deactivated20190102]

It’s often presented as for the benefit of women. After all, they’ll be heartbroken when they‘re hurt or bested by men.

Projection is a hell of a drug. 

[dick-graysons-left-butt-cheek]

[yungcrybby-anonymousbosch666]

this is why they drug test Serena like crazy. the believe no woman should be that good. let alone a black woman. and black women have always been considered “manly” and less feminine.

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

also can we talk about how surfing is segregated as well? like how the dude who won this years international surfing cup or whatever was given $30,000 worth of prize money, while the woman who won the women’s comp was only awarded like $16,000 of prize money???? or whatever it was. but I know it was either half or less than half of what the man won. like why can’t they get the same prize money and when they’re competing internationally in the same competition? they surely have the same level of skill and talent.

[yungcrybby-anonymousbosch666]

the pay gap in sports between men and women is fucking insane.

[torukun1]

The pay gaps, not to mention lack of sponsorships for women athletes who don’t look like models is insane. If you weigh over 250 pounds, no one will sponsor you. It’s why most female Olympic-class weightlifters live in poverty/out of their cars.

[shipitbabyonemoretime]

[intersex-mhacha-deactivated2020]

Reminder that in international (and usually national too) womens athletics anybody with 5m/mol of natural testosterone or higher is disqualified. (See legal case of Dutee Chand vs IAAF.)

Do you or somebody you know have PCOS? You are banned from international womens athletics because you are supposedly in posession of an unreasonable advantage in sports.

Folks disqualified for hyper-androgenism in womens athletics.

Francine Niyonsaba

Caster Semenya

Dutee Chand

Margaret Wambui

And more

-

Why are those disqualified overwhelmingly black and brown? Because testing is case by case when an athletes performance “raises suspicions”. They overwhelmingly test athletes of colour, for being too fast and not meeting white expectations of femininity.

Racism and intersexism(discrimination against intersex people) in sports is abject evil. Desegregate sports.

[jeanjauthor]

All of this.

[annonymousp]

Oh, this some good stuff. I share to others 

[lov3rgrrrl]

ABSOTUTAFUCKINGLUTELY. I AM SO INCREDIBLY SICK OF EVERYONE REGARDING WOMEN AS INHERENTLY LESS THAN MEN. “THERE IS NO SEXISM IN BA SING SE” MY ASS

[mikkeneko]

I've seen a few posts speculating on what might have happened in Shen Yuan had transmigrated into Mu Qingfang instead of Shen Qingqiu. Many fun ideas, but it got me thinking about how I would do this scenario.

The first thing that would happen would be that SY would declare that since MQF is not doomed by the plot/is only an NPC, he therefore doesn't have to make any changes and indeed shouldn't get involved with matters of import at all since he's only a minor background character. He can just kick back and relax in his new xianxia life, and get a front row seat to Luo Binghe's rise to power and conquest.

That would last approximately two days.

If we're still assuming that SY was a NEET or (even worse) a business major in his first life, then he would have no relevant medical expertise whatsoever. While I do think having a vague understanding of human anatomy and modern sanitary practices would help him, in the same way having a vague understanding of modern education helped him as SQQ, that is really not a substitute for the level of expertise Mu Qingfang is supposed to have. The first time he gets confronted with a severely wounded patient he doesn't know how to save, he goes into a panic and has to beg the System for a skill patch/easy mode/universal cheat elixir to pull them through.

After this, he starts to take his position as Medical Peak Lord more seriously and goes into a major skill grind/level up montage. He emerges from it with enough of an understanding of the applicable medical theory, plus whatever he knows from the modern world, plus what he remembers about flora and fauna and bullshit magical elixirs from the novel, plus his own problem solving skills, that he can at least get by as Mu Qingfang without putting patients in danger.

(Honestly he probably could stop there, but will he? No! Mu Qingfang is not just a decent doctor, he is the best doctor! Never mind that MQF was only brought up in the book in order to show himself useless against the power of Luo Binghe's miracle blood slash healing D. No, he absolutely must be The Best Doctor In The World or else he will not get a good grade in transmigrating, a thing both possible to achieve and normal to want.)

At any rate, SY eventually emerges from a study-fueled haze after a period of months or years to realize that Oh Shit, He's Invested Now. How is he supposed to live up to his self-assigned achievement not letting any of his patients die if Luo Binghe razes the mountain?! He's got to intervene now.

Fortunately, SY knows exactly what he needs to do. He's gotten to know Cang Qiong enough to know that it's pretty decent, actually, it's really not the corrupt institution that justified burning it down in the book, it's full of ordinary people just doing their best. There's really just one little tweak that needs to be made, one little alteration, one minor edit is all that stands in the way of Luo Binghe having a happy life and career as a Cang Qiong cultivator.

He just needs to kill Shen Qingqiu.

(cont...)

[mikkeneko]

Method is not going to be a problem. A doctor knows all about poisons, and Shen Qingqiu is already known for his frequent qi deviations; Mu Qingfang knows the exact ratio of ingredients he needs to drop Shen Qingqiu in his sleep an untraceable month or so from the time of application. It would look indistinguishable from the qi deviations he's already prone to, and Mu Qingfang would be in charge of the medical investigation afterwards anyway. Easy peasy.

No, the problem is going to be opportunity. Shen Qingqiu doesn't come to Qian Cao for medical treatment for his qi deviations. Shen Qingqiu doesn't come to Qian Cao for medical treatment for anything. He's a reclusive, antisocial jerk with paranoid tendencies which only coincidentally in this case happen to be warranted, but either way: Presents a problem for our newly determined Mu Qing-yuan.

So he starts on the campaign to win Shen Qingqiu's trust. Teach him to rely on others sometimes, to come to him when he needs help. Small things at first, with the intent of building up that trust over time. Peeling back the spiky carapace of the prickliest Peak Lord of their generation is tedious, often aggravating work, but Mu Qingyuan is patient and determined. He can make house calls, if Shen Qingqiu doesn't want to leave his Peak. He can mix medicines for headaches and nightmares and insomnia. He can talk for hours about this or that book that one of them borrowed from the other.

Slowly, bit by bit, he begins to form something approaching a friendship with Shen Qingqiu. All to plan.

The only problem is -- he begins to form something approaching a friendship with Shen Qingqiu.

And the more he gets to know the bastard, the more fond he's starting to become.

In a funny, exasperating, adopting-a-feral-tomcat sort of way, he's coming to like Shen Qingqiu.

Shit.

[mikkeneko]

In one of his patented "My body just moved to protect him on instinct, I had no idea that would happen, not a single thought in my head" moments, Mu Qingyuan gets a little too in the zone during a healing session and manages to completely cure Shen Qingqiu's qi instability. Well! Crap! This completely scotches his murder-SQQ-through-qi-deviation plan. Well, it wasn't a great plan anyway, everybody knows that if a highly ranked cultivation individual dies of a qi deviation the obvious suspect would be the man who was treating him for said qi deviation. Time to find a new approach.

At this point, a sensible person would abandon the murder-Shen-Qingqiu plan entirely. But reader, we are not talking about a sensible man.

Mu Qingyuan is still determined to kill Shen Qingqiu. He still thinks it's the best way to not only protect Luo Binghe from Shen Qingqiu, but to protect Shen Qingqiu (and Cang Qiong) from Luo Binghe. Shen Qingqiu's death is a hard-coded part of the narrative, after all! An inescapable part of the world! It's just that now he's determined to find a way to kill him before all the abuse and torture and tragedy stuff happens, and bring him back to life afterwards once the plot is safely past. Simple!

My outline gets fuzzy from here on out but I think it mostly consists of Mu Qingyuan going through a series of increasingly convoluted shen-anigans to try to get hold of the Glass Coffin of Stasis or the Ruby Apples of Mortal Seeming or the cursed five-pedal spinning wheel that puts whoever touches it into an enchanted sleep or whatever other Disney princess device Airplane shamelessly plagiarized into his narrative so that he could have another arc about a beautiful love interest trapped in a deathlike trance that Luo Bingge would have to go on a quest to save but didn't require him to come up with a new personality or background.

[ckret2]

[hypotenussy]

"what that's just a picture of a fla-" *see the guy sitting on it* "OH FUCK OFF."

[gummybearattacktheworldofdespair]

[darkwarlock707]

For those who thought that this was Nintendo baiting people into posting videos for them to take down, (as I initially did, admittedly), it’s actually people posting pictures of YouTube takedown notices. Nintendo didn’t bait anyone...They walked into a metaphorical garden rake.

[heroineimages]

Okay, that's funny.

[yorgen-sh]

[teaboot]

The problem with giving advice to angry and suffering people is that rather frequently the thing they need to know to improve their position is the last thing they want to hear and not something they have the capacity to internalize or accept

[teaboot]

Unfortunate truths you can tell people that would help if they could hear what it means and not just what it sounds like

You were the victim, and it wasn’t fair, but it’s over now. Nobody came to save you, and I’m sorry, but it’s too late for anyone to go back and do it different.

You’re suffering over something that cannot be resolved. You’re allowed to feel angry, or outraged, or betrayed, but there will eventually come a time that you don’t feel that so violently anymore, and you’re going to want to have something good left to go back to.

You can’t make anyone love you the way you need to be loved. That’s how a lot of good things end. Not with a clear sign, something blocking the road that says “do not proceed”, just a splitting of the path that’s still moving somewhat in the same direction.

You can’t fix them. Nothing you can do will fix them. And if they fix themselves, they can’t do it for you- they have to do it for themselves as well, because otherwise a day may come when they’re alone, and as long as they live, they are their only true constant. So you can support, and you can encourage, but the hardest part is up to them. And sometimes they can’t do it even with your help.

Sometimes letting go of someone feels like mourning at their funeral before they’ve died, and every time you see them after it’s like talking to a ghost that doesn’t know it’s dead. Sometimes that happens. You’ll both still wake up tomorrow anyways.

I understand that you’re afraid, and that you’re afraid for good reasons. And I understand that being brave isn’t as easy as just turning that fear off, and you would if you could in a heartbeat. But the thing is, as long as that fear is able to dictate your choices, it will have power over you. If you don’t believe you can try to fight it, if you accept that it will always be in charge, you let the frightening thing stay present in your life. It will exist as long as you stay paralyzed. And that sounds cruel, but it isn’t something anyone can fix for you.

The person you may let yourself become after experiencing the terrible thing may very well grow into a much bigger, much more terrible thing, and someday it will swallow the first terrible thing whole. And all that will be left is something far worse for someone else. And you will not be able to shrink it down by explaining where it came from, because terrible things that are dead and gone are never as terrible as terrible things that are alive right now in front of you.

No matter how much or how little I love you, I still do not have the ability to help you the way you need to be helped. I might be the helper you want, but I am not a helper you can get. If you are to be helped at all, you will need to accept that it will come from someone else.

[specialagentartemis]

Rocky: yeah it was easy for Erid to breed enough astrophage to power a ship, we just plonked it in the ocean

[flashback to the space program prep phases]

Rocky: [wholly focused on building the ship itself and does not care where the astrophage to power it comes from]

Eridian!Francois Leclerc: [having a total emotional breakdown because breeding however many million kilograms of astrophage in the oceans is an extinction level event for marine environments with massive and unpredictable effects on the ecosystems of Erid but it's also undeniably the fastest way to get enough of it to power a spaceship]

Rocky: yeah it went fine probably

[avoid-avoidance]

if Eridian!Leclerc (let's call them Lechalk) wasn't part of the Blip-A crew that died, imagine Rocky & Grace returning to Erid and dropping multiple information-bombs in a row on the Eridians

and while everyone else is flipping the heck out about sapient aliens

Lechalk is in a corner and near-catatonic because wtf do you MEAN all of that Astrophage wasn't needed??? what do you MEAN we essentially nuked Erid's oceans 275% to 425% more than we needed to???

[iconuk01]

From Cirque Du Soleil's IG

Dick's suggestion for a fun brotherly bonding session

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

it has come to my attention there exists a subset of reenactors who go around renaissance faires "infecting" bystanders with the Plague. i wish to thank these heroes for their service

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

yes this can come in the form of dressing up as a pack of rats and offering people "Congratulations! You've Contracted The Black Death" hand stamps, but consider also:

walking around asking people if they want to pet your rat (plushie)

going in character as a fur trader carting around a wagon full of exotic wares at competitive prices

handing people a business card containing only the printed image of a flea (and on the back, the text "uh-oh!")

cosplaying as a giant bacterium

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

*hands you my business card* it contains a single drawing of a flea

*instinctively you flip it over searching for information*

[cerusee]

Okay. For my money, the entire thesis of Chris Nolan’s 2026 film The Odyssey is that society chokes and sputters and dies when we abuse, ignore, or violate social norms like the laws of hospitality. That is not really what The Odyssey (the book/poem) is about, but I can clearly see why in the horror that is the 2020s, someone could read The Odyssey and go oh my god that’s a lot of bad dropping in. That’s a lot of bad visits. That’s a clear vision of how the loss of social norms and cohesion fucks you up and how war, literal, brutal war, is a terrible wound that destroys your humanity and your understanding of what civilization and society is. I don’t know that the iteration of Greek society that ultimately birthed the poem would agree with Nolan’s take, but I think this movie is quite ideologically coherent, that Nolan knew exactly what he was trying to say with each and every adaptational change, and I think he wasn’t nuts for using one of the most famous classical western civilization works as a way to make that argument.

[anglefosh]

Yeah this is an unpopular opinion but I think the thematics of this movie were quite well done. Movie vs book Odysseus are very different but the differences served the message.

(Except the nobody thing still don't understand why they cut the nobody thing)

[cerusee]

Mm, off the top of my head, I’d say it’s because the film is being fairly cagey about how “real” the gods are. (Hadn’t picked up on this while watching it, but as many folks have pointed out, due to the structure of the film, every event that seems unambiguously supernatural is something being narrated by Odysseus to Calypso years after the fact, and when he’s still pretty loopy from lotus flower, to boot.) Odysseus’s arrogance bringing doom to the voyage is still there in the form of his firing off an obviously ineffectual revenge arrow at Polyphemus when they could have gotten away clean. Like, a lot of his men died and his ships were lost simply because he couldn’t resist taking that final swing at Polyphemus and baiting him into following them down to the shore.

Odysseus having a serious of clever dialogues with Polyphemus to set up his famous final exchange with him would certainly be more accurate to the text, but it would be jarringly, tonally out of place in the film, where Polyphemus’s only actual speech is deliberately aurally murky and deeply confusing to the people listening to it; we need the men to tell us, later, that they heard him crying out to his father Poseidon (this also being the first moment when they realize the giant monster that brutally killed and ate their companions might be a conscious, reasoning creature at all). Again, the film is leaving it up to viewer interpretation whether the gods are real, whether misfortune springs from offending them—the men insist they’ve invoked Poseidon’s wrath by harming his child, but the movie is not going to tell us concretely whether that is a true fact or whether they’re simply superstitious/trying to rationalize and contextualize a bizarre, inexplicable, horrific experience according to the religious worldview available to them.

I’m a big fan of the poem and I also love that bit, but the way people keep fixating on this obviously conscious omission feels a little weird to me, when there’s multiple points in the film, including the aforementioned arrow, where it’s pretty heavily implied that Odysseus is the author of his own misfortunes (rushing their departure before they’re fully provisioned, taking a different, unproven route home simply because he’s tired of following Agamemnon, ignoring the warnings of the people they raid on the way home that the path they’re taking is full of unknown dangers and horrors); whether this self-sabotage explicitly has a supernatural element or not is not critical to this version, only that there was self-sabotage at all.

Also, going back to my original point about the theme of the film being the breaking of civilization, what we eventually realize is that Nolan’s Odysseus is genuinely ambivalent about returning home, because he believes he’s destroyed the world that home exists in, and that there is truly no going back, and that is the root of his original self-sabotaging choices on the shores of Troy. Considering that this is a pretty famous epic about a guy who desperately wants to get home, I can understand people don’t like this as a departure point from the original work, but Tennyson did it first.

[frcz78]

Ok, it's finally done. Home is a place, home is a person.

This story is my first major piece after several years of art block, and I'm so glad I could finally get back to drawing.

Huge thanks to my dear friend @chancekey for the support.

Full size

[thatanxiouskiwi]

Ch 11 “Wing bones touching” by @shanastoryteller

(Because well-written angst must always be appreciated to the fullest!)