A Door on Other Time

Title is from Tolkien's "On Fairy Stories". Handle means "storyteller" in Nahuatl. This'll mostly be about pop culture, linguistics, philosophy, history, and other things that interest me, but also about writing.

[tlaquetzqui]

[tlaquetzqui]

The real first days of the seasons are not the equinoxes and solstices, but the points halfway between them. They roughly correspond to Candlemass, May Day, Lammas, and All Saint’s—early in February, May, August, and November, the second, fifth, eighth, and eleventh months. The solstices and equinoxes are the midpoints of the seasons—in fact the former are called Midsummer Day and Midwinter Day, in many eras and societies.

Incidentally, the first Chinese solar term, Lichun or “Establishment of Spring”, roughly corresponds with Candlemass.

[cluelesbo]

My dad calls them "crossover days", and describes them as the point where you start to really notice the seasons changing.

The shortest day of the year is the winter solstice — but it's not noticeably shorter than the day before it, or the day after. But you do notice Groundhog Day, when suddenly it feels like the days are getting longer again. They have been for months at that point, but the rate of change accelerates here and won't slow down until Mayday — or, approximately the next crossover day. And likewise, the rate at which daylight decreases day-by-day is about to accelerate. It will slow down again around Halloween.

[tlaquetzqui]

An old name for them is “cross-quarter days”.

[georgettekaplan]

[georgettekaplan]

Sokay, here's how I'd do the X-Men movies

Since the X-Men are, by now, a bunch of mini-franchises standing on each other's shoulders in a big trenchcoat, I would take a three-pronged approach.

Wolverine solo movies: Yeah. He's the most popular X-Man and everyone's going to want to see him anyway, so instead of making him the leader of the X-Men or the protagonist of the X-Men, just give him his own movies and then have him be a member of the ensemble when he's in...

X-Men team movies: These would be the equivalent of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Scott is the leader, everyone's an angsty misfit, they're a family but they fight and there's one big enemy that tests them as a group.

Sexy teens movies: This would be the Generation X, New Mutants, Academy X, whatever you want to call it series. All the teens who aren't ready for the X-Men have their own, lower-stakes adventures. This might work best as a TV show. You could do Mojo here. I don't think anyone's going to accept an X-Men movie where everyone's fighting a fat alien network executive, but that seems about right for Jubilee, doesn't it?

Here's the thing--there should be overlay between these three 'mini-IPs.' Wolverine is obviously part of the X-Men team. But when he's in a solo movie, we might have him with Kitty Pryde as a sidekick or teamed up with Nightcrawler. We could make Storm or Emma Frost the 'leader' of the Sexy Teens team. They're popular characters and it would be good to see more of them without bumping Scott from his slot. One of the Sexy Teens could graduate to the main X-Men team.

Basically, the characters are all in each other's orbit. If the Sexy Teens are sneaking out to go party, they might almost get discovered (oh noes!) by Kurt in the kitchen getting a midnight snack. And if you get the production schedule right, you can have it so each sequel takes two years and yet there's a mutant movie every year. (Or a TV show every third year.) So you never have to wait too long for more X-Men, but also TPTB have two years to work on each installment.

(You could also do Wolverine as a TV series--that Reacher show is mostly really good and he's only slightly less superhuman than Wolverine, so maybe just take some rejected scripts for that show and Crtl-H Reacher to Logan. Add in some ninjas too. Poof, you have made the equivalent of at least three hundred Wolverine comics.)

There should also be a few X-Men who leave the team except for cameos and go elsewhere in the Marvel universe. Beast could be an Avenger, Forge could work at the Fantastic Four's lab, Psylocke could be a Thunderbolt if we go back to calling them Thunderbolts (between Jean, Betsy, Emma, and Xavier, how many telepaths does one team need, anyway?), Dani Moonstar could hang out with Thor... the possibilities are endless. And it'd sell that these guys are really part of the Marvel Universe, not just off in their little corner dealing with things only mutants care about.

[michaelnordeman]

European Badger/grävling. Värmland, Sweden (12 June 2023).

[1americanconservative]

[round9-fight]

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

*Note*

Putting "Ethical" in front of something doesn't make it actually ethical. If you are in a "non monogamous" relationship, you're just in an open relationship. Putting "Ethical" in front of it doesn't change what it is.

It's you chasing the label so you can try to feel less shame. That's all. Accept what it is you're pushing for. Stop trying to make new terms because you're uncomfortable with what you say you want.

[cookingwithroxy]

I kinda agree but disagree? But hear me out.

The fundamental issue is that there's two kinds of things. There's being a cheating bastard, and there's having an open relationship.

To a lot of people, there is no difference between the two. They don't understand the whole 'everyone involved understands the boundaries and are fine with the situation' element, or just assume that someone's being dishonest or just a slut.

So people try and make it more and more distinct, adding in 'Ethical' to go 'no, seriously, everybody is on the up and up here and we all know what we've gotten into!'

It's not to avoid feeling shame, it's to avoid people presuming you're a bad person. There's just one problem.

The kind of people who judge you for it won't give a fuck that everyone's a consenting adult, they're already judging you for having sex without their permission to begin with.

Calling it 'Ethical' won't change a goddamn thing.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

I'm coming at this from a purely Kink Community standpoint is what you have to understand.

Generally speaking, it's pretty clear to me that if a person says they are, "Non Monogamous" either one is two things is true.

They are a cheater, and shouldn't be involved in the community at all, or their partner is fine with what they are doing. And that discussion should always happen regardless. If I'm being honest I say they keep making up new terms because they are trying to avoid shame, mostly due to the fact that the only people who are going to care are people not involved.

In general yes, you are correct. Most people view all sexual activities outside of your immediate relationship to be cheating. I didn't go quite that far. I do however believe that if you are a man in a strait relationship, and your able to share your woman with another man in any way, you'd have to enjoy humiliation in some way. (Male brains are specific in this regard. Though it's not worth arguing about.)

But here's where I say it's to avoid shame. Why do you care what others but involved believe? Because anyone that sees "ethically non-monogamous" or "non monogamous", regardless will view it exactly the same. This of course regardless of the fact of whether they are in the kink Community or receptive to that type of title in the first place. Meaning that the title itself serves absolutely no purpose. Which in that regard to me speaks more to the idea that they're trying to prevent a situation in which they are shamed because they do feel shame towards that. Granted that's my opinion on the matter.

[cookingwithroxy]

Well, there's also the factor of 'special title creep'. You know, where you're not 'X' because 'X' is so old and bigoted a term! You're 'Y'! Only now 'Y' has some negative connotation so you're 'Z'!

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

😑 Yeah there is that

[tlaquetzqui]

The shorter term for that last thing is “euphemism treadmill”.

[geekyleftist]

Do I believe Israel has the right to exist?

I don't think any state has "the right" to exist. People have the right to exist. A state is a bureaucratic administrative construct and human lives are always to be put first.

Short answer: NO.

[eris-and-lokis-love-child]

If you want to put human lives first, Israel does that better than Hamas. But you'd rather earn internet points with Goebbels.

[drrevchurchdoctor]

Ah yes, the completely rational and moral belief that standing up to bullies makes you the true bully.

[generallemarc]

So Hamas, the jihadists, were standing up to bullies when they committed the largest single massacre of Jews in 80 years on October 7th?

[otakuvampyre]

Massacring civilians is "standing up to bullies" now? I guess "international law" is just a set of mild suggestions only the people you dislike need to be held to instead of something that should actually govern any and all conflict to you, huh @drrevchurchdoctor?

[the-davest-of-uncles]

Hamas fanbois are so retarded.

[snakeplisskenseyepatch]

Yeah. As usual the Hamas fanboi fuckbois are out there being retarded as fuck.

[tlaquetzqui]

The oppression narrative mostly exists so people can commit a horrific massacre at a fucking shoegaze festival and the surrounding suburbs, and still feel like they’re “standing up to bullies”.

(This is also seen when people discuss Native American raiding and massacres. You are not the plucky underdog when your dozens of warriors attack a single farm, it doesn’t matter how much more technologically advanced the farmers’ society is.)

[kravchikfreak]

[tlaquetzqui]

“Excellent police work, McCloud!”

[helenvaughans]

[itsmistybitch-deactivated202605]

These posts are sisters

[lierdumoa]

[tlaquetzqui]

Understand, writers ought to treat the characters as people and the story as a documentary of a world. The single worst thing a writer can say is

But they still aren’t real people in a real world and any analysis that forgets that will be bad analysis. (Notably, “this does too make sense, the characters said so”. Sure but did it make sense for them to say so? Or is it authorial fiat all the way down?)

[brosef-von-dudehomie]

I don't normally like to promote anything but the Lincoln has been deployed 8 months and needs to bring its ass and sailors back stateside.

Sign the Petition

Bring USS Abraham Lincoln and other ships back home for resupply

I was on the Stennis back when we were creeping up on 8 months and it sucked hard. Dick Cheney looked like he wanted to strangle our admiral for offering to stay out longer. Time to rotate the ships out. Let's get some signatures before the cabin fever starts taking lives.

Multiple USS Abraham Lincoln sailors have tried to go overboard amid extended deployment, families say

Multiple sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have attempted to go overboard as the carrier's deployment stretches into its ninth month.

It's already starting.

[dogposts]

Clover hates bath time, but she's being very brave about it ☘️

[tlirsgender]

It's called hard sci-fi because it's not as easy

[tlirsgender]

I thought it'd be fun if I made aliens that respirate CO² into O² like plants but I started thinking about how I'm not actually sure how exactly those chemical processes work and now I'm on the wikipedia page for nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate

[tlirsgender]

I feel like the media literacy ogre for biochemistry

[sigrid-antares]

hard sci-fi is when the last quarter of the book is made of research papers references, scientific footnotes and explanation of the rabbit hole that author committed

[greek-mythologies]

Γενικά Αρχεία του Κράτους - ΓΑΚ

🎬Πολύ πριν από την «Οδύσσεια» του Κρίστοφερ Νόλαν… αντιδράσεις στην Ελλάδα για την ταινία «Τρωικός Πόλεμος» (Helen of Troy) το 1956 Το 1956

Excellent post from the Greek National Archives.

Telegrams to the Greek government complaining about the distortion of the Homeric epic for the 1956 film Helen of Troy.

70 years later, Hollywood still distorts Homer, and we still have to tell the Americans we're an existing culture.

@alatismeni-theitsa, this might interest you 😊

[misscromwellsmonocle]

The Little Art Connoisseur (1863) August Friedrich Siegert

[darnitjack]

Last time this came around I showed my three year old and he said "He's little like me!" and stared for a whole minute (v. Long in toddler time).

[nonenosome2]

Do not ever let the Left brush 2020 under the rug as "Hehe. Woke 1.0 was craaaaazy."

They got people banned, debanked, and even fired for what they are now trying to laugh off.

[emmaubler]

You don't get to gleefully destroy people's lives and then "Lol we were so random" your way out of responsibility once your actions are politically inexpedient. Especially when they don't really believe they did anything wrong and are not actually sorry for any of it. They still hold the same views and have the same cruel impulses--they just know they can't get away with steamrolling culture they way they used to and are just trying to recalibrate to maintain their power.