@the-wonders-of-unreality / the-wonders-of-unreality.tumblr.com
Relistening to Mission to Zyxx and it’s just as dumb as I remember god bless. I’m always and forever a sucker for an absurdist improvised serial adventure podcast. I will never change. Half-way though season 3 right now and felt like drawing the crew.
Definitely used @snuffysbox’s animated pitch designs as a sort of jumping-off point — they’re so soild and I’m a huge fan of her work.
mr aonuma i have a dlc suggestion i think you'll find greatly intriguing
I can't quite convey how shocking it is to see a mainstream British newspaper publish an article like this. quoting Karl Marx and essentially calling for a rebellion against landlords - this is one of the most radical things I've ever seen a British newspaper publish, and this is a newspaper sold in shops. you'd expect this in an obscure news outlet that nobody really knows about, not the guardian. they snapped. this is beautiful.
some choice quotes..
"Our recent history shows us that landlord abolition, while maintaining adequate levels of housing stock, is an entirely realistic ambition"
"We simply need to relearn the wisdom of the last century: to acknowledge that landlordism is the enemy of affordability"
"We are so beholden to landlords crying wolf that parliament has spent five years failing to do the one thing that, in 2019, every political party agreed needed to be done."
"If we want a Viennese-style existence we can only achieve this, as we did 50 years ago, by driving the landlords out. Which is only fair: we have given them a very good innings."
“The entire British museum is an active crime scene” - John Oliver
[image description: two pictures, one above the other. The first image shows a statue originally from the Acropolis in Athens, now in the British Museum. The statue is a column shaped like a woman. It is labelled London. The bottom image is from the Acropolis Museum in Athens, showing the other five matching column/statues, with a space for the missing statue pointedly left open. This picture is shot from above and is labelled Athens.
image in savvysergeant’s reblog: screencap of tags from two people. Feeblekazoo’s tags read: the degree to which the Acropolis museum is designed to shame the British Museum is spectactular. butherlipsarenotmoving’s tags read: the acropolis museum is the most passive aggressive museum i’ve ever been to and i love it
/end id]
For those of you who don’t know museum drama, one of the largest and most famous parts of the British Museum’s collection is the so-called Elgin Marbles, which were looted from the Acropolis by Lord Elgin in the 18th Century. (The Acropolis is the hill in Athens, Greece which has some of the most amazing Greek ruins anywhere, the most famous of which is the Parthenon.) Elgin had (or at least claims to have had) permission from the Ottoman Empire to take stuff home with him, but a) this is one empire asking another empire if they can loot stuff from the other empire’s subjugated people, so, not exactly any moral high ground there Elgin, and b) he took a lot more stuff than the Ottomans said he could have.
Greece has been asking for those statues and sculptures to be returned since they won independence in 1832. That’s right, 1832, 190 years ago. The British Museum has had a number of excuses over the years, one of the biggies of the late 20th Century being “we couldn’t possibly give them back because Athens doesn’t have a nice enough museum to display them” and ignoring Greece’s response of “we will BUILD a museum just for them if you will just give us our damn stuff back!“
Finally, Greece said “fuck you” and built a museum at the bottom of the Acropolis called the Acropolis museum. It is huge, it is gorgeous, the collection of objects is amazing and the educational bits (“this is what it is and why it matters”) are really well done. It’s probably one of the best archaeological museums in the world; it definitely is the best collection of ancient Greek artifacts in the world, both for the size of the collection and the way it’s displayed.
Oh. And it is amazingly passive-aggressive. Every single piece of the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum has an empty spot on display waiting for the piece to be returned to Greece. For example, there are a lot of pieces where Elgin took, say, the nicest (or easiest to remove) one of a set. The column/statue in the OP’s image is one of these. Friezes from the roof of the Parthenon are another example. The Acropolis Museum displays each one of these sets with space for the stolen pieces, along with a picture of what the stolen piece looks like and where it is. It is a giant middle finger at the British Museum, disguised as helpful information.
There’s no chance that the British Museum will return any of this in the next generation. It’s not up to the curators at the British Museum; they don’t get any say in this. The board of governors of the British Museum is made up of old posh English people who genuinely believe that the Empire was awesome and England has a perfect right to everything in the British Museum. They have set policies about what can and can’t be removed from the collection, and according to those policies nothing of any historical or monetary value can be given away or sold. And they actively promote the idea that their predecessors had a perfect right to loot the cultural heritage of the world, and that the museum has a perfect right to keep it forever. The only way to get anything out of the British Museum and back to its rightful place would be to completely replace the entire board of the museum with new people who think completely differently. And that’s not happening any time soon, alas.
By the way, the British argument that Greeks wouldn’t know how to care for the antiquities……. Greece has 206 archaeological museums. It’s not only incredibly demeaning as an argument, it’s also straight out false and misleading.
One thing (and with the massive caveat of I don’t disagree with the above in the slightest): the Board of Trustees isn’t like that. They’re not all white, they’re not all rich, and they’re not all English. By and large they’re academics. I was speaking to them the other week with regards to repatriation when I visited and they’re actually very much all for it (bar one or two exceptions…looking at you George) and are working on things. A group of 5 of them I can confirm actively loathe Elgin and the marbles room. The problem lies with the British Museum Act of 1968 (hereafter referred to as BMA68) which was a law created by the government to prevent anything within the BM, which the government owns but wants very little do to with unless you’re trying to repatriate fyi, being removed in the “national interest”. Repatriation is, annoyingly, illegal in the case of the contents of the BM. So the Board have been trying to change this by putting pressure in various areas to get the laws changed, and the government screws them by enforcing term limits for serving on the board and then trying to stack the board in their favour to prevent further action. It’s a game of politics and the government do not want to give up BMA68 at all.
I know we like to categorise everyone we’re up against in the fight for repatriation as “old, white, rich guys” but it’s not helpful when it is decidedly not the case. We need to be mad at the right people and focusing on efforts to change this ridiculous law. At this time, supporting projects like the International Training Partnership, which is the BM’s way of building a network of curators and training them so organisations like the British Government can’t say “hurr durr they can’t look after their artefacts” because actually they can, we trained them ourselves. The network of curators also allows them to build mounting international pressure. It’s not going to happen overnight, but the pressure is building now, I promise you.
“We need to be mad at the right people” is the crux of SO MANY THINGS
Thank you Lottie, as always.
So the problem isn’t even the people who run the museum, who are after all museum people and want museum things to be done well and respectfully, but the government, who want the museum to remind everyone of the time before they made their entire country a laughingstock.
Here's THE masterpost of free and full adaptations, by which I mean that it's a post made by the master.
As you like it: you'll find here an outdoor stage adaptation and here the BBC version. Here's Kenneth Brannagh's 2006 one.
Coriolanus: Here's a college play, here's the 1984 telefilm, here's the 2014 one with tom hiddleston. Here's the Ralph Fiennes 2011 one.
Cymbelline: Here's the 2014 one.
Hamlet: the 1948 Laurence Olivier one is here. The 1964 russian version is here and the 1964 american version is here. The 1964 Broadway production is here, the 1969 Williamson-Parfitt-Hopkins one is there, and the 1980 version is here. Here are part 1 and 2 of the 1990 BBC adaptation, the Kenneth Branagh 1996 Hamlet is here, the 2000 Ethan Hawke one is here. 2009 Tennant's here. And have the 2018 Almeida version here. On a sidenote, here's A Midwinter's Tale, about a man trying to make Hamlet. Andrew Scott's Hamlet is here.
Henry V: Laurence Olivier (who would have guessed) 1944 version. The 1989 Branagh version here. The BBC version is here.
Julius Caesar: here's the 1979 BBC adaptation, here the 1970 John Gielgud one. A theater Live from the late 2010's here.
King Lear: Laurence Olivier once again plays in here. And Gregory Kozintsev, who was I think in charge of the russian hamlet, has a king lear here. The 1975 BBC version is here. The Royal Shakespeare Compagny's 2008 version is here. The 1974 version with James Earl Jones is here. The 1953 Orson Wells one is here.
Macbeth: Here's the 1948 one, there the 1955 Joe McBeth. Here's the 1961 one with Sean Connery, and the 1966 BBC version is here. The 1969 radio one with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench is here, here's the 1971 by Roman Polanski, with spanish subtitles. The 1988 BBC one with portugese subtitles, and here the 2001 one). Here's Scotland, PA, the 2001 modern retelling. Rave Macbeth for anyone interested is here. And 2017 brings you this.
The Merchant of Venice: here's a stage version, here's the 1980 movie, here the 1973 Lawrence Olivier movie, here's the 2004 movie with Al Pacino. The 2001 movie is here.
The Merry Wives of Windsor: the Royal Shakespeare Compagny gives you this movie.
A Midsummer Night's Dream: have this sponsored by the City of Columbia, and here the BBC version. Have the 1986 Duncan-Jennings version here. 2019 Live Theater version? Have it here!
Much Ado About Nothing: Here is the kenneth branagh version and here the Tennant and Tate 2011 version. Here's the 1984 version.
Othello: A Massachussets Performance here, the 2001 movie her is the Orson Wells movie with portuguese subtitles theree, and a fifteen minutes long lego adaptation here. THen if you want more good ole reliable you've got the BBC version here and there.
Richard II: here is the BBC version. If you want a more meta approach, here's the commentary for the Tennant version. 1997 one here.
Richard III: here's the 1955 one with Laurence Olivier. The 1995 one with Ian McKellen is no longer available at the previous link but I found it HERE.
Romeo and Juliet: here's the 1988 BBC version. Here's a stage production. 1954 brings you this. The french musical with english subtitles is here!
The Taming of the Shrew: the 1980 BBC version here and the 1988 one is here, sorry for the prior confusion. The 1929 version here, some Ontario stuff here, and here is the 1967 one with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. This one is the Shakespeare Retold modern retelling.
The Tempest: the 1979 one is here, the 2010 is here. Here is the 1988 one. Theater Live did a show of it in the late 2010's too.
Timon of Athens: here is the 1981 movie with Jonathan Pryce,
Troilus and Cressida can be found here
Titus Andronicus: the 1999 movie with Anthony Hopkins here
Twelfth night: here for the BBC, here for the 1970 version with Alec Guinness, Joan Plowright and Ralph Richardson.
The Winter's Tale: the BBC version is here
Please do contribute if you find more. This is far from exhaustive.
(also look up the original post from time to time for more plays)
I feel like people have forgotten about this
Stage-Toph: “I see everything that you see, except I don’t ‘see’ like you do. I release a sonic wave from my mouth.” *elongated scream* “There! I got a pretty good look at you.”
but the LOOK on Toph’s FACE it is the best thing E V E R R R
#there is no way in hell I could ever forget about this who do you take me for
Okay but I also love this scene because the way this play was written and cast tells us two really important (and hilarious) things about the way people (specifically people in the Fire Nation) perceive Toph-
1. Although they know she’s blind, no one actually has any idea how her seismic sense works
2. No one who’s fought her is willing to admit they got their ass beat by a 12-year-old girl who doesn’t clear five feet and weighs 95 pounds soaking wet.
Guide For The Geological Time Periods In Order
A lil practice in perspective with this piece mostly, so here's Howl and Sophie, who I designed based 50/50 on their book and movie counterparts! I actually would love to revisit this piece and paring in the future, since the book is one of my all time favs
Inspired by @lacnunga 's adorable dragon embroidery
Out of Touch
those spies are just too darn clever...
Watched OPLA , I am weak for the King and His Knight dynamic and apparently the red/green will continue to haunt me
A painstaking work !!
This went from “He’s making a truck!” to “He’s MAKING a TRUCK!!”
Repost of Instagram post by alessandra_sanguinetti:
“In 2004 I worked as an intern in Newsweek and had to go through the wires coming in from the Middle East.
The Iraq war was raging. Israel was committing its routine violations and killings.
The images were devastating and unequivocally condemning of both the USA and Israel, but I remember the editors would reject all my picks and demand images of burnt cars or vague images of destruction.
So I brought a hard drive and collected everything they didn't publish.
It was my first live glimpse of the lack of ethics or integrity in most US media.
Not the journalists on the ground, but of the senior editors making the calls - in their self important glass cubicles.
And no, to the cynics out there..it's not all too complicated to discuss on social media.
Social media is the only reason we know what's happening in Palestine.
And the only reason mainstream news has to keep up and sprinkle some actual news now and then.
Meanwhile we are seeing much less footage coming out of Gaza - Israel has been killing off all the journalists.
This is terrifying.”
Photo credits: Nasser Ishtayeh, Yossi Alon, Saif Dahlah, Jaafar Ashtiyeh, Musa Al-Shaer, Abed Onar Qusini
Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)
40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)
Basic knitting (probably the best how to knit video out there)
Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)
How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)
Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)
Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)
Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)
Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:
Calculus 1 (full semester class)
Learn basic statistics (free textbook)
Introduction to college physics (free textbook)
Introduction to accounting (free textbook)
Learn a language:
Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)
Russian (pretty good cyrillic guide!)
Cooking with flavor bootcamp (used what I learned in this a LOT this year)
Learn Interior Design from the British Academy of Interior Design (free to audit course - just choose the free option when you register)
How to ride a bike (listen. some of us never learned, and that's okay.)
How to cornrow-braid hair (I have it on good authority that this video is a godsend for doing your baby niece's black hair)
Making mead at home (I actually did this last summer and it was SO good)
Basics of snowboarding (proceed with caution)
How to draw for people who (think they) suck at art (I know this website looks like a 2003 monstrosity, but the tutorials are excellent)
Pixel art for beginners so you can make the next great indie game
Go (back) to school
Introduction to Astronomy (high school course - free textbook w/ practice problems)
Principals of Economics (high school course - free textbook w/ practice problems)
Introduction to philosophy (free college course)
Computer science basics (full-semester Harvard course free online)
Learn a language
Japanese for Dummies (link fix from 2022)
Portuguese (Brazil)
American Sign Language (as somebody who works with Deaf people professionally, I also strongly advise you to read up on Deaf/HoH culture and history!)
Chinese (Mandarin, Simplified)
Quenya (LOTR fantasy elf language)
Coding in Python - one of the most flexible and adaptable high-level programming languages out there - explained through projects making video games
Learn to swim! (for adult learners. I don’t care if you live in Kansas or Mali or wherever. LEARN TO SWIM.)
[Learn about quantum mechanics again, but in a more advanced engineering/mathematics class. Then read more about the math and physics of it]
Something I learned this year: how to sew a quilt (Here’s a very easy beginning pattern that looks amazing and can be done with pre-cut fabric!)
Tutorial video on what is under the hood of most (gas) cars + weird engine sounds and what they mean
How (American income) taxes & tax law work (choose “audit course” at checkout for free class)
Pickleball for beginners (so you can finally join your neighbor/friend/distant cousin who is always insisting you join their team)
+ Para-Pickleball for beginners (for mobility aid users!)
School is so much more fun when there’s no tests:
Learn a language:
Arabic + Resource Guide compiled from Reddit (includes info on different dialects)
Urdu (frequently recommended course on Reddit) + Resource Guide
