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thevulcanbobdylan · 7 months

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a funeral for the year

I think there's a reason why the major fall/winter holidays in the US work so well.

Because - say what you will - they do work well. There's something so compelling about the Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year cycle that it has become a huge part of our culture. Autumnal vibes, spooky season, coziness, pumpkin spice - lights, music, gifts, decorations - food, tradition, family... It's an opportunity to engage with something so ancient that it's nearly forgotten: cyclical time. The existence of this one big Holiday Season, this extended festival, lets us tap into the rhythms of nature while sort of blithely pretending that's not what we're doing. There's something inside us that desires those rhythms.

I've long held this theory that the modern holidays that gain the most traction are the ones that can serve as a proxy for some more ancient, more deeply human ritual. Christmas is obviously an opportunity for humans to engage in winter-solstice-related revelry. I think the 4th of July in the US is a big deal because it secretly gives us an opportunity to celebrate Midsummer. Humans want these things, deep down.

Of course, as with anything in modern US culture, we can find things to criticize. First of all, everything I'm about to say is heavily biased toward the Northern Hemisphere. Also: I'm not saying that raw, blatant capitalism/consumerism isn't driving the visibility of these holidays. Thanksgiving, in particular, has troubling roots, and is frequently observed in problematic ways. But I think it's okay to desire a reclamation of the holiday in the spirit of gratitude, rather than to kill it outright. Here's why:

The Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year cycle is a ritual. Specifically, it's a funeral for the year. Funerals are important because they give us the opportunity to process what was, to accept its death, to find gratitude, to seek learning, and to move forward. Modern humans don't do enough of this. We're so far removed from the concept of death that even middle-aged millennials seem to find it squicky and cringe. But death is all around us - big Death, the death of the body, yes, but also little deaths, dying to the past so that the future can unfold. There is so much wisdom in observing and marking and acknowledging the little deaths that weave through our lives, but we have little access to the concept. This fact contributes to our alienation from actual Death, and that alienation prevents us from developing qualities like maturity, compassion, and wisdom. Modern Americans are perpetually adolescent, perpetually cringing away from facing their mortality, and from the wisdom and perspective that comes with doing so.

For this affliction, I prescribe: more Holiday Season.

On Halloween we acknowledge the fact that the year is dying. Through play and pantomime, we engage with the concept and the fact of death. We let it in. We face it. We upend it, laugh at it, allow ourselves to touch and see it. We accept it - even welcome it.

On Thanksgiving we look backward. Having accepted the death of the year, we take stock, acknowledge all that it was, and give thanks for what it brought us. We gather with treasured people and engage in rituals of food and tradition. Whether our year was delightful or difficult, we can use this ritual to find lessons in its challenges, to remember its brightest moments - to process - to simply allow it to have been.

On Christmas we reach the actual moment of the year's death. On the winter solstice, we experience the darkest point of the year, and in that instant of deepest darkness, we celebrate light and warmth and joy. We gather together around fires, around stovetops, around beautiful glittering lights, and we sing, and we give gifts, and tell our children stories about magic to see the light that shines from their eyes. In the darkest moment of winter, we look for the light that never goes out. Because there's light in darkness, and there's life in death, and the cycle of time is one of renewal. Even when we don't acknowledge it, this is what we're celebrating.

On New Year's we mark our emergence from the hollow of death, and a renewed ascent into light and life. After accepting death, celebrating what was, and finding the spark of light that exists in the darkness, we take our first steps forward into something new.

It's such a beautiful process. We walk through it over the space of months, giving proper time to each phase, processing the feelings that come with saying this goodbye that is also a hello. It's a blueprint for how to process other deaths. We allow ourselves to move through - to be moved through - a cycle of time that is bigger and more ancient than we can imagine, and all of us are in it together. Death unifies us. We can celebrate and practice that fact each year, with a beautiful funeral for another cycle of time that we shared.

#death is my roman empire #death #paganism #holidays #halloween #thanksgiving #christmas #yule #samhain

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sherlockig · 8 months

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#this is my roman empire #ofmd #our flag means death #stede bonnet #rhys darby #ed teach #edward teach #taika waititi #ofmd s2 #ofmd s2 spoilers #our flag means death spoilers #gentlebeard #blackbonnet

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arachnestwilight · 30 days

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Sorry for putting Hetalia on your dashboard in 2024, but this has been vaguely on my mind for, like, five years.

#I have to appeal to my inner 13 year-old with garbage tastes on occasion okay?#In the meantime I'm surprised how such few fanworks focus on Roderich in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire #I don't know if this has changed and I don't particularly care to check to be honest #Anyway back to the tags #hetalia #hetalia world stars #hws austria #roderich edelstein #hws holy roman empire #hws hre #digital art #digital artist #tw blood #cw blood #tw death #cw death #cw child death #tw child death

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escaping-peril12 · 22 days

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YALL THE MUSIC VID FOR MHA SEASON 7 ED??

HELLO!?!?! 😦😦 I AM COMPLETELY FLABERGASTED.

those lyrics EXACTLY match this scene PERFECTLY. AND I MEAN PERFECTLY.

DUDE

my emotions are everywhere bc this is just...wow

The song is by Omoinotake. It is their third CD single song. It is called "Tsubomi" (Bud)

(lying on my deathbed as you read this 😍)

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eloise175 · 7 months

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In the latest chapter Callisto looks so surprised after receiving Penelope’s gift. Despite teasing her, he was not expecting such a thing.

It’s always as if he’s glad to get anything from her. It doesn’t matter what the gift is, as long as he knows she thinks of him.

More specifically, Penelope’s gift is a cufflink with healing magic imbedded into the ruby.

She was embarrassed to give him the cufflink because she didn’t know what to give to someone who already had everything; that’s literally her thought process when he opens the box.

Callisto is a little confused by the healing abilities of the gem, but Penelope says it’s so he won’t complain about her lack of healing magic when he hurts himself next, basically hinting at their conversation in Solael after he rescued her from the lizard monsters (ch.116)

He ends up piercing his ear with the cufflink, using it as an earring instead, because he wants to wear it immediately.

So although he teased her for her gift, it means a lot to him. Callisto likes getting her attention, no matter whatever the circumstances may be.

It’s quite obvious that Callisto enjoys the way she ‘fusses’ over his well-being.

He likes seeing her worry for him, because despite being usually cold in their interactions, Penelope does care, and the way she acts whenever he’s injured is proof of it.

Callisto is this way because, as we will learn later on, he truly loves Penelope, she is everything he has. No one’s ever showed care for him like she did, nor did they make him feel like she does. He never gets angry at her for things that would usually spike his temper, but instead he finds her amusing.

Callisto has always had a plan: after ascending the throne, he was going to burn the empire to the ground and start wars upon wars until nothing remained. And yet for Penelope, he didn’t.

He loves her greatly, and even while on the brink of death, Callisto is willing to let Penelope go back to her world because that’s what she wanted. In the side stories he can be defined only as clingy, and it’s such a different look on him than what we’ve seen so far.

Callisto also mentioned how he thought that his lust and desire were killed on the battlefield by trampling around blood, but this changes when he’s with Penelope.

She is the only thing on his mind, yet Callisto doesn’t seem to mind, it’s the opposite actually.

#I’m so mentally ill about them #they’re my roman empire #Callisto Regulus loves Penelope Eckhart #penelope eckart x callisto regulus #callisto regulus #penelope eckhart #penelope eckart #villains are destined to die #vadd #death is the only ending for a villainess #death is the only ending for the villainess #el’s thoughts #el’s rants #chapter analysis

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killuintense · 8 months

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I want to have this man moving and thrusting inside me all night the need is INSANE BUT JUST LOOK HIS FUCKING HAIR I WANNA FUCK HIM

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frogcabbage · 8 months

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#when he started singing...brb crying #slayed so hard like no one ever has #the makeup the rose #him taking wee johns hand URGH #my roman empire hehe #con o'neill #izzy hands #kristian nairn #wee john feeney #ofmd s2 #ofmd season 2 #ofmd spoilers #ofmd 2 #ofmd #our flag means death

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xolasdoesntknow · 8 months

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Sad maimed baby man 🖤

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izzymarksthespot · 23 days

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Not thinking about Stede towering over Izzy as he backs him into a wall, not thinking about Stede having to lean down to kiss him, not thinking about Stede picking him up so they're level, not thinking PERIOD I AM DECEASED

#*screeching noises*#my roman empire #😭😭😭#stizzy #gentlehands #izzy hands #stede bonnet #ofmd #our flag means death

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gentleman-detective · 8 months

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our new unicorn

#ofmd #izzy hands #worst photoshop ever #izzy #Israel hands #our flag means death #season 2 #spoilers #ofmd spoilers #lil Wayne hooves are my Roman Empire

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harrenhalyuri · 3 months

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AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?

the godfather part II (1974) / house of the dragon (2022) / the godfather part I (1972) / fire & blood: 300 years before a game of thrones (2018) / the godfather part III (1990) / the rise of the dragon: an illustrated history of the targaryen dynasty (2022) / a song of ice and fire calendar (2021) / the godfather part II (1974)

#aemond targaryen #aegon ii targaryen #aegon the elder #aemond one eye #house of the dragon #hotdedit #webweaving #web weaving #team green #targaryensource #hotd #ewan mitchell #tom glynn carney #the godfather #this is my roman empire btw #love their dynamic. hope they beat each other to death with hammers next season #one art tag to rule them all

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temporal-discounting · 24 days

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Never in our wildest dreams (and I should know, I read a lot of post-S1 fic) did we imagine that Ed's kraken era would involve crashing weddings and stealing the fucking cake toppers