> How, one should rightly ask, could a khrafstar like the snake possibly be associated with good fortune?
For a while a running joke in Persian Wikipedia community was to call software "bugs", _khrafstar_s.
sfRattan•Aug 10, 2026
The use of "bug" for engineering defect (a use that predates software by around a century) shares Middle English etymology with bugbear and bugaboo, both of which relate to evil spirits/creatures and annoyances. Khrafstar is not unreasonable as a translation.
Razengan•Aug 10, 2026
I wish there were more games based on Persian lore.
Like how Al-Qadim was an Arabian-themed setting for D&D.
pazimzadeh•Aug 10, 2026
Or just more movies about the Persians, where they’re not evil etc..
brunorsini•Aug 10, 2026
Go straight to the source, Iranian cinema is awesome and widely available.
An easy starter is last year's "It Was Just an Accident", which was nominated for a couple of Oscars. It goes from being hilarious to offering a deep reflection on vengeance vs reparation.
Kiarostami and Farhadi are also two great directors to explore.
aa-jv•Aug 10, 2026
This is excellent advice - do you have any more recommendations? I'd really love to dig deeper into this branch of cinema, it seems an opportunity for quite some cultural enlightenment.
3 Comments
For a while a running joke in Persian Wikipedia community was to call software "bugs", _khrafstar_s.
Like how Al-Qadim was an Arabian-themed setting for D&D.
An easy starter is last year's "It Was Just an Accident", which was nominated for a couple of Oscars. It goes from being hilarious to offering a deep reflection on vengeance vs reparation.
Kiarostami and Farhadi are also two great directors to explore.
Also "A girl walks home alone at night" - (Farsi language but produced in the US) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Girl_Walks_Home_Alone_at_Nig...
Just wish they'd make the metadata crowd-sourced, maybe a tie-up with Wikidata.