#especially because in upper class society you cannot be a human being

[cynocardia]

morgan was definitely the kind of kid who would have bragged about how all his teachers think he's a prodigy but he like, grew up

he will correct you on stuff, like if you say a simile is a metaphor, but that's not arrogance that's just autism. he doesn't feel like it's impolite. likewise, sasha can't stand people calling their crutch a cane, because it's not. but because they're such a people pleaser they'll also call it a cane sometimes

#morgan is not a people pleaser like he wants people to like him but he wants people to like what he projects and not him as an actual #person he wants to be liked as a concept #sasha wants to be SEEN as a concept but secretly wishes people saw them as a person #they don't feel like they can be a person #i have other characters but you wouldn't know it #well actually marie also has this kind of problem #she wants to be seen as like a silver screen princess who is perfect and immaculate and not a messy human being #especially because in upper class society you cannot be a human being #you *have* to be perfect and immaculate #but for her it's like #tied to her image as like... she *is* the company #sid also has identity issues she sees herself as a stray who comes and goes and doesn't really have much like substance to her #she's the guardian of her neighborhood and a vigilante and she's being hunted for sport #also you know morgan and sasha and sid aren't human so they all have issues related to that #morgan can't just like *be* in a grocery store he stalks around at night and so does sid #i'm going to shut up now oh my god. #sid and morgan have a lot of parellels i didn't intend and i think sid would maul morgan #because she would see him as a failure and he wouldn't take too kindly to that either #sasha and marie also were raised similarly but grew in different directions primarily because marie was a gifted kid and sasha is disabled #physically developmentally and cognitively so they never could meet the standards of elegance and education and manners like was expected #of both them and marie but perfected by her

[ahamkara-apologist]

Not to be insane in your inbox but I simply MUST hear more of your Uluran specbio headcanons. They keep me sane.

Okay yeah I'm just gonna post this now- been fiddling with it for several weeks and keep getting distracted by cool reproductive biology facts (like the complexities of rhino cervixes and why it makes conservation efforts via artificial insemimation so difficult) so here ya go. Most of this is reproductive biology bc I'm studying to be an evolutionary geneticist for conservation purposes, so be aware of that- all that good stuff is under a readmore

*Note: I started using the terms ‘bulls’ for male Uluru and ‘sows’ for female Uluru midway through this bc I got tired of writing ‘male/female’ over and over again, as this doc also contains Eliksni and Hive biology musings. It helps distinguish the Uluran section from the others a bit. I also use Uluru/Uluran interchangeably, with ‘Uluru’ being the notation for individuals and ‘Uluran’ being the notation for a group/the species as a whole.

General:

-The exposed upper gumline we see in almost all Uluru faces isn't how their lips normally rest; baring the teeth and upper gum is an expression of superiority/confidence in their strength. The reason we almost always see their faces in this position is because the Uluran almost universally view humans as weaker, and even those like Caiatl (who has seen otherwise) does it on instinct because they cannot fathom how much smaller we are

-Which, to be fair, doesn't say a lot; an Uluru with a relaxed mouth typically only occurs in private, when around their mate or equals. When an expression can mean both 'I am greater than you' as well as 'I am confident in myself and my abilities', and the whole society they live in is based around being the best of your class, then it's going to be a very common facial expression

-(On a side note: their growth hormones being triggered by a sense of pride isn't actually all that outlandish. House Sparrows exhibit a similar occurrance in real life, where winning dominance battles against other males increases the size of their bib, a black patch on their chest that indicates where they are placed in their social hierarchy. The more fights they win, the bigger their bib)

-Uluran fat distribution is mostly internal, and is focused around the organs to act as shock barriers when fighting; their muscles typically layer over the fat bands. The one exception to this is around the throat/jowl area, where fat layers over the thick muscle pads to help protect the vulnerable area from being gored by tusks during fighting

-Unlike in human society, hitting on a married individual is not socially unacceptable, especially if the individual doing the flirting believes that the pairing is an unfit match for one another and they can do better. It's considered romantic and marriage-affirming for the partner who's being shamed in this situation to chase the other suitor off. This weighed especially heavily on the sows bc of the vulnerable mate-guarding lactation period post-pregnancy

-(However it should be noted that Uluran gender roles are less restrictive in some ways than humans bc they’re based more on the strength of the individual than their ability to perform preset social rules, and that in modern times this is more for show)

-Historically, reverse-harem groups were a common sign of status, with one particularly fit sow mating with three or four bulls and/or having ‘lesser’ males that she did not mate with (or stole from other sows) nursing her calves. In some extremely traditionalist groups/among gladiators, this still occurs, but most mating groups max out at three individuals because the posturing required to keep people interested is just…a lot. Its a lot of mutual impressing to do

Reproductive biology:

-Much like hyenas, sows have a pseudopenis that is a result of increased androgens, and big pseudopenises on sows are seen as a mark of great status/strength. Tusk size/growth rates is also sometimes correlated with pseudopenis size, since the amount of androgens in the blood stream are correlated with both tusk growth rates and penis size

-Unlike hyena pseudopenises, however, the urinary tract does run through the shaft of the clitorus, while the birth canal essentially opens halfway down the shaft, creating a pouchlike vaginal opening. Arousal is required for this pouch to unfold; if not, penetration cannot occur, and in an unaroused state, it collapses in on itself into the base of the shaft, which then folds into the sheath for total protection. This evolved to keep the genital area clean, but has been co-opted to prevent mating until the female is ready, much like hyenas

-Yes, in less civilized times the pseudopenis was also used for dominance displays. During the breeding season, sows would evert their hemipenes in a half-erect state to essentially show off their fitness, which would greatly influence male mate choice. Tusk size = general status, penis size = reproductive status

-Bulls only receive a spike in androgens after the sows actively courting them go into an estrus cycle, which triggers increased sperm production and makes their testicles swell in size to what would be normal on a mammal (inspired by how bird testicles increase in size during mating season) and skyrockets their seminal viability 200% above average, specifically for the purpose of fertilizing a female in estrus. After fertilization occurs, they have to be around a pregnant sow for an extended period of time to a.) drop them back to a normal, non-breeding state and b.) induce lactation for the arriving calves, which is typically when mate guarding begins to occur in earnest. Both hormone cycle mechanisms are pheromonally regulated, but may have a 'ghost cycle' occurrence where the hormone fluxes occur on a very minor level

-As a consequence: very humanly 'masculine' bulls are typically less traditionally attractive compared to bulls with what we might consider more 'feminine' traits. Bulls with too much testosterone will have tusks on par with sows, larger penises, and testes that are noticeably descended from the abdominal cavity. While they are typically more capable of fertilizing sows, they are incapable of producing milk or are subpar at it, which means they cannot gestate the resulting calves effectively, so that increased fertility is essentially useless

-(However, it is important to note again that Uluran gender roles do not correlate to human ones, and high-testosterone bulls will still be considered very valuable fighters, warriors, and champions. They're just not considered suitable mate material, and are laughed or scoffed at if they ever want to have a family of their own. Ghaul was an example of a high-testosterone bull)

-[OOPS I ACCIDENTALLY WROTE THIS TWICE BUT DONT WANNA DELETE IT] Fertilization is internal and requires cooperation of both parties to occur. The female vaginal opening itself is composed of erectile tissue, and directly connected to the base of the pseudopenis; when aroused, it everts from the body cavity in an unfurling motion (as the outer labia are composed of thick skin that tuck inwards for protection) and sticks out a bit for ease of penetration.

-The male penis does much the same, but is long, thin, and semiprehensile, allowing it to easily curve under the curve of the abdomen and slip into the vagina via touch alone. The head flares after ejaculation to scrape out the sperm of opposing males, but isn’t terribly effective at it, as it is composed of soft, spongy tissue to be able to exit the tighter vaginal opening. Because bulls typically pick only one sow to mate with, the effect is not terribly drastic compared to, say, the Eliksni (who are much more promiscuous)

-Vanilla sex is typically done standing, with abdomens pressed together and reciprocal stimulation occurring in a slow rocking motion until orgasm is obtained. Casually reclining is another option, but the evolutionary default was to mate while standing bc it allowed for quicker reaction timing if a threat approached

-Uluran have 5 nipples, placed under the main abdominal fat pad and covered with their pouch, which is a flap of tough hide with very elastic skin around its edges that can be torn away if a certain pattern of muscle contractions occur (much like lizard caudal autonomy). Both bulls and sows have a pouch that can be opened, but it is vastly reduced to a mere fold of skin on sows. The pouch typically only opens when stimulated by the birth of calves (triggered by the scent of newborn calves), or when stimulated from within. The skin that seals it shut has no pain receptors, and calf ejection has to be voluntarily triggered in order to occur- the default pathway is 'closed'.

-Births are a private affair, limited only to one's mate; a midwife and their apprentice may come stay on the property, but typically only come in if something is wrong. Even though Uluran calves are born underdeveloped, much like marsupials, they also suffer from the same evolutionary blows dealt to humans in that an upright stance and larger brains made birth more difficult. Pair that with the fact that they're coming out of a narrow birth canal, and yeah, first-time births are often quite painful; Uluran culture typically see birth as a battle, and first births (where tearing of the vaginal canal almost always occurs in some capacity) as a blood rite.

-If possible, the calves are born onto the bulls's abdomen as he guards/monitors his mate, which is all the help that they are traditionally allowed to get as they crawl into his pouch and latch onto a tear to complete development. Any that fail to reach the pouch are left to die

-Up to five calves can be born at a time, but 2 is typically much more common. Of a five-calf litter, only four will ever be healthy; the fifth will always be a runt, and almost never survive. Six is practically unheard of, and always leads to the litter dying because all of the other calves are too underdeveloped to have been carried to term

-Calves are roughly palm-sized when born, and are a stoutly compact, rectangular pink blob of flesh. They're essentially fetus potatos, with the only developed part of them being their crawling limbs. Their skin is transparent, thin, and heavily vascularized, especially along their bellies, as the interior of a bull's pouch is also highly vascularized, and oxygen exchange occurs through cross-current exchange across the skin. Once they find and latch to a nipple, the babies will essentially fuse belly-first to their father's pouch + teat, and will stick there until they're developed enough to leave the pouch and start breathing on their own (the thick hide on their bellies is the last thing to develop before leaving the pouch). This also means that calf ejection is almost always fatal, as it involves the tearing of that oxygen-exchange patch

-Uluru milk consists almost entirely of protein, with the remaining content being mostly fats. There's very little sugar in it, and just enough water to give it the consistancy of something slightly thinner than heavy cream. It's basically an antibody-packed protein shake, and allows the calves to grow at tremendous speeds once born. They're capable of tripling their weight in the first week alone

-(Coincidentally, how fat a baby is when they leave the pouch is deemed a way to tell how fit the male is to be a father. The fatter the baby is, the sexier the male, as that means he's fit enough to be producing very high-quality milk at very little cost to himself)

-(Yes this means that Calus was peak dilf material in Uluran terms. Deal with it)

#destiny 2 #speculative biology #alien biology #uluran #uluru #cabal #anon #reply #destiny 2 headcanons #long post #ill draw pentis and vagoo diagram later. for now. potato babies and evolution hcs #(btw i had to stop myself before I made them triploblastic like i nearly did for eliksni dhfhdj)

[recurring-polynya]

POLYNYA please tell me about the sea/your Soul Society sea(s)!!!!! (I also wanna talk about the sizes of things but I will save that for later, haha.)

My entire writing/worldbuilding self is just an agglomerate of about 10 different books/comics I read when I was 19, and one of those is Books of Magic. The major thing I took away from Books of Magic, a thing I think about every single time I read or watch something with a magic system, is the idea that humans have their own magic which is fundamentally different and in some ways more powerful than the magic of magical beings, and that they aren’t bound to a lot of rules and restrictions that magical beings are. A lot of media that features other worlds tends to split into the human world (which has no magic) and the magic world (which has magic). Sometimes the human world has technology and the magic world doesn't, I don't care, that is boring to me and I reject the idea that magic is technology you don’t understand. The thing about Books of Magic, which featured a lot of traffic between the human and the faerie realm, was that humans can do magic that faeries can't. Faerie magic is all illusion and glamour. It cannot affect real change. It is much harder for humans to do real magic, but their magic can actually transform things.

This is foundationally the way I approach worldbuilding in Soul Society. It seems like Soul Society is more powerful and magical than the World of the Living, but that’s only true for a limited set of circumstances, and much of Bleach takes place within those circumstances. Taken in a broader sense, though, Soul Society is not a complete world, it is a projected world, constructed of memories and ideas. Hueco Mundo is the same, but it's even less complete. My husband always gets really irritated by physically impossible moons, like this one:

but I actually think that's appropriate, because it's not the moon, it's the concept of the moon and this is a very romanticized concept of the moon. You cannot build a rocket in Soul Society or Hueco Mundo and get to the moon. The earth is not round in Soul Society. Its borders are limited.

What is Soul Society even for, anyway? I have been watching Hotel del Luna, a kdrama about a hotel where ghosts can stay for a little while and rest and work out some of their issues before they go to the afterlife. I feel like Soul Society is the next step after this. It is too big a shock to go from being a human to becoming a few motes of reishi, so you get another stage of retaining your human form and living a half-life where you don't need to eat or drink and your family has the idea of being a family without all the actual past-to-future connective tissue of a family. It's my impression that when you die in Soul Society, you don't get reincarnated as yourself. You become reishi, and that reishi gets mixed up with everyone else’s and new souls are created when new human children are born. Soul Society is also a sorting mechanism for separating out powerful sources of spiritual energy (that is, shinigami) and putting them to work as balancers, while letting the less volatile soulstuff flow through the reincarnation cycle without cavitating the impellers, so to speak.

That being said, seas are important. I have lived my entire life on the east coast of North America, never more than a few hours from the Atlantic Ocean. I think about moving inland sometimes and I think I would die. My husband grew up in the mountains and he feels a similar connection to the mountains, you can feel him becoming more powerful every time we drive north. I think it is necessary that Soul Society contain the geographic features that anchor people to the physical world, because ghosts need these things to feel as though they are still people and not vague amorphous spirits.

You need a sea. Also, as noted in the post that inspired this one, people in Soul Society eat a lot of fish and it’s gotta come from somewhere. So I think there is at least one sea in Soul Society (I like to put it in East Rukongai), but this is a sea built on human memories, it is not a sea based on the power of the sea, because that is not a thing that can exist in Soul Society. You can fish in the sea and you can swim in the sea, and an ocean god visiting from another realm might be able to pull a little power from this sea, but it is not a true sea. You need a different magical realm for that, a Sea Society, if you will. The Living World, in contrast, is a true world with true oceans, which draw their power from the Sea Society, just as there is death in the Living World because of its connections to Soul Society and other assorted afterlives. (it has been 2 sentences and I am already sorry I called it Sea Society).

Earlier, I mentioned that the borders of Soul Society are limited, and I think that it is surrounded by impassable no-man’s-lands on all sides that, if you could cross them, would lead you into a different dimension. This is not my original idea, it’s something I have picked up from numerous fanfics, but I think it’s a good one and I am adopting it. I think that, as a border between Soul Society and something else, each of these borderlands represents different kinds of death. I think I’ve figured they are a jungle, a desert, a mountain and, of course, an ocean. 

The power of the ocean encompasses both life and death, but this ocean or at least this part of this ocean is only death. It is cold and it is dark and it is full of things with horrible teeth. If you sail a boat into it, you will not come back. I do not think that dimensional borders are, well, two-dimensional, so to speak-- if you could somehow cross this ocean, you might end up in Sea Society, or you might end up in some other death realm, because a lot of afterlives are connected and you get to a lot of them via waterways. The Slavic afterlife, Nav, for example, is ringed with a river, and you cross the Styx to get to Hades. Come to think of it, both of these are sometimes portrayed as being full of unhappy spirits, so maybe the death ocean is an afterlife in and of itself.

This is a little off the topic of oceans, but it is on the topic of natural resources. For all we know, everything that everyone eats in the Seireitei is grown in reishi vats, like the chickienobs in Oryx and Crake. That actually makes more sense, honestly, than fishing and farming, but I have always assumed that many of the upper districts of Rukongai do, in fact, have Nice Things, which turns into jobs and commerce and an improved class of life. The quality and quantity of these resources thins out severely as you go outward. Why don't people in Inuzuri grow their own food, I asked myself? Well: poor soil. Unpredictable, violent weather, so if you can get anything to come up, it either bakes or drowns. A general miasma of low-grade toxins in the air that tend to stunt growth or prevent things from breeding true. Obviously, I think about South Rukongai more than I think of other directions, but I think it’s easy to imagine this process also working as you approached cold rocky mountains with cutting winds and rockslides, or dry, dusty desert where it never rains.

The canon concept of Soul Society is that everything in Rukongai sucks and everything in the Seireitei rules, but this honestly vexes me constantly. It must be ungodly expensive to own and maintain property in the Seireitei, which is why most of the shinigami seem to lead solidly middle class lifestyles and take advantage of on-base living arrangements even though they are allegedly the best of the best. If you're a noble, and especially not Great Family noble, I think it may make sense to maintain a large estate in a pretty part of Rukongai as opposed to a townhouse in the city-- I've mentioned the Kira family estate before, in North Rukongai, which, in my mind, is sort of overgrown and run-down, very Wuthering Heights. Alternatively, if you are super-rich, maybe you have a second property out somewhere nice, hence the Lake District. Did I just make these places up because I want to set a fanfic there someday? Probably yes. 

When I was writing Between Tides, the most basic, raw part of that story was just "Rukia and Renji get sent on a lonely mission near the sea" that was the thing I wanted to write. Back when it lived in my head, it originally took place in Soul Society, but I wanted it to have a melancholy, tourist-town-in-the-off-season vibe, and that didn’t feel like a place that would exist in Soul Society, so I moved it to the World of the Living. I guess I feel like if there’s beach tourism at the Soul Society Sea (I should name it but then I would be forced to write a story about it), it would be sort of Old Timey, and I’d don’t know much about what an Old Timey Trip to the Beach would look like in Japan, if that’s even a thing.

Anyway, sorry this was so rambling, this concludes my thoughts about THE SEA in Soul Society. I am happy to hear everyone else’s headcanons, please and thank you.

#THE SEA #soul society #bleach worldbuilding #everytime i write something like this i feel like you all must think i am a person who owns a lot of crystals #i am actually very practical #also i know just enough about how geography works to know that i am shit at worldbuilding #that if i tried to construct an Actual Map some d&d-loving dudebro would slide into my mentions #and criticize my river placement #and i would turn into dust and blow away #the idea of soul society being built on a shared concept of the shape of the world and not Physics is actually very comforting to me

[gimmeromance]

GimmeRomance Glossary:

We’ve put this glossary together to give you all definitions for some of the words you’ll see both on this blog and in Romance in general. If you have any questions or think we’re missing a word, please send us an ask!

This glossary is organized alphabetically.

A/B/O: Short for Alpha/Beta/Omega, this is... complicated, but we recommend you take a look here if you don't already know what A/B/O is.  * Please don’t use the term A/B/O without the slashes -- Abo is considered a derogatory term for Aboriginal, and we honor the wishes of the Australian Aboriginal peoples who prefer that the term A/B/O not be used without the defining slashes.

Alien Romance: Usually, one MC is human, other(s) are from another planet. May include non-human genitalia and sexual acts.

Alpha: May refer to Alpha from A/B/O 'verse or Alpha of a werewolf/shifter pack. Generally sexually dominant. May also be shorthand for Alpha Hero.

Alpha Hero: One MC (usually the MMC) has a dominant personality.

Ancient World Romance: A Romance which takes place in an ancient civilization: eg. Ancient Rome, Greece or Egypt.

BBW: Big Beautiful Woman. A fat heroine.

Bestiality: Technically illegal on Amazon, but dinosaur erotica somehow still exists. Please don't make us go looking for titles to suggest to you -- though you might see the occasional Tingler on our lists!

Beta: Someone in an A/B/O 'verse or someone in a werewolf/shifter pack who's not the leader, but also not the lowest position in the pack. May also be shorthand for Beta Hero.

Beta Hero: A Beta Hero is the opposite of an Alpha Hero -- generally a man who is not dominant but softer and kinder.

The Black Moment: The moment (often around the 60% mark) where all hope of a happy ending seems lost. Often includes a temporary breakup.

Black Romance: Both (all, if it's polyamorous) main characters are Black.

BMWW: Black Man/White Woman. A specific sub-genre within Interracial Romance.

Bully Romance: One of the MCs bullies another one, usually before the romance begins.

BWWM: Black Woman/White Man. A specific sub-genre within Interracial Romance.

Chick Lit: A subgenre of Women’s Fiction which focuses on the trials and tribulations of a young woman and often includes a romance. Differs from Romance in that the romance is not necessarily the main focus of the story. Differs from Women’s Fiction in that the protagonists are usually younger and there’s often more romance. It's a fine line and some books are hard to precisely categorize, or may be considered to fit into multiple categories.

Clean Romance: We prefer not to use this term, but it can mean either Closed Door or No Sex.

Cliffhanger: A Romance which ends on a dramatic, unresolved issue. Common in contemporary romance trilogies where all books follow the same couple; rarely seen in historicals.

Closed Door: Sex occurs in the course of the story, but is not described.

Contemporary Romance: A Romance that takes place in the modern day.

Courtesan: A historical sex worker, usually on the expensive end of the scale.

Dark Romance: At least one MC who is not a good person. The romance can include such things as kidnapping, stalking, sexual assault, imprisonment, gaslighting, domestic abuse, and a whole slew of other things that are generally frowned upon in western society and might be considered illegal in some places. In the fandom world, stories featuring these themes might have the tags non-con/dub con, dead dove do not eat, and dark themes.

Dystopian Romance: Romance which takes place in a failed-state society where the government or the powers that be are often a totalitarian state and often end up being the antagonists of the series or story. Many of these take place in a futuristic post-apocalyptic world, but not all.

Equal Triad: A polyamorous triad where all parties have sex with each other.

Erotica: Sex is the point of the story and often is the plot. Happy endings aren't necessary in this genre, but they do often happen. Not quite a part of Romance but very closely related.

Fade to Black: A method in which sex is often handled in Closed Door stories.

Family Series: A Romance series which follows a family, each book focusing on a different member of the same family finding their love interest. (Like Bridgerton!)

Fantasy Romance: Takes place in another world (not to be confused with Sci-Fi Romance which takes place ON another world). There might be magic, dragons, or other mythical beasts.

F/F: Female/Female

FMF: Female/Male/Female. A polyamorous triad where the two women have sex with the man but not each other.

Gilded Age Romance: American Historical Romance, from about 1870-1900, usually among the wealthy upper classes (e.g. the Astor 400).

The Grovel: The moment where (usually) the MMC is brought to his knees by love and has to apologize to the MFC for all his stuff-ups. We love a good grovel here at GimmeRomance!

Harem Romance: One man/many women. Generally the women do not have sexual contact with each other, only with the man. Some exceptions. * In Manga, Harem Romance involves one man flirting with multiple women but ending up with only one. In Romance, Harem Romance involves one man ending up with multiple women.

HEA: Happily Ever After. A story cannot be a romance without either an HEA or HFN.

Hero: The male love interest of a Romance. Sometimes abbreviated as a capital H.

Heroine: The female love interest of a Romance. Sometimes abbreviated as a lowercase h.

HFN: Happy For Now -- not quite Happily Ever After, but the characters are together and doing OK at the end of the story.

Highlander Romance: Historical sub-genre, takes place in the Scottish Highlands. Can cover an enormous range of dates from ancient world up to early 20th century. The men usually wear kilts.

Historical Romance: A Romance that takes place at least twenty years ago.

Inspirational Romance: Usually explicitly Christian, a Romance that includes religion and/or faith playing a major role. Usually does not include sex, swearing, or a lot of violence.

Interracial Romance: The main characters are of different racial backgrounds to each other. Some people only count Black/white Romances as interracial; we count two people of any races.

Love Triangle: One of the MCs eventually has to choose between two potential love interests.

Mafia/Bratva/Yakuza Romance: The MMC (usually) is a member of an organized crime gang. These often fall into Dark Romance, but not always.

MC: Main Character

MC Romance: Not to be confused with the MC -- this is Motorcycle Club Romance. One protagonist is a member of a Motorcycle Club.

Medieval Romance: Takes place between 500 and 1500 CE.

Meet-Cute: Something cutesy which happens to bring the protagonists together for their first meeting.

MFC: Main Female Character. May sometimes be styled FMC. See also Heroine.

MFF: Male/Female/Female. A polyamorous triad where the two women have sex with each other as well as the man.

MFM: Male/Female/Male. A polyamorous triad where the two men have sex with the woman but not each other.

M/M: Male/Male

MMC: Main Male Character. See also Hero.

MMF: Male/Male/Female. A polyamorous triad where the two men have sex with each other as well as the woman.

New Adult Romance: One or more MCs is 'college age', generally 18-25.

No Sex: There is no sex in the book.

Omega: Usually only used in either A/B/O or werewolf/shifter. Generally either the sexual submissive or the lowest-ranked in the pack.

Open Door: Sex occurs on the page.

Paranormal Romance: A Romance that includes a supernatural element.

Pioneer Romance: 1760-1880, mostly American, sometimes Australian. The Romance version of the Old West.

Plus-Sized Romance: A Romance that includes at least one character (most often the woman) being plus-sized.

Polyamorous Romance: 3 or more persons find their HEA/HFN in a Romance. May include any combination of genders. * If you want to shorten Polyamorous, use Polyam rather than Poly -- Poly is a shorthand for Polynesian, and we honor the wishes of the Polynesian community who have asked that the Polyamorous community use Polyam instead.

Post-Apocalyptic Romance: Romance which takes place after a cataclysmic event that decimates human population and destroys our society as we know it.

Protagonist: A gender-neutral term for a main character.

Pseudo-Incest: Actual incest romance is banned on Amazon. Pseudo means step-siblings, a step-parent or grandparent, uncle/niece (no blood relation), etc.

Rake: A historical fuckboi.

Redemption Arc: The journey of one character who has behaved badly, to understanding what they did was wrong and making amends.

Regency Romance: Romance centered around the period when the future George IV was acting as regent for his father, George III. Technically the Regency was 1810-1820, but the genre includes 1795-1837.

Reverse Harem Romance: One woman/many men. Generally the men do not have sexual contact with each other, only with the woman. Some exceptions. * In Manga, Reverse Harem Romance involves one woman flirting with multiple men but ending up with only one. In Romance, Reverse Harem Romance involves one woman ending up with multiple men.

Rogue: A rogue is a character who misbehaves in some way. This includes characters who drink, gamble, and sleep around -- but also includes pirates and gentleman thieves. Not all rogues are rakes, but all rakes are rogues.

Romance: Stories where the romantic relationship is central and integral to the plot which end in an HEA or HFN. If a book does not end with the couple (or moresome) in a happy relationship, it is not a Romance.

Romantic Comedy: A Romance which makes you laugh. The best ones are especially failboaty. Often features sitcom or slapstick antics but many just feature funny banter. A lot of contemporary Women's Fiction gets classified as Romantic Comedy and at least one of our mods gets very mad about that because having a cute illustrated cover and/or having a cat/dog in it doesn't make it funny

Romantic Suspense: The MCs must face and overcome a serious external threat to life and limb while finding their way to a HEA/HFN. Often overlaps somewhat with Mystery and/or Thriller.

Royal Romance: At least one MC is a member of a (usually fictional) royal family.

Rural Romance: The Australian version of Western Romance. The front cover almost invariably features a woman wearing an Akubra hat.

Science Fiction/Sci-Fi Romance: On another world or in space. MCs are usually human, but this sometimes crosses over with Alien Romance.

Shared World Series: A Romance series where each book is written by a different author, but locations and many characters are shared in common.

Shifter Romance: A Romance that includes a character or characters who can shift into animals. Includes (but is not limited to) werewolves. Sex generally occurs when the couple is in human form, but there may be knotting or other animalistic characteristics.

Small Town Romance: A Romance that takes place in a small town, usually in America but there are some Australian ones out there. Tend toward the very white. Often part of series that include lots of characters from the same town.

Soulmates: Not usually an abstract concept in the Romance world. Regularly seen in Paranormal or Fantasy Romance.

Standalone: A Romance which is not part of a series. Or it may be part of a series, but you do not need to read other books in the series to follow the plot.

Steamy Romance: We prefer not to use this term, but it means Open Door or sometimes Erotica.

Sweet Romance: We prefer not to use this term, but it can mean either Closed Door or No Sex.

Taboo Romance: Pseudo-incest, Teacher/Student, Underage. A romance which may be criminalized or considered unacceptable for other reasons in various jurisdictions.

Time Travel Romance: A Romance where at least one of the characters travels in time (usually to the past). In order to have a happy ending, may end with the present character staying in the past, the past character coming to and staying in the future, reincarnation, or some other solution.

Tudor Romance: 1485-1603, during the reign of the Tudor monarchs (Henry VII, Henry VIII and his three children, to the end of the reign of Elizabeth I). Sometimes Romances that take place during the Stuart period (particularly before the English Civil War) are grouped here.

Uneven Triad: A polyamorous triad where two of the parties do not have sex with each other, but only with the third party.

Unknown: As used by the GimmeRomance Mods, we don’t know how much sex there is in the story. This may be because we have not read the book or it may be because we have read the book but don’t remember how much sex there is.

Urban Fantasy: A subgenre of Fantasy which takes place in a world that’s often somewhat like our own and often includes a romance. Differs from Paranormal Romance in that the romance is not the main focus of the story. It's a fine line and some books are hard to precisely categorize, or may be considered to fit into both.

Victorian Romance: 1837-1901, the reign of Queen Victoria.

Western Romance: Takes place in a Western state, usually rural. There's probably a ranch and horses involved. Someone's wearing a cowboy hat.

Women’s Fiction: A genre which focuses on a woman’s life and may or may not include a romance. Differs from Romance in that the woman’s individual journey is the main focus of the story.

YA: Young Adult. Fiction written for teens with teens as the main characters. May or may not be Romance.

—

This post will be updated as needed.

Last Updated: 06/05/2021

#Mod Post #Glossary #Info Post #romance terms #romancelandia #long post #queue me up

[undefined5posts]

Credit: Jordan J. Lloyd

I've been trying to dive deeper into politics, discover the genuine roots of our society, the origins of our beliefs, and the consequences of our economic system. It's a big, long, wide journey and through multiple sources such as articles, images, videos and multiple social media platforms, I've been trying to educate myself more on important subjects.

Communism, capitalism, libertarian, conservative, the left, the right, the history, the impact. It is scary to commit to everything because once you start, you simply cannot stop, once you start waking up your conscience about the horrible reality, the lies, the truths, you cannot put it back to sleep. You can't just ignore prejudice, especially when you're extremely conscious of it's omnipresence. I have continually tried to build my own opinions all while actively creating bullet point arguments in my mind because I just know that at some point I will have to defend my thinking, and I want to do it right.

Now, I am so far from being enlightened, I am a beginner and an amateur in all of those themes, but I am trying, which is the only way to start and grow.

So to tell you about my beliefs, I am a militant human rights activist, I believe in equal opportunities regardless of gender identity, sex, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race and disability. This is a fact, not a belief, but the system was obviously not built to protect all people, its wasn't created to serve everyone equally but to grant a privilege to some and harm others. The current state of the world is not a slip, an accident or a misfunction of our brilliant system but a testament of it operating remarkably well. I believe that equity leads to equality, and I believe that we cannot "fix" methodologies that were immorally created with absolutely no honor whatsoever. I believe in reproductive rights, in legal, safe abortions for anybody who needs one. I believe in the decriminalization of marijuana. I believe that the death penalty is a despicable punition that should be banned as soon as possible. I believe in defunding the police and the military. I believe that it is a shame that I even have to talk about police brutality, I don't want to have to say that it is one of the most horrible things our world has originated, I feel extremely dense when I do because it seems like the most obvious certitude and I refuse to believe that this is a controversial statement. I believe that everything I have just stated, along with many more, isn't anything grand but the bare minimum, the bar is low, and yet, we still have the fight for basic human decency.

Humanity has become an option. We have normalized supporting people that represent everything wrong in this world under the name of tolerance. The left has never claimed to be tolerant towards hateful beings, We have never accepted homophobia, transphobia, racism, ableism and sexism. We cannot, for exemple, accept nazis, as too much tolerance inevitably leads to intolerance. This picture explains it perfectly:

I consider myself a communist/ socialist. The two terms still confuse me a little, some say they are the same, some say they differ quite a bit. What I know is that socialism is the transitional period between capitalism and communism. At the end of the day, the final result and goal is a stateless, moneyless and clasless society that will provide to each his need.

Our capitalistic society has brainwashed us way more than you may think. It is the root of so many of our issues, the underground demon of our problems. Every idea, thought, belief, and misconception of ours were all affected by our current economic system. It has sold us the billionnaire dream which is one of the most toxic things capitalism has offered. We have looked up to billionaires for way too long, why are they so idolized? Most of them come from high upper class families that can easily afford to invest in their inventions and creations. After starting up their companies and occasionnaly stealing other's people ideas to ultimately get undeserved merit, they then can start to properly exploit their hardworking employees's labour. And for unlimited hours and a minimum wage which probably won't even suffice you to survive, you will have to either pick up more shifts or a second or even third job, especially if you have a family to support. All while the CEO barely does any of the work and gets all the praise and money. So no, they don't all come from really poor families and have built everything for nothing.

The worst thing is that we've been so gaslit and brainwashed that we're proud of our own exploitation, we are wired to think that to be successful we have to suffer, work 10 jobs we all hate, constantly pick up extra hours, have 2 hours of sleep, have no free time to do anything we love, waste our entire youth, be depressed our entire adulthood, to finally have a few pennies to spend when we're eighty. We so strongly believe that this is the only right way to be successful that I don't think many of us have dared to question it's authority, and even if we do, we quickly accept that this a truth, a fact we cannot change and this is just the way things are.

We have capitalized water, food, land, forests, oceans, space, and everything in betweeen. Money is social construct and we have deliberately let it take over our lives. To think about the wasted opportunities and the misery that we have to endure so others can enjoy life truly angers me.

Also, communism is not an ideology that has every actually taken place. Despite what they say, there was never actually a communist country. However, every nation that has attempted a socialist system, for exemple Burkina Faso, has thrived. But of course, once capitalist countries noticed that, they decided to murder it's leader. So in conclusion, the only reason socialism failed is because of capitalism and it's interventions.

"As President (1983-1987), Sankara initiated economic reforms that shifted his country away from dependence on foreign aid and reduced the privileges of government officials; he cut salaries, including his own, decreed that there would be no more flying in first class or driving Mercedes as standard issue vehicles for Ministers and other government workers. He led a modest lifestyle and did not personally amass material wealth. President Sankara encouraged self-sufficiency, including the use of local resources to build clinics, schools and other needed infrastructure. [...] President Sankara promoted land reform, childhood vaccination, tree planting, communal school building, and nation-wide literacy campaigns. He was committed to gender equity and women’s rights and was the first African leader to publicly recognize the AIDS pandemic as a threat to African countries. Although Sankara became somewhat more authoritarian during his Presidency, his ideas, and the possibility that they could spread, were viewed by many as posing the greatest threat. President Sankara was assassinated during a coup led by a French-backed politician, Blaise Compaoré, in October 1987. Compaoré served as the President of Burkina Faso from October 1987 through October 2014, when he himself was overthrown."

Via:https://africandevelopmentsuccesses.wordpress.com/2015/02/28/success-story-from-burkina-faso-thomas-sankaras-legacy/

I have been reading and watching some amazing human rights activists, notably Angela Davis, Malcolm X and James Baldwin. The people that were villainized, labeled as violent and radical, when every single word that came out of their mouhs were pure facts. They are probably some of the most eloquent people I have had the pleasure of hearing. Every sentence, every argument, every single detail made so much sense and opened my mind to so many new realizations. This is the perfect exemple of how the media tarnishes the reputation of wise black women and men. I would strongly advise you to research more about them.

"Socialism & communism are demonized in the west to the point of erasing influential individuals' socialist advocacy. Heres a short list of people you may not have known were socialists/ communists:

MLK

Albert Einstein

Nelson Mandela

Frida Kahlo

Tupac Shakur

Mark Twain

Malcom X

Oscar Wilde

Bertrand Russell

Hellen Keller

Pablo Picasso

George Orwell

Shia LaBeouf

John Lennon

Woody Guthrie

Socialism & communism are not dirty words. Some of the most brilliant minds of our history were socialists and communists. Embrace it." Via @sleepisocialist on twitter

So what else can I say, capitalism has ruined our society and the way we act and think. I know a lot of people refuse to support communism because they think it's too much of a perfect ideal utopian world for it to ever actually exist. And to that I say, first of all, so you agree, it is a wonderful theory, and second of all, a world without racism, sexism, homophobia or any kind or discrimination could also be perceived as "too ideal to actually exist", but does that mean I'm giving up on talking, educating myself and others, protesting and trying to build a better future? Absolutely not. This is the objective, it would be so dumb to think that we just couldn't achieve that so let's not even try.

I want to talk more in detail about communism, theory, human rights, etc... but I don't want to make this post any longer. I will however be posting more about it soon enough.

I know this is a little different than what I usually post, but I want to speak, tell you all my own opinions, I don't want to just repost activism related stuff. I'll continue to do that, but not exclusively. I know it won't get as many interactions as my other posts, but this is what I needed at some point in my life, and if I could make understanding some basic informations easier to some people, it'll already be a great accomplishment.

Thank you for reading.

#malcolm x #angela davis #martin luther jr #martin luther king #james baldwin #internalized racism #racism #discrimination #black lives matter #blm protests #fuck the police #defund the police #defund the military #activism #activist #abortion is a human right #human rights #oppression #prejudice #communism #lgbtq community #lgbt rights #karl marx #communist #socialism #socialist #politics #change the system #fuck the system #operating system

[sadviper]

Woo Do-Hwan: Interview with Hanryu Pia - May 2019

@staidwaters​ - Once again, thank you so much for patiently cleaning up and correcting my translation!! ;__; You’re like a superhero swooping down from on high to make my noob efforts look good!

@ibelongtomousse​ - Thank you for listening to me cry whenever I encounter another translator’s dilemma! It’s old news to you but it still feels new to me every time I run into the same problem!

Fans have been eagerly waiting for Woo Do-hwan to star in a full-scale romance, and now he’s taken the challenge with the drama “The Great Seducer”. He burst into the limelight from his role as a brave high school student in the drama “Save Me”, then transformed into a young man who strove to expose insurance swindlers in “Mad Dog”. In a complete change of image, he now enthusiastically takes on the fascinating role of a playboy.

A transformation into a narcissistic playboy:

The romantic drama “The Great Seducer” portrayed a dangerous game of passion amongst youths living in high society.

This dramatic work remade the narrative motifs of the classic French novel “Dangerous Liaisons”, which has been adapted for live action and theatre countless times around the world.

WDH: When I read the script, I didn’t know that this was a drama based off of an existing work. I watched the film “Untold Scandal”, starring Bae Yong-joon, and I also saw the Korean-Chinese film collaboration “Dangerous Liaisons”, but I feel that my acting is never constrained by the original performances. “Save Me” was also a drama that was based on a webcomic, but in the beginning, I didn’t know that there was an original work in existence.

Woo Do-hwan portrayed the character of Kwon Shi-hyun, the son of the chairman of a financial conglomerate. He’s a true playboy who takes down women with a single look, boasting, “There isn’t a single woman who hates me”.

WDH: The title “The Great Seducer” grabbed me right away. It’s pretty overblown wording, but I’d never seen a title with that much self-confidence before! The role of Shi-hyun fits the title completely. I was fascinated by his abundant self-confidence, unreserved manner of speaking and overwhelmingly self-absorbed dialogue.

The dramas "Save Me" and "Mad Dog" showcased Woo Do-hwan's bromances with Taecyeon (2PM) and Yu Ji-tae. But in this work, while taking advantage of his cool and shadowy charm, he crossed into a new frontier, becoming an indiscriminate and experienced womanizer. Born in the upper class and raised without knowing love, Shi-hyun starts a game of passion to woo and dump the honor student, Tae-hee (Red Velvet/Joy), only to genuinely fall for her without realizing it.

WDH: This is my first traditional romance. It was one of the genres that I’ve been wanting to challenge myself with, and no one has seen me in a romance like this work before, so I was really looking forward to it. I learned a lot through trial and error. Shi-hyun grows up due to the  pain he feels during a game of passion. I did a lot of research into expressions of love, and what the kind of men who would cruelly and casually play games with women’s hearts are like. What kind of voice should I speak with, what kind of eyes should I have in order to lead women astray? (laugh) Be that as it may, the character is described as a twenty-year-old, so I had to take that aspect into consideration too.

Over and over, the audience was charmed by Woo Do-Hwan’s sexy, mysterious gaze, deep voice, and sweet, direct lines. Nicknames such as “Killer Kwon” and “First Kiss Expert” have spawned from his role’s lethal charm. When we asked him about these reactions, he became embarrassed, exclaiming “Uwaa” and laughing.

WDH: I’m so thankful to be granted those kinds of nicknames. “First Kiss Expert” is really embarrassing though! I think that I only appear that way because of how skillfully Soo-young (Joy’s real name) performed with me, and how the director and everyone on staff did us the favor of filming us beautifully.

A handsome high school student in a school uniform blazer:

Just like in “Save Me” where he played a high school student, this work also showcases a school uniform look. Woo Do-Hwan is very attractive in a rumpled blazer.

WDH: I want to wear school uniforms a lot while I still can (laugh). If there is a chance to do this type of drama again, I will always want to do it. Every time I wear a school uniform, I feel young and fresh. I remember the good old days. School uniforms are great.

During high school, Shi-hyun formed a terrible trio of troublemakers with his diva-like best friends, Se-joo (Kim Min-jae) and Soo-ji (Moon Ga-young). He did well in acting out the sentiment of a precocious high school student.

WDH: The three people in the drama are depicted as being wise-guys. They feel that they are the only ones in this world, so they pull a lot of pranks. I think that I lived a very ordinary life during my time in high school. I loved soccer; and I went to cram school after school. I was definitely a very average Korean high school student.

It seems at his present age of twenty-four, Woo Do-Hwan’s personality is very different from Shi-hyun’s.

WDH: I feel that I still have an overly cautious side. It’s not that I don’t want to think about things, but I should be more carefree. I often feel that there are many instances where I overthink and I cannot take action.  I’m one of those people who always worries whether I’ll regret it whenever I start something new. 

Shi-hyun carries out multiple seduction strategies in order to capture Tae-hee’s heart; however, Woo Do-Hwan especially likes the scene where he visits a nursing home.

WDH: I think that was a very fun scene. Shi-hyun met Tae-hee and accompanied her to the nursing home, but once there, he ended up doing things like cleaning the floor. Meeting all the grandmothers, and the other unexpected happenings that broke out were all very interesting.

From a dangerous love entrapment game to true love:

Shi-hyun falls into the love trap that he set up, and in the end, awakens to true love. Do you think it is possible for a love that started from a game to become the real thing?

WDH: I think it’s quite possible! That’s because we humans never know what will happen. I think that Shi-hyun is truly blessed to have Tae-hee as a friend. Here is a woman who is willing to accept and love an immature partner who tricked her and hurt her. I, Woo Do-Hwan, have never met anyone like that.

Well then, who is closer to your ideal type of woman: Tae-hee or Soo-ji?

WDH: In life it’s amazing to have a female friend like Soo-ji who you can talk to about anything, and to have a woman who is able to love like Tae-hee. The two have opposite personalities, so I think a girl who combined both their best points would be best. That’s incredibly greedy of me, but that would be ideal! (laugh)

Irreplaceable bonds formed in the time that these three actors from the same generation appeared together. It was Woo Do-hwan’s first experience co-starring with actors who were younger than himself.

WDH: Before filming started, I made time for the four of us to do things like eat meals and chat  outside of the script reading. That’s how it happened. It was a challenge for me to be the eldest. Up until now, I was in the position of relying on my sunbaes. With my co-stars, I felt like we were friends of the same age. Within the drama, we were classmates, so I would usually call them by their role’s name without using honorifics. Instead of them feeling like younger siblings who had to defer to me or who I had to look after, I think it’s more accurate to say we became good friends.

Woo Do-hwan constantly appears in popular films, and will co-star with Park Seo-joon in the upcoming movie “The Divine Fury”, which opens in theaters this summer.

WDH: The film is in the occult genre but has a lot of action too. Parts of it will be spine-tingling, but that doesn’t mean it’s a straight horror film. It depicts the conflict between good and evil. While building the character for my new role, it feels as if I am pulling free from the old role that I just finished filming. I don’t like not having anything to do, so I’m the type who will read the script and continue to prepare while resting for a while, until it’s time to start filming the next work.

(And finally, a sad photo of the poster because my scanner is tiny, ^^;;)

Waiting for the day he gets to be on the magazine cover <3 :3

#woo do hwan #hanryu pia #interview #Japanese Translation #the great seducer #tempted

[megashadowdragon]

It has been called many things- the unwalkable disease, gutta (drop), podagra, arthritis of the rich, and the disease of kings (which sounded suitably dramatic for a title).

But we more commonly call it gout.

Doran Martell suffers from an advanced stage of gout, perhaps even exaggerated, since he has had his movement restricted to such a degree that nearly all motion is difficult without severe pain. (I'm not a doctor so, I can't say for certain)

Gout as a Facet of Doran's Character

We know that Doran is in constant pain, that it prevents sleep, and he finds no hope in medical treatment curing his disease.

The prince turned his chair laboriously to face her. Though he was but two-and-fifty, Doran Martell seemed much older. His body was soft and shapeless beneath his linen robes, and his legs were hard to look upon. The gout had swollen and reddened his joints grotesquely; his left knee was an apple, his right a melon, and his toes had turned to dark red grapes, so ripe it seemed as though a touch would burst them. Even the weight of a coverlet could make him shudder, though he bore the pain without complaint.

For comparison here is a testimony from a patient with gout in a single leg:

"The patient goes to bed and sleeps quietly until about two in the morning when he is awakened by a pain which usually seizes the great toe, but sometimes the heel, the calf of the leg or the ankle. The pain resembles that of a dislocated bone ... and this is immediately succeeded by a chillness, shivering and a slight fever ... the pain ..., which is mild in the beginning ..., grows gradually more violent every hour ... so exquisitely painful as not to endure the weight of the clothes nor the shaking of the room from a person walking briskly therein."

That is what Doran endures each day, constantly. Even the weight of a sheet would make the man shudder.

It is no wonder to me that he loves watching the little children splash and laugh and play in the Water Gardens. I imagine each glance must be bittersweet- imaging a time when he could run and splash with the other children, or watching Oberyn and Elia do the same. Knowing that now, his mobility, his autonomy has been taken from him, just as his siblings have been taken, leaving him unable to move, and unable to act.

Doran must be quite aware of how the children view him, and he takes special care to put them at ease, even at his own increased pain.

Then nought would do but he must say farewell to several of the children who had become especial favorites... Doran kept a splendid Myrish blanket over his legs as he spoke with them, to spare the young ones the sight of his swollen, bandaged joints

That splendid Myrish blanket sounds heavy with adornment (or even fabric) knowing that even a light coverlet's pressure pained him before this must be agony. It is my opinion that this blanket is as much for Prince Doran as it is for the children. He invites many children to the Water Gardens, a virtual safe haven free from class differences, a near oasis, the Prince entertains them, and it seems he must speak with them and come to know many of them. So much so, that he must say good bye.

Prince Doran carefully guards his image, this is part of the reason they left Sunspear nearly two years ago- he was getting sicker and needed to retreat from the whispers that filled the Shadow City. In the Water Garden's he is better able to project strength and wellness- his people clearly are unaware of how far his gout has progressed.

That this performance also extends to the children speaks to some form of painful self awareness on Doran's part- he doesn't want to expose his legs and upset them. I think he also doesn't want to see the children's faces and face their questions if they saw his legs.

Mobility and Autonomy

Something as simple as walking, is a thing we often take for granted. Doran can't get up to pour a glass of water, he needs help sitting up each day, he cannot support his weight enough to stand. It's paralyzing, it shrinks your perspective down to minute motions where every move is weighed by how much pain it will cause.

I think we can see this same restriction in his political moves as well- a painful reflection of his limited physical autonomy.

Hotah slid his longaxe into its sling across his back and gathered the prince into his arms, tenderly so as not to jar his swollen joints. Even so, Doran Martell bit back a gasp of pain... Hotah bore him up the long stone steps of the Tower of the Sun, to the great round chamber beneath the dome

The Prince of Dorne had to be carried from his seat, in the arms of his guard, up the steps of a tower to his bedroom. For a man in such a medieval martial society, that frames its conceptions of strength over acts of physical strength and war, which scorns physical disability, this must be a humiliating experience.

A Thimble of Poppy

It's after this day of bad news, of constant increasing pain, that we finally see a true crack in Doran Martell's armor. First the letter, which brought news of his brother's death, then his nieces repeated threats and calls for war (Obara, Nymeria, and Tyene), and humiliation from each we see him ask for a thimble of milk of the poppy. I'm not certain why, but these words (even after watching Maester Caelotte worry over possible poisoning) were very sad to read.

Doran has reached a wall, a point where he doesn't care anymore about keeping a clear head and frame of mind. He just wants relief, that constant spike in every joint, to be muted and fade to the background for a while.

Treatment

It seems that his gout has grown quite worse in the last few years:

Two years ago, when they had left Sunspear for the peace and isolation of the Water Gardens, Prince Doran’s gout had not been half so bad. In those days he had still walked, albeit slowly, leaning on a stick and grimacing with every step

Although gout has been treated in our own history for more than 2,000 years, it does not appear that the more advanced medicine of westeros (compared to our medieval history) has developed even basic treatments.

Since the time of Hippocrates we have known that gout was linked to lifestyle, and since Galen we've known that there are genetic factors associated with its development. For both of these periods gout was treated with a flower called the Autumn crocus- a powerful purgative (colchicine) was derived from it.

Strangely, there doesn't appear to be much help for it in westeros.

Maester Caleotte remained behind. “My prince?” the little round man asked. “Do your legs hurt?” The prince smiled faintly. “Is the sun hot?” “Shall I fetch a draught for the pain?” “No. I need my wits about me

In my opinion, this implies that the treatment automatically given is milk of the poppy. A pain reliever which would impair Doran's judgement- and milk of the poppy seems to fit (barring a more specific remedy we haven't heard of).

We also have reference to:

the maester helped Doran Martell to bathe and bandaged up his swollen joints in linen wraps soaked with soothing lotions

Although, I don't expect Hotah to be knowledgeable about the exact methods the maester uses to treat Doran- Hotah is in the third best position to know how the Prince is being treated (after Maester Caelotte, and Doran himself).

Lifestyle

Doran does not appear to have been given treatment options regarding his lifestyle.

A serving man brought him a bowl of purple olives, with flatbread, cheese, and chickpea paste. He ate a bit of it, and drank a cup of the sweet, heavy strongwine that he loved. When it was empty, he filled it once again.

This is, perhaps, the worst dinner Doran could have eaten in regards to his gout. Yet, it also is terribly mundane (by which I mean- likely a meal consumed regularly and not an indulgence). It is a staple meal- flatbread, cheese, and hummus. Simple, and certainly not King's Landing fare. But it is loaded with sugar, salt, and alcohol. All things which make gout worse- much worse.

We have another example:

He had decided to break his fast before he went, with a blood orange and a plate of gull’s eggs diced with bits of ham and fiery peppers

This is just as bad- sugar and meat- another food which exasperates his condition. One of the first lifestyle changes used as treatment was the elimination of alcohol, sweet foods from the diet.

It doesn't appear that Doran is remaining sick with gout to raise his popularity (as it was in our own history)

Gout (Everyone's Doing it These Days)

"The common cold is well named – but the gout seems instantly to raise the patient's social status", and to another in Punch in 1964, "In keeping with the spirit of more democratic times, gout is becoming less upper-class and is now open to all ... It is ridiculous that a man should be barred from enjoying gout because he went to the wrong school."

Nor does it appear that the gout is being used to ward off other more serious diseases (the gout seems extremely concerning)

In earlier times, attacks of gout were also seen as a prophylactic against more serious diseases. According to the writer Horace Walpole, gout "prevents other illnesses and prolongs life ... could I cure that gout, should not I have a fever, a palsy, or an apoplexy?"

My Takeaway:

I took a course on the intersection of disease, medicine, and history a while ago as a fun class- after reading this chapter again (Hotah I AFFC) I don't find him boring or lackluster anymore. If anything, Doran is incredibly human, and extremely relatable once you break him down.

He lives very much inside his own mind, I imagine wherever he is, Doran is always in the Water Garden's in his own head, seeing himself, Elia, and Oberyn shouting and splashing, as they were never able in childhood.

(Note: This is all said in the context of this one chapter, I haven't reread the next in the Dorne storyline yet.)

comments : I am not a medical student, so probably take my words with a grain of salt. Based on the source I listed below, it’s very universally known that sweets, alcohol, and meat (even sugar from fruit) exacerbate gout. The “drops” (Uric acid that builds into crystals in joints) is worsened by large amounts of sugar. (Like in the strongwine that Doran enjoys)Cherries do have sugar, not as much as other fruit, but I think they might have been referring to a combination of cherries and allopurinol which is used to reduce the amount of uric acid.Some older treatments of gout (that originated in the 19th c) basically attempted to purge the body of uric acid through urine. To my knowledge they use other methods today, but it must have been at least mildly effective (I remember reading about negative effects of such purgative treatment- so I’m not entirely sure).

#asoiaf #A Song of Ice and Fire #doran martell #asoiaf meta

[theexleynatureblog]

The Bundy Group

So I just learned something startling I thought I should post: In Jan 2016, a group of extremists seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. The act was in protect to the incarceration of two ranchers who purposely set fire to their land, which spread onto the refuge. Untimely,  the acts were rebellion against federal control of land. Below are some quotes from the protestors. primarily from the Bundy brothers who orchestrated the assault:

"All comfort, all wealth ... comes from the Earth, and we cannot have the government restricting the use of that to the point where it puts us in poverty."

"I will say this refuge from its very inception has been a tool of tyranny."

“This refuge here is rightfully owned by the people and we intend to use it.”

“The best possible outcome is that the ranchers that have been kicked out of the area, then they will come back and reclaim their land, and the wildlife refuge will be shut down forever and the federal government will relinquish such control.”

While protesting in a nearby town, a small but armed group split off and occupied the Malheur NWR center. The standoff lasted 41 days with the occupants saying they wouldn’t leave until they regained their rightful land. The occupancy resulted in property damage to the building, land damage from unauthorized excavations (trenches used for toilets), broken fences, fights with conservationists, neighboring tribe members, and law enforcement. One confrontation resulted in several arrests and one protestor fatality who apparently threatened police. The final days of the occupancy was with four people who protested the shooting until they were seized by police.

Now, on the surface this may seem like a ‘noble’ display of patriotism and rebellion, but let me inform y’all what a wildlife refuge actually is.

Map of the current refuges in the US.

The first wildlife refuges were created by Theodore Roosevelt, who was an active sport’s hunter and a member of the Boon and Crockett Club - a rich-person’s sporting club. Roosevelt’s goal was preserving North America’s ‘big game’ for future generations to enjoy. 

Wild spaces were not created out of concern for the environment, but preservation for human use. When colonizers came to the America’s, they disregarded the thousands of years of management for wildlife by native tribes. A mixture of market hunting (commercially hunting to stock restaurants and stores) habitat loss, and introductions of invasive species changed the landscape and its animals drastically, sometimes to a point beyond repair. The recognition of the loss of timber and water sources sparked the designation of national parks and refuges for the identical reason - preservation for human use.

President Theodore Roosevelt on Pelican Island, casually allowing one of the islands inhabitants devour his hand.

Pelican Island was the first Wildlife Refuge created in 1903 by Theodore Roosevelt, who would later add many more designated wildlife areas. Despite the purpose of the refuges being anthro-centric (and further, only accessible to upper-class white society), the refuges served an important function to wildlife. As regulated hunting laws were still in development or lacked enforcement, it gave animals a place to escape hunting pressure. The actual shooting is only one factor - the influx of foot and vehicle traffic, noise from ammunition, startled herds and flocks, human camps, and later-on effects of pollutants from lead shot all contribute to stresses that impact individual survival. These refuges were not open to hunting or any resource harvest at certain times of the year or in certain sections. 

The Malheur Refuge was one of the original areas designated by President Roosevelt himself. Many of these refuges were focused on protecting birds, victims of the millinery trade. Feathers of adult birds (mainly targeted during breeding seasons) and sometimes entire birds were used to decorate woman’s hats. This attack on the breeding population led to a sharp decline that alarmed outdoor enthusiasts and bird-watchers alike. Read more about the Feather Hat Trade.

Today, the refuge has multiple uses. A stop along the Pacific Flyway, it is an important space for migrating waterfowl. Besides biology, refuge also is used in studying geology. Having once been inhabited by native tribes, the refuge provides members of the Burns Paiute Tribe to continue cultural traditions and hunting/fishing practices.

Map of habitats.

The refuge does important work for wildlife, but it comes at a cost. Roosevelt designating ‘wild’ areas to be free of human contact also meant native tribes had no access to the resources they depended on. Today luckily, some of that is changed, and tribal members play an important part of managing in some of the refuges. 

Read some of the Tribal Wildlife Conservation success stories!

The loss of access also sparked problems with ranchers. In the Western US, large expanses of grazable land were claimed by farmers ready to make money on their stock. The history of homesteading ranchers is messy, often colliding with native groups, conservationists, and others.

All human activity has environmental impacts, and ranching is no exception. Whether those impacts are good or bad depends on the responsibility and knowledge of the rancher. For example, grazing in an important management technique that can both reduce grasses and spread them. A herd of cattle can save a grassland from desertification or cause it. Its all on the rancher to be environmentally caution - but caution is often more expensive and risky. 

For the past centuries, fragmenting the landscape with barbed wire, fences, and roads and rails that have caused problems for wildlife also cause problems for ranches trying to move their herds. National Parks with grazable (or even in some cases areas that were sensitive to grazing but used anyway) areas became available for livestock owners to rent. But still remained constant competition with multiple interests - mining, development, hunting, and conversation efforts.

The events from the Malheur Occupancy seemed to stem from these kinds of frustrations.

Now here comes the part where I make people aware of my personal opinions and biases, because I believe its important to understand what I am trying to say. My biases lean towards environmentalism based in western scientific technique. This is because I have a passion for wildlife and a drive to protect it. So far, I have acquired most of my knowledge from institutes that teach the important of science - mostly from western sources, though I do hope to learn from other parts of the world as well. To be bluntly honest, I don’t give a darn about ranchers, especially in light of the historical impacts of grazing in the Western US - that being said, I do try to understand their position. I can understand the lure of working with animals and the outdoors. Its also important to understand that this kind of work requires a lot of time and a specific skillset. If you donate your time to mastering a career like this, odds are your haven’t mastered much else. You can’t afford to ‘just change jobs’. If you livestock or crop fails, you’re screwed financially. This is why some farmers just can’t risk going organic, or not expanding their fields. They can’t always consider the environmental impacts. A farmer/ranchers whole life is quite literally tied to the land they have to work on. This is why they feel so strongly about federal lands.

I really hate that sometimes it comes down to farmers versus wildlife. It shouldn’t be this tug-o-war, we should all be working together to do what’s best for the land that so many different people and animals have to use. Land managers have to consider farmers, wildlife, and public interest when planning lands for use. Each of us should also have consideration for each other.

The occupation of the facility costs approximately $6 million in damages and facility security. That is money that could have gone to wildlife projects. There was also the damages of mental trauma, emotional trauma, and damages of Burns-Paiute cultural artifacts desecrated.

The Malheur refuge was also working on an important Invasive Carp Control project. These fish, introduced from Eurasia, caused big problems for native fish, plants, and even birds. They are known for muddying water quality, which inhibits the functions of plants and fish.

"Carp are so hard to eradicate because they're the perfect invasive species," Beck said. "They're kind of like the feral pig of the waterway."

The project has gone on for many years with many different methods tested, from dynamite to robotics. Controlling invasive species is a time-sensitive operation. There are moments - spawning/migrating - that occur only a few weeks out of the year that are prime for removing large numbers of individuals. Work is also non-stop. Fish like carp are prolific breeders. A few days rest could result in a few hundred extra. 

The occupancy of Malheur made the carp project and other work come to a total halt for months. This has ultimately set the projects back by decades.

In Oct. of 2016, the leaders of the standoff,  Ammon and Ryan Bundy, were Pardoned by the Trump Admin. 

In regards to how this whole thing started, I sincerely can’t say whether who was in the wrong. The ranchers claimed to be practicing brush control by fire, but Federal investigation suspected the fires were set to hide evidence of poached deer. Whether it was in the right or not, the fires spread onto Refuge land, which put the farmers in violation. Burning private land for management purposes was legal in this case, but it is the manager’s responsibility to keep the fire under control. Fires should be kept low to the ground with bounders (roads, rivers) to prevent it from spreading. Wind direction should be constantly monitored, and there should be a small team of people at the ready in case the fire gets too big. There’s no evidence to suggest the group took the proper precautions.

While the street march and protect was entirely within the group’s rights, I believe the occupation of the Malheur refuge was unjustified. There was no reason for the protestors to be armed, and the individuals acts of desecrating the building, grounds, and cultural artifacts went well beyond what the group stated to be their original purpose. The occupancy had no regard for the safety of the workers or surrounding residents, and certainly no regard for the conservation work currently taking place.

The group wanted to protest the Federal authority over land they believed was theirs, and they did so by damaging the refuge and threatening the workers there.

I believe all action taken on lands should be done with environmental and ecological impacts considered, which was not the case in this instance.

Sources:

The NY Times

NPR

The Washington Post

Reuters

Fish and Wildlife Service

KGW8

The Oregonian - events timeline

#science #enviromentalism #history #nature #animals #national parks

[ngendo]

Birthday Flex

*Text first published on 23rd March 2021 on Facebook.*

Dear People, Thank you so much for the birthday wishes. It's very strange to try to celebrate while there is so much hurt in the air, streaming through our blood, burying itself between each, single, breath. I know three people who have lost loved ones this week, and it's Tuesday. Because of them and so many others, I celebrate the fact that I am still here. That I still breath, that I still get pissed off, that I continue to march on wards to (and hopefully through) 40, that I can complain, that I can lay on the grass in my garden, go for walks in the evening, drink tea, cuddle with my lover, play football with Chairman, harvest mint between giggles with my niece. I MUST celebrate that the things that prickle my skin and make my blood boil, can only do so, because I am here. Being angry is part of being alive, and knowing, that we DESERVE better WHILE we are here. Here. Not tomorrow, not in an afterlife unseen. HERE. I am grateful to be alive on this beautiful, hectic, violent ass planet. Violent, because we made it so. I am grateful to be aging because the other option is to be gone. I am grateful to have anger coursing through my veins, because it means that sometimes I find enough courage to erupt, to burn, and to say NO FUCKING MORE. The liberation to be a woman and to burn so bright that people fear your voice, but cannot come to your face and silence it..... ahhhhh, it's like eating cool chunks of pineapple in the afternoon sun, until my tongue stings. To be an African Woman that can shout my truth and only receive whispers in the wind from those who prefer my silence.... to KNOW that I have brought fear to those who willingly oppress others daily..... it is the scent of freshly cut strawberries saturating my nose.   It is the fruition of my toil.   I wish that all of us could experience this at least once in our lives, for it is simply being a human. Being allowed to occupy space. That is it. Daily, we operate in fear, silenced in advanced by doctrine, by tradition, by manhood, by whiteness, by the patriarchy. Fuck all that shit. Burn Bissshhhh. Burn. My anger is born of LOVE. >Love for my people. >Love for Afro women carrying too much weight on their backs, while foreigners with lenses exoticize the length of our necks, and our male counterparts pontificate about our resilience with opaque ideas of 'tradition'. >Love for my LGBTQI people ducking and diving between shadows because our society worships a white god that banished Blackness and ALL African sexuality, into aberration. >Love for the people who service our middle class asses daily but every damn time one of us tries to get them better salaries, the neighbourhood committee throws mountains of paperwork in your face to keep poor people poor. (Note for anyone who is economically marginalised, DO NOT trust the Kenyan middle and upper class. We're too busy imagining we can become millio-billionaires while using the Bible to justify your poverty. At any chance you get, throw us overboard.) > Love for the fucking effort it takes just to speak your truth despite knowing that some of your friends will feel the need to inform you that they  as a person living in white skin (especially the ones in Europe) KNOW the ultimate and only legitimate complete alpha and omega truth about being a Black person. (Fuck right off by the way. Cheers.) > Love for all of us surviving Christianity through complete cultural erasure and the severing of ourselves from our own Black bodies and tongues, even when we cannot name that emptiness. > Love for all of us relegated to even lower depths of the hierarchy because we were born with not a penis nigh! >Love for us additionally ostracized for being the parent that stayed. (Single moms where you at!? ) > Love for all of us who silently cry NO MORE even as society uses our bent backs as a foundation for the institutions that oppress us. Growing up, I was repeatedly told that I as a girl should be quiet, I should sit with my legs close together and cover myself up, I was told it's not nice for me to be angry, or to swear, nice girls don't move their hands about when talking, nice girls don't shout. I was told, "Women don't have muscles" even as I could tense the rippling sinews on my abdomen and form a juicy waru on my arm. Anger is perhaps the greatest muscle we were taught to never flex. It was smothered into the most silent corners of our ever silent bodies. But our anger is bright and buoyant and fucking beautiful. While others are allowed to tear through nail salons, and churches, and communities, and races, and entire continents, and their psychosis is celebrated as conquest and empire, or noted as depression and 'having a bad day'...... Our rightful and justified anger has been silenced from our very first cry at birth. The rage of women, could turn this whole world upside down, inside out. This woman has muscles. This woman swears. This woman sits with her legs open when she fucking wants. This woman has sex. This woman takes shits. This woman writes poetry and paints pictures. This woman makes films, and my films are fucking legit. This woman loves herself. I love myself. I love myself over and beyond the conditional respect and allowances you may grant me. They are not important to me. I have no love for your rules and regulations set to limit my freedoms. If this hurts your sensibilities, try loving yourself instead. In any case, IDGAF. Happy New Birth Year to me. Happy Re-Birth to all the women I know. We must burn today, because we won't be here tomorrow. We must burn today, because otherwise, when we are gone our only legacy will have been our subservience; kneeling as a stepping stone for the dreams of others. We must burn today, because that subservience will be celebrated to oppress those that come after us. Women. Burn. May our collective anger over run the shackles that contain us. Heck fucking yeah!!

[sapphicstemstudies]

while I’ve seen this discussion on chemistry twitter, I haven’t seen anything on tumblr so I guess I’ll open that up now. Today (June 5, 2020), the Journal of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) published a peer reviewed paper by Thomas Hudlicky of Brock University, entitled “‘Organic synthesis - Where are we now?’ is thirty years old. A reflection on the current state of affairs”. This paper was then retracted without notice due to backlash regarding the content of the paper. In summary, the author used this peer reviewed paper as a dumping ground for all his misogyny and hatred towards essentially everyone who isn’t a white man in academia.

Some memorable quotes include: “An example of focusing on ‘underrepresented minorities’ can be seen in the recently established ‘Power Hour’ at Gordon Research Conferences. While this effort is commendable in order to increase the participation of women in science, it diminishes the contributions by men (or any other group). ... These issues have influenced hiring practices to the point where the candidate’s inclusion in one of the preferred social groups may override his or her qualifications.” as well as “it follows that, in a social equilibrium, preferential treatment of one group leads to disadvantages for another. ... The rise and emphasis on hiring practices that suggest or even mandate equality in terms of absolute numbers of people in specific subgroups is counter-productive if it results in discrimination against the most meritorious candidates.” This paper is nearly eight full pages of similar writing, and footnotes include anecdotes of how the author believes that students don’t know real chemistry anymore because of bad teaching and the university protecting student from the hardships the professors ask of them. This also includes a full paragraph on how chemistry and other disciplines have strayed from the “apprentice fully submissive to the master” mindset and model and how that’s damaging to the future of the field of organic synthesis. Essentially the author makes his case for why diversity is harmful to the field and unless things go back to the old way, the field of organic chemistry, and specifically organic synthesis will fizzle out and be lost forever.

while I recognize my privilege in academia as a white, able-bodied student, I also am a queer woman in mathematics and chemistry, so while I cannot speak to the experiences of every minority student in stem, I know that there are others with experiences similar to mine. To start off, let’s talk representation. I absolutely recognize that my position as a child was filled with much more stem outreach and representation of minority groups than many people, and even then, the frequency with which I met or even heard about women in science was infinitely less than hearing or meeting men in the field. Part of this has to do with the men in my family all being scientists, yes, but even still, it was not often that I heard of women in science. I greatly credit my middle school science teachers for exposing me to women in the field, and helping me get involved with stem outreach programs for girls. But even though I saw some women in science, I certainly didn’t see queer women in science, and a vast majority of the people I met were white. Moving into university, as a student in math and chemistry, I can count on one hand the number of female professors I’ve had (in all 2 years of classes, not just the science ones). Only one of them was in chemistry, and to this day, I have zero knowledge of a female professor employed by the department of mathematical and statistical sciences (this is not to say there aren’t any, but there are none that I have taken or friends have taken in undergraduate courses from 100 to 300 level). This certainly is interesting to me, especially when the university is so proud to promote female grad students and post docs in math, perhaps because there aren’t any profs? In the fall I was interested in this idea of representing women in math, and started counting how many female presenting students were in my math classes (full disclaimer that this is based on my assumptions of gender based on presentation and one cannot really know someone’s gender from just outward presentation). In my calc iii class, about 150 student, I counted 30. Now let me do some math for you, 30/150 is 0.2, or 20% of the class population. It was similar for my other classes, as being in upper level math tends to have many of the same students. My only knowledge of queer women in this department of students is only myself, as I am, in fact, not going to go around asking people how they identify.

So, why is my personal experience in math important? Every month (during non-pandemic times) I go to a school and we do stem outreach, this year we were placed with a grade 4 class. When I teach this class, I can see every girl engaged and interested because there is someone like them at the front of the room. My partner that I teach with and I do an experiment and answer questions. The first month we went to this class, they asked if girls could be scientists and how do you become a scientist (we of course said yes, girls can be scientists, and if you do science, even at home, even if you’re only 8, you can be a scientist if you so choose).

How often is it that we see women in stem being promoted? When they are promoted and have a platform, how often is it because of their work? And how often is it because this is a woman here have your representation and shut up about it? How often do we see POC in stem? How often do we see queer people in stem? Is it because of their work? Or is it because the majority goes “fine I guess”?

So in response to Professor Hudlicky, diversity in stem is vitally important in furthering science and human knowledge, and here’s why. We as students, as academics, as people, rely on each other for help and community. If we refuse to dismantle a system that gatekeeps and excludes people from this community then we as scientists have failed. We have failed to consider other people’s work we have failed to consider the intersections between academia and identity, and we have failed in creating a better and safer place for all people. By refusing to create space for others in academia and specifically in stem, we are digging the grave of diversity in stem, original thought, and innovation, and we are placing a finish line on discovery, when if we put in an effort to change, stem fields have nowhere to go but up.

#sorry this got super long #diversity in stem #women in stem #STEM #sciences #women in science #feminism #science #id post this other places but ive got family other places and they dont know im gay lol

[firstumcschenectady]

“Humans: Needing Love and Comfort”

(a sermon dialogue with Rev. Lynn Gardner of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady and Rev. Sara Baron of the First United Methodist Church of Schenectady)

Part 1: Our awareness of our need for mothering (which is our need to be loved, and comforted)

Lynn: It started when I was on my yoga mat. It was early one morning last spring. I hadn’t been sleeping well, and I was up as the sun was rising, moving through familiar yoga asanas, gently stretching, moving, breathing. I was in child’s pose… curled over bent knees, forehead resting on the mat, when the crying began. Everything that my body had been holding in was let loose in a torrent of tears, growing into deep sobs. Worry, grief, fear, sadness, loneliness and anger, pouring out. My heart ached thinking of all those who were suffering alone or separated from anyone who was familiar.

On the day we were born and received the gift of our first breath we depended on our mothers, our parents, or other caring adults in order to survive. As we grew, those needs changed, but our need to be loved and cared for is still part of us. That morning on my yoga mat, I rocked, and cried, feeling the vulnerability of being human… that we need one another. This may be our vulnerability AND our strength.

Sara: The past year has been one of developing my identity as a mother. My child was born 51 weeks ago today. It has been a very long time since I’ve needed mothering as much as I have since I became a mother. It turns out that the capacity to give my child what he needs is dependent on having enough of my own needs met and, quite often, I can’t fulfill both sets of needs on my own, and am dependent on others to hold me up so I can hold him up.

I was raised upper middle class, and I’m white, and I have internalized the message that self-sufficiency is “good.” Which means I’m REALLY BAD at asking for help, and that hasn’t made me need it less. The pandemic has complicated EVERYTHING. When I needed help the most it felt least safe to receive it. When I hit the end of my capacity and could go no further, when tears filled my eyes and I simply could not do what I needed to do, when without love and comfort and support I could no longer offer love and comfort and support… I have spent this year learning that I need to be mothered well in order to mother well. For me, at least, this applies both to parenting AND to pastoring. To offer love and comfort to my congregation ALSO requires that I have something to give, and that means I have to reach out when I need love and comfort too.

Part 2: Stories of times we have received loving, comforting care when we needed it

Support can come in a wider range of formats than I ever knew. There was, for me, one day when everything I needed to do most profoundly exceeded my capacity to do it. Before that day was easier, after that day was easier, but on that day I could simply go no further. I remember texting 3 friends. It was August, and nothing felt safe, especially not in person. One friend got in the car to come help. Another stayed on the phone with me until she arrived and let me cry while being heard. The third texted back and forth all day assuring me that I was allowed to make things easier on myself, and it didn’t mean I was failing as a mother to do so.

Those three friends comforted me that day, they let their love for me become support when I needed it. I think it is fair to say that they mothered me, and BECAUSE they took care of me, I was able to take care of my child.

In some ways this story seems too small, and in other ways it seems … archetypal. Looking back at my life there are innumerable times when my pain or burden was too much to bear. In every one of them, I reached out for support. Sometimes I reached out directly to the Divine, which for me means I disappeared into nature and silence for the hours I needed before I could form words again. Other times I have reached out to family or friends (or my own pastor), and let them hold me up. It is in being held - in any medium- that I can regain my own self-regulation and find my way again.

Lynn: Isn’t it amazing when someone shows up in simple yet deeply caring ways? 21 years ago I went to stay at my parent’s home when my Mom was nearing the end of her life. She had been diagnosed with cancer just five weeks earlier. She was at home with hospice care, laying in a bed where she could look out and see her garden, and my father and sisters and I were caring for her and for one another. A long time friend called and asked if she could come by. She arrived with three hot-fudge brownie sundaes, one for me, one for her, and one for my Dad. Let’s go for a walk, she suggested. We walked and ate. She listened, and we cried and laughed together, and also held space for the comfort of shared silence. That was the most delicious sundae I have ever eaten.

Each of these moments in our lives have served to remind us that we are not self-sufficient, we do not walk or work alone. It is because of our connections that we are.. It is because we have been nurtured that we are functional and able to offer nurture.

Part 3: Growing us into capacity to give mothering

Sara: Our sweet baby is teething. It is miserable for everyone involved. We are very thankful in our house for pain medication. But sometimes it isn’t enough. Sometimes he hurts, and nothing we can do makes the hurt go away, and it is awful. In those moments, all we can do is be with him and assure him he isn’t alone. It doesn’t feel like enough in the moment, but I also wouldn’t dream of letting him suffer alone.

There are many sources of pain in life, physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional. In some cases we are able to do things that change them, like feeding people who are hungry. In many cases we cannot change reality, or the pain people experience, when they are grieving. In those cases all we can do is be with one another, and assure each other we aren’t alone. It doesn’t feel like enough, but the difference between being alone and being supported is significant. Our congregations can be communities of practice… where we continue to learn about giving and receiving care.

This has been one of the worst parts of the pandemic, that the means of support and comfort we are used to offering grieving people have been taken away. I invite those who are safely ready and able to loosen their COVID restrictions to think about how to offer love and support now that wasn’t possible before.

Learning the limits of what comfort I can give has never felt enjoyable, but it seems like the capacity to be a mother grows along with my awareness of my own limitations.

Part 4: The Divine as Nurturer, and Faith as Subversive when it comes to nurture.

The Gospel lesson we read today in the United Methodist church instructs us to “abide in love,” and expounds eloquently on the subject. I believe that this is what faith is all about. In Christian and United Methodist lingo we talk about “sanctification” which is the process of letting go of whatever is not love and being filled up with love so that you can respond to every person in every moment with pure love. In our models, continued faith development is all aimed at sanctification. (John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement believed that people could reach perfection in love during their life times. ;) I share that as an interesting historical fact.)

In real life though, things are complicated. In many circumstances it is not clear what the most loving response actually is. What looks from one angle like loving nurture looks from another angle like enabling. These days I find myself reminding myself several times a day about the process of emerging from cocoons. That is, when transformed creatures emerge from cocoons it is a slow and seemingly painful process. Over the years many well meaning humans have tried to ease creatures ways out of the cocoon, only to learn that the moths and butterflies are permanently damaged by having the process eased. There is a fine line to walk in care for others, and I find I am never clear which side of it I’m on.

Lynn: Receiving care can also be complicated. Sometimes we just need someone to help us, or for someone to comfort us, but we don’t ask, and feel resentful. Or we don’t know who to ask… or we tell ourselves we don’t deserve it, or that someone else needs it more. And sometimes, it is so hard to just allow ourselves to be cared for… to really receive the love that is being offered.

Prior to seminary, I worked in child care for 20 years. Over those years, and while raising our daughter, I have held and rocked many a tired cranky little one. Whether you have done so yourself or not, I invite to imagine holding an overly-tired toddler, who is crying and pushing away, resisting their need for sleep with every ounce of energy they have. They are so tired… and so upset… not wanting to give up, to let go, and to sink into the arms that are holding them.

Unitarian Universalism affirms that each of us is worthy of love…. That we are each more than our worst mistake. That we are each worthy of care and comfort. We are all held by a larger Love that will not let us go… even when we struggle… even when we push away… I can imagine the Holy whispering, “shhh…. Shhhh….. I’m right here.”

Sara: I’m also deeply aware that while the Divine, faith, and Biblical teaching all call us to love, in our society the expectations around that love vary according to the bodies we occupy. Lynn and I have been reflecting on the human need to receive mothering - the human need to receive love and comfort - and suggesting that faith communities may be sources of giving good care so those in them can then give good care to the world. Yet, I keep thinking about the realities of “emotional labor” and the ways that female embodied people, and people of color, along with others thought in society to occupy subordinate positions are subliminally taught to offer care and nurture to those who are male embodied, white, and empowered. Kate Manne in “Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny” talks about the ways emotional labor is thought to be the work of some and the privilege to receive of others, and how this is encouraged with “carrots” and enforced with “sticks.”

This awareness brings some of the deeper challenges of celebrating love and comfort into view. Humans need love and comfort. Humans can give love and comfort. But often the giving becomes the role of some and the receiving the roles of others. I believe that one of the subversive narratives of faith is inverting those roles, and making the giving of love, comfort, and nurture the role of all people - especially the ones in power.

So, dear ones, may we receive the wonderful mothering of the Divine and of the people of faith, and may we soak in love and comfort so that we are able to share it with abundance.

Amen

#Thinking Church #Progressive Christianity #unitarian universalism #Dialogue Sermon #Humans need love and comfort #Mothers Day is complicated #Rev Sara E Baron #Rev Lynn Gardner #Schenectady #A Very Schenectady Worship #UMC #still sorry about the umc world #subverting and loving mothers day #Love and Comfort

[toongrrl-blog]

Bridget Jones: In Company with Beckys and Karens

We can start with unpacking your luggage Bridget, you are gonna need the help but pull your weight into it. 

Hi Bridget, looking good as always. Long time, huh? I guess it has been awkward after I have given your husband Mark a beat down and sent roses to his first ex-wife and your ex supervisor Perpetua. I think it’s time we talk. I understand life hasn’t been easy for you: your mother is nutty and a misogynistic racist, your father is friends with pervs and found it astounding you had a real boyfriend (Colin Jones won’t escape my ire), your friends are trash frankly especially the smug marrieds, you are insecure over a body that actually isn’t really a outlier to the dominant white patriarchal standard of cis female beauty (by the way, have you heard butt implants exist now?), your jerk husband is very negging and in the original novel he “compliments” you by pulling “Not like other girls” on you and all your other boyfriends see you as a piece of ass and don’t respect you, your uncle gropes your ass for how long and his wife pesters you about your body and past singleness. 

But let’s be real Bridget: those wilderness years where you feared becoming a sad spinster were endured in a spacious apartment where your bedroom was separate from the kitchen AND the living room without a roommate (hope I get this lucky), you haven’t wanted for nothing growing up in a affluent and safe town in a single-income family (your dad was also a accountant), you were given blonde hair and blue eyes (traits that have been considered desirable for multiple millenniums), your body was always curvier than you’d like but you had no problem finding a lot of clothes in your size and didn’t have a doctor fat shame you (now smoking and drinking...), I learned from Jameela Jamil that actually Britain of your teens and twenties was a racist time, you got to go to college (granted it was in the University of Wales, which wasn’t “prestigious” enough for Daniel Cleaver) and you got a stable office job at a publishing company that you often fudged (most WOC can’t fuck up like you and thrive in this culture), and you never been in most situations where you didn’t have to look in the media or in the room and find yourself out of place. 

Well now it’s 2020, have you heard of Black Lives Matter? This shitstorm of a year has been forcing us to confront issues regarding the patriarchy, capitalism, white supremacy, putting people of privilege to question their own involvement in prejudice, and a highly militarized law enforcement. Has Mark spoke of this to you? I haven’t heard a peep from you and Helen Fielding. I must say, I was glad not to hear either you or Helen say anything transphobic (fuck off JK Rowling). I think you heard of these memes going around called “the Karen” and “the Becky”, you must be wondering what the difference between the two are and was at a loss to counsel your smug married friends or your racist ass mother crying over being called Karens. Here is the trouble, I think you are likely a Becky and have the potential to turn into a Karen, after all you dream of weaponizing your mother’s embarrassing casual racism and thin privilege against Perpetua and Mark Darcy, and you dabbled in the White Savior trope for a hot minute in Thailand (oh and playing an idealized Ivanka Trump to your mother in the 3rd film?). Also let’s face it, you are compared to every confident, capable woman in your universe (surprise they are all bitches) or the non-Anglo British or non-British conquests of Daniel or Mark’s ex wife. 

Let’s talk about the traits of a Karen and Becky and how they are related, Bridget.

Karen

Ah the Karen, or as Tv Tropes called her the “Obnoxious Entitled Housewife”. 

Here is a bullet point of traits the Karen possesses according to The Take:

She’s an entitled, middle-aged, upper or middle class, often White woman.

She mistreats those “beneath her” like wait staff and customer service, classism at it’s most in-your-face and irritating.

She follows the rules, except the part about expired coupons.

She sticks to the hierarchy, using it to prop herself up. 

Often passive-aggressive and judgmental.

She puts up the image of the perfect fragile woman, even if she instigated a crime.

Narcissistic behavior. 

She considers herself the policewoman of human behavior.

She often lacks a understanding of different races and classes.

She projects her own misery on those who cannot fight back against her.

She is often a Know Nothing Know It All.

This probably hits home Bridget, they describe your mother, Auntie Una, and smug married friends. When you look at the news from my country, you tell yourself every time they wonder about your marital status or when you will have children, you are likely keeping them from calling the police on a black kid selling cups of water. But Karen is merely the more outwardly mature version of a trope you definitely fit and her name is....

Becky

Hey Bridget, your hair may not be as shiny as you like but according to a White Supremacist structure, you have “good hair”. You dealt with your literal Beckys Bridget (hi book version Rebecca Gillies), but what “Becky” refers to is to a often ditzy, somewhat entitled, young, white woman who lacks real racial understanding. It refers to how our society props up an image of idealized white femininity, sometimes it bleeds into women not considered “ideal” themselves. 

By the way, the redhead featured is Joan Holloway. She isn’t ditzy like a Becky but her Queen Bee behaviors, her reliance on her pretty privilege, lack of racial understanding, and her adherence to femininity and social climbing make her a modern-day Becky Sharp (also an earlier Becky). 

Remember when you contemplated introducing Mark as “a middle-aged prick who was lefty by his cruel raced ex-wife”? Wasn’t that kind of racist of your Bridget? Not so different from your mother? Here are a few traits:

Becky can be oblivious to her surroundings (and the feelings of others less advantaged than she).

She usually gets away with trouble due to her idealized Anglo looks.

Willfully naïve.

Conventionally feminine.

Often spoiled. 

She and her interests are basic and mainstream (sounds like milk tray, Colin Firth binge fests, shopping, numerous garden parties).

She is often cushioned against disappointment (in the 3rd film we were all supposed to be on your side while your bitchy boss fired you for very good reasons).

Unaware of other’s needs because she is so used to things going her way.

Her ignorance can be just as frustrating and harmful as a Karen’s maliciousness.

Becky is given real growth in fiction, to learn to be better. 

The thing is Bridget....where is your character development? It seems you hardly achieve much confidence, intellect, or maturity. In the 3rd film, I was shocked you were in your forties, I thought I was looking at a overgrown teenager. Perhaps you are a victim of Flanderization?

Karen and Becky

Now we look at how bad things could get if you don’t check your privilege soon enough Bridget, yes a lot of Beckys run the risk of becoming Karens. This is Mother-Daughter pair, Nancy (daughter) and Karen (Mother) Wheeler, I put them because of the connection but they don’t fit the stereotype (despite one of them having the name) but they are privileged white women talking about their shared experiences with misogyny. And most Beckys and Karens had to deal with misogyny, both outside and internalized, the issue being they don’t see how other people had to suffer due to prejudice.

Now Bridget, with your mother, you are a Becky while she was always a Karen. That is you are ignorant about your white privilege while your mother runs on casual racism, ignorance, and Tory politics. Ask her or Mark about the race riots, ask her  and Mark about Enoch Powell. And yes Julie Bindel, a fellow compatriot of yours, complained about the Karen label but honestly it’s scary about how some of your peers chortled over racist jokes or your mother’s antics but get up in arms when people of color in service jobs call ya’ll out. But there are some Karen traits you show already, you will weaponize your place in the pecking order to beat down on another woman, like with Perpetua and Mark’s first ex-wife. 

What does this say about you?

I will be the first to admit, I would’ve jumped up and cheered if I woke up in your body. You are conventionally prettier, but lately I recognized my own points and one of them is flair and the ability to read folks. Believe it or not Bridget, you are seen as a role model and a relatable figure to folks (and your last film ran on Millennial bashing, hating on younger women is not a good look). Maybe these Zoomer teens were on to something? Bridge, they will save us, we need to do the work. 

Now maybe you can take a cue from Dr. Rawlings on how to support and critique women Bridget? In the meantime, I think if I run into you, I’ll run if I see your mother. 

Not all is lost, I see you are a reader, maybe put down the self-help books and do some self-improvement by learning how to be a better white ally. I would like to read Hood Feminism (Mikki Kendall is a delight on Twitter). Meanwhile, if you do release a 4th movie in the future: don’t release it during a U.S. election year (I have had enough right wing presidents to last my teens and twenties).  

#Bridget Jones #Bridget Jones's Diary #Karens #Karen #Becky #Beckys #white women #White Privilege #racist patriarchy #Casual Racism #Women in Media #character analysis #your fave is problematic #character intervention

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

Charles Dickens: Societal Problems in “Our Mutual Friend”

Note on the text: Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens published by Walter J Black

Charles Dickens is one of the best novelists that the world has ever known. His knowledge of nature is so deep and so penetrating that it rings true even now. 

He was a much better observer of human nature than he gets credit for. It has become vogue in recent times to see him as something of a caricaturist who only created characters that were one dimensional and over the top. 

But look at the way he introduces the characters of Lizzie Hexam and her father Jesse, who are sailing on the Thames, to us. How he tells us so much about these characters with so little text: “Allied to the bottom of the river rather than the surface by reason of the slime and ooze with which it was covered, and in its sodden state, this boat and the two figures in it obviously were doing that they often did, and were seeking what they often sought” (2). With only a few words we know instantly that they are professionals and the image that comes to mind from these few words is as rich and detailed as if they had been given a paragraph’s worth of adjectives. 

Again Dickens shows his genius in describing the minute details of human nature in the way that Jesse instinctively knows that Lizzie has noticed something on the river that he hasn’t: “What ails you?’ [asked] the man, immediately aware of [Lizzie’s change in attitude]. ‘I see nothing afloat’” (3).

It should not be a surprise therefore that someone who noticed the smallest details of human behavior, was also able to notice some of the broader details too. What Dickens seems especially interested in is the effect that education and money have on people. One of the things that he points out over and over again is how people who are in the privileged class often don’t notice how privileged they are and they aren’t aware of just how valuable those privileges are. People on the outside on the other hand are acutely aware of just how valuable those privileges are. Those who are educated, for example, don’t know just how much of a gift education is because “no one who can read looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like someone who cannot” (24). Lizzie is a poor girl who, as she tells her younger brother Charley, “would be very glad to be able to read real books” and who “feels her want of education very much” (40). She knows what the value of a good education is, which is why she sends Charley off to school later even though that means that she might not see him again. Contrast that with the image of the Veneering family who, although they are very educated and surround themselves with the crème de la crème of society, care so little about being educated that “any one who has anything to tell generally tells it to anyone else in preference” (18). These are the people who have the power and the privilege, and yet they cannot even recognize or appreciate the privilege that they have. 

Along with access to education comes access to higher paying jobs, and all power that money has access to. Dickens was acutely aware of the power that money wields in both the micro and macro scale. In terms of the micro scale, look at how Eugene describes the way in which his father found him a woman to marry to his friend: “My respected father has found, down in the parental neighborhood, a wife for his generally not well respected son’. ‘With some money of course?’ ‘With some money, of course, or else he would not have found her” (198). A rogue like Eugene, without any money, is intolerable and unmarriable. But a rogue with money is a different story altogether. 

Dickens is also aware however of the role that money plays on the macro scale. Just look at the way he describes what a gentleman with shares, the 19th century equivalent of a hedge fund manager, does: 

He goes in an amateurish, condescending way into the City, attends meetings of Directors and has to do traffic in shares. As is well known to the wise in their generation, traffic in Shares is the one thing to do in this world. Have no antecedents, no established character, no cultivation, no ideas, no manners, have Shares. Have Shares enough to be on Boards of Directors in capital letters, oscillate on mysterious business between London and Paris, and be great. Where does he come from? Shares. Where is he going to? Shares. Does he have any principles? Shares. What squeezes him into parliament? Shares. Perhaps he never achieved anything of himself in success, never originated anything, never produced anything! Sufficient answer to all: Shares. Oh mighty Shares! (154-155).

No where is the difference between the haves and the havenots in this book more evident than in a conversation that Mr. Podsnap has with an unnamed gentleman at a dinner party. They are discussing a report which has just appeared in the newspaper regarding six people who have died that week, in the streets, of starvation. Initially Mr. Podsnap says that he doesn’t believe that that actually happens to which the gentleman replies that they 

must take it as proved because [of] the Inquests and Registrar’s returns. ‘Then it was their own fault’ said Mr. Podsnap. . . . The man of meek demeanor intimated that truly it would seem [that] starvation had been forced upon the culprits in question. . . [and that] they would rather not have [starved to death]. . . if it had been agreeable to all parties. ‘There is not’, said Mr. Podsnap flushing angrily, ‘there is not another country in the whole world, sir, where so noble a provision of the poor is made as in this country’. The meek man was willing to concede that, but perhaps it rendered the matter even worse, as showing that there must be something appallingly wrong somewhere [in the system]. . . [and] wouldn’t it be just as well to try and figure out where? ‘Ah!’ said Mr. Podsnap. ‘Easy to saw ‘somewhere’; not so easy to say ‘where’! But I see what you are driving at. I knew it from the first. Centralization. No. Never. Never with my consent. [It’s] not English’. . . . [The meek man had no] favorite ‘ization’ that he knew of. But he was certainly more staggered by these terrible occurrences than he was by names of however many syllables. Might he ask if dying of destitution and neglect was necessarily English?. . . . [Might there be a way to ensure that the] laws [regarding the poor] were being properly administered? (190-191). 

At this point Mr. Podsnap quotes Scripture by saying that the poor will always be with us and cautions the young man to not attempt the impossible by feuding with God. When the young man attempts to say that he is not trying to go against God but is instead just trying to help his fellow man Mr. Podsnap interrupts him by saying that he 

must decline to pursue this painful discussion. It is not pleasant to my feelings. It is repugnant to my feelings. I have said that I do not admit these things. I have also said that if they do occur (not that I admit it) the fault lies with the sufferers themselves. It is not for me’- Mr. Podsnap pointed at ‘me’ forcibly as [if to add] by implication that it may be well for ‘you’- ‘it is not for me to impugn the works of Providence. I know better than that, I trust, and I mentioned what the intentions of Providence are. Besides’, said Mr. Podsnap flushing. . . with a consciousness of personal affront, ‘the subject is a disagreeable one. I will go so far as to say that it is an odious one. It is not one to be introduced among our wives and young ones, and I’, he finished with a flourish of his arms than anything [else] could, ‘And I remove it from existence’” (191-192). 

Doesn’t Mr. Podsnap remind you of people in recent times who, when they were told of a tragedy that was happening nationwide to members of an under privileged class, initially denied that anything was happening, and then, once they could no longer deny the fact, proceeded to blame the members of that group for their predicament? People who even after they realized that they could not blame those people for the predicament which they found themselves in, said that everyone should just simply celebrate the progress that the country has made and stop talking about it because they were tired of having the conversation and it was making them uncomfortable? Does this remind you of anyone? No? Just me then I guess. . . .

Not only does society despise members of the lower class, but it scoffs at the attempts that many people of class make in order to be able to enjoy the benefits that are being offered to members of the upper class. When Jesse Hexam is being derided for being a waterman and something of a grave robber, he retorts that it is better to rob a dead man who has no need of money than it is to rob a live one which is what a lot of other people do. Similarly people condemn Bella for wanting to marry a rich man, but who could blame her? Given the way that society treats poor people, who could blame her for saying that she “hate[s] and detest[s] being poor” and that because she cannot make money, beg for money, or steal money, she is resolved to marry into it (435)? But that is the difference between the haves and the havenots. The haves make the rules and the havenots have to live by them. The haves live in a world where they have privileges that they are not even aware they have, while the havenots must struggle to get by in a world that seems stacked against them. 

Charles Dickens was a very perceptive writer, and much of what he said about 19th century England still applies to America today. History doesn’t always repeat but it does often rhyme. It’s strange to know that people like Podsnap still exist today. We have a long way to go, but it’s important to keep fighting so that future generations don’t have to keep dealing with the same problems that we do. We must keep fighting. 

#charlesdickens #dickens #podsnap #ourmutualfriend #poverty #poor #scriptures #underprivileged #privilege #rich #education #hexam #lizziehexam #money #stocks #shares #upperclass #workingclass

[recycledmovies]

‘Parasite’ shows the ugliness of Koreans dealing with their hierarchical society in very high detail. Unlike many other interpretations I’ve seen, I will not deal with the details and the mise en scene, but the overall story, characters and their roles. The details are stunning, but I don’t think that’s an excuse to look away from the main story to focus on the little things. Also, there are two dimensions from a macro and meso point of view that I think are more relevant than finding hidden foreshadows or symbols.

Please note that I am Korean and know enough about Korea to point out the flaws of our society and people, including myself. I know very well that Koreans hate being criticized (just as Gitaek shows signs of anger when Mr. Park points out that he has an weird smell), but the truth is the truth and nothing will improve if we cannot see ourselves objectively. So if you’re pissed at my interpretation because you are a proud Korean, think again about what good pride will do.

The Hierarchical Society

Hierarchy has always been part of Korean culture. But as the movie shows, hierarchy is not based on traditional values anymore but overridden completely by economic status. You can see this in the scene where the young pizza box collector speaks down to the Kims. Traditionally, speaking in this manner to people who are even a year older would be considered absolutely unacceptable. This scene sets the stage as a society where economic values have become the new standard for hierarchy. In reality, money justifies everything in Korea and I’m sure it’s the same in a lot of places around the world. Basic ethics and philosophy is forgotten, or something only the naïve remembers anymore.

Although the Parks have higher economic status, a number of scenes demonstrate that in essence, they are also just human beings and have the same flaws as anyone else. Mr. Park and Yeon-gyo uses Gijeong’s underwear as prop during their role-play intercourse on the couch after criticizing the former driver for indecency and accusing him of drug abuse without any evidence whatsoever. Although the Parks are respectful towards the Kims, they still smell the difference. This is another trait of the Korean middle class. While they act like decent people in general, deep down, they still consider the Parks different. Koreans know very well that this is not a trait of the upper class, but more a trait of the middle class. We like to think that we are different from those that are of lower class in our hierarchy. We may act like we respect others, but deep down, the concept of hierarchy prevails. Even today, when two Koreans meet for the first time, questions go back and forth to subtly reveal the status in hierarchy of the two people. Sometimes this is age, sometimes social status and sometimes economic status, but we always establish the hierarchy. When a difference in status is found, the language that we use suddenly changes. The higher class can speak down and the lower class has to speak the polite version of Korean and show respect in almost every word, gesture and even posture.

Another fascinating feature of Koreans and our hierarchical society that also appears in Parasite is the fact that rather than the middle class cooperating with each other to make their lives better, individuals try to move up to the higher class by stepping on their fellow middle class people. The goal is always to make our own lives better by being better than others rather than making everything better. Choongsook demonstrates this when she finds out that Moon-gwang has been hiding her husband in the cellar. Immediately, Choongsook decides to side with the higher class family and fails to see that Moon-gwang’s family and her own would benefit from a partnership. An example in reality? Although most Koreans get outraged when owners of Korean conglomerates or their family members mistreat and deceive the public, most Koreans would do anything to get a job at Samsung, LG or Korean Air. No matter how inhumanely the upper class treats the lower classes, people will jump at any chance to join the higher class and look down on those that are considered lower once they get there, regardless of how many ethical or philosophical values they have to give up.

The dominance of competition in the Korean mentality is emphasized by the fact that both the Kims and the Parks had gone bankrupt from trying to run a franchise store of a ‘Taiwanese Castella’ chain. Even though the Kims hear that Moon-gwang’s family had gone through the same financial difficulties for the same reason, they fail to feel sympathy and only think about competing with those that can be considered their closest fellows. Sadly, another common characteristic among Koreans.

The Absence Of A Middle Class Family

The middle class is the essence of capitalism. The large portion of middle class sets the norm in most modern societies and creates a barrier for the upper class preventing upheavals from inequality. But there is not middle class character in the movie that influences the plot. It’s hard to see this as accidental and for me it was the single most impressive aspect of the plot.

I have two explanations for this absence of the majority. First is that in a strictly hierarchical society, nobody feels like the middle class. Apart from very close friends, everyone else is either in a higher class or a lower class than myself. In one on one interaction with other I’m either the upper class or the lower class. When two Koreans meet for the first time, we ask questions that can lead to answers which give clues to who is higher in the hierarchy. Usually age, social status or financial status is asked indirectly to establish the hierarchy. Once it is established, it dictates the language, gestures and even postures of the two people. Even if one person is a couple of months older than the other, the hierarchy unfolds.

Another reason I think the middle class was left out was because the majority of the audience would be middle class Koreans and Koreans are terrible at taking criticism. If the plot had a middle class family, most of the audience would related themselves to that family. And if the movie showed any criticism towards them, it would instantly become personal to the audience and Bong would have had a hard time both financially and reputation wise.

The Deranged Husband

Moon-gwang’s husband acts like a crazy person and shows unconditional respect towards Mr. Park, who doesn’t even know that Moon-gwang’s husband exists. But is this really that weird for Koreans? Most Koreans work for tycoons that brainwash their employees to show unconditional obedience while not even knowing their names. We arrive at our desks before our superiors do and leave after our superiors leave even if we have nothing to do at our desks and have to kill time watching Youtube videos. Can we really say that Moon-gwang’s husband is that much different from the average Korean? And just like Moon-gwang’s husband, the middle class does nothing about being forced to show fake respect everyday. We actually encourage it by investing years of studies to pass the company employment exams. Yes. Korean companies have exams because there are so many people trying to become employees. One of them is called SSAT. Guess what the first ‘S’ stands for?

Moon-gwang goes on further by impersonating the North Korean national news caster. The North Korean news caster is a symbol of manipulation and oppression for South Koreans. Are South Koreans really in the position to think that North Korea has extreme issues and we are free from oppression and manipulation?

The Hero

Like in reality, there are always exceptions. The exception in this movie? Gitaek. Gitaek is the only character in the movie that acts against the hierarchical system for values that are innate to humans. As a result, he is forced down into the cellar that Moon-gwang’s deranged husband once lived. This also directly reflects the Korean society where being different is unacceptable. Maybe reality is not as severe as in the movie, but going against popular sentiment brings similar consequences. I remember growing up, people who would had tanned skin were called ‘tanning jok,’ meaning ‘tanning tribe.’ During the cryptocurrency boom, people traded cryptocurrency were called ‘coin choong,’ meaning ‘coin vermin’. Such framing isolates people who show any difference from the majority, regardless of whether the difference is positive or negative. Of course, heroes, who act against the wrong when others don’t, are also often isolated by the majority. Gitaek, the hero of the lower class who couldn’t stay put when Mr. Park showed no concern for other people’s lives than that of his son, ends up in the place where a deranged man once lived. The peer pressure to act the same way that others do in Korea is so strong that they can no longer tell the difference between a deranged person and a hero but can only regard them as misfits.

Socially Acceptable Deception

Although the title ‘Parasite’ has a negative vibe, it must be noted that no character in the film ever shows signs of excessive greed or bad intentions. People might debate that the Kims were greedy, but in reality, lying and pretending is everyday life for average Koreans. It is especially considered acceptable when it’s done for profit. Hell, it’s usually considered clever and smart. You’d get a pat on the back if you were working in Korean company and you showed better performance by deceiving others. The lies can be justified further in the movie considering that the Kims were desperate in terms of finances and they had to deceive in order to survive. Giwoo shows no signs of remorse about deceiving the Parks and justifies his lies by saying that he will enter university once he gets his funds together. Things a lot worse than small lies are justified everyday in reality and this is hardly considered a problem among people that have not been educated properly in ethics or philosophy. Do it long enough, and it becomes a way of life.

When Philosophers Are Considered Failures

There are a lot of interpretations about the rock and what it symbolizes. Overall, the rock was the boundary between cleverness and wisdom. Kiwoo, who had the strongest ties to the rock, was no doubt an intelligent character. He was clever enough to deceive the Parks and actually demonstrated knowledge about teaching high school students. But his obsession over the rock implies the boundaries of his intelligence. The power of the rock is a myth and the rock came to Kiwoo with his new job as a tutor. The reason Kiwoo’s friend came over at the beginning of the movie, was to offer him a job. While doing so, he brought the rock as a gift. But as the story progresses, Kiwoo goes on to believe that the rock brought him the new job and good fortune to the whole family. Such myths are still common in Korean culture and often lead to irrational decisions though not as extreme as the case in the movie. A lot of Koreans still read interpretations about dreams everyday and visit fortune tellers before big events such as marriage, buying an apartment, moving jobs etc. The rock is the hope and last resort that Giwoo chose without any logical reasoning.

When Giwoo first meets Dahye, he captures both Dahye and Yeon-gyo’s attention by saying “I don’t care whether the answer to question 24 is right or wrong. In reality, it’s the attitude that’s important.” It’s a great motivational speech, but at the same time, it shows that Giwoo is focused more on handling situations than the basic truth behind the situations.

The study that focuses on the latent truth is philosophy. In Korea, majoring in philosophy is considered a huge failure. Even if you study philosophy in the most prestigious Seoul National University, people laugh and your degree is a mockery. Giwoo’s attachment to the rock, his short term plans and failure to tend to the truth mimics such aspect of Koreans. Without philosophy, we focus on the wrong things. We live in cramped apartments that cost close to a million U.S. dollars and buy exotic cars to show off. A lot of us focus on the top portion of Maslow’s triangle while sacrificing the bottom portions. In other words, we make our lives better by creating fundamental problems. It’s not just Giwoo.

Mr. Park’s ‘Line’

Mr. Park complains about Gitaek’s smell, but he doesn’t fire him for the fact that Gitaek doesn’t cross the ‘line’ that is so important to Mr. Park. From the moment Mr. Park mentions the ‘line’, the line becomes a big deal not only for Mr. Park, but also for the audience as this line has the potential of becoming the tipping point of a major conflict among characters. This mysterious line becomes so important that the audience forget about the basic moral values or philosophical lines of human society and only focus on trying to understand Mr. Park’s line and whether Gitaek crosses it or not. Ironically, it is Mr. Park that crosses the more important line of basic human ethics at the climax of the story. He reveals that he has no respect for human life other than that of his own family when faced with dramatic situations in reality. In spite of having two people in his garden with critical stab wounds, Mr. Park is only worried about his son who had passed out and manages to show disgust towards Moon-gwang’s husband’s smell rather than being worried about his life. Finally it is Gitaek that snaps, not Mr. Park.

“Your Plan Can’t Fail If You Have No Plan”

This is the life philosophy of Gitaek. I’ve seen reviews saying that this is the basic mentality of losers in society. But is it? How many middle class Koreans have made plans themselves that actually worked out? We show hatred towards the owners of Samsung, Hyundai and all those Jaebols, but most of the middle class try so hard to work for them and become a part of their establishments. Was that the plan so many middle class people had that worked out so well? How many Koreans you know currently work at their dream jobs? Gitaeks philosophy isn’t a sign of his inability. It’s his observation of life as a lower class citizen in a hierarchical society. When absolute powers above us make all of the decisions, your plans often get swept away and you are forced to adapt to whatever those higher class people have in store. In other words, Gitaek knows that ‘plans’ of the powerless are merely dreams in a hierarchical society.

Throughout the movie we laugh at the ridiculous plans that Giwoo makes. But in the end, he comes up with a plan to save his father that makes more sense. But how do we feel about that one? It feels closer to a dream than a plan. This is what plans of the powerless look like. Either short sighted plots or unattainable dreams.

So Who Is The Parasite?

Everyone and no one. All three families leech on another family. Moon-gwang and her husband had been leeching on the Parks while traumatizing Dasong. The Kims leeched on anyone with money. And the Parks leeched on the lower class. Despite the whole family working for the Parks, the Kims couldn’t even afford a motel when their underground apartment got flooded. Moon-gwang and her husband couldn’t afford a home either and had debt problems.

More importantly, both the Kims and the Parks scattered like cockroaches when the light switched on and people appeared. The Kims scattered from the Parks’ house when the Parks returned early from their failed camping trip. The Parks and their wealthy friends scattered when the true face of the capitalist hierarchical society appeared in their garden. The Parks had also been hiding in their dens while leeching on the lower class and accumulating wealth. But when the consequences unfold and real people of the society appear, all they can do is run.

When Koreans get tired of these conflicts among one another, we use the term ‘Hell Chosun.’ It’s a word that represents how Koreans leech and step on one another to get ahead of any and all kind of competition. Maybe this is the real parasite in our minds. It eats away at our rational minds and guides us towards irrational decisions. In the end, Mr. Park, Moon-gwang, her husband and Gijung lose their lives, Giwoo gets impaired and Gitaek has to live like an actual cockroach.

  I’m sure there are other interpretations that have different views. I especially found the detail oriented explanations very interesting since by myself, I tend to focus harder on the forest rather than the trees. It would be fascinating to see how people from other cultures interpret the movie as well and whether other hierarchical societies have the same problems. Let me know what you think of my perspective and I hope I’ll soon come across another movie that I can’t resist writing about.

#parasite explained #parasite interpretation #korean movie #parasite #bong joon-ho #movie review #review #기생충 #기생충해석 #korean #한국사회 #대한민국 #수직사회 #korea #한국 #한국영화 #자본주의 #유교사상 #봉준호 #유교문화 #hierarchy #hierarchical society

[thegirlisuedtobe]

i think i finally understand where the “웃는 남자 the man who laughs” kmusical falls flat in terms of its critique on class; and that’s because gwynplaine nor dea and even to an extent the theatre troupe members never suffer under this “suffering” that they always seem to be talking about.

There’s no specific instances where gywnplaine is denied of humanity because of his class, but only because he is ugly/monster-like in appearance. The theatre members are poor, yes, but there’s never any mention of them struggling in a way that’s explicitly visible. Sure, they’ve got patchwork clothing and have to sell, essentially, their bodies for entertainment but there is no yknow any of that good ole starvation, or illness that is easily treatable but the financial aid is not there, or something that is impacting their lives directly as a result of class inequality. Just a general life is hard kind of message.

Most, if not all, scenes with the theatre troupe members are happy and comical. And I get that like this is not a heavy drama but a (romantic) comedy, but when it’s trying so hard to impart a message, and I know that it’s trying to because of the “open your eyes” song and we’ll get to that, but like,,, it never goes anywhere deeper than surface level especially with how the show ends.

Your ending should be able to tie up structurally how the events of an overarching issue relates to the personal struggles of your characters. Dea dying because she’s sad that gwynplaine presumably “died” does not in any way address the class issue. Perhaps if you were talking about how because of financial problems she cannot get mental help then yes I guess maybe that could work? but that’s not what this show is about. Dea dying and then gwynplaine coming back is not where the show should end if you’re trying to say “hey, maybe we need to like, i don’t know, re-examine the system and how it’s led to this wealth inequality.“

He’s chosen to abandon the system instead of try to fix it. AND what’s so frustrating is that he CAN. He has the power to try to fix or at least alleviate some of the problems that arise from this issue through his newfound political power. And that’s where “그 눈을 떠 open your eyes” and the subsequent song “웃는 남자 the man who laughs” exposes the flaws of this show.

We have gwynplaine, who has only experienced class inequality in the most vaguest of terms wherein there is no explicit issue that directly impacts his life, telling an audience of royal court members and the queen i guess that “maybe inequality is bad”. Because gwynplaine doesn’t have that moment in the show where he is struggling directly as a result of being poor it’s kind of like he himself belongs to that upper class. Which is further compounded by the fact that he was revealed to be a son of a royal court member, therefore legitimasing his status as not really a person who suffers under class inequality. yay,,,,

In the song, specifically, (and you can check this out in a script translation I wrote [here]) he never mentions how the class hierarchy that benefits them is inherently tied to the suffering of those below. He’s saying “look at your rich lives, look at the poor’s sad lives, be compassionate” when what he needs to be saying is “look at how your rich lives affect the poor’s sad lives, we need to do something about it.” Which falls even flatter because the rich class already know how the people suffer, but they don’t care., otherwise, society wouldn’t have been constructed in a way that only benefits a small group of people.

Queen anne literally sings;

어디서 자꾸 개가 짖어 뭐? 우리 보고 눈을 뜨라고? 추함에 타락함에? 그러느니 차라리 장님으로 살겠어

Where does this dog keep barking at? What? You want us to open our eyes? To the ugliness, to the corruption? Keep talking and I’d rather be blind

And in the face of this revelation, seeming to previously being unknown only to gwynplaine, he sort of simultaneously rejects and conforms to them in “the man who laughs” song. He agrees to play along with the image they have of him but also he says that because if it, it will lead to their downfall.

법이라 만드는 건 지들 배만 불릴 거짓 논리들 법을 배신해 난 웃는 놈      

What makes words law? It’s all false logic that lets them fill their stomachs, if so, then I’ll betray the law, I’m the grinning man.

And maybe that might work(?) but it doesn’t in the context of this show nor does it reflect the current state of the world. Showing the ugly nature of the system will not entirely fix the issues that it perpetuates. People know that their clothes are made in sweatshops and people still buy them,,,,

SO in conclusion, maybe the message of the show is “don’t be naive the system is here to stay and if one so chooses not to participate the only way out is death.” LIKE I--there is so many things,,, sad and unconstructive to this discussion of class inequality that the show is examining but like, the answer should not be death.

I feel like with more work the show has the potential to have a really in depth and meaningful discussion about class inequality. What makes me so frustrated is the fact that it won’t. It’s finished. With three productions already having been staged there doesn’t seem to be any indication of more work to make this good show into a better one. Which ironically is tied to the very same problems that their message is trying to get across.

Anyways, if you got this far I applaud you! I really do love this show, and my criticisms come from a place of love. There is so many other things I could talk about but I hope yall that enjoyed that.

#the man who laughs #the man who laughs kmusical #웃는 남자 #musicaltheatre #i dont rly know what else to tag this as? do yall want me like the man who laughs critical? slkdsdkf #me myself and i

[costumesofhannibal]

Analysis of ALovelyVillian’s Madame Umbridge Home For Wayward Girls

I thought I would take a deep dive into Draco and Hermione’s relationship vs Tom and Hermione’s relationship in the victorian gothic thriller AU, and the long term viability of each relationship. If you haven’t read it, GO READ IT. It’s a masterclass in romantic tension and a great mash up of the genre tropes. Some spoilers up to chapter 30 below:

First, let’s look at Draco’s relationship with Hermione, as it pre-existed the start of the fic. It seems his relationship with Hermione is based in wanting what he can’t have, and rebellion against his father. (God, Draco in the books is a pile of daddy issues.) As it the case with a lot of people, especially people who usually get everything they want, they fixate on what they cannot have. Hermione and Draco originally hated each other, and Draco then started to like her because she didn’t fawn over him like a lot of other society girls. 

I get the sense that Draco still sees Hermione as a prize to be won. He clearly enjoys the chase, but it seems on some level he takes Hermione for granted. Despite previously suggested they run off together, but in Chapter 14, Hermione points out that never once before did he actually say he loved her. He just seemed under the impression he was entitled to her affection, and it was inconceivable that she would ever reject him. I have to agree with Hermione on why running away wouldn’t work in the long term. Even if he “gets the girl”, I just can’t see Draco being happy long term living even an upper-middle class lifestyle without become resentful.  He might not immediately blame her, but I could easily see him blaming his father. Either way he’s going to be resentful, about the situation, and Hermione is intrinsic to his falling out with his father. 

I’m not sure how much Draco understands how intrinsic his father is to his life. While now Draco has renounced his father, and the discovery of his father’s involvement in the doll making ring is his cause for a break, he has had plenty of reasons in the past to leave. (Side note: his plan of “I’m going to confront my father, and then leave, giving him plenty of opportunity to warn people”, is not...the most thought through. Yeah I understand it’s a natural response, but jeez has he complicated plans.) As Hermione points out, through their relationship, Draco almost saw her as a symbol, not the real her. She represented his rebellion against his father. She was an easy way for Draco to piss off Lucius. In fact, Lucius discouraging their relationship probably did more to bring Draco towards her, as it furthered the reasons she was unattainable. 

In recent chapters, its clear Draco doesn’t care about anything other than saving (winning) Hermione back. He’ll happily let all the other plans to rescue the girls fail. In fact, it seems that Draco has been more in love with Hermione after Tom showed up, and suddenly it looked like he might loose her forever. It seems previously he just figured she’d change her mind eventually. 

In contrast, Tom’s relationship with Hermione is built on shared secrets, protection/a partnership, and character growth. Personally, I see a mutual respect in Tom and Hermione’s relationship, as Tom even refers to her as a partner in their adventure, that is lacking in Hermione and Draco’s relationship. I think this is largely due to the fact that most of Hermione’s growth in the story is due to Tom, and Tom’s growth (pretty much) solely to Hermione. Draco has developed, but its largely on his own. I don’t get the sense that Hermione has developed because of Draco. Whereas, Tom has brought out the existing confidence and strength in Hermione and Hermione has brought out Tom’s humanity. (I have to say, her killing Doholov was very satisfying.) Of course, whether one sees Hermione’s character growth as morally good or bad, Tom and Hermione still push each other towards change. 

Even though Tom also doesn’t care about what happens to the other girls, (well he cares more than Draco), he still wants to stop the Doll-maker. Yes, it’s largely for selfish reasons, but the net utility is still better than Draco’s reasons, as Tom would stop the whole enterprise. Unlike a lot of organizations, it seems that as the Doll-maker is the only one who can make the dolls, cutting off the organization’s head would actually end it. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if during the rescue, Draco sabotages Tom out of jealousy. Where as, while Tom can’t stand Draco, he seems to view Draco as beneath him, and has more important concerns. 

Another important factor, while both Draco and Tom are incredibly possessive, Tom’s possessiveness does not seem based out of an entitlement, “I can have anything so I want what I can’t have”, but a “I can’t have anything, so I’m going to cling to the one thing I maybe can have.” It’s a refreshing interpretation of Tom. It also seems that it has potential for a longer term viability after the story, as Tom would’t take Hermione for granted. He never expected to have relationship, so he would be much more grateful. (Healthy or not, that’s an entirely different discussion.) 

Of course this analysis leaves out the morality of Tom and Draco, but as this is fiction, and not reality, I view that as a different discussion. Personally, I see morality much more flexible and subjective in fiction. 

What do people think? I’m curious as to other reader’s views. 

#alovelyvillain #MUHFWG #tomione #dramione #tomione fic rec #draco x hermione #tom x hermione #fanfic #Harry Potter #analysis #fic analysis #fic meta