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marybeatriceofmodena · 1 year

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What did Andrew Lloyd Webber do to make Patti Lupone upset? Sorry, saw your tags and i was curious

Oh.

Oh honey.

You sweet child.

Anyway, get ready for one of the most infamous showdowns in all musical theatre history, with the guy who writes the straightest musicals on Broadway (derogatory) and the one and only, the matriarch, the queen, two three-time Tony award winner Patti LuPone.

So, Andrew Lloyd Webber was basically kind of a boy genius in his prime - he met his future collaborator Tim Rice when they were 17 and 20 respectively, he wrote his first big hit, Jesus Christ Superstar, at 22, with Tim Rice writing the lyrics. And it was kind of a big deal at the time because the topic was controversial (you know, the Passion with rock music), but also because Broadway wasn't that far off from its golden age and let's just say the music and style were very different from, say, My Fair Lady. Or The Sound of Music. Or Funny Girl. It was basically the Rent/Hamilton of its time. (Yeah, Stephen Sondheim was around at that time, he worked on West Side Story which was revolutionary in of itself, but he's kind of an oddball in this case. You'll understand why later.)

Their real follow up (I'm not counting Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for a variety of reasons) was a little musical called Evita, which you might know mainly because of a song called Don't Cry For Me Argentina. Or at least, your mom has probably heard it once at the very least. It's that song that's oversung from a musical while being out of context along with I Dreamed a Dream for Les Misérables. Or Memory from Cats.

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Evita tells the story of Eva Peron, the wife of an Argentinian dictator, who basically screws her way to the top and ends up becoming the mistress of Juan Peron and the most beloved woman in her country through guile and deceit. Yes, I know the historical accuracy is very much debated but I know jackshit about Argentina's history except the bare basics so don't come at me. It was first produced in the West End in London, with Elaine Paige in the role, but because of Equity issues, she couldn't reprise her role for the Broadway production. So a Julliard graduate who was mostly starring in David Mamet plays got the part instead, and that was Patti LuPone.

Patti... did not have a good time during Evita, because the part is basically the kind of score where you can tell the composer is used to writing male parts, but most female singers have a two-octave range (yes, you got Julie Andrews who used to have a three-octave range, and many others, but they're exceptions), so she struggled a lot. That being said, if you listen to live recordings of her, you wouldn't be able to tell, and it got a lot easier later on. But she had this to say:

"Evita was the worst experience of my life. I was screaming my way through a part that could only have been written by a man who hates women. And I had no support from the producers, who wanted a star performance onstage but treated me as an unknown backstage. It was like Beirut, and I fought like a banshee."

This is from Patti's autobiography, which she wrote in 2007 - 8 years after shit with ALW went down. With all that said, she won a Tony Award for Evita, and she pretty much became a musical theatre household name from then on. She played Fantine in Les Misérables, Nancy in Oliver!, Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes. Meanwhile, ALW's next big hits were Cats (I'm not even kidding, Cats was a hit), and, you guessed it, The Phantom of the Opera, which he wrote in part to showcase his then wife Sarah Brightman's triple threat talents.

So, you need to understand before I continue that ALW, from my perspective, has always had a bit of an inferiority complex. He's basically associated to writing these commercially successful musicals that show a big spectacle but aren't ultimately substantial. I'm not sure I entirely agree with that, but I do think that if he didn't have Hal Prince, Maria Bjornson, Charles Hart and Gillian Lynne backing him up for Phantom, it would have probably been a Rocky Horror Picture Show knockoff people would have forgotten about pretty quickly. This is what I mean:

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Yep, that was Phantom before any of the people I mentioned above (and Michael Crawford) were really involved.

Remember how I said Stephen Sondheim was an oddball? The thing with him is that his musicals weren't always commercially successful, but in general, in part thanks to being Leonard Bernstein's protégé, he was generally pretty well-respected and it was considered that his work was bringing musicals to a whole other level. Without Sondheim, you wouldn't have Jonathan Larson, and you wouldn't have Lin-Manuel Miranda. I am convinced ALW is resentful of that, and when you stop and think about it for more than 10 seconds, it's so obvious he REALLY wants to be Sondheim or at least command the same level of respect, but that's a story for another day.

So, after Phantom, ALW had other musicals that followed that either got a meh reception or outright flopped. Then there was Sunset Boulevard, which is based on the movie of the same name with Gloria Swanson. Despite all of her griefs for Evita, Patti LuPone agreed to partake in the musical as Norma Desmond, for its production in London, with the promise that she would transfer to Broadway once that production would open. And overall, after a string of flops, Sunset was actually doing pretty well.

HOWEVER. One day, while reading the gossip column of a newspaper, Patti found out that contrary to what she was promised, Glenn Close, who was meanwhile starring as Norma in the Los Angeles production, was to play Norma on Broadway. That was a complete surprise for her since no one on the production team had bothered to tell her it was happening - and keep in mind that for the news to come up the way it did in a gossip column, it probably would have necessitated a delay of a few weeks between the producers and the newspaper, which would have given them plenty of time to break the news to Patti. And Patti kind of needed the leg up because she was pretty bitter that a) Madonna was cast in the Evita adaptation instead of her; b) they actually lowered the key to fit Madonna's voice range, and she still had to expand her own to be able to sing the (lowered) score. And trust me, Patti is mad about it to this day.

So of course, she trashed her dressing room, the cast and crew weren't even mad about it because they were as shocked and angered as she was by the news. Patti sued Andrew Lloyd Webber for breach of contract, namely for 1 MILLION DOLLARS (yup, those are the real numbers), won, used the money she got from the lawsuit to get a swimming pool, which she called (and I SHIT YOU NOT) the Andrew Lloyd Webber Memorial Pool. Since then, Webber is dead to her, to the point rumor has it she had part of a building blocked during an event so she could get out of it without coming across Webber, because she hates him so flipping much she doesn't even want to be in the same building as the guy.

(There's also drama that happened with Faye Dunaway who was supposed to replace Glenn Close after she went from Los Angeles to Broadway, except they abruptly closed the show down after Close left, but that's a story for another day)

So with all the bad press, and with ALW forced to pay 1 million dollars for Patti's lawsuit, that led Sunset's productions to close earlier than expected. ALW has stayed around since, with... mitigated output, so to say. The lowest point for a lot of people is Love Never Dies, the sequel to Phantom, which some people love, and that's fine, but it didn't do well with either critics nor fans of the original show, which ALW is EXTREMELY BUTTHURT ABOUT. And like, there are so many stories I could tell about LND alone, but I will share my own crack theory about it, since it does relate to the ask.

Anyway, buckle up.

So. There have been jokes going around for years that the Phantom in LND is basically ALW's self-insert, where he displays to the world that he's totally not over Sarah Brightman leaving him (in part because making Phantom kinda ruined their marriage lmao), despite, you know, having married since. (Aaaaaakward.) So LND basically becomes this really uncomfortable therapy session where a man writes a self-insert musical about how his ex-wife made a big mistake of leaving a sensitive artistic soul such as himself. The characters from Phantom who appear in LND are all more or less unrecognizable as a result, and one who gets it worse (in my humble opinion) is Meg Giry, who was basically Christine's sweet and loyal ballerina friend who basically went into the Phantom's lair on her own to save her friend despite the danger. In LND, she's basically a bitter hag (because ALW hates women, guess Patti was right about that), who really likes the swim and even has a stripping vaudeville number about it, written in universe by the Phantom, no less.

For comparison, here's Don Juan Triumphant (the Phantom's opera in the original):

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And here's Bathing Beauty (the vaudeville number):

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Yeah, so... do you see why people hate LND already?

And that's not the only thing with Meg! She's also pining for the Phantom to pay attention to her and threatens to drown the Phantom and Christine's secret love child when he makes it clear that he's gonna love Christine for EVA AND EVA.

So, with everything we learned today about ALW, would someone like him view someone like Patti LuPone as some sort of crazy, bitter diva who's obsessed with him for whatever reason? Absolutely. Would he be petty enough to insert Patti LuPone into his self-insert musical, which gave us the version of Meg Giry we got in LND? Of course. Why does Meg love to swim so much and why does she drag Gustave out ostensibly for a swim? Is it a dig at Patti's Andrew Lloyd Webber Memorial Pool? Maybe.

I kind of hope we find out one day if that theory is true. And maybe start a kickstarter so Patti can add this painting from the 2004 movie in her collection.

Fun fact: during the process of casting for the 2004 movie adaptation of POTO, ALW allegedly suggested Patti LuPone to play Carlotta... only for Joel Schumacher to have to awkwardly remind him that they were not on speaking terms. The idea was therefore promptly dropped.

#YOU'RE WELCOME ANON #anon asks #Andrew Lloyd Webber #Patti LuPone #evita #sunset boulevard #phantom of the opera #love never dies

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thatdeadaquarius · 11 months

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Have some more language brainrot for your brainrot

Writer reader getting kind of insecure that even if they write something nobody will understand it, so when Al haithem askes you if he can keep a draft or two just for analyzing, there's hesitant agreement but ultimately you tell him to please burn the documents once he's done. They're too awkward to look at now...

Only he doesn't burn them, in fact he ends up recruiting several people close to the creator with knowledge of olden speak to analyze them. A funeral parlor consultant well known for his historical knowledge, a 500 year old shrine maiden who owns and runs her own publishing house, and a bard who somehow butted his way in on the project. None of them could resist the opportunity to witness the creator's sacred scriptures with their own eyes.

Needless to say, the papers ended up being fought over and have been making their rounds around your acolytes. It started with Ei, who insisted that as an archon she also should see the creator's work with her own eyes. Then once Ningguang found out, she ordered they be handed over to a team of literary analysts in order to be properly handled and deciphered. Things got really messy quick, but have luckily come to a halt as none of the acolytes want the creator to know their random writings are being fought over.

Especially when it comes to the creator's sullen additute. Their acolytes first have to convince their holiness that their inability to read and understand the creator's writing shouldn't prevent you from doing what you love. In fact... could they convince you to write some more?

WRITER OR READER WITH TALENTS HAS MY WHOLE HEART LIKE-

On one hand, same 💀 id be terrified for my all time fav skrunklies to see my bs

But at the same time i rlly wanna show them goddamit- THANK U FOR THE BRAIN FOOD IM RUNNING LAPS AROUND MY HOUSE THINKING ABT THIS-

Sun: Gender Neutral Reader (they/them), Writer!Reader

Planet: Language Shenanigans

Orbit: Scenario

Stars: Alhaitham mostly, some of Kaveh, mentions of other Sumeru characters

Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: Insecure about craft/writing, anxious first pov (not serious),

& Trigger Warnings: Mild Negative self-talk, insecure perspective/reader “you”, possible anxiety depiction.

You were not a very confident writer.

This had been an avoidable feeling ever since you picked up a pen for the first time and were asked to write a story for school.

You were always anxious turning in essays, letting friends proofread them, anything that would expose your writing to more eyes, because you’d learned the hard way early on that as you get older and better at something, the stuff from the beginning… starts to look a lot different than you remember.

things you used to be proud of after having completed them in the moment, were something you struggled not to rip to shreds a year or two after you re-found it.

If it weren’t for other writers advising holding onto old work so you can see your progress over time, you’d have probably literally nothing older than one year on your ao3, wattpad, etc…

So when you had the fortunate luck (no it is not unfortunately, you are very happy to be here tbh) to fall headfirst into your video game you’ve been obsessed with lately,

You were not planning on showing them any of your writing.

Why would you, after all? You’ve got the weapons, the artifacts, everything they need to be more powerful. Why would you show them a silly little story you wrote? Fanfic or otherwise, not that theyll recognize any characters besides themselves, but still.

Alhaitham, bc ofc it was alhaitham, cocky, deviously aware bastard he is, caught you writing in your spare time first.

You’d gotten your hands on an old journal (if made you feel better than something completely new, a nice worn leather journal, sold at a secondhand shop from an old adventurer) and had started to write what you could remember about some of your ideas you’d had drafts for in your old world

After initially walking in on you writing in the House of Daena (it was the closest you could get to lofi girl, god u missed her lmao), you nearly jumped a foot in the air bc Haitham’s a nosy bitch and leaned over your shoulder and scared the absolute shit out of you, mans goes from asking politely, to begging you to let him read some of your writing over the course of 3 weeks (a month really)

Finally, after this 6 ft (about 180cm) man leans down one day (you’re sitting writing again), and gives you the most insanely good?? puppy dog eyes??? you’ve ever seen on a man???

you give in, revise a draft about 5 times in a row, lose sleep bc ur having a breakdown about alhaitham judging ur writing the night before you give him his copy-

and hand over a small short story for him to read. you specifically leave a little note not to judge you so hard for Haitham bc u werent used to people reading ur work/let alone someone as highly academic as him, ESPECIALLY since your speech is already so much more archaic than his/all of Teyvats-

His stupid green eyes with diamonds look into your soul (are they sparkling??) and he braces your shoulders after you give him his copy,

“Mine Greatest Guide, you hath deemed this one worthy of thy trust of your creations personally, I would be a fool to gaze upon it in jest. To take this work as anything less than a masterpiece in its infant stages.”

…you just leave him to it, and are nearly running out of there (u managed to be calm enough to just speedwalk),

and you make a point to not ask what he thought about it, or even bring it up at all

you’re kind of hoping he forgot tbh… and so nothing happens!

◇

Nothing happens… for 2 weeks after you gave Haitham a copy of your short story.

You still don’t know Alhaitham’s opinion when you see the advertisement, a sign saying something about, a new book? By YOU???

You nearly start a mob because the shopkeeper insisted you sign some copies, but you only signed a few before too many people overwhelmed you, and seeing it was that same draft- !! Oh god, you’d been agonizing over the spelling errors you’d missed when you gave it to Alhaitham, and now it’s just out there???

(luckily it seems the reviews are positive, but dammit you’ve been rereading ur story u gave him for days, and now ur positive it’s shit-)

You make a break for it, and are literally running (more like speed-walking after a while, since u got further away) thru Sumeru City:

you pass by the open patio of a restaurant, the scholars are heatedly discussing ur characterization-

you pass by Dehya, Candace, and Dunyazard, the merc is waving around a copy of ur book, the other two women look excited abt the conversation-

oh my god-

Nahida is relaxing in one of the many little gazebos thruout Sumeru, while Wanderer seems to be reading your story to her-

You fucking track down Alhaitham’s house like a bloodhound.

You are banging the infamous gay roommates’ front door, panting til ur throat burns raw.

“Yes, yes, alright, greetings to you too! I was simply visiting the Acting Grand Sage Alhaitham, tis why I’m here- Greatest Lord?!”

Kaveh is nearly jumps a foot in the air at the sight of you, but recovers, (you’re still not tho lmao)

and invites you in bc apparently, Alhaitham’s been meaning to talk to you about your draft you gave him!

Oh yeah, you’ve got some words to give Haitham after giving him that damn draft privately-

But when he sees you, the fucker just- smiles??

Like he’s done nothing wrong???

You’re about to tear into him when he speaks first to tell you the good news!

He grabs your hands at the table and gets down on one knee, ohhhh no.

Alhaitham is giving you those damn begging puppy dog eyes again.

“My Greatest Lord, Giver of Power, and Guide to All, your exquisite story has entranced all of Teyvat, might I please insist you write a sequel? It is an excellent literary piece to analyze… or perhaps, even better, share other stories you’ve written??”

…

….Motherfucker.

☆

Hello I’m alive! I just took a longer-than-usual break between posts from those last 2 mammoth pieces about gifts,

1: bc they were a lot to write in between writing other stuff like fanfics im already working on lol 2: I got busy with holidays and trying to apply to jobs!

Not that I’m still not doing that.. but you get what I mean!

Safe Travels Anon,

That being said, as you’ve probably noticed, I’ve made a kofi! so if you ever liked my writing (hot mess it is) and want to show me some love, feel free to leave a tip! :]

Iced coffee?? :0

💀♒

☆

♡the beloveds♡

@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist / @thedevioussmirk / @the-dumber-scaramouche

#hello i live #i just took a longer than normal break between posting bc the gifts were vv big and i had holidays/job searching to do #which i am still looking #but its better now #also gonna start linking my kofi if anybody is feeling generous! :]#sagau #genshin sagau #genshin isekai #my asks #genshin imagines #gender neutral reader #self aware genshin #sagau x reader #genshin impact sagau #genshin impact isekai #genshin x reader

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cipheramnesia · 2 months

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This is the process my brain goes through every time I see anything about Netflix Avatar The Last Airbender.

My first reaction is always: Why? The original, although not without flaws, doesn't leave a lot of room to improve. A good remake or adaptation usually involves an updated context or change in perspective that adds to the original work and gives it new meaning. It's a risky undertaking because it usually involves wanting to take on something established as iconic and make it your own. But Netflix is a corporation and seems very risk averse for the most part. Its only investment is in the name recognition of AtLA. It's hard to visualize Netflix deliberately taking a big risk on an expensive show.

My second reaction is: How? The original series is about 1400 minutes over 61 episodes, and it still had to rush the ending. We're looking at 8 episodes of roughly 45-60 minutes per episode for season 1, which would require Netflix to let it run more than 3 seasons, if the series has similar pacing. Historically however Netflix shows have glacial pacing, and rarely make three seasons. Not really sure how they plan to tell the story if the series is anything like the average Netflix series, meaning it either needs to undercut the story or let the series breathe for at least five seasons. But nothing Netflix has done makes me want to watch anything they make as an ongoing series? Why bother, they cancel everything I enjoy. So I wonder how. What's the hook to say "this will be able to provide something new and interesting compared to the original, and will be allowed to tell the complete story."

Which leads me to think, but you can't judge if something is good without seeing it. Except none of this is about whether it's good, I just find myself wondering what are the odds it's worth the effort? They're low, and it has nothing to do with whether or not it's even any good on its own merits.

Following this, I ask myself, what would a good version of this be. Imagine you are making a live action series with eight hour long episodes per season based on a children's cartoon with 20 thirty minute episodes per season. You are trying to encompass a story which was presented over three seasons as a cartoon, and you do not know if you will have more than those eight episodes. It's made for Netflix which, in terms of a company which will protect the hard earned fruits of your artistic labor, is the fox guarding the henhouse. What do you do?

If you are looking to make something good, that respects your audience investment and your own work, you make radical changes to the story. You change the pacing, the character arcs, the plot arcs. You make sure you deliver a complete story in those episodes with as much respect for the original work and as many new ideas as you can.

Except, at that point, what is even the point of a remake. The only way to work with it is either to trust Netflix allowing you to finish the story (which you'd need to be incredibly naive to do), or tell a story so different it may as well be wholly original. And that's where I always end up. Like, it'll probably be fine, but what's the point of it all? Another vanishing digital property to get canceled because of some undefinable failure to return on investment.

I think about it a lot because the two ends of the spectrum seem to be "dunk on every new piece of information" or "wait and see" but the only conclusion I can ever reach is "why even care?" That's been the lesson to take home from digital streaming in general when it comes to series, but Netflix in particular, and honestly for movie series too. If it can't be self contained, the companies who produce and release these kinds of series just cannot be trusted with it, and there are too many good original stories being put out to care anymore about big budget promises that one day they will definitely for sure deliver a finished story, this time for real.

I care enough to think about why I don't feel anything at all about Netflix Avatar. It'll be fine, whatever else. Just fine.

#netflix avatar

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avelera · 10 days

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thesis about the sea peoples you say? may i request an infodump about the sea peoples?

Heya!

So, basically in college (undergraduate) I got really obsessed with the questions around the Collapse of the Aegean Bronze Age, mostly because I wanted to set my big Magnum Opus historical fiction novel in that time, and the deeper I dug into the rabbit hole the more it appeared that no one, absolutely no one, actually knows why the civilizations around the Mediterranean all fell from a state of pretty sophisticated internationally-trading civilizations to literal Dark Ages (all except for Egypt which was substantially weakened and never really recovered), all at once around 1200-1100 BCE.

The Sea Peoples are the names of the only contemporary (Egyptian) account we have that names who might have been responsible if this collapse was due to an invasion. It's a popular theory because a viking-style invasion is a much sexier reason for a civilization to collapse so we all gather around it like moths to flame. But the thing is, there's a lot of contradictory evidence for and against and shading that hypothesis.

Suffice to say, literally no actually knows what happened and almost every answer comes up, "Some combination of these things, probably?"

But what makes the Collapse even more interesting from a modern perspective is that if there was a historical Trojan War (and I think there was) as fictionalized in the Iliad and the Odyssey (and Song of Achilles, for the Tumbrlistas), then it would have taken place within a generation of the entire civilization that launched the Trojan War crumbling to dust.

So like, if you're Telemachus, your dad Odysseus fights in the Trojan War, some even manage to get home, and then like... everything goes to shit. Catastrophically. And doesn't recover for 400 years.

Seriously, they lost the written word, like how to actually write things down and read them and it took 400 years to get it back. That's how fucked shit got during the Collapse of the Bronze Age.

So my thesis was asking: what if these two things were related? What if the Trojan War either led to the Collapse or it was part of the Collapse or it was a result of the Collapse? Because the timeline is so unknown and muddled that it really could be any of those and again, that's if the Trojan War isn't entirely fictional (which I don't think it is, but many academics disagree, it used to be a whole thing up until Schliemann dug it up, and many doubted it was ever a historical event even after that.)

Ok, so at the risk of writing 75 pages on this again, let me just say:

My conclusion (more of a hypothesis proposal ultimately since there are so many gaps in our knowledge) was that the Trojan War took place before the Collapse of the Bronze Age. But, it might have been launched in response to a wider breakdown in trades routes and resources, causing the Greeks to launch the campaign basically as a bid to replenish their own coffers because they were getting squeezed by what they didn't know was the first rumblings of a global domino effect.

Therefore, since taking out Troy didn't solve those larger trends and forces, they all went home and then got slammed by the REAL problem, which was all the people who had been displaced from further away by this rolling drought or invasion or whatever that was disrupting these delicate international trade routes.

But the Greeks might have been part of the Sea Peoples too! Our only record of the Sea Peoples is from the Egyptians in a highly propagandistic text which makes them sound like this big fearsome foe but that might have been because saying, "We slaughtered a bunch of desperate refugees at our border who were looking for shelter," didn't sound as cool. If the Greeks (or Achaeans or Ahhiyawa) got swept up in this slow-rolling collapse/displacement of people, then they absolutely could have been among those refugees who crashed against the shores of Egypt.

A lot of my evidence was based on looking at how Troy was sacked (it was stripped literally down the nails and there was a lot of evidence of a long-term siege, like what we read about in the Iliad) vs. how Mycenae (Agamemnon's city) or Pylos (King Nestor's city) was sacked, where they were burned and stuff was stolen but they weren't stripped, it looks more like a standard looting hit-and-run type thing. Which led me to believe that it was different turmoil that rocked Mycenae and Pylos than what led to the sacking of Troy, despite the fact these things happened within about 20 years of each other. (Helen being a made-up reason for a resource-driven war would only be the oldest trick in the book, as far as propaganda goes, after all.)

But really, the craziest detail I'll leave you with is: we just don't know! And then it gets weirder. Because the Hittites fell at the same time so the Hittites scholars say, "Nah, the Sea Peoples weren't Hittites, they were probably Greeks." And the GREEK scholars say, "It wasn't us, it was probably the Hittites or someone else. " and the EGYPTIAN scholars say, "Yeah it was someone north of Egypt, maybe the Hittites or the Greeks." and the LEVANT scholars say, "It wasn't from the Levant, we know what was going on there, it has to be from somewhere else."

Literally every single possible source of the Sea Peoples has the scholars who specialize in that location saying it's not them and it must be the guy next door.

It's maddening!

And then there's a big ol' gap around Bulgaria and the Black Sea because, oh yeah, the Soviet Union forbade archaeology in those areas to quash any local pride so those places that were behind the Iron Curtain are decades behind on scholarship that would allow them to say, "Oh hey, it was actually us! Yeah, the invaders came from Bulgaria and got pushed down by a famine." or something to that effect.

We also have some histories from the time saying that the Sons of Heracles returned not long after the Trojan War to lay Greece to waste! And it's really evocative and sounds like it fits what we've got of all these burned cities that happened right after Troy fell! Except that's in doubt now too!

The latest theory is that it was climate change that led to a massive drought. You can read about it in the latest and most popular book on the subject, 1177 BCE which I highly recommend because if it had existed when I wrote my thesis, I wouldn't have had to write it.

But I disagree with the conclusion! Or rather, I'm skeptical. Because very decade, the problems of the day have been hypothesized as being the cause of the Collapse. Like, in the 60s, there was a theory that maybe it was internal strife around a labor strike, like the French Revolution. And y'know when there's a world war, they think it's an invasion. And there was a theory that it was 'cuz of an earthquake (I think that one is nonsense, Mediterranean civilizations famously bounce back quickly from earthquakes.) And now that climate change is on our mind, I'm a little weary to see that it's the new theory because it feels way too much like we're just projecting our problems onto this giant question mark.

Was climate an aspect! I think so! I think it might have contributed to the break down in trade routes that made everyone in the Mediterranean really stressed out and hostile and warlike and led to a lot of displacement. I'm not sure if it's the only reason though and I think the book just kinda reiterates everyone else saying, "I think it was this but in the end, we just don't know, and it was probably a lot of things." which we've known for ages so it's just repeating all the same conclusions. *sigh*

... Like I said, I wrote my thesis on this so yeah, I could go on for a while lol.

#ancient history #bronze age #collapse of the bronze age #sea peoples #lots of generalizations here for brevity so don't jump down my throat if you are also familiar with this era plz

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howtofightwrite · 4 months

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Taekwondo Groundfighting

how does taekwon-do cover grappling? Or at least traditional taekwon-do? -justhugsplz

From asking Michi, the short answer is that it pilfers a lot of it's ground fighting from Jujitsu. Which, ironically, means we share the same ground fighting fundamentals. Taekwondo works from the perspective that you're not going to be spending much time on the ground, so it's not a focus, and a result, probably never really developed its own groundfighting toolkit.

There is a element of, “if you can't make your own, store bought is fine,” to martial arts. If a martial arts master identifies a gap in their curriculum, in a lot of cases, they simply find someone else's solution to that situation, and incorporate it, or adapt it to fit their needs.

Neither of us know what historical groundfighting looked like in Taekwondo. It should probably be said, but Taekwondo is not really a, “traditional,” martial art. It has its origins in the 20th century, so the integration of Jujitsu may have always been with Taekwondo, to some degree. It's also possible that the original intention was to supplement Taekwondo with some other groundfighting martial art, like Ssierum.

Traditional Korean martial arts include Ssierum, Subak, and Taekkyon. I'm not especially knowledgeable about any of those. Of those, Taekwondo sometimes styles itself as a successor to Taekkyon, but more in the sense of, “loosely inspired by,” rather than a reconstruction.

Though, in recent years there have been some genuine attempts to revive Taekkyon. I'm not saying, “reconstruct,” because I think there's an unbroken line, it just that Taekkyon fell out of favor in the 19th century, and almost died out, not that it actually had died off.

Taekkyon does have its own set of joint locks and grappling techniques, but I'm not familiar with those, so I don't know if they're unique to Taekkyon, or, “the same thing everyone else does.” There is a legitimate element to the idea that basic physiology doesn't change, if an arm lock works one way, that doesn't mean you copied from someone else.

As far as I know, Hapkido was developed independently of Taekwondo, so they probably weren't intended to work in concert, but some Taekwondo schools do pull their grappling from Hapkido.

So the short answer is, Taekwondo tends to lift its groundfighting from other sources, whether that's Jujitsu, Hapkido, or another available martial art, and as a result, it's quite possible that the original expectation was that practitioners would supplement their groundfighting from another source. Especially given that groundfighting isn't a priority for Taekwondo.

-Starke

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#writing reference #writing advice #writing tips #how to fight write #starke answers

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ltrllynbdy · 2 months

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So a few years ago I bought this trilogy called captive prince but after reading a few chapters of the first book I kind of gave up on it. I normally don't have a problem with exploring darker themes in a story but captive prince in particular was unenjoyable for me at that time

Later, I was bored with nothing much to do, so I decided to check my bookshelves, found captive prince and started reading and boy I am so glad that I did! I finished the books in a few days and proceeded to read all the short stories.

First of all, before I get to praise the book, I want to say my main criticism about the books: "the slavery stuff in the first book is badly written". Don't get me wrong, Captive prince does not glorify slavery like some haters suggest. I'm not exactly opposed to writing slavery in fiction and there are many political/historical fictional stories that have main characters trying to abolish slavery. It's a common theme.

Captive prince is not much different from the main character ,Damen ,who used to be a slaver himself, gets turned into a slave and tries to abolish it by the end of the series.

It's a fine idea on surface level but there's one big problem with it , I'd like to call it the "Erasmus problem". The first book of captive prince heavily suggested that there were slaves like Erasmus who liked to have a master and I want to believe it's Damen being biased and bigoted because of his privileged upbringing but the story itself still falls apart. There are also instances where sexual slavery becomes apparent and uncomfortable. So if any of these bothers you like it bothered me, the first book of CP is definitely not for you.

OK now for the positives:

From the second book onward, this trilogy becomes a masterpiece.

This story is truly an enemy to love. Most of the other enemies to lovers stories that I have read are just characters either having a simple rivalry or a petty misunderstanding. They dislike each other because one character ignored the other when they were kids , or because they are simply on a different sports team. Captive prince does not shy away from giving the main characters good and logical reasons to hate each other and even hurt each other to an extreme for great and understandably human reasons. They have hurt each other a lot and have no business ever falling in love and still somehow manage to grow and understand and develop something special and unique and I think it's beautiful.

The slow burn: The romance starts only after the entire first book (in which they just hate each other) and most of the second book (where they get to know and understand each other), it's not the slowest burn I've ever read but for a book with characters like these two, it's necessary. and well written

Captive prince's author is extremely brave in making the first book and one of the main characters deliberately hateable with a seemingly unreliable narrator: I don't think I've ever read a story where I hate the first book and enjoy the rest. First impressions are very important and when people don't like an entire first book they probably wouldn't try to continue. I have no idea how and why this author managed to make people still invested enough to publish the second and third book but I'm glad that it happened. It was so enjoyable reading the story from one character's perspective and going from absolutely hating the other character to loving him and understanding him. with the unreliable narrator that is Damen.

The world building, writing and the political story: This may not be the greatest political story with the greatest worldbuilding I've ever read but considering the genre that is m/m romance, I think it's excellent. Let's face it, it's not common for m/m romance to do worldbuilding and politics well. I don't want to seem mean but I've read a decent amount of books and m/m romance and very few of them were actually satisfying to me in terms of politics. Captive prince was one of the rare gems. There might be a few plot holes for me here and there but seeing the characters struggle with each other and plan things out , helping each other or getting fooled by each other in a romance story focusing on mostly only two characters was great to see. I also found some aspects of Homonormativity in the world hilarious. Unless you are married, you are not allowed to be straight in Vere because they hate bastards lol

Despicable villain: This story has the worst and most hateable villain I've ever read in an m/m story. This again goes back to the author being brave enough to write the story the way it is since a lot of romance writers don't dare tackle some really darker aspects.

Subversion of Tropes and Exploration of Power Dynamics : This one was a little hard for me to put into words but basically the series delves into power dynamics in relationships, politics, and society, offering nuanced portrayals of domination, submission, and consent and I don't necessarily mean sexually. In most romance stories, whenever character 1 goes to character 2's kingdom as a lover or sex slave (usually character 1 is the female character in a straight romance) you'd almost always see them have one specific power dynamic. In Captive prince, their characters and their dynamics clashes and changes rapidly and as the story goes on, Damen as a king becomes almost equal to Lauren (I would argue he even becomes politically more powerful than Laurent during certain parts of the story considering Laurent remains a prince for the most part but I digress)

Flawed and human characters who hurt each other without actually romanticizing toxicity: One thing that some people criticize about captive prince and I disagree with, is that it has a toxic relationship. I have to mention that there's basically no actual relationship between the characters until the end of the story and when they do get into a relationship they are a very sweet couple. I think people call them toxic because they were flawed and literal enemies who hurt each other because of it but that's not what I call toxic. Toxicity implies that them being together (they were not together) poisons their life. Both characters manage to grow and understand each other. Damen in particular is a character who you don't see his flaws at first but it becomes more evident how privileged and naive he was and he changes a lot as well as Laurent.

Overall I think excluding the slavery aspects of book 1 which are badly written, this story hits the mark of everything I need in a romance book and I just needed to talk about it. Thanks for coming to my ted talk!

#captiveprince #Captive prince #damen x laurent #laurent de vere #damianos of akielos #damen of akielos #Damen #Laurent #Book review #lgbtq #Prince gambit #kings rising #c s pacat #lamen #Capri #prince's gambit

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kaffykathy · 3 months

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Sometimes I look at Lancer's core book and just think about how lacking it is in significant details for all the factions, like who is the current leaders of Union, to founders and owners of the many corporate entities.

I know that doesn't sound like exciting lore to anyone, but for Union, there's no one like the Camerons from Battletech or the Karl Franz from Warhammer Fantasy. And I can see that it was probably purposely implemented like this for the reason that these entities are bigger than the identities that lead them, and that's why when a name like Johnathan Harrison pops up along sith a small blurb of who he is, we start to realize his significance and why Harrison Armory is the way it is. He was basically a fascistic General from Seccomm that fled and made his own Union how he saw fit, and his clones still live up to his legacy to the current setting of Lancer.

At the same time, Union doesn't have any of that. There's no lore about some, or any politician of government in the Core Book at least other than the seats and chairs that they fill. The reason for this is to give the players the ability to make their own interpretations with the world, but it's really saying something when your big government super power claiming to be in a utopian golden age doesn't have a face to its actual organization.

(Side note: if anyone ever tells you that their realm is a Utopia, you should be taking that the same way that someone says that a ship is 'Unsinkable'. Sorry to burst your bubble Pilot NET, but some of you really need to read between the lines about this. Especially with how much of a bureaucratic nightmare DoJ HR is.)

I know that it's very much the case that Massif press could have done this intentionally to show in the Lancer setting that the sum is bigger and more significant than all the parts added together. The world of the setting is too big to care too much about one individual or planet without weeding in a reason why in most cases because unless you're playing a mission book like Solstice Rain, you probably wouldn't be visiting any of the planets or people brought up in the first place. But the thing is, to me, is that this really makes Lancer less lively than I think it should. When I read about the Albatross, I wanna know about their heroes and significant feats and journeys. I could just play and Albatross, but having record of the daily life at the perspective of a nomadic Lancer would have been told so much more than I think the actual descriptions give.

It's why I love the blurb of text on the Sisyphus NHP. It builds a character, tells a narrative, and humanizes this being most probably would only be used to get a better roll. It also implies how cycling actually works for an NHP and the significance to it. And from all this, we can see that Sisyphus knows that his fate is to be cycled and die over and over again. Something barely given full page and it's just text on equipment.

And yet we don't have anything like that for the bigger picture. We don't know that the leaders of Union generally feel or think about the world surrounding us. We don't have a set uniform for Union or any other of the major players. And as a person who was fascinated with historical things like what soldiers wore during the battle of waterloo, or what camo patterns did a certain tank use, I feel like it's a significant diservice to not give us official uniforms and outfits for Union.

Imagine what cultural reflections that could have impacted the clothing an officer would wear.

I don't know, Lancer really likes to skim on the actually interesting descriptions, but I still love it. It's just that it really doesn't give me enough reason to care about things like Cradle or the Solar System in its current timeline. There is a lot of telling, and not showing in the lore for me, but they don't even tell things that historical nuts like me might be interested in.

#kaffy kathy #lancer ttrpg #lancer rpg #i should sleep #sisyphus nhp #Even when I am ranting about Lancer. I am secretly simping for sisyphus NHP

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milkywayan · 10 months

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As I rewatch all the historical farm docus again (i looove them so this is not a critique of hate but of love), there is something I think I have to point out, especially for people who are not as obsessed with this stuff as I am

They are talking about the british perspective.

Many things they say are correct for their geographical area, but not true for the rest of europe. and i have to say, sometimes they do get stuff about the rest of europe wrong (e.g. Ruth talks about the possibility of a woman having her own business in medieval england, saying that was not the case in the rest of europe, which is factually wrong as we, for example, have sources of women inheriting and running their own business in medieval vienna, and having important positions in guilds)

Also, they also once state that wine was expensive and a luxory, not adding 'in britain' and stating it as a fact, while this is of course not the case for a lot of regions with a lot of vinyards. going with the vienna example again, which is in a basin surrounded by low hills which are covered in vineyards since probably roman times (they still are today). there was even a ban of brewing beer comercially within the city to have people drink wine. it was generally not expensive

they also state people in the medieval times did not wash... which is also wrong. idk about england, i am not an expert, but we have a lot of german sources of paintings showing people in baths (not only nobles), there were loads of communal bath houses in medieval cities that show up in documents and in archaeological finds, there are references in literature (e.g. Parzival from the late 12th century, he is taught that he should wash every time after taking off his armour and he is full body washing himself regularly). They were not as cleanly as we are today, sure, but they knew with dirt came disease, they thought that bad smells carried disease, so why on earth would they not clean themselves?

so yea, i am of course speaking from a different geographical area, i focus on central europe/german sources and idk a lot about britain. but it is important to not just lump 'medieval europe' into one big pot

#personal #another rant wohoo #dont get me wrong i loooooove the bbc historical farm docus #i rewatched them so much over the years #but it is important to udnerstand that they are not speaking for all of europe #sometimes they point it out but sometimes they dont

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cypressure · 27 days

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Have you got any recommendations for dinosaur nonfiction books?

Your art makes me so happy 🥺

hey thank you, i appreciate your saying so (and also giving me the opportunity to talk about dinosaur books)! under the cut for length--

starting off with an overview before getting down to specific topics, my first recommendation is Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved by Darren Naish & Paul Barrett. this was first published in 2017, but the third edition was just released with plenty of updates to reflect new discoveries and hypotheses. it's very thorough and accessible, and takes you through all the major clades of dinosaurs and everything we know about their evolution and ecology. this is definitely the best starting point for getting up-to-date with dinosaur science.

the end-Cretaceous extinction has been getting lots of popular attention lately (thanks to DePalma and the Tanis site I suspect), so if you'd like to learn more on this subject, I love The Last Day of the Dinosaurs by Riley Black, also from 2022. this is the scariest dinosaur book i've ever read--she paints an incredibly vivid and horrifying picture of the aftermath of the meteor impact, and of how the animals which survived the event managed to live on.

if you want to read about how exactly we know all these things about dinosaurs, I just recently picked up Dave Hone's How Fast Did T. rex Run? (titled The Future of Dinosaurs in the UK i think), published in 2022. he delves into what we know from the fossil record and how paleontologists work to figure these things out, as well as what we don't know yet and what we probably will never know, and the difference between those two. i suggest it for learning about paleontology as a scientific process, and it's a very interesting read.

so far, all of these books have been about dinosaurs as a whole; if you are looking for popular publications about specific groups, there are not as many options unfortunately (for some reason there isn't a huge audience for 200-page books about obscure thyreophorans. sighs disappointedly). most of what we get is about the large, more familiar clades; you will see books on tyrannosaurs, and there's a few field guide-style books about Mesozoic birds (which tend to be very beautifully illustrated but kind of technical; see below for titles). my pick for clade-specific books is The Sauropod Dinosaurs: Life in the Age of Giants, by Mark Hallett and Matthew Wedel, from 2016. this one goes into serious detail about every conceivable aspect of sauropod paleobiology, which as you can imagine is a huge and fascinating topic, and all the artwork is gorgeous. caveat: it being 8 years old means there's some science in there which will be outdated by now, but as far as i can remember it's still worth checking out.

and finally, as a paleoartist, i have to mention paleoart books! if you're interested in the science behind the choices paleoartists make when reconstructing extinct animals, especially for your own practice, i cannot recommend enough Mark Witton's The Paleoartist's Handbook, from 2018. he thoroughly explains how to interpret fossil evidence and paleontological research from an artist's perspective, and covers about everything from soft tissues to composing a scene. this is one of less than a handful of books on this particular topic, and it's definitely the most in-depth.

with any scientific subject you have to be careful with older books; this is especially true with paleontology since the discipline has accelerated so much over the past few decades and shows no signs of slowing down. i would even hesitate to recommend anything published more than 10 years ago, since new discoveries and technology have made so many questions and hypotheses moot (and in turn created new and more interesting ones)! the only exception to this is a recommendation for historical significance: Robert Bakker's 1986 The Dinosaur Heresies is essential to understanding what modern paleontologists call the Dinosaur Renaissance, or how our perception of dinosaurs changed from lizardlike evolutionary dead-ends into the active, successful bird ancestors we see in reconstructions now. this book kickstarted that change, and it's easy to see how: it's a very engaging read, Bakker argues his points very effectively, plus there are cute dinosaur cartoons. (i also love a lot of older works for their personal significance, but gushing about formative dinosaur books is something for another post.)

finally, thanks to the wonders of the internet, books are not the only way to learn about current dinosaur science! the best way is always by reading paleontology papers, where scientists directly describe and illustrate new discoveries or hypotheses. however, i know jumping straight into the technical literature may be overwhelming: fortunately a lot of paleontologists have social media, blogs, and/or podcasts where they write about their work and new developments in the field. the heyday of science blogs is kind of past, but there are still a few very good ones out there: this list on Feedly has a good selection to browse. being just self-published material, all of these don't have the benefits of peer review that papers and books do, so always be willing to take things with a grain of salt and do your own research.

of course this is a non-exhaustive list, especially limiting myself to both works recently published and which i have actually read. i've certainly forgotten or missed out on many new paleontology books (Dean Lomax's Locked in Time is one of these which i still haven't gotten ahold of yet, but which im very excited to get to); i welcome any additional recommendations or thoughts from the rest of paleoblr!

i hope this was helpful and i wish you luck in your reading :)

#paleoblr #paleontology #book recs #process #cypress #< - the fursona you see at the top of this post. say hi #sorry this took me so long to post! both putting it together and then actually remembering to post it took more time than i expected #but i wanted to be thorough

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amphibious-thing · 8 months

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I would absolutely love to see examples of historical terminology? I feel like I've only scraped the surface.

So I'm going to focus mostly on 18th century English because that's what I read the most (we will dip a little into French but mostly from an English perspective). Even narrowing the focus there's still kind of a lot. Like I'm probably going to forget something cause there is so much to talk about.

Sexuality

The first thing that's important to understand is sexuality labels were action based not attraction based. This doesn't mean people didn't understand sexual attraction, they very much did, it's just that terminology was based on action not attraction. Terminology was essentially separated into men who have sex with men and women who have sex with women. It also important to remember that these terms were not exclusive to men who only had sex with men and women who only had sex with women but also applied to people who had sex with both men and women.

Men Who Had Sex With Men

Sodomy/Buggery

The terms most commonly used in formal/legal contexts were sodomite and bugger. Bugger comes from buggery and sodomite from sodomy, both of which broadly speaking referred to anal intercourse or bestiality regardless of sex/gender but was most commonly associated with sex between men. The legal definition of sodomy in English common law was as follows:

Sodomy is a carnal Knowledge of the Body of Man or Beast, against the Order of Nature; It way be committed by Man with Man, (which is the most common Crime) or Man with Woman; or by Man or Woman with a Brute Beast. Some Kind of Penetration and Emission is to be proved, to make this Crime, which is Felony both by the Common and Statute Law, in the Agent and all that a present, aiding and abetting; also in the Patient consenting, not being within the Age of Discretion.

~ The Student’s Companion or, the Reason of the Laws of England by Giles Jacob, 1734, p239

However colloquially it was generally used to describe sex between men without the focus on Penetration and Emission.

Related to sodomy were the words sodomitical, sodomitically and sodomiting, these terms were used to describe a person, action or place that was related to sodomy (esp. sex between men) but did not necessarily constitute legal sodomy. (for examples see Trial of Martin Mackintosh, 11 July 1726, A Treatise of Laws by Giles Jacob, 1721, p165 and Trial of Thomas Gordon, 5 July 1732 respectively)

From buggery we get the presumably derogatory term buggeranto. (for an example see The London Spy, part III, published 1703)

Molly

The preferred term used by the community was molly. Rictor Norton explains in Mother Clap’s Molly House:

The early church fathers stigmatised homosexuals as molls or sissies, and secular society called effeminate men molly-coddles and homosexuals mollies; having no other self-referring terms except the even less appealing Sodomite or Bugger, gay men transformed Molly into a term of positive self-identification, in exactly the same way that the modern subculture has transformed Gay (which derived originally from ‘gay girl’, meaning a female prostitute) into a term of pride and self-liberation.

Molly (plural mollies) was a noun:

Sukey Haws, being one Day in a pleasant Humour, inform’d Dalton of a Wedding (as they call it) some Time since, between Moll Irons, and another Molly,

~ James Dalton’s Narrative (1728)

Molly/mollied/mollying could also be a verb:

I was going down Fleet-Street, I was just come out of Jail. This Man, the Prosecutor, is as great a Villain as ever appear'd in the World. I was coming down Fleet-Street, so Molly says he; I said, I never mollied you. My Lord, I never laid my Hand upon him, nor touch'd him; I never touch'd the Man in my Life.

~ Trial of Richard Manning, (17 January 1746)

And mollying could be used as an adjective:

But they look'd a skew upon Mark Partridge, and call'd him a treacherous, blowing-up Mollying Bitch, and threatned that they'd Massacre any body that betray'd them.

~ Trial of Thomas Wright, (20 April 1726)

A molly house was house or tavern that catered to mollies. Molly houses would typically serve alcohol and often had music and dancing. Usually there was a room where mollies could have sex known as the chapel. (see Trial of Gabriel Lawrence, 20 April 1726 for an example of the term molly house in use, Trial of George Whytle, 20 April 1726 and Trial of Margaret Clap, 11 July 1726 for details on the chapel, and Trial of William Griffin, 20 April 1726 for molly houses taking lodgers.)

Mollies also had their own slang which I have a separate post on if you want to learn more about that.

Euphemisms

Euphemisms for men who had sex with other men included Back Gammon Player and Usher, or Gentleman of the Back Door. To navigate the windward passage was a euphemism for anal sex. (see The Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1785.)

References to the classics were also sometimes used as euphemisms. A common example is Zeus's male lover Ganymede. (for an example see Public Advertiser, 4 Sept 1781)

Anal Sex Roles

The roles in anal sex were known as pathic (sometimes spelt Pathick) or patient (bottom) and agent (top). I have a longer post about the cultural perception of roles in anal sex if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Other Terms for Men Who Had Sex With Men

Pederast: In the 18th century the word pederasty was used synonymously with sodomy and did not denote age simply sex. An Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1726) defines “A pederast” as “a Buggerer” and “Pederasty” as “Buggery”.

Catamite: In particular catamite often, but not always, denoted the younger partner in a male-male sexual relationship. It was sometimes used to specifically describe boys but it was sometimes used it to describe men. Cocker's English Dictionary (1704) defines catamite as "a boy hired to be used contrary to nature, for Sodomy" but The New Royal and Universal English Dictionary (1763) defines catamite simply as "a sodomite." Catamite was also sometimes used as synonym for pathic.

Gomorrean: Like sodomite this one comes from the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah. However it wasn't nearly as commonly used. (for an example see The London Chronicle, 4 - 6 Jan 1757)

Madge Cull: This one came about towards the end of the century. It comes from a combination of Madge a slang term for “the female genitals” and Cull slang for “a man, a fellow, a chap.” (see Green’s Dictionary of Slang)

Women Who Had Sex With Women

Sodomy

While English common law did not consider sex between women sodomy this was not true across Europe. (see Louis Crompton, The Myth of Lesbian Impunity Capital Laws from 1270 to 1791) Most English colonies followed English common law however this aspect of the law was not unanimously agreed upon.

In 1636 Rev. John Cotton proposed to the General Court of Massachusetts a body of laws that would define sodomy as "a carnal fellowship of man with man, or woman with woman". (Crompton, p19)

In a 1779 bill submitted to the Virginia Assembly on crime and punishment Thomas Jefferson explicitly includes sex between women. He quotes Henry Finch's Law, or, a Discourse Thereof; in Four Books which defines sodomy as "carnal copulation against nature, to wit, of man or woman in the same sex, or of either of them with beasts." Jefferson disagrees with Finch on including bestiality because it "can never make any progress" and "cannot therefore be injurious to society in any great degree". However he doesn't dispute the inclusion of sex between women. He proposes that the punishment for sodomy be "if a man, by castration, if a woman, by cutting thro’ the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch diameter at the least." (see A Bill for Proportioning Crimes and Punishments in Cases Heretofore Capital, 18 June 1779)

While there was some disagreement on the legal definition of sodomy, colloquially if someone was talking about sodomy they were probably talking about sex between men. A clarification would likely be added if they were talking about women e.g. female sodomite.

Tribade

Coming from French tribade was defined in The New Pocket Dictionary of the French and English Languages (1781) as a "female sodomite". Tribade was used in English at least as early as 1585. It originally comes from the ancient Greek word τρίβειν meaning "rub" and is a reference to tribadism. The word tribadism however did not come into use until the 19th century. (see OED)

Sappho was a famous Tribade; as appears by the Testimonies of all the old Poets, but particularly from that beautiful Ode (addressed to one of the Ladies, with whom she was in Love) which Longinus has preserved, and which has ever been so highly esteemed by all the Critics.

~ William King, The Toast (1732)

Sapphic

Sapphic (sometimes spelt sapphick) originally meant "relating to, characteristic of, or reminiscent of Sappho or her writings". (OED) It became a term for sexual activity and sexual desire between women in reference of course to the accent Greek poet Sappho's love poems addressed to women. In fact in 18th century England Sappho was often cited as being the first woman who had ever had sex with another women.

Sappho, as she was one of the wittiest Women that ever the World bred, so she though with Reason, it would be expected she should make some Additions to a Science in which Womankind had been so successful: What dose she do then? Not content with our Sex, begins Amours with her own, and teaches the Female World a new Sort of Sin, call’d the Flats, that was follow’d not only in Lucian’s Time, but is practis’d frequently in Turkey, as well as at Twickenham at this day.

~ Satan’s Harvest Home (1749)

Sapphic is an adjective:

Look on that mountain of delight, Where grace and beauty doth unite, Where wreathed smiles must thrive; While Strawberry-hill at once doth prove, Taste, elegance, and Sapphick love, In gentle Kitty *****.

~ A Sapphick Epistle (1778)

Sapphism is a noun for the act or desire:

it has a Greek name now & is call’d Sapphism, but I never did hear of it in Italy where the Ladies are today exactly what Juvenal described them in his Time – neither better nor worse as I can find. Mrs Siddons has told me that her Sister was in personal Danger once from a female Fiend of this Sort; & I have no Reason to disbelieve the Assertion. Bath is a Cage of these unclean Birds I have a Notion, and London is a Sink for every Sin.

~ Hester Thrale Piozzi, Thraliana, 9 Dec 1795

Sapphist is a noun for the person:

Nature does get strangely out of Fashion sure enough: One hears of Things now, fit for the Pens of Petronius only, or Juvenal to record and satyrize: The Queen of France is at the Head of a Set of Monsters call’d by each other Sapphists, who boast her Example; and deserve to be thrown with the He Demons that haunt each other likewise, into Mount Vesuvius.

~ Hester Thrale Piozzi, Thraliana, 1 April 1789

Lesbian

Originally meaning "a native or inhabitant of the Greek island of Lesbos" (OED) this is another reference to Sappho who was from Lesbos.

However, this little Woman gave Myra more Pleasure than all the rest of her Lovers and Mistresses. She was therefore dignified with the Title of Chief of the Tribades or Lesbians.

~ William King, The Toast (1732)

Tommy

Tommy (plural tommies) is a fairly uniquely 18th century term as it doesn't seen to have been used earlier and is rarely used later. Speculatively it may be etymologically linked to tomboy which dates back to 1656. (OED)

Women and Men, in these unnat'ral Times, Are guilty equal of unnat'ral crimes: Woman with Woman act the Many Part, And kiss and press each other to the heart. Unnat'ral Crimes like these my Satire vex; I know a thousand Tommies 'mongst the Sex: And if they don't relinquish such a Crime, I'll give their Names to be the scoff of Time.

~ The Adulteress (1773)

Euphemisms

The game of flats, game at flats or simply flats was a euphemism for sex between women. Rictor Norton explains it was “a reference to games with playing cards, called ‘flats’, and an allusion to the rubbing together of two ‘flat’ female pudenda.” (Mother Clap’s Molly House, p233)

I am credibly informed, in order to render the Scheme of Iniquity still more extensive amongst us, a new and most abominable Vice has got footing among the W—n of Q—–y, by some call’d the Game at Flats;

~ Satan’s Harvest Home (1749)

In a diary entry Hester Thrale Piozzi repots "’tis a Joke in London now to say such a one visits Mrs. Darner". This was in reference to the rumours of sapphism that surrounded the sculptor Anne Damer. Piozzi goes on to recored a poem concerning Anne Damer's relationship with actress Elizabeth Farren that was being passed around her social circle:

Her little Stock of private Fame Will fall a Wreck to public Clamour, If Farren herds with her whose Name Approaches very near to Damn her.

~ Hester Thrale Piozzi, Thraliana, 9 Dec 1795 (see ‘Random Shafts of Malice?': The Outings of Anne Damer by Emma Donoghue for more on the rumours surrounding Anne Damer)

Absence of Sexual Attraction

With 18th century sexuality labels being action based rather than attraction based we have no exact equivalent for the word asexual. Just as we have no exact equivalent for the word homosexual. There was of course words for people who had never had sex (virgin, maiden) and words for people who planned on never having sex (celibate).

However this doesn't mean 18th century people had no way of talking about a lack of sexual attraction. The Chevalière d'Eon in a letter to the Comte de Broglie talks of "the natural lack of passion in my temperament, which has prevented my engaging in amorous intrigues”. Her lack of sexual interest became part of her self-styling as La Pucelle de Tonnerre (The Maiden of Tonnerre) after Joan of Arc who was known a La Pucelle d'Orléans (The Maiden of Orleans). (see D’Eon to the Comte de Broglie, 7 May 1771. Translated by Alfred Rieu, D'Eon de Beaumont, His Life and Times, p141; also for examples of the English press calling her La Pucelle d'Orléans see the Public Advertiser, 4 May & 11 June 1792)

The Third Sex/Gender

In the 18th century intersex people were predominantly referred to as hermaphrodites (while it is now considered offensive I will use it in this post as I think there is educational value in understanding it's historical use). In The Mysteries of Conjugal Love Reveal'd Written in French Nicholas de Venette explains that intersex people were permitted to "chuse either of the two Sexes". However if they strayed from the chosen role of man or woman they could be "punished like a Sodomite". (p465)

In the 18th century the words sex and gender were used somewhat synonymously. The word hermaphrodite along with third sex and third gender were used to describe not only intersex people but also gender nonconforming endosex people. Your clothes, interests, speech patterns and the way you move were all considered part of your sex.

Consider The Fribbleriad by David Garrick. Garrick was an actor known for playing fops. In the poem he portrays his critics as a group of effeminate men who were angry at him for they way he mocked them in his work:

In forty-eight— I well remember— Twelve years or more— the month November— May we no more such misery know! Since Garrick made OUR SEX a shew; And gave us up to such rude laughter, That few, ‘twas said, could hold their water: For He, that play'r, so mock’d our motions, Our dress, amusements, fancies, notions, So lisp’d our words and minc’d our steps, He made us pass for demi-reps. Tho’ wisely then we laugh’d it off, We’ll now return his wicked scoff.

"OUR SEX" is understood to be the sex of effeminate men. A sex distinct from that of acceptable manhood or womanhood which is defined by their "dress, amusements, fancies, notions" as well as the way they "lisp'd" their words and "minc’d" their steps.

John Bennett in his popular conduct book Letters to a Young Lady on a Variety of Useful and Interesting Subjects advises young women against wearing riding habits warning that they would "wholly unsex her". The Guardian reports that some people had "not injudiciously stiled" the riding Habit "Hermaphroditical". And The Spectator complains about riding Habits calling them an "Amphibious Dress" and describing women who wear them as "Hermaphrodites" and a "Mixture of two Sexes in one Person". (The Guardian, 1 September 1713, reprinted in The Guardian edited by John Calhoun Stephens, p 486; The Spectator 19 July, 1712)

The word amphibious is one that comes up a lot in the 18th century in regards to gender. A dictionary of the English language (1794) defines amphibious as "living in two elements". John Bennett describes effeminate men as "poor amphibious animals, that the best naturalists know not under what class to arrange."

Alexander Pope famously called Lord Hervey an "Amphibious Thing!" that acts "either Part". Lady Mary Wortley Montagu said that "this world consisted of men, women, and Herveys". And William Pulteney describes him as "delicate Hermaphodite", "a pretty, little, Master-Miss" and "a Lady Himself; or at least such a nice Composition of the two Sexes, that it is difficult to distinguish which is most predominant." (Alexander Pope, Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot; The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu edited by Lord Wharncliffe, v1, p95; William Pulteney, A Proper Reply To a late Scurrilous Libel)

Macaroni, amazon, virago, fop, petit-maitre, coxcomb, amphibious, unsex, dandy, namby-pamby, he-she things, lady-fellow, master-miss, fribble, dubious gender. These were all terms to describe gender nonconforming people. Many of these terms were used in a derogatory way but not all of them were intended as such and some GNC people identified with some of these terms. For example a young Charles James Fox described himself as a petit-maitre in his 18 Oct, 1763 letter to his father. While at Eton, which he found "more disagreeable than I imagined", he laments "you may see the petit maître de Paris is converted into an Oxford Pedant."

Many of the people who were labeled as third sex/gender would not necessarily have identified as such. With even the smallest deviation from the norm giving rise to the label. Including one 1737 article which claimed that "Ugly Women" may "more properly be call'd a Third Sex, than a Part of the Fair one". (Common Sense, or The Englishman's Journal, 28, Feb)

Gender Presentation Through Gendered Language

While there is no real equivalent for the word transgender in 18th century English this doesn't mean people had no way of expressing their gender though language. People referred to themselves as being men, women, both or neither. Gendered names, titles and pronouns were also used to express one's gender.

The Chevalière d'Eon

D'Eon asserted her gender identity though gendered names, pronouns and titles. When she started openly living as a women she changed her first name to Charlotte making her full name Charlotte-Geneviève-Louise-Auguste-André-Timothée d’Eon de Beaumont. However she preferred the name Geneviève and would often write her name simply Geneviève d'Eon.

[Admission-ticket for Geneviéve d'Eon, with red seal; c.1793; via The British Museum (C,2.3)]

D'Eon used she/her pronouns. Here is an example of her using she/her pronouns for herself when writing in third person:

[Invitation from the Chevalière d’Eon to Lord Besborough; c.1791; via The British Museum (D,1.268-272)]

As she was French d'Eon used French titles even in English. She would sometimes use the title Mademoiselle (a title for unmarried women) but other times she used Chevalière. In 1763 she was awarded the Cross of Saint-Louis and with that came the masculine title Chevalier. When she started openly living as a women she switched from the masculine Chevalier to the feminine Chevalière. Perhaps the most fun example of her using the feminine Chevalière is the sword she gifted to George Keate which was inscribed: "Donné par la Chevalïere d’Eon à son ancïen Amï Geo: Keate Esquïre. 1777"

[The Chevalière d’Eon’s Sword, hilt: c.1700s, blade: c.mid-1600s, inscription: c.1777, photos via the Royal Armouries Museum (IX.2034A)]

Public Universal Friend

The Public Universal Friend claimed to be a genderless spirit sent by god resurrected in the body of Jemima Wilkinson after she had succumbed to a fever in 1776. The Public Universal Friend gained a small but devoted group of followers that understood and respected the Friend as a genderless being. When one traveler asked for directions to "Jemima Wilkinson's house" a women replied that "she knew no such person; "the friend" lived a little piece below." (A Ride to Niagara in 1809 by Cooper Thomas, p37)

For the most part followers of the Public Universal Friend avoided using gendered pronouns for the Friend*. However they did not use gender neutral pronouns (such as they/them) but instead avoided third person pronouns completely. You can see an example of the sort of gender neutral language used for the friend in this letter from Sarah Richards to Ruth Pritchard:

Dear Ruth This is to be a Messenger of my Love to thee. Hold out faith and patience. Thy letter was very welcome to me. I want Thee should make ready to come where the Friend is in this Town. The Friend has got land enough here for all that will be faithful & true. Dear Ruth, I will inform thee that Benedict has given the Friend a Deed of some land in the second Seventh in the Boston perhemption, which Deed contains five lotts and the Friend has made use of my name to hold it in trust for the Friend, and now I hope the Friends will have a home, and like wise for the poor friends and such as have no helper, here no intruding feet cant enter. Farewell form thy Affectionate Friend, Sarah Richards

~ Sarah Richards to Ruth Pritchard, March 1793 (printed in The Unquiet World by Frances Dumas, p166)

* In contrast to followers that avoided gendered pronouns completely ex-follower Abner Brownell claimed that some followers called the Friend "him." (see A Mighty Baptism edited by Susan Juster & Lisa MacFarlane, p28)

It's impossible to seperate the Friend's genderlessness from the claim that the Friend was a messenger sent by god resurrected in the body of Jemima Wilkinson. The followers of the Public Universal Friend used genderless language as a way to indicate their religious devotion. In "Indescribable Being" Theological Performances of Genderlessness in the Society of the Publick Universal Friend, 1776-1819 Scott Larson explains:

The language one chose to describe the Friend indicated whether one was part of the community of the saved or part of the "wicked world." Conversely, community members and followers used the name "the Friend" quite deliberately, and that use became a marker of belonging. This sense of belonging could last longer than the community itself did. Huldah Davis, who was a child when the Friend left time in 1819, shared her memories of the Friend in 1895. In her recollections, Davis refers to Jemima Wilkinson but is careful to note that her parents, followers of the Friend, always referred to "the Friend," and Davis uses the community's language through most of her account. Language choices could also mark points of entering and exiting the community, as the apostate and denouncer Abner Brownell refers to "The Friend" in diary entries written during the time of his membership in the Friend's community but then calls "her" "Jemima Wilkinson" in his later published denunciation, Enthusiastical Errors, Described and Decried.

Mollies and Maiden Names

Gendered language could be used to express queer identity without necessarily expressing a transgender identity. Mollies took on feminine sobriquets known as maiden names. A maiden name was a typically made up of a combination of either a feminine title or name (molly and variations being the most popular) and often a reference to something notable about the individual. It could be a reference to their profession for example Orange Mary was an orange merchant, Dip-Candle Mary was a tallow chandler and Old Fish Hannah a fisherman. It could be a reference to where they were from for example Mrs. Girl of Redriff was presumably from Redriff. Some maiden names were somewhat suggestive like Miss Sweet Lips or Molly Soft-buttocks.

(Sources for maiden names: Orange Mary, Dip-Candle Mary, Old Fish Hannah, and Mrs. Girl of Redriff are mentioned in James Dalton's Narrative; Miss Sweet Lips is mentioned in The Phoenix of Sodom by Robert Holloway; Molly Soft-buttocks is mentioned in Account of the Life and Actions of Joseph Powis)

While mollies took on these feminine names, they more often than not still lived as men. Most mollies wore men's clothes, used he/him pronouns and referred to their partners as their husbands not their wives. (for the use of husband in the molly subculture see the trial of Martin Mackintosh, 11 July 1726 and the trial of George Whytle, 20 April 1726)

However some mollies did wear women's clothes and used (at least some of the time) feminine pronouns. Take for example Princess Seraphina who during the trial of Thomas Gordon (5 July 1732) is described by Mary Poplet as follows:

I have known her Highness a pretty while, she us’d to come to my House from Mr. Tull, to enquire after some Gentlemen of no very good Character; I have seen her several times in Women’s Cloaths, she commonly us’d to wear a white Gown, and a scarlet Cloak, with her Hair frizzled and curl’d all round her Forehead; and then she would so flutter her Fan, and make such fine Curties, that you would not have known her from a Woman: She takes great Delight in Balls and Masquerades, and always chuses to appear at them in a Female Dress, that she may have the Satisfaction of dancing with fine Gentlemen. Her Highness lives with Mr. Tull in Eagle-Court in the Strand, and calls him her Master, because she was Nurse to him and his Wife when they were both in a Salivation; but the Princess is rather Mr. Tull’s Friend, than his domestick Servant. I never heard that she had any other Name than the Princess Sraphina.

On a final note I would also recommend looking up many of these terms in the Oxford English Dictionary (you might be able to access this for free through your library) and Green's Dictionary of Slang both of which include multiple examples in use.

#sorry this took so long I couldn't resist making it far too long #if you want me to talk your ear off just ask me about 18th century queer language its my favourite topic #queer history

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glorious-spoon · 1 year

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Second-Guessing [9-1-1 | Buck/Eddie | 1/1]

Rating: Teen Wordcount: ~1000 Warnings: None Other Tags: Pre-relationship, Emotional hurt/comfort, Friendship, Episode tag - 6x13 Mixed Feelings

“Do you think I’m bad at sex?”

Eddie barks out a startled laugh at his ceiling, then straightens up. This is not, unfortunately, the weirdest way Buck has ever opened a phone call with him, but it’s definitely up there. “What?”

“That call the other day, you know, the lady with the vibrator—”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Eddie,” Buck whines. “This is important!”

“Is it, really?”

“Eighty percent. He said that the article said eighty percent of people report being unsatisfied. Do you know how many women I’ve slept with? Eighty percent of that is, like, a lot. Okay? And I was doing some research—on a first time hookup, did you know that only forty percent of women even have an orgasm at all? So if I do the math on that—”

“Buck.”

Buck lets out a deep sigh that crackles down the phone line. “I’m being an idiot about this, aren’t I?”

“Nah. Well, I mean, kinda. But it’s okay.”

“Is it, though? Like—” there’s a rustle on the other end of the line. It’s easy to imagine Buck right now, flopped out across his bed because the couch his parents bought him is a bona fide torture device. In his sweatpants, probably, his hair still damp from the shower. He lets out another sigh, then says, “You know, Bobby was saying—when I was with Taylor, Bobby said that the problem was that I never talk to my partners, that I don’t know how to communicate, and that’s why my relationships always turn into catastrophes.”

“I don’t think that’s quite what he was saying. And Taylor—”

“I know. You hate her guts.”

Eddie snorts. “I was gonna say that it’s different, in a long term relationship.”

“Right, but. I haven’t historically had a lot of success with those.”

“Relationships don’t work out sometimes. A lot of the time.”

There’s silence for a moment. It’s not just Taylor hanging over the conversation now; Ana is there too. And Shannon.

Sex with Ana was always stilted, awkward in a way that he told himself at the time was just the newness of it all. Just a new person, a new body to learn, just Eddie being rusty when it came to literally any form of physical intimacy. He and Shannon were each other's firsts, so of course neither of them knew what they were doing to start with, and what they learned they learned together. By the end of it, sex was the only part of their relationship that actually worked. Beyond that—

He doesn’t really have a lot of perspective to offer Buck, is the thing. Even setting aside the fact that he’s not sure he can give an objective analysis of the sexual history of the guy he’s in love with.

So there’s that.

“It’s just…” Buck sounds quieter now, almost miserable, and it tugs at Eddie's heartstrings despite the absurdity of this whole conversation. “That was like. The one thing I knew I was good at. You know? Everything else, sure, my life was a mess, I made a lot of dumb choices and messed up a lot of relationships and got myself fired, and—but at least I knew how to, you know, make somebody feel good. Except maybe I didn’t after all. And if I wasn’t even any good at that, then—”

“Buck,” Eddie interrupts again. Gently, this time. He firmly squashes the unhelpful little voice in the back of his head that wants to ask for a hands-on demonstration. Buck sounds freaked out enough that he might actually take Eddie up on it, and Eddie is… really not ready to cope with that possibility. “You’re spiraling.”

Another silence. Then: “I called them. Some of them.”

Good grief. “Your hookups?”

“Yeah—is that a disrespectful way to talk about them? I mean—anyway, yeah. The ones I still have phone numbers for, I called them. Most of them didn’t want to talk to me.”

“Shocking,” Eddie deadpans.

Buck laughs, which is what he was going for. “Shut up.”

“So? What was the verdict?”

He regrets asking the moment the words are out of his mouth, but he doesn't take it back.

“Uh,” Buck says, still laughing a little. “Of the ones I actually got a hold of? Yes, yes, probably, no, who the hell are you, I thought I blocked your number, yes, no, I don't remember, yes.”

“More yeses than nos,” Eddie offers.

“Unless they were lying to make me feel better,” Buck counters triumphantly.

“Buck. If someone called you up out of the blue after years of radio silence to ask if you had an orgasm when you slept together, would you lie about it to spare their feelings?”

Buck is quiet for a minute. “Yeah, okay, that was kind of an insane thing to do, huh.”

“A little. Yeah.”

He can hear the fondness in his own voice and is helpless to mute it. Though he's honestly not really trying that hard. Buck deserves to know that he's loved, even when he's being ridiculous. Maybe especially then.

“I just worry. You know, that all the shit I thought I knew about myself—that maybe it’s not really true after all. And if that’s the case then who the hell am I, anyway?”

“Feels like this maybe isn’t actually about whether or not you’re good in bed,” Eddie offers, and bites his teeth on anything else he could say about that. About finding out that maybe the person you thought you were was just a carefully painted mask over the messy, tender reality underneath. He could offer Buck some truth of his own, but he doesn’t. It doesn’t feel like the right time for it.

That, or he’s a coward. He’s working on it, though.

“Maybe not. I guess. Eddie, I…” Buck trails off.

“What?” Eddie asks, when a few moments of silence have passed.

“Nothing,” Buck says. He laughs quietly; Eddie can conjure up the shape of his smile and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes as easily as breathing. “Just. Thanks for taking my call.”

“Of course. Always.”

For a little while, they just breathe together across the miles between them as night falls gently over Los Angeles. Then Buck says softly, “Come over tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says back, just as soft. There’s nothing new about the invitation, but it feels new, somehow, anyway. Either way, the answer is the same as it’s always been. “Yeah, okay.”

#911 fic #buddie #buddie fic #evan buckley #eddie diaz #my fic

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batsarebetterthanpeople · 1 year

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I feel like maybe someone needs to say it and I figure it's probably best coming from the guy with the Calico Jack pfp who has been very open about not being the biggest Stede fan (he reminds me of my shitty ex hope this helps), because then this comes off less like unhinged blorbo apologia. I just. I'm gonna walk through a minefield with this meta, but I want to talk about the whole Stede abandoning his kids thing. I understand that many people feel all types of things about this and it's valid I get it, but I think we need a bit of perspective.

So basically, recap from discomfort in a married state, which is where we get 90% of Stede's tragic backstory from. I know a lot of stuff with this show is anachronistic, but Stede's marriage really does not seem like one of those things. I say that because in the modern day in the US, which is the audience that OFMD is geared towards and the culture which all the other historical anachronisms seem to favor, it's an American show, arranged marriage is basically unheard of. But it was relatively common among the aristocracy of 1717. Based on this I think we can assume a few things about Stede's marriage. 1) Divorce is not an option, and 2) You have to have kids to carry on the family name and have somebody to pass your money down to. Sure nobody's forcing you at gunpoint to have kids, but culturally back then the expectation is that you get married in order to have legitimate children. If they didn't have kids Mary would have been socially ostracized and seen as a failure of a woman, there would have been social consequences for Stede as well though less harsh. It's informative that Stede and Mary have the classic heir and a spare, i.e. one child to inherit the fortune and one child just in case something happens to that first kid, it's also informative that the younger child is male, since at the time the fortune would either go to the son or the daughter's husband if there was no son to pass it onto.

This is the context we have to understand Stede in. He's a gay man who was forced to be a husband to a woman and who was forced to be a father. The being Mary's husband and being a father are inextricably linked for Stede, because remember the whole point of getting married was to have an heir and you cannot get divorced it's illegal and pretty much unheard of. Stede is so miserable in this state that he literally fucks off to sea to become an outlaw where he'll probably die tomorrow. He's so fucking desperate that instead of going on a rich people cruise like a normal rich guy trying to get away from the family he's doing fucking crimes that could get him hanged to death if he gets caught and could get him killed while he carries them out. This is Stede's last ditch effort to leave his old life behind before he kills himself. This is a borderline suicide attempt from our boy. He's too chicken to do it for real but he can't live like this anymore and he needs to do something.

So like, yeah. Stede's abandonment was probably traumatic for his kids. He was put in a situation where he didn't have many other options, and most of those options are in fact more traumatic for Alma and Louis than Stede just disappearing one day. Because like, staying miserable like that for another... decade minimum I'm gonna guess based on how old Louis looks and acts, is an incredible fucking ask, and having two miserable parents will probably fuck those kids up in a whole host of ways. I know people who have parents who didn't love each other but stayed together for the kids and those people do have issues. Alma herself says that it's probably best he leave because Mary was happier when he was gone. He could just kill himself like normal, which is also pretty goddamn traumatic for his kids I shouldn't have to explain that one. Or he could fuck off in the middle of the night leaving them with Mary and the nanny that almost certainly exists, this isn't child neglect it's child abandonment, Stede can be sure Alma and Louis will be taken care of if he leaves. Even if Mary falls into the worst tropes about widowdom and becomes unable to care for them herself, they're very rich they have people who will care for them. That will fuck them up to, but not significantly more than him sticking around would and at a certain point you have to take care of yourself. The best options are not having the kids in the first place or getting a no fault divorce and being a weekends and holidays dad, but oops, he was forced into having the kids in the first place and he can't get divorced. There's no good options left, those kids are getting traumatized one way or another. The option that hurts himself the least is hitting the bricks.

So like, yeah, dunk on him for being an absent father. I love dunking on him for being an absent father it's very funny. I'll take any opportunity to dunk on Stede. But treating Stede's abandonment with the same lens you would examine modern child abandonment or acting like it's akin to child abuse (I have seen both takes on this wretched website, I'm far more sympathetic to the first than I am to the second) seems kinda unfair. Just like, idk remember the context of him never having asked to be a father and him not having any good options left. Walking out wasn't the right move because there was no right move. I think Stede probably should have had a conversation with Mary about how the only way for him to be happy was for him to leave and made sure that his leaving wasn't a surprise to his kids, but sometimes I think the way that people take it so damn serious is a little unfair

#ofmd #ofmd meta #stede bonnet #stede bonnet ofmd #cw child abandonment #cw suicide #our flag means death

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drbased · 5 months

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A typical healthy consciousness wants two things: firstly, it wants to be viewed as a complete whole, separate from outside influence and fully responsible for everything it does; secondly, it wants the freedom to be able to completely dismiss certain behaviours as not part of the whole under the guise of 'I don't know what came over me!' 'I just lost control' 'I don't know why I did that' etc.

We see this in other people all the time: we all have a friend who insists their relationship problems are never their fault, or a relative who swiftly changes the subject when you bring up their wine-drinking habit. Everyone wants the safety net: I am always me, untouchable and knowable only to me, apart from when I do things that are totally unknowable to me. You see this phenomenon play out in the response to statistics: advertisement is a bajillion-dollar industry which shows that people do respond (like sheeple, if you will) to stimulus and buy the things they're advertised. But every single person, myself included, secretly thinks of themselves as a pure individual, who makes rational decisions and is unaffected by pathetic things such as pictures and words. But if someone has a subconscious personal ulterior motive for consuming certain products, say as the result of an addiction, that motivation stays unknown to them - and it's evident that they very much want it that way.

These two facets are as contradictory as they are complimentary, as are many aspects of this convoluted tangle of concepts we call the 'self'. It is these two facets that make things like advertising work - people have to arrogantly believe that they're responsible for every single one of their behaviours - but the moment you point this out to them and that their spending habits are damaging to them and they should take responsibility for their actions, suddenly you're the bad guy, because you've broken this very important psychological illusion. In fact, one might say that this is the primary illusion that makes up the self as we know it: too much awareness and the person is trapped forever in an existential terror, unable to make any decision because the weight of responsibility is too much; and too little awareness means you may as well be an animal driven by pure instinct. So the psyche constantly walks a tightrope between 'I am me and always accountable for my actions' and 'but I'm not accountable for this action because I don't like what it would say about me if I was'.

A huge social faux pas that leftism enacts is that it removes the safety net of 'I'm not accountable for this action/thought/belief' and instead cuts right through this fundamental illusion of the psyche. Historically, your average apolitical person could be safe in the knowledge that because they've categorised themselves as not racist, any racist jokes they say are not a product of racism, but rather lighthearted fun. They want to be judged on the 'content of their character' and they want the content of their character to be what they've decided, and the only thing they want to be held accountable for. But when you point out that making racist jokes is something that someone of their particular background does, and is typically done to achieve a certain affect, therefore their behaviour fits into a statistical pattern that says something about themselves from an external perspective - something about themselves that they don't like the sound of - they, uhh, really don't like you doing that. No one does, because you've smashed through the illusion that they're making conscious choices from their isolated brain; what you've done is you've observed their precious individuality and put it into a standardised pattern of behaviour. You've, in essence, told them who they are.

And you're probably right: patterns of behaviour, both within one person's lifetime and across populations, tell us a lot more about a person, their intentions and reasoning, than what they will ever want to admit about themselves. Unfortunately, in the case of politics, you can't really get past this hurdle. You have to make the awkward leap of telling people who they are, and pray and hope for the best that the discomfort they feel leads them to try to change their behaviour. But I believe that this is why you can't really change people in a one-on-one argument. You try telling someone something as simple and basic as this: 'the reason why you have a sudden mysterious urge to go the corner shop every tuesday at 7pm is because your husband brings his friend Bill over, and you really can't stand Bill' - they're going to immediately brush you off, and next tuesday at 7pm they'll be musing once again 'I always fancy going on a walk then, I don't know why!' and you'll want to bang your head against the wall in frustration.

On the more extreme end, it's very common for addicts to come out the other side and realise that they never healed their relationship with their parents, for example; but if you saw that connection at the height of their addiction, would you be able to tell them that? Oh, hell no: in fact, you might even say that this illusion is exactly what enables addiction so effectively within the human mind. The famous adage 'I can stop whenever I want' comes to mind - the person has to believe that their choices are a conscious reflection of their pure, untouched individual personhood. And this spans the entire gamut of human experience, from the cigarette-on-your-work-break to your political leanings, as influenced by your relative levels of privilege.

So, does this mean we're doomed to never change people, politically speaking? Well, I don't really know. On the one hand, society at large has seemingly managed to grasp the concept of behaviours as a result of inherent privilege, not conscious choice. But there's much evidence to suggest a huge, monumental backlash; the right-wing, who have historically clung to this idea that they have this safety net of merely believing they're good people, have now pivoted into a near-neurotic response to this cultural shift. Now, being good needs to be reflected in doing good; merely meaning good doesn't carry so much social capital - and this is something the right-wing completely lost their minds about, to the point where things such as wearing a mask in the pandemic were 'politicised'. The right-wing have always leaned heavily into the nebulous concepts of 'freedom' and 'individuality', essentially signalling to this exact paradoxical illusion of the self: after all, freedom and individuality are concepts that do not and cannot make coherent sense, but are useful safety nets to ensure a perception of onesself as necessarily untouched by 'outside forces'.

Meanwhile, the politics of the mainstream left have been gradually distorted to pay lipservice to the idea of doing good through certain stock phrases, sharing on social media etc., but a comfortable space is being carved out for that same 'need' of plausible deniability within the self. 'Social justice' language that traditionally held the self accountable for unsavoury behaviours driven by forces other than 'conscious choice' has been gradually pivoting to achieve the exact opposite aim of what it was originally used for. The concept of privilege is being slapped on scapegoats, used to legitimise their demonisation - meanwhile those who have the exact same privilege are able to dodge criticism for 'being wholesome'/'being unproblematic' in some nebulous manner (usually by sticking to those stock phrases, following cultural norms/expectations and generally staying out of the limelight, especially if they're women).

Additionally, certain privileges have been given less political/moral weight than others, allowing for people to evade any and all accountability by nature of them belonging to certain oppressed groups - and having that negate their problematic behaviour as a member of an oppressor group. The most nebulous and meaningless privileges have been fast and widely adopted, especially as they allow the person to completely avoid any accusations of 'classic x group behaviour'. In fact, huge swathes of 'classic x group behaviour' are being rapidly done away with.

The core fabric of the leftist argument, the one thing that held a mirror to society and said 'what you actually do says things about you whether you like it or not' are being rapidly unravelled. Is this a sign that this paradox of the psyche is so fundamental to the formation and perserverance of the self that any attempts to shatter the illusion are quickly patched up and explained away? Is this illusion truly necessary for a healthy psyche, or just a typical one? Can we live in a world where everyone humbly admits to the kind of things they would admit in therapy, but on a daily basis? Is this version of the psyche merely a stage in collective human development, and can we grow beyond this? And, more importantly, can we do so in time?

#my writing #theory posting

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