bookwormlily

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She straddled him and prepared to make the necessary port connections, male and female adapters ready, I/O enabled, server/client, master/slave. Just a couple of high-end biological machines preparing to hot-dock with cable modems and access each other's front-end processors.

On Writing, Stephen King

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the diplomat s02e05

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Ang Lee’s “臥虎藏龍” (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) July 8, 2000.

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Today on the Incidental Comics newsletter: How I Became a Meme.

Read the full piece here: https://incidentalcomics.substack.com/p/conflict-in-literature

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Whore's life isn't so bad, you play it right. I mean, who do you think bankrolled half the businesses in this town? Hell, who do you think's payin' for your horses? There's more words for "whore" than there is for Doctor or Lawyer.

Godless: Wisdom of the Horse, Scott Frank

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The Americans (“Pilot”) first aired ten years ago today on FX [01.30.13]

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You keep saying you came here because Art needed matches… I think you came for something else. You think I came here for you? You think I came here to throw it all away for you? Maybe you just wanted to see me. I have seen you, you look like shit. 

ZENDAYA & JOSH O'CONNOR as TASHI DUNCAN & PATRICK ZWEIG in CHALLENGERS (2024) dir. Luca Guadagnino

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Chungking Express 重慶森林 (1994) dir. Wong Kar Wai

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Civil War (2024)

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MARIE ANTOINETTE (2006) CIVIL WAR (2024)

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Civil War (2024) dir. Alex Garland

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The Ancient Greeks are well known to have many interesting monsters in their myths. Did the Egyptians have monsters in their tradition too?

I think this all comes down to the understanding a definition of 'monster' within both societies, and then also how we define a monster today. If my classics mutuals around here can put that old man down for a second (Cicero) they might be able to elucidate what I'm going for here in reblogs.

Ancient Egypt doesn't really have monsters like the Ancient Greeks have monsters? They don't categorise things like that. In Egypt entities are always neutral with the capacity for good and bad. Nothing is inherently 'monstrous' in their literary texts or religion. Even Apep, who is a very large snake that the sun god Ra fights during the night to maintain Ma'at, isn't considered inherently bad or a monster. He's considered a necessary part of existence.

This is because the way Ancient Egyptians conceptualised their experiences, and by extension their religion and stories, is that everything had to be in balance. They can be good or bad in accordance with Ma'at (divine order/balance) and all things have this capacity. It is necessary and normal. Thus even if an entity acted 'bad' the Egyptians wouldn't consider them a monster because it was correct that they did so in order to maintain Ma'at. Going back to Apep, he must act out and Ra must defeat him so that balance is maintained and order is kept. The god Seth/Set is not 'evil', that's a Christian attribute that was assigned to him by early archaeologists who didn't know the value of not viewing something through your cultural lens. Seth has the capacity for good and bad, and he's supposed to according to how the Egyptians view their world and while they viewed him as a chaotic deity he wasn't 'bad'.

In contrast, the Ancient Greeks have epics wherein you have the concept of the hero's journey and on that journey they have to defeat mythical monsters. I can't really speak for Greek myth since I don't know much about it at all, but the way they conceptualise these stories and the entities within them requires them to have something 'monstrous' for the hero to defeat or to learn a lesson from. There's a reason these entities are the way they are in the narrative. Contrast that with the only 'epic' I can really say Ancient Egypt has; the Tale of Sinuhe. In that, there are no monsters...the thing Sinuhe has to defeat is his own fear to return to Egypt.

Ancient Egypt just doesn't have monsters, unfortunately.

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LOCKED IN | LOCKED OUT

Shiv watches. Though glass. Quite frozen.

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Gnome Chompsky

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Black Hawk Down (2001) All units, Irene. I say again, Irene.

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Mothering Sunday dir. Eva Husson (2021)

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“She will come to understand. I've seen it.”