#Book of Discourses

[apenitentialprayer]

Huh, apparently at least some Mormons believed that Adam was polygynous, and that Lilith may have been the name of the second wife. Although not considered canonical, the Journal of Discourses preserves sermons from members of the early Latter-Day Saints movement, including an 1885 "discourse" by Henry William Naisbitt. In the relevant paragraph:

The Scriptures give an account simply of the woman Eve; declaring that this name was given to her by Adam, because she was "the mother of all living," but outside of biblical record there has been handed down from time immemorial the idea that Adam had two wives; the narrators go so far, or rather so near perfecting the tradition, so as to give their names, Lilith being said to be the name of one as Eve was the name of the other, and while it might be difficult to harmonize all the Rabbinical and Talmudic versions of this matter, it is said that Joseph Smith the Prophet taught that Adam had two wives. Without, however, assuming or basing anything on this theory, or upon this tradition —which may be mythical in its character— it is nevertheless very evident that marriage was ordained of God; and when we take into our hands the record of the Holy Scriptures that have been handed down to us by our fathers, that have been cherished in parts by the ancient people of God, and in latter times consolidated […] we find throughout the pages thereof that marriage everywhere for four thousand years, at all events, was recognized as of divine origin.

This is very fascinating for many reasons. First, I didn't realize it may have been that Joseph Smith believed Adam had multiple wives, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised by that. I am surprised by the level of familiarity this Mormon guy had with Jewish texts, though. Maybe I shouldn't be?

[shyjusticewarrior]

At some point "fanfic can be as good as professional writing" became "fanfic should be as good as professional writing" and that's caused major damage to fandom spaces.

[nedlittle]

it drives me bonkers the way people don't know how to read classic books in context anymore. i just read a review of the picture of dorian gray that said "it pains me that the homosexual subtext is just that, a subtext, rather than a fully explored part of the narrative." and now i fully want to put my head through a table. first of all, we are so lucky in the 21st century to have an entire category of books that are able to loudly and lovingly declare their queerness that we've become blind to the idea that queerness can exist in a different language than our contemporary mode of communication. second it IS a fully explored part of the narrative! dorian gray IS a textually queer story, even removed from the context of its writing. it's the story of toxic queer relationships and attraction and dangerous scandals and the intertwining of late 19th century "uranianism" and misogyny. second of all, i'm sorry that oscar wilde didn't include 15k words of graphic gay sex with ao3-style tags in his 1890 novel that was literally used to convict him of indecent behaviour. get well soon, i guess...

[watchingwisteria]

listen there really was just something about how in the book, snow’s 3-page descent from hesitant lover boy to deluded mfer happens entirely in his mind. lucy gray gives him no indication whatsoever that she suspects him, that she’s going to leave or betray him. he’s just sitting quietly in the cabin waiting for her to return when that seed of calculated suspicion, which he has needed to survive the capitol, takes a hold of him and chokes the life out of any goodness left inside him. it really drives home your terror as a reader that “oh my god did he kill her? did she escape? what happened to her? why would he even think that?” in a way that when the movie had to adjust for visualization it lost some of that holy shit this guy has lost it emphasis.

[kcrabb88]

It's truly wild to me how many people out there don't understand that the Star Wars prequels are a tragedy or how tragedies work.

Posts like "these are the Jedi failed movies" truly just make me shake my head. They're actually the "fascism wears a smile until it strikes you down and then it's too late" movies. They're the "the senate became corrupt and clapped in the face of genocide" movies. They're the "make people scared enough of war until they accept authoritarianism" movies. They're the "fear and possessiveness will tear you up on the inside" movies. The Jedi were the heroes of lore, people loved and looked up to them, looked to them for safety, and then too much got put on their shoulders on purpose by Palpatine, and also by a senate that didn't want to act (not you Padme and Bail and Mon, you're perfect). They were drafted and used and scapegoated, which is, you know, a tenet of the vast majority of authoritarian governments (Hitler and Stalin, for instance, might be on different ends of the political spectrum, but they sure both did scapegoat specific groups and commit mass murder, just differently).

When some people say "these movies are about the fall of the Jedi" what they mean is "the Jedi failed" but that's not what "the fall of the Jedi means." It means they were wiped the fuck OUT. Like, Jesus, in Rogue One Tarkin is talking about burning out the final MEMORY of the Jedi by blowing up the holy city in Jedha. Palpatine had to get rid of the Jedi because to get rid of the Jedi was to get rid of the final people standing in his way after he had already worn them out. His intention was not only to kill them, but to alter the galaxy's entire perception of them. To rip away hope. People are always looking for the Jedi to be Bad or nitpick their mistakes (because while other people are allowed to make mistakes, the Jedi never are). Palpatine made himself look like a benevolent grandpa who would keep everyone safe. And that, more than anything, is what gave him SO much power. He stole the narrative.

It's just like. Of course WE know what was going to happen! We know from watching the OT that the PT can only end in tragedy. But the characters don't know that! They don't have all the info! That's how a tragic story structure works. We see it coming and they can't.

Anyway. The Jedi are laser-sword wielding monks with psychic powers who just wanted to do what they could to help. The world would be better if more folks remembered that.

[communistkenobi]

I believe it was the work of legal scholar Florence Ashley where I first encountered this term (it might have also been Serano), but I’m becoming more and more committed to saying “degender” as opposed to “misgender.” like I think the term ‘misgender’ fails to properly identify the mechanism behind the process it describes: misgendering is not an act of attributing the wrong gender characteristics to a trans person, it is an act of dehumanisation. I think the term ‘misgender’ especially gives people much easier rhetorical cover to argue that trans women are hurt by misandry by being ‘mislabeled as men,’ or that they are in fact ‘actually men’ and benefit from male privilege, because the (incorrect) assumption underlying this is that when trans women are ‘misgendered’ they are being treated like men - to follow this line of thinking to its natural conclusion, this denies the existence of transmisogyny altogether, because any ‘misgendering’ of trans women is done only with the intent, conscious or otherwise, to inscribe the social position (and the privileges this position affords) of men onto them, as opposed to stripping them of their womanhood (and thus, their humanity).

The term degendering, however, I think more accurately describes this dehumanising process. Pulling from the work of both Judith Butler and Maria Lugones, gender mediates access to personhood - Lugones says in the Coloniality of Gender that in the colonial imaginary, animals have no gender, they only have (a) sex, and so who gets ‘sexed’ and who gets ‘gendered’ is a matter of who counts as human. She describes this gendering process as fundamentally colonial and emerging as a colonial technology of power - who is gendered is who gets to be considered human, and so the construction of binary sex is a way of ‘speciating’ or rendering non-human the Indigenous and African people of colonized America, justifying and systematising the brutal use of their land and/or their labour until their death by equating them to animals. Sylvia Wynter likewise describes in 1492: A New World View that a popular term used by Spanish colonizers to describe the indigenous people was “heads of Indian men and women,” as in heads of cattle. By the same token, white men are granted the high status of human, worthy of governance, wealth, and knowledge production, and white women are afforded the subordinate though still very high responsibility of reproducing these men by raising and educating children. Appeals to a person’s sex as something more real, more obvious, or ‘poorly concealed’ by their gender is to deny them their gender outright, and therefore is a mechanism to render them non-human. Likewise, for Butler, gender produces the human subject - to be outside gender is to be considered “unthinkable” as a human being, a being in “unliveable” space.

Therefore the process of trans women going from women -> “male” is not “being gendered as a man,” it is being positioned as non-human. when people deny the gender of trans women, most especially trans women of colour, they invariably do this through reference to their genitals, to their ‘sex,’ as something inescapable, incapable of being concealed - again, this is not a process of rendering them as men, it is the exact opposite: it is a process of rendering them as non-human. there is not a misidentification process happening, they are not being “misgendered as men,” there is a de-identification of them as human beings. Hence, they are not misgendered, they are degendered, stripped of gender, stripped of their humanity

[ckret2]

this is how tbob went i think

[jay-wasreblogging]

"I won't forget you Buddy"

Comic book Eddie would've started to track down and slaughter Knull. 😭

[catofoldstones]

we already have people bitching about how “i can’t stand Chani, she’s so annoying 🙄” and “Paul chose Chani to be the mother of his children, Irulan is just at the sidelines eating dust as she should”, like brothers we cannot do this again. We can’t Chani v Irulan our way out of this one because the problem is Paul and the Empire. Gosh, we truly are never getting out of the patriarchy.

[balrogballs]

god's strongest soldiers are lotr fans who live near the british coastline because every single time the books or films romanticise the 🥹❤️✨ cry of the gulls ✨❤️🥹 i assume you're meant to picture something like

while personally I get war flashbacks of

[screamingfrenchfries]

anyways i cant belive ford CANONICALLY was in a Love Triangle with fiddleford and....... ironically.... a Triangle

[silasbirchtree]

"billford is abusive" yeah. fucking obviously

here's the thing: literally no one is making content w the inherent idea that billford is a healthy relationship, or that they Should be together. but it is a genuinely interesting dynamic with tropes that have been enjoyed since literally forever: power imbalances, mortal/god, enemies/lovers etc. and part of the appeal of why their relationship is so interesting is delving into the underlying care/love between them. abusive relationships aren't constantly threatening or scary 24/7 - part of what makes them so easy to fall into is that you really do love and trust this person - which is a realistic portrayal!! the tragedy of it is an idea that has been loved for ages: watching a relationship grow and evolve, even knowing that it still ends badly!! it's interesting and heartbreaking and it is literally just basic antithesis.

this is like basic media literacy can we pleaaase be serious lmfao. it's fine if you don't fw the ship/dynamic but you don't have to come up with a moral high ground for it - and having a dynamic that is explicitly abusive, while also showing the victim to be able to heal with support, in mainstream kids media facilitates further recognition and discussion on abuse which is a good thing.

[zephrunsimperium]

Ford is a jerk to Fiddleford McGucket in Journal 3. Let's talk about that.

First I want to preface this post by saying that I adore Ford. He is a wonderful character who has influenced my life in countless ways for the better. All of the things he does in this list a) stem from his own insecurities that he's projecting b) are symptoms of Ford's narcissistic defense mechanisms c) or come from Bill's influence on him. However, just because there are reasons for his actions doesn't excuse them, especially considering just how many there are.

Here's the list of things he does, I'll analyze at the end of the post.

Let's get the petty things out of the way first.

The cubic's cube: I think it is just straight up an absolute jerk move to scramble this thing that's clearly a comfort to him and think it's funny.

Being in shape: It's obvious his comments here are from his own insecurity but on a deeper level it just speaks to how Ford sees him, I think.

Not telling Fidds about Bill: Obviously Bill was feeding him a lot of paranoia but it's the reasoning that he writes down that gets me. It's so condescending.

The Gremloblin & The Shapeshifter

Something I think that's worth taking note of is the way Ford illustrates both of these instances. He brushes off Fiddleford's concerns multiple times and then Fiddleford pays the price and Ford sees himself as some kind of hero and Fiddleford this helpless victim. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

And then afterwards the way he handles not just Fiddleford's anxiety but the genuine trauma he went through. I know he's an old man, I know that's how he was treated, but Fiddleford is supposed to be his friend.

The Portal Test

Specifically their interaction at the diner and Ford's reaction to Fiddleford quitting the project. Fiddleford SELFLESSLY spends untold hours on this thesis for Ford because he cares about him and sees him burning out, even though Ford hasn't been great to him and Fidds has been going through his own hard things - not just with the gremloblin and the Shapeshifter, but things with his family as well. Ford does not match that selfless devotion at all. In fact, he sees it as an insult.

Analysis

The reason I've been thinking about this is because of Book of Bill and how that's influenced the shipping atmosphere. There's this weird notion that FiddAuthor is a less toxic ship but I think that's absurd. Besides their hug at Weirdmageddon, these journal entries are pretty much all we see of Ford's relationship with Fiddleford and it doesn't paint a pretty picture. Yes Ford is excited to have Fiddleford come to see him, yes Ford has that sweet conversation with him under the stars, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that all the above evidence outweighs hat. At the very least it shouldn't be ignored.

That doesn't mean Ford is a terrible person and we should hate him. I believe strongly in nuance and Ford is a character that requires nuance. I don't think he's an evil person, but I also don't think he should be babied as this perfect wittle guy who can do no wrong either. Both readings do a disservice to him.

Ford clearly had a hard childhood. He's isolated himself his whole life and he's been severely traumatized by Bill. But that doesn't mean that he deserves Fiddleford's forgiveness - Ford wasn't really that kind to him and his actions inadvertently led to the memory gun/Fidds' exposure to Bill. Ultimately it's Fiddleford's choice to make; I wouldn't fault him if he didn't want to ever see Ford again, but I think it's a testament to his goodness that he still cares for Ford as much as he does.

So what do I personally think? Man. I'm just sad we don't know more about Fiddleford McGucket than we do. He's so essential to Bill's defeat and to Ford's past and he's such a cool character but we know so little about him. I want to know what his childhood was like, I want to know how he ended up in Backupsmore, I want to know why he cares about Ford as much as he does, I want to know why things ended so poorly with EmmaMay. But we may never know those things for certain. So with the things we're left... Yeah, I think FiddAuthor is a compelling reading, one that I certainly enjoy. I just worry about the fandom babying Ford.

[soracities]

Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse: Fragments (trans. Richard Howard) [ID in ALT]

[khattikeri]

it bugs me when people treat lan wangji like a generic yaoi seme (i.e. filthy rich, selfish, arrogantly dismissive and unsatisfied, lords his position over those weaker or poorer, near-universal advantages over others, etc.

lan wangji IS way more privileged than wei wuxian, but lan xichen and the lan elders have FAR more power, control, and political advantage over him. lan wangji single-handedly physically fought 33 members of his own family to protect the man he loved, and they whipped him to near death for it. they forcibly imprisoned ("secluded") him and took advantage of his bedridden state to join the other clans in ambushing and assassinating wei wuxian.

my point is, he's not a stereotypical arrogant jerk with unending influence over others. if anything, being a dom top in bed isn't an expression of power for lan wangji, but an expression of freedom. he can be true to himself, his love, and his desires without being held back by his family and society's politics.

[volunteerfelinedetectives]

After months of staying silent on literary discourse here on Tumblr, I finally have something to contribute.

Fanfiction is not the problem. Fanfic is a free, communal and valid form of writing which, although not always high quality, has yielded some genuinely great stories. The real problem, the reason for ‘booktok books’ and the flaws in modern literature, is fanfic being hijacked by corporations. The minute people try to make money off of it, the minute fanfic and fanfic-style stories lose their meaning. Fanfiction is written on the notes app at 3am for you and 5 friends who share your taste. It is self-indulgent, chaotic, often told through a queer and/or neurodivergent lens, and free from any pressure to be commercially palatable. The minute a few stereotypical fanfiction tropes and ideas are stolen by commercial publishers and twisted into patriarchal, heteronormative versions of themselves with no character depth beyond the romance (a problem that for obvious reasons doesn’t apply to fanfic), that is where the real problem begins.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk