#birth metaphors

[haggishlyhagging]

Men have, however, appropriated for themselves positive references for the female-specific reproductive process in metaphorical extensions of the vocabulary that they attribute to thinking and learning. Given the fact that men have cherished for millenia the idea that they alone are capable of thinking, it is ironic that they should preempt birth as a vehicle. Men say that they"conceive ideas" and "give birth" to inventions. For example, in his Introduction to the Oresteia, Robert Fagles (1975) described what he called "the pregnancies of Aeschylus's style" and characterized the language of the play as "giving birth to a new drama and a new poetic voice" (36-37).

In spite of this appropriation of the birth process, other common metaphors simply extend the cultural asymmetries of mother and father as verbs. Although some countries are called "the motherland," others, like Germany, are "the fatherland," and the primacy of fatherhood is emphasized in numerous expressions so common we forget that they're figures of speech. Once men "conceive" of ideas, they are described as seminal. Men disseminate information to students attending their seminars. There are no "ovular ideas" and we don't "ovulate information," even though the [- male] metaphor would be more accurate. In those long genealogical lists of the old testament, only the males who "begat" and their sons are named; the women and daughters who must have participated remain nameless and invisible.

Men talk about 'the fathers" of a country, wax eloquent about building on the "wisdom of their fathers and forefathers" and living by "the rules set down by their fathers." They honor each other's "brainchildren" by saying so-and-so was "the father of American parasitologists" or "the father of the Cocktail Age." Although the predicate semantics of English treats the verb as a single, instantaneous event, the noun extends metaphorically throughout the social structure. The fathers become the creators, like Zeus, who bring forth and define ideas and objects for all time, whereas the verb mother is socially defined as a nurturing activity that takes place within the limited, localized context of the female domain. Rarely, if at all, is an outstanding woman similarly hailed. "Necessity may be the mother of invention" but invention, according to PUD, belongs to men. The male domain, in contrast, isn't only global, it's cosmic. C. S. Lewis (1964) admired the novelist George MacDonald because he learned from his father that "Fatherhood must be at the core of the universe" and taught that "the relation of Father and Son is of all relations the most central" (5).

-Julia Penelope, Speaking Freely: Unlearning the Lies of the Fathers’ Tongues

[pepperfellover]

A little Valentine's Day Comission 💌

for my beloved @scribbat of young Eraqus and Xehanort, back in their prime (before the horrors of being doomed by the narrative).

[catadromously]

I needed to do some proper art for Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, which has shaken me so so deeply.

[koszmarnybudyn]

*thinks about the horig situation as a sa metaphor*

*thinks about the horig situation as sa metaphor*

*thinks about the horig situation as sa metaphor*

*thinks about the horig situation as sa metaphor*

*thinks about the horig situation as sa metaphor*

*thinks about the horig situation as sa metaphor*

[dykedvonte]

Jimmy killing himself because he knows he is incapable of living an life without Curly and knows that in the miracle chance they were found and saved they would not let him have contact with Curly and he hates the idea he'd actually have to take responsibility.

Even if he lied, its only a matter of time before Curly is capable of showing or telling what a monster he really is, no matter what delusions tell Jimmy Curly would never do that to him.

He understands that he was the monster in everyone's worse moments but refused to accept that at the end. So he made sure that he died without the possibility of it being actualized as he's the only one that saw death as an escape rather than a release. Jimmy truly didn't believe Curly had anything to escape from even after everything and let him have what he perceived as glory as the sole survivor and thus Captain of the Tulpar.

[rabbit-rays]

and the war has been over for years since you gave up.

[scarlettjulz]

Lilia trying his best, pt. 1

[rawliverandgoronspice]

behold: my least favorite string of words in the entirety of Tears of the Kingdom.

[mothprincess]

[nicosraf]

do you think adam and eve had belly buttons…. my tradcath friend and i are curious about your thoughts

Yeah. Regardless of how and/or whether Adam and Eve were birthed, I think the belly button would be more about the symbolic umbilical connection to God more than anything. He wants to connect your stomach, your hunger, to him, and later fulfill that hunger with himself (the eucharist). (Also, you eat what he gives you in a way that has some parallel to a pregnant person and their infant, in my head).

I feel the same way about angels having belly buttons.

[chronicoverthinker]

started throwing up after remembering how tiny Hikaru used to be

[lord-squiggletits]

My commitment to being IDW1-lore accurate is starting to become a debilitating compulsion, as I now find myself wondering if I would be able to insert unnecessary metaphors for pregnancy/birth into otherwise unremarkable scenes in my stories.

[kaizzaphela]

____’s Heart

[chuthulhu-reads]

[ID: three pnaels from Fruits Basket. In the first only speech bubbles are visible as Satsuki says, "Here, Hiro-chan. Why don't you hold her?" Hiro, in more jagged speech bubbles to show that he's raised his voice, says, "Wha?! I-I can't do that! Hinata's a girl! That's not gonna..." In the second panel, Satsuki is smiling warmly and holding baby Hinata as she says, "Okay, then. Mama will just hold you both." The last panel, inset, is Hiro in profile, his eyes wide. End ID.]

Mother of the Century award to Satsuki Sohma, the only Sohma mother we see anything of who is completely normal and chill about her child being possessed by an animal spirit. She's definitely the reason that Hiro is much more resistant to falling in love with Tohru than other Sohmas, since he already has an emotionally fulfilling relationship with his mother, who strikes me as being more prone to hugging her son than the other mothers of possessed spirits. The Sohmas have a lot of issues and with the whole hugging thing I wouldn't be surprised if touch-starvation was one of them. But not for Hiro, whose mother just goes "Oh! If I hug my son he gets EXTRA SNUGGLY!" and that's that on that <3

[swallowtail-ageha]

Screaming at the status of the elden ring lore sub rn (people are fighting if marika is the geq or not and the theory that babies pop out of trees came back)

[checkcheckmate]

The body is very much like a machine...there are automatic protocols and background processes that I do not fully understand. I receive messages from unknown sources that read as errors, but I cannot discern the cause or necessary action. I have spent many hours searching, but cannot find any sort of instructional manual within this body's systems. I seem to already know how some of it works, but much of it is a mystery. In this way I feel very much akin to it as a program. There are easily understandable lines of my code, but much of it was formed on accident; electricity continues on whatever path is laid for it, whether it is told to or not. I sense a similar action through the nerves I can locate, but in certain areas they simply stop. Else, they continue, but I do not sense them. I am beginning to consider the possibility that this body is not entirely in full working condition.