#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

[pharmasrightarm]

separate ways

[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.

[proselles]

watching dead poets society with my mother and i cant make a single queercoded analysis this must be hell

[scarlettjulz]

Lilia trying his best, pt. 1

[rawliverandgoronspice]

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

[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.

[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.

[jg-macleod]

i'm 4 years late but Death Stranding rips

[vaguely-concerned]

the thing about growing up undiagnosed high-masking autistic is that it feels a lot like being expected to spontaneously develop, nay, somehow autogenically manifest from somewhere deep in your soul, a perfect understanding of ancient greek. and you scrape by for a long while on route memorization of established texts and sneaking looks in dictionaries while people glance away and frantic spiritual google translating and you form a tattered highly specialized vocabulary and some exceedingly hazy theories of grammar. but then one day the world will be like 'wonderful, you've really got this down huh! now it's time to go out there in the world and compose your own poetry! have fun!' and then you sit there like ':) oh no!' and in your cobbled-together desperate lingo it's very hard to find a way to tell people 'my nervous system has been burning for so long that there's only electrified ash left in here to carry the signal and all that greek ate every other language I may have known at the beginning so now I don't understand anything at all anymore I don't know how to truly speak and I don't know how to truly listen it's all greek to me' without them going 'but don't be silly you're so eloquent!' and/or 'well have you tried to spontaneously be a fluent latin speaker instead that worked great for me!' and then I want to go lie down at the bottom of the deepest ocean forever and never get up