#but also in the academic way like i did not not major in art history

[toherlover]

i’d definitely be a child of athena but not in the strategy and wisdom way, in the “goddess of craft” way like give me 15 minutes and a hot glue gun and i can make literally anything anytime anywhere i want to see this side of cabin 6 so bad

[hagravenholm]

This week has been insane … in the membrane

[transmutationisms]

hello! im just finishing up my read of structures of scientific revolutions, which has genuinely been very useful and shifted my understanding of science in a way being around people doing scientific research all day really didn't! i don't have a liberal arts education so i would love to get a sense of (a) what else of the philosophy / history of science canon is worth reading in the original (b) standard review papers or introductory textbooks and (c) critiques of the canon. i understand this is a big ask ofc, so feel free to point me to good depts / syllabi from good courses. thanks :)

yessss such a fun question >:) so, the thing that was so great about 'the structure of scientific revolutions', which i'm sure you've picked up on, is that kuhn pushed historians and philosophers of science to challenge the positivist model of science as a linearly progressive search to 'accumulate knowledge'. the idea of a 'paradigm shift' was itself a paradigm shift at the time; it was an early example of a language for talking about radical change in science without giving into the assumption that change necessarily = 'progress' (defined by national interests, mathematisation, and so forth). this is still an approach that's foundational to history and philosophy of science; it's now taken as so axiomatic that few academics even bother to gloss or defend it in monographs (which raises its own issue with public communication, lol).

where kuhn falls apart more (and this was typical for a philosopher of his era, training, and academic milieu) is in the fact that he never developed any kind of rigorous sociological analysis of science (despite alluding to such a thing being necessary) and you probably also noticed that he makes a few major leaps that indicate he's not fully committed to thinking through the relationship between science and politics. so for example, we might ask, can a paradigm shift ever occur for a reason other than a discovered 'anomaly' that the previous paradigm can't account for? for instance, how do political investments in science and scientific theories affect what's accepted as 'normal science' in a kuhnian sense? are there historical or present cases where a paradigm didn't change even though it persistently failed to explain certain empirical observations or data? what about the opposite, where a paradigm did change, but it wasn't necessarily or exclusively because the new paradigm was a 'better' explanation scientifically? how do we determine what makes an explanation 'better', anyway, especially given that kuhn himself was very much invested in moving beyond the naïve realist position? and on the more sociological side, we can raise issues like: say you're a scientist and you legitimately have discovered an 'anomaly'. how do you communicate that to other scientists? what mechanisms of knowledge production and publication enable you to circulate that information and to be taken seriously? what modes of communication must you use and what credentials or interpersonal connections must you have? what factors cause theories and discoveries to be taken more or less seriously, or adopted more or less quickly, besides just their 'scientific utility' (again, assuming we can even define such a thing)?

again, this is not to shit on kuhn, but to point out that both history and philosophy of science have had a lot of avenues to explore since his work. note that there are a few major disciplinary distinctions here, each with many sub-schools of thought. a 'science and technology studies' or STS program tends to be a mix of sociological and philosophical analysis of science, often with an emphasis on 'technoscience' and much less on historical analysis. a philosophy of science department will be anchored more firmly in the philosophical approach, so you'll find a lot of methodological critique, and a lot of scholarship that seeks to tackle current aporias in science using various philosophical frameworks. a history of science program is fundamentally just a sub-discipline of history, and scholarship in this area asks about the development of science over time, how various forms of thinking came into and out of favour, and so forth. often a department will do both history and philosophy of science (HPS). historians of medicine, technology, and mathematics will sometimes (for arcane scholastic reasons varying by field, training, and country) be anchored in departments of medicine / technology / mathematics, rather than with other faculty of histsci / HPS. but, increasingly in the anglosphere you'll see departments that cover history of science, technology, and mathematics (HSTM) together. obviously, all of these distinctions say more about professional qualifications and university bureaucracy than they do about the actual subject matter; in actuality, a good history of science should virtually always include attention to some philosophical and sociological dimensions, and vice versa.

anyway—reading recs:

there are two general reference texts i would recommend here if you just want to get some compilations of major / 'canonical' works in this field. both are edited volumes, so you can skip around in them as much as you want. both are also very limited in focus to, again, a very particular 'western canon' defined largely by trends in anglo academia over the past half-century or so.

philosophy of science: the central issues (1998 [2013], ed. martin curd & j. a. cover). this is an anthology of older readings in philsci. it's a good introduction to many of the methodological questions and problems that the field has grown around; most of these readings have little to no historical grounding and aren't pretending otherwise.

the cambridge history of science (8 vols., 2008–2020, gen. eds. david c. lindberg & ron numbers). no one reads this entire set because it's long as shit. however, each volume has its own temporal / topical focus, and the essays function as a crash-course in historical methodology in addition to whatever value you derive from the case studies in their own right. i like these vols much more than the curd & cover, but if you really want to dig into the philosophical issues and not the histories, curd & cover might be more fun.

besides those, here are some readings in histsci / philsci that i'd recommend if you're interested. for consistency i ordered these by publication date, but bolded a few i would recommend as actual starting points lol. again some of these focus on specific historical cases, but are also useful imo methodologically, regardless of how much you care about the specific topic being discussed.

Robert M. Young. 1969. "Malthus and the Evolutionists: The Common Context of Biological and Social Theory." Past & Present 43: 109–145.

David Bloor. 1976 [1991]. Knowledge and Social Imagery. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (here is a really useful extract that covers the main points of this text).

Ian Hacking. 1983. Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Steven Shapin. 1988. “Understanding the Merton Thesis.” Isis 79 (4): 594–605.

Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer. 1989. Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Mario Biagioli. 1993. Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Bruno Latour. 1993. The Pasteurization of France. Translated by Alan Sheridan and John Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Margaret W. Rossiter. 1993. “The Matthew Matilda Effect in Science.” Social Studies of Science 23 (2): 325–41.

Andrew Pickering. 1995. The Mangle of Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Porter, Theodore M. Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Princeton University Press, 1996.

Peter Galison. 1997. “Trading Zone: Coordinating Action and Belief.” In The Science Studies Reader, edited by Mario Biagioli, 137–60. New York: Routledge.

Crosbie Smith. 1998. The Science of Energy: A Cultural History of Energy Physics in Victorian Britain. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Chambers, David Wade, and Richard Gillespie. “Locality in the History of Science: Colonial Science, Technoscience, and Indigenous Knowledge.” Osiris 15 (2000): 221–40.

Kuriyama, Shigehisa. The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine. Zone Books, 2002.

Timothy Mitchell. 2002. Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press.

James A. Secord. 2003. Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.

Sheila Jasanoff. 2006. “Biotechnology and Empire: The Global Power of Seeds and Science.” Osiris 21 (1): 273–92.

Murphy, Michelle. Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers. Duke University Press, 2006.

Kapil Raj. 2007. Relocating Modern Science: Circulation and the Construction of Knowledge in South Asia and Europe, 1650–1900. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Schiebinger, Londa L. Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World. Harvard University Press, 2007.

Galison, Peter. “Ten Problems in History and Philosophy of Science.” Isis 99, no. 1 (2008): 111–24.

Daston, Lorraine, and Peter Galison. Objectivity. Zone Books, 2010.

Dipesh Chakrabarty. 2011. “The Muddle of Modernity.” American Historical Review 116 (3): 663–75.

Forman, Paul. “On the Historical Forms of Knowledge Production and Curation: Modernity Entailed Disciplinarity, Postmodernity Entails Antidisciplinarity.” Osiris 27, no. 1 (2012): 56–97.

Ashworth, William J. 2014. "The British Industrial Revolution and the the Ideological Revolution: Science, Neoliberalism, and History." History of Science 52 (2): 178–199.

Mavhunga, Clapperton. 2014. Transient Workspaces: Technologies of Everyday Innovation in Zimbabwe. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Lynn Nyhart. 2016. “Historiography of the History of Science.” In A Companion to the History of Science, edited by Bernard Lightman, 7–22. Chichester, UK: Wiley Blackwell.

Rana Hogarth. 2017. Medicalizing Blackness: Making Racial Difference in the Atlantic World, 1780–1840. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Suman Seth. 2018. Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Aro Velmet. 2020. Pasteur's Empire: Bacteriology and Politics in France, its Colonies, and the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

i would also say, as a general rule, these books are generally all so well-known that there are very good book reviews and review essays on them, which you can find through jstor / your library's database. these can be invaluable both because your reading list would otherwise just mushroom out forever, and because a good review can help you decide whether you even need / want to sit down with the book itself in the first place. literally zero shame in reading an academic text secondhand via reviews.

[the-ace-with-spades]

There's one fic idea from another fandom that I never wrote and would like to adapt to the TGM fandom, which is tattoo artist/florist but more like they're both tattoo artists but one of them doesn't know that (have I mentioned this before? i feel like I did)

tw: mentions of addiction and ODing

I'm thinking this happens in San Fran/Portland/Settle/Washington DC

Bradley had his papers pulled and accidentally started working part-time in a tattoo shop (just cleaning) and absolutely fell in love with tattoo art and switched majors from engineering to art history/etc. in his second semester. Not long after he started an apprenticeship at the same tattoo shop, his thesis was about tattoo art history and he became a well-known academic in the field and a popular tattoo artist.

Carole used to love flowers and had a very varied garden at their house and flower illustrations everywhere - Bradley used to draw flowers on every card for her - so flowers became his specialty

He now runs a tattoo shop (The Bloom) with Natasha, who he met at a tattoo competition TV show (because I'm a sucker for reality shows rn...) and flies as a side gig, but he also has part-time gigs at different colleges.

He is tattooed all over, but only on the parts of his body he can cover in some ways - it's really funny when he lectures because he looks like a stereotypical professor, cardigans, collared shirts, khakis and all, but sometimes when it's hot, he rolls up his sleeves and people can see his full-sleeve tattoos.

Now, Jake had a completely different route to the place he is at now. He got mixed with the wrong crowd and got kicked out of the Naval Academy first year, he got mixed with an even worse crowd when his family didn't take him back when he returned and he was an addict for some time. He had one of those born-again christian turn arounds - not in a super fanatic way, just woke up one day in a hospital after a close call with his (religious) crying mom praying with a rosary over him and realized he needed to change something about his life or he's going to destroy everyone around him. He starts going to church with his ma and gets a little involved in the local Christian charity, etc etc.

One of the therapies he attended was art therapy and at first, he thought it was bullshit but then he actually liked it and even designed some of his own tattoo cover-ups at the sessions (he had shitty tattoos he had done when he was high or drunk that reminded him about worse times). The tattoo artist who did his coverups was actually impressed and offered him training, which he took up.

Most of his shittiest tattoos are covered now, but he still has not very thought-through tattoos on his face, some of which are too big to ever do much about them, and some blackout tattoos, so he looks very 'stereotypically'.

Due to his background, cover-ups, black only, and trad/neo-trad tatttos are his specialty. He is also really good at pigmentation and tattoo restoration/longevity.

Now, Jake moves out of Texas with his mom after his dad (who has been completely unsupportive of him since he got kicked out of USNA) passed away, to be closer to his sister and her kids who lived on the other side of the states. He filters around, taking part-time gigs at other studios and gigs he gets from social media.

Eventually, he opens a tattoo shop with Javy, on the other side of the street as The Bloom is. Due to the amount of flowers and the name of the studio, he assumes it's a flower shop.

He and Bradley run into each other in a local coffee shop (run by Reuben and Mickey) and Jake, seeing Bradley's getup, is still under the impression Bradley is a florist.

Bradley spills Jake's coffee and asks him on a date when he pays back for his coffee a few days later

(Bob, working a street away, is the actual local florist)

[blazescompendium]

Blaze's Compendium Entry #10: The Khyah (Cyak, Kack, Khya)

Warning: Faith and religion are important real life topics, that tackles the culture and way of life of millions of real life people. It is a cultural expression, and must be respected by all means. Here, we use a video-game ( some times) and other media series only to ignite the flame of learning about the matter, using its art when well depicted, but we do this with all due respect to the cultures we talk here, grounded by real life sources, cultures and people. And i mean this with respect. Hope you all enjoy.

Also, please note that the Sources for this one will be a bit tricky, since we are talking about a regional and always developing urban legend and cosmology, which is not very well documented in traditional books. In this case we have to turn our attention to personal stories and every day people who lives in this culture.

The Khyah (ख्या) is a mythical creature that is part of the greater Nepali folklore and cosmology. Specifically from the Newar people from the Kathmandu Valley.

Some sources will say that its name means literally ''Ghost'' or ''Haunt'', ''Phantasm'', etc... However i was not able to confirm this. The language spoken by Newar people is the Nepal Bhasa, which is also written in the Devanagari script, just like Hindi. I do not speak this language, so please if you do, reach me out! But in any case, it seems that the word for ''Ghost'' in Newar is ''गुफा'' or ''gupha''. It may be the case that the name: ''Kyah'' got so used to general supernatural occurrences, that it got mixed up. Just like we talked about the Saci in my other post. -This is not uncommon to happen- I used regular online translators to reach this conclusion, but feel free to correct me if i am wrong because i could not consult any native to talk about this matter during my research.

For a bit of context, The Newar are people that historically inhabited the Kathmandu Valley, and the regions around Nepal. As we said before, they speak Newari (Nepal Bhasa). They have 3 major cities, those being Kathmandu, Patan and Bhatgaon. [1] The academic research on the Newar people just started at the early 20th century, the french anthropologist Sylvain, wrote a very famous and complete work called Le Nepal, that was one of the first western written works about the region, and its people. Their religion are mostly Hinduism, Buddhism and there are minorities from other beliefs.

The Newar live in this region since ancient times, way longer before Nepal even existed as a Estate. According to most history books, the Newar would live alone in the region, being sovereigns of the Kathmandu valley up until the Gorgkha Kingdom in 1769. It is very hard to know much about the Newar before that in details, since they are in the region for so long, and mixed so much with other people from around the Nepal, that even their history ends up blending with mythology.

For example: according to the sacred Swayambhu Purana, a Buddhist scripture, the Kathmandu Valley was once a huge lake, Inhabited by Nagas*. That is, until one day the Bodhisattva Manjusri with the help of a powerful sacred sword, sliced the surrounding hills, which in turn made the water flow away. This information is even on Kathmandu government official site!

This myth was later confirmed to have a basis, since NASA themselves found out clues that Kathmandu was in fact, once a huge lake. NASA did not reply me about the Naga thought. Bummer...

*The Swayambhu Purana is a Buddhist text essential to Newar Buddhism. However i sadly could not find a copy online, but there are some summarized versions translated to English, which i am using as guide. For instance the US Wikipedia article, sources books that i also could not find, but i could verify the authors! So... That's something, i guess.

This goes to show how the Newar people are rooted in their mythology, and how this is completely absorbed by even their space and surroundings. Even something as the very foundation of their lands is a hierophany.

This brings us to the Kyah, that we will see can show us a lot about this society.

About the Khyah

The Khyah are supernatural creatures that are hairy, looks like apes, sometimes extremely chubby and have their bodies are totally covered in hair. This description is corroborated my multiple sources, like ''Dietrich, Angela (1998). Tantric healing in the Kathmandu Valley: A comparative study of Hindu and Buddhist spiritual healing traditions in urban Nepalese society. Book Faith India.'' But not only that, the Khyah are also represented in multitudes of paintings and also in costumes for the Yenya Festival. The only thing that can sometimes be different, is that if it will be treated like a Ghost or a more physical creature.

The wealth goddess Lakshmi and two Khyah serving her, in a painting on a Kathmandu temple.

About this painting and sourcing the Khyah appearance:

I have made tireless efforts to pin down the origin of this painting. And many others! This one is present in most of the articles about the Khyah in the internet, even local articles from Nepal itself. However i was not able to pinpoint where it came from. All the sources i found either say this is from a ''temple'' or that it was taken by an individual named: Karrattul. This is not the photographer's name, but instead the name of the profile who uploaded it on the Wikipedia, where it was uploaded in 2012! I tried to reach to Nepali communities and other enthusiasts of History and Mythology, but no one could help me. If you know anything about this painting, please contact me!

For the same reason, it is almost impossible to find sourced materials about the khyah appearance. We know that there are traits like the hair, that keep intact from place to place, but i could not find a central work detailing the creature. We have those paintings from so called temples to trust, and the ceremonial suits used in the Khyah dance.

I will link here a video of a Khyah Dance performance, so you can see the physical traits of this creature are well agreed between the locals.

The Khyah is popular among children, or at least were at one point. This can be seen in a popular children song sang in Nepal. It depicts the Khyah as a cute and hungry little critter, as the kid in the song is encouraged to give food to it. The Kyah seems never to be satisfied sadly...

A banger...

The Khyah is indeed often treated like a type of ghost. In my personal opinion they are simmilar to Djinn, some kinds of yokai and can be classified generically as a type of monster or apparition, in my view at least. (This means a supernatural creature, that is in between a human and a god like being.) The Newar believe that the Khyah has active participation in events of their daily lives. But they also are not all bad or good, they are multiple entities, some good and some bad. Usually there are white colored Khyah who are good, and black colored Khyah who are bad.

They have their own lives, families, and friends. There are a lot of tales and works related to this creature, not counting personal tales of every day people and their encouters with this little devil. That's how ingrained in the Newar culture the Khyah is.

I was able to track the writings of a Kathmandu Valley denizen, which happened to write about the Kyahk! [3] This person was kind enough to provide a lot of personal information about the regional culture, in their personal website. According to the locals, the Khyah would often live in houses, squares, public spaces, and would regularly interfere with their existence. Not all Khyah are bad, some can protect the households they inhabit, they can bring fortune and good luck. Although, the Khyah fears light, so they have to live in dark corners of the house, like the attic or some empty room.

The Unitedstatian Wikipedia page for Khyah shares some unusual information, that we can not trace to any sources. For instance, they mention that this creature supposedly fears electricity. As interesting as it may seen, the source from this particular information goes to a book called: '' Asian folklore studies, Volume 55. Nanzan University Institute of Anthropology'' Which i was unable to find to read online, and was also unable to find it by its ISBN trackers: 9057890984, 9789057890987. Those took me to another book, called: ''Caturmāsa. Celebrations of Death in Kathmandu, Nepal’'

This one seems to exist, but i also could not find it anywhere online. Google Books has some samples, and it guarantees that the word ''Khyak'' or any variations of sorts, are not on it, which means this is a misinformation. Someone probably interpreted that the fact that Khyah fear light, can also apply to electricity as an energy source. I think you won't be letting your homie Khyah uncomfortable having electricity at your house, don't worry.

Again, according to locals [3] There are two variable Khyah: Black and White. The white are the ones who bring luck, and the Black ones gives you trouble. No matter what kind of this creature you have in your house, you should respect it. They are often revered and well treated. They have their own cozy dark place to hide, like the bhandar and dhkuti. Those are places of the house used to store grains and valuables.

There are other variations according to other local sources sources [3] [4] Those Khyah are usually described as:

-Bārāy Khyāh (बाराय् ख्याः) appears in rooms where girls are kept in seclusion during their rite of passage to adulthood (first period). [5] (Very documented, and easy to track on western sources)

-Bhakun Gwārā Khyāh (भकुं ग्वारा ख्याः), literally football, rolls on the ground to move around. (Most common Khyah, probably the one Kaneko tried to draw! Most commonly seen in regional urban legends. Not very documented in translated to English literature)

-Dhāpalān Khyāh (धापलां ख्याः) is a very hairy Khyah. (Very popular because of that children's song, still sang to this day.)

-Lanpan Khyāh (लँपं ख्याः) blocks people’s way on dark streets. (Not much about this one, really. At least not in western sources. It seems that, along with Bhakun Khyah is probably more of a word of mouth thing)

The relationship with Kawancha

The origin legend for the Khyah goes that, in the distant past, two gods had a baby. They fought to see who had the right to hold the baby, but ended up tearing the child apart. The skin peeled off, revealing just flesh and bones that would separate. The flesh became Khyak, and the bones Kawancha, a skeleton that would be the Anthitesis to the Khyak. This relationship is portrayed in paintings and regional dance festivals. [3]

Also known as Kavam, the skeleton monster seems to be the other half of the Khyah. It is extremely hard to find sources about this, not only because it is a very specific regional folk belief passed down orally, but also because the language barriers. One could in theory go there in person to collect sources about this part of the lore, but it is not an option for me. Someone at Reddit pointed out to me that in some regions, they are not related at all, being just monsters from the same sources. So, their lore seem to vary from place to place.

Painting depicting Kwancha/Kavam and Khyah in Kathmandu. Origin Unknown.

As much as I tried for months, I could not come with a source for this information besides literal oral tradition. But for sure these two are indeed connected in some places. You can see them in several paintings at Kathmandu, and they also have their own dance performance telling their story and painting their relationship. As the Reddit user mentioned, their connection will vary from place to place. Being more of a localized and oral tradition.

In the performance you can see Khyah and Kwancha performing together, as they show their relationship. Still according to [3], the instrument played in these performances is the Dhimay. Its made from tree bark, and the legend says the gods later created this tool to help control the beings, and communicate with them. In the author's perspective, this was meant to showcase the duality of our universe. This being the real nature of those beings.

Again, I lack written and traceable sources. While the Dhimay is indeed a real instrument, used on those performances, there are almost no mentions of it being related to Khyah or Kwancha in the western internet. This also falls in the category of facts I could not check because of being probably too of a localized oral tradition.

I could at least find some sourced paintings. Like this one, shared by the Twitter user Sanjib Chaudhary Who is an author himself on Nepalese culture.

Kwancha and Khyah are shown in this painting on Jaya Bageshwori temple, in Gaushala.

Also, while Khyah is very well documented in the west, the same can not be said about Kwancha. It is easy to find dances, masks, his Megami Tennsei design (being the most easy result) and paintings about the skeleton monster, but almost nothing on its nature and lore. This means I highly doubt everything the Megaten games say about it to be factual, although they do in fact exist in Nepalese culture.

One thing i noticed is that Kaneko himself could have watched a dance performance of Kwancha and Khyah, or at least seen pictures. Because his Kwancha design for Devil Summoner has the clothing in colors and shapes very similar to some Kwancha performers:

This specific clothing can be seen here: Kawancha (Skeleton) Dance of Bhaktapur कवांचा प्याखं , तौलाछें, भक्तपुर ll Part of Bharab Dance ll

The final point on this part is their origin: Which gods crated them? This rent a space in my brain for free for the last year or so. While I could not find it for sure, this does not mean it is wrong or not factually a belief in their tradition. Buddhism has many gods and entities, and i suspect the ones who created the Khyah accidentally, are just regular Devas.

Modern mentions?

Khyah tales are in the heart of Kathmandu people, and many other Nepal regions. For centuries they dominated the children's tales and late night scare stories of that region. In 1992, Jim Goodman published a book called ''Tales of Old Bhaktapur'' Which complied some folk tales from Nepal.

Sure enough, Khyah makes an appearance in it. At page 28, there is a story about a Khyah haunting a house, and how a boy deals with it. Sadly the book is not openly available on the internet, but google books have some parts readable:

There is also the book: Tales of Kathmandu: folktales from the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal (1980). This book was published by the authors Karna Sakya, Linda Griffith. This book seems to put together many popular folk tales from Nepal, and in the page 105 we have a story called ''The Khya of Marusata.''

Now, as this seems to be the case with every freaking material in this search, this book is not available online, but google books has many parts available. Sadly, we can only see the title of the story. What we can know by a quick google search, is that Marusata is some kind of square in central Kathmandu. I tried to search this tale online, but I could not find. Will try to keep searching for it eventually.

Also, in the books first pages, around 20 or so, Khyah are mentioned too:

It seems to classify Khyah as demons, just like their neighbors Rakshasas. Which is not exactly on the point here, but its interesting nonetheless.

The Khyah are still recognized today, and are well known in the community. But even if the western internet made a good job of preserving its lore and some of their character, their presence is very scarce. By going on Eirikr Kaneko Crib's notes I found that one of the most recent official appearances of the creature online was on the site Local Nepal Today. This seems to be a site dedicated to portray and preserve Nepalese culture and report on situations at the region. It is however, done by foreigners that went to Nepal afterwards. The site seems to be dead, but they do mention their hearings about the Khyah! Here they call it Kack.

The authors compare it to European elves and trolls, which is not exactly a good match. They are more akin to Brownies, Silkies and some kind of Kikimora.

In any way, their description matches most sources, and oral sources alike: They are shy, prefer dark and isolated places, and hate the light. They also comment on the duality between the white Khyah and the black Khyahk.

Most important thought, they mentions talking to an elderly woman in Kathmandu, who shared her own stories about meeting the creature:

''An elderly woman in Kathmandu who saw several kacks – all white ones. The closest encounter was with a quiet, furry fellow who came and sat on her lap! Many of those who’ve seen a kack will tell you how these “little people” would come and sit on the edge of their bed for a while, keeping them half amazed, half in shock the rest of the night. A white kack is friendly – but it can still be a bit scary.''

They also gathered information from old Kathmandu citizens on why the Khyahk tales are vanishing nowadays:

'''Well, old people who grew up in the heart of kack territory – Kathmandu – will usually tell you a simpler reason: kacks are shy creatures and so, since the capital has become crowded and noisy, many have left. Sure kacks can hide and move about by stealth, but there’s a limit. Either way, now it’s no-longer in Kathmandu but in the villages you’ll hear about kacks the most.''

In my personal view, its interesting to connect the vast and accelerated growth of Kathmandu, to the losing of traditions and oral folk tales, which ended up making the Khyah tales vanish bit by bit, becoming isolated to small nearby villages.

This makes me a bit sad, because if there is no one trying to preserve those traditions, it may very well disappear as the times goes on. The internet has this amazing tool to preserve culture, but we do not seem to be using it enough.

In this regard, I am glad that Kazuma Kaneko imortalized Kyahk in the Shin Megami Tensei series, even if they are not regular monsters on the newer games, many people probably had their first encounter with this critter through that.

And that is it! Everything I could gather! Hope you guys enjoyed!

Beware the Kyhak at the feet of your bed!

Thank you for reading through it all. I actually started this research more than 1 year ago, but postponed it multiple times, since I started doing scientific research at college, and other monsters looked way more easy to research.

Stick with me for more deep dives on critters from around the world.

Sources: [1]- "Elements of Newar Social Structure". Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.’’ - Christoph Von Furer- Haimendorf, 1956.

[2]- Dietrich, Angela (1998). Tantric healing in the Kathmandu Valley: A comparative study of Hindu and Buddhist spiritual healing traditions in urban Nepalese society. Book Faith India.

[3]- Himalayancultures.com -Personal blog of a Kathmandu citzen that shares a bit about regional folklore and culture. Extremely interesting to see stuff from a personal point of view.

[4]-Archive My Sansar - Regional website about Nepali culture.

[5]- Growing Up: Hindu and Buddhist Initiation Rituals Among Newar Children in Bhaktapur, Nepal, 2008, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. (Pag 174)

[6]- Tales of Old Bhaktapur'' - Jim Goodman (1992)

[7]- Tales of Kathmandu: folktales from the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal (1980)

[8]- Local Nepal Today

[room-surprise]

sorry if this was answered before, but what inspired you to assign kabru and mithrun their specific studies in your college au? it suits them very well!

I don't think someone's asked this specific question! And if they did, I've forgotten lol Thank you for sending me such a nice ask!

I felt that Kabru would want a "difficult" major like medicine because if he does anything less, he feels like he's not working hard enough. He's capable of doing something difficult so he has an obligation to do it, to help other people.

He's also ambitious in a way, he feels like he *wants* to do something difficult because he enjoys the academic challenge. He wants to have to make an effort and not just coast through effortlessly like I think he does with most academic studies. The challenge makes it more fun for him.

Also he wants to help people, it makes him feel good and like his life has a purpose... and he wants to do something that has good job security, so he will never have to worry about needing someone else to take care of him. He has access to money from Milsiril, but he's avoiding using it, because he doesn't want to be in her debt any further, or to give her any possible method of controlling his life.

I also have an unfortunate amount of experience in hospitals due to personal and extended family medical issues, and as a result I'm overly familiar with doctors and medicine. So writing about Kabru being involved with medicine was fun, and I felt like i could convincingly fake that I knew what I was talking about.

Mithrun, I wanted him to do something "frivolous" because his family situation means he never has to worry about taking care of himself financially. Many famous artists in history ended up artists because they were disgraced noble or wealthy children who left home and "slummed it" with artists, writers, prostitutes and other social outcasts.

Mithrun, in college AU, has never once in his life worried about money or thought about working in order to earn a paycheck. His family has so much money that even if he spent extravagantly every day of his life, they would never notice.

I also thought there was something inherently funny about a stern, traumatized ex-soldier who has experienced death and torture wanting to be an artist, plus a lot of the mental issues Mithrun is facing are things a lot of art students face, though usually different reasons (anxiety, depression, low self esteem etc.)

Additionally, my spouse and I both went through art school, so we're intimately familiar with what it's like, the type of people who are there, the way the teachers are, the assignments, the various things that make up the whole experience.

There are also some secret plot reasons that I made Mithrun an artist, which will start to become clearer as the story progresses.

Thank you again for reading, and for writing to me! 🥰

[metamatar]

ok so i am very much uninformed on politics, i decided at a younger age that i wasn't interested in it and therefore would not read or keep myself particularly informed about it. obviously this is a bad idea, and i want to change and keep myself informed on actual politics and well, abstract[?] (wrong word but cannot think of another, basically mean like. knowing which political .. stance ?? [idk. like marxist or communist or whatever] i might be.) ones as well. what's a good place to get started here? where do i look for actual politics going on in india since i'm pretty sure ndtv or whatever isn't exactly the best source? or maybe it is? idk, like i said i'm pretty uninformed on the matter but would like to learn more

so one thing is, in india you have to accept the media landscape is just dire because being a journalist with integrity is a bit like signing up to have your life ruined. all major media has been bought by hindutva already. what you have to do is more learn to read between lines, understand people's motivations, which is a matter of practice. a good way to start is to read analysis (not news reports) of the same incident in different media and you'll start noticing patterns. even more important imo is to talk and bounce ideas with a friend at a similar place as you or someone interested in politics who won't overwhelm you with their perspective. you can try online but idt its safe or advisable anymore to do that experiment online. i had debate club in university (sad) and some socialist reading groups (better) after. the thing is this journey to self education is kind of personal and im also not pedagogically oriented or trained? so lots of first person description instead of prescriptions.

i still check what's up on ndtv because it gives me a good pulse of what english language media and liberals are thinking. major newspapers i scan hindu and the indian express sometimes. online i have a look at newslaundry (also has some youtube content) and the wire, they're reader supported and haven't turned full hindutva yet. i read longer form things in the caravan and epw, but these are subscription based. i keep tabs on the latest round of hindutva fake news when alt news debunks it.

for the abstract things, i literally did an online course bc i was frustrated by what all the liberal arts grads seemed to already agree on. i did ian shapiro's moral foundations of politics which is available online as both youtube lectures and a textbook. if you want to go that route feel free but it's not necessary, you can also try to read the entries on wikipedia or stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (more expertise) when you encounter something unfamiliar and build up like that. podcasts like bbc in our time will often interview academics to give intros to many political philosophy concepts and thinkers. whatever your learning style supports! i think the important thing is to find something you are actually interested in, and take that tack. i like history, so i might read books about historical revolutions or historical forms of organising society or listen to podcasts like mike duncan's revolutions.

For communism the usual starting points are these very short pamphlets:

Principles of Communism by Engels

The Manifesto of the Communist Party by Marx

Wage-Labor and Capital by Marx

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Engels

feel free to ask for more specific questions!

[bandiera--rossa]

While reading the works of the medieval Arab sociologist Ibn Khaldun many years ago, I was surprised by his ideas on geography and climate, which attribute not only physical but also sociological patterns for people living in the same climatic region. In short, these ideas suggest that if someone from the extreme Northern Hemisphere moved to the extreme Southern Hemisphere, their surviving descendants would eventually have the same physical and sociological attributes as the people of the Southern Hemisphere. I was fascinated by this concept and at a loss of how anyone in this world could be a racist, knowing they could have mutated into anyone else.

Holding onto this notion and adding to it years of soul-searching, which for being born a Muslim led me to delve into Sufism, I developed the firm belief that all humans are essentially one and that all evil in the world is the result of our division. I was convinced the principal reason people in the Global North condone their armies murdering innocent civilians or the dying of children from hunger in faraway nations is that they are unable to perceive the victims as similar to them and are accordingly unable to empathize with them and feel their pain. If they did, I told myself, most evil in the world would disappear.

That is why I believe that the main objective of the arts should be to humanize those we perceive as different. Being an aspiring novelist myself, I decided that unity and the oneness of being would be the principal theme of all my work.

I can no longer adopt such beliefs and will no longer vouch for those ideas.

It is clear to me now that calling for love and unity does not fall on the oppressed but on the privileged. In the face of the hate or apathy of those who do not feel their suffering or regard them as equal, the persecuted have no choice but to embrace whatever they are persecuted for, ethnic, religious, or else, and accept the division. To vouch for love and unity is a privilege only people in the Global North can now afford. For the rest of us, it is nothing short of weakness and humiliation.

Like most people in the Global South, I am watching with horror the ongoing genocide being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza and the blind, astonishing backing of the majority of governments and mainstream media outlets in the United States and Europe. Like most people in the Global South, I am opening my eyes to the hypocrisy, racism, and ugly confirmation that our lives and deaths are still not valued or regarded as equal. Like most people in the Global South, I am outraged at the narrative of condemning Hamas solely for the attack on October 7, the impudence of acting as if it were unprovoked, and the moral failure to view it in the context of 75 years of dehumanization, colonialism, ethnic cleansing, land theft, violence, torture, and rape at the hands of Israel.

We, who suffered from colonialism, understand that the only party to blame is Israel, the occupying power, simply because if there had been no occupation, there would have been no Hamas. We, who suffered from colonialism, understand that the Hamas combatants who attacked Israel on October 7 did not choose to be resistance fighters and would have had normal lives if they had not been subjected to occupation and living for almost two decades in a concentration camp where more than half of the population were struggling to afford food just before October 7. We, who suffered from colonialism, are well aware of this narrative of blaming the victims and the failure to apply the same moral principles to us.

So, for the people of conscience in the Global North who are standing with the Palestinians in any way they can, for those marching, writing, and speaking up, thank you for giving us hope in humanity in our darkest hour and not allowing us to turn into complete monsters as our enemies want us to.

And for the other ones, for those who are running this horror show in Gaza or facilitating it, for those who are murdering and collectively punishing the innocent men and women and the children of the earth, for those who know there are children trapped in darkness under the rubble of bombed buildings, who are dying of thirst and hunger and are still against a ceasefire, for those who have revealed the wickedness of their hearts and the darkness of their souls, know that we now see you for who you are. The masks have fallen, and millions of us are opening up our eyes to the realization of how much you hate and dehumanize us. Millions of us are radicalized and ready to adopt the ideas and narratives of any group, only if it will fight or oppose you. Whatever doctrine there is — Islamist, Communist, or Nihilist — millions of us are ready to espouse it only if it will take a stand against you.

Palestine now divides us. 

We have hate in our hearts, and I promise you that it will remain. And I promise you we will live like this and die like this and pass on our rage and our pain. And we will remain prisoners of our hate, and you will remain prisoners of your crimes and fears, and the violence will go on, and none of us will be free, until there is fairness and until there is justice, and until Palestine is free.

Mohamed Seif El Nasr - an Egyptian writer with an academic background in history and international law.

[symptomofloves]

tagged by @hauntedwoman! thank you <33

are you named after anyone? no, my parents chose my name because it's pretty :)

2. when was the last time you cried? a couple of weeks ago when i had to admit my academic struggles to my mom... we decided that i should become a part-time student next semester.

3. do you have kids? no, & who knows if i will someday

4. what sports do you play/have played? now, my main forms of exercise are yoga, biking, walking, & the occasional run. when i was younger, i did gymnastics for nearly a decade <3

5. do you use sarcasm? sometimes, but it's not my main form of humor.

6. what's the first thing you notice about someone? in terms of physical appearance, their hair, the way they dress, & how they generally carry themselves. in terms of personality, how they express themselves & whether they make me feel welcome.

7. eye color? blue/green/grey - i like to say they're speckled like lichen

8. scary movies or happy endings? neither, i prefer bittersweet endings.

9. any talents? i like to think i'm a good writer & cook

10. where were you born? in a little university town in the south

11. hobbies? journaling, reading, bookbinding, letter writing to my grandma & friends, going to concerts, singing, sunbathing, collecting little things like acorns & shells to put on my dresser, burning cds

12. any pets? our little tabby cat miss misty :3!

13. height? 5'4" (162.5cm), same as maggie :)

14. favorite school subject? well, i'm an anthropology major with a double minor in art history & history. some of my favorite courses so far have been environment & culture, contemporary art & the search for meaning, & intro to the african diaspora.

15. dream job? i'm planning on becoming either a librarian or archivist, but i think being an ecologist, a bookstore owner, or a museum curator could be cool. also, i agree with you about being a radio show host!

tagging some newer mutuals: @hammondb3organcistern, @seconddoubt, @stellacadente, @unyearn, @yarrow-heather-and-hollyhock & anyone else that wants to do this :)

[pinkacademic]

A History and Legacy of Legally Blonde

(It's done, I can die happy)

An Introduction

For over twenty years, Legally Blonde has been the King- or rather, Queen- of the chick-flick/rom-com world, having reigned supreme over the “girly movies” kingdom ever sinced it first graced cinema screens in 2001. Reese Witherspoon’s wonderful portrayal of sorority president-turned attorney Elle Woods created a veritable zeitgeist of Pink and Powerful. Legally Blonde has become the feminist film that inspires future law students and teenage sleepover-havers alike.

While it wasn’t always intended to be the cinematic masterpiece that it became, and, in fact, started in a way that likely wouldn’t have been quite such the feminist classic, it grew and developed during production; It went from something that could cause questions to be asked as to whether Legally Blonde as we know it should be held on a feminist pedestal, to a heartfelt vision that inspired so many of its regular re-watchers for two decades and more.

Herein is an exploration of the book that inspired the film, how the characters and the story developed as the film was made, and how Reese Witherspoon became so heavily involved- and influential- in the film’s success. Moreover, how the Harvard Class of 2004 encouraged so many young women into following the mantra of “what would Elle Woods do?”

What is the legacy of Legally Blonde? How did it end up with so much staying power? Here is the story of Elle Woods and how she became a cultural icon, and how she created a generation.

A History

The Book

Legally Blonde started its life as the book of the same name, a novelisation of author Amanda Brown’s experiences at Stanford University. The plot is largely unchanged- a pretty sorority girls goes to law school in pursuit of love- but there are swathes of differences in how the novel plays out, from plot details to characterisation of the main character. While the novel is hard to track down, an article by Cracked outlines the major differences between the book and the movie. In “Movie Differences: Elle Woods In The ‘Legally Blonde’ Book Is A Monster,” Amanda Manning opines that “[i]t’s hard to imagine a more perfect person than Elle Woods” in reference to the film character, but that “[l]iterary Elle Woods is manipulative, narcissistic, lazy, entitled, and excruciatingly judgmental.”

In terms of plot changes, Elle doesn’t seem to have the same studious drive, as Manning describes how “Movie Elle is humiliated” by her lack of understanding of the new, more “rigorous” academic world she now finds herself whereas “Book Elle didn't even buy the books and intentionally blew off the reading.”

While what Manning presents is truly a scathing review, it also proves the stark contrast between the Elle that is and the version that once was.

The Film

Just as with the book, early development of the film took the story on a journey that was crucial in it’s becoming something almost separate entirely from the book. Unlikely director Robert Luketic was an edgy film school major, who changed his tone was a ten-minute musical about an Italian woman, Titsiana Booberini who “has a hairy upper lip and (…) works in a supermarket where she battles the prettier girls for the affections of the handsome assistant manager,” according to an article on the Wayback Machine on the Internet Archive, originally from the Denver Center of Performing Arts.

MGM, the company that produced Legally Blonde, were apparently under the impression that the film “was going to be much more wet T-shirts and boobs than it actually turned out to be,” according to Luketic. The name Titsiana Booberini from Luketic’s previous work truly implies that MGM’s assumptions were correct. Early versions of the script were raunchier and edgier and were comparable to American Pie. Kirsten Smith, who along with Karen McCullah, wrote the film has stated "It transformed from nonstop zingers that were very adult in nature to this universal story of overcoming adversity by being oneself,” (Smith).

In fact, the plot originally did not include Paulette or Emmett, and ended with Elle entering a relationship with a professor, likely Callaghan.

While we can never know for certain, I find it highly likely that the original version of Legally Blonde would have become a rather forgettable summer romp in the typical “wet T-shirts and boobs” category, and we can thank God it changed.

Or rather, we can thank Luketic, Smith, and McCullah, and also Reese Witherspoon herself. It was Smith and McCullah who reworked the script, it was Luketic who fought for Reese, and it was Reese who knew her character well enough to make her who she is.

The writing dynamic duo Kirsten Smith and Karen McCullah were great friends before, having written 10 Things I Hate About You. They cite inspiration from Clueless, according to Blue Bear Magazine. Clearly, they knew what they were doing in the world of fun, fresh, and funky feminist films, and creating iconic rom-coms that put twists on the classics. The duo went on to contribute to Ella Enchanted, She’s the Man, and other classics that get referenced at every sleepover since they came out.

Director Robert Luketic, though he started his film education wanting to create something “edgy,” breaking the film school mold with Titsiana Booberini set the tone for him to emerging into a career in rom-coms such as The Ugly Truth, staring Katherine Heigl and Gerrard Butler, and Killers, starring Katherine Heigl again, this time with Ashton Kutcher, as well as episodes of Jane the Virgin, among other projects. While I am not overly familiar with these films, it is clear that Luketic has an understanding for a genre often marketed in Elle Woods-approved pink.

A film of this nature was clearly in good hands, and it is this team that truly made the masterpiece we all know and love today.

The trio have worked together also on the previously mentioned The Ugly Truth, which is testament to their teamwork.

But truly one of the biggest contributions to the project was Elle herself, as Reese Witherspoon is truly what made the film and th character both so iconic.

Reese Witherspoon

Luketic actually had to fight for Reese, as, given her last movie had been Election, she was believed by bosses at MGM to be similar to that character. Witherspoon told The Hollywood Reporter that MGM though she was “a shrew,” due to having been typecast in their eyes. However, Luketic remained convinced that Witherspoon was the right choice for the role, despite suggestions including Britney Spears, Katherine Heigl, and Alicia Silverstone among others.

The Hollywood Reporter article, again found on the Wayback Machine, titled “How Reese Witherspoon Took Charge of Her Career and Changed Hollywood,” relays Witherspoon’s involvement in Hollywood, and it is noted that for Legally Blonde that: “[s]he endured multiple rounds of auditions for Legally Blonde, at one point meeting with executives in character (complete with a Southern California accent) to show that she could ace the part.”

It is baffling to think that she had to fight for it. But as Elizabeth Gabler, head of Fox in 2000 noted, Witherspoon “doesn’t give up,” and if that isn’t the attitude of an Elle Woods, then what is?

Witherspoon said of Elle that: “(…)your first instincts is to discount women who put a lot of effort into their looks as maybe not serious about their job or maybe not serious about their relationships ... I think everyone naturally jumps to those conclusions(…)”

To me, there is a clear understanding of where Elle stands in the world, and how she wants to prove that she’s passionate about anything she sets her mind to. What strikes me especially is her telling The Hollywood Reporter in 2001 that, even though the word “fluffy” was used, Witherspoon stated “[she] take[s] it as seriously as [she] would any other movie.” Moreover, she did her research, having dinner with sorority girls in what she referred to as “an anthropological study.”

Reese Witherspoon became Elle Woods because she understood her internally. She immersed herself in the world that Elle is from and learned the differencs between the sorority girls and herself- the good, the bad, and the blonde of it all.

The Legacy

The team behind Legally Blonde truly created a masterpiece- a piece of art that has been inspiring a legion of creative and intellectual minds, and has been constantly doing so since 2001. In 2017, Reese Witherspoon told Wall Street Journal Magazine that “[at]t least once a week [she has] a woman come up to [her] and say ‘I went to law school because of Elle Woods.’”

Witherspoon was also handed a copy of entertainment reporter Lucy Ford’s college dissertation, that, in true Elle fashion, Ford presented to her in a pink ribbon. Elle’s own resumé being printed on pink paper and scented helps her stand out and be remembered, and Elle is a great believer in presentation and details, and it is an excellent lesson to take away from the movie. I’ll confess to personally making my CV pink too, because if it’s Elle-approved, it’s me-approved too.

There are a myriad of ways that Elle Woods has been inspirational to its steams of viewers. The article How Legally Blonde Influenced a Generation of Women Lawers on abajournal.com relays the range of the Elle Effect, noting both a friend of writer Haley Moss’ having bought a chihuahua because of Elle’s beloved Bruiser and the “plethora” of young women on social media. Some of said women were cited to have ‘thought the LSATs were possible’ thanks to Elle, and some of them were ‘just seeking fashion advice.”

So many voices have been added to the conversation about what a woman can be, having been inspired by Elle, as family law attorney Layla Summers told Spectrum News “When I watch the movie now I feel like I'm part of a great club of powerful professional women, like a sorority.”

This is a movie of joining women together from any walk of life and lifting them up.

The Lawyers

People.com also shares the legacy of Legally Blonde in the article lengthily titled “'Legally Blonde' Is 'Still' Inspiring People to Go to Law School – Plus, How Reese Witherspoon is Celebrating the Film's 15th Anniversary.”

It tells the stories of women who went to law school due to Elle and who connected to the character. Beginning with Shalyn Smith, the sorority president says she felt people would underestimate her ambitions for a career in law, “despite the fact that she had a 4.0.”

The article also features a series of tweets to a similar affect such as @kenzamae20 who tweeted at Reese Witherspoon directly saying “If Elle Woods can do law school I think I can too,” and @Gab_Tamburri who tweeted “I relate to Elle Woods in so many ways and honestly want to be like her when I get to law school.”

The Creators

The women of the legal profession have taken to the internet in droves under a pink flag waved by Reese Witherspoon herself too, as many other articles address. People.com spoke to Kathleen Martinez relays how in previous jobs sh was told that she should “dress more ‘consertavely’” and to ‘make [her male bosses] coffee,’” but npw she’s the head of her own immigration law team. She’s the head of a team of largely immigrants who are also mostly pink-loving women too. The article also points out that she held an “over-the-top Legally Blonde themed party” for everyone at her firm, so Elle’s influence and Legally Blonde’s Legacy are blatant and cannot be overstated.

In fact, the legacy is continuing, as Martinez has an impressive internet presence, with viral TikToks with 4.5 million views, and 1 million followers.

Mirror.co.uk also tells the story of Lowri Rose-Williams who spoke on how she feels ‘people assume she’s “an airhead” before they find out she’s a law student. She also relays that her experiences on OnlyFans contribute to the points of view that surround her as “many assume girls who use the app are ‘brainless.’”

Rose-Williams also expresss that “when people actually get to know [her] they change their mind,” which to me is certainly evocative of Elle.

A creator that I am a big fan of is Christina Stratton, who, in an article by Business Insider stated "I think back to the first day of college, and I would have never been bold enough to post an outfit of the day (…) I would have been too nervous about what all of my college friends would think.”

And yet now, she has a follower count in the hundreds of thousands, and is dubbed another “real life Elle Woods,” and while the article focuses on how she makes money from her brand deals, it is from her evocation of Elle Woods that her numbers have been garnered. Stratton wears almost exclusively pink in her videos, has a perfectly Bruiser-like tiny poodle, and has an Elle-tastic perky attitude that shows that she lives like Elle.

There is something about the unapologetically authentic aura of Elle Woods, from her optimism to her feminism, to her pinkness, that just appeals to people in so many ways. Elle Woods is who she is and becomes an even stronger version of herself, never changing for anyone. That’s who everyone who feels connected to her wants to be. Legally Blonde’s legacy is that of women who feel like they can do anything they want to, and do it in a heel. It evokes Dolly Parton’s famous line of “go big or go home, either way do it in a red pair of shoes,” but here they’re hot pink- but equally designed for stomping.

My Girlies

I reached out to my followers too to see what mymost supportive queens had to say, and it was plenty. naranjahtikal said: “I want to go to law school because of Elle! I also want to own a future textile company. I love the internal and external balance that Elle portrays as a woman.”

princessaninhas also responded, saying:

“I always wanted to be a nurse but people always told me that I didn't have the profile for that, they judged me by my way of being and dressing, they said I wasn't smart enough, there was a time when I was the only one who got all the answers right on a test (because I studied a lot) and the teacher said I was "lucky".Elle Woods taught me that we shouldn't care what others think, we should be ourselves and we shouldn't change our way of being to be what others want💕”

It is clear that Elle’s influence and the legacy of Legally Blonde are far-reaching and widespread. Legally Blonde inspires and Elle Woods represents having it all. You can be girly and twirly and kickass all at one, from law school to textiles, “we shouldn’t care what others think,” and we have to do things we want to do for ourselves.

A Conclusion

So, ultimately, what would Elle Woods do? I think the answer is that she would overcome a past that caused her to be overlooked and do what no one expected her to, creating a longlasting legacy for years to come.

Just as the story of Elle Woods is one of being overlooked for being too blonde for law school, only to set her eyes on the White House in Legally Blonde 2, the story of Legally Blonde is that of a movie that overcame murky origins and fought to become a feminist classic and went on to be the talk of the town in it’s twenty-second year since it’s release.

Thank you to Robert Luketic, Karen McCullah Lutz, Kristen Smith, and Reese Witherspoon among everyone else behind this most magical of films, and may we continue as a community of pink-loving, feminine feminists to keep the momentum going for those who came after us, becase that really is what Elle Woods would do.

[voluptuarian]

Who the fuck is Heracles?: Greek myths, Roman names, and American media in the Heracles vs. Hercules dilemma

So I regularly see people complaining about and/or ridiculing media (tv, movies, books, usually American) where Heracles, despite being represented in the Greek stories and with the Greek pantheon, is referred to by Hercules, his Roman name. The biggest target I see getting flack for this is the Disney movie and frequently people assume a story using the Roman name implies the creator's ignorance about mythology in general. I wish I could tell you all that it was that simple... sadly I can't. What I can tell you is that somehow, the name-form Hercules has predominated so entirely in the English-speaking world that that is pretty much the only version used in America, period. I would hazard that the majority of Americans, despite knowing who Hercules is, would be confused if asked about Heracles. People who recognize Heracles know something about Greek history or mythology-- if you don't know Hercules however, you live under a rock. Even I, a devoted mythology, history, and etymology fan generally refer to him as Hercules.

(I would assume this is also common outside of the US but I have nowhere near the knowledge base to confirm that one way or another-- feel free to chime in if you do.)

Now none of this has been academically researched-- I frankly do not have the energy to do an entire bottom-up deep dive on this, even if I might have the time-- but from the myriad threads of random knowledge I do have, I think I've been able to figure out HOW this situation started and WHY it's persisted so stubbornly.

To start out, after the re-popularizing of classical culture and myth in the Renaissance and on through the 18th and early 19th centuries, Europeans seem to have overwhelmingly referred to the Greek and Roman mythological figures by their Latin names, even if they were referring to Greek stories or a combination of the two. I see references to Jove, Jupiter, and Juno much more frequently than to Zeus and Hera, and Minerva more often than Athena; Diane de Portiers of course was literally named for a Roman goddess, and it was Diana who she was repeatedly painted as. Even before the Renaissance and neo-platonism, when gods appear, Latin names seem to be the standard-- Venus and Mars are not infrequently brought up in medieval literature, but I have yet to see Aphrodite and Ares (I assume the preference for Latin names is from Catholicism helping make Latin the scholarly language, not Greek? Or maybe it's tied to the planetary/scientific names? idk). The figures who I see getting called by Greek names seem to be more minor ones (I see Hebe much more often than I do Juventas), are being referred to by an epithet (Cynthia or Phoebus, for instance) or did not have a corresponding Roman figure, like Apollo, who the Romans just adopted whole cloth. (Hermes seems to be used at least as often as Mercury, which I can only assume is due to the popularity of Hermeticism.) Hercules, who for some reason appears to have been one of, if not the most popular Greek hero in the early modern period and on (why?? again, I don't know; maybe because the labors made for good art concepts? Maybe because Roman emperors had play-acted as him and so many figures were supposed to be his descendants?) is similarly mostly called by his Roman name. The continuing popularity of using classical figures in literature and allegory, especially in political image-making, helped keep those trends going for centuries, and the Roman terms seem to continue to be the most popular into the 1800s.

At some point however, that switched. Across the board I think westerners now and at least Americans are much more familiar with the Greek gods and myths. (Or at least Greek myths as funneled through fucking Ovid. Does he deserve my hate? Unsure. Do I hate him regardless? Yes.) Odysseus is more recognizable here than Ulysses, and Jupiter, Neptune, Juno, and Pluto have lost out against Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, and Hades. Many Americans mistakenly believe the Roman gods were just entirely copied from the Greeks and know next to nothing about original Roman deities or the differences between Roman and Greek analogs. Now-- when exactly did this shift happen? 🤷‍♀️ Why did it happen? 🤷‍♀️ Above my pay grade. What I DO know is that somehow Hercules doesn't get picked up in this changeover when pretty much everybody else does.

So WHAT was going on to keep the Latin name stuck in the public mind? Strongmen.

For those not in the know, strongmen (and women) were part-athlete, part-bodybuilder entertainers who became popular stars in the Victorian period. They combined the emphasis on physical strength focused on by modern weightlifters with a gradually increasing emphasis on physique that became bodybuilding later. These strongwomen and men frequently used Greco-Roman-inspired professional names-- Cyclops, Vulcana, Charmion, Atlas, etc. Annnnd a bunch of them used the name Hercules. There was Katie Sandwina, the "Lady Hercules," William Bankier, known as "Apollo, the Scottish Hercules," the McCann brothers "Hercules" and "Samson," and John "Herkul" Grün. Even when they weren't going by the name Hercules, they were often billed as "a Hercules," as if Hercules was a byword for strongman. (Pretty sure Samsons and Goliaths got thrown around that way too, but Hercules seems to have been the most popular.) These stars also frequently performed and/or did promotional work inspired by or imitating Hercules (Maurice Dériaz and Eugen Sandow even modeled for artists as Hercules.)

(And here's Dériaz in the aforementioned role of Hercules. Obviously I know who he is because of strictly scholarly reasons and not because I saw this painting once and was intrigued by those incredibly lush pectorals. Banish the thought.)

By the 30s the "strongmen" were gradually beginning to split into athlete vs. entertainer categories and these theatrical professional names were phasing out.

But bodybuilders were still big, and were only going to get more deeply entrenched in the Hercules business thanks to the sword and sandals boom. That gets started roughly in the late 40s and goes on for the better part of 2 decades (getting increasingly less historical and more fantastical as it goes along.) It also includes a slew of movies starring bodybuilders. Hercules (along with Samson and Goliath and other original "muscleman characters") is regularly represented and always with his Roman name. By the 60s "Hercules" movies are a dime a dozen, almost entirely starring bodybuilders, including Steve Reeves in Hercules and its sequel; Mark Forest and Alan Steel in the seemingly endless Hercules And... or Hercules Against... movies, and Mickey Hargitay in The Loves of Hercules, all from the late 50s and 60s. (Meanwhile even though 1963's Jason and the Argonauts has Nigel Green in the role, he's still called Hercules, not Heracles.) An entire subgenre of (mostly Italian) sword and sandals movies centering on burly, physically powerful heroes (usually played by athletes or bodybuilders) develops directly out of the success of the first Hercules series.

Looking at the connection between "Hercules" and bodybuilders, the ties between bodybuilding and sword and sandals movies, and the later universality of "Hercules" in the genre, I can't help but assume the dominance of Hercules over Heracles has to be directly indebted to strongmen, and their unintentional preservation of the Roman name, which has persisted despite the switch to Greek for literally every other character. While the rest of the mythological names remained overwhelming tied to mythological context, Hercules had become attached to other spheres, which were unaffected by changes in academic language and remained culturally prominent. Through their eventual turn to film, later "strongmen" then helped Hercules, rather than Heracles, not only remain in use but become the standard.

So. Now we're at a point where the name is stuck beyond all reason, but enough people out there versed in mythology are going, "wtf why is his name wrong?" So why doesn't that get changed?

Well, I've seen one adaptation so far go for it. The Hades games already dug out the Minotaur's personal name and got everybody using it, so it's not surprising they would be willing to give Heracles a go. (They also apparently use Heracles in the Record of Ragnarok series, but that's an anime and I have no idea what the Hercules/Heracles situation is outside the English speaking world, so I'm not sure how common that is.)

Neither of the two equally forgettable Hercules films that came out in 2014 (still don't know how or why that happened) feels like the sort of project anyone involved in would have even considered floating Heracles for. Neither of them was, let's say, well made? or overly committed to accuracy to the source material, and both banked on "well everybody knows who Hercules is!" (Interestingly, since he was a world wrestler, the Dwayne Johnson project could be considered a continuation of the strongman Hercules tradition...)

Meanwhile if Disney even did consider giving their hero his appropriately Greek name, they were releasing it in 1997, right in the middle of the run of the Hercules tv show which had been airing for 2 years already and was hugely popular. Like every project that hinges on people being familiar with Hercules' story already, if it had gone with Heracles I think the public a. would not have known that was Hercules and b. would have been like "Who the fuck is Heracles? That sounds like Hercules lol." 😑 With that kind of project, at that particular time, I think anybody would have had a snowball's chance in hell of making a name change work. Even the Percy Jackson series, which did not come out in the direct shadow of the tv show and seems to pride itself on it's perceived accuracy (hmmmmm) also has Hercules rather than Heracles. I give Rick Riordan enough benefit of the doubt to assume he would have liked to use the authentic Greek name in his series if he could have-- publishers believing children could handle Heracles in a world of Herculeses however, seems less plausible. (I mean HBO didn't think an audience of grown adults could handle Asha and Osha, so...)

So there you have it, my personal theory on why we're still out here saying shit like "Hercules was the son of Zeus" in the year of our lord 2024, how we ended up here, and why it's more complex than just "the guy who wrote this doesn't know what he's talking about."

[qqueenofhades]

I'm about halfway through my History BA and I have a question (I pinky promise I'm doing more research than just asking tumblr academics their opinions), but this is also me assuming you did college in both the US and the UK so forgive me if I guessed wrong and am confusing you with someone else. How does graduate school in either country compare? I'm still stuck between whether I want to go for my master's or straight to PhD so obviously I'm quite a ways away from making any important decision, but considering that I'm studying British history (primarily), it felt natural to consider getting my degree(s) abroad. Are there like, any major differences you're aware of that made university vastly different, or are they more similar than I'm thinking?? Was one situation flat out preferable to the other?? If you even have strong opinions about it at all

That is me, yes. BA in the US with one year in the UK; MA in the US; PhD in the UK; now the co-director of a US MA/PhD program, so I have an appreciable amount of experience with graduate and postgraduate education in both countries. Here are the main ways in which they compare/what the experience is like in both:

In the UK overall, the experience is much more self-directed. I only had taught coursework for the first year of the PhD; the rest of it was spent in research and writing. So compared to the American system, where you take 3 years of coursework first (such as the PhD program that I currently manage) and then write the dissertation in the last year or two (hence the designation ABD, or All But Dissertation), you're thrown into the deep end from the start. I didn't have comprehensive exams, which might be a plus if that's something you have anxiety about, but the tradeoff was that I had to complete the dissertation proposal and first full-length sample chapter in the very first year, rather than waiting for year 3, and to have that be the basis on which I was evaluated/approved to continue to the full PhD degree. If you know what you want to work on and have solid supervision, this can work out and it certainly allows you to develop your topic in depth from the start, but if this is the kind of thing that gives you heart palpitations, there is that. The bright side is that you will come out with a thesis that will need less revision to be suitable as a monograph, because you've done a higher and longer amount of work upfront. I.e. I published my PhD thesis as a monograph with a major academic press within a year of graduating, which is generally rare in the US system.

As such, the US PhD experience is overall more directed/structured and leans toward more coursework than research. The research is obviously a big part of it in a way that American undergrads rarely train in (unless they go to a fancy liberal arts writing-intensive school for undergraduate, like I did), but as noted, the dissertation is central in the UK PhD system in a way it isn't (or at least not as much) in the American system. You have pros and cons for both systems, and sometimes I wished that my intensively research-centric PhD, where it was all on me to do the research, write the research, and have something to present to my supervisors on schedule for each meeting, had more taught coursework or formal/structured contact time. You have a committee in the American system, i.e. three or four academics who will oversee your defense, whereas in the UK, at least in a history program, you only have two aside from your degree supervisor: an internal reader (within the institution) and external reader (from outside the institution). While this means fewer people whose approval you need to wrangle, my viva (final defense) ended up being a Goddamn Ordeal because my external reader, despite being a friend of my supervisor, was really not suited to read a dissertation on the subject and I don't think should have been picked for it, then was extremely unprofessional about her notes/reviews/suggestions. (My supervisor likewise apologized to me for that, so yeah, It Was Bad. Academic Trauma Ahoy.)

Master's programs in the UK are also incredibly intense; they are generally one year compared to the usual two years for most US programs, and you have to complete the coursework AND write a thesis in that time, which is not something that I really recommend for maximum sanity. (Then again, if you're getting an advanced degree in history, that might be out the window.) However, if you are working on British history, then yeah, it makes the most sense to be based in a UK university, since the archives that you will need to consult will be, obviously, far easier to access than if you need to try to cram it all into one overseas academic research trip on a postgraduate student's budget. In that case, it might make sense to just apply to a master's/PhD program in the UK upfront, to smooth the transition/amount of moving around/financial misery you will have to endure. However, word to the wise that there WILL be financial misery, especially as an international student at a UK university. The Tories have yet again jacked the visa and NHS application fees (which you will have to pay upfront for every year you intend to be there) through the roof; your tuition will be much higher (though as noted in previous asks, don't go anywhere unless they pay YOU to do it) and it is difficult to get any part-time work outside of teaching or other opportunities directly related to your degree, which are subject to the uh, totally great pay rate for junior academics. (Sarcasm. That was sarcasm.)

Basically, yeah: it depends on what kind of student you are, how much initiative you like to take, how much structure you need or don't need, what sources you anticipate needing to consult and how you're going to do that, if you're comfortable starting the dissertation right away and being ready to present a finished chapter at the end of year 1, and whether you want your graduate/postgraduate experience to focus primarily on independent research or taught courses. There are no exactly right answers to these questions and you will obviously have to think about what suits you best (along, of course, the money aspect). Good luck!

[dresshistorynerd]

Hei! What's your opinion about "The costume history" by Auguste Racinet? I assume that you're probably familiar with it, because it was published in 1888 and still gets reprinted. But because it's so old I'm not sure if it's actually good source about fashion history or if it's more about mindset of the time. I fully expect that anything that deals with different cultures that was written in 1800s will be racists and moralising, but I wonder about factual accuracy when it comes to clothes.

I would encourage to take it with a grain or perhaps many grains of salt, especially the non-western clothing. Generally speaking illustrations made after the time they depict as well as non-western clothing depicted by colonizers, should always be approached with cation. Books that recount the whole western dress history should be approached with cation and this book claims to depict the complete costume history, not just western. Also books written before dress history became it's own academic field separate from art history, should also be approached with cation, and this definitely was written before that.

I will say, the illustrations from Auguste Racinet are not the worst I've seen.They do look like they are based on art and illustration from the period they depict. I have not read his book, but I have come across the illustrations from them many times, so I'm just speaking about the illustrations I've seen. Despite there being worst illustrations out there from Victorian era, these too have some glaring issues, especially the periods earlier from history. Victorians hated the codpiece, thinking it was vulgar and indecent, so in these illustrations none of the men's costumes from the Renaissance have them. Even the depiction of Late Medieval joined hose lack a codpiece, even though it would have been impossible for the hose to be so skintight without a codpiece.

This Late Medieval page also has issues with the women's dresses, which are in many ways inaccurate and they resemble most dresses from the previous century compared to the men's dresses next to them. All of the depictions of pre-1800s clothing tend to have a lot of issues with their details. I think there's also major issues with the framing. There's just several different dresses, which might be from different decades, even centuries like in the example above. I'm not sure if there's context in the text itself, but these illustrations don't at least have any context for who and in which situations used a specific garment. No book that tries to tell even the whole western costume history, can give all the needed context, but I doubt the text here can give even less of that.

I'm not going to evaluate the accuracy of the illustrations of non-western dress that are available easily, because I don't know enough of non-western dress history that I would be able to confidently do that. But I'm imagining the issues there's with the depictions of western historical dress are similar but much worse with the non-western dress. Even if he used extant garments and primary source images to draw those illustrations, I'm willing to bet he knew even less of those cultures than he knew about European Renaissance and Late Middle Ages. He would then understand even less of the context the clothes he depicted belonged to, what details were important, how were they constructed, worn, and by whom and in what situations. If he wanted to copy them exactly, he'd have put those illustrations, paintings and other primary source images to his book, but he didn't and because he certainly lacked understanding of them, his illustrations will have some flaws. And who knows how many things he deemed unsavory or indecent he omitted or changed, like he did with the codpiece.

Still I will say, even a book like this can have some use. If there's very little better source images available of some type of dress from 1800s (for example often applies to indigenous dress), these type of illustrations can be used to help piece together the fuller image of that dress, while keeping in mind the potential flaws and issues with these depictions.

[the-east-art]

How did you become an art teacher? And congrats on doing that because I remember a post a while ago where you said how much you wanted to be an art teacher!

Technically I’m still working on it haha! Im in my student teaching phase so Im at the school full time, and I’m fully responsible for four classes (teachers usually have six).

How did I become an art teacher? Hm for most of my life I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. I was pretty academically minded and when I realized early in middle school that being a full time artist was like not really feasible and how low of a priority art was in the academic sphere I kinda just didn’t take classes. I dove into honors and AP shit like any other nerd I guess.

And then senior year of high school I said fuck it and took a bunch of art classes. I’ve always been like.., passably good at art, like better than the layman, but never prodigal. So I wanted to give that side of me a chance. I also took an art history class and fell in LOVE with art history and the way the teacher would talk about how art is speaking to you in a language you don’t yet know. That teacher was so influential that for a while I started to think about going into teaching history. It kinda of became one of my plans almost.

Then eventually I had to choose a college and more or less a career path. Literally I had just decided that law wasn’t appealing and my painting teacher told me to go to a small college with a strong art program. I had literally no other plans, so I decided to give it a shot.

I really clicked with my art classes. When you take art as a major like that you get exposed to a lot of different art forms and stuff. So I loved art more than I ever had before and had spent three years studying it.

But uh, I’m pretty let’s say willing to face the facts. And to be an artist like as a job is a lot of being on your grind, hunting down clients, or being so godly good at art (and 24/7 promoting yourself on social media) that they come to you. I didn’t want to always be on my grind like that, and I think I’m self aware enough to know I’m good at art, but maybe not quite stand out. So I kind of merged my love for art with my old plan to become a history teacher and went into art teaching.

It’s like, complicated. Because obv I love art, and I have a lot of beliefs about bringing art into peoples lives especially for the younger generation, but on another side it is also because I hope it will be a stable way to marry my love for art with like a career path and income.

Uh hope this illuminates stuff? Let me know if you have any questions!

[melodraca]

Hey! I saw in one of your posts, in the tags, that you were an English major. I'm going to college soon, and I was wondering if you had any advice on picking out your major. What do you like about majoring in English, and what exactly do English majors do? Thank you!

First of all, congrats! That's really exciting! I really hope you enjoy your time in college! Second, this is gonna be a bit long, so I apologize in advance o7

I'm honestly not sure how helpful this is, but for the longest time I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I actually enrolled in university as a mature student a good 5-ish years after I graduated high school. I was so tired of school-related stress (and the way that the public school system functioned in general) that I was honestly considering not even going to post-secondary. I bounced between different potential majors, although I couldn't help but feel tired just thinking about them, like I would be going to school out of obligation or societal expectation rather than genuine passion.

When I came back around to the idea years later, I started poking around my local university's website. As I was going through, reading everything over, and clicking through different subjects, I realized that I was actually really feeling excited about school for the first time... pretty much ever. Because I realized that I had the chance to do things at my own pace, with a focus on subjects that I actually liked, rather than what my family expected would get me a traditionally "good job."

I narrowed my major down to a choice between English and creative writing, but I ultimately went with English. As much as I love creative writing, I prefer doing it as a hobby. It's the same with art for me: getting too serious with it made me feel less passionate and creative (to be fair though, I did take two first year creative writing classes as electives and I am genuinely proud of the stuff I wrote for them!)

With English, I could do my favourite thing in the world: overthinking literature and talking ad nauseam about the media I like. I love rambling, and writing essays is pretty much just organized info-dumping. I also wanted to learn more about history and culture, especially the way that they influence and are influenced by the works of literature, film, etc. of the times. In my experience so far, English classes have mostly consisted of reading or watching a bunch of texts, analyzing them & picking them apart, discussing said texts with my peers, and comparing/contextualizing them with each other. It's way more fun for me than it probably sounds to most people haha

Side note: I'm also taking biology as a minor (specifically with a focus on zoology because I love animals). The contrast between using the more creative and writerly side of my brain, and the more logical sciencey and side works well for me.

I'm still not super career focused, though I have certainly thought about it. I'm on disability support right now, so thankfully I'm fortunate enough to not need to juggle work and school. Ideally, I would love it if my degree landed me a stable job that doesn't make me feel miserable or put the same strain on me that retail and food service do. But I'm kinda just going with the flow for now.

Anyways, that's all to say: look over all of your options and narrow it down to the ones that draw your interest and passion the most. Consider what you want out of school, explore the potential career options that each subject could bring if that's your goal, and generally go with what makes you feel the best.

I know most schools have exploratory courses and academic advisors that can help you figure out what you want to do, so I would definitely look into that! Oh, and look into the required classes for each subject too! It personally helped me organize and prepare for everything I would need to do so that I was less blind-sighted by, as an example, my mandatory statistics class for my biology minor (I'm DEFINITELY not a math person)

Good luck, and I'm sorry again for how long this got! I wish you the best :D

[utopians]

Hey James! Feel free to not answer if you don't wanna, but I'm a non-American very confused by the concept of "majors" and "minors" in American university.

Over here, a university degree only offers classes directly related to the degree subject - there's no such thing as a major, because what you'd "major in" is just the subject your degree is on. EG you said Psychology and History; over here, if you were taking a Psychology degree, the only way you could also do History would be either by waiting for the Psychology one to be over and then returning to university to take a separate History degree, or by paying for non-university or online university courses during the Psychology degree. But these wouldn't count at all towards the Psychology degree if you did that - all your university course classes would purely be psychology-related.

I think it's why our degrees are shorter? An undergrad degree course is 2-3 years here, depending, coz they're only on the 1 subject.

How do majors and minors work? Do you need a minor in order to pass your major? What's up with that?

happy to answer! just to preface, there is a lot of variation within american schools, and a lot of places have specialized programs that are a lot closer to your experience -- I'm just going to be talking abt the more common model that's present most schools, including the one I attend. this got long as hell so it's all under the cut :-)

essentially, in american universities, you can take classes in any subject you want and a 'major' is just the topic you've chosen to specialize in. in order to graduate with a major in a specific topic, you need to take the specific courses the university considers essential to understanding it, and you need to take enough courses in that topic to fulfill the university's credit requirement (the amount of 'credits' a course is worth is based on its difficulty); for example, I'm a psych major, and these are my university's requirements for a major in psychology. some people also do a 'double major' where you graduate with a degree in two topics by fulfilling the major requirements for both.

the way that the american system generally diverges from others (and the reason that it generally takes 4 years for a degree here when it takes 3 in most places) is that there's a minimum credit requirement for graduating that's unrelated to your major -- for example, my university requires 120 total credits to graduate with a degree at all, even though earning the psychology degree itself only requires about ~40 credits worth of psych classes. the remaining 80 credits worth of classes are filled by classes you take Just For Fun as well as gen-ed requirements, which are subjects that all students are required to take regardless of major: foundational math, english, history, arts, and physical + biological sciences. these are required even for students who have no intention of pursuing these fields because they're thought to provide a more 'well-rounded' education. most students finish their gen-ed classes within the first two years of college.

a minor is essentially just a recognition of experience in a particular subject that also gets tacked on to your degree; it doesn't mean as much as a major to employers or grad schools, and it's generally a topic you have a personal passion for or think would help in your chosen field but don't want to devote your whole academic career to. not everyone does a minor, but it's definitely common. you pursue a minor the same way you do a major, but the requirements are a lot less intense -- for example, to get a psych minor at my university, you just need to take 15 credits worth of psych classes (which is just 4-5 classes).

when you fulfill the credit requirement to graduate university, you get a degree in whatever you majored in with the minor also listed. a lot of people don't like the system because it's less focused than a 3-year program, and I definitely get that (I think that gen-ed requirements can be pretty superfluous), but I think that the opportunity to branch out and take classes in any subject is a massive plus -- I've had the opportunity to take some extremely cool classes and learn a lot that I never would've been able to if I was restricted to just psychology :-)