#god: a human history

[rrcraft-and-lore]

In addition to my Monkey Man post from earlier, the always kind & sweet Aparna Verma (author of The Phoenix King, check it out) asked that I do a thread on Hijras, & more of the history around them, South Asia, mythology (because that's my thing), & the positive inclusion of them in Monkey Man which I brought up in my gushing review.

Hijra: They are the transgender, eunuch, or intersex people in India who are officially recognized as the third sex throughout most countries in the Indian subcontinent. The trans community and history in India goes back a long way as being documented and officially recognized - far back as 12th century under the Delhi Sultanate in government records, and further back in our stories in Hinduism. The word itself is a Hindi word that's been roughly translated into English as "eunuch" commonly but it's not exactly accurate.

Hijras have been considered the third sex back in our ancient stories, and by 2014 got official recognition to identify as the third gender (neither male or female) legally. Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and India have accepted: eunuch, trans, intersex people & granted them the proper identification options on passports and other government official documents.

But let's get into some of the history surrounding the Hijra community (which for the longest time has been nomadic, and a part of India's long, rich, and sometimes, sadly, troubled history of nomadic tribes/people who have suffered a lot over the ages. Hijras and intersex people are mentioned as far back as in the Kama Sutra, as well as in the early writings of Manu Smriti in the 1st century CE (Common Era), specifically said that a third sex can exist if possessing equal male and female seed.

This concept of balancing male/female energies, seed, and halves is seen in two places in South Asian mythos/culture and connected to the Hijra history.

First, we have Aravan/Iravan (romanized) - who is also the patron deity of the transgender community. He is most commonly seen as a minor/village deity and is depicted in the Indian epic Mahabharata. Aravan is portrayed as having a heroic in the story and his self-sacrifice to the goddess Kali earns him a boon.

He requests to be married before his death. But because he is doomed to die so shortly after marriage, no one wants to marry him.

No one except Krishna, who adopts his female form Mohini (one of the legendary temptresses in mythology I've written about before) and marries him. It is through this union of male, and male presenting as female in the female form of Mohini that the seed of the Hijras is said to begun, and why the transgender community often worships Aravan and, another name for the community is Aravani - of/from Aravan.

But that's not the only place where a gender non conforming divine representation can be seen. Ardhanarishvara is the half female form of lord Shiva, the destroyer god.

Shiva combines with his consort Parvarti and creates a form that represents the balancing/union between male/female energies and physically as a perfectly split down the middle half-male half-female being. This duality in nature has long been part of South Asian culture, spiritual and philosophical beliefs, and it must be noted the sexuality/gender has often been displayed as fluid in South Asian epics and the stories. It's nothing new.

Many celestial or cosmic level beings have expressed this, and defied modern western limiting beliefs on the ideas of these themes/possibilities/forms of existence.

Ardhanarishvara signifies "totality that lies beyond duality", "bi-unity of male and female in God" and "the bisexuality and therefore the non-duality" of the Supreme Being.

Back to the Hijra community.

They have a complex and long history. Throughout time, and as commented on in the movie, Monkey Man, the Hijra community has faced ostracization, but also been incorporated into mainstream society there. During the time of the Dehli Sultanate and then later the Mughal Empire, Hijras actually served in the military and as military commanders in some records, they were also servants for wealthy households, manual laborers, political guardians, and it was seen as wise to put women under the protection of Hijras -- they often specifically served as the bodyguards and overseers of harems. A princess might be appointed a Hijra warrior to guard her.

But by the time of British colonialism, anti-Hijra laws began to come in place folded into laws against the many nomadic tribes of India (also shown in part in Monkey Man with Kid (portrayed by Dev Patel) and his family, who are possibly

one of those nomadic tribes that participated in early theater - sadly by caste often treated horribly and relegated to only the performing arts to make money (this is a guess based on the village play they were performing as no other details were given about his family).

Hijras were criminalized in 1861 by the Indian Penal Code enforced by the British and were labeled specifically as "The Hijra Problem" -- leading to an anti-Hijra campaign across the subcontinent with following laws being enacted: punishing the practices of the Hijra community, and outlawing castration (something many Hijra did to themselves). Though, it should be noted many of the laws were rarely enforced by local Indian officials/officers. But, the British made a point to further the laws against them by later adding the Criminal Tribes Act in 1871, which targeted the Hijra community along with the other nomadic Indian tribes - it subjected them to registration, tracking/monitoring, stripping them of children, and their ability to sequester themselves in their nomadic lifestyle away from the British Colonial Rule.

Today, things have changed and Hijras are being seen once again in a more positive light (though not always and this is something Monkey Man balances by what's happened to the community in a few scenes, and the heroic return/scene with Dev and his warriors). All-hijra communities exist and sort of mirror the western concept of "found families" where they are safe haven/welcoming place trans folks and those identifying as intersex.

These communities also have their own secret language known as Hijra Farsi, which is loosely based on Hindi, but consists of a unique vocabulary of at least 1,000 words.

As noted above, in 2014, the trans community received more legal rights.

Specifically: In April 2014, Justice K. S. Radhakrishnan declared transgender to be the third gender in Indian law in National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India.

Hijras, Eunuchs, apart from binary gender, be treated as "third gender" for the purpose of safeguarding their rights under Part III of our Constitution and the laws made by the Parliament and the State Legislature. Transgender persons' right to decide their self-identified gender is also upheld and the Centre and State Governments are directed to grant legal recognition of their gender identity such as male, female or as third gender.

I've included some screenshots of (some, not all, and certainly not the only/definitive reads) books people can check out about SOME of the history. Not all again. This goes back ages and even our celestial beings/creatures have/do display gender non conforming ways.

There are also films that touch on Hijra history and life. But in regards to Monkey Man, which is what started this thread particularly and being asked to comment - it is a film that positively portrayed India's third sex and normalized it in its depiction. Kid the protagonist encounters a found family of Hijras at one point in the story (no spoilers for plot) and his interactions/acceptance, living with them is just normal. There's no explaining, justifying, anything to/for the audience. It simply is. And, it's a beautiful arc of the story of Kid finding himself in their care/company.

[outer-stars]

headcanon that these started popping up in the Amphibia universe post-Battle of Los Angeles

obviously based on this painting and the accompanying memes (yes, including the Markiplier one):

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

It is immensely difficult to understand just how completely white Southerners wrote off slaves in their political calculations. How, we ask, could they contemplate war without worrying about the possibilities it opened up to four million enslaved people? But so irrelevant were slaves to their thinking that William Yancey, the influential Alabama fire-eater, could recommend secession as a resolution of all the old struggles. It would augur, he said, a future with "no irrepressible conflict and no domestic enemy to incite our vigilance." Black Republicans--that is to say, white Northern men and not slaves--were the domestic enemy Yancey had in mind.

Southerners of all political persuasions worried publicly and to good effect about the way abolitionists incited slaves to violence. One can readily discern the heavy weight of racial thinking about people of African descent. It was hard for white Southerners to think of slaves as "the enemy within." More than thirty years of proslavery training had mostly dissuaded them from that view. But the fear lurked just below the surface, and a benevolent paternalism always confronted a deeper antagonistic view. One can hear their conflicting emotions when white Southerners learned of John Brown's attempt to raise slave support in his raid on Harper's Ferry. One contributor to the Charleston Mercury opened with a brave denial that planters had anything to worry about at all--"they would as soon suspect their children of conspiring against their lives"--but descended quickly into a tortured consideration of circumstances in which slaves might indeed pose a threat. When "constantly tampered with," the writer fretted, faith in the Africans' good nature could prove a flimsy defense. "Our negroes are constantly tempted to cut our throats or pink us" with rifles. It was well to be prepared for the worst. Those "foot peddlers" from New York trolling the neighborhoods could "put the devil in the negros' heads," and could have been down there already "for all we know, arming the troops." The conflicted view of slaves' nature was palpable but controlled. Slaves were said to be, by nature, good, childlike, and loyal servants to their masters; they posed a danger only when white outsiders attempted to "rouse an ignorant people [by appealing] to their superstition and lust." Thus when secession dispensed with the Black Republicans, as Yancey promised, slaves would no longer represent a force of any sort.

[...]

African slaves in New World societies underwent a process of instrumentalization rather than simple suppression or exclusion. White Southerners were so deeply implicated in that process that they had great difficulty shaking an instrumentalist view of African American people even when confronted with evidence to the contrary. Rare, indeed, was the commonsense observation like that of Waltman Willey, a western Virginia Unionist, who, disparaging the secessionists' argument that slavery would be safer out of the Union, asked bluntly what the consequences of destroying the Union would be: "What then. The common national obligation [to return fugitive slaves] is destroyed. Will not the negro find out? The motives to flee across the line would be increased, because he would know that whenever he crosses that line he will be free." What Willey predicted was precisely what most white Southerners denied: that slaves had motives and interests entirely their own, channels of communication that kept them apprised of relevant developments, and allies whose help they knew to seek. It would take Confederates a long time to learn those lessons.

stephanie mccurry, confederate reckoning: power and politics in the civil war south

[silvantransthranduiltrash]

I’m sorry, but can you just imagine:

Elves in Valinor: i wonder how the elves that choose to remain in ME are doing? Are they suffering? Are they thriving? Have they faded yet?

Meanwhile, Thranduil: *sipping a pina colada out of a coconut, hanging out in a hammock, on a beach, with some reggae and a nice book* i don’t care that staying in ME means that i will face hardships and horrors that are beyond valinor’s wildest dreams, because i’m sure i’m also relaxing and living the good life beyond valinor’s wildest dreams.

[sendmyresignation]

Heavy Metal MCR Manifesto

At long last it has arrived from the depths of hell...... the essential guide to all things metal, at least in the context of My Chemical Romance, its members and its musical history! Have you ever wondered exactly how My Chem has been influenced by metal? We all know Ray loves Iron Maiden and Gerard can do black metal vocals, but just how deeply is My Chemical Romance connected to metal music and culture?

The answer is probably longer and more elaborate than you thought!

In this primer you will discover why Frank and Ray work so well together, how Maiden jump-started Ray and Gerard's creative partnership, what sex and satan have to do with Gerard, and what it is about metal that has made it such a significant sonic and aesthetic influence on every album My Chem have ever released. Check all this and more out at the place posers go to die!!! The MCR METAL PRIMER!!!

(Image by Mark Beemer)

[antlerpunk]

youre so right for your ultrakill sound design thoughts, the way heavens structure and hierarchy is set up is such a clean, organized set up, with the design and how they sound doubling down on that

i've never seen anything like ultrakill's world.

the way it sets up its structures and ecosystems. you have husks and you have demons and you have machines and you have angels.

biblical tragedy and political drama.

ultrakill's world is a Character. and i was saying that shit before we knew hell was alive.

ultrakill's world is a character and i'd love to get to know them better

[prolibytherium]

There's a LOT of things people do wrong when constructing fantasy beliefs in pantheons of gods, but one of the more specific is having only one god related to fertility and it kind of being just a horny sex thing.

Like you'll have one in the entire bunch whose sphere is listed as fertility and it's basically like Yeah this is the sex one. She's always depicted naked (but not TOO naked because censorship and/or the writer's own skittishness). She's going to have the exact body type epitomized in contemporary western beauty standards and there's usually no chance in hell that she's gonna be fat (unless MAYBE they're referencing 'venus' figurines). Her thing is fertility, which means having sex and making babies. Might be a goddess of beauty or love or marriage too, because these are kinda sex things, but that's probably it. And yeah that sort of thing is virtually nonexistent in real life.

Like the concept of fertility is so fundamentally important to the function of most societies in human history in ways that it is just Not in industrialized imperial core countries. Most people are getting food from stores, and not having to worry about harvesting crops or breeding livestock or foraging for food or having enough animals to hunt, so fertility only really comes up as a concern if you're trying to have kids (and there is certainly societal pressure to have children, but your wellbeing and survival is rarely going to Depend on it). And I think writing only from that perspective and not even trying to learn about WHY fertility is so conceptually important is why you see this trend.

There's no absolute universal statement about how people believe in gods but it's broadly accurate that systems with many deities will Usually have more than one deity associated with fertility, and these associations will certainly include human reproduction but also the fertility of livestock/hunted animals, plants, the land itself.

Some fertility deities may also be heavily associated with seasonal changes or environmental factors that agriculture or foraging is dependent on (spring/summer/fall, seasonal rains, seasonal flooding, rain itself, sunlight, good soil, rivers, wetlands, etc). Some certainly might be related to love, marriage, sex, and beauty, but that's VERY RARELY going to be the sole way the concept of fertility is embodied. And they'll often will have other associations not directly about fertility, or related to fertility in culturally specific ways.

[shadystranger]

I never took dean's extremely antagonistic attitude towards sam drinking blood as compared to anything else really seriously. While in first seasons they were still new to weird and their reactions might have been not as desanitized as later seasons it was always kinda clear he was illogical about this. The immoralness of demon blood was a pretense at most. An excuse dean could latch onto to clad his deep-seated personal unadulterated hatred to sam seeking someone else. And also his insecurity that his place- his entire purpose is easily being replaced/filled by ruby and taken right from under his nose and he's so driven up the wall he acts unreasonably and borderline psychotic like locking sam up and emotionally manipulating him to prevent it, when that doesn't work he resorts to violence. He was rationalizing his ugly feelings of hostile defensiveness and jealousy as some kind of a higher moral endeavor, but it was painfully obvious that was not the case. Dean literally at some point implies he agrees that sam is doing good and he's willing to accept him back but ruby is a deal breaker he unintentionally makes a visible distinction between it being a corruption/-humanitydescend issue and a more gripe that demon blood is rooted in dependence on demons and/or the constant need for supply; leaving sam not entirely dependent on dean alone. (Combine this with dean's emphasis on them finally being together and for nothing to come between them in s2&1)

Sam killed demons, he could exorcise people without killing them, he could kill Lilith and prevent the apocalypse (what they believed at the time) all objectively good acts. But dean blatantly did not care. Because his issue was never in the moralness of it or ''becoming less human'' hell this guy covered up for sam in an instant when he killed a hunter without thought. He threatened anyone to not lay a finger on sam when he thought sam was 100% going to turn into a monster and start killing them all (rather wanted to stay with him). Come demon blood and he suddenly is narratively very expected to kill sam out of moral obligation? Nahh it's a very fucked up psychotic break from a possessive driven mad who used up all his cards and is not willing to hand down what he finally owed to someone else so he's going to make sure no one else can have what he doesn’t. Dean stringed bobby along with him thinking they were both doing a savior mission for sam's ultimate sake and the world's when they were both on very different pages. Heck bobby is not the only one dean had fooled it was the audience and the narrative too. Insanely ironic

[luckthebard]

Genuinely confused as to how so much of the fandom watched the first 2 CR campaigns and Calamity and yet still ended up in a “Ludinus is right let’s kill all the gods” position. Like it’s baffling to me how much content/context people have just decided to completely forget? We had 2 full campaigns of very positive interactions with the gods and the moment there’s some hypothetical and interesting musing and speculation about their roles in the world from a more disconnected place we’re just throwing that out the window?*

Tbh the number of people who watched episode 4 of Calamity and still saw Asmodeus as sympathetic or having a legitimate point is unsettling to me, but while that’s a related issue it’s not quite the same conversation.

But like legitimately how did we so quickly make a hard turn from “The Stormlord teaches his barbarians to use the power of friendship, he’s a funny kindergarten teacher” memes to…this.

*(This is not, btw a comment on the characters having philosophical debates in-world because I think those are interesting and on-theme for the campaign and are also nearly always concluding with “our personal relationship to individual gods and feelings about them are irrelevant actually, the people trying to destroy them are doing wider harm and are in the wrong and must be stopped.” I’m actually loving the engagement with this by the characters in-universe but the fandom is exhausting me.)

[niqhtlord01]

“We believe the boat is unsinkable.” - Philip A. S. Franklin

To think a single sentence would bring about the end of the world as we knew it.

The gods of old saw the sailing of this ship, this “Titanic”, and were filled with disgust and rage. To think these mere mortals could make such boastful claims was nothing less than an insult upon themselves; an insult which dug deep into the heart of Poseidon himself.

Across the seven seas he reigned supreme and if he decreed that a boat, however magnificent or ostentatious, was to sink then it would sink to the bottom of the oceans and be forgotten forever more.

On the maiden voyage of the Titanic Poseidon went to his brother Zeus, king of the gods, and asked his permission to punish the hubris of man. He would remind them of the power of the gods and to make such brazen displays would only further incur their wrath.

For his measure, Zeus too agreed with his brother. Long had been the days since man had made offerings to the pantheon and now they had grown to see themselves the master of this tiny world. To this end he proclaimed to all the gods that none were to interfere with his brother’s actions to sink the human ship “Titanic”. No sooner had the words left his brother’s mouth then did Poseidon turn to water and rain down upon the earth once more.

Using his strength he pulled a glacier from the far north and placed it directly in the path of the Titanic. He planned for the vessel to slam itself against the glacier and be torn asunder; casting the passengers down into the cold waters of the Atlantic where they would serve as a warning to all those who thought themselves above the gods.

In the dead of night the Titanic came and just as Poseidon had planned it did indeed smash headlong into the glacier. Yet to his surprise the hull was not torn asunder. Nay, it was not even damaged in the slightest. The metal hull of the ship charged headfirst into the glacier and shattered the frozen mountain into a thousand shards that slowly sank beneath the dark waves.

 The passengers who had heard the commotion and come to the main deck to observe the event let out a great cheer and the night was soon lit by the chorus of celebratory fireworks and song.

Poseidon watched as his prey continued sailing past him unfretted in the slightest and flew into a great rage. The waters of the world swelled and shuddered at his wrath. Hundreds of other smaller ships were swept beneath the waves across the globe while those along the shores watched in horror as waves as high as the clouds themselves raced towards them.

Though the world shook and quaked under Poseidon’s wrath the Titanic continued sailing ever onward; undeterred by the ravages causing such chaos all around him.

As the vessel finally reached its destination, ahead of schedule mind you, Poseidon only further drove himself into bouts of pure rage.

He swore that for each year that ship remained afloat he would raise the levels of the sea one foot until all that was left was his all-encompassing oceans. This shocked and threw the rest of the pantheon into disorder as what few followers they had left would ultimately be wiped out by such an action. Yet to their dismay Zeus had made his degree and none were to interfere with Poseidon’s feud with the human vessel. Even Zeus himself, who now had come to know the madness now consuming his brother, could not break his own oath lest he invite civil war amongst the gods.

So as it went year by year Poseidon made true to his curse. The sea levels rose one foot each year and continued to rise with no sign of stopping.

At first the humans of the world saw little concern. Save for several island nations being swallowed up by the sea the majority of humanity went about their daily lives as if nothing was wrong. It wasn’t until the fifth year when nearly all of Europe was swallowed up did things begin to change.

Unaware of why the water levels were rising, humanity showed its greatest quality and once more adapted to face the rising challenge. Entire cities and communities transferred to living upon water craft, with the most ambitious ones lifting entire cities and creating floating islands that would rise with the oceans.

By the tenth year the planet had lost nearly 63% of its landmass to the rising oceans while the Titanic continued to sail.

Now converted into an almost religious object of worship, the Titanic had slowly been transformed into the largest floating city to sail the great ocean with new generations being born to only know the cold confines of its steel walls.

Nothing Poseidon had done had come close to sinking the Titanic and so his wrath had only deepened. Waves as tall as mountains bounced off the metal hull effortlessly while legions of sea creatures of every variety were repelled assault after assault by the human crew. With no signs of stopping the gods now grew more and more desperate to bring about an end to this matter once and for all.

It was true that while they had been forbidden from interfering, Zeus had said nothing of their offspring.

And so each god went to their demigod children and gave them one command. One command, which if carried out and fulfilled would earn them a place alongside them in the pantheon, to rule over the humans for all the days and nights of eternity.

Sink the Titanic.

[bibliophile221b]

never question the relationship between the moon and a woman in her 20s

[shuuenka]

It's been awhile, couple hundred of years.

Give or take.

It's not that bad, Cyno.

Just a bit of ache. A bit of yearning.

Ah, and missing you for all of the eternal life I was cursed with.

Selfish desires of the heart that was once moved.

[befooremoonrisee]

look, i know that the news about an asoiaf movie adaptation are scary, but hear me out a harrenhal horror flick in the style of guillermo del toro's crimson peak . or if you wanna go all guillermo del toro's thematic interest in monster fucking the story of the night king and queen and add the haunted house element by basing it in the nightfort

[transingthoseformers]

As much as I have a gripe with bayverse tf due to some questionable writing choices that aged badly. It is still the first series to introduced me to tf, and damn the comics are smth cause what do you mean that is where the Lord High Protector Megatron trope came from, where megop shippers used it in fanfics and that line of Megatron saying he wants to make Optimus as his in one of the comics

I'VE GOT SO MANY OPINIONS ABOUT HOW THERE'S GOOD IDEAS STUCK IN BAYVERSE

Like. Clearly there's flaws. Some deep, obvious flaws that cannot and should not be ignored. But, some of the ideas in it are soooo crunchy and fun to play with

Bayverse could've been better. It had potential. And there are some genuinely good moments in the films. And some of the designs, while the execution and final product wasn't what many were looking for, clearly had attention and thought put into them (I still love bayverse Starscream and TLK Megatron😔).

They had a chance, and we saw what happened with that chance.

[fine-arts-gallery]

Human Fragility (c. 1656) by Salvator Rosa.

[whiskingskin]

If you aren't emotionally attached to Achilles and Patroclus my blog ain't the place to be rn I will ALWAYS reblog them [and I'm on my 3rd reread]