#leper colony

[thethcministry]

[sweettoothnerd]

It’s hard, isn’t it? Describing a person in only words, when they can hold whole worlds in them.

[immmundus]

stamp seal of the leprosorium Beiderwies in Passau (Photo: Oberhausmuseum Passau)

[paulpingminho]

[onlyhurtforaminute]

LEPER COLONY-THE SURGICAL UNDEADVORS

[loptrcoptr]

toooldforthis.jpg

[masterpieceofunderstatement]

[tropical-fruit-mx]

they took down the full video of the airport for birds opening number and i'm so sad it's objectively so funny and i used to have it memorized and now i can't find it and i'm so pissed i might fukcing pay for the digital download on their site simply because i want to hear this tune so bad

[obsessive-compulsive-destroyer]

Not to be contrarian but I don't get the sense that The Thing "flinch[ed] away from the impossibility of intimacy in general", like it makes it p clear that the American research base's inhabitants have already (apparently comfortably) succumbed to that. Mariana Colín put it p succinctly, that they are less a team and more a group of individuals who have learned to live alone together, and that's before an alien ever comes into the picture. The incursion of the Thing is then a way to demonstrate how our revulsion towards infection and disease is simultaneously a part of the human condition and an impulse that motivates us to act inhumanely and dehumanize the afflicted (or, those who we think are or might be the afflicted).

I’m drawn to the concept of movies like The Thing but utterly uninterested in actually watching body horror stuff.

[sweettoothnerd]

I understand, and I have not cried. I have shrunk inside, all my tears dry and stuck, like a nut lodged in my throat.

[bsd-bibliophile]

Nobody likes me, so I’ve made up my mind to go to work in a leper colony, since nobody likes lepers either. The best way for me to live is to cut off all ties with the world.

Oda Sakunosuke, “Six White Venus” from Stories of Osaka Life

[bonefall]

.. opinions on wind runner? i feel like im one of the only ones that genuinely hates her sometimes

If you feel like the only one who genuinely hates her, I think you need to look around more. Wind Runner is a very widely disliked character, because she's often used within the story as a small antagonist who "threatens" the authority of Tall Shadow. Gray Wing dislikes her. Thunder is openly cat-racist to her. She spends several books trying to break through the moor cats' xenophobia to join a group that came to HER LAND.

Then, when Moth Flight is old enough to be a relevant character in Forest Divided, Wind Runner is turned into Yet Another mean mom the very moment Moth displays ADHD. She's contrasted to her mate Gorse Fur, who is a Soft And Good Dad, and ultimately MASSIVELY punished with the harrowing events of Moth Flight's Vision (even though, for most of that book, she's completely right.)

Ask yourself why they're especially harsh on WIND RUNNER for being mean to her child, in the arc with Tom the Fucking Wifebeater and his redemption death, plus Thunder being forced to stop being mad at his abuser Clear Sky, please.

To me, Wind Runner is an intense, ambitious woman who's demonized for it in a way that men just aren't. She's subject to several misogynistic trends within WC, plus a huge helping of xenophobia that goes absolutely unexamined. If DOTC cared at all about women, it would have treated her with the nuance she deserves.

Wind Runner is treated with nearly endless suspicion by Gray Wing through books 1 - 3, while he's bending over backwards to suck Clear Sky's toes.

Her wanting to join the group that came TO HER HOME and being a bit pushy about it earns a stronger reaction from Gray Wing than Clear Sky murdering people.

She's pressured into changing her name "to fit in," and it's still not enough. She wanted to join the group so bad she changed her name, at the request of the Mountain Cats, for a chance of being better accepted

This came after she'd already saved Jagged Peak's life when a burrow collapsed on him. She's plenty trustworthy.

She keeps doing shit to try and prove herself to this group of assholes. Remember Bumble being dragged back to her domestic abuser? Gray Wing interprets this as a power struggle, when WIND RUNNER WAS NOT EVEN PART OF THE GROUP AT THE TIME.

From Wind Runner's POV, she did something that the Moor cats wanted done. It was fucking evil. It was committing violence against another member of the out-group the cats see her as.

But who actually has the power here? Tall Shadow does.

Gray Wing said it himself that she could have come up with some excuse for Bumble to stay, and she didn't. In fact, any cat could have spoken up. No one did.

and still. STILL. Wind Runner gets nothing. Her reward is Gray Wing surmising that actually, her doing their sick dirtywork was a political move.

It's more consistent as a motivation with how Wind Runner wants to join their group. The thing she's been doing.

She only actually gets to join the group after Thunder starts publicly hurling slurs at her for suggesting they need to be ready for Clear Sky to attack them. "What do you know about peace? Last time I was here you were NOTHING BUT A ROGUE WITH A ROGUE'S NAME"

Gray Wing even starts purring when she gives birth, because her ambition goes away briefly and she "stops bossing everyone around." this is treated like a sweet thing. god forbid women retain their personalities when they have kids

She loses her first premature child to a seizure and Gray Wing starts proselytizing his religion to her. "Maybe it's a good thing your weakest child died because Jesus has them now" I want to beat him with a hammer

When her second child gets sick, Clear Sky has a bright idea that involves killing it. I refer to this as his "reverse leper colony" suggestion. He only develops a sense of humanity towards the sick when his brother's pregnant wife is in danger. Wind Runner and her kitten barely seem to clock as people to him.

It's only after her SECOND baby succumbs to a horrible, painful death that she decides the moor cats are assholes, and she goes to start her own group. It's LONG overdue. I was extremely excited to see it.

Now. Listen.

I've been treated just like Moth Flight before. I've practically heard the scolding in Book 6 Chapter 3 verbatim. I'm not downplaying anything about Wind Runner being harsh to her; being yelled at like that never fixed the problem.

What I'm saying is that this is the SAME arc that summons the hollowed-out ghost of Storm to coo that Clear Sky "never drove anyone away" with his abusive behavior and gives Tom the Wifebeater a heroic redemption death.

So why is the scolding from Wind Runner treated as unambiguously harsh? What's the difference between her and them?

Why is it that outside of this little bubble of the community, you can get buried in a flood of people crying about how "Clear Sky made Summisteaks Butt he thought it was the right thing :((( He feels bad about shoving Thunder's face in a weeping, pus-filled wound and trying to kill him :((((" but Wind Runner is mean about Moth Flight not catching a rabbit and she should be skinned alive

Why is WIND RUNNER held responsible for the death of Clear Sky's child in Moth Flight's Vision, WHEN IT WAS COMPLETELY HIS OWN FAULT??

So, why should I hate her? Because she's mean to the idiot protagonists? Because she's Yet Another Bad Mom whose actions ARE treated as Bad in the story, in the arc famous for openly weeping whenever someone's mad at their abusive dad?? When she has this whole horrific, unexamined story about how incredibly bigoted The Settlers are towards her and the extremes she goes to in order to please them?

I'm glad she's mean, actually. She should have been even meaner. I think she should have a gun

[exeggcute]

interesting links roundup #4

reading

A language of beautiful impurity

The Boeing Nosedive

California’s $20 Fast Food Minimum Wage Sees No Job Loss, Slight Price Hikes

Don’t build your castle in other people’s kingdoms

Inside the $621 Million Legal Battle for the ‘Soul of the Internet’

My Mother’s Envy Will Outlive Us Both

On 17th century "cocaine"

Silicon Valley, the New Lobbying Monster

Stunning photos of a vast e-waste dumping ground — and those who make a living off it

The Time I Built an ROV to Solve Missing Person Cases

Warren Hern, America’s Abortion Doctor

What Google’s U-Turn on Third-Party Cookies Means for Chrome Privacy

Where Did You Go, Ms. Pac-Man?

tools/reference

The Anglish Times

Falling Fruit

Grad school calculator

other

Abandoned mines cover the West

Bop Spotter

Wikipedia: Leper colony money

[trickstarbrave]

People being wrong about Princess Mononoke is gonna be the death of me I swear

Ashitaka did NOT go on the journey to cure his curse. “Well then what’s the point if he was going to die anyways? Then the story is meaningless!” No it’s not. Princess Mononoke is a story about war, imperialism, and colonization.

Ashitaka is told he can’t cure the curse. It will slowly kill him. The poison from a conflict that has NOTHING to do with him will be the death of him. He is the last prince of their people and he doomed to die. He can sit here and die quietly, or he can lead to seek answers and resolve the conflict that caused it so no one else has to suffer like he did.

Both sides are morally grey. Lady Eboshi is not evil. She took in people others left to die: lepers, beggars, prostitutes. She wanted to build them a life they had agency in and could be proud of. A place they could call home, fall in love, have children in. She wanted to give them the ability to defend themselves. And in the end she made tools of war that poison those around her.

The forest gods can be finicky and cruel. The ape tribe are ready to rip humans apart and eat them in violence. They will kill and maim civilians for the crime of being on the same side. Their territorial battles get people killed. And they also will take in humans as their own and raise them and love them. They try to have balance.

Even the god of the forest, beautiful giver of life and guardian, is at night the thing of nightmares. A being that can curse those who look at it and roams the forest. He takes life away, sometimes in ways that seem too soon. He refuses to curse Ashitaka when he probably could. When his head is cut off in a rage he destroys the whole forest, poisoning it and killing all the animals and spirits within it.

Each figure thinks themselves justified. Are you going to condemn a widow mourning her husband who was ripped apart by wolves when his only job is to carry rice? Who never even shot a gun? Are you going to condemn the wolves protecting their home and the trees humans are uprooting for iron, weapons that are unnatural and rot away in their bodies? Condemn Nago who was driven mad by hatred and war till he couldn’t think straight and ended up trying to kill people who had literally nothing to do with the conflict?

It’s a cycle of violence. In the end more bloodshed won’t undo the tragedies. Won’t end the conflict. They will fight until they’re dead and the whole forest is destroyed along with iron town in total annihilation. Ashitaka cannot undo his curse caused by the conflict by killing them, or asking a higher power to undo it. He knows this.

In the end the curse was undone, but that wasn’t what he expected, and it still left a scar. Iron town and the forest were destroyed. But more people lived. The forest can grow anew. Eboshi resolves to build a new town that doesn’t need iron and smelters so they can live in peace and also be left alone by the emperor (hopefully). Both sides still don’t like each other and can’t forgive the other, but they’re also both victims of imperialism and colonialism like ashitaka’s people were.

The story has meaning. Sorry it isn’t a traditional quest where the hero uses violence or magic to undo all the wounds of the past. That’s not how real life works. We can dismantle institutions, but we cannot undo all the harm. More bloodshed or a higher power won’t resolve it.

[morbidology]

Andrée de Jongh was a member of the Belgian Resistance during World War Two. She also toured and organised the Comet Escape Line, the route between Belgium, France and Spain which was used by hundreds of Allied airmen to escape from Nazi-occupied Europe.

Andrée got involved in resistance work as soon as the Nazis advanced into Belgium. She initially volunteered in the Red Cross, nursing injured soldiers and finding them safe homes once they were healed. She, along with her father, organised the escape of the abandoned allied soldiers, creating the Comet Escape Line which would send these men from their safe houses in Belgium through occupied France and finally to Spain. It was estimated Andrée helped over 400 allied soldiers escape imminent death by the Nazis. 

Andrée de Jongh was captured on the 15th of January, 1943, and sent to Ravensbruck Concentration Camp and then to Mauthausen. Andrée survived the concentration camps but her father, Fredericnde Jongh, was executed in 1944. Following the war, Andrée went to Coquilhatville to work with a leper colony. She died in 2007 at the age of 90.