#sisi c:

[archduchessofnowhere]

Archduchess Sophie of Austria to her son Archduke Karl Ludwig, on her namesake granddaughter Sophie:

November 30, 1855, Hofburg ... Before I wrote to you, I was at the [portrait] session which the dear little girl [the 10-months-old Archduchess Sophie] is giving in Fr: von Welden [Sophie's Aya]'s room to Schrotzberg [paintor], who is painting her on behalf of E[mpress] Car[oline Auguste] as a Christmas Eve surprise for Sisi. I was also inside after the 10 o'clock mass, as the little one can only sit in bits and pieces between her Mama's visits and those she pays to her. This morning we were all startled by the sudden announcement that Sisi was coming. The picture is already strikingly similar; but the dear little one is also too sweet and friendly, especially when I sit opposite her, as she is very gracious to me; my tortoise shell glasses, which she likes to bite and loves passionately when teething, are the binding agent between us; she cheers, claps her fat little hands together, laughs and is happy that it refreshes the heart...

Praschl-Bichler (2008). Unsere liebe Sisi: Die Wahrheit über Erzherzogin Sophie und Kaiserin Elisabeth (Translation by DeepL, keep in mind that in a machine translation a lot of nuances may/did got lost)

Pictured: Archduchess Sophie of Austria, by Franz Schrotzberg, November 1855. Via Wikimedia Commons

[tomorrowusa]

Donald Trump may have gotten an illegal campaign contribution from an Egyptian dictator. Trump's attorney general derailed an investigation into this illicit cash transfer.

And it really was CASH. The Washington Post reports on this bizarre scene at an Egyptian bank.

Five days before Donald Trump became president in January 2017, a manager at a bank branch in Cairo received an unusual letter from an organization linked to the Egyptian intelligence service. It asked the bank to “kindly withdraw” nearly $10 million from the organization’s account — all in cash. Inside the state-run National Bank of Egypt, employees were soon busy placing bundles of $100 bills into two large bags, according to records from the bank. Four men arrived and carried away the bags, which U.S. officials later described in sealed court filings as weighing a combined 200 pounds and containing what was then a sizable share of Egypt’s reserve of U.S. currency.

Now we know that $10 million in US cash weighs 200 lbs./90.7 kg.

Trump loves dictators because they can give him money from national banks without a free press or pesky opposition squawking about it.

Trump is corrupt to the core. And when a president is getting emoluments from other countries then US foreign policy is being influenced in a way which Americans are in the dark about.

The attorney general who derailed the investigation is the creepy Trump apologist Bill Barr. He is the poster boy for why there should be more independence for investigators looking into wrongdoing at the highest levels of government – including Supreme Court justices.

[yuriyuruandyuraart]

*pops up out of nowhere, grabs you and hugs you tight* no escape for you, yuri >:)

WGHAGAGH NOOO SISI HOW COULD YOUUUU<3333

[kurniawangunadi]

Penipu Ulung

Sadar nggak sih, orang dewasa itu adalah orang yang paling pandai untuk berbohong, entah berbohong kepada orang lain ataupun menipu diri sendiri. Saat ditanya, "Apa kabar?" jawabanya "Baik-baik saja". Padahal mungkin baru saja terluka. Seolah-olah menjadi dewasa itu dituntut untuk tampak baik-baik saja seterusnya, tak peduli seberapa hancur hidup kita. Padahal baru saja dihajar oleh pasangannya di rumah, kdrt. Padahal baru saja dimaki-maki atasannya di kantor. Padahal baru saja kehilangan sesuatu yang berharga.

Padahal pernikahannya sudah tak berjalan sebagaimana mestinya. Padahal banyak sekali hal yang ditakutkan dalam hidupnya, menjelma menjadi rasa khawatir yang terus menekan sebagai trauma. Dan tetap berusaha bertahan seolah semuanya baik baik saja. Tanpa bisa melawan, tersandera pada ketakutan-ketakutan hidup akan masa depan nanti seperti apa. Kepiawaian untuk menipu itu telah menjadi mahir. Seolah menjadi salah satu keterampilan yang memang harus dimiliki oleh orang dewasa. Hingga tidak terasa, semua itu telah melekat menjadi tabiat. Hingga setelah menjalaninya bertahun-tahun, menyadari betapa hilangnya diri sendiri. Diri yang dulu pernah ada dalam diri kita beberapa tahun lalu, saat menjadi anak-anak yang jujur, saat memiliki mimpi-mimpi yang besar, saat ketakutan dalam hidup tidak lebih dari gelapnya malam atau ke toilet sendirian. Sepandai itu hingga orang-orang di sekitarnya merasa bahwa kita beruntung. Dan kita membalasnya dengan senyum tipis sembari mensyukurinya. Benar-benar piawai sekali menipu diri. Takut dan malu jika orang lain mengetahui sisi terapuh, tak ingin seorang pun tahu apalagi menolong. Tak ingin semuanya tahu bahwa cita-cita yang dulu menjadi mimpi yang dibicarakan bersama, ternyata tidak pernah menjadi nyata. Justru menjadi luka-luka yang menganga. Menjadi trauma yang menggerogoti diri. Hingga tak lagi mampu membedakan antara kenyataan dan asumsi. Sungguh pandai orang dewasa menipu dirinya. Mengatakan bahwa semuanya baik-baik saja. Tapi hidupnya penuh dengan rasa kalah. (c)kurniawangunadi

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Nobody

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 2, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 03, 2024

Today, Aaron C. Davis and Carol D. Leonnig of the Washington Post reported that there is reason to believe that when Trump’s 2016 campaign was running low on funds, Trump accepted a $10 million injection of cash from Egypt’s authoritarian leader Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. It is against the law to accept direct or indirect financial support from foreign nationals or foreign governments for a political campaign in the United States.

In early 2017, CIA officials told Justice Department officials that a confidential informant had told them of such a cash exchange, and those officials handed the matter off to Robert Mueller, the special counsel who was already looking at the links between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian operatives. FBI agents noted that on September 16, Trump had met with Sisi when the Egyptian leader was at the U.N. General Assembly in New York City. 

After the meeting, Trump broke with U.S. policy to praise Sisi, calling him a “fantastic guy.” 

Trump’s campaign had been dogged with a lack of funds, and his advisers had begged him to put some of his own money into it. He refused until October 28, when he loaned the campaign $10 million.

An FBI investigation took years to get records, but Davis and Leonnig reported that in 2019 the FBI learned of a key withdrawal from an Egypt bank. In January 2017, five days before Trump took office, an organization linked to Egypt’s intelligence service asked a manager at a branch of the state-run National Bank of Egypt to “kindly withdraw” $9,998,000 in U.S. currency. The bundles of $100 bills filled two bags and weighed more than 200 pounds. 

Once in office, Trump embraced Sisi and, in a reversal of U.S. policy, invited him to be one of his first guests at the White House. “I just want to let everybody know, in case there was any doubt, that we are very much behind President al-Sissi,” Trump said. 

Mueller had gotten that far in pursuit of the connection between Trump and Sisi when he was winding down his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. He handed the Egypt investigation off to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D C., where it appears then–attorney general William Barr killed it. 

Today, Brian Schwartz of CNBC reported that Elon Musk and other tech executives are putting their money behind a social media ad campaign for Trump and Vance, and are creating targeted ads in swing states by collecting information about voters under false pretenses. According to Schwartz, their America PAC, or political action committee, says it helps viewers register to vote. And, indeed, the ads direct would-be voters in nonswing states to voter registration sites.

But people responding to the ad in swing states are not sent to registration sites. Instead, they are presented with “a highly detailed personal information form [and] prompted to enter their address, cellphone number and age,” handing over “priceless personal data to a political operation” that can then create ads aimed at that person’s demographic and target them personally in door-to-door campaigns. After getting the information, the site simply says, “Thank you,” without directing the viewer toward a registration site.

Forbes estimates Musk’s wealth at more than $235 billion. 

In June the Trump Organization announced a $500 million deal with Saudi real estate developer Dar Global to build a Trump International hotel in Oman. 

In January 2011, when he was director of the FBI, Robert Mueller gave a speech to the Citizens Crime Commission of New York. He explained that globalization and modern technology had changed the nature of organized crime. Rather than being regional networks with a clear structure, he said, organized crime had become international, fluid, and sophisticated and had multibillion-dollar stakes. Its operators were cross-pollinating across countries, religions, and political affiliations, sharing only their greed. They did not care about ideology; they cared about money. They would do anything for a price.

These criminals “may be former members of nation-state governments, security services, or the military,” he said. “They are capitalists and entrepreneurs. But they are also master criminals who move easily between the licit and illicit worlds. And in some cases, these organizations are as forward-leaning as Fortune 500 companies.”

In order to corner international markets, Mueller explained, these criminal enterprises "may infiltrate our businesses. They may provide logistical support to hostile foreign powers. They may try to manipulate those at the highest levels of government. Indeed, these so-called 'iron triangles' of organized criminals, corrupt government officials, and business leaders pose a significant national security threat."

In a new book called Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, journalist Anne Applebaum carries that story forward into the present, examining how today’s autocrats work together to undermine democracy. She says that “the language of the democratic world, meaning rights, laws, rule of law, justice, accountability, [and] transparency…[is]  harmful to them,” especially as those are the words that their internal opposition uses. “And so they need to undermine the people who use it and, if they can, discredit it.” 

Those people, Applebaum says, “believe they are owed power, they deserve power.” When they lose elections, they “come back in a second term and say, right, this time, I'm not going to make that mistake again, and…then change their electoral system, or…change the constitution, change the judicial system, in order to make sure that they never lose.”

Almost exactly a year ago, on August 1, 2023, a grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicted former president Donald J. Trump for conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. The charges stemmed from Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. A grand jury is made up of 23 ordinary citizens who weigh evidence of criminal activity and produce an indictment if 12 or more of them vote in favor. 

The grand jury indicted Trump for “conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the government”; “conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified”; and “conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.” 

“Each of these conspiracies,” the indictment reads, “targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election.” “This federal government function…is foundational to the United States’ democratic process, and until 2021, had operated in a peaceful and orderly manner for more than 130 years.” 

The case of the United States of America v. Donald J. Trump was randomly assigned to Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who was appointed by President Obama in 2014 and confirmed 95–0 in the Senate. Trump pleaded not guilty on August 3, after which his lawyers repeatedly delayed their pretrial motions until, on December 7, Trump asked the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals to decide whether he was immune from prosecution. Chutkan had to put off her initial trial date of March 4, 2024, and said she would not reschedule until the court decided the question of Trump’s immunity. 

In February the appeals court decided he was not immune. Trump appealed to the Supreme Court, which waited until July 1, 2024, to decide that Trump enjoys broad immunity from prosecution for crimes committed as part of his official acts. Today the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to Chutkan, almost exactly a year after it was first brought.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[wardrobeoftime]

Master Post - A to M

If you notice any show, movie or character missing that I’ve made gifs of, please let me know. Characters are sorted alphabetically by first their last name and then their first name.

Last updated: November 21st, 2024

A

Aladdin [2019] (Princess Jasmine)

Allerleirauh (Princess Friederike | Princess Lotte)

American Song Contest (2022)

Aschenputtel [2010] (Marie/Aschenputtel)

Aschenputtel [2011] (Annabella | Aschenputtel/Cinderella)

Australia [2008] (Sarah Ashley)

B

Barbie (Stereotypical Barbie)

Beauty and the Beast [2017] (Madame de Garderobe | Mrs Potts)

Becoming Elizabeth (Amy Robsart | Mary Tudor)

Blood, Sex & Royalty (Anne Boleyn | Mary Boleyn)

Bridgerton (Tilley Arnold | Lady Berbrooke | Benedict Bridgerton | Daphne Bridgerton | Eloise Bridgerton | Francesca Bridgerton | Hyacinth Bridgerton | Violet Bridgerton | Queen Charlotte | Cressida Cowper | Agatha Danbury | Penelope Featherington | Philippa Featherington | Prudence Featherington | King George III | Siena Rosso | Edwina Sharma | Kathani "Kate" Sharma | Mary Sharma | Tessa | Marina Thompson | Extras)

Britain’s Bloody Crown (Margaret of Anjou | Margaret Beaufort | Elizabeth Woodville)

C

Cinderella [2015] (Anastasia Tremaine | Drisella Tremaine | Ella)

D

Das Adlon (Sonja Schadt)

Die Galoschen des Glücks (Princess Aurora)

Die Kaiserin (Maria Alexandrovna / Marie of Hesse | Elisabeth “Sisi” of Austria | Archduchess Sophie of Austria)

Die Salzprinzessin (Princess Amélie | Princess Eugenia | Princess Isabella)

Die Schöne und das Biest (Elsa)

Disney Live Action (see the individual movies | Extras)

Doctor Who (Ashildr | Cyril Arwell | Lily Arwell | Madge Arwell | Reg Arwell | Rosanna Calvierri | Miss Chandrakala | Agatha Christie | Hugh Curbishley | The Doctor | Twelth Doctor | Clemency Eddison | Jack Harkness | King James I | Katherine | Donna Noble | Madame de Pompadour | Amy Pond | Bill Potts | Robina Redmond | Becka Savage | Willa Twiston | Extras)

Domina (Agrippa | Antonia Major | Antonia “Antonina” Minor | Emperor Augustus | Julia the Elder | Livia Drusilla | Marcella | Octavia Minor)

Downton Abbey (Lucy Branson (née Smith) | Cora Crawley | Edith Crawley | Mary Crawley)

Dune: Prophecy (Ynez Corrino)

Dynasty [2017] (Kirby Anders | Fallon Carrington)

E

Effie Gray [2014] (Euphemia “Effie” Gray)

Elizabeth Duology (Elizabeth I)

Emerald City (Langwidere of Ev)

Emma [2020] (Isabella Knightley | Emma Woodhouse)

Eurovision Song Contest (1970 | 1974 | 1979 | 1980 | 1982 | 1988 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1995 | 1996 | 1998 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024)

F

Frauen, die Geschichte machten (Catherine the Great)

G

Galavant (Madalena)

Game of Thrones (Myrcella Baratheon | Cersei Lannister | Ellaria Sand | Sansa Stark | Daenerys Targaryen | Margaery Tyrell)

Good Omens (Aziraphale | Crowley)

Grey’s Anatomy (Lexie Grey | Izzie Stevens)

H

Hamilton (Angelica Schuyler | Eliza Schuyler Hamilton)

House of the Dragon (Jeyne Arryn | Alicent Hightower | Mysaria of Lys | Aegon II Targaryen | Baela Targaryen | Helaena Targaryen | Rhaena Targaryen | Rhaenyra Targaryen | Rhaenys Targaryen | Laena Velaryon)

I

J

K

Ku’damm (Helga von Boost)

L

Legacies (Jo Laughlin | Hope Mikaelson | Elizabeth “Lizzie” Saltzman | Josette “Josie” Saltzman)

Les Misérables [2018] (Cosette | Fantine Thibault)

Little Women [2019] (Amy March | Margaret “Meg” March)

Ludwig II [2012] (Elisabeth “Sisi” of Austria | Ludovika, The Duchess in Bavaria | Sophie in Bavaria)

M

Maleficent Duology (Princess Aurora | Queen Ingrith of Ulstead)

Märchenperlen (see the individual movies)

Maria Theresia [2017] (Maria Anna of Austria | Empress Maria Theresia |  Mademoiselle de Chartres | Elisa Fritz)

Marie Antoinette [2006] (Marie Antoinette | Empress Maria Theresia | Marie Thérèse Louise of Savoy, Princesse de Lamballe | Extras)

Marie Antoinette [2022] (Marie Antoinette)

Mary Queen of Scots [2013] (Mary Stuart)

Maximilian - Das Spiel von Macht und Liebe / Maximilian and Marie de Burgogne (Mary of Burgundy)

My Fair Lady (Eliza Doolittle)

My Lady Jane (Jane Grey)

Go to N-Z

[bulkyphrase]

Comfort Podfic Rec List

It's been a while since my last podfic-specific rec list, and with that lore.fm nonsense it seems like an especially good time to highlight the wonderful work that podficcers do!

These are some of the podfics I rely on to cheer me up. They're all sweet, fluffy or funny, and relatively short.

but hey, you're all right read by sisi-rambles (Stucky, 30-45 Minutes, Teen And Up Audiences)

Summary: 'This is not my fault,' Tony lies. 'It was supposed to be a joke! Christ.' 'Thanks to your joke,' says Coulson, 'we now have a code three-four-delta, with the variable being a Russian immigrant. We're checking his background right now, but it might take a while. Meanwhile, I suggest you civilian-proof the Tower. If any SHIELD intelligence is compromised, I will hurt you.' Yes, this is the story where the Winter Soldier is a Russian mail-order bride. Everything goes about as well as you'd expect. Based on the story by beardsley

Baby Steve Adventures read by blackglass (Gen, 20-30 Minutes, General Audiences)

Summary: Captain America gets hit by a spell during a battle. The rest of the Avengers look after him. Based on the story by catty_the_spy (@cattythespy)

The Devil and the Wild Man read by Tipsy_Kitty (@tipsyxkitty) (Loki/Steve Rogers, 1-1.5 Hours, Mature)

Summary: Steve's dinosaur keeps Loki in line on Sakaar. This is not a euphemism, but it is also 100% a euphemism. Based on the story by Effing (@effingunicorns)

More below the cut!

Right In Front of Your Face read by sisi-rambles (Clint Barton/Phil Coulson, 10-20 Minutes, General Audiences)

Summary: Phil and Clint get engaged and go out together to spread the news. but everyone is just shocked to hear they're together. Based on the story by @ereshai

Mixed Ages Classroom read by blackglass (Gen, 30-45 Minutes, Not Rated)

Summary: For this prompt, where the Avengers are de-aged, but to different ages: Clint & Tony to young children (below 10), Bruce to a toddler (whose tantrums involve hulking out to bb!hulk), Natasha & Steve back to teenagers (with scrawny!Steve). In which Hulk is a baby, Natasha and Steve know they aren't real teenagers, Clint and Tony behave badly, and Maria Hill is not a parent but Coulson might be. Based on the story by harcourt (@haforcere)

Protocol 1985 read by sisi-rambles (Gen, 30-45 Minutes, General Audiences)

Summary: “Holy crow, it worked,” someone says. Wherein Clint and Natasha meet Howard and Peggy. Based on the story by hollimichele (@nonasuch)

Fair Shot read by hopelesse (@sheshopelesse) (Stony, 20-30 Minutes, Mature)

Summary: Captain Rogers leaps from the helicopter like a gymnast on the dismount. All the lines of his body are controlled. Perfect. The iconic round shield lies flat across his back. “How does he fit a parachute under that?” I ask. “He doesn’t,” Stark answers. “Marvelous adrenaline junkie, our Cap. Likes to almost break his ankles every time. Makes him feel like a man.” Front Line reporter Ben Urich spends a mission embedded with Tony Stark and Captain Steve Rogers on an Ultimates mission. Based on the story by @isozyme

Dad's Got Skeletons read by sisi-rambles (Steve Rogers/Howard Stark (maybe?), 20-30 Minutes, Teen And Up Audiences)

Summary: “To think he became a dad—your dad. A daddy.” He looked up sharply and saw that Steve’s smile had twisted a little bit, pulled up at one corner like a smirk, except no, Captain America did not smirk. “You know, it’s funny. I called him daddy once too.” Based on the story by kehinki

Sam Wilson: Ghost Hunter read by sisi-rambles (Samsteve, 0-10 Minutes, General Audiences)

Summary: Sam's stuck in a horror movie cliche. Based on the story by kehinki

(the kitten invasion fleet has arrived) read by blackglass (Gen, 0-10 Minutes, General Audiences)

Summary: what if the first contact with nonhuman life forms comes about in a different way? Based on the story by @labelleizzy

someone’s gonna pay for this read by sisi-rambles (Gen, 0-10 Minutes, General Audiences)

Summary: Steve as a cat. Based on the story by @lazulisong

Groundwater read by blackglass (Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers, 30-45 Minutes, Teen And Up Audiences)

Summary: Okay, she thinks, in a zen-like state of calm: given a chump assignment, she not only managed to fall in a well, she somehow dragged Captain America--living legend, supersoldier, level 7 SHIELD consultant, and Avenger--down with her. This means two things: 1) Captain America knows who she is now, and thinks she’s a dumbass, and 2) SHIELD is probably going to make her disappear as punishment (likely by throwing her in another, deeper well and pretending she never existed). “Don’t mind me,” she says faintly. “I’m just gonna drown myself now.” Based on the story by @legete

Dear Clint Barton (Circa Age 7) read by RsCreighton (@rosecreighton) (Gen, 20-30 Minutes, Teen And Up Audiences)

Summary: The most annoying parts of being de-aged (and then re-aged) are your friends. Based on the story by @pollyrepeat

Situation Normal read by quietnight (@quietnighty) (Stucky, 20-30 Minutes, Mature)

Summary: AU wherein Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers never met, Steve somehow manages to rescue the Winter Soldier anyway, and Avengers Tower ends up with the world’s angriest duckling and a whole new brand of entertainment. - (“He was dragging him out of the river,” Natasha argues later. “Nat, be honest, he was going for the Full Monty.” Says Clint. “I’m pretty sure we interrupted him in the middle of giving ‘emergency CPR’,” Tony agrees, “Or the stage after emergency CPR. Emergency Dick? Is that a thing?” “That’s not a thing,” Natasha and Clint reply.) Based on the story by redcigar

How Steve Rogers Singlehandedly Lost the Cold War read by quietnight (@quietnighty) (Stucky, 20-30 Minutes, Mature)

Note: This is a sequel/companion to the previous fic, Situation Normal.

Summary: AU wherein Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes never met, but the Winter Soldier takes an interest in Captain America anyway, and has an odd way of showing it. -- (On the helicarrier, hurrying to reach the central hub of the third aircraft in time, the chip clenched in his gloved fist, Steve turns to find a ghost blocking his path, and is abruptly reminded on what the road to hell is paved with.) Based on the story by redcigar

Get Some Now read by where_thewind_blows (@flowersthroughthecracks) (Stony, 1-1.5 Hours, Teen And Up Audiences)

Summary: Avengers Mansion has a mysterious feline infestation. Meanwhile, Steve just can't figure out how to ask Tony out on a date. And the thirteen teleporting cats sure aren't helping matters any. Based on the story by @sineala

Mercy in You by Sineala read by Pywren (@phyrrhicvictory) (Stony, 1-1.5 Hours, Mature)

Summary: When Tony comes back from a very bad D/s date, in pain and abandoned by his dom, Steve offers to help Tony out and give him all the aftercare he so desperately needs. Based on the story by @sineala

To Keep the Home Fires Burning read by blackglass (Maria Hill/Natasha Romanov, 30-45 Minutes, Teen And Up Audiences)

Summary: Maria does three tours of cat sitting duty before she and Romanoff come to be on a first name basis. She claims a whole shelf in the pantry and sneaks in two more cat mugs too. Based on the story by Woad

[ceritasiolaa]

Menjadi Manusia Yang Bermanfaat [1]

“Tidak akan bergeser kaki manusia di hari kiamat dari sisi Rabbnya sehingga ditanya tentang lima hal: tentang umurnya dalam apa ia gunakan, tentang masa mudanya dalam apa ia habiskan, tentang hartanya darimana ia peroleh dan dalam apa ia belanjakan, dan tentang apa yang ia amalkan dari yang ia ketahui (ilmu).” (HR. Al Hakim)

Hadist diatas merupakan sebuah pengingat bagi kita dalam menapaki kehidupan di dunia ini. Jika kita telaah, maka terdapat lima hal yang akan ditanyakan oleh Allah, yakni pertama tentang umur kita digunakan untuk apa, kedua masa muda kita dihabiskan untuk melakukan apa saja, ketiga darimana harta kita, keempat untuk apa harta tersebut kita gunakan, dan kelima apa yang kita berikan pada lingkungan kita dengan ilmu yang kita miliki.

Pertama, tentang umur kita. Sudah berapa lama Allah SWT memberikan nikmat yang luar biasa di dunia ini pada hidup kita? 20 tahun? 25 tahun? Atau sudah 30-an tahun lamanya? Sudahkah kita bersyukur dengan rezeki yang telah Allah Ar-Razzaq berikan? atau malah kita lalai, lupa dengan nikmat-Nya sehingga kita menjadi orang yang sia-sia selama berpuluh-puluh tahun ini. Sesungguhnya Allah itu akan menambahkan nikmat-Nya kepada kita jika kita bersyukur.

Allah nge-reminder kita nih dalam Qur’an Surah Ibrahim ayat 7, “Sesungguhnya jika kamu bersyukur, pasti kami akan menambah (nikmat) kepadamu, dan jika kamu mengingkari (nikmat-Ku) maka sesungguhnya azab-Ku sangat pedih.”. Semoga kita senantiasa menjadi hamba-Nya yang bersyukur ya dan menghindari diri dari kufur nikmat agar jauh dari azab Allah.

Kedua, masa muda kita dihabiskan untuk melakukan apa aja? Scrolling medsos? Nongkrong ke café a,b,c? Nyari temen non halal? Ini maksudnya pacaran ya. Kalau yang kita lakukan adalah hal-hal yang tidak berfaedah, rugi banget hidup kita cuma dihabiskan untuk ketidakbermanfaatan. Aku yakin, anak muda adalah tonggak penerus peradaban. Jadi jika kegiatan kita hanyalah perkara dunia yang tidak bermanfaat, bagaimana bisa kita melanjutkan peradaban yang gemilang untuk penerus kita?

Sekarang sudah banyak komunitas-komunitas, kelompok kajian, maupun gerakan sosial yang bisa kita ikuti untuk menjadi orang yang produktif dan bermanfaat. Jangan habiskan waktu muda kita pada hal yang tidak berbobot dan mengarahkan kita pada keburukan. Carilah tempat berkembang dan bertumbuh, tempat yang bisa menjadi sarana kontribusi kita untuk ummat, dan pastinya dengan niat lurus karena Allah Ta’alaa. Jangan ingin melakukan kebaikan dengan niat terselubung, namun berniatlah karena ingin menggapai ridho-Nya.

Untuk tulisan #30DWC hari pertama, cukup kita sharing sampai dua poin diatas dulu ya. Selanjutnya hari esok kita sambung kembali.. happy reading! Semoga bermanfaat tulisannya.

| Medan, 11 September 2024 pukul 10.00 WIB

[archduchessofnowhere]

“She is unfit for her position both as Empress and as wife”: Elisabeth and Dr. Seeburger

Left: Doctor Johann Seeburger, by Ludwig Angerer, c. 1860. Via the Royal Collection Trust. Right: Empress Elisabeth of Austria, by Ludwig Angerer, c. 1861. Via Wikimedia Commons.

I had this sitting on my drafts for months, yet I didn’t find any motivation to finish this post. That is, until the first teaser of Die Kaiserin season 2 dropped, featuring, among other things, a scene in which Elisabeth spits a doctor in the face. And while something as rude as this never happened, the young empress of Austria did have a troubled relationship with one doctor at the Habsburg court: Johann Seeburger. I don’t know if the doctor in the teaser is meant to be him, but given that he and Elisabeth ended up being borderline hostile towards each other, I wouldn’t be surprised if Seeburger was the inspiration (assuming the doctor is an actual character with lines and not a random physician that will get spit on the face for no reason). So without further ado, let’s look at what we know about Elisabeth and Seeburger’s relationship.

I couldn’t find information on Dr Johann Seeburger, only that he was born in 1800, and seems to have worked at court since at least the beginning of the reign of Franz Josef (probably earlier, since it was very difficult to access court). We don’t know what kind of relationship Elisabeth and Seeburger had when they met, as biographers don’t make any mention of it. He attended Elisabeth during her first pregnancy, and I think it’s safe to assume he also treated her during her second one. Seeburger wasn’t the only doctor consulted - Doctor Heinrich Fischer, the Wittelsbach’s personal physician, was also called for a second opinion. 

Aunt Luise [Elisabeth’s mother]’s Doctor Fischer, in whom I have a great deal of confidence, has arrived here... [He was] delighted by Sisi’s blooming appearance and finds her whole condition very satisfactory. He and Seeburger say that the great moment will come at the end of February, at least the first days of March... (Praschl-Bichler, 2008)

Elisabeth probably felt more comfortable with Fischer, who had been her doctor back in Bavaria, than with Seeburger, so it’s not odd they called him for a second opinion. 

It is not only until the Imperial family’s ill-fated Hungarian trip of 1857 that Sisi’s biographers mention Seeburger again - for in this trip, her first child tragically died.

The little archduchesses Sophie and Gisela arrived in Hungary on May 5 of 1857, a day after their parents, but they never joined them in the tour - the girls were to stay in Buda, where the Imperial couple could visit them during the short breaks of the packed tour schedule, which was meant to last two months. The visit started off well, but only a few days after their arrival, Gisela fell ill with fever.

Gisela’s fever was first attributed to teething, but the next day her sister Sophie also fell ill. Franz Josef and Sisi were meant to leave Buda and continue their journey through eastern Hungary, but the emperor postponed the journey for ten days as the girls continued to be sick. This did not mean that the parents were always next to their daughters, as historian Martina Winkelhofer notes, “the days that were now free were filled with further receptions and audiences. Only the evening festive events were cancelled.” (2022)

After three days Gisela got better, but Sophie showed no improvement. Dr Seeburger was among the physicians that were present attending the young archduchesses, but still Franz Josef called the pediatrician Josef-Michael Götz from Vienna. “The latter was not only the author of the manual Care and Treatment of Sick Children during the Early Phase of Life (1842), which is in the imperial court library, but had also studied the ‘course of the great epidemics (cholera, typhus, influenza) in children’.” (ibid, 2022)

Götz left a day after being summoned, but Baby Sophie only got worse. At this point the parents were feeling desperate: Franz Josef wrote to his mother Archduchess Sophie that the girl’s cries “tore his heart apart”, and added that “‘What Sisi and I are suffering, you can imagine!’” (Praschl-Bichler, 2008). Baby Sophie was diagnosed with typhus, and the pediatrician was recalled. After a hard night it seemed the child showed signs of being better, and it was believed she would recover. So on May 21, the Imperial couple was given the all-clear by the doctors to finally continue their tour.

Here is where things get a bit odd. Quoting Winkelhofer again (emphasis by me):

Elisabeth and Franz Joseph then set off from Buda to Jászberényi with a solemn entrance into the city. On the fourth day of the tour, however - as can be read in the travel protocol - there arrived “a telegraphic dispatch about the condition of Her Imperial Highness Archduchess Sophie from Buda, the contents of which distressed His Majesty to such an extent that Her Royal Highness’s departure was already scheduled for noon”. The telegram probably came from Sophie’s aja, and may have been sent without consulting the doctors because, as soon as the decision to leave was made, a report from the court physicians arrived: “His Majesty [had] decided to interrupt the sudden departure that had already begun”. (2022)

What happened? We can only speculate - whether the aya realized that Sophie hadn’t recovered before the doctors, whether the doctors’ report arrived before the girl’s health worsened. Whatever actually happened, those hours of delay were to result crucial: the next morning Sophie was in critical condition. The parents, who were in Debrecen at the moment, only arrived in Buda the following morning, where they found their child already at death’s door. That afternoon, on May 29, the two years-old Sophie died.

I went in detail on the last days of Baby Sophie because I think they’re crucial to understand the aftermath of her death. Having been away from her daughter during her final days was a great source of torment for Elisabeth, who blamed herself for leaving the child when they thought she was going to make it. Unsurprisingly, she also felt the physicians had failed in saving her daughter. According to her biographer Egon Conte Corti, the young empress tried to have Seeburger dismissed, but Archduchess Sophie’s intervention prevented it. (1936, p. 75)

I always feel that biographers focus too much on how grief made Elisabeth act “irrational” - to the point they ignore that she had a genuine reason to be upset at Dr Seeburger. Was she being fair? I don’t know, it was the 19th century, who knows if there was any doctor who could’ve cured Baby Sophie. I want to believe that all the doctors who treated her truly did as much as they could to help the girl. Corti claims that until the end Seeburger “was very crestfallen, but when pressed with questions he would only say that he had not given up hope.” (ibid, p. 73). But it was Seeburger and the medical staff who ultimately told Elisabeth and Franz Josef that it was safe to leave Sophie and continue the trip, and it was he who sent the report that prevented them from coming back earlier the 28th. Perhaps her animosity towards the doctor was unfair, but the way I see it, it was also understandable.

After this, the relationship between the empress and the court doctor became tense. Unlike her first two, Sisi’s third pregnancy and labor were very difficult. She wasn’t allowed to nurse Rudolf - which was the norm, but she had a large influx of milk that caused her a lot of pain. More concerning, she caught fever during the puerperium, but even though Laxemburg (where the Crown Prince had been born and the empress was recovering) was cooling, as it didn’t have heating, Seeburger didn’t order to move the empress to a different palace.  Winkelhofer notes that the physician’s attitude is surprising, since there was a real danger of puerperal fever. Archduchess Sophie had to write (emphasis by me):

telegram after telegram to convince the Emperor and Seeburger that it was only the unhealthy air in Laxenburg that was causing Sisi’s fever attacks and that a speedy transfer of Sisi to my warm parlours in Schönbrunn [Sophie was staying in Ischl], well protected in a closed carriage during the warm midday hours, would certainly be advisable. Seeburger did not want to go along with this idea at first, but after the second attack of fever he said he would bring Sisi to Schönbrunn in the middle of this month; if only the bad weather did not throw a spanner in the works! (Praschl-Bichler, 2008; also in Winkelhofer, 2022)

Only months after Rudolf’s birth, Austria was at war with Sardinia. The war took a great toll on Sisi’s mental health, and she was visibly stressed. The court society found their empress disappointing: they wanted an icon of hope, a figurehead who would visit hospitals and attend public events to lift the spirits of the Viennese. But Elisabeth was only a twenty-years old woman who hadn’t known peace for the past years, and courtiers could not forgive her this. Dr Seeburger was no exception. During a meeting, the physician told the Viennese police officer that:

She [Elisabeth] is unfit for her position both as Empress and as wife; though she has really nothing to do. Her relations with the children are most perfunctory, and though she grieves and weeps over the noble Emperor’s absence, she goes out riding for hours on end, ruining her health. An icy gulf separates her from the Archduchess Sophie, and the Mistress of the Household, the Countess Esterhazy, has absolutely no influence over her. (Corti, 1936, p. 81)

If you’ve read any biography of Sisi, you’ve probably read this quote. Authors who cite this statement usually focus on what Seeburger said: Elisabeth was acting “crazy” during the war, she didn’t have a good relationship with her kids, she and her mother-in-law couldn’t stand each other anymore. His word is usually taken at face value, even if the author citing him notes that Seeburger and Sisi didn’t like each other much. Martina Winkelhofer is the only historian I’ve read who takes into account the context in which the court doctor said this, and considers what it meant (emphasis by me):

These strong words show how unfairly the emperor’s closest entourage behaved towards Elisabeth. Even if this was the court physician’s personal opinion, someone so close to the imperial family should not have expressed himself in this way. Details about members of the household were taboo and observing their silence was a sign of the loyalty necessary for a career at court. Seeburger could have written about his disappointment in the form of a diary, as many did, without publicly defaming the imperial couple. By revealing such intimacies to the police minister, who had a widespread network of informants and contacts in all parts of society, he damaged the emperor. In addition, Seeburger’s complaints contained a good deal of misogyny, because all he did was deny Elisabeth the right to be a woman, wife and mother, even out loud. (2022)

Seeburger’s statement about Elisabeth wasn’t a neutral observation: he was badmouthing her after years of having a bad relationship with her, something many authors don’t seem to realize when citing him. As Winkelhofer also notes, although Archduchess Sophie was indeed not getting along with her daughter-in-law at this time, she did not write nor say a bad thing about Elisabeth, because attacking the empress was the same as attacking the monarchy. Even if you think Seeburger was right, I don’t think you should omit the context in which he said what he said.

When Elisabeth fell mysteriously ill in 1861, she wasn’t attended by Seeburger. Many doctors treated the empress the following two years, but it was eventually her trusted family doctor, Heinrich Fischer, who was able to cure Sisi: when he finally took charge of her treatment in 1862, he concluded that she had been misdiagnosed by her previous doctors; most importantly, he seems to have noticed that her ailments weren’t only physical, but also mental. He remained her personal physician until his death in 1874. (Winkelhofer, 2022)

Elisabeth and Seeburger had a complicated relationship, to say the least. We are still missing a lot of information, but for what I could gather, the hostility between the two isn’t really surprising. What’s surprising is how this entire context is missing in so many books about the empress, especially when Seeburger’s famous quote is brought up.

Sources:

Corti, Egon Caesar Conte (1936). Elizabeth, empress of Austria (translation by Catherine Alison Phillips)

Praschl-Bichler (2008). Unsere liebe Sisi: Die Wahrheit über Erzherzogin Sophie und Kaiserin Elisabeth

Winkelhofer, Martina (2022). Sissi. La vera storia. Il cammino della giovane imperatrice (translation by Federica Saccucci)

[ifadhilaa]

Salam Kenal, Aku Ifa

Tulisan ini dibuat, untuk seseorang yang secara terang-terangan berkenan untuk mengenal Ifa.

Sebagian besar mengenal Ifa dari komunitas dan organisasi, tempat yang mengharuskan Ifa untuk bekerja dan berpikir, menyelesaikan masalah dan berinovasi. Mengambil keputusan, menjadi kakak, memberikan jawaban, mengafirmasi banyak hal, dan optimis; dengan itu orang mengenal Ifa sebagai "Mba Ifa". Sebagian lain, mengenal Ifa dari kejauhan. Melihat Ifa berkomunikasi, melihat Ifa tertawa, melihat Ifa berjalan, duduk, berdiri, dan sedikit berinteraksi; yang dengan ini kemudian orang bilang "Ifa orangnya A, B, dan C".

Sebagian lain, aku beruntung karena Allah kirimkan mereka ke dalam hidup ku. Orang-orang yang sesekali pasti menjadi tempat menumpahkan air mata, kesel, tantrum, ketawa, random, serius, mencari jawaban, dan tempat mengadu; orang-orang yang tidak segan memberi masukan atas apa yang dilakukan Ifa –yang mereka suka bilang "Iya, aku tau Ifa orangnya kaya gimana, dan sebaiknya Ifa gimana".

Hari ini, masing-masing tengah membangun kehidupannya. Sesekali bertukar cerita, beberapa bisa ditebak dengan melihat update kehidupannya di media sosial.

Kepada masing-masing orang ini, aku dengan sadar ingin mengucapkan: terimakasih sudah jadi bagian dari cerita hidupnya Ifa.

Lalu kepada kamu, orang-orang di waktu dan kesempatan yang singkat, yang kemudian berkenan untuk mengenal Ifa lebih jauh: salam kenal ya, ini aku, Ifa.

Bogor yang sudah hujan, 24 September 2024 ❤️‍🩹

*dalam rangka baru menyadari, bahwa diantara 4 Johari Windows itu ada satu bagian yang namanya 'unknown', dan karena unknown, kita juga gatau kan kapan si unknown ini keluar. makasi udah menerima sisi unknown yang kadang Ifa juga baru tau kalo punya sisi itu!

[sorotbalik]

Serial Tadzkirah-Kaburo Maqtan

Manusia itu tempat salah dan khilaf. Makannya kita diajarkan untuk senantiasa bermuhasabah, mengevaluasi diri atas apa yang telah maupun belum diukir semasa hidup. Salah satu hal yang perlu kita muhasabahi adalah perkara ilmu yang kita miliki. Lebih banyak kita ajarkan atau amalkan?

Dalam Q.S. Ash-Shaff : 2-3 Allah sampaikan :

“Hai orang-orang yang beriman, mengapa kamu mengatakan apa yang tidak kamu perbuat ? Amat besar kebencian di sisi Allah bahwa kamu mengatakan apa-apa yang tiada kamu kerjakan.”

Inti dari kedua ayat itu adalah soal tuntutan kesinambungan antara apa yang kita ucapkan dan juga amalkan. Kadang, kita merasa mampu atas keilmuan yang dimiliki, untuk memberi nasihat berlaku A atau B, atau jangan C maupun D, tapi malah dilain sisi terhadap apa yang kita lakukan, justru sebaliknya, bertolak belakang dengan apa yang kita sampaikan. Naudzubillah.

Bagi mereka yang sering mengucapkan sesuatu tapi tidak melakukannya, kata Allah dalam ayat itu, “Kabura Maqtan ‘indallah”, amat besar kebecian Allah. Serem ga tuh kalau Allah sampai benci? Ayat itu bukan bermaksud untuk menakut-nakuti, justru agar kita menjadi pribadi yang lebih berhati-hati dan teliti akan sesuatu. Kalau hal kecil saja diperhatikan, apalagi yang besar?

Tulisan ini ditulis bukan untuk mengerdilkan semangat kita untuk mensyiarkan islam atau ilmu apapun, tapi seperti poin pertama pada tulisan ini, sebagai bahan muhasabah. Evaluasi, jangan-jangan kita pernah, atau bahkan sering, secara tidak sengaja berlaku demikian.

Kita terjebak dengan semangat ingin didengar, ingin dianggap, ingin punya nama, daripada semangat untuk mengamalkan apa yang kita pelajari kemudian ucapkan. Tidak ada salahnya untuk mencoba menelisik kembali diri kita ini, mari bermuhasabah bersama, supaya menjadi pribadi yang Allah suka dan Rasulullah rindukan… Aamiin…

Semangat bermuhasabah!✨

[dear-indies]

hi, cat! i hope your day is well and you are staying safe.

can you suggest any black or black mixed female fcs who have a dreamy / sweet look to them? i usually think of halle bailey, salem mitchell, coco jones, or yaya shahidi but i’ve used them a lot atp :c

thank you! ~

Tabria Majors (1990) - has spoken up for Palestine!

Greta Onieogou (1991) Nigerian / Russian.

Kiana Madeira (1992) Black Canadian, Unspecified First Nations, Portuguese, Irish.

Pepi Sonuga (1993) Igbo and Yoruba Nigerian.

Aisha Dee (1993) African Australian / White.

Asia Jackson (1994) Ibaloi Filipino and African American - has spoken up for Palestine!

Little Simz (1994) Yoruba Nigerian - has spoken up for Palestine!

Zoë Soul (1995) Afro Trinidadian and White.

Zuri Reed (1996) African-American.

Bree Kish (1996) ¼ Black - has spoken up for Palestine!

Imaan Hammam (1996) Moroccan / Egyptian - has spoken up for Palestine!

Samantha Logan (1996) Afro Trinidadian / White.

Zhong Fei Fei (1996) Congolese / Chinese.

Sisi Stringer (1997) African Australian and White - has spoken up for Palestine!

Alisha Boe (1997) Somali / White - has spoken up for Palestine!

Alyah Chanelle Scott (1997) African-American.

Aida Osman (1997) African-American.

Yandeh Sallah (1998) Black Swedish.

Lovie Simone (1998) Ghanaian / African-American.

Cat Burns (2000) Liberian - is queer, autistic and has ADHD - has spoken up for Palestine!

Hope these help you out, anon!

[joys-of-everyday]

MXTX's women part 2

Let's do ✨discourse™✨part 2

This is a follow up to this post where the only conclusions I came to were vibes based... mainly because my opinions here are generally vibes based (except svsss - I am pretty firm on my view of svsss, but that's a separate post). I think there are strong arguments either way, and tbh I have nothing against vibes based conclusions, but for fun, I'm going to take a position and argue for it.

disclaimer: 1) this post is not my opinion. 2) nonetheless, this post is entirely unironic. I think these are compelling arguments.

Position 1: MDZS and TGCF are sexist.

To recap, I posed (dramatically, in bold face) that the most important question to ask are: What is the intent? How is that intent received? This can be summed up as: What is the message you take away?

Obviously, you can fight me here, but I'll expand. Firstly, the question doesn't fundamentally come down to what the work contains, even though this is important. Every statement on the lines of 'x is sexist because it contains y' has a counterexample. Is the Handmaid's Tale sexist because it contains men in power and women treated as objects? Well op, this is a dumb example, you might say, and you would be right. The message of the Handmaid's Tale is clearly different from, say, MDZS and everything it contains is a support of that message - that a woman's reproductive freedom is her right. And I would go, ah ha, yes. Intent. (You can still disagree with me lol. This came out of a conversation literally a week ago.)

But also note, the author's actual intent is secondary. It's a useful framing to understand what the message is, but due to e.g. unconscious bias, or internalised sexism, the message gained by the reader/audience can be entirely independent of the intent of the author. For example, (one of my all time favourite c-dramas) the Secret of the Three Kingdoms I think is trying to be empowering for women, has lots of cool female characters, but the ultimate message can be summarised as 'men plough, women weave'... which is :/

Another subtlety to point out is that trends and popular tropes/archetypes tell a very different story when looked at overall. 'Woman in the refrigerator' and 'bury your gays' isn't a problem about individual works (although it often is mixed into other problems), but it's prevalence and dominance spreads harmful messages. A work which is great on it's own can actually be contributing to a wider problem, thus making it a problem.

MDZS: Women as accessory

It's not that difficult to argue that MDZS has an exceptional cast of women. I have no intention of arguing that MDZS's women aren't well developed, because enough people have come up with compelling counterarguments and they aren't hard to find. I think MDZS's portrayal of sexism is both exceptionally nuanced and not something you see much of. I love the way MDZS uses and breaks down tropes. I would argue (have argued) that the way MXTX puts sexism into her works is (at least partly) very much deliberate, and not with the intent of being sexist.

But remember, death of the author: author's original intentions don't matter in the face of what can be read from the text.

Notable in MDZS is 1) the lack of female characters who aren't defined by their relation to a major male character 2) women in the refrigerator.

1) Jiang Yanli is Wei Wuxian's older sister. Yu Ziyuan is Wei Wuxian's adopted mother. Wang Lingjiao is Wen Chao's girlfriend. Madam Jin, Meng Shi, Qin Su. Now, there are notable exceptions. Wen Qing is Wen Ning's sister, but her character is substantial even without that. Luo Qingyang (mianmian). Sisi (arguably). But there are overwhelmingly more male characters, and perhaps more importantly, hardly any male characters defined by their relation to a female character. There are a few. Madam Mo and her husband. Jin Zixuan as Jiang Yanli's husband (arguably). This isn't an exhaustive list but you get the idea.

2) Well, firstly, most of them die. Yu Ziyuan ends up in an unhappy marriage and dies as her sect burns down. Jiang Yanli loses a husband and then sacrifices herself for her brother. Wang Lingjiao gets offed by Wei Wuxian. Qin Su is killed by her husband. Mo Xuanyu's mother and Madam Jin just die of 'heartbreak' for what? Plot convenience? More egregiously, all of these deaths are there to either a) plot reasons or b) to add to the development of a male character. This is precisely the 'women in the refrigerator' trope, but multiplied a million times.

The only female character who got her happy ending was Mianmian... who lives a simple life with her family in the middle of nowhere. And it's great that in being brave and pursuing the right thing, she found happiness for herself, but this being the only example is um...

Well, the message feels suspiciously like women exist only for men. Men are the protagonists of their stories. Women are accessories. Sounds pretty sus. Maybe this is all due to the sexism of the world, but the message is then that the only way for women to succeed is to leave the system altogether, which is a nuanced thing but not true and somewhat unhelpful as a message.

Now, arguably, MXTX is leaning into tropes in order to be critical of them. Her female characters are full of tropes, and subversions of tropes - they could act as a critique of female characters in BL (in the way the female characters in SVSSS are critique of female characters in harem). There are a few pointers to this - Mianmian standing up to sexism, or the depth and nuance of Yu Ziyuan finding power+influence through her marriage of Jiang Fengmian. But the point stands is that isn't the message most people take away, because of the way MDZS is framed. MDZS just works as a xianxia action/romance. It isn't a parody (or at least, you don't need to read it as one to follow it). It isn't explicitly critical of how the women end up, nor is the narrative centered around the experiences of women. It is very easy to take away the surface level messages, which I think many people end up doing.

Whatever MXTX intended to say with her female characters, arguably MDZS already adds to an existing problem in how media portrays women. Media plays a huge role in how we see ourselves and other people, and unideal representation of women can lead to unconscious biases and stereotypes which are harmful. This being the case, one could argue that any media that fails to either fix the issue or address the issue sufficiently is problematic. On this vein, MDZS falls short.

TGCF: women as secondary

While TGCF improves on the front of women in power doing well, and more explicitly calling out the sexism of the world, it fails at a different front: the lack of women within the core plot.

The structure of TGCF is very different to MDZS, in that it contains a lot of what I would call 'side quests'. This is not a bad thing (this is sort of the whole point of things like (old) Star Trek or Doctor Who). But the core story of TGCF is (arguably) 1) Xie Lian's two ascensions and in between 2) Meeting Hua Cheng at various points 3) Tonglu mountain. And within this core story, there isn't a single female character necessary for the plot.

Ling Wen, Xuan Ji, Banyue, Shi Qingxuan, Yushi Huang... are all exceptional female (and non-binary) characters in their own right, but the story doesn't require them. They could be swapped out quite easily with other characters, unlike e.g. main pair, Feng Xin, Mu Qing, Jun Wu... (Note this isn't about how often they appear, or how developed they are. Lang Ying (the old one) doesn't appear a lot, but is essential to the plot.) (Yushi Huang and Ling Wen are kind of required, but equally for like... quest and item giving purposes which is not really the same.)

It's almost like there is no female person in Xie Lian's life who is essential to his personhood. And the message might inadvertently be that women are part of side quests - they aren't necessary.

This is, in part, a Xie Lian problem. The narration is tied closely to Xie Lian's pov (but isn't third person limited, interestingly), and we get delights like this:

Aside from the fact that Xuan Ji went mad whenever she ran into Pei Ming, she was otherwise much more detail-oriented and cautious than Qi Rong - she was a woman, after all.

(btw, be exceptionally suspicious of statements like 'women are more detail-oriented and cautious'. They are often wrong, or with heavy caveats.)

This is not on it's own a bad thing - e.g. compare with Shen Qingqiu's narration in SVSSS. But it is arguably a bad thing if you pair it with the fact that Xie Lian is 1) presented as much more likable than Shen Qingqiu 2) is not as obviously bias. He comes across as a trustable character, and so we are less likely to question his biases... so we run into the same problem as in MDZS: we aren't led to question the surface level messages, so the message we take away is an unhelpful one.

I feel like the way around this is (somewhat paradoxically) to reintroduce female characters whose lives (from narrator pov) revolve around the protagonist. (e.g. get in an Jiang Yanli) (The 800 year time skip means they either need to 1) become gods, 2) become ghosts 3) die, all of which have their own potential problems but that's for the author to figure out :p) Making Xie Lian less sexist would be slightly unrealistic but not at all out of character. Having Xie Lian's biases explicitly called out and this be a big thing is another way to go. Or both.

To conclude

Both points fall down to something along these lines: although both MDZS and TGCF make attempts at commentary on the struggles of women, because this narrative is not at the forefront of the story they inadvertently give across only half the message, which is worse than no message at all. 'There are tropes within the genre which treat women badly and this is bad' becomes 'women are like what these tropes say they are like'. 'Women aren't given opportunities so end up worse off' becomes 'women end up worse off'.

Maybe something in between MDZS to TGCF would be an improvement, but also, if the focus on male characters meant these narratives were difficult to execute within a reasonable word count, it might have been better to just skip sexism altogether. (sci fi is usually where this is attempted seriously, but fantasy definitely has scope for imagining better societies.) (This is all much easier said than done btw. Part of a fan's job is to stand on the sidelines and complain, right? 😂)

[fahmarosyada]

Bismillah..

Niat nulis ini buat healing diri sendiri sih sebenernya, udah sekitar semingguan ini off gak bikin story instagram dan itu disengaja karena emang lagi pengen menghilang, selain karena bentuk usahaku dalam menjaga self control supaya gak over sharing terkait fase apa yang ku jalani sekarang. Lebih takutnya, takut banget dikira sambat aka ngeluh wkwkw.. Karena semenjak jadi ibu tuh, yang ku rasakan ya, ngeluh dikit aja tuh udah salah, jadi ya agak gimana gitu akunya. Padahal sebenernya tuh adakalanya itu tuh semacam isyarat atau apa ya istilahnya, aku kasih tanda kalau aku tuh butuh bantuan, tapi ya gitu, entahlah ada aja omongan yang kadang agak nyelekit di hati. Niat cerita tuh buat healing aja sebenernya, tapi ya masih aja takut. Gatau sih ya apakah ibu-ibu yang lain juga merasakan hal yang sama, tapi itu yang ku rasakan.

Jadi, kalau kalian yang baca ini merasa tulisan ini tidak penting untuk kalian, lebih baik tidak usah dibaca ya. Terima kasih..

Hmm, lebih ke doa sih kayaknya ya.. Lagi-lagi, mau agak sambat tapi agak gimana gitu wkwk.. Cuma bisa berharap semoga fase nursing strike ini segera berlalu, dedek mimiknya mulai normal lagi (banyak mimik dan gak banyak drama), gak sering rewel, dan dimudahkan Allah dalam segala urusan termasuk juga ketika mengurus urusan domestik rumah tangga.

Kurleb dua mingguan ini rasanya campur aduk banget, sampai rasanya tuh energi udah bener-bener habis bahkan sekedar untuk buka sosial media. Sebenernya masih bisa sih, curi-curi waktu banget buat buka IG misalnya, tapi itu juga gak lama. Bahkan sekedar buat balesin DM dan WA tuh rasanya energi udah bener-bener habis, ditambah emosi bener-bener berkecamuk banget, meledak-ledak pengen marah karena bingung banget ini kenapa kok anakku minumnya jadi lebih sedikit dari biasanya, aku takut dia dehidrasi dll segala macam. Sampai akhirnya aku bawa anakku ke dokter spesialis anak (DSA), eh lha sampai sana malahan diajari cara nyusuin dedek, strategi gitu sih ya istilahnya. Kalau posisi A gamau, bisa coba alternatif posisi B, C, D dsb. Atuh mah aturan aku ke konselor laktasi aja ya, pikirku gitu. Tapi di satu sisi ya lumayan lega juga karena anakku gapapa. Ya memang bisa dibilang sebetulnya dia dehidrasi ringan karena kurang minum, dan penyebabnya ternyata karena lagi di fase nursing strike ini. Huhu rasanya mau nangis banget kalau keinget kurleb semingguan kemarin sebelum ke DSA, karena momen menyusui jadi terasa horor, baik untukku sendiri dan juga dedek. Bahkan ada tuh fase di mana aku akhirnya gamau nyusuin dedek, karena takut ditolak. Padahal anaknya udah nangis kejer, tapi akunya sendiri takut juga mau nyusuin, bukan bermaksud tega tapi masih berasa banget horornya, dan aku gamau emosi lagi. Akhirnya aku kasih dedek ASIP dari freezer, qadarullah dia pas gamau minum banyak, huhu pengen nangis kalau inget ini lagi. Ngelihat faktanya gini, barulah aku luluh ku coba buat nyusuin lagi, alhamdulillah dia mau walaupun cuma dikit, tapi setidaknya ada yg masuk asi ku.

Hmm, apaa lagi ya.. Udah dulu deh, anakku nangis. Alhamdulillah lega juga bisa nulis ini..

09/10/24

[jordanandegypt]

Petra and other thoughts - part 1

September 18, 2024

Greetings from Cairo, Egypt.  We have had a busy day of travel and I’m trying to finish my write up about Petra before we have new experiences that will push it into to past.  So - here goes…

......

It is the early hours of Sept. 18 and I was just too tired to write about the amazing and massive site of Petra last night, BUT I wanted everyone to know we are just fine and safe.  We leave Jordan this AM and fly to Egypt.    Our Petra experiences follow but have taken a back seat to global issues.  We were so sad to hear the news coming out of Lebanon while we were experiencing Petra and all its glories.  From our brief trip here - we know things will not be made better for this event.  

Here is the latest from The NY Times: 

Israel carried out its operation against Hezbollah on Tuesday by hiding explosive material within a new batch of Taiwanese-made pagers imported into Lebanon, according to American and other officials briefed on the operation.

The pagers, which Hezbollah had ordered from Gold Apollo in Taiwan, had been tampered with before they reached Lebanon, according to some of the officials. Most were the company’s AP924 model, though three other Gold Apollo models were also included in the shipment.

The explosive material, as little as one to two ounces, was implanted next to the battery in each pager, two of the officials said. A switch was also embedded that could be triggered remotely to detonate the explosives.

At 3:30 p.m. in Lebanon, the pagers received a message that appeared as though it was coming from Hezbollah’s leadership, two of the officials said. Instead, the message activated the explosives. Lebanon’s health minister told state media at least nine people were killed and more than 2,800 injured.

SalamSeptember 17, 2024

Salam,

We have a huge day today but I’m up super early because Mark was right about the bed - it is like sleeping on a pile of bricks.  Now I have a tiny air mattress that can change a brick mattress into a manageable night sleep - but where is that magic little item?  In the closet in my house in Michigan.  DANG IT!!!  That takes up very little room and it will NOW be a required packing item. I am - and I’m not proud of this - like the princess and the pea.  I like my bed soft with no lumps with a top sheet, please.  (I bring a top sheet - FYI.)  I bring my own pillow too but that is because I like a down pillow and I have a tiny one that is perfect for me and rolls up to be very small.  Wah-wah!  How dare I complain about this clean bed in this clean room in this practically brand new, highly modern hotel?  I know I shouldn’t but here I am.  I’m not proud of this, either BTW.🥴

Moving on… While I expect to see remarkable things today, I want to take a few minutes to talk about things I have learned and viewpoints I have never considered.  Today, at age 72, when I think of the Middle East, I think of a conglomeration of countries that seemingly hate each other.  I think of hotheaded strongmen political leaders (Netanyahu, Bashar al-Assad, Mohammed bin Salman, Abd el-Fattah el-Sisi, Yahya Sinwar, also known as Abu Ibrahim, just to name a few) who have little or no interest in human life, human rights or in advancing the lives of their people. POWER & MONEY.  I also think of the people who live in this unjust frightening place and wonder why they can’t fix this -  but know I better understand.  

After meeting some Jordanians, I have a different perspective.  First - these damn borders.  

The borders of the Middle East were drawn during World War I by a Briton, Mark Sykes, and a Frenchman, Francois Picot.

The two diplomats' pencils divided the map of one of the most volatile regions in the world into states that cut through ethnic and religious communities.

Later dubbed the Sykes-Picot treaty, the secret agreement was signed by Paris and London on May 16, 1916, to become the basis on which the Levant region was shaped for years to come.

A century on, the Middle East continues to bear the consequences of the treaty, and many Arabs across the region continue to blame the subsequent violence in the Middle East, from the occupation of Palestine to the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), on the Sykes-Picot treaty.

I was struck by how “global” the lives of our Home Hosted dinner appeared to be.  Grandmother was born in Saudi Arabia to a Saudi father and an Egyptian mother and they had moved to Jordan when she was a teenager. Each of her children had married people from one country or another near Jordan.  Our trip leader Nad has an uncle somewhere in Michigan that lived in Palestine but emigrated in 1949 - when getting out was easier.  

Let’s put this into context for a minute.  Below is an overview of the Middle Eastern countries atop the US.    One can see that how easily it would be to move from Kentucky to Michigan (my family) or from Iowa and Minnesota (Mark’s family) for better employment.

Moving back and forth should be easy - but suddenly it is not.  It would be as if suddenly we needed a Visa to go to Ohio.  So people in the Middle East can no longer visit friends and family.  It also shocked me that our hostesses at our Home Hosted Dinner told us they had been trying to visit a sister who had lived in Texas for 30 years.  The grandmother, mother and the great grandmother applied for US Visas and the only person that was granted a Visa was Great-grandmother - who does not speak English and cannot travel alone.  No explanation as to why the denial - just NOPE!   It is pissing me off.

I will finish this rant and talk about Petra - the jewel in the crown of Jordan.  WOWZA!!

Most everyone is familiar with the slot canyon that leads you to the “Treasury” - thanks to Indiana Jones, but I don’t think people know how that is just the “welcome center” and there is much, much more to see.   The map below gives you an idea of the size and the white area is just sand while the beige area represents the solid sandstone cliffs that surround this city.

But first whose city is this and when was it constructed?  I will let Lonely Planet fill you in…

The spectacular sandstone city of Petra was built in the 3rd century BC by the Nabataeans, who carved palaces, temples, tombs, storerooms and stables from the soft stone cliffs. Today it is a World Heritage Site that needs little introduction; suffice to say, no visit to Jordan is complete without at least two days spent exploring the remarkable Ancient City. It is approached through the adjacent town of Wadi Musa, which is the accommodation and transport hub.

It was from Petra that the Nabataeans, a community of master builders whose skills included hydraulic engineering, iron production and copper refining, commanded the trade routes from Damascus to Arabia, profiting by the taxes paid on the caravans that passed through Nabataean territory. An earthquake in AD 555 is the most likely cause of the city's demise, but thankfully many of Petra's most impressive structures remain intact, making it a treasure trove of architectural surprises, hidden along hiking trails of various lengths and difficulties.

The Ancient City is approached through the 1.2km-long, high-walled Siq – a crack in the rock, torn apart by tectonic forces. Just as you start to think there’s no end to the Siq, you catch breathtaking glimpses ahead of the most impressive of Petra’s sights, the Treasury, known locally as Al Khazneh. Carved out of iron-laden sandstone to serve as a tomb, the Treasury gets its name from the misguided local belief that an Egyptian pharaoh hid his treasure in the top urn. The Greek-style pillars, alcoves and plinths are truly masterpieces of masonry work.

From the Treasury, the way broadens into the Outer Siq, riddled by more than 40 tombs known collectively as the Street of Facades. Just before you reach the weather-worn 7000-seat Theatre, notice a set of steps on the left. These ascend to the High Place of Sacrifice, a hilltop altar, an easy but steep 45-minute climb. Descend on the other side of the mountain via the Garden Tomb, Roman Soldier’s Tomb and Garden Triclinium and follow your nose back to the Street of Facades, not far after the Theatre.

Time for some pics…. This is heading into the site…

Finally, the gorge…. 

Well protected..

Traveling buddy Phil had the music at the ready as we walked almost an hour before this revealed itself.  It was so much fun walking to this music, that I suggest you listen to the music as you view our pics.

OK - let’s go….

Parts of the gorge are the original road.

In this arid, often shaded place little plants fight to live.  Above is a caper tree.

Then finally the reveal…

TA-DA!!!

But like I said - only the welcome center.

I have a restriction on the number of photos I can send all at once - so this post is PART 1.

You will hear from me soon. If you want more info watch this:

Salam

[xerith-42]

Hiiii here's a mini essay of character analysis based on mythos that's all about C!Dream of all characters because Halfy and Winks made a song once and now I spend at least ten minutes every day thinking about this stupid green bitch

Dream is Sisyphus because the same question fails to be asked of their stories, and their crimes are surprisingly similar. The only difference is the punishment.

Sisyphus was punished for trying to cheat death, twice. The second time he involved his wife in this scheme and resulted in her being punished as well (source needed). For his great crime of trying to usurp the power of the gods, he was forced to spend eternity pushing a boulder up a hill, only for it to roll back down, and he has to start all over again. For all of eternity. He got the immortality he wanted, but at what cost?

Dream has always had one goal, his own Sisyphean task before he even became the man himself: control. His goal was always control, control of land, of resources, of others, whatever he could get his hands on. And he was never going to get it. He was never going to maintain it. Even if he gets the boulder higher than he ever has, it will always go back down the hill and he will have to start again.

And then he cheats death. And he drags his wife Punz into it. (A-Am I allowed to sincerely call Punz Dream's wife in a semi-serious character analysis?? I'm gonna do it anyway). And that act of cheating death AND dragging Punz into it is just another attempt at control. If Dream can control who lives and who dies, then no one can ever deny him of control ever again. He's the sole difference between them getting to come back or spend however long he wants in their own torturous purgatory, their own Sisyphean afterlife.

And for this crime, this continuous series of crimes he has freely committed all in search of this control over death, control over others, the power to be a god, he is punished. He is punished to rot away in a prison with no attachment to the outside world, isolated from everyone and severing every string of control he had. Day in and day out it's the same never ending cycle, the same starch raw food, and whatever changes he has don't ultimately matter. Nothing he does ever makes it actually easier or any closer to ending. No matter how high he pushes the boulder, it always rolls back down the hill.

But we still haven't asked the crucial question posed at the start of the post. The question I think many have failed to ask in regards to both of these men.

Does the punishment fit the crime?

There's a second question actually that's equally important when asking about punishment fitting the crime: What were they punished for? It's here that we find not the difference between a man like Sisyphus and a man like Dream, but rather the difference in their punishers.

Sisyphus was punished for trying to cheat death, for undermining the power of the gods, and using trickery to do it. He was punished by the gods for threatening their power. For trying to sub plant the gods and their created process of life and death, Sisyphus was given his eternal task.

I'd argue that cheating death, regardless of the gods or whatever, is just not a cool thing to do because if you want to cheat death just be cool enough to be remembered after and you'll never truly die. Also Sisypuss actively implicated his wife in his schemes and then gaslit her and Persephone about it, and gaslighting women is not cool. ON TOP OF THAT, before Sisy was ever trying to cheat death and fucking with gods, he was a brutal tyrant who openly slaughtered guests in his own home because it was fun for him.

So what I'm saying is that Sisyphus was a fucking loser.

Just like Dream!

Speaking of which, Dream wasn't actually punished for cheating death. Nobody actually gave that much of a shit about Dream's sudden ability to cheat death because he had already burned every piece of goodwill he had with everyone else in his desperate grabs for control. It doesn't matter if he has an entire vault of valuables to hold over others if everybody fucking hates him for being a lying, conniving, manipulative, and often malicious presence in their lives.

No, Dream was punished for everything except cheating death. He was punished the way Sisyphus should have been punished. He was punished for fucking with people, for meddling in their lives, for tearing them down, for using political forces for personal gain, for pulling innocent's into his schemes, for forsaking his own wife in his desperate need for control Dream was imprisoned.

Does the punishment fit the crime?

Uhhh... I'm a prison abolitionist... And a psychologist with an unhealthy fixation on an under developed fictional character so... Maybe not the best person to ask or answer this.

But I like asking these questions about myth, and about the stories we tell now, because in another world the Dream SMP is the equivalent to the Greek Empire and is the basis for a lot of people's understandings of mythology and mythos. And in that world, and in the world where we all freely recognize Tommy as Theseus, I say that Dream is the dsmps version of Sisyphus.

Also this entire essay was so I could post this doodle I drew in creative writing that I'm really proud of but doesn't make sense if you don't have the Dream = Sisyphus idea that I've been carrying in my brain for months now