#tuberculosis representation

[cripplecharacters]

Hi, 

So, I have written expression disorder and dysgraphia, which means this might be a bit rambly or unclear but I’ll try my best to stay on as clear and as brief as I can. 

I’m currently writing a fanfiction for Wynonna Earp as a way to improve my writing skills without needing to stress about it. Background on the show: It’s a supernatural show based around a descendant of Wyatt Earp who was a legal officer in the wild west and got involved in a massive feud. It also has his friend Doc Holliday becoming immortal and being a love interest for the main character. The primary reason I’m doing this is because I dislike how they portrayed Doc Holliday in the series (often outright the opposite of the reality) and also because they just left out the fact he was disabled completely. Due to a gunshot wound when he was fairly young, probably along with weakness due to having tuberculosis for most of his adult life, which did eventually kill him, he used a cane part time. He also had a cleft lip and palate that was surgically corrected and he got surgery for it as an infant and had speech therapy, which doesn’t really seem to have impacted his adult life much in what I’m writing.

 I do have chronic pain due to an injury which was pretty bad when I was younger, so having a character who’s portrayed as dealing with that and continuing to be brave and selfless would have meant the whole world to me at that point in my life and still will. But as I was doing research I ran into a few things I knew very little about. 

My own disabilities are invisible, which means that I don’t have much experience with how people respond to seeing mobility aids. It would be interesting to show people’s responses, especially since he pretty famously took offense easily and didn’t leave things alone. There’s a fun scene there but I’m not sure what a common response to set it off would be. The biggest problem I have, that I haven’t been able to find a lot about: according to a medical article I read even when it’s cured people who had tuberculosis typically have some lung damage. I haven’t been able to find a lot on how that would impact someone day to day. He was cured of it magically but the idea of there still being damage makes sense based on the in universe rules and also someone being magically cured is generally considered not good. So how would it impact someone on a daily basis?

There’s some things in the research I did that make me think he was autistic (namely literal thinking to the point where he almost killed someone due to not understanding that a duel was meant to be a joke as a teen). Or maybe I’m just projecting because I am. Any ideas for how somebody who grew up in a time where nuerodivergence just wasn’t known would accommodate himself and be helped by friends? How would they understand it at that time?

How in general do friends respond to disabilities and try to help now?

There’s a few other things but they’re mainly just me being a beginner writer who doesn’t honestly. Thank you so much for reading through this even if you don’t end up responding!

[part 2] clarification: I meant the cleft palate wouldn't come up in what I'm writing because he's an adult and it didn't seem to have huge bearing on his adult life. I'm so sorry I left out part of that sentence in my ask bc I have a learning disability! didn't mean to! I'm so sorry and thank you again!

Hello!

People respond in many ways. In the modern west a lot of it involves random strangers being intrusive as shit ("what happened to you??") but in historical times I think it would be more of avoidance, especially if he has visible symptoms of tuberculosis. People still think that "visibly disabled person coughing = plague". If you're going for historical accuracy, it wouldn't really surprise me if strangers didn't want to sit next to him.

Long tuberculosis (affecting 25% of those who had TB) seems to be very similar to COPD, so the main day-to-day effect would probably be fatigue, being out of breath after physical exertion, etc. COPD is an incredibly common disability so you should be able to find a lot of info about it and how it can be managed.

Friends will also respond in many ways, and it also depends a lot on the disabled person. This guy sounds like the "hyper-independent physically disabled man" type and in my experience most of them don't talk about their needs much, especially not with the boys. In this case the accommodation is often just silently agreed on after spending some time together (e.g., after a few times going out they can see how annoyed he gets when they suddenly change plans so they learn to tell him as soon as they know, if he drops something they pick it up for him without saying anything since they know it's tiring for him to get up, etc.). If they know him well enough to know he takes offense easily they probably wouldn't bring up his inability to do something to not upset him and try to work around it instead.

I don't have enough historical knowledge to answer the second question, so I'll leave it to other mods. But I think it'd make sense if they just thought he was eccentric or weird rather than having a medical condition.

Hope this helps,

mod Sasza

Hello, thank you for your ask! In regards to the second question, it would depend on his symptoms, how well/if he could mask, and how other people view(ed) him.

I'm assuming he's level 1 / low support needs, as you don't mention him having a caretaker or difficulty doing tasks. Some of the examples include specific autistic traits that he may or may not have/used to have, they're mostly there to be examples. These are also assuming you're writing him as an adult only, if you want some info on how it would be like growing up during this time let us know!

Without good knowledge of autism, most people would think he's very strange if he cannot [fully] mask. Flat affect, lack of social understanding and other symptoms would make most allistic people uncomfortable, with responses ranging from thinking he's just weird [and would want to avoid him] to believing he's angry at them specifically [and would either want to avoid him or get aggressive themselves]. Most people will probably just see it as character quirks rather than symptoms of anything, or even think he's choosing to act the way he does. His friends would most likely be other neurodivergent people who either experience the same symptoms or don't have enough of a social understanding to realize he's not acting 'correctly' if he doesn't mask.

Unless his friends/family experience similar symptoms to him, they probably wouldn't understand why he does/reacts the way he does. This isn't to say they wouldn't try to accommodate him still, that moreso depends on the individual, but those who don't understand might try to push him to 'get over it' more than someone who gets it. Like Sasza said, over time his friends would be able to accommodate him by noticing what makes him upset/happy and how to help. 'Doc likes to keep his hands busy so I gave him my butterfly knife to spin' or ' the yelling in the hall was bothering him so I asked if he wanted to go to outside with me' could be ways of accommodating him without realizing, basically seeing his symptoms and trying to find an easy solution to help, wether or not they understand them. They could also give him unhelpful solutions while trying to accommodate, which would probably just further stress Doc if given in a stressful situation. Essentially unless he knows what helps and tells them it would be a guessing game for them [if he does that or his friend[s] respect it depends on them]. Try to think of his symptoms and what might be available at the time to help [like stim toys didn't exist back then but butterfly knives did, and ear defenders weren't a thing but he could walk away if needed].

As to how he'd accommodate himself, he wouldn't know words like 'stim' or 'overstimulated,' but if he doesn't care about/understand social norms he would be more likley to 'move in odd ways' or exit an upsetting area. A more socially conscious person might try to hide it, like using small tactile stims [i.e. rubbing a cloth or tapping his foot] or making excuses to leave an upsetting area. He might also be able to mask and try to just bear it, only unmasking around friends or in private.

Also the wiki said he was born in 1851 but died in 2020, and although autism would be named during his lifetime I'm not sure he would identify with it. The first medical documentation of autism was in 1877, and at the time it was called developmental [r-slur]. I doubt he'd want to identify with that, and even later on autism was only ever studied in children, and of course was not thought of well. It was thought to be caused by cold parenting or a form of psychosis/schizophrenia exclusive to children in the early to mid 1900's. For many, many years the only idea of autism he'd have would essentially be that. Because most studies at the time thought autism could be 'grown out of' [with exception to higher support needs people] he'd have lived most of his life at that point believing it was a child only disease. Even if he hadn't heard about autism until the late 1900's-early 2000's, it was still thought of as a stigmatized childhood disease by the public until recently [even by people today, hence the blog's existence]. If he's the type of character to be less set in his opinions at an old age then maybe later he could read on modern autism and identify with it, but I find older people tend to prefer dismissing disability for the sake of avoiding any change.

I hope this was at all helpful!

Mod Rot

[heavenlymorals]

Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2: Realism Vs Romantacism

(Warning: Spoilers for RDR2 and RDR1 and that this is a long post.)

But first, let's get a better idea on what these genres and philosophies actually entailed.

During 19th century America, there were two famous genres of literature that became wildly popular- Romantacism and Realism. These genres shaped many philosophies and are interwoven into so many famous stories that it is kinda insane, but today, for this retrospective, I want to speak on how these two genres shaped both RDR1 and RDR2.

Romantacism came as a sort of critique of the Enlightment Era. The Enlightment Era was a period of reason and rejection of spirituality. It focused a lot on what was real and in front of a person rather than the experience and interpretation of an event or thing. Dutch represents this idea in this line to John where he says:

"Real. Oh how I detest that word. So devoid of imagination."

And to Arthur:

"We are dreamers in an ever duller world of fact, I'll give you that."

Romantacism is such a broad subject but there were generally three aspects of it that was generally consistent- the relationship between man and himself, man and nature, man and god, and how those experiences create the essence of life. The idea of the oversoul in Romantacism is a deep understanding of nature and spirituality that makes someone as equal to God himself, or that's the simplest way that I can explain it. Romantacism is also about the experience between man and man and ideas of hope, dreams, new beginnings, friendships, life, and love. (Dark Romanticism is way more gloomy, but many of the characteristics are still the same. For this post, though, we'll focus on just Romantacism.)

But what romantacism is about overall is the authentic experience of life and the personal interpretation of it- no matter how imaginative it is. This is where romanticisation occurs. Of war, of historical periods, of certain types of living, etc. etc.

Since that is romantacism, what is realism? Well, I'm sure you already know, but realism is supposed to be a representation of what life actually is and usually in a negative way. Realism isn't concerned with the imagination of an event as it is more concerned with what life is actually like and how it affects people. There really isn't much more to say then that. Realism is about real life and usually in a negative way. For context, realism became popular in the US after the Civil War as for the first time, a lot of people saw such intense pain and death and debauchery.

Like, If "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen is a romantacised story of a woman's love life during a historical time period, then Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" is a story soaked in the constructs of realism. This is just one comparison of the two genres.

So what does this have to do with Red Dead Redemption? Simple. Each game represents one of the genres as its main focal point for story telling.

RDR2 is a game that is all about romantacism, especially if you play it as it should be played as high honor Arthur Morgan.

Arthur's main storyline is about finding redemption, sure, but he finds that redemption through the authentic experience of life and his interpretation of it. Prior to his tuberculosis, Arthur saw himself as only a cog in the bad machine that was their life. He robbed, intimidated, and killed without much thought to what it actually meant for him because well, this is the way it is and how it always has been.

However, when he gets tuberculosis, his attitude changes. With the limited time he has left, he brings himself to ponder life itself and interprets it in a way that contrasts his previous thought process that the world is dark and gloomy and that he's just another part of it. In his limited time, he begins to see good. If not in him, than in others. In the love people have for others, in the strength that people have for others, in the passion that people have for others.

Arthur begins to appreciate life itself and that's also why the stranger missions in chapter 6 are so much more personal as a whole- Arthur's interpretation of life becoming better in the short time he has left makes him much more heartfelt and sentimental- a key component of romantacism. He helps a widow who could've died out there for no reason other than wanting her to live and live well. He becomes friends with a veteran and helps him out even though he knows that death is around the corner for him and his time with the man would be short. And of course, the debt missions and the helping of Edith. Arthur forgives the debts, gives money, and sees human life as far more valuable than the debt.

And in the end? Arthur saves John and dies knowing that he tried his best to not just survive but to live. That's his experience and his interpretation of it- becoming a better man and valuing people more than things. And then there is the epilogue- there is hope and happiness and a sense of accomplishment. All the pain feels over and a new light has been cast onto life.

In fact, this archetype in Romanticism, which is about finding redemption through the larger human experience, is quite famous overall. It's not unique to just Arthur Morgan. One of the most famous romantic stories of the era was Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", and Victor Frankenstein undergoes a similar journey, albeit more subdued than Arthur's.

In the beginning of the book, Victor starts out as a representation of realism. He's obsessed with science and doesn't really care about his family and friends. He goes on for long periods of time just thinking about science because of his own hubris and desire to become famous and accomplished. He rejects art, love, and all the things that constitute the human experience for the sake of science, which represents realism. As he begins to see the faults in his actions and the mistake of creating his monster, things begin to change. He becomes more interested in his friends, his fiancée, and life itself as a concept rather than what it is in front of him.

Yes, Mary Shelley wrote the book as a criticism of the unregulated pursuit of science, but if you dig deeper, it's not just about that. It's about keeping romance, ideals, and the human experience in your heart, because without them, things will be worse than they already are. Many ideas and philosophies aren't realistic, but we keep them to enrich the human experience. That is what Romanticism is about, and that is what Arthur Morgan's story is about. Like Victor, his story could be boiled down to a rejection of realism and an embrace of Romanticism.

And besides just the story being a love letter to Romantacism, there is the scenery too. As stated, one big part of Romantacism is nature and RDR2's nature is just gorgeous. It's bright and scenic and beautiful like a lot of romantic paintings. Arthur connects to nature by living in it and drawing it and experiencing it. Even the ambiance of the landscape is calm and relaxing, adding to the beautiful experience of the American wilderness.

So what about Red Dead Redemption 1? Red Dead Redemption 1 is all about realism. It doesn't care about ideals or hopes. Its story is one of realism, portraying the realistic end of an outlaw. Where Red Dead Redemption 2 ends with John and his family finally getting the life they've always wanted and possibly starting over again, Red Dead Redemption 1 rejects that. The Pinkertons find John, and he is set out to kill his brothers-in-arms. He can't escape his old life, even if he wants to—it will always come back to haunt him. John has killed and robbed and done so many terrible things that the dream of him being able to settle down and just be a farmer in the end is just that, a dream. Even when John does what Edgar Ross wants him to do, he gets shot down like a dog in the end anyway. He has to pay for his sins, and in a sick way, this is justice for all the men he has killed before in his outlaw life. There is no other end for John realistically than to be put down like a dog. It is his tragedy, his fate, and a realistic fate for an outlaw.

John's path is lonely. Most of the people he meets are people that he does not want to be associated with. Seth is a creepy grave robber, Irish is a drunk bastard, and West Dickens is just a scamming piece of s*** who doesn't scam the rich and people who already have too much, but he scams the poor, the working man, the person who is uneducated. They are all very realistic criminals, and John has to deal with it because all he wants is his family and the men that the Pinkertons sent him to capture. The people that he does respect, like Leigh Johnson and Bonnie McFarland, are professional relationships at best. John has to rely on himself and only himself, which is a very popular theme in realism. Unlike in Red Dead 2, he has no one to turn to, no one to watch his back. He has no family and no friends. He is alone, and he has to deal with his sins because the world will not forget, as he mentions time and time again.

Romanticism is dead. Ideals are dead. A young woman's pursuit of God leaves her dead in the desert, and John can do nothing to help her. The idea of the noble West is torn apart by violent gangs that do nothing but rape, kill, and steal. Men come to exploit the pain of colonialism. Eugenics is a thriving science. The most apparent example that ideals are dead is the Mexican revolution. Abraham Reyes makes the people believe that he will be better, that he will be the Messiah for these peasants, but the reality is that he turns out to be just as bad or even worse than the already established dictatorship in the country. And John doesn't care. He's not there to be a hero for the people; he's simply there to grab Javier and Bill and then go. That's why he is just as comfortable working for the dictatorship as he is working with the rebels. He does not care. All he cares about is his family, and anything bad that happens to others pains him, but it is not his problem. That is what realism is about. It's not the interpretation of life, but what life actually is, and a lot of times, life is cruel and bitter and terrible. Things are unfair, and sometimes people have to pay with their life and identity.

John dies in the end, and like a lot of children and wives of these outlaws and criminals, Abigail and Jack suffer. Abigail does not last long, as she dies just a couple of years later, and Jack has to bear the sins of his father on his back, like many children of outlaws and criminals did. Even when Jack kills Ross, there is no sense of triumph, no happiness or joy; it's just an empty feeling of "what now?" Where revenge in Red Dead Redemption 2 is idealized and romantic, even beautiful in a sense, revenge in Red Dead Redemption is empty and grotesque, leaving the player with nothing but emptiness. There's nothing left; everything is gone.

And just look at the scenery of Red Dead Redemption. Yes, it's beautiful, sure, but it's dull and dark. There isn't a lot of color, there aren't a lot of people or animals; it's drab. If RDR2 is a field with a pretty Instagram filter on it, then RDR1 is the field without the filter. The ambience of the game is also dark and weary, putting the player on edge as John cannot relax like Arthur can. John needs to find his family as he has to pay for the sins of his outlaw life.

Although Romantacism isn't a very popular genre today, often overshadowed by realism, both genres of literature and philosophy are paraded in these games.

Arthur is the romantic hero- someone who finds his own meaning of life and turns hopeful and idealistic because of it. RDR2 is a romantic game.

John is the realistic hero- someone who deals with the cards that life gives him and is exhausted from it as he knows his singular efforts won't cause an end to his pain. RDR1 is a realistic game.

And I just think that's very cool. Understanding those two genres of American literature allows the player to understand the games on a deeper level.

(I ain't reading allat)

[blacknedsoul-blog]

Lenore Vandernatch: the rogue, the gothic heroine and the courtly knight. A review of archetypes

Okay, after going over my notes, here we are again. In case you don't know what this is all about, here is the first of these posts where I'm doing a review of some of the archetypes that Annabel and Lenore seem to be taking notes on.

Just so this doesn't end up being another 3000 word post, let's get started.

The Rogue

In 1554, the first written version of "El Lazarillo de Tormes" was published, the foundational work of what would become known in Spain as the "picaresque novel": stories centered on the rogue, a poor rascal who uses trickery to ensure his survival.

At this stage of the game, we have rogues in a variety of flavors and colors. It would be difficult to make a comprehensive list, so let's talk about these characters in general.

The first thing to note is that rogues are, by definition, outsiders. In the traditional picaresque, the rogue is simply someone from the lower classes, but as this archetype has grown, it has become less about class and more about criminality.

Yes. Rogues are criminals: thieves like Robin Hood, swindlers like the Lazarillo...

Fraud, arson. You name it.

Getting back to the issue of the rogue as an outsider, they may have been one from the start, or they may have become one after attaining their criminal status. Regardless of the reason, these people operate outside of the law, the authorities generally give a shit, and, depending on your rogue flavor, may even actively fight against it.

One thing to note here: this goes a bit beyond Lenore's rebellious attitude. Like a good rogue, she derives enormous personal satisfaction from the thought of getting her way. The world has turned its back on the rogue, so the rogue will not hesitate to turn her back on the world.

In Lenore's case, this attitude of throwing all authority to the wind and actively ignoring any rules imposed on her is a mixture of personality and trauma. In the flashbacks, we see that Lenore has always had a certain disdain for protocol and formalities, but of course, after being locked up for at least a year because the rules of the society she lives in have decided to make her an outcast for her brother 's death, she no longer finds any reason to listen to what they have to say to her. The rules will never go beyond the feeling that she has agency over her life.

From this follows the methods of the rogues: opportunism is one of their hallmarks. Ingenuity, cunning, and creativity are common traits among these characters, something that is usually tied to their status as outsiders and criminals; they don't care about rules, so they think outside the box, either because they are highly intelligent or because they lack common sense.

Maybe both.

So, yes, when Annabel tells her dashing rogue, she's not wrong in the least. But there are more interesting things to look at here

The Gothic Heroine

When some theorists say that Gothic heroines are bland and uninteresting characters, it's...true. But there's a reason for that, so let me get that out of the way for a moment: the image of the maiden in this period is used as a symbol of purity, chastity, goodness, and her corruption, death, or disease works on both a literal and metaphorical level. It is like when you see grotesque religious images in horror movies, there is a powerful and disturbing charge in the idea of seeing something "pure" destroyed.

So the thing about gothic heroines is that, at worst, they are not characters who contribute to the story they are in, but tokens, quasi-sacred representations who are there to die, get sick, or fall victim to a villain who might sexually harass them. Yes, unpleasant.

But good gothic heroines (besides possibly having tuberculosis) are characters with arcs related to corruption, especially mental corruption. And this is where it gets interesting.

But we go from less to more. In her flashbacks, Lenore's physical appearance is almost exactly that of a gothic novel protagonist: pale, almost cadaverous, slender, languid in her movements (because, in this case, she's drugged a significant percentage of the time), and long hair.

Her background in this part of the story, like that of the best gothic heroines, is one of mental corruption: she is here, imprisoned, withering and losing her mind, giving in to despair. There are those who point out a rather strong resemblance between the scene where Lenore tears the flowered wallpaper from her room and the short story The Yellow Wallpaper by the writer Charlotte Perkins. And although this story is not gothic, it definitely retains the most important trope of the genre.

Another element in which we can find Lenore is in the Gothic ballad of the same name, written by Gottfried Bürger in 1773. This poem tells the story of Lenore, a girl condemned by narrative for blaspheming against heaven after the death of her beloved, who is later visited by the Grim Reaper himself to take her to him.

A heartbroken woman committing blasphemy in the name of a lost love? I wonder if that sounds familiar.

And if I had to point out one particular gothic heroine with whom Lenore shares important similarities, it would be Laura from Carmilla.

With the first, she shares two very important things: isolation and a penchant for women who can murder her, a complicated relationship with a gothic vampire.

Laura lives in complete isolation from the world, with the only company of maids and her father; within the first few chapters, we know that she can barely remember the last time she had the company of a woman her own age. Like Lenore in the flashbacks, Laura is something of a secret, hidden from the world (though for less horrific reasons).

And that isolation is broken by the arrival of an elegant, almost supernaturally beautiful upper-class lady who almost kicks in her door with a "Hi, I want to be friends. You'll like me."

Both Laura and Lenore are not afraid of the vampire, though they are not unaware of her strange behavior and will raise a puzzled eyebrow at her promises of affection, as well as her obvious tendency to insist on a fucked-up secret that they are in the middle of and can't share. Another important detail is that both characters have a certain difficulty in describing their feelings as romantic: both are very obviously obsessed with this mysterious lady who has come to interrupt their loneliness, but Laura never fails to refer to Carmilla as her "friend" (a behavior that the modern reader may interpret, with more than fair reason, as comphet), and Lenore is little more than that, at least until the mansion arch where the shingle falls on her.

Last but not least, just as Lenore is treated as "crazy," there are several events in Laura's life (such as her first encounter with Carmilla when she was a child) or that occur throughout the novel that are dismissed by those around her as her being a little touched in the head.

The courtly knight

Here it is necessary to make a distinction: knights are a far-reaching figure, but before and during the Middle Ages they mainly starred in two types of stories: the canta de gesta (which was intended to tell great deeds of inspiration for certain peoples, such as the Song of Mio Cid in Spain or the Song of the Nibelungs in Germany. This last one is the best Canto de gesta in history, I do not accept arguments) and the Novel of chivalry or courtly (focused on the individual story of the knight and introduces elements of the court).

What is the main difference between the knight of the canto de gesta and the knight of the court? Well... the latter is much more horny. And we are talking about Lenore, so you have until the end of this paragraph to imagine which of these knights we are talking about.

The first thing to keep in mind is that the Courtly Knight has a pretty strong moral compass: nobility, mercy, loyalty, and honor are values they firmly believe in; these characters are heroes, and that means that while they are not perfect, they represent ideals that are considered important in this time. And we're talking about vassalage, so you get it.

This is the first thing Lenore has in common with the knights of the court: her strong sense of morality. Yes, she's not afraid to play dirty like a rogue, but she's pretty clear about what things are important to her in that regard, and she's willing to uphold those ideals even in the context of Nevermore, which actively encourages its students to kill and betray each other.

However, the personal agendas of these knights have one important thing in common: the conflict between their own desires and their duty.

What are those desires? Well...

Good courtly knights usually have to choose between their love/sexual interests and where their personal loyalties lie, which, due to the era in which these stories take place, are usually their feudal lords or even kings.

We already established that Lenore doesn't give a shit about authority, but her personal loyalty is to her friends. And this is where it gets tricky for her: So far in the comic, Lenore has kept her relationship with Annabel a secret from her friends, and she has kept the fact that she wants to save her friends a secret from Annabel. A conflict that may eventually blow up in her face, and on the face of it, really befits a courtly knight (though if she were a real one, the Misfits might ask her to kill the Deans or something in exchange for accepting her relationship with Annabel).

To continue with this, we need to stop for a moment and talk about another little thing: courtly love. There are many definitions of it, but my favorite is the one that defines it as an attempt to reconcile mystical love with eroticism. Fun fact: these stories were written in the Provençal language, something that would associate romantic tropes with "vulgar language".

In any case, courtly love usually speaks of the beloved maiden as an idealized object, a figure who inspires an almost religious devotion. And the most recurrent theme within courtly love is what is called "love from afar": it focuses more on the journey in search of the beloved than on the couple's relationship as such (this journey can be literal or metaphorical), the knight has symbols associated with the pilgrim, there is a certain hatred of the image, the maiden is seen as an almost religious figure, and...

Yes, the color associated with the so-called "love from afar", specifically with the beloved maiden, is damn blue.

Now that we've got all that out of the way, it's time to break down why Lenore fulfills some of these things and why she doesn't.

Going with the tropes that are fulfilled, we can say that Lenore is on a more or less metaphorical journey. A journey to recover her memories and her identity. One at the end of which her lover waits for her "until the abyss claims them both".

Like a knight, Lenore is willing to make great personal sacrifices in pursuit of the things she cares about: she is willing to die for the people she cares about (the misfits) and for her lover (Annabel). The Living Long Thing is something the Knight don't know about, and since Lenore is in Nevermore, apparently neither does she.

With all that said, it's worth noting the biggest difference: courtly love features relationships based on vassalage and a huge power differential. Something that does not happen here. No, Lenore calling Annabel "my liege" doesn't count.

To explain this further -and to summarize, because it's a subject that bloody books have been written about-t he relationships in courtly love have two different levels of power: the knight must perform feats to be worthy of affection, and the maiden is little more than a prize to be won.

This unbalanced power dynamic is something that simply does not exist in the White Raven: an important part of their relationship is that both are equal in charisma, intelligence, and resourcefulness. The unstoppable force and the immovable object. Annabel is as willing to die for Lenore as she is for herself, and Lenore would probably go into berserker mode if anyone dared to treat Annabel as a prize.

Yes, you could argue that the balance of power is a bit weighted toward Lenore because Annabel is willing to make sacrifices for her that Lenore wouldn't make because she has some, you know, morals. But I think that has more to do with Annabel's character than her relationship with Lenore (that's another analysis I have a pin for when the season is over).

Conclusions

If the archetypes that Annabel seems to take note of are all quite related, Lenore, on the contrary, is much more like a mosaic: these characters have little in common and some (like the Rogue and the Knight) directly contradict each other. This woman is chaotic in her conception: opportunistic and rebellious as a rogue, pious and with strong values as a knight, and condemned by the narrative as a gothic heroine.

Another thing that stands out is that two of these three archetypes are traditionally male characters. Personally, I don't think Lenore is "like a man": her entire background and personal history is meant to work in terms of her status as a woman in the time period she lives in. She can do all the shit these male heroes do and better (though the hc that Lenore is somewhere on the non-binary spectrum is not a reading that conflicts with that).

And I use the word "hero" because another detail stands out here as well: yes, many of these characters are not only often the protagonists of the stories they are in, they are heroes within their historical periods and literary movements.

I'm going to do a third part of this comparing Lenore's archetypes to Annabel's because, believe me, there's some really crazy stuff to unpack there.

[cartermagazine]

Today In History

Dred Scott was born into slavery in Southampton, Virginia, around 1795, the property of the Peter Blow family. He was given the name “Sam” but took the name of his older brother, Dred, when the latter died.

In 1836, Scott who was approximately 41, married a teenaged slave, Harriett Robinson, at Fort Snelling who was owned by another U.S. Army officer, Major Lawrence Taliaferro of Virginia. Scott and Robinson gave birth to their first child, Eliza, in 1838 and a second daughter, Lizzie, in 1840, and their two children were born free.

In 1843, Emerson died and left his estate to his widow, Irene Sanford Emerson. When Scott offered to purchase his freedom for $300 in 1846, Emerson refused his offer. He then obtained the assistance of two St. Louis attorneys who helped him to sue for his freedom. His 1846 lawsuit was filed in the St. Louis Circuit Court and went to trial in 1847.

Scott lost this case, but later that year he won a second trail. By this point Scott received financial support and legal representation from the sons of Peter Blow, his former owner, who had become anti-slavery advocates, Irene Sanford Emerson’s brother, John Sanford, and her second husband, Dr. C.C. Chaffee, a Massachusetts abolitionist. To all of them the Scott case as an important challenge to slavery.

On March 6, 1857, the United States Supreme Court finally ruled in Dred Scott v Sandford [Sanford was misspelled by a court clerk]. In a 7-2 decision written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the majority of justices said that Scott and all slaves and free blacks were not citizens of the United States and therefore had no standing in the courts. The backlash to this decision strengthened the abolitionist movement and further divided the North and South, leading four years later to the U.S. Civil War.

After he was freed, Dred Scott went to work as a porter in the St. Louis area. He died from tuberculosis in September 1858. Harriett Scott died eighteen years later on June 17, 1876.

CARTER™️ Magazine

[ptseti]

Have you seen “The Gods Must Be Crazy”? 🎬 N!xau, a San from the Kalahari Desert, was discovered by director Jamie Uys and cast in the lead role of the 1980 film. Despite the film and its sequels grossing over $40 million, N!xau was paid only about $300 for the first film and an undisclosed amount for the subsequent ones. The Namibian actor and farmer appeared in several other films but continued to receive only a fraction of the earnings. N!xau lacked proper representation and did not fully understand contracts or currency. Sadly, he reportedly suffered from tuberculosis, and in early July 2003, Namibian officials confirmed his death in the remote Kalahari region where he lived. The exact cause was unknown, and his age was estimated to be around 59, as even N!xau himself wasn’t sure of his birthdate. N!xau’s story reflects the experiences of many talents from the motherland who have been exploited by foreigners and left behind.

[theresattrpgforthat]

I'm desperately trying to remember an rpg that focused on living with chronic pain and migraines - do you know any that fit the bill?

THEME: Chronic Pain, Migraines, Disability

Hello friend, I was able to find a few! Some of these games focus on chronic pain or migraines specifically, while others are expanded to talk about a broader range of disability or illness. A few aren’t full games, but rather supplements that can be integrated into more generic rulesets.

Chronic Migraines for 5e, by Cat Elm.

Chronic Migraine Mechanics For 5e is a set of rules and guidance to enable player characters to experience chronic migraines, which additional feats related to migraine experience and rules on deciding migraine occurrence and suggested side effects.

Designed to allow players to explore real-world disability and experiences in a safe, controlled environment, Chronic Migraine Mechanics For 5E gives players and DMs to the tools to expand their in-game options and representation.

This is a supplement for D&D 5e, not a game in and of itself. If you are looking for ways to express disability in a game that you’ve already established, this supplement might be worth looking into.

You’re Sick (And it’s your fault), by David Moskowitz.

Were they a smoker? Not wear sunscreen? Eat a lot of red meat? 

Did they have unprotected sex?  Share needles? 

Who were they with? How long have they had that cough? Who might have they infected?

This is a solo-journaling game that’s an exploration of guilt and internalized stigma related to illness, with cancer, AIDS, and tuberculosis as the foundational afflictions informing the game.

Designed after the Wretched & Alone engine, this is a solo-ttrpg that is designed to be realistic. Living with illness is heavily stigmatized, and this game guides you, the player, through the physical and emotional toll that this stigma places upon you. Victory in this game means not that you will be “cured”, but rather, that you have the tools you need to make life liveable.

This game doesn’t focus on chronic pain specifically, but much of the prompts in the oracle seem to experience some overlap, such as having better days and worse days, irritating conversations with folks who don’t understand, and the way your situation drains you of money and time. If you’re looking for a solo experience that explores different facets of living with an illness that might not kill you, but won’t let up either, this might be worth checking out.

I AM FUCKING TIRED, by Tia Let | Hydromer

I AM FUCKING TIRED is a one-page solo journaling game about having an undiagnosed fatigue condition and trying to manage your day-to-day.

Even when your day-to-day might not be as certain as you think.

You have a body that loses it’s energy quite quickly; you have a condition that constantly drains you, but has no official diagnosis. Doing your day-to-day at home is difficult, but you do your best. Today is another day. 

A simple game with a few rules, I AM FUCKING TIRED is a solo journaling game so grab a pen and paper. You roll a d20 to see what memory comes to mind, and write about it. If you roll the same number as a previous roll, the Memory Twists - you remembered it falsely, had insufficient information, or someone lied to you. Finally, you also have an Energy tracker. During a Twist, you roll against that energy to see if you can continue. 

This game is free, and emphasizes self care before and after play. While this is about undiagnosed fatigue, I would not be surprised if much of the experiences of folks with chronic pain overlap with some of the events that appear in this game.

We Are Still Here, by Ennis Rook Bashe.

use a cane or a walker or braces. stab people. take meds. exist. survive. 

we are still here. 

This is a way to incorporate disability into Apocalypse World, and might work as inspiration for other PbtA games about how to include disability or illness. 

You can include a mobility aid that gives you both benefits and drawbacks - such as doubling as a weapon, or requiring frequent repairs. Alternatively or additionally, you can include medication, which provides benefits such as helping you concentrate or focus, while also threatening your well-being if you run out of stock, need a special storage environment, or have difficulties with your supplier. 

This is a perfect add-on for players who desire more representation of disabled folks surviving (and thriving) in post-apocalyptic fiction. 

Pieces of Me, by Mothworks.

You are young and newly disabled. Try your best to learn your limits, find new ways of doing things, and rest as you can as you tear and repair your character sheet.

Pieces of Me uses an index card, a pen, tape, and ten coins. Your character sheet (index card) will contain a number of boxes to indicate your ability to complete certain tasks. Whenever you push yourself to accomplish a task, you must flip your coins to see how many heads you get.  Not enough heads? You have to rip off a piece of your sheet. Too few heads and you destroy a piece of your character sheet forever. 

Torn pieces of the sheet can be taped back on or redrawn, and fresh scraps of paper represent new aids or methods of doing things. At the end of the game, you will have a memento of your game experience. 

This game has a standard and a dyslexic-friendly font. If you’re looking for a personal game with a tactile experience, this might be a game for you. 

Inkeeryn’s irritating insidious incurringible incessant illness, by cosmicbeagle.

Inkeeryn's Irritating Insidious Incorrigible Incessant Illness is a storytelling duet that uses a six-sided die and a deck of standard playing cards. One player plays someone who is afflicted or cursed or hexed, and the other plays the affliction itself. Over the course of four rounds -- representing stages of life -- you take turns narrating about the afflicted person and the curse that torments them. 

The exact nature of the affliction -- its effects, symptoms, and expressions -- are determined by you. You describe how the curse affects the character, and how the character treats, copes with, and maybe even transcends it.

This game gives you the freedom to decide how exactly your illness manifests, as well as the power to decide how your character responds to that illness. As a duet game, this provides for an intimate, personal experience, good for exploring a topic that can weigh heavily on many folks. 

Microservice, by Ponder Games.

You are a human going shopping with your service dog.

Microservice is a single-page tabletop roleplaying game.   It is intended for solo play, or for play with 1 player and 1 GM. 

This is a salty, tongue-in-cheek commentary on what it is like to navigate North America with a service dog, complete with a roll table of unhelpful NPCs that almost certainly drain your energy. You have the ability to play this solo, or with one other person, so it’s best for a quick little game with one other person, most likely someone that you’re comfortable gaming with.

[1ndus]

Fight Club Movie Personal Interpretation and Analysis

Some of this is about the actual meaning of the movie, and some of this is stuff about the plot. Watch the movie first, this will not make sense and spoil a bunch if not.

“I don't understand. Why does a weak person have to go out and find a strong person... to hang onto?”

The Narrator is constantly led by Tyler Durden, doing everything he tells him to do, inevitably going along with all of his ideas, no matter how much he doesn’t want to. Tyler saves him in his most vulnerable moments, is his only friend, and then abandons him. Then the Narrator goes on a hunt to find him, only to discover that he IS him; he saved himself, he was the “strong person,” and at the end of the movie, got rid of him. A weak person does not need to latch on to a strong person. If you are determined, you can always save yourself. The message is not don’t get help, or that the things you suffer from are your fault, but instead that, when it comes down to it, it’s up to you to have the will and drive to fix your problems.

“His name was Robert Paulson!”

Everyone in Project Mayhem has been conditioned to abandon their sense of self in order to make them a powerful unified mass of destruction; they “live, work, and eat in teams”, but they use someone else’s sense of self to rally themselves and reach their goal. “He was a man named Robert Paulson”, who suffered the consequences of the people and society that they opposed. They appeal to the sympathy of someone with an identity to evoke emotion, and so they push to destroy. “When people think you’re dying, they “really listen to you, instead of just waiting for their turn to speak”; death evokes real emotion and can start revolutions, especially when identity is used to appeal to you and your people; it has more effect when something bad happens to someone who you see as similar to you; you can get so caught up in your own identity that you destroy, but you can also become so isolated from your sense of self that you are easily manipulated.

“It all started with a woman named Marla Singer.”

The first time the Narrator enters his “cave”, a penguin appears beckoning him to slide down the ice, to “let go”. The second time the Narrator enters the cave, Marla Singer appears, beckoning to “slide”, or confront both her and his attraction to her, in other words, to “let go.” She’s first seen in the support groups, and the Narrator can immediately sense that, like him, she’s not really dying. When someone is insecure of flaws in themselves it’s much easier to see them in other people, and this insecurity and guilt tears him up, and it distracts him from “letting go” in the one place where he feels he can, and because he can’t freely get everything off of his mind and heart, he can no longer sleep; he realizes his lifeline only works when his conscience which is heavily shaped by the society, which almost always tells him he’s a better person for “holding on”, so he leaves those programs and finds a new one, with a complete lack restrictions, a complete disregard for morals, and a complete feeling of freedom. Marla pushed the Narrator away from the support groups, and was another major push towards “freeing himself.”

Marla is also the model for what “letting go” looks like for the Narrator. She smokes in the tuberculosis groups, goes to the testicular cancer support group even though she’s a woman, is seen wandering carelessly and confidently through traffic, standing dead center in the road while she talks to the narrator, and is quick to get into a relationship with the Narrator without even thinking about the consequences. Marla lives her life “like she could die at any moment,” she’s bound by no morals, no care for her life; her personality mirrors that of Tyler Durden, and I think she was the inspiration for that character in the Narrator’s head.

“I am Jack’s…”

“...medulla oblongata.”

The medulla oblongata has an ancient spiritual representation of being an organ that brings a greater consciousness and perception. This is the very first “I am Jack’s…”, and it is read in the basement when he first moves in with Tyler Durden. This is the beginning of his journey out of the mentality that is weighing him down; “he is enlightened.”

“...colon. I get cancer. I kill Jack.”

This quote is said in the dirty basement of the Narrator’s new home, after losing his apartment, and the spiritual symbolism of the colon often represents dirt or filth, or a “dirty and filthy” experience, and colon cancer is often a result of a build up of years of unmanaged bad habits, much like the ones that led “Tyler Durden” up to exploding the Narrator’s apartment.

“...raging bile duct.”

This quote is said after Marla Singer is first seen in the Narrator's new home. When the bile duct malfunctions, it severely affects all of the rest of the organs; he feels as though Marla has affected all aspects of his life.

“...cold sweat.”

This quote is said as the detective is questioning the Narrator about his apartment. Cold sweats are often triggered by anxiety and thus have a cultural symbol of fear. The Narrator is on edge because, in the back of his mind, he knows that he was the one to blow up his own apartment.

“...complete lack of surprise.”

This quote is said in the office of the Narrator’s boss of his office job, as the boss is about to fire him. He is expecting this, and he does not care, because he does not try to control anything anymore. 

“...smirking revenge.”

This quote is said right before the Narrator frames his boss and gets the fight club sponsorship as compensation, taking revenge.

“...wasted life.”

This quote is said after the Narrator acquires sponsorship through framing and blackmailing his boss, and he’s in the fight club, watching two people fight. He framed and stole money from a man he once respected and wouldn’t dare stand up to, “the volume is turned down” for him, and everything before it was, is meaningless.

“...inflamed sense of rejection.”

This quote is said after several members of Project Mayhem threaten the reporter who is investigating and exposing them into keeping his mouth shut about the fight club. All of this is against the Narrator's wishes, he is losing control of his life, the thing that keeps him sane, the fight club, is slowly evolving into something bigger and worse, and his only friend, Tyler Durden, is growing more and more distant from him as he creates Project Mayhem.

“...broken heart.”

This quote is said after the Narrator realizes Tyler Durden, his only friend, is gone.

“Stop trying to control everything and just let go. Let go!”

The Narrator's life before the fight club is meaningless to him. He already has everything he’s been told he needs to have a “successful life”; a well paying normal job, a somewhat put together appearance, hot water, furniture, a clean apartment, etc., he worries about his identity, thinks about “what kind of dining set defines him as a person”, but he’s still not happy. He has no hobbies outside of consumption, he has no loved ones, and no goals he came up with himself, and, as a result of this, he feels that dull feeling you get of doing the same thing over and over again every single day, without anything to make him feel anything, to feel like you are a human that is alive and real; he’s “never really asleep, and never really awake”, he worries about things that don’t really matter, and he’s been subconsciously conditioned to suppress all of his urges; don’t scream, don’t shout, don’t run, don’t play, don’t fight. This pushes him to free himself of his materialism and his superficial “purpose.”

Tyler Durden’s character, like he appeals to the Narrator's fantasies, is built to appeal to yours with his raw freedom. He thinks about anything that you probably think about in your daily life; he doesn’t care about the way people perceive him, he doesn’t care about his safety, he doesn’t have a sense of materialism, he only works to live, and he ignores all moral and legal restrictions that you probably abide by. When you watch the movie, he does things that you know are terrible, and yet, you crave it. You watch him fight, you watch him destroy things, you watch him drive at full speed opposite of traffic, and you want to do these things. Deep down, we all want to be free, and we all want to fight, because we are so contained by our societies that our souls feel crushed. Just like the Narrator, we want to “let go,” and we shouldn’t be as restricted and worried as we are. You shouldn’t spend time worrying about your identity, the things you own, or the way people perceive you. “You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis,” but you probably, whether consciously or not, believe the exact opposite because that is what you were taught, unlike Tyler. He isn’t tied down by the things he’s been told, the “volume is turned down” for him, however, what he gets wrong is his lack of care for his and others lives. He doesn’t think about the consequences of his actions, and he hurts people. He comes up with bad ideas, and instead of sitting on them and thinking about them like you or I probably would, he acts on them immediately, and he does because the Narrator is tired of controlling all of the things he doesn’t have to, to the point where he doesn’t want to have to control anything at all; he believes he no more than “god’s unwanted child.”

The Narrator’s brain is like a slingshot pulled back by society and what he’s been taught, staying that way only to avoid the consequences of releasing it, and Tyler Durden is what happens when you let it go, forfeiting all control and letting its contents hit whatever’s in front of its path. I think the point of the movie is that true freedom comes from learning to find a balance; to learn to let the slingshot rest, to not feel the need to consume, to not try and control things you can’t, to learn a way to deal with and find peace with your inner urges to do things like fight, to pay attention to and question everything that you are subconsciously taught, to not lose your sense of self, nor be so tied down with it that it affects your decisions. Do not give in to your own fight club, your own Project Mayhem, nor your own shopping catalogues, fancy apartment, and nice office job.

[thelampandshield]

Illuminating Liberation

Domenico Fetti's Moses and the Burning Bush and Essential Reads on Resistance in Abrahamic Faiths

Domenico Fetti’s Moses and the Burning Bush (1613) captures one of the most significant moments in biblical history—the divine call of Moses to lead the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt. Created during Fetti’s tenure in Mantua, the work exemplifies the Baroque fascination with dramatic storytelling, emotional intensity, and the use of light to symbolize divine presence. In this painting, Moses kneels before the miraculous burning bush, which is enveloped in glowing, otherworldly flames that do not consume it—a powerful visual representation of God’s eternal and unchanging nature.

Fetti rose to prominence during his time at the court of Mantua, a historic city in the Lombardy region of Italy, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its significant role in the Italian Renaissance and Baroque periods, particularly as the seat of the Gonzaga family. The Gonzaga court’s support allowed Fetti to experiment with devotional imagery, exploring sacred themes with human emotion until his untimely death at the age of 34, likely from tuberculosis.

Fetti’s depiction is characteristic of Baroque art, with its rich, dynamic use of chiaroscuro (the interplay of light and shadow) to highlight Moses’s awestruck expression and the supernatural glow of the bush. The painting also reflects the Catholic Counter-Reformation emphasis on personal, emotional engagement with biblical narratives, encouraging viewers to reflect on themes of divine justice and human obedience. Historically, the story of Moses and the burning bush became a symbol of resistance and liberation, particularly resonating with oppressed communities who saw in Moses a model for standing against authoritarian power and leading movements for freedom and justice.

Abrahamic Religious Scholarship on anti-authoritarianism

There is a rich field of non-fiction literature and theological analysis exploring themes of resistance to authoritarianism within the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). These works often focus on scriptural interpretations, historical events, and ethical frameworks that speak to the ways in which each faith tradition has engaged with political authority, justice, and social resistance.

Here's a reading list of some works that examine these themes:

1. "God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now" by John Dominic Crossan

Crossan, a prominent scholar of early Christianity, explores how Jesus’ teachings and actions represented a subversive response to Roman imperialism and authoritarian power structures. Crossan argues that Jesus’s message was one of nonviolent resistance against the oppressive rule of Rome and that this anti-imperial stance has important implications for contemporary Christian social ethics.

2. "The Prophets" by Abraham Joshua Heschel

Heschel’s classic work focuses on the prophetic tradition in Judaism, highlighting how prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Amos spoke out against injustice, idolatry, and the abuse of power. Heschel argues that the Hebrew prophets were deeply committed to resisting social and political corruption, presenting them as models for ethical resistance to authoritarianism in all ages.

3. "Jesus and the Disinherited" by Howard Thurman

Thurman’s work connects the life and teachings of Jesus to the experience of marginalized and oppressed communities. Written during the Jim Crow era, this influential book argues that Jesus’ teachings provide a blueprint for resisting social injustice and authoritarian oppression, emphasizing love, nonviolence, and solidarity with the poor and disinherited.

4. "Islam and the Challenge of Democracy" by Khaled Abou El Fadl

Abou El Fadl is a prominent scholar of Islamic law who argues that Islamic ethics support democratic values and resistance to authoritarian rule. In this book, he addresses how Islamic teachings on justice, human dignity, and accountability can be mobilized to critique and resist political authoritarianism within Muslim-majority societies.

5. "The Politics of Jesus" by John Howard Yoder

Yoder, a pacifist theologian, argues that Jesus’ life and teachings exemplify a radical, nonviolent form of resistance to political power and violence. Yoder’s work has influenced many Christian movements advocating for social justice and nonviolent resistance, framing Jesus’ message as fundamentally opposed to authoritarianism and state violence.

6. "The Cross and the Lynching Tree" by James H. Cone

Cone, a foundational figure in Black Liberation Theology, explores the connections between the suffering of Jesus on the cross and the historical suffering of Black Americans under slavery and segregation. He argues that the Christian cross should be understood as a symbol of solidarity with the oppressed and a call to resist systems of authoritarianism and racism.

7. "Religion and Resistance in America" by various authors, edited by Allan D. Cooper

This anthology examines the role of religion as a force for social resistance in American history, focusing on various religious movements that have resisted authoritarian and oppressive systems. The essays cover a range of Abrahamic perspectives, including Jewish, Christian, and Muslim perspectives on resistance to authoritarianism in the U.S. context.

8. "The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium" by Walter Wink

Wink’s work examines the "principalities and powers" mentioned in the New Testament as forces that seek to dominate humanity. He interprets these as both spiritual and institutional powers that people are called to resist. Wink explores how individuals and communities can resist these powers nonviolently, drawing from both biblical theology and contemporary social movements.

9. "The Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism" by Abdulaziz Sachedina

Sachedina examines democratic principles within the Qur'an and Islamic ethics, challenging authoritarian interpretations of Islamic governance. He highlights the role of justice, consultation (shura), and human rights within Islam, advocating for political systems that respect pluralism, accountability, and the inherent dignity of all people.

10. "Render Unto Caesar: The Struggle Over Christ and Culture in the New Testament" by Christopher Bryan

Bryan examines the New Testament’s treatment of political authority, focusing on passages like “Render unto Caesar” and exploring how early Christians navigated their obligations to the Roman Empire. He argues that while the New Testament acknowledges earthly authority, it also critiques the abuse of power and emphasizes the sovereignty of God over human rulers.

11. "God’s Revolution: Justice, Community, and the Coming Kingdom" by Eberhard Arnold

Arnold, founder of the Bruderhof community, draws on Anabaptist and early Christian traditions to argue for a nonviolent resistance to authoritarianism. His work emphasizes the need for Christians to embody an alternative, justice-oriented community that challenges worldly power structures.

12. "Sacred Resistance: A Practical Guide to Christian Witness and Dissent" by Ginger Gaines-Cirelli

This book offers practical advice for Christians seeking to engage in social resistance while staying rooted in their faith. Gaines-Cirelli discusses how biblical teachings can inspire action against authoritarianism, injustice, and other social ills, with a focus on nonviolent witness and advocacy.

13. "The Jewish Political Tradition, Vol. 1: Authority" by Michael Walzer, Menachem Lorberbaum, and Noam J. Zohar

This volume explores Jewish thought on political authority, autonomy, and resistance to tyranny throughout history. Drawing on classical and modern Jewish sources, the authors discuss how Jewish communities have interpreted and responded to political power, including themes of resistance and critique of authoritarianism.

14. "Islamic Liberation Theology: Resisting the Empire" by Hamid Dabashi

Dabashi explores the roots of Islamic liberation theology, analyzing how Islamic teachings support resistance to imperialism and authoritarianism. He argues that Islam offers a framework for anti-colonial and anti-authoritarian resistance, connecting the Qur'an’s themes of justice, liberation, and the prophetic tradition with contemporary movements for freedom.

15. "Faith-Rooted Organizing: Mobilizing the Church in Service to the World" by Alexia Salvatierra and Peter Heltzel

This book provides a framework for faith-based social activism, drawing from both Christian and Jewish teachings on justice and resistance. The authors offer guidance on organizing efforts against oppressive structures, emphasizing the role of faith communities in advocating for systemic change.

16. "Exodus and Revolution" by Michael Walzer

Walzer’s analysis of the Exodus story in the Hebrew Bible interprets it as a foundational narrative of liberation, justice, and resistance to oppression. He argues that the Exodus has been used throughout history as a powerful model for resisting authoritarianism and envisioning a just society.

[scotianostra]

On the 1st of March 1819, the teacher and researcher of physiological phonetics Alexander Melville Bell was born in Edinburgh.

Alexander Melville Bell was the father of the now much better know Alexander Graham Bell. He was the son of a shoemaker turned elocutionist, Alexander Bell. He is much less well known now than his son, but in his lifetime achieved fame for his creation of ‘visible speech’. Its aim was to aid the teaching of spoken language to deaf children.

Before the family migrated, Melville invented a graphic representation of the speech sounds based on "articulatory" positions. He called his phonetic alphabet “Visible Speech” and used it as a method for teaching individuals with problems of articulation, stammering, and deafness to speak more clearly. Bell first developed his system in 1864 and published it in 1867 under the title: Visible speech: The science of universal alphabetics.

Melville Bell married Eliza Grace Symonds, a painter of miniatures and a pianist. Eliza Bell had a severe hearing loss, which strongly affected the interest that Melville had in designing methods for teaching the deaf and others with communication difficulties. Melville and Eliza had three sons, Edward (Ted), Alexander (Aleck) and Melville (Melly). Both Ted and Melly died of tuberculosis. Aleck also contracted the disease, so his parents decided to emigrate to Brantford Ontario, in 1870 to help him in his recuperation. Aleck was 23 at the time. They later moved to Washington, D.C

Melville Bell’s Visible Speech proved incredibly popular in helping deaf people learn to speak as by learning to shape their mouths according to the symbols they would produce the right speech sounds. When Alexander Graham Bell joined him in 1868, he toured America demonstrating it and used it to help teach students, ultimately opening his own deaf school.

[anglerflsh]

I have a special interest in witch hunting and I felt legally obligated to send an ask since I never have people to talk about it with. What do you think of the myth circulated about Matthew Hopkins dying after being subjected to the swimming test? I almost find it more ironic that he likely just died a fairly mundane death of tuberculosis after spending his life hunting the supernatural.

I think that it's a great example of the mythification of his own life - of course people would think he died in a thematically accurate way, even when it's absolutely untrue: he became a symbolic figure and that requires a certain umpf of narrative, kind of like how the "let them eat cakes" line that was never even uttered during the French revolution.

A lot of historical figures become cemented as these charicatural representations! It's a very interesting process, actually.

[quixoticanarchy]

chronic lung issues are bad and i would not recommend at all but it's also given me an invaluable avenue to understand the appeal of sad and pathetic little men in media. it can be anything from magical origin to like, tuberculosis but what's critically important is that he be sick and miserable so i can have #representation

[heavenlymorals]

The Deeper Meaning of Loan-Sharking

Warning: spoilers for both Red Dead games

The complexity of RDR2's story blows me away every fucking day because oh my god- the characters, the themes, the symbolism, the call backs to other medias and so on and so forth.

But here is one thing that stuck with me when I realized it for the first time-

The deeper meaning of the loan sharking missions.

The main purpose of those missions were obviously to show a change of character in Arthur Morgan- from a heartless enforcer, a plague to the down-trodden, to a heartbroken man, ashamed of his actions, and trying to remedy what he can without the hope for forgiveness because he knows he doesn't deserve it.

The loan sharking missions are the most obvious and in your face representation of Arthur's redemption arc.

But at its core, it felt like a nod to criticisms that the 1800s romantics and naturalists had towards the concept of civilization, a direct call back to Dutch's philosophy all throughout both RDR and RDR2.

What do I mean by this?

All throughout the game, the gang tries to fight civilization in an almost Robinhood esque way- these American knights wrecking havoc for the dreams of their outlaw king. They rob the rich, who Dutch sees as the reason for America's moral failure, and those who protect these rich men because they add to those men's power. It all sounds very noble but it's a useless and bloody fight.

Mac and Davey get killed, Jenny gets killed, Sean gets killed, Kieren gets killed, Hosea and Lenny get Killed, Molly gets killed.

This gang life for a dream that'll never be realized kills people and consumes them until there is nothing left but husks of people who had dreams of their own.

The romantic dream will only be a dream and the only place it can be a reality is in books and philosophies. Civilization is the truth- it saves humanity from the hell that is anarchy or so it seems.

The gang fought against the encroaching civilization that threatened to devour the West and Arthur followed Dutch and showed the same sentiments regarding civilization- and by following Dutch, he followed that same ideal, even if his heart wasn't fully in it.

The gang life- coming to an end and no longer sustainable- showed the impossibility of this beautiful dream as it destroyed everything but that wasn't the thing that killed Arthur in the end.

Tuberculosis killed Arthur. Tuberculosis from loan sharking.

"It's legal work, Mr. Morgan." Strauss to Arthur.

The legal work killed Arthur in the end, not the shootouts or gang feuds. The civilized work killed Arthur in the end. The civilized world beat Mr.Downes, a poor, dying man trying to do his best for his family. The civilized world killed Arthur Londonderry.

The civilized world and this legal work sucked the life out of the poor so rich men can get richer and take everything they can around for their greed can not be satiated.

The civilized work, the legal work killed Arthur Morgan.

The hypocrisy of it all is so heartbreaking because despite all the bad things the gang did, the philosophy, the too idealistic and romantic philosophy they fought for, that could never be realized in the world they lived in, held truth.

And that small monocum of truth kept Dutch fighting and fighting until he no longer could by commiting suicide.

Good God I love this game.

[spectoncular]

I feel like there are various diseases that need better representation in media. Consumption is the 19th century rich woman's disease, but tuberculosis is still an everyday tragedy in many countries. We hardly see anything about the purple flu anymore.

[amolbhanushali]

Innovations in Chest Wall Surgery: Enhancing Treatment for Complex Cases

Chest wall surgery has recorded tremendous development in the past years, which has opened up the ability to treat complicated cases more effectively. Dr Amol Bhanushali of Thane, a well-known chest specialist, has spearheaded these changes. Having done his training and acquired experience from some of the best institutions worldwide for over 15 years, Dr Bhanushali remains at the forefront of innovative approaches in chest wall surgeries, offering hope to patients.

Recent Innovations In Chest Wall Surgery

Minimally Invasive Techniques

It was noted that using less invasive techniques, VATS, and Robotic Surgery changed the approach to treatment. These techniques come in handy to make the incision area small, reduce pain, and facilitate quick recovery. Uniportal VATS, which Dr Bhanushali learned during his training in China, has become a reference approach for such diseases as lung cancer, tuberculosis, and chest wall tumours.

Custom Prosthetic Implants

This also eradicates traditional metal prostheses since new types of prosthetic materials are being developed, and advanced 3D printing technology makes it possible to develop individual implants. They are especially employed in reconstructive procedures requiring improved form-fit and function properties. This approach is very useful for disorders like chest wall deformities and injuries as well as trauma and cancer resections.

Advanced Imaging and Diagnostics

Preoperative planning is improved by employing high-resolution computerized tomography scans and computer tomography graphic models. Anyone with such tool assists, mostly leading chest specialist in Thane, known as Dr. Amol Bhanushal, by giving him the most actual representation of the possible difficulties for him to diagnose and draw accurate treatment planning.

Robotic-Assisted Thoracic Surgery

The extra-sophisticated motion precision of robotics offers accuracy during complex procedures such as mediastinal tumour resection and diaphragmatic surgery. Dr. Thoracic patients benefit from advances in robotic technologies because of Bhanushali’s training in robotic surgery in London and the USA.

Treating Chronic Diseases with Specialized Skills

Chest wall surgeries often involve addressing intricate conditions, including:

Chest wall tumours and infections: Identifying high-risk patients and individualized approaches to performing surgery keep results in the best possible condition.

Thymoma and Myasthenia Gravis: It is noteworthy that traditional invasive surgeries cause a decline in patients’ health status, while minimally invasive treatments speed up the recovery.

Tuberculosis-related complications: Dr Bhanushali continues to pay attention towards tuberculosis and offers free surgical operations to patients suffering from chronic TB.

Conclusion

Advancements in techniques for chest wall surgery have greatly enhanced the management results of patients with complicated thoracic diseases. With high-end treatment and a specially established Center for Lung Surgery, Dr. Amol Bhanushali remains a go-to patient specialist. For any query or business consultation and advice, you can contact Dr. Bhanushali at +91-9920024001. Don’t wait any longer to improve lung health and quality of life begin today!

[tfgadgets]

Indian Scientists Pioneer Nose-To-Brain Drug Delivery Method For Tuberculosis Treatment

With this, one of the most dangerous forms of TB, Central Nervous System Tuberculosis (CNS-TB), can also be treated. (Representational image/Getty) Tuberculosis, commonly known as TB is an infectious disease, primarily affecting the lungs and caused by bacterial infection. Indian scientists have come up with a pathbreaking discovery in their pursuit of finding a method to deal with…

[drcare4u]

India has developed indigenous hand-held X-ray for TB screening: ICMR director

File photograph used for representational purposes only | Photo Credit: REUTERS The Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) Director General Rajiv Bahl on Wednesday, October 16, 2024, highlighted a significant advancement in tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis: a new handheld X-ray device developed for screening TB that would help in early detection and treatment efforts, and ultimately improve…