#and i really love that jun will spend the rest of his life atoning for everything he and his family has done

[caimitos]

its been a week i still cant believe i already finished reading the spear cuts through water im mentally clawing at the gates of the inverted theater begging let me back in please please please

[crossdressingdeath]

1/5 Omg I’m genuinely so sick of people saying that LXC should have looked into what happened to his mother (I’ve recently seen someone on twitter say that he needs to make up for it??) and it makes zero sense because...even WE don’t know anything about this situation that everyone’s so outraged about. Even if LXC had ‘looked into it’ which, for all we know, he HAS, what exactly is he going to find?? The only records of his mother and her crime are within the Lan clan, and are what the elders

2/5 have compiled. No one outside of the sect (and probably the main group of elders) knows about her crime because it was kept a secret. Both of his parents are dead. Literally any information LXC can get from ‘investigating’, supposing he hasn’t already done that, is probably what he’s already been told. And that’s assuming there is anything else to ‘find out’. It doesn’t seem like they’re getting up in arms about Madam Lan’s sentence, because there is literally nothing LXC could have done

3/5 (this is a resend for the LXC ask) about that situation, it looks like they’re annoyed because he didn’t do more investigating. But he gave WWX an outline of what happened and there nothing to say that isn’t exactly what happens. Maybe Madam Lan just did kill someone, and that’s all there is to it. Or maybe there’s more, and LXC just happened to not go into detail with WWX. It doesn’t reflect badly on LXC because we know nothing about his mother’s circumstances, and

4/5 for all we know, she could be a dangerous criminal. Or maybe she had a very good reason, maybe it was in self defence - we just don’t know. And maybe LXC already KNOWS this, maybe he is conflicted about it, ect. but we have a limited POV here from a character that LXC is not close to at all, so maybe he just isn’t willing to go into detail with WWX! Either way, it doesn’t really matter, because if madam Lan was wronged in any way, then it shouldn’t be her son - who had nothing to

5/5 do with it - who should bear the responsibility to make up for it. Not only that, but how can anyone blame LXC and then not blame LWJ for the exact same thing? They’re both adults, there’s like what, only 3-4 years between them? It’s just so annoying because it’s the most random thing to hold against him, especially for a situation where, again, no one knows anything about what happened. It’s another situation where people are just using their headcanons as ‘evidence.’

Yes, the important thing to keep in mind is that there is no reason for LXC to go in-depth about what happened to his mother with someone he hates for breaking his little brother’s heart. All we know of the situation is what LXC himself tells us: His mother killed his father’s teacher, his father married her to save her from execution, the two of them spent the rest of their lives in seclusion (with exceptions because hey, two kids), his mother died when LWJ was six and his father died when the Cloud Recesses were burned. That’s it. Is that all there is to the story? Maybe, maybe not. LXC and LQR are both clearly concerned that LWJ is following in his father’s footsteps, which could mean either Madam Lan was unwilling or they just don’t want him to spend the rest of his life locked away because of the actions of a criminal. And even if Madam Lan was unwilling... that’s not LXC’s fault. LWJ was six when she died; LXC isn’t much older than LWJ, he can’t have been older than nine or ten at most. What exactly do these people think he should have done? A child against the elders of his sect? And what would kicking up a fuss about it now accomplish? It’s done, both involved parties are dead, picking a fight with the clan elders likely wouldn’t achieve anything and would make it much harder for LXC to get them to agree with anything he suggested further down the road. Looking into the matter further than his words suggest he has would only have hurt him, even assuming there was anything else there for him to find. And that’s also assuming he hasn’t looked into it, which given he drops everything to investigate JGY when given the slightest reason to believe he’s untrustworthy I imagine he did the first chance he got.

And yeah, even if LXC was somehow culpable in what happened to his mother (he’s not, he wasn’t even alive for most of it, how can people seriously argue he has anything to atone for in this situation)... we don’t know that Madam Lan was an unwilling party in the whole affair. It’s entirely possible she was genuinely in love with Qingheng-jun and wanted to marry him, and agreed to seclusion to save her own life. That’s every bit as likely as him forcing her into it, because the only information we have on the situation is what LXC gives us.

[thesecondmate]

reading: wk50-52

3 weeks + 3 journal entries for how i was gonna start this post. in essence: goodbye 2020, my god has it been a rollercoaster, albeit one sloping gently downhill into familiar melancholy. i never thought i’d feel like this again, yet it’s like slipping into a warm ocean where i can float forever, safe in the salt and waves lapping at my face.

stay tuned a ‘best of 2020′ list and what i want to read next year that isn’t my damn textbooks. and maybe some personal updates depending on how much wine i drink this evening. happy new year, my loves.

week 50: penultimate week of o+g rotation: i would say the end is in sight but in fact i have lost all motivation, hate my degree (well, specifically, the course administration), had a breakdown outside my exam followed by the most embarrassing brain freeze ever during a panel discussion that i was speak on, took several days to reply to everyone about said exam breakdown, am convinced i will fail my 5th year exams, aaaand dealt with all of this by handpainting christmas cards all saturday. welcome 2 the fun house !

week 51: final week of placement: i struggled through the final week of my placement (literally popped into my placement for 2 hours to have a tutorial, get signed off, and collect my things), failed my mock osce, and went home. so unbelievably drained.

week 52: christmas & post-christmas liminality: feeling vaguely restored by the virtue of reading many books, watching many movies, curling up by the fire, eating many christmas cookies, and having barely any social interaction outside of my family and our cat and dog. still absolutely drained; still very terrified of my next placement and of failing this year. all i want is to move to a city where no one knows me and i can be something new, but alas. eighteen months until i graduate; forty-two until i finish my foundation programme and can truly set off into the big blue yonder of the world.

books

✩ The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Steig Larsson (finished) so i actually would have much preferred this to have kept its original swedish title, ‘män som hatar kvinnor’ (’men who hate women’) - it’d have been less manic pixie dream girl and more reflective of larsson’s point, even if larsson is v guilty of the former. it’s a good book - larsson’s grasp of plot is really excellent and i really enjoyed the twists and turns, even if the pacing of the big reveal was a little too rushed for my liking. however, i find his characters a little off - many of them are great, especially berger & henrik vanger, but i find blomkvist a little self-insert at times (he’s a financial journalist! but not like other financial journalists! and he has a sexy editor lady with whom he has an open relationship! and he sleeps with this cool hacker girl who immediately trusts him!), and lisbeth is...very ‘traumatised manic pixie cyberpunk girl’ if you ask me. which is a little uncomfortable. also not to mention the rape scene - which is vile. overall: good, intrigued to see if larsson will flesh lisbeth out to be less of a caricature in the sequels.

✩ The Orphan Master’s Son - Adam Johnson (finished) this book has lost none of its magic for me, absolutely none. if anything, re-reading it a few years later has made me appreciate so many things: the characters (even more than before! if that’s possible!!), the abject heartbreak of the second mate and his wife, the trip to texas (i got far more out of the political side this time), the relationships in the camps (the captain of the junma and li mongnan - hold me whilst my heart BREAKS), the way that johnson plays with narrative from the loudspeakers to the interrogator to the dreamlike quality of jun do’s own new life in pt 2. as a teenager, i was fascinated by the setting, the double-farce of the propaganda vs life, the passages about the second mate’s wife and her silken yellow dress - i thought that jun do was a bland narrator, which i now see couldn’t have been further from the truth. i have so, so much respect for johnson as an author and this book really is a formative part of who i am, in ways that i could not express.

✩ Dark Matter - Michelle Paver (finished) another re-read. michelle paver is the queen of ghost stories and things that go bump in the night (see: spirit walker in the chronicles of ancient darkness) - this book absolutely terrified me the first time that i read it, so i made a point of finishing it in the daytime this time. perhaps that’s why it didn’t hit as hard this time - it was less terrifying. however, really appreciating her choice to make the narrator gay, without ever making a deal out of it or naming it - it’s the lil things like working class arctic explorers being disgustingly in love with their charismatic expedition leaders, ya know? big fan. also huge fan of her descriptive prose - she is also the queen of arctic imagery. her prose, combined with the gorgeous black and white photos at the start of each chapter, have not helped my desire to sack it all off and go work as a doctor in the faroe islands or iceland.

✩ The Diet Myth - Spector (on hold) i left this book at uni bc i didn’t want to ruin my own christmas with his awful writing style, if you want an indication of how much i dislike this book.

✩ Smoke Gets In Your Eyes - Caitlin Doughty (in progress) a christmas gift that i’m currently reading. i’m so morbid and am learning so much, although i feel like some of the chapters are burbling on with anecdotes but don’t hammer home many points (although maybe it’s bc as a medical student i’m less easily shocked than your average reader) - bit confused as to where we’re going but i’m along for the ride.

✩ Calling a Wolf a Wolf - Kaveh Akbar (in progress) beautiful. in progress - his imagery is quite beautiful but i struggle to sit and read poetry.

✩ The Secret History - Donna Tartt (in progress) re-read. i sink back into old books like familiar lovers, like hot baths. so much comfort.

films

✩ Dead Poets Society (1989) why were the deleted scenes deleted. WHY. rewatching it, i felt some of the character development and relationship development was a little rushed - yet the deleted scenes could have fixed that. WHY WERE WE ROBBED. as ever, emotionally devastated as someone who loves languages and books and words, but ultimately chose medicine and science. as ever, very very sad over neil perry and aching for todd anderson. newfound appreciation for meeks + dalton. that punch at the end? *chef’s kiss*

✩ Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) i am inducting my sisters into lotr and they are powerless to stop me.

✩ Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince (2009) my favourite of the hp movies.

✩ Atonement (2007) this film and i have a long history - i first saw the start of it many years ago, when i did not know what c*nt meant, so was understandably a little bit lost, but also keira knightley in that green dress was a true gay awakening moment. i love the cinematography - it’s so ridiculously dreamlike and gorgeous, and the set design for the house is just beautiful. as are keira knightley and james mcavoy. also, the soundtrack with the use of the typewriters and lighters as drumbeats - my GOD, so beautiful. the second half of the film felt very rushed to me - the reveal that some of it was briony’s fiction made sense, but it lacked the stunning quality of the first half, both plot-wise and camera-wise (although the dunkirk scene was brilliant; love a long, revolving camera pan). i particularly hated every scene with briony in it - v lacklustre - and also the scene with luc remembering cecilia, it just felt forced and gimmicky. the novel definitely wins out for me.

podcasts

i haven’t listened to any podcasts in a while, bar a few episodes of the magnus archives whilst cooking and running errands, BUT i did record one!! the episode will be up in the new year but we have a few back episodes on Right to Refuge, which covers refugee/asylum issues and is by the charity that i work for!

articles: medicine / nature

✩ Mass die-off of birds in south-western US 'caused by starvation' - Phoebe Weston, The Guardian

✩ Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: Human Rights-Based Approaches of Legislation, Education, and Community Empowerment - Williams-Breault (2018), Health Hum Rights i just finished my obstetrics & gynaecology rotation and was appalled by the prevalence of FGM/C in the UK and wanted to learn more. this article is truly excellent in terms of understanding cultural issues and barriers to ending FGM/C.

✩ Female Genital Mutilation: Health Consequences and Complications—A Short Literature Review - Klein et al. (2018), Obstet Gynecol Int. a short america-centric lit review that i read whilst writing up my reflective pieces - not as good as the above one but has more (horrifying) statistics: 200 million women affected worldwide; 6,000 girls cut each day; 85% will have some form of medical complication in their lives, from psychological/sexual to gynaecological to obstetric including death; estimated death rate of 1 in 500; 60.5% of affected women reported fear when their spouse wanted sex compared to 2.4% of unaffected women.

✩ Gender equality and human rights approaches to female genital mutilation: a review of international human rights norms and standards - Khosla et al. (2017), Reprod Health intersection of two things i spend a lot of time thinking about: human rights & medicine. interesting - to re-read again and consider and learn more about things like treatment-monitoring bodies, etc.

✩ The macho sperm myth - Robert D Martin, Aeon a wonderful friend sent me this! i am somewhat lost by the meandering course of the article but interesting points are raised. also the idea that some scientist was like ‘i absolutely KNOW that the heads of sperm contain tiny homunculi; i cannot see them but they are THERE’ is just hilarious.

articles: covid-19 nb: i am not linking every covid article i read bc that would be so depressing but rest assured i’m up to date on a surface level. i am not on a medical level bc i am emotionally exhausted.

✩ Covid vaccine: 'Disappearing' needles and other rumours debunked - Jack Goodman & Flora Carmichael, BBC pls don’t even. let me think about anti-vaxxers. i simply wish to know the current conspiracy theories so i can argue with people more effectively.

✩ Covid at Christmas: 'Chris Whitty is more popular than Britney Spears' - Emma Harrison, BBC please someone get me a chris witty prayer candle i am BEGGING

✩ Covid-19: Doctors call for rapid rollout of vaccines - Nick Triggle, BBC

articles: culture

✩ Art in 2021: The highlights to hope for - Will Gompertz, BBC yayoi kusama is coming to the tate modern!! which i can actually get to relatively easily on public transport from my uni city!! gonna take myself to see the infinity rooms omg i am so EXCITED

✩ History: Quileute Nation this is the official site of the quileute nation, whose history and mythology stephanie meyer butchered in the twilight saga.

✩ The Archers tackles the 'hidden' connection between disability and modern slavery - BBC something i’m ashamed to say that i knew nothing about until this article. the archers keeps on giving in terms of social issues.

✩ Gollancz gets Sims’ ‘horror for the Netflix generation’ - Tom Tivnan, The Bookseller jonny sims is writing a BOOK??! the EXCITEMENT i feel