#truth vs falsehood

[your-heart-is-a-treasure]

Everything gets a little clearer, the closer you get to God.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

“Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence.”

-- Henri Frederic Amiel

Tell the truth.

[wickershells]

Feyd-rautha commanding rabban to kiss his boot and Paul commanding the padishah emperor to kiss his ring (you are what you eat as in consume as in kill)

[shyhijabigirl]

Debunking the Myth of a Permanent Skin Whitening Drink

Discover the truth behind the widely circulated myth of a ‘permanent skin whitening drink’. This comprehensive post debunks false promises, presents scientific evidence, and promotes a healthier perspective on skin care. Dive into the reality of skin health, and learn why chasing after quick-fix skin lightening solutions is both ineffective and potentially harmful. Embrace the beauty of informed…

[mystacoceti]

Frank Chin is kinda insane for "Come All Ye Asian American Writers of the Real and Fake" because he lays out all the psychosexual tensions suffusing the political problem, like complete with illustrative examples from both high and low culture, and then he goes "okay anyway, here's my book report on The Romance of the Three Kingdoms"

[specialagentartemis]

I get variations on this comment on my post about history misinformation all the time: "why does it matter?" Why does it matter that people believe falsehoods about history? Why does it matter if people spread history misinformation? Why does it matter if people on tumblr believe that those bronze dodecahedra were used for knitting, or that Persephone had a daughter named Mespyrian? It's not the kind of misinformation that actually hurts people, like anti-vaxx propaganda or climate change denial. It doesn't hurt anyone to believe something false about the past.

Which, one, thanks for letting me know on my post that you think my job doesn't matter and what I do is pointless, if it doesn't really matter if we know the truth or make up lies about history because lies don't hurt anyone. But two, there are lots of reasons that it matters.

It encourages us to distrust historians when they talk about other aspects of history. You might think it's harmless to believe that Pharaoh Hatshepsut was trans. It's less harmless when you're espousing that the Holocaust wasn't really about Jews because the Nazis "came for trans people first." You might think it's harmless to believe that the French royalty of Versailles pooped and urinated on the floor of the palace all the time, because they were asshole rich people anyway, who cares, we hate the rich here; it's rather less harmless when you decide that the USSR was the communist ideal and Good, Actually, and that reports of its genocidal oppression are actually lies.

It encourages anti-intellectualism in other areas of scholarship. Deciding based on your own gut that the experts don't know what they're talking about and are either too stupid to realize the truth, or maliciously hiding the truth, is how you get to anti-vaxxers and climate change denial. It is also how you come to discount housing-first solutions for homelessness or the idea that long-term sustained weight loss is both biologically unlikely and health-wise unnecessary for the majority of fat people - because they conflict with what you feel should be true. Believing what you want to be true about history, because you want to believe it, and discounting fact-based corrections because you don't want them to be true, can then bleed over into how you approach other sociological and scientific topics.

How we think about history informs how we think about the present. A lot of people want certain things to be true - this famous person from history was gay or trans, this sexist story was actually feminist in its origin - because we want proof that gay people, trans people, and women deserve to be respected, and this gives evidence to prove we once were and deserve to be. But let me tell you a different story: on Thanksgiving of 2016, I was at a family friend's house and listening to their drunk conservative relative rant, and he told me, confidently, that the Roman Empire fell because they instituted universal healthcare, which was proof that Obama was destroying America. Of course that's nonsense. But projecting what we think is true about the world back onto history, and then using that as recursive proof that that is how the world is... is shoddy scholarship, and gets used for topics you don't agree with just as much as the ones you do. We should not be encouraging this, because our politics should be informed by the truth and material reality, not how we wish the past proved us right.

It frequently reinforces "Good vs. Bad" dichotomies that are at best unhelpful and at worst victim-blaming. A very common thread of historical misinformation on tumblr is about the innocence or benevolence of oppressed groups, slandered by oppressors who were far worse. This very frequently has truth to it - but makes the lies hard to separate out. It often simplifies the narrative, and implies that the reason that colonialism and oppression were bad was because the victims were Good and didn't deserve it... not because colonialism and oppression are bad. You see this sometimes with radical feminist mother goddess Neolithic feminist utopia stuff, but you also see it a lot regarding Native American and African history. I have seen people earnestly argue that Aztecs did not practice human sacrifice, that that was a lie made up by the Spanish to slander them. That is not true. Human sacrifice was part of Aztec, Maya, and many Central American war/religious practices. They are significantly more complex than often presented, and came from a captive-based system of warfare that significantly reduced the number of people who got killed in war compared to European styles of war that primarily killed people on the battlefield rather than taking them captive for sacrifice... but the human sacrifice was real and did happen. This can often come off with the implications of a 'noble savage' or an 'innocent victim' that implies that the bad things the Spanish conquistadors did were bad because the victims were innocent or good. This is a very easy trap to fall into; if the victims were good, they didn't deserve it. Right? This logic is dangerous when you are presented with a person or group who did something bad... you're caught in a bind. Did they deserve their injustice or oppression because they did something bad? This kind of logic drives a lot of transphobia, homophobia, racism, and defenses of Kyle Rittenhouse today. The answer to a colonialist logic of "The Aztecs deserved to be conquered because they did human sacrifice and that's bad" is not "The Aztecs didn't do human sacrifice actually, that's just Spanish propaganda" (which is a lie) it should be "We Americans do human sacrifice all the god damn time with our forever wars in the Middle East, we just don't call it that. We use bullets and bombs rather than obsidian knives but we kill way, way more people in the name of our country. What does that make us? Maybe genocide is not okay regardless of if you think the people are weird and scary." It becomes hard to square your ethics of the Innocent Victim and Lying Perpetrator when you see real, complicated, individual-level and group-level interactions, where no group is made up of members who are all completely pure and good, and they don't deserve to be oppressed anyway.

It makes you an unwitting tool of the oppressor. The favorite, favorite allegation transphobes level at trans people, and conservatives at queer people, is that we're lying to push the Gay Agenda. We're liars or deluded fools. If you say something about queer or trans history that's easy to debunk as false, you have permanently hurt your credibility - and the cause of queer history. It makes you easy to write off as a liar or a deluded fool who needs misinformation to make your case. If you say Louisa May Alcott was trans, that's easy to counter with "there is literally no evidence of that, and lots of evidence that she was fine being a woman," and instantly tanks your credibility going forward, so when you then say James Barry was trans and push back against a novel or biopic that treats James Barry as a woman, you get "you don't know what you're talking about, didn't you say Louisa May Alcott was trans too?" TERFs love to call trans people liars - do not hand them ammunition, not even a single bullet. Make sure you can back up what you say with facts and evidence. This is true of homophobes, of racists, of sexists. Be confident of your facts, and have facts to give to the hopeful and questioning learners who you are relating this story to, or the bigots who you are telling off, because misinformation can only hurt you and your cause.

It makes the queer, female, POC, or other marginalized listeners hurt, sad, and betrayed when something they thought was a reflection of their own experiences turns out not to be real. This is a good response to a performance art piece purporting to tell a real story of gay WWI soldiers, until the author revealed it as fiction. Why would you want to set yourself up for disappointment like that? Why would you want to risk inflicting that disappointment and betrayal on anyone else?

It makes it harder to learn the actual truth.

Historical misinformation has consequences, and those consequences are best avoided - by checking your facts, citing your sources, and taking the time and effort to make sure you are actually telling the truth.

[waitmyturtles]

This post was making its way around last night, about how viewers could/should recognize when female characters in dramas are written by men, and how we as viewers can rejigger our minds around how we then see and interpret these female characters. I'm thinking of Cheum in Only Friends, and how she's been written by an all-male and all-queer team of writers.

Somewhat separately, I'm noting a reblog from my OF Sunday meta by @fromthedepthsandbeyond about how Thai audiences vs. international audiences are receiving Cheum. Holding myself accountable: in my original post that I just linked, I chunked up the deuces on Cheum (and I do still hope April dumps Cheum's ass).

But I gotta ponder what it means that an all-male team wrote Cheum. And as well, I gotta think about what it means for me to interpret a female character in a drama, generally speaking.

What are my implicit biases towards a female character to hold people around her accountable? To hold her brother accountable for making false rape claims against Boston? To hold herself accountable for calling Boston a slut and making judgements against his sexual predictions? To hold herself accountable for continuing to suggest to Mew that he date Top, because Top is top-tier?

What are my implicit biases that a female character in a drama would be written to transcend above the bullshit she is witnessing, to be a cipher of macro-level sensibility and to cut through everyone else's bullshit to speak on the truth of their shenanigans?

What are my implicit and/or explicit expectations that the older sister of a younger brother who lied about rape claims would hold that younger sibling accountable for his falsehoods?

I just wrote on a reblog from @ranchthoughts, as we head towards Saturday's finale, about my giving these characters the space and grace to be imperfect twentysomethings, and I think this ties into how I need to possibly adjust what in the heck is going on with Cheum. And I note that especially from @fromthedepthsandbeyond's thoughts on Thai vs. international interpretations of Cheum.

Could I generalize a Thai interpretation on Cheum as: Cheum is doing the best she can in what we assume to be a Thai/Asian society that still holds in expectation certain roles of peacekeeping that a female should uphold?

I might be able to safely make that assumption, with sensitivity to overgeneralization. (I've been thinking a lot about sexism in Asian families vis à vis my re-watch and re-rewatch of Bad Buddy lately -- and how Pat's traditional Thai-Chinese family upholds lingering notions of sexism towards Pat's younger sister, Pa.)

And could I generalize an international interpretation on Cheum as: we have made so much progress on women's equality, that Cheum should feel free to burn all these assholes down to ash for their inconsistencies and/or lies?

I think there's a tension there, in the interpretive lenses, that I'm playing around with, as I think about getting more open and accountable towards my biases of what I might expect out of a character like Cheum that was written by men.

I don't know, I'm feeling unsettled by this, because in a way, I want to know what Cheum, as a fictional storytelling device, was meant to achieve by way of her placement in the Only Friends story and script. She has extreme judgement against Boston, for instance, and.... I don't know where that judgement stems from, what it means.

Does it mean that guys (like Jojo and the OF team) assume that all women judge sex? I can't think that that's it, considering Jojo's past works, but... I don't know.

So, yeah. I'm struggling with this and pondering it. How do I relate to Cheum now that I'm thinking about her as written as a fictional narrative device by guys? Oof. I wonder if I should have recalibrated my expectations all along.

---

P.S. I think this also touches on a thought I had a few weeks ago about implicit biases towards lesbians -- that a lesbian couple like Mew's moms could be wiser, sharper, and more attuned to their son's implicit angst towards Top; when clearly, when they first met Top, they weren't, at all. I thought that was a brilliant spin by the OF team on biases that we may have about lesbian couples, and what that meant for commentary about the general aloofness of Asian parents in fiction.

[fists-on-up]

My Thoughts on the Loie Fuller + Taylor Swift Connection (Part 1)

INTRO

I tend to keep most of my posts on Twitter or TikTok somewhat neutral and objective because neither are good platforms for nuanced conversations. I cannot fully explain why I have a certain opinion on either platform and it is extremely frustrating for me to try, so I just avoid it.

I also don't like the potential for the general public to happen upon a gaylor-centric post of mine if that post is more nebulous vs fact and evidence based. They simply will not have the foundational knowledge to be able to digest it, and nothing good can come from that.

I've been mulling over the topic of this post for months, but I don't think I can do it justice on any other platform, and I certainly can't discuss it without mentioning Karlie, who people have lost their goddamn minds about, so here we are.

THE EXCERPT

In a 2019 Vogue interview - in fact, the infamous "community I'm not a part of" interview - there was a brief discussion of Taylor's dedication of the song Dress to Loie Fuller during the Reputation Tour. It stuck with me for a few reasons:

The author considers Loie to be "the most illuminating clue for reading both Lover & Reputation".

The author glosses over Fuller's interest in artists owning their work, focusing instead on the center of what her work actually meant.

The author's mention of the Cocteau & Mallarme quotes.

Specific mention of the Serpentine Dance & Butterfly Dance.

I also believe Loie is a fundamental part of understanding Reputation & Lover, but moreover I think she's fundamental to understanding Taylor's approach and perspective regarding her own public image during this time.

Mentioning that Loie created "the phantom of an era" is an interesting choice. It struck me because of Taylor's suggestion that she could be a phantom - something that exists in appearance only - in ...Ready For It?, along with the choice to include a fallen chandelier in the music video for Look What You Made Me Do. The chandelier crash is an iconic moment in Phantom of the Opera and symbolizes a vow of revenge. A vendetta, if you will (and I will).

A DIZZINESS OF SOUL MADE VISIBLE BY AN ARTIFICE

But the thing that's brought me back to this excerpt again and again is the Mallarme quote describing Loie's performances as "a dizziness of soul made visible by an artifice".

Sometimes I will read, write, or think a phrase or sentence that just... sticks. It burrows down into my brain and roots itself there. Sometimes it's a line that's just perfectly crafted and I need to admire it over & over. Sometimes it makes me think. It's usually both. As a writer, these are the lines I live and breathe for. They're the lines I'm trying to build and when I hit them, there's no other feeling like it.

This line stuck with me, and I think it's possible that it stuck with Taylor too.

A dizziness of soul made visible by an artifice.

A truth displayed for all to see, hidden by falsehoods, but only visible because of those falsehoods.

Loie Fuller was on stage, but her genius was in her use of movement, fabric, and lighting to ensure the audience could only see glimpses of her. Her dances gave the illusion that she was not a woman, but a snake. A butterfly. Not an out lesbian, a desexualized human being hidden at the center. There, but not there. Visible, but only as something else. Hidden in plain sight.

DRESS

How fitting, then, that Taylor chose to dedicate Dress to Loie Fuller each night? A song that embodies the description of "a dizziness of soul made visible by an artifice". The song itself is an artifice. A love song that is very obviously about Karlie, but that the general public 100% contends is about Joe. She could write a song about her best friend during a time at which the entire world knew who her best friend was, then sing that song to that best friend live, and only a few would even hear her. All you need is some fabric, some lighting, a red herring about a buzzcut, and you're invisible. We see the soul, they see the artifice. We see the woman, they see the serpent.

Dress even tells the story of embodying this line in real life, does it not? It's the story of pretending to be one thing in public so that the public does not realize you're another. The story of an electrifying, maddening, all-encompassing love that's out there in front of the entire world, masquerading as something else. Hidden as "best friends". Holding hands, being one another's date to events, being so obviously in love in public, on video, in pictures, and yet ignored because the public believes the artifice. And that artifice is the only reason they were able to love one another in public at all. It was a beautiful love made visible by, ironically, the complete, unquestioning dedication to heteronormativity most of the public cleaves to. Made visible by the inherent invisibility of sapphic love. We saw a great love, they saw "best friends". We saw the soul, they saw the artifice.

We see the queer genius at the center, they see the paper-thin public image they want to believe. And they hate us for daring to say she's a woman, not a snake.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

It has frequently been noticed that the surest long-term result of brainwashing is a peculiar kind of cynicism – an absolute refusal to believe in the truth of anything, no matter how well this truth may be established. In other words, the result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lies will now be accepted as truth, and the truth be defamed as lies, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world – and the category of truth vs. falsehood is among the mental means to this end – is being destroyed.

And for this trouble there is no remedy. It is but the other side of the disturbing contingency of all factual reality. Since everything that has actually happened in the realm of human affairs could just as well have been otherwise, the possibilities for lying are boundless, and this boundlessness makes for self-defeat. Only the occasional liar will find it possible to stick to a particular falsehood with unwavering consistency; those who adjust images and stories to ever-changing circumstances will find themselves floating on the wide-open horizon of potentiality, drifting from one possibility to the next, unable to hold on to any one of their own fabrications.

Far from achieving an adequate substitute for reality and factuality they have transformed facts and events back into the potentiality out of which they originally appeared. And the surest sign of the factuality of facts and events is precisely this stubborn thereness, whose inherent contingency ultimately defies all attempts at conclusive explanation. The images, on the contrary, can always be explained and made plausible – this gives them their momentary advantage over factual truth – but they can never compete in stability with that which simply is because it happens to be thus and not otherwise. This is the reason that consistent lying, metaphorically speaking, pulls the ground from under our feet and provides no other ground on which to stand.

—Hannah Arendt, Truth and Politics, The New Yorker, Feb 25, 1967

[gojira-ekkusu]

Legend of Two Endings - King Kong vs Godzilla

The 1977 Godzilla Crestwood House Monster Series book is probably the most well known source of the falsehood that the US and Japanese versions of King Kong vs Godzilla had different endings.

The Monster Series books were common in public and school libraries and from the late 70s into the 90s it was the only English language book on Godzilla available. A generation would take this information to be true and spread the myth about a different Japanese ending.

The origin of the “two endings” appears to be from the September 1963 issue of Spacemen magazine (x). Although it reports that the ending would be different for Western and Asian markets, not just US vs Japan.

The myth would reappear in the July 1974 Issue of The Monster Times (x).

The “secret scoop” reported in Spacemen had become an accepted fact in the minds of American Godzilla fans. The aforementioned Crestwood House book then amplified this misinformation to a larger population.

Fanzines, and then the early days of the internet, would start to get the truth of the matter out, but to this day there are people who still believe this bit of Godzilla trivia that never was.

[reginarubie]

Truths and falsehoods — Sansamonth2023, day 17

Robb will beat him, Sansa thought. He beat your uncle and your brother Jaime, he will beat your father too. It was as if her face were an open book, as easily the dwarf read her hopes. — Sansa II, ACOK

“My love for His Grace is greater than it has ever been,”

“Someone taught you to lie well. You may be grateful for that one day, child. You are a child still, are you not? Or have you flowered?"

Sansa blushed. It was a rude question, but the shame of being stripped before half the castle made it seem like nothing. "No, my lord." — Sansa II, ACOK



I am not your daughter, she thought, I am Sansa Stark. Lord Eddard’s daughter and Lady Catelyn’s, I am the blood of Winterfell.

“I am Alayne father, who else would I be?” — Sansa I, AFFC

He was Petyr, her protector warm and funny and gentle… but he was also Littlefinger, the lord she’d know in Kings Landing, smiling slyly and stroking his beard as he whispered in queen Cersei’ ear. And Littlefinger was no friend of hers.

(…)

Littlefinger was only a mask he had to wear. Only at times Sansa found it hard to tell where the man ended and the mask begun. Littlefinger and Petyr looked so very much alike. She would have fled them both. — Sansa I, AFFC

A man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth. — Oscar Wilde

Sansa wearing the mask of the babe lost in the wood (to take a leaf from showVarys’ book) whilst she has been actively biding her time to return home, to the independent North; Vs Sansa reading the man behind the mask in Tyrion and in Littlefinger.

[makethosenarratorsfight]

UNRELIABLE NARRATORS; SIDE A

Lemony Snicket Propaganda:

(I would like to preface this by saying that Lemony Snicket is the author's pen name, not a real person, and he exists as a character in-universe as well as being the one in-universe who writes the books!) I'd say he's unreliable because he spent time collecting information about the Baudelaire kids and then... wrote books about it. He has no idea what any of their dialogue actually was, what they were thinking, or even the whole plot, he's just doing research into the incidents and then filling in the gaps to make it a story. What ACTUALLY happened to the Baudelaires? Nobody really knows for sure

While the Baudelaire siblings are in potentially life threatening danger, he will randomly start talking about his own life and just leave the siblings hanging. For example, once Count Olaf was threatening to kill Violet, and then Lemony randomly began talking about how he met the love of his life at a costume party. This man CANNOT stay on topic. Usually when a new character is introduced, Lemony tells us right at the start that they’re either going to die or that the Baudelaire siblings will never see them again. Foreshadowing is not subtle in these books. CONSTANTLY emphasizes how miserable he feels while writing these books. At one point he admits that he had to put his pencil down and go cry for a while because of how sad it made him. Once he filled an entire page with nothing but the word “ever” to emphasize how dangerous it is to put forks in electrical outlets. He also repeated a paragraph about deja vu later on in the book to give the reader deja vu.

Dr. James Sheppard Propaganda:

The story, centered on murders in an English village, is narrated by Poirot’s mild-mannered sidekick, Dr. James Sheppard. [SPOILERS} At the end, the killer turns out to be Dr. Sheppard himself, a shock despite the reader having been privy to his thoughts for several hundred pages. Christie does not allow her narrator to record a single falsehood; his slippery omissions and evasions are enough to conceal his guilt.

to quote the wikipedia article on this book: "The novel was well-received from its first publication,[4][5] and has been called Christie's masterpiece.[6] In 2013, the British Crime Writers' Association voted it the best crime novel ever.[7] It is one of Christie's best known[8][9] and most controversial novels,[10][11][12] its innovative twist ending having a significant impact on the genre. Howard Haycraft included it in his list of the most influential crime novels ever written.[13]"

Dr Sheppard’s telling the story by documenting Poirot’s investigation, starting by first telling us the events that led him to finding Roger Ackroyd’s body. He’d had dinner with Ackroyd that evening to talk about a woman’s recent suicide and her admission she’d poisoned her husband after struggling with a blackmailer. Ackroyd had a letter from her and when his body was found the letter was gone. He tells us opportunities the main suspect had to do things all while professing said subject would never do *that* when you go back and look at them again knowing what you do at the end you can see how these little things you can see how they relate to opportunities which could have led Sheppard to be exposed as the blackmailer and murderer. It’s brilliant how Christie set it up, especially if you’ve read other Poirots and are used to Hasting telling us the story. I always read it twice in a row, once just listening to the story and then going through and noting those little clues that change in context. I’m not sure I explained it that well but it’s really good how he lies to us by telling part of the truth.

[backjustforberena]

Thoughts whilst watching Corlys and Rhaenys fight in 1x07 (YELL AT ME AND I MIGHT ADD GIFS):

The establishment of this scene. Beautiful. We’ve got those first two angles highlighting how alone and in private they are. How quiet it is. How dark the room is. Peeking over the banister and through the doors; as an audience, we’re trespassing on two parents in the throes of grief but as the scene will go on, we get more in their head as we push in with close ups. No music either. All that is left is them.

The visual separation of Corlys and Rhaenys. This scene would have been totally different if Corlys had been sat down from the beginning, and we’d been subliminally been cued into some sense of mirroring and symmetry as is usual with these two. As such, the opposite happens. We start with Rhaenys sat and Corlys standing. Both of them on the same side of the room. Both with their backs to the other. Opposites. Him in darkness, her in firelight. 

In every scene (okay, three scenes total) that Rhaenys and Corlys have alone, there is always some physical layer removed on each of them. For Corlys, this usually means his second layer; his robe, except in 1x10 where he’s just all sorts of vulnerable because he’s in his nightshirt and dead-looking. Rhaenys, meanwhile, in 1x05, she’s taken off her own jacket to be left in her tunic. In 1x10, she’s taken off all her armour etc. But in this she’s taking off her rings. Ergo, they are always at their most stripped back with one another.

“She wanted to come home. And he denied her.” - as an opener, it doesn’t pull punches, does it? Rhaenys has the habit of getting straight to the truth of a matter. It’s heartbreaking to think that, throughout the funeral and the wake, all she has been able to think is: this was preventable. 

“The surgeons in Pentos are as well trained as our maesters. You are looking to place blame for an act of the Gods.” - I’m always fascinated by who is the “actor” in each exchange. By which, I mean, who is wanting to act vs who is more passive. Physically, Corlys is the most active. He’s stood, he’s moving, he’s turning and stepping and all of that. But emotionally, and towards the events, he’s not engaged. He isn’t looking to place blame, he’s not insulting Daemon, he’s not thinking there was something they could have done or should have done. Meanwhile, Rhaenys, sat and still for the most part, is burning to do something. She’s saying they should have done something, that it wasn’t the gods, it was them. And you can see the frustration in her face when Corlys refuses to engage. So her statement about the gods forsaking them is not only there as truth, but to deliberately provoke him.

CORLYS TURNS HIS WHOLE BODY TO RHAENYS. SHE DOES NOT BLINK. IT IS THE FIRST TIME THEY’VE LOOKED AT ONE ANOTHER, AFTER 51 SECONDS OF THE SCENE ALREADY.

Ahhh, the Crown. Corlys’s speech here reads like a script and it’s said like it should be the answer to everything. It’s tried and tested. It’s the reason for all of his actions; their actions. It’s what he’s been telling himself again and again till it becomes irrefutable, in his mind. It’s not pride that drives him, as his wife suggests. It’s something nobler. It’s a valiant quest for justice: is it such a terrible thing for your husband to wish to win it back? - this is so important to how Corlys sees himself and his ambition. And he’s HURT. He’s not angry at her words, he’s bewildered and shocked that she’s suddenly just characterised in in what probably seems like a really base way. 

This shouldn’t make me emotional but it does but... the way Rhaenys pauses between “Tonight of all nights, let us lay aside this falsehood” and “Tis not justice...”. It goes to show how considered it all is. She’s not saying it out of anger. The first sentence is - she says it to shut him up. But then, she pauses. And she looks at him. Rhaenys tells him what she thinks of it all but it builds and it builds because it’s a truth that has been in her for years and born of not just grief, but fear. Fear that it’s all for nothing. That it’ll change them. That she won’t be able to keep control.

I also think there’s a part of her that fears that Corlys’s ambition will override the love they have. There’s a little bit of an assumption she can make: the whole realm said no to her. What can Corlys possible know about her that makes her so worthy, that the realm cannot see? Especially when there is now a female heir? What is so special for him to undertake all this plight, other than his own proximity to the Throne? 

Rhaenys fighting for control, and looking away from Corlys. She’s doing it to keep her emotions in check. She doesn’t want the conversation to become a fight (she’s already got her wishes in mind r.e Baela, and it will do no good for her to come to the debate with her voice raised and his hackles up).

Corlys wants Rhaenys to understand him and forgive him and love him at exactly the point in the scene when she can’t:

She looks away from him. Physically turns her body away, and then moves her head to avoid his gaze when he draws closer. He sits opposite her and his whole body is all about being close to her, drawing her gaze, seeking her eyes. Corlys needs and wants his wife to understand his perspective. 

He says his line about legacy that’s really just the crux of him as a person. This is why he’s done all he has done, why he sticks with it. In being so profoundly vulnerable in that moment.

But, she’s unwilling and incapable to meet him in the middle, to appease him or console him. Rhaenys doesn’t even look at him. And she separates them: “Legacy might be why you live YOUR life, Corlys.” - when before, they’ve always been a united front. Even earlier in the conversation when she spoke of their JOINT pride. Now she’s severing herself from his views.

Now to the matter of Driftmark’s succession. Two things strike me about this:

One - it’s something Rhaenys has thought long and hard about. She turns away from him in order to school her emotions. She has thought about his arguments against it, she has thought about perceptions and declarations and the hows and the whys.

Two - Corlys is the one that turns this fight into an emotional one by his phrasing: you would have me cast an even darker shadow over those little boys... His turn to provoke her? Except it doesn’t work. He can’t use that as a defence and you see his face, again, just drop into a state of utter vulnerability when she says they need to acknowledge the facts.

SHE TAKES HIS HAND. I REPEAT, SHE TAKES HIS HAND.

Not just that, but she takes his hand in both of hers. In this, she’s turning herself physically back into his space, leaning forwards towards him. 

Rhaenys wants Corlys to understand her and forgive her and love her at exactly the point in the scene when he can’t:

She’s being the most vulnerable that she can be and is asking for him to do things as she suggests, to see things from her perspective and change their definition of legacy, honour their daughter even at the cost of their son, let go of whatever dream he has of both the Iron Throne and the Driftwood Throne belonging to Velaryons.

She reaches out physically, holds his hand in both of hers because she doesn’t want to hurt him. Rhaenys is looking right at him. She knows she’s asking a great deal of him. She knows it’s hurting him to acknowledge the truth about the boys’s paternity. It’s all his best efforts and plans and she’s the one telling him it’s come to nothing. It’s her moment to ask: Hear me. Look at me. Love me. Forgive me. Understand me.  

And, like when the roles were reversed, Corlys doesn’t engage. He doesn’t even look at her. She may take his hand in hers, but he does nothing to hold on, he barely even registers the touch. And then he takes his hand away. And he leaves her alone.

For Corlys, perhaps, it’s too much, too soon. It’s three, maybe even four emotional gut punches; it’s stripping away a world-view, it’s the tearing up of a façade, it’s the revelation of truths he’d not wanted to face. For Rhaenys, it’s a culmination of everything. It’s something in her that needs to be voiced, needs to be acted upon to safeguard the future.

[4thewynne]

Superman vs Lex Luthor: Autism vs ADHD

So I had this random thought that probably can be refuted many times over when looked at by others, thought I'd share it anyway to see if anyone wants to correct, add on, or share their own thoughts.

Clark Kent

Clark is healthly living with functional Autism. He likes being himself, he is shy and humble, has trouble making eye contact, struggles with imagination, loves dealing with facts and investigating truths (reporter), has constant low to mid level anxiety that he might hurt someone, his parents raised him to be aware and responsible for his actions. This lead to his job in reporting. He doesn't have to be physically out there where accidents can happen and he can do good in the world. Meanwhile his, "Masking" is Superman. He feigns what he thinks is a confident hero. Yes, I am intentally believing the opposite of what Bill thinks in Kill Bill. Bill forgets Clark's origins other than being an alien so Bill is wrong about Superman.Being Superman also lets Clark fly off when his "public exposure" meter is too full (forgive me citizen, I hear a cat in a tree 3 blocks away I must rescue. -flys away-). Along with that though is his strong Kansas upbringing.

His parents taught him humility. To try not to hurt others, that he has abilities and capabilities others don't. People will resent him for it so to stay humble and careful so they don't resent him. But help whenever and where ever he can. But its best not to take credit if you can help it. He was fed the American propaganda of American ideals and believes in those ideals strongly. As he became an adult and learned the truths behind history also lead to passion for reporting. He hates lies and people doing things for the "greater good". Expect people to live to the ideals and not have them forced. So tries to be a great example as Sups while exposing falsehoods as Clark. This often leads to more actual good being done by Clark and feeling more rewarding while Sups is more flashy heroy good acts when reporting doesn't get things done fast enough. But Clark still thinks of Sups only as a Mask.

Now, Lex Luthor. Lex is unhealthy/untreated ADHD. A billionaire born to wealth with tons of imagination and ideas with little dedication to seeing things through. Only child raised from old money, servants to meet his needs, and best schooling available. He often would mask by pure brute force of his brilliance. It can be exhausting to him because he just wants things done and DONE NOW. Often frustrated by everyone not thinking as fast as him. He would often make others feel like crap because he would think circles around them. This also led to a great level of narcissism. It's not ADHD alone but his aloof parents, privileged birth, and social conditioning that make him the way he is. Being fed American culture growing up, he sees the ideal of America as only a dream and sees how things "really" are. He can make everything better if people would just do as he says. After all, he is smarter than everyone. Not just in the room but everywhere. Often forcing his will on others through any means possible. He has hundreds, no billions of ideas of how to improve things and the wealth and means to make his thoughts a reality. He hires people who hate dealing with him but he pays them to make his reality. Because what is reality? Just what you can make of it. He thinks it is his own hard work that got him to where he is, when the truth was just people paid to fill the gaps in his brilliantly distracted mind that comes up with windfall ideas and partial solutions. This often also leads to his downfall. He never got treated for his condition ("psh, ADHD isn't real anyways. Just something lazy people make up as an excuse to leave things unfinished. Now you got the reports on those 5 projects I gave you? I have a Tee time with the President in an hour to make."). So his plots often have holes as he gets lost in the wrong details, is juggling too much at once, or his plans and thoughts are just too grand for the reality of what people can do and there is only so much that money can do. He also spends a lot of time a lone and distancing himself from others due to his untreated state causes him nothing but frustration when people can't keep up with his thoughts or understand him when he jumps from idea to idea. He doesn't mask, he hides and pays someone to be between him and the "stupid" people. Those someones often getting fired and replaced for not being loyal enough, able to keep up, or what ever his imagination drums up as the cause.

Lex hates Superman because of all the gifts Superman has and refuses to do anything other than piddly acts of heroism. With all that strength and ability, he can actually force the world to be better with him at the head. Honestly, he is often emblematic of the realities of the United States. Not the ideals. If he can just BE The True Superman, laws will no longer apply to him, because no prison can hold him and no weapon can hurt him. Clark on the other hand cares about the Truth and meeting the ideals. He sees the failures of the systems but also, through his upbringing, knows he alone cannot solve everything. So he goes out to do what little good he can. Prevents what tragedies he can. But tries not to do too much because he knows he can't do everything. It would drive him mad or break him.

[natequarter]

what we know about the ghosts' deaths and more specifically how we find out about them is really interesting to me. first off, there's the ghosts we knows the deaths of and have seen an accurate depiction of their deaths - humphrey, pat, the plague ghosts. the fact that these accounts are both explicit and accurate (i'll come back to fact vs fiction in a moment but i promise you it's relevant) suggests to me that the ghosts in question have come to terms with how they died, and are generally okay talking about it. then there's the ghosts that we haven't seen die, but we know the deaths of - fanny and mary. both of them were murdered, violently, and both of them relive their deaths over and over again - fanny literally, and mary metaphorically (she's very clearly traumatised by her death, even centuries on, reacting negatively to fire/smoke in a way most of the other ghosts just... don't). then there's julian, who we haven't seen die (probably because his death wasn't child-friendly), but we do see him immediately after dying. his death doesn't feel like somebody filmed it, like with pat's or humphrey's - it feels nightmarish, unreal, and terrifying. it makes sense - he's just died, and on another level he's also most recently dead, so it's still tangible for him in a way it maybe isn't with other ghosts. his death is also the only one explicitly from his perspective (thomas's death is not from his perspective, but a fictionalised account of what actually happened), hence the unreal feeling, which adds to the sense that this one of the most truly terrifying things he's experienced. kitty is an interesting case, because we haven't seen her death, but we have seen the events that (i would guess) led up to her death, or at least provide context for it. what's happened with kitty is that she knows deep down she was murdered by someone who should've loved her, but she's convinced herself eleanor (i'm almost certain eleanor murdered her) loved her, and thus hasn't made peace with her death because she can't sort out the contradiction of she loved me/she killed me. unlike humphrey or pat's very honest memories of their deaths, she's buried it under layers of falsehoods and fictionalisations. onto another topic: neither robin nor the captain make any mention of their deaths. for robin, this is probably because he's been dead for thousands of years and sees it as irrelevant, having moved on long ago; for the captain it's the exact opposite - whatever circumstances killed him have only made him more repressed, and what he doesn't say about his death (anything, really) speaks volumes. and now for: thomas! i said i'd talk about fictionalised deaths and here it is, the single most fictionalised death in the series. none of the accounts of his death are completely unbiased: thomas's recollection of it is seriously flawed, robin was barely paying attention, mary puts a shall we say interesting spin on what happened, humphrey only saw the shoes, and while kitty's account is the most honest, it's still inherently biased simply because it's her account of it. this is in stark contrast to pat and humphrey's deaths, which (although both memories) are clearly honest - i mean, their deaths were pretty stupid, so if they wanted to lie about them i'm sure they could've. thomas's death isn't accurately recounted by anyone until alison helps the ghosts figure out what really happened. the sheer amount of layers and convoluted attempts to disguise what really happened (especially from thomas himself - he doesn't want to face what actually happened, and given how painful it is it's not hard to see why) are fascinating, and i wonder if the ghosts were trying to avoid telling alison the truth of thomas's death the same way they tried to avoid explaining what really happened between kitty and eleanor - it's that attitude of "lies and staying stuck in the past are better than facing the truth, because the truth hurts" attitude, even if those lies are actually hurting the ghosts

[ahlulhaditht]

The Ka'abah was set on fire at the time of Ibn al-Zubeyr, in the year 64 Hijri calendar....

The Muslims will burn the Ka'abah with their own hands at the End of Times - as per Authentic Hadīth

Sheikh Moqdadī reminds us that in the history of the Ka'abah we have instances were many sad events happened to the Ka'abah...

📍Things got stolen from it..

📍 It has also been destroyed more than once in its history !....

Is there a difference between

Being burned vs. being destroyed ❓❓

Sheikh Moqdadī says YES

We know that it has been burnt once at the time of Ibn Zubeyr...

But we are talking about End Times !!

Not the early Muslims time...

We know that the Ka'abah will be DESTROYED at the end of times by the Ethiopian man described in Prophetic ahadīth. That is another incident though.

This will be AFTER THE TIME OF AL-DAJJĀL.

🛑However :

The time that is described in a Sahīh (authentic) Hadīth of when the Ka'abah is going to be burned is another one.

That Hadīth mentions signs of the coming of Ka'abah being burned down... And those signs paint the picture of a period which is very similar to what we are living right now....

⚠️⚠️One of the first signs described in the Hadīth is the the Deen will be defeated --- meaning --- there will be confusion, mixing of Haqq - The Truth of the religion - with Bātil (opposite of Truth)....

The people will see al-Bātil (falsehood) as Haqq (Truth) and inversely...

The various aqīdah - Creeds - present amongst Muslims will be mixed up, Īmān - faith will become weak...

⚠️⚠️ The 2d sign is ar-raghbah in the hearts of people ...

Ar-raghbah is translated as passionate enjoyment, desiriousness etc...

So what guidance will they have if that overcomes their hearts❓

⚠️⚠️The 3d sign is much disagreement and dissention amongst brothers - Meaning Muslims amongst themselves.

⚠️⚠️ The 4th sign is the much spilling of blood....

Sheikh Moqdadī says here it depends on what is meant.

If it is meant outside the Haram Al Makkī - then of course this has been going on for a while... So many wars in the Arab Ummah - such as in Irāq, Syria etc...

However if WHAT IS MEANT IS INSIDE al-Haram Al Makkī....

Then we ask Allāh for His mercy !!!!

...We have yet to see much blood being spilled inside the haram (sacred Makkah - holy site).

👉👉👉👉Hence if that is what is meant : that has yet to happen........

t.me/TrueDreams_EndTimes