#women act like the dogs of humanity when they should be the wild bears just killing men when they trespass | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

Note

i've been keeping a list of possible prompts for you and there's one i have no memory of adding that just says "courtesan nmj????" so i guess that's the prompt you're getting lmao

What Does the Fox Say - ao3

“Second Madame Nie!” a disciple shouted, rushing into her little garden. She didn’t recognize him, but he was solidly built and well-muscled like most of the others – truly, the Unclean Realm was a rapturous feast for one with eyes to see it. Yum, yum. “Second Madame Nie, I have bad news!”

Boo. She hated bad news: bad news meant she’d have to do something, usually, and right now she was seated very comfortably in a pleasant piece of sun in the garden path that’d been made up just for her and to her preferences, with her feet up on a chair and a full plate of fruit from the kitchen on the table in front of her just begging to be devoured, morsel by delicious morsel.

Her schedule was packed!

“I regret to tell you, but your husband has been killed!”

“Oh,” she said, frowning slightly. “Has he? How obnoxious of him.”

How unreliable. Men.

She sighed.

“Second Madame – Second Madame – you don’t understand!” The disciple was all red-eyed and weepy, which was a look she liked, especially in big, stout men like this. The salt added a bit of spice to the whole thing. “You must flee at once! He was killed by Sect Leader Wen in an act of outright aggression – Sect Leader Wen has declared war – the Wen sect is invading!”

She nodded and picked up another lychee to start peeling it. She’d get around to fleeing in her own time. As long as this Wen sect or whatnot was being led by a man, she wasn’t terribly concerned.

“They intend to wipe out the inheritance of Qinghe Nie! They will rip out the child in your belly!”

She hummed noncommittally. Really, how attached was she to having a child of her own? Really?

“They will slaughter civilians – execute Nie-gongzi –”

Her hands stilled.

“What,” she said, and the disciple took a step back automatically, proving that he, at least, had something more of a survival instinct than her late husband did. “Hurt my little meat bun? My darling rice roll? My savory zongzi?”

She stood up, diminutive height and over-large belly and frilly clothing doing absolutely nothing to diminish the vaguely menacing aura that darkened the sky around her. She bared her teeth.

“Who does this upstart Wen dog think he is?!”

The disciple blinked owlishly, but nodded, seeming relieved that she’d finally accepted his concern, though she could see on his face that he was thinking that her reasoning was – characteristically – a little strange. But then again, and she could see this thought process on his far too honest face, it was well known that the second Madame Nie been quite strange ever since Sect Leader Nie had found her in some lonesome place with no family or background and brought her back to be his new wife nevertheless.

Such a charming man. Pity about his loss, really.

“You have to flee at once, we can’t possibly fight so many people,” the disciple said once more, and this time she nodded in agreement. “We can escort you to a hidden exit –”

“No!” a little voice called. “We can’t go.”

She turned to look, and there was the little pork-and-shrimp dumpling himself, chubby-cheeked and earnest-eyed, looking as delicious as always.

“What do you mean, fish cake?” she asked. “Of course we have to go. Didn’t you hear what this strapping young man said? This Wen person wants to kill you!”

“If Father is dead, then I’m the sect leader,” her stepson said. He was serious and solemn in a way that made her want to pinch his cheeks and bury her face into his belly to blow raspberries, and also possibly to eat him right up, flesh and marrow and gristle and all. “That means it’s my responsibility to preserve the Nie sect.”

“Nie-gongzi, no!” the disciple cried, throwing himself to his knees in a dramatic display of loyalty. “You would only die – far better for you to run, and live!”

“Then isn’t the same true for everyone else?” the tasty little dish asked, crossing his arms over his chest and pouting. Possibly he was trying to put on a fierce expression, maybe, she couldn’t quite tell sometimes. He was so cute. “Why should I live, and them not? I refuse to buy my life with their deaths!”

“But – Nie-gongzi –”

Her charming little honey cake shook his head and held up a hand to stop the disciple, turning to look at her instead.

“Second Mother,” he said, and he had that wholesome trusting expression again that was such a perfect little one-shot-kill to the heart, ugh. “You always said you’re the best at hiding. The best in the world, no one better among all the gods or demons!”

She was, too. She couldn’t help but preen a little, proud.

“– can’t you do something?”

“Oh, darling cabbage bun,” she said, not without fondness. “I can hide myself from even the net of Heaven itself if I so choose, from gods and demons alike, and I can most certainly hide a small group from any mortal eyes that dare to look, if you don’t mind being a little tiny bit dishonorable about the business. But an entire sect? That’s a bit much, even for someone as talented and skilled as me.”

Her stepson looked up at her, all straight-steel sincerity and upright righteousness wrapped into a perfectly edible little snack-sized package. “If we split them up, the sect could be small groups,” he said eagerly. “Couldn’t you do something then?”

He was so cute, and he trusted her. He trusted her, believed in her, felt that she could perform miracles with a wave of her sleeve if only she so wished.

It was awful.

She couldn’t bear it.

“Oh all right, you nummy little slice of roast pork belly,” she said, yielding. “But I’m telling you now, it won’t be the least bit honorable! There’s only so many excuses you can come up with for having a lot of strong men with wide shoulders and women with thick thighs hanging around, and not a single one of them has the slightest bit to do with what you people consider to be appropriate.”

“That’s all right. Preserving human life comes first, always.”

The disciple looked between them, clearly completely confused. Clearly all his effort had been spent on developing the muscles in his arms (quite nice) rather than his brain (quite slow).

“What?” he said. “What’s happening?”

“We’re saving the sect,” Nie Mingjue announced happily, clapping his hands together. Too precious, too precious entirely; she’d have to make sure no one else even thought about going near her darling little snackling. “Tell everyone to prepare to evacuate.”

“That will take too long,” she said, and smiled, with teeth. “Let me call some friends to help.”

When the Wen sect arrived at the Unclean Realm, they found the gate open.

That was unexpected enough, but when they entered, they found that the entire place had emptied out – not just of people, but of everything else, too. There wasn’t a single intact chair or table in the entire place, not a scrap of cloth nor a bit of food, like it’d been swept clean by locusts or wild monkeys come to pilfer whatever they could.

Even the paving stones where arrays had been laid out by the Nie sect’s ancestors had been pried up and carted away.

Sect Leader Wen ordered a search, but there wasn’t any trace of it – of the people, of the stuff, anything.

No one ever found out what happened.

Jin Guangyao despised social events, he’d found.

It was one thing when it was something he’d planned himself, where the work was interesting enough to distract him, but when he was an honored guest for someone else…miserable. Utterly miserable.

The only thing more miserable was when the host was his erstwhile father, from whom he’d forcefully extracted recognition. With Wen Ruohan as his backer, indulging his favorite torturer as if a beloved pet, there wasn’t much Jin Guangshan could do to refuse, and neither could he force Jin Guangyao to do anything on his behalf, either. And so Jin Guangyao, sitting as always by Wen Ruohan’s side, right beneath his sons, was now an honored guest at his father’s house, getting offered his pick of prostitutes as if the man had no notion of the irony.

Maybe he didn’t. Jin Guangyao couldn’t quite tell if his father had just forgotten his origins, thinking his bastard son too unimportant to remember the details of, or whether it was meant as a deliberate insult – who could tell?

“Oh, right,” the simpering idiot in front of him, a nephew or cousin of some sort to the sect leader, said. “Our dear Jin Guangyao is known not to like the gentle flower queens, even when they come from the finest houses in Lanling. Isn’t that right, cousin?”

Jin Guangyao’s fists clenched. A deliberate insult, then.

Despite that, his face remained neutral. Instead, he chuckled and said, “The appeal is limited. After all, I have seen the best of them.”

Beside him, Wen Ruohan nodded and smirked. He appreciated Jin Guangyao’s devotion to his mother, though Jin Guangyao suspected it was because he thought it funny that Jin Guangyao would bother to honor such a lowly woman – but what he thought didn’t matter, not really. All that mattered was that he let Jin Guangyao pay his respects to her to his heart’s content.

“Well, you’re in luck!” the idiot Jin Zixun said, looking absurdly smug. “We have something of a different flavor than the usual tonight – we’ve invited entertainment from the local branch of Splendid Spring.”

Jin Guangyao barely managed to avoid rolling his eyes.

The Splendid Spring Palace was a series of brothels that had popped up fully formed just about everywhere some years back, with madams and girls and musicians and bodyguards of all sorts. It was so patently a political move that Jin Guangyao had barely bothered to pay attention to it once he’d become actually powerful, and Wen Ruohan hadn’t paid attention to it at all. After all, in the unlikely event that the business really was backed by a cultivation sect that didn’t care about its face any longer, anyone who needed to use such a façade to gather power was clearly beneath notice.

Jin Guangyao had paid only very little attention, but to different and unusual aspects of the place: by all accounts, they were surprisingly decent employers as far as places like that went. They didn’t steal girls or accept unwilling goods – they had some connection with the merchant caravans, or at least one of the companies that helped coordinate routes and provide protection to such things, and they were as meticulous about checking things over as they were about seeking refunds if they were dissatisfied – and they did accept married girls fleeing unhappy marriages, which not everyone did. They did buy up all the girls in the local markets wherever they were, but they swept them away and brought them back transformed, even the ones that wouldn’t sell because they were too ugly; Jin Guangyao assumed that meant they had people who were talented in make-up and clothing, since the usual rumors of the girls being blessed with a yao’s enchantment were obviously ridiculous and nothing more than the usual marketing gimmicks that brothels since time immemorial had tried.

Even once they had the girls in hand, the places were pretty decent: they had physicians on staff to help with the usual side effects of the business, made sure their girls were clean and healthy, and were said to even limit the number of customers a girl would be obliged to take on in a given evening…honestly, knowing as he did the brothel business, Jin Guangyao sometimes wondered how they’d managed to bespell enough people to even make money in the early days. At any rate, whatever they’d done, it’d worked, because by now they had a solid enough reputation to trade on.

In short: a decent enough place, far better than the usual run of the mill. Once he’d had the ability to do so, he’d even pulled a few strings and arranged for the better of his mother’s old compatriots to end up there, since he couldn’t convince them to leave their old professions behind entirely.

Anyway, if they also seemed to have a sideline in information brokering and assassinations, well, let them. In the cultivation world, where the only thing that mattered was strength, real strength.

A little thing like that wouldn’t make any real difference.

Or so Jin Guangyao had thought.

He found himself re-thinking that, though, when the entertainment in question came out. There were the usual set of attractive (albeit in a wider variety of shapes and sizes than usually seen) dancers, dressed up in silks that seemed actually high quality, and plenty of strapping young men carrying sabers – dancers as well, once assumed, to provide some spice to the entertainment, and implicitly on the offer for men who cut their sleeves or women with more flexibility, like widows or ones with especially permissive husbands. Wen Ruohan’s wives were in that latter category, and they were already whispering to each other excitedly, looking at them.

They’d even brought in the local madame, who was…

Well, she was actually breathtaking, even by Jin Guangyao’s extremely jaded standards. She had hair that fell almost all the way to her ankles, shimmering in the light, and dark eyes shining with liveliness, a smooth and ageless face that simultaneously suggested youth and health but also winked at knowable experience, the features characteristic of what his mother’s employers had called the ‘fox-face’. As if to emphasize that, the lady was wrapped in fox-fur and draped in embroidered brocade, with little stylized foxes running up and down the hems of her clothing and along the gazy silk draped on her shoulders.

It ought to have looked absurd, looked gaudy and overwrought and overdone, but it didn’t.

She was a thousand dreams of wealth and beauty and power and sex appeal all wrapped up in one, and even Jin Guangyao – who was in his personal preferences quite firmly a cutsleeve – couldn’t help but intrigued by her, wondering what it might be like to touch the hem of such a glorious creature.

And next to her…

The lady was accompanied by two men that seemed completely different from each other. One was a slender and winsome young man, fluttering his eyelashes from behind a fan with a charming smile, emanating the appeal of softness and weakness, ready to be indulged. While the other…

Jin Guangyao swallowed.

He was the exact opposite of the first man. Clearly strong, muscular and powerful, and tall to the point of towering, with wide shoulders and a narrow waist, a chest that you could lean your head against and an ass that begged to have someone’s hands on it – and there were his hands, big and broad, perfect for holding someone down or up if they so wished and of a size that was very promising as to what was only hinted at under his clothes. His face was hidden behind a veil as if he were a woman, marking him, like his comrade, as one of the available courtesans of the Splendid Spring, but his body was visible under clothing clearly cut to put it to the best advantage.

And oh, what advantages it had…!

“It seems we found something to the tastes of dear cousin Guangyao after all,” the idiot said mockingly, sniggering and snorting like the pig he was, and for once Jin Guangyao didn’t even care.

“Who’s the woman in front?” Wen Ruohan asked, ignoring their interplay. He seemed utterly fascinated, almost spellbound, and Jin Guangyao couldn’t blame him one bit. If this woman had been at the same brothel as his mother, there wouldn’t have even been room for jealousy or shame; his mother would have gone straight up to her to ask for some tips. “She seems…familiar, somehow.”

“That’s the madame of the Splendid Spring,” Jin Zixun said proudly, as if he’d done anything at all in relation to this – nonsense, of course. Everyone know which brothels were backed by the Jin sect, and Splendid Spring wasn’t one of them. He was acting as if he deserve a pat on the back just for the introduction! “That means she’s not for sale.”

His smile faded a little, twisting in a small bit of bitterness. “Or so she told my uncle, anyway…although I’m sure if it were Sect Leader Wen asking, the answer would undoubtedly be different.”

Probably because Jin Guangshan couldn’t slaughter prostitutes with impunity if they said no to him, whereas no one could stop Wen Ruohan from doing any damn thing he pleased.

Wen Ruohan grunted, pleased by the answer – he was a possessive man, in the rare events that he did exert himself in the realm of women, and there had been more than one instance where he’d stolen away some girl his sons had been eyeing first just for the joy of having had her first – and raised a hand, catching the lady’s eye and gesturing for her to come over, which she did.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

She laughed. “You can call me Hu Jiuwei. With the ‘Hu’ being the character for fox.”

Jin Guangyao tried not to choke. There were false names and then there were false names – the lady’s theme was already clearly related to foxes, given her fox-face and fox-fur lining and the foxes embroidered onto her robes. Was the over-the-top name really necessary?

“It’s a fake name,” she added, unnecessarily.

“I see,” Wen Ruohan said, sounding a little choked himself. Possibly it was the woman calling herself ‘Foxy Ninetails’ and then kindly reassuring them all that the name was false as if she thought them too dumb to figure it out that was tripping him up a little. Jin Guangyao couldn’t tell if she was doing it deliberately in order to make her frankly inhuman beauty a little less frightening, or maybe she was blessed with so much beauty that she hadn’t bothered to cultivate her brain at all. “Are you our entertainment for the evening?”

She smiled, and any complaints Jin Guangyao (or indeed Wen Ruohan) might have had about her intelligence faded away at once.

It was that type of smile.

You could wreck nations with that type of smile. Jin Guangyao couldn’t help but wonder: how had a woman this extraordinary ended up in a brothel, of all places? How had no one snatched her up to keep her all for himself before now?

“My sons and I –” she gestured at the two behind her, “– would be more than happy to provide you with all the entertainment you could possibly want.”

Her smile widened.

“We’ve been hoping for an opportunity like this for a long time.”

#mdzs #nie mingjue #second madame nie #jin guangyao #wen ruohan #my fic #my fics #what does the fox say

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ffangirlingsince2001 · 4 years

Text

Nothing Alike: IX

Description: Geralt of Rivia has been tasked with taking out a fellow Witcher who has decided to settle down in a town. She has no intention of leaving and Geralt is forced to take matters into his own hands.

Geralt x Reader

Warnings: (future as well as present) violence, angst, smut, fluff, language

MASTERLIST

The journey to the palace should have only taken three days max. And the Geralt should have been free to go about his business. However, the prince had other ideas up his sleeve.

Upon awaking the morning after the incident, he proclaimed with great elation that Y/N would no longer be allowed to ride on a horse.

“If she’s going to act like a dog, she shall be treated like one,” he had proclaimed with great enthusiasm, as if it had taken him all night to think of it.

It probably had.

So, instead of moving at the reasonable pace of horses, they were subjected to the pace of a stubborn, disgruntled girl who wanted nothing more than to throw a tantrum.

A thick iron collar was padlocked to her neck, and her wrists were shackled together. They had considered her ankles as well, but Geralt had claimed it would take them too long if she couldn’t take large strides (not that she was taking them anyway). The collar and the shackles were connected to one another by a long iron chain that led to the prince’s horse, and to keep her compliant, a crossbow was trained on her at all times.

Geralt was forced to ride directly behind her, a silent reminder as to what they could subject him to if he put a hair out of line. He was forced to watch as she dragged her feet, slowing down until the prince gave the chain a tug, sending her to the ground. For a moment, she was being dragged across the floor, shoulder digging into the soft soil. Then she would struggle to stand, a difficult task when your hands were bound, and the horse never stopped moving. Eventually, she would get it, and for a while she would keep up an appropriate pace, but the indignation always returned and the cycled repeated.

When they camped, she was kept away from the fire’s warmth and given only scraps, a desperate attempt to break her spirit. Every night she was led into the prince’s tent, an offer, a bribe that if she were to take, small ounces of luxury would be granted to her. Every night she was tossed back into the cold.

It was those moments when Geralt didn’t mind the pace, because if they were moving slowly it meant that she hadn’t become another piece of land conquered by royalty.

When they did finally reach the palace, it had been a week and a half, and Y/N had been silent for three days (to the great annoyance of the prince who had screamed for an answer). While they had not harmed her, just as his threat had made them promise, she had still been abused. Her cheeks were shallower than they had been when they began. Hair matted; face covered in dirt, arms covered in cuts and bruises from hitting the ground. They burst through the door, the prince dragging her prize behind him as he entered the throne room.

All eyes turned to them, some interested, some full of hatred, all recognizing the woman who was being led forward like a wild animal. The prince pulled her forward, slamming the blunt edge of his sword into the bend of her knees, laughing as she dropped to the floor. He was going to soak in every moment, now that Geralt could no longer threaten him.

“I have returned,” the prince announced, arms outspread as he basked in the gasps of awe and wonder. The uncatchable beast had been caught, brought to her knees before their wealthy feet. The prince turned around to look at his prize, sprawled across the ground, but there was no such luck. She stared ahead, situated on her knees all while retaining a sense of entitlement. He had never seen someone look so regal while being mocked. “Bow before your king,” he growled, but she didn’t move. The only hint that she had heard him was a small moment where her lip twitched into a smirk. Struggling to maintain his composure, he motioned for a guard to step forward. A sharp sole slammed into her back and her forehead hit the marble forehead. When she sat up, emotion unchanged, a trickle of blood was running between her eyes. “I said, bow,” the prince howled, marching forward to do the job himself, but a booming voice stopped him.

“She is not my subject, therefor there is no need to bow,” the king said, standing from his throne, wrinkled finger pointing at his son. The prince looked ready to argue, to tantrum in front of the entire court, but for the first time since Geralt had met the pathetic boy, he held his tongue. “Do you seek trial?” he asked her, but she remained silent. Geralt willed her to speak, but she said nothing, only stared forward, daring them to execute her now.

“She does,” Geralt called, unable to bear the silence any longer. All eyes turned to him, including an extremely interested king’s. “She would like a trial.” Eyes returned to her and there was a small nod. Instantly, whispers filled the room like a tidal wave. “She will speak in front of the king, but the king only.” Another wave of uproar.”

“And I suppose you?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Then it is settled. Everyone out.” Protests erupted, but they were followed by quick footsteps exiting the room. Within moments all the remained were the king, Geralt, and Y/N. “You may unchain yourself,” the king murmured, almost with amusement, as he settled himself back into his throne.

Within an instant the cuffs fell to the ground and she stood, eyes dark as she studied the man across the room. Her fists were clenched to her side, but she did not advance as Geralt presumed she wanted to.

“Pull out a chair, sit, we have much to discuss.” Geralt was surprised to see she listened, dragging an ornate chair to the center of the room. “You may sit closer.”

“It is for both our safety that I do not,” she responded, voice harsh and rough from the lack of care.

“Both our safety?”

“If I sit any closer, I will want to harm you, and then your guards will be forced to kill me. Do not consider me rude, just realistic.” The king laughed and nodded in agreement, fingers drumming across the arm of his chair. The two stared at each other across the large expanse of the throne room before the king pulled a scroll from a beaded purse that sat beside him.

“Do you know what this is?”

“My crimes against humanity, I assume.”

“That is correct. Now, I will not insult you by assuming you are not capable of these acts, so you shall not insult me by lying about them.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Let’s begin then. I shall read your crime and you will defend them to the best of your ability. The swindling of towns people across the continent, namely within my own kingdom.”

“It was not a swindle; they were simply overconfident.”

“They knew you were a Witcher than?”

“Absolutely.”

“The murder of five Witchers who attempted to capture you under the order of the crown.”

“They had no intention of capturing, only killing. I was merely defending my right to trial.”

“Six counts of horse thievery, including from my own stables.”

“It was my horse, wrongfully stolen from me in an attempt to disable me.”

“The massacre of one hundred men and women.”

“They were taking part in slave trading; I was merely protecting the freedom of the people.”

“Slave trading!”

“Yes, slave trading. I was being held as well, and I have marks to prove it. Torture, branding, had I not killed them both my liberty and the liberty of a few dozen others would have been taken.” The king paused as he pondered her statement before continuing.

“Evading arrest.” She only smirked at him, a smirk that he returned. “The murder of your mother and father.” Geralt could barely hear what was said after the accusation. She had murdered her own blood, that was a crime he was not acquainted with. He strained over the blood rushing through his ears to hear her defense, but it did nothing to console him.

“They sold me out.”

“That is not a defense.”

“It was not meant to be.”

“You cannot take the law into your own hands.”

“You do.”

“I create the law.”

“So do I.” He stared at her before he began to chuckle, the deep sound quickly turning into a rolling laugh that echoed around the room. She didn’t flinch a muscle, merely watched him as he laughed away her statement. When he had finished, noticing that she was not smiling along he quickly righted himself.

“You are full of insolence.”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“I cannot in good conscience allow you to return to the outside world, but I can offer you a deal.” She raised an eyebrow, a silent gesture for him to continue. “We will either execute you, or you will work for me, and uphold my law.” Geralt’s heart sunk again, an offer she would never take. As she had said repeatedly, no one controlled her, and if that meant death over chains, she would take it.

“Then ready the gallows,” she replied coolly, confirming Geralt’s suspicions.

“You are making a mistake.”

“No, the only mistake made here today was the offer you just made me, as it was both a waste of words and air. Send me your dungeons and tie the noose quick because the only day that I will reside beneath you is the day you walk over my grave.” Geralt wanted to scream, to snarl and spit in her face until she accepted the man’s offer but he remained still, silently seething.

The king laughed once more, but it was not full of humor, it was full of hatred. He had not expected to be refused, and yet she had thrown it back in his face without an ounce of regret.

“Guards,” he called and two entered the room, swords already drawn, expecting the worst. “Escort our prisoner to the dungeons, and the inform the executioner there will be an execution tomorrow at sunrise. Call all to see for this will be their greatest victory.” They dragged her from the room, and even without the chains she did not struggle, merely smiled as they dragged her away, already readying herself for the final moments of her reign.

Taglist: @stuckupstucky @aurora-sweet @holyhumorliteraturelight

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innuendostudios · 6 years

Video

youtube

After four months of work, my video essay Bringing Back What’s Stolen: Fury Road and the Avenging Feminine is online. A nearly hour-long dive into the cinematic language of feminine violence in action and horror films. You can also watch this playlist of all 8 parts if you don’t want to click through manually. I will share a supercut of the whole thing as soon as I deal with a copyright block.

This was a crapload of work so, please, if you want more like it, consider backing me on Patreon.

Transcript below the cut.

Mad Max Fury Road has three principal characters: Imperator Furiosa, Immortan Joe, Max Rockatansky; protagonist, antagonist, deuteragonist (it’s a word).

Each character is introduced from behind, as a body first and then, later, as a person.

We meet Max at a remove, practically a silhouette. Wrapped in cloth and buried in wild hair, it takes several moments before we glimpse human skin. Almost immediately, he’s disappearing into his V8 Interceptor, and it’s not until his pursuers roll his car that we get a shot of his face, covered in sand and a matted beard.

Max is a person who has abandoned all markers of his humanity to live alone in the desert. His obscured face makes it easier to relate to him as a feral animal than as a man, and that’s the life he’s chosen; living like an animal insulates him from danger and buries his guilt and trauma. Throughout the first chunk of the film, Max’s face is remains obscured, first by the beard, then a gag, then a muzzle. We get only one unobstructed shot of his face, and it’s framed by the bars of a cage. The protections he built around himself, the war boys have stripped him of, and replaced with chains; humanity is no longer something forsaken, it's something denied.

It’s not until 45 minutes into the movie, having escaped Joe and formed a tenuous alliance with Furiosa and the wives, that he starts to look to the audience like a recognizable human.

We meet Furiosa in the opposite fashion. Where Max was a wide shot of a silhouette that is all cloth and hair, Furiosa is an extreme close-up of brightly-lit human skin. She carries Joe’s brand, and she has her hair cut short, which implies everything we just saw Max go through, she has gone through as well. They’re both prisoners. [“I was taken… stolen.”]

Where Max is invisible inside his car, we follow Furiosa inside the war rig. Max is like a hermit crab receding into its shell only to have it pried off, where Furiosa has complete mastery of her vehicle (it even has her missing arm drawn on the driver’s side door, as though the war rig were an extension of her body). Clear windows, her face unobstructed, the greasepaint on her forehead making her eyes - the windows to the soul - pop, making her expression more readable.

Everything Max takes the first act to become, she is from her first scene. The time between her introduction and getting a good look at her face is just over two minutes.

Joe’s introduction is the sick inversion of the others’, closer and fleshier than Furiosa’s yet more alien than Max’s. Where Furiosa’s skin humanizes her, Joe’s tumorous body does the reverse. Where Max has his layers of protection stripped from him, Joe is kitted up with armor and finery. Where Max struggles to make his face visible and Furiosa’s expressions are accentuated, the distance between Joe’s introduction and seeing his face uncovered is the entire movie; we only see Joe unmasked when half his face has been torn off. And three minutes later the credits are rolling.

What makes these characters accessible has been distorted to make Joe a grotesque. (I don’t have room to get into the troubling ways Fury Road uses atypical bodies as a shorthand for inhumanity, so I’ve written a small, additional essay, link in the down there part, or at the end.)

So here we have it, from the opening shots: protagonist, antagonist, deuteragonist; human, inhuman, half-human.

The things I’m describing are filmic techniques for creating or denying audience empathy. Humans relate to other humans, and filmmakers employ dozens of tricks to portray inhumans as human and thereby relatable, and portray humans as inhuman to make the otherwise. By this rubric, empathy with Max is built, empathy with Joe is denied, and empathy with Furiosa is simply expected.

The female action star being the one for whom empathy is most freely given is by no means unprecedented, but it’s not the norm. In the tradition of Blow Shit Up movies, the “relatable action heroine” is often approximated, approached asymptotically, but rarely depicted. Some don’t seem to believe she exists. Yet, here she is.

Furiosa is our white whale.

If, in a rom-com, the Thing What Solves Your Problem is love, in an action movie, The Thing What Solves Your Problem is violence. Something is wrong with the world, and the plot is structured around amassing the strength, tactics, or allies necessary to smash your problem until it goes away. That’s how things get fixed. And the idea of punching the world back into shape is deeply tied up in our notions of manliness.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of archetypal action protagonists, from the Everyman Against the World to the Hulking Brute to the Dapper G-man to the Stoic Killing Machine, and, while occasionally cast with women, they are all, by default, men. There’s maybe no other genre more deeply associated with masculinity.

The longstanding assumption is that women complicate violent movies the way we used to say they complicate sea voyages. The movies are manly, the audience is male, and a male audience will not identify with a female character as a matter of course. This assumption goes into the writing, the casting, the filming, the editing, and the marketing. Demographics do bear out that violent movie audiences are, primarily, men, but this assumption existed before we tracked demographics. So, then: if we’ve been making the movies for men, and marketing them to men, should we really be surprised if it’s mostly men who end up seeing them?

For a variety of reasons, action filmmakers can’t just make movies without women in them: a) there are still at least a few women in the audience, and their money spends just as well as a man’s, so best not to completely alienate them, b) they’d rather not get yelled at too much by feminists, c) sleeping with beautiful women is part of the power fantasy a lot of male action heroes are supposed to cater to, and d) absent any women, the fixation with the male physique might read as just a wee bit gay, and we can’t have that, apparently.

So if women in action movies are unavoidable, perhaps the audience’s sympathies, if not freely given, can be earned. For this purpose, action filmmakers have invented a handful of female archetypes.

Between these six women, we can chart the cinematic language of feminine violence as it is most commonly codified. I’ll stress that they are not the sum total of womanly presence in violent movies, but, if you’re a fan of violent film, you’ve probably been in a room with them dozens of times and never been formally introduced.

Each has something to teach us about how men are expected to relate to a woman in a violent context. Let us discuss each in her own turn, and, with each, how Fury Road’s avoidance, subversion, or rejection of these expectations are key to what the film is about.

Let’s get y’all acquainted.

The Innocent: Helplessness

There is a beat common in action movies called The Kick The Dog Moment. Kicking a dog is how screenwriters signal to the audience just how bad the bad guy is, because only a monster would harm something so precious, so loyal, so helpless as a dog.

An even more common beat for exposing a villain’s evil nature is the Strike The Woman Moment, or the Grope The Woman Moment, or the Shoot The Woman Moment.

This is the role of The Innocent: precious, loyal, helpless, and serving the same narrative function as a puppy. Her proximity to violence spurs the plot forward, and reveals things about violent men, but the story’s never really about her. It’s about the men. She’s there to get threatened by men, to get kidnapped by men, to get killed by men. Also, she’s there to get rescued by men, or, failing that, to be avenged by men. The Kick The Dog Moment isn’t about the dog, it’s about the villain. The dog is a device.

The Innocent is not wholly incapable of enacting violence herself. She will, on occasion, fight back against her captors, which serves to communicate to the audience that she’s feisty; but it rarely accomplishes anything. Occasionally, during the falling action, she is granted an act of symbolic violence, sometimes even landing the final blow on the villain, but this is only after the dramatic tension surrounding the villain has resolved.

The Innocent is an onlooker to violence, she is often the site of violence, and though she is sometimes allowed to perform violence in an honorary capacity, she’s not a full participant. She is a symbol of what is good and worth protecting, and what is good is innately peaceful. Violence is a burden that violence is used to spare her from. It is the solemn duty of men. She can only enter this domain as a victim.

She is, by far, the most common female action movie archetype. There’s even a variant I call The False Innocent - the woman who plays off people’s assumption that women are powerless in order to kick their asses. You know, what if that 90-pound, doe-eyed waif being threatened by the big strong men is secretly the toughest person in the room? (Joss Whedon is, shall we say, fond of this one.) This serves as a direct rebuke to the assumptions baked into The Innocent, but it says something about how pervasive the archetype is that you can build an entire second archetype around everyone assuming all women are Innocents.

In Fury Road, as soon as our protagonist and deuteragonist meet, it is made clear that Furiosa can hold her own in a fight with only one arm. This scene serves the same function as the Thor-Iron Man-Captain America fight in The Avengers: “Hey, these folks are pretty evenly-matched. Wouldn’t it be cool if they were on the same side?” And Furiosa’s not the only woman who can fight: Later, we meet fearsome warrior tribe The Vuvalini.

So where we normally see a divide between violent men and passive women, here we have a split between multi-gendered warriors, and people who don’t fight - in this case, the wives.

And not being a warrior doesn’t ipso facto make the wives useless, unlike some damsels who, growing up, made you or possibly your older sister yell “DO SOMETHING WOMAN” at the TV. People who can’t throw a punch can still throw you a weapon, they can pull your enemies off you, they can keep ammo away from your enemy’s gun. They can reload a rifle, they can stop a bullet from being fired. They can make you a new ally. Even when people try to turn them into helpless prisoners, as happens to so many women in so many movies, they don’t have to submit; they can surrender and then help you board the enemy’s caravan, or, even taken captive and held at gunpoint, they can still help you take down the Big Bad.

In isolation, any one of these could be just another “feisty damsel” or “false innocent” moment, but, in their totality, they start to imply that the reason the wives aren’t fighters like Furiosa is the same reason they don’t drive the war rig: They don’t know how, because they’ve been kept in a safe. There is nothing innate about the difference between a warrior and a non-warrior, and certainly nothing gendered; just training.

If the usual framing is active, violent men protecting or possessing passive, innocent women, no one in this movie is passive. No one. Even if you aren’t shooting the gun yourself, there are still ways to contribute. You don’t have to sit around waiting to be rescued, there’s work to do.

It’s important to recognize that the wives are never rescued by anyone; not Max, not even Furiosa. [“they begged her to go” clip.] Violence may still be the way things get done in an action movie, but it’s not synonymous with agency. They set the plot in motion. This whole thing is their plan. It’s not a rescue, it’s an escape.

The Vasquez: Masculinity

Meet The Vasquez, the masculine woman, named after Janette Goldstein’s character in Aliens because all the other words I could think of carried the wrong connotations. (Also, Goldstein? Really?) The Vasquez is rough, she’s tough, she’s hard-drinking, she’s foul-mouthed, she’s gun-savvy, she’s sexually aggressive, and, most importantly, she’s one of the guys. If the most common coding is that men are violent and women are passive, and the action screenwriter assumes a male audience won’t like their female character because they can’t stand to think violence could ever be feminine, the obvious solution? Make the lady man up. If she resembles a man, she can be fashioned into any number of existing male archetypes, from military grunt to double agent to assassin.

Her closest male counterpoint is The Hardbody, a staple of the 80’s action milieu. In a hardbody movie, we either meet a man who’s a pillar of masculine strength, or we watch an ostensibly regular guy spend the movie becoming one. Similarly, The Vasquez is sometimes introduced fully-formed, but, more often than not, we watch her emerge from the body of a traditionally feminine woman. And where a Hardbody’s training montage shows what is soft becoming hard, The Vasquez shows what is feminine becoming masculine. [G.I. Jane clip on not menstruating.]

In either gender, we can call this process “ruggedization,” and it’s not only physical. As a character acclimates to violence, there is often a change in presentation. Most especially with a woman, ruggedization may not be the gaining of muscle but the shedding of feminine signifiers. Note how Ripley, over the course of three movies, goes from having all the hair to a lot of the hair to none of the hair, thereby resembling all the men in the movie, as she becomes more of an action heroine. Note how, as Thelma goes from neurotic housewife to a woman who robs liquor stores and holds up policemen, we see her go from frilly white dresses to denim to dirty sleeveless tops. Note the scene where Louise sits down at a truck stop, takes off every piece of jewelry she owns, and trades them for a man’s cowboy hat.

Also, in correlation with becoming violent, there tends to be, call it a shift in patterns of speech: [“suck my dick” montage].

The Vasquez maintains the association between powerlessness and womanness codified by The Innocent because, as the woman sheds her weakness, she also sheds her womanness; the two are treated as the same thing. Violence stays masculine; women get violent when they become honorary men.

Fury Road‘s trick is to take its plurality of female characters and scatter them across the entire gender spectrum. In terms of presentation, you’ve got the highly feminine wives, the traditionally masculine garb of the Vuvalini, and Furiosa somewhere in between. The film subverts the spectrum further by softly rejecting the notion that a person occupies any single position along it. Toast is very feminine and also knows her way around guns; the Vuvalini are a leather-wearing, pants-sporting biker gang, and also are The Many Mothers, who care about feminine-coded things like cooperation, empathy, gardening. Masculinity and femininity are not an either/or. Many traits exist, in varying proportions, in all people.

Traditional femininity is valorized in our male heroes as well. Traits like healing, softness, deference to superior skill, self-sacrifice, these things are treated as inherently valuable irrespective of one’s gender, and absolutely mission critical to their success in battle. Basically every time a man does something that Human Embodiment of Toxic Masculinity Joe would disallow, it helps them win. This goes a long way towards elevating femininity, but also breaking up the male-female dichotomy, allowing anyone to possess any trait from anywhere along the spectrum and still be strong.

The fact that Joe does treat gender as an either/or, that he does not foster community nor empathy with his followers, that he only maintains loyalty by imposing a Norse-inspired death cult that leads his war boys into reckless behavior and crumbles instantly if it’s ever challenged, these things are liabilities.

Men and women are at their strongest not at their most masculine - at their most like Joe - but when they are free to be as masculine and as feminine as the situation requires of them. What’s wrong with Joe isn’t masculinity - masculine signifiers abound on both sides of the fight - it’s a malignant masculinity that rejects all but the most extreme of one end of the spectrum. This narrowness is what gets Joe killed.

The Dominatrix: Sexuality

The sensual murderess, ass-kicking in catsuits, high heels, and chokers. The ostentatious fusion of the two greatest spectacles: Sex & Death, Pleasure & Pain, Eros & Thanatos. If you want to leave behind the idea that the only way to be violent is to be manly and you worry your straight male audience will revolt, consider writing someone every straight male is already familiar with.

Consider The Dominatrix.

(Note that I am using the term “dominatrix” a little loosely here. In real life, there is a distinction between highly sexualized violence and actual BDSM iconography. How do I know? Mind your own business.)

The Dominatrix is a violent - often hyperviolent - character who is still, unmistakably, a woman. I mean, say what you want about Bayonetta, she’s not mannish. Most men are at least passingly familiar with what a dominatrix is, so it’s not a far leap to refashion a woman’s bedroom violence into action movie violence. But she comes with some baggage.

The femininity she displays is specifically the subset of femininity most appealing to men. She’s not a nurturer, not a healer, not soft, and rarely cooperative. Her womanliness begins and ends with sexuality. And sexiness creates its own context. There may be loose justification for why she’s dressed the way she is: you know, she can’t wear armor like a normal person because she needs to leap around - gymnastics being another familiar image of female physical excellence, and an excuse to whiz the camera around her body. But much of the time we don’t even get that much. The movie holds no pretense: She’s dressed that way because the audience likes it.

The thinking here seems to be that if straight men consider violence the domain of men, and, therefore, a violent woman an affront to their masculinity, they’ll willingly take a blow to their male ego provided their heterosexual ego is, to speak indelicately, getting stroked. For what does a dominatrix do? Strike, dominate, and degrade, yes, but for their partner’s own pleasure. It’s, at least in part, a performance; there’s a reason your dalliance with a domme is called “a scene.”

The dominatrix-as-action-heroine turns violence into a kind of elaborate pole dance, inoffensive to a man because it’s for him, a woman trafficking in male signifiers made acceptable because she does it sexylike.

Of all the characters we’re talking about, The Dominatrix demands the least empathy of the male audience. An action movie offers a power fantasy; James Bond is supposed to be a character men want to be. Men don’t want to be Barb Wire. Men are supposed to look at Barb Wire, not walk a mile in her pumps. The Dominatrix is most commonly a villain or an antihero. Perhaps it should come as no surprise: Bad Girls aren’t Good Guys.

Now, this is a bit of a subjective statement, but Fury Road doesn’t sexualize its women.

Let me paint you a picture: A man lives for some indeterminate length of time at the very bottom of a rigid social hierarchy wherein only the man at the top has access to beautiful women. Prior to that he lived for years alone in the desert. We don’t know how long it’s been since he’s even spoken to a woman. After a thrilling escape, he, alone, happens upon the five women deemed by that society the most beautiful and fertile, the “prized breeders,” clad in white, cutting off their chastity belts, and spraying each other with a hose.

This is how Max meets the wives. Most Hollywood directors would shoot this scene like a wet t-shirt contest.

Man Of Social Caste That Would Never See A Beautiful Woman Naked Stumbles Upon One Or More Bathing Out Of Doors has been shot hundreds of times. This is every hot springs episode of every anime ever drawn. Movie peeping is the essence of the filmic experience, because a man watching a woman bathe is doing the same thing you are doing as an audience member: looking at naked people who can’t see you. The way you traditionally shoot this scene is to lean in to the voyeurism. If there’s going to be bathing and then a fight, why not sexy bathing and sexy fighting?

In Fury Road, Max lusts only for one thing. Water.

During this scene, Furiosa is fully-clothed, and look at how she’s framed. Now look at the shots favored for the wives: long shots and tight close-ups. As in: their breasts and hips are either filmed at a distance or cropped out of frame.

I don’t want to overstate things. That framing is not enforced, merely favored. And there’s no denying these women are, by conventional standards, beautiful - I mean, for fuck’s sake, Zoe Kravitz is in this movie. I’m not, like, kinkshaming you if you do find this scene erotic. But it seems to me that effort is being expended to downplay the obvious potential for eroticism. A chastity belt coming off could easily signal sexual availability. [Men in Tights clip] But this one has teeth. To I’m thinking, “I would want that off me, too.” I feel I am being asked to walk in the wives’ shoes.

If what you need to feel OK with a woman holding a gun is some hint that she’s doing it to turn you on, Fury Road won’t give you that. If you want to see women as sexy bodies before you consider seeing them as humans, Fury Road won’t give you that, either. That’s how Joe sees them, and they left that perspective behind before frame one, and make one thing clear in their very first line of dialogue: [“We’re not going back.”]

The Mama Bear: Motherhood

A common action movie character is the man who’s love interest is kidnapped and/or murdered, and he is spurred into violence so that he can rescue her and/or punish everyone responsible. Swap the man for a mother and the love interest for her child and you’ve got The Mama Bear, the woman who will stop at nothing to protect her cub, a la Jodie Foster in Panic Room or Jodie Foster in Flightplan, or, occasionally, the woman who avenges another member of her nuclear family, a la Jodie Foster in The Brave One. (Jodie’s got a thing that works for her.)

Believe it or not, most men, growing up, had moms, and it’s a cultural narrative that children feel safe under their mother’s protection. So The Mama Bear is a violent woman who is, once again, both feminine and familiar. She’s the ideal of what we’d want our mom to be if something bad happened to us.

By nature or circumstance, The Mama Bear is a single mother, either recently divorced, recently widowed, or possessing a husband who is simply someplace else. (And if he shows up he tends to get his ass handed to him.) Occasionally she’s just single, or even a surrogate whose motherly instinct kicks in upon contact with an orphan. In all these cases, she springs into action without a lot of assistance from men. You can read this as an independent woman who does not require men to help her, or you can read it as a woman who acts, not because she’s suited to the task, but because there are no men to do it for her. Most are a little bit of both.

But this is a strong character who’s not only allowed to be feminine, she is strong because she’s a woman. She has entered the domain of men with her femininity intact. This is not to say that motherhood and womanhood should be so closely tied in our cultural consciousness, simply to acknowledge that, at this moment in time, they are. Mothers are thought of as women whom we not only accept but demand strength from.

But, if she’s our idea of what a mother should be, then our point of identification isn’t necessarily her, but, at least in part, the moppets. Because what warm-blooded mammal can look at the quivering lips of children in danger and not root for anyone trying to save them? The Mama Bear, often enough, gets a kind of collateral empathy, the spillover of our concern for her kids.

She is, also, in contrast with The Dominatrix, almost completely without fail, sexless, another consequence of having dead or absent husbands. She doesn’t have sex, kiss, or even flirt, because, naturally, our ideal mother would never make us think about her banging anyone. That, the assumption seems to go, is the price for our respect.

Between one obvious pregnancy, the wives’ escape to “the green place of many mothers,” and the words they left scrawled in their cell, motherhood is a central theme in Fury Road. The symbology of motherhood is all over fiction written by men. You know the “women and children first” trope in disaster movies? That’s not just chivalry. It’s also men preserving the mechanisms by which they pass on their genes. [Up In The Air: “Because you can’t have babies.”]

Immortan Joe is kind of the ad absurdum of this thinking, having literally turned motherhood into a commodity-producing industry. Outside of Furiosa’s relative privilege and a few unnamed proles, the only women in Joe’s hierarchy are babymakers and dairy cows. The wives’ escape is, at least in part, about providing a better life for them and their children, where bodies and babies are not property.

What’s absent in all this is any actual children. Save for some nameless warboy youths at the beginning and end - some of whom, for all we know, may have been born to the wives - children are not party to the action. There are no wee ones with their eyes welling up to get you caring about their moms by proxy. The wives and the Vuvalini may all carry the title of “mother,” but it’s abstracted. What’s at issue isn’t children but the idea of motherhood, or, more accurately, the right to motherhood, celebrated on its own terms and for its own sake, not as a service to men. And, by focusing more on pregnancy than child-rearing, motherhood is not quite so divorced from sex.

Motherhood and strength coexist in the characters, but the one does not derive from the other. Motherhood is not correlated with fighting ability. The wives’ rebellion is about the rights of their babies no more than it’s about their own rights to not be things.

The Final Girl: Specialness

[“Do you like scary movies?”]

OK, this one… is a lot.

A gaggle of young folks - usually horny teens - is terrorized by a monster - usually a man in a mask - who represents a kind of pure, unwavering evil and kills with a bladed weapon. One by one, every character is picked off or incapacitated until there’s only one left, a young woman who, in spite of her terror, finds the strength to fight back, and, often enough kill the killer. If you’re not familiar with the slasher movies of the 70’s and 80’s, you might not even know, at first, who of the initial posse is supposed to be the protagonist, but if you’re a fan, you’ll recognize her instantly: Responsible, resourceful, and pure, she is The Final Girl.

The slasher is an interesting case, because, breaking with the traditions we’ve established, it’s an entire genre where a presumably male audience isn’t expected to accept a violent woman, by the end of the film they are expected to be screaming for her to pick up the chainsaw and kill the fuck out of the bad guy.

Because The Final Girl is special, damn it.

What sets her apart? Well, a lot of it is to do with what The Final Girl symbolizes and how it contrasts with the symbology of the killer. Of all the characters, she is the most suited to survive and combat the villain, which is why she outlives her friends. We can start with the most obvious difference: [“She’s a virgin”].

Virginity means a lot of things in the movies. Purity: If the killer represents all we consider evil about the world, the antidote to that is someone who is, metaphorically, “unsullied.” Youth: If sex is considered a rite of passage into adulthood, then a virgin is, in some ways, still a child, and we’ve already discussed how relating to a child is considered a smaller ask than relating to an adult woman. Desirability: As a society, we haven’t fully escaped the puritanical narrative of “bringing a virgin to the altar,” at least not in our movie symbolism, and codifying a woman as “untainted goods” invites the male audience to, well, crush on her. There also tends to be this subtext of sexual violation to the murders, which lends the whole thing a Chaucerian concern for preserving a young woman’s maidenhead.

There are other ways The Final Girl, even if not explicitly a virgin, is virginal. She doesn’t drink, or, if she does, she’s a lightweight. She doesn’t smoke pot, or, if she does, she’s inexperienced. She doesn’t flirt, or, if she does, she’s comparatively demure. She’s also usually a bit brighter than her friends: The one who first senses something is wrong, the one who makes a plan of action, the one who figures out the killer’s identity. She may not be “one of the guys,” but she’s “not like other girls.”

This emerges slowly over the course of the film. The more characters die, the more The Final Girl appears to individuate from the rest. It is the ways in which they are not like her that get the other girls killed. They’re too dim, too horny, too oblivious. The empathy you build for The Final Girl - in part by having every other potential point of empathy systematically removed - you are not asked to extend to the other girls. You empathize with a woman, not with women. If she is special, they are unspecial. Their deaths are scary, but titillating. You’re not expected to root for them the way you root for her. You’re here to watch them die.

Then there’s the killer himself. In the early going, the camera is more closely aligned with him than any of his victims, often showing the murders literally through his eyes. It’s only as The Final Girl grows more active in the story - and, eventually, becomes violent - that we gradually come to see the killer from the victim’s perspective.

Each slasher villain is a snapshot of what society thought an image of evil incarnate would look like at that time. The things they have in common are telling.

The killer is almost always a man - Friday the 13th Part I notwithstanding - but is commonly, by societal standards, an insufficient man: Physically deformed (The Hills Have Eyes), gender-nonconforming (Psycho), or just really, really hating sex (Jason X). This is often blamed on being too close with his mommy. Meanwhile, The Final Girl’s disinterest in the activities of other women makes her a little tomboyish, and it’s really common for her to have a boy’s name: Stevie, Marti, Terry, Stretch, Ripley, Taylor, Sidney. Couple this with her tendency to kill the villain with his own intimate, penetrating weapon - and I’m not going to go down the rabbit hole of phallic imagery in slasher movies because, frankly, I think most writers make too much of it, but it’s there - and you can read The Final Girl’s assault on the killer as becoming a better man than him.

We still haven’t escaped the fixation with violence and masculinity. This isn’t to say The Final Girl is another Vasquez - even if she is ruggedized, it’s not by forsaking femininity. Instead, the distinctions between masculinity and femininity are more permeable; the killer kills what is feminine, and then fails to kill what is, in some ways, less feminine than himself. And that failure leads to the reversal of who commits violence against whom.

Fury Road borrows a lot of imagery from horror films, most especially in imagining Joe as huge, misshapen, and masc’d. But Joe’s monstrosity is not a lack but an overabundance of masculinity, by no means the ideal male body but a body that idealizes maleness. If masculinity is a performance then he’s Kenneth fuckin’ Branagh. He hides his welts under fake abs, war medals, and - ahem - whiteness, and hangs a gear from a muscle car from highly symbolic places. [It’s drivin’ me nuts!] And he’s defeated not by appropriation of these signifiers but by rejection of everything they stand for.

But if the core of The Final Girl is a specialness that does not extend to other characters, can we talk about how not one person on Furiosa’s side of the battle is special? Not a one of them.

If we wanted to argue Furiosa is “not like other girls,” which other girls would we even be referring to? The femmes in white or the granny biker gang? The elderly matron, the full-bodied milk mothers, or the suffering proles? Furiosa has commonalities and differences with all of them. They all have commonalities and differences with each other. There is no “normal” from which to deviate. Even within a single type, there is variation: the wives alone have the leader, the nurturer, the weird one, the scared one, and the tough one (or: Gobo, Mokey, Wembley, Boober, and Red). No one is interchangeable.

At the same time, no one is special. The war rig is chock full of redundancies: Multiple people who can drive, multiple people who can shoot, multiple people who can fix what’s broken. Which is, again, necessary, because there’s too much to do not to have backup. [“I’m going to need you to drive the rig.”]

We don’t know a lot about Joe’s society, but we can infer it’s a caste system that stratifies everyone by specialness, here defined by their usefulness to Joe. At the bottom are possessions: wives, blood bags, and milk producers. Above them are the masses, and then the war boys, who believe they will be awaited in Valhalla if they perform their duties well. Next is Furiosa as a leader in Joe’s army, and then Joe’s immediate family, and, finally, Joe himself, singular and all-powerful. [“He grabs the sun.”]

Furiosa’s alliance counters this verticality with a lateral power structure - I mean, it’s literally the difference between a tower and a convoy - where specialness is not a prerequisite to rights, privilege, or empathy. A cooperative, where no one is fungible or disposable, and on one is special or elite. People form interdependencies with each other of their own free will, and may leave at any time if they wish. No one earns a place in society, or the empathy of the audience, by proving themselves unique. It is simply assumed that everyone is deserving of both.

Also, remember when I said this scene mostly kept the camera away from the wives’ breasts and hips? Here’s one of the only exceptions: [not a virgin clip]

The Rape Revenger: Suffering

I’m going to spare you the explicit footage in this section.

The rape revenge film is the subtext of the slasher movie made literal, the kick-the-dog moment if it took up an entire reel, what would happen if The Mama Bear fought as passionately for herself as for her kids. A number of men target a particularly vulnerable woman - usually isolated, sometimes even deaf or mute - and rape her. And then, one by one, they meet their fate at the hands of The Rape Revenger.

Most commonly, The Rape Revenger and the victim are the same person, though, sometimes, she is avenging a loved one, or even a member of her immediate community. (Yes, among other things, Alien is a movie about rape. The rape is metaphorical.) Her often sadistic killing spree is female-against-male in response to the most quintessentially male-against-female act of violence, and not only is the male viewer supposed to find this violence acceptable, he is supposed to find it righteous. He is supposed to clamor for the deaths of the transgressors. In these films, there is no retribution too cruel for a rapist.

The genre was most popular around the same time as the slasher, and carries much of the same coding: There’s the same lurid fascination with female bodies as objects of beauty and sites of extreme pain, the same earning of sympathy over the course of an entire movie rather than it being assumed, and the same implication that men are the source of a violence that women can become imbued with by being the victims of it.

The biggest difference is just how much the woman suffers in these movies. She suffers a lot.

There’s no collective of dipshit teens to spread the violence across; everything the villains do, they do to one woman. The genre banks hard on the idea that one can’t help caring for a person as one watches her go through hell. Often, what makes the villains monstrous isn’t their cruelty but that they lack this compassion, that they hardly even notice the pain they’re causing. To them, sexual violence is rarely even about the woman, but jockeying for status with one another. It’s performative, men proving they’re alphas. And the movies treat this apathy towards female suffering as among the most heinous acts a man can commit.

If your heart does not go out to a woman in pain, you are implicated in her suffering.

Not that the male-fronted rape revenge film doesn’t exist, but this is another of the rare violent genres where the protagonist is a woman by default. It is deeply rooted in the (at least, presumed) experience of being a woman. And, for all the genre’s trashiness and exploitation - and they are very trashy, and very exploitative, and usually written by men - the most ambitious of them point fingers not just at the male villains but at masculinity itself.

So if a rape revenge film is seen as a workable way to get a male audience member to not only align with a violent woman but against the worst aspects of maleness itself, the question is: Does the woman have to be nude, filthy, beaten, and degraded for him to get there?

Fury Road assumes otherwise. Female suffering is conspicuously absent from the movie.

Make no mistake, the wives have all been raped by Joe. That’s why he kept them. At least two are pregnant with his children. But there are no scenes of them inside the cell, no flashbacks, no tearful descriptions of what was done to them. Even over the course of a very violent movie, it is surprisingly merciful when it comes to violence inflicted on women: When Angharad dies, the camera doesn’t show it [“she went under the wheels”]; when Organic performs an emergency C-section on her body, the camera tilts away; a scene where Joe leaves her and Miss Giddy in the swamp to be eaten by crows was wisely cut from the film. Even the worst beatings Furiosa suffers are not dwelt upon.

It is crucial that the only person we see suffer Joe’s indignities is Max.

Male-on-male violence carries neither the social baggage of what real-life domestic violence usually looks like nor the grindhouse edginess of watching women get hurt. It’s allowed to just be violence. We see Max stripped of his autonomy, his car and his blood put into service in somebody else’s war. We see him captured, sheared, and branded, and then we’re shown Furiosa, with all evidence of the same, and it’s clear whatever empathy we’ve built for him in the safe space of male-on-male violence, we owe to her. We’re never asked to pity the wives, and we’re never given a cheap thrill at the sight of their suffering. We’re asked to respect them, and to take them at their word. We’ve seen their cell, their pregnant bellies, the scars on Angharad’s face. We don’t need to see them suffer to know it happened.

Cruelty is the hack writer’s shorthand for evil. That’s what all those Kick the Dog moments are for. But a man can be evil without being cruel. [Cheedo scene, “he was kind.”] Joe withholds plentiful resources to keep his subjects in line. He keeps young men as battle fodder for his wars. He keeps slaves for blood and breeding. Would it matter if, in person, he was sweet, gentle, soft? The system he’s built to benefit himself is inherently cruel. The wives don’t write “you treated us like shit” on the walls when they escape, they write “we are not things.” We don’t need to see, or even know, how Joe treated them to know he’s a tyrant.

The Avenging Feminine

Before the comments fill up with taxonomical debates over whether this or that character truly fits the definition of a Mama Bear, the way folks still argue over what is or isn’t a MacGuffin, let me disclaim: The study of tropes is the study of patterns. The Mama Bear is not a character, she’s what a host of different characters all have in common with each other. We note a trend, and we give the trend a name so it can be discussed. Not every character will have all the traits we associate with the pattern; arguably most won’t. But the reason we give the pattern a name is because, if there’s a trend, it must be serving a purpose. The assumption is that men won’t like the image of a woman with a gun. The purpose of the trope is to say, “It’s OK, this time, because she’s a mom.” And it’s a lot less relevant that Charlie Baltimore doesn’t perfectly fit the definition of a Mama Bear because she’s also kind of a Vasquez than that her motherhood serves that same purpose.

The assumption is men will accept that any male character, no matter how soft, if stripped to his essence, will become violent, but, with women, they need to be convinced. These are six different ways of contending with that assumption. Though, you will, I hope, have noticed, that almost every woman I’ve discussed here has been white. This is because, if filmmakers assume a male audience needs to be convinced that a woman will become violent, a countervailing assumption is that a white audience doesn’t need to be convinced that a person of color will. POC have their own set of tropes to contend with, tropes that have far less influence on the action movie as a whole, because violent Black women are even rarer than violent white ones. Because the codification of movie violence is deeply informed by the presumed whims of straight white men.

It’s an open question whether many straight white men actually need these reassurances to enjoy a violent film, though it’s clear a lot have come to expect them.

Action movie violence isn’t just violence, it’s power, and power in the hands of the disadvantaged is very threatening to those with privilege. Fury Road’s very interested in the flow of power. In it, women may possess violence, but lacking it does not make them helpless. It does not insist that masculinity is the only way to wield power and vilifies those who do. It refuses to objectify its female characters but doesn’t strip them of all sexuality in the process. It valorizes motherhood without pretending what makes a woman powerful is her ability to provide men with babies. It offers many models of femininity without treating any one as more normal or valid than the others. And it engages the way women suffer under patriarchy without using that suffering as cheap pathos or easy thrills.

In short, the assumption baked into all the tropes we’ve discussed, that violence - power - is the domain of men that women can only enter in exceptional cases is flatly ignored. Feminine presence in this masculine space is not treated as a transgression, men who would consider it one are personified in the villain, and no attempt is made to soothe the male ego at the sight of women holding guns and crossbows.

This alone would make a movie remarkable. But I don’t think we can stake a movie’s greatness on what it doesn’t do, so, if you’ll permit me, I’ll get to the goddamn point.

No matter how many women are in it, the core of an action movie is about solving your problems with violence. That an appropriate show of force will put things right again. Fury Road is no different in this respect. And, in our society, this is understood to be the male power fantasy, one that has been enforced by thousands of repetitions. So what, then, does it mean to portray a woman living out that fantasy? Does her presence decouple the association between violence and manliness, or is living out a male power fantasy a kind of drag? Is performing that fantasy performing masculinity? Is every action heroine, in a functional sense, a Vasquez? Is the action film too thoroughly encoded male to be reclaimed?

Can movie violence ever truly be feminine?

I don’t think I, or any single movie, can answer that question. However, if you said, “Let’s just assume the answer is ‘yes’ and imagine what that movie would look like,” you might imagine Fury Road. And I’m going to explain why without using the phrase “Deleuzian corporeality.” Let’s talk about the two bags.

When Max lets Furiosa and the wives into the war rig, he does not yet trust them, so, for safety, he collects all the weapons in the cab and puts them in a bag that he keeps with him. A satchel full of Chekhov’s guns, and you will see every one of them fired. Later, after Angharad’s death, the wives take stock of its contents. [“anti-seed” clip]

When the wives stay the night with the Vuvalini, a woman called The Keeper of the Seeds has this exchange with The Dag: [bag of seeds clip]. She shows this to The Dag after a conversation about murder: [“thought you girls were above all that”]. And here’s what the bag means to her: [“there was no need to snap anybody then”]. This bag symbolizes an idealized vision of the past, when the savagery of the post-apocalypse wasn’t necessary. When peace was, at least, possible. This is the bag that is pointedly taken with them when they go to overthrow Joe’s society, being the only place around that could actually sustain plant life and abundance.

So there you have it, a bag of seed and a bag of anti-seed, one full of weapons from the Citadel and one full of sprouts from the Green Place of Many Mothers, one representing the toxic masculine warmongering directly implicated in the fall of civilization, and one representing a potential rebirth of society spearheaded by a pack of moms and highly symbolic pregnancies. Fury Road ain’t good because it’s subtle.

So, yeah, Joe fights to maintain the savagery of the post-apocalypse, because it’s where he’s amassed his power, and the Vuvalini fight to bring and end to it. That’s the difference between toxic masculinity and egalitarian feminism, right? Women represent peace, so we should put them in charge, and a little blood must be shed along the way. That is a reading fully supported by the text. And you might well respond, “Hey, most every action movie insists that The Good Guys’ violence is justified and will lead to peace and only The Bad Guys’ violence leads to continuing violence. There’s nothing particularly subversive about that.” And you’d be right.

But let me give a different reading.

Joe’s power derives from controlling the water supply and arable land and, thereby, agriculture. His power dissolves if someone else can provide his people with resources. So a bag of seeds can represent a feminine rebirth, or it can represent liberation at the hands of women from the existing power structure. Not an end to violence, but an end to unjust violence. Not an end to scarcity, but an end to false scarcity. And end to subjugation. And end to autocracy. Violence as a tilling of the soil, destructive of what was but generative for what will be.

It’s not about “violence good” vs. “violence bad,” but “what is your violence in service of?” I don’t think anyone’s under the impression that violence will not exist in their new world, because, in Fury Road, violence is often justified. As in the real world, people rarely earn their freedom without getting a little bit rowdy.

It’s about who gets to wield violence and to what end. Is your violence about consolidating power or distributing it? Is it possessive or protective? Does it enforce a vertical power structure or a lateral one? This is why I feel saying women represent peace is too simplistic. This is where I feel the movie crosses from ignoring the “violence = masculinity, peace = femininity” coding at the root of so many female characters to countering it:

Furiosa was born to a clan of warrior women, kidnapped, enslaved, and put into service of a warlord. And the wives she fights to liberate have been kept in a cell to keep them from revolting against their captor. Violence - power - is not a thing Joe possess that women learn, or absorb through contact. It’s something he’s expended considerable effort to keep them from. Something he controls their access to the same way he controls the water.

Violence is something he stole from them.

In Fury Road, violence is egalitarian, and any imbalance between who is its owner it and who is subject to it is an unnatural state imposed from without. Joe, patriarchy itself, forces women into subservient roles to dissuade them from reclaiming what is theirs by rights. Violence is human, the vicarious thrill of watching violence is human, and empathy with those who enact violence in service of a righteous cause is human. The idea that any of these things are male is a product of men - warlords, movie producers, audiences - overly-invested in a narrative, because the narrative benefits them.

I would like to dub Furiosa The Avenging Feminine, a new trope: The woman who takes back what’s hers. The woman who fights because it’s her right to fight and against men who tell her it’s not. The woman who makes no affordances to men in the audience and implicates them in her struggle if they don’t like it. The woman who fights to bring the same freedom to other women. I would like to dub this a new archetype, because I think it’s one the action film sorely needs, and I selfishly want another Fury Road. That’s what I would like to do, but wishing doesn’t make it so.

I can, if I try, point to a few characters who have some of the necessary qualities, but it’s not enough to make a pattern. Tropes aren’t tropes just because I say they are. The Avenging Feminine remains, not unprecedented, but all too rare.

Fury Road cannot, on its own, reclaim the action movie… but all it takes to make a trend is volume. If people keep asking, “What if the answer to this question is ‘yes?’” and keep imagining what that movie would look like, maybe folks can get their heads around the idea that violence is not masculine by nature, only by custom.

And, with enough time, enough guns, enough cars, enough explosions, customs can change.

#video essay #Mad Max Fury Road #feminism #film #action movies

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qveenofthorns · 7 years

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Brave, gentle, strong: there is only one (no really—I checked)

“When you’re old enough, I will make you a match with a high lord who’s worthy of you, someone brave and gentle and strong.” – Eddard Stark, Sansa III, AGOT

I’ve seen a lot of metas about textual evidence for Sandor being the BGS That Was Promised™, and I started wondering if there are any other candidates. What if we’re all so ~blinded~ by our ship that we missed something else right in front of us? I used A Search of Ice and Fire to check every single Sansa/Alayne chapter for these words (and variations of them) to see if she thinks of anyone else using all of these terms.

Here are all of the of the uses sorted by character/chronologically (excluding the times she tells Sweetrobin that he’s brave and strong or she tells herself to be brave like Robb):

Joffrey

1. “It was a great honor to ride with the queen, and besides, Prince Joffrey might be there. Her betrothed. Just thinking it made her feel a strange fluttering inside, even though they were not to marry for years and years. Sansa did not really know Joffrey yet, but she was already in love with him. He was all she ever dreamt her prince should be, tall and handsome and strong, with hair like gold.” Sansa I, AGOT

Okay, so I think we can discount this one given the context of Ned’s “brave and gentle and strong” quote, but I really wanted to cover all the bases. It’s also a pretty superficial assessment, moulding him to fit the part in which she’s cast him based on the songs.

Barristan Selmy

1. “One knight wore an intricate suit of white enameled scales, brilliant as a field of new-fallen snow, with silver chasings and clasps that glittered in the sun. When he removed his helm, Sansa saw that he was an old man with hair as pale as his armor, yet he seemed strong and graceful for all that. From his shoulders hung the pure white cloak of the Kingsguard.” Sansa I, AGOT

This one is also an extremely obvious no, though it is still interesting. Despite being old, he seems like a knight from the songs and we see the Kingsguard cloak for the first time in a Sansa POV.

Sandor

1. “She stepped backward and bumped into someone. Strong hands grasped her by the shoulders, and for a moment Sansa thought it was her father, but when she turned, it was the burned face of Sandor Clegane looking down at her, his mouth twisted in a terrible mockery of a smile.” Sansa I, AGOT

This is after she first sees Ser Ilyn Payne, whom she finds terrifying. Her initial response to Sandor’s touch is positive and this won’t be the last time she backs into him when she’s afraid.

2. “Sandor Clegane scooped her up around the waist and lifted her off the featherbed as she struggled feebly. Her blanket fell to the floor. Underneath she only had a thin bed gown to cover her nakedness. ‘Do as you’re bid, child,’ Clegane said. ‘Dress.’ He pushed her toward her wardrobe, almost gently.” Sansa VI, AGOT

This is the first BGS occurrence since her conversation with Ned. She’s depressed and suicidal and hasn’t bathed in who-knows-how-long after his death. Joffrey has demanded she get dressed and bathe or else “his Hound” will do it for her. She still asks that Joff leave her alone and doesn’t move, at which point he orders Sandor to get her out of bed.

3. “‘Here, girl.’ Sandor Clegane knelt before her, between her and Joffrey. With a delicacy surprising in such a big man, he dabbed at the blood welling from her broken lip.” Sansa VI, AGOT

Not only is he being gentle with her here, he also just prevented her from committing a murder/suicide.

4. “‘True knights,’ he mocked. ‘And I’m no lord, no more than I’m a knight. Do I need to beat that into you?’ Clegane reeled and almost fell. ‘Gods,’ he swore, ‘too much wine. Do you like wine, little bird? True wine? A flagon of sour red, dark as blood, all a man needs. Or a woman.’ He laughed, shook his head. ‘Drunk as a dog, damn me. You come now. Back to your cage, little bird. I’ll take you there. Keep you safe for the king.’ The Hound gave her a push, oddly gentle, and followed her down the steps. By the time they reached the bottom, he had lapsed into a brooding silence, as if he had forgotten she was there.” Sansa II, ACOK

The serpentine encounter is the perfect example of the walking, talking dichotomy that is Sandor Clegane. “Iron fingers” catch her wrist and prevent her from falling down the steps and he makes a joke about how she’s trying to kill them both (something to consider for the future, Sandor: you’re the one lurching out of hidden doorways in the middle of the night, so maybe that’s part of the problem). She says he’s hurting her but he doesn’t let go of her wrist. Then he makes some inappropriate comments about her body and asks her to sing him a song about knights and fair maidens (because he’s a closet sappy romantic like that) because she likes knights. She says she likes true knights and then we come in at the quote. So we go from scary drunk who’s holding her wrist too tight and coming on to her sexually (the only time he ever does) to immediately realizing he’s way out of line, going back to gentle touches and promises to keep her safe. He also lies to protect her from Boros Blount on the very next page. I think it’s fairly safe to say his brooding is primarily about two things: kicking himself over how he just acted, and the “keep you safe for the king” part (he knows Joff well enough to realize that the king is the biggest threat to her safety). In a Daenerys ACOK chapter, she says of Jorah, “Sometimes he thinks of me as a child he must protect, and sometimes as a woman he would like to bed….” I reread that chapter the other day and couldn’t help but think of SanSan and this scene in particular.

5. “The Hound pulled her to her feet, not ungently.” Sansa III, ACOK

This is at the beginning of the scene where she’s beaten and stripped by Boros Blount. While he’s gentle with her in that moment and does tell Joffrey to stop later, his inaction on this occasion is the biggest regret of his life and he cries about it on his “deathbed.”

6. “A stab went through her, so sharp that Sansa sobbed and clutched at her belly. She might have fallen, but a shadow moved suddenly, and strong fingers grabbed her arm and steadied her.” Sansa IV, ACOK

Okay, so I’m kind of convinced that Sandor spends all of his free time stalking her (because he doesn’t know how to handle the fact that he has positive feelings for another human being?). He’s always lurking in shadows, only to pop out to save her from falling. How often does he hide in the shadows near her that we just never see?

7. “She made herself look at that face now, really look. It was only courteous, and a lady must never forget her courtesies. The scars were not the worst part, nor even the way his mouth twitches. It’s his eyes. She had never seen eyes so full of anger. ‘I… I should have come to you after,’ she said haltingly. ‘To thank you, for… for saving me… you were so brave.’” Sansa IV, ACOK

Ugh, I just have so many feels about this interaction. Between these two quotes, Sandor bb gets sad because she’s scared of him and “still can’t bear to look,” so he lashes out. “He is a dog, just as he says. A half-wild, mean-tempered dog that bites any hand that tries to pet him, and yet will savage any man who tries to hurt his master.” Yes, because he is an ABUSED dog and no one has every tried to pet him before so he’s getting very confused. I’m getting side-tracked by the feels so I’ll stop myself here.

8. “Of late Ser Osmund had taken Sandor Clegane’s place by Joffrey’s side, and Sansa had heard the women at the washing well saying that he was as strong as the Hound, only younger and faster. If that was so, she wondered why she had never once heard of these Kettleblacks before Ser Osmund was named to the Kingsguard.” Sansa VI, ACOK

I considered also including this under the Kettleblacks, but decided against it because she’s not the one saying they’re strong. Her attitude here feels similar to her attitude during the first unkiss mention (“these other girls/women are so silly—I have the Hound and what they have is inferior”).

9. “He yanked her closer, and for a moment she thought he meant to kiss her. He was too strong to fight. She closed her eyes, wanting it to be over, but nothing happened.” Sansa VII, ACOK

This one typically gets left out because it doesn’t exactly portray him in a positive light, but I’m trying to include everything, good and bad. I have some thoughts on this re: the unkiss, but this isn’t the place for that. Short version: it would have been very easy for GRRM to write something like “she wished he wouldn’t,” but instead he wrote “wanting it to be over.” I’m not saying she wanted him to kiss her in that moment, but she didn’t not want him to kiss her either (or it could be a “just get it over with” scenario).

Tyrion

1. “Sansa watched him walk off, his body swaying heavily from side to side, like something from a grotesquerie. He speaks more gently than Joffrey, she thought, but the queen spoke to me gently too. He’s still a Lannister, her brother and Joff’s uncle, and no friend. Once she had loved Prince Joffrey with all her heart, and admired and trusted his mother, the queen. They had repaid that love and trust with her father’s head. Sansa would never make that mistake again.” Sansa I, ACOK

“More gently than Joffrey” is a pretty low bar. Overall, not a very glowing review of Tyrion: he’s not a monster, but he’s grotesque, can’t be trusted, and could turn into a monster later.

Osmund Kettleblack

1. “Sansa tried to run, but Cersei’s handmaiden caught her before she’d gone a yard. Ser Meryn Trant gave her a look that made her cringe, but Kettleblack touched her almost gently and said, “Do as you’re told, sweetling, it won’t be so bad. Wolves are supposed to be brave, aren’t they?” Sansa III, ASOS

If you didn’t have déjà vu while reading this, something is wrong because this is almost EXACTLY the same as a Sandor moment included on this list. (“‘Do as you’re bid, child,’ Clegane said. ‘Dress.’ He pushed her toward her wardrobe, almost gently.”) HOWEVER, I don’t think Sandor would have been so chill in this particular situation. This is as she’s being dragged off to marry Tyrion and seeing as finding out Sansa had married Tyrion made Sandor suicidal, well, that’s a thought for another day. Between this and Sandor #8, I feel like there’s potential for a SanSan meta solely comparing Sandor and the Kettleblacks. (Someone else please write that—I’m only even doing this because I have mild writer’s block on a fic and needed a break.)

Ser Dontos

1. “‘Not far.’ Ser Dontos took her hand in his own and rubbed it gently. “Your friend is near, waiting for you.’” Sansa V, ASOS

This is while she and Dontos are escaping after Joffrey’s murder. It’s mentioned that they take the serpentine steps at one point. See Sandor #4 for another important interaction there.

Petyr Baelish

1. “He saved Alayne, his daughter, a voice within her whispered. But she was Sansa too… and sometimes it seemed to her that the Lord Protector was two people as well. He was Petyr, her protector, warm and funny and gentle… but he was also Littlefinger, the lord she’d known at King’s Landing, smiling slyly and stroking his beard as he whispered in Queen Cersei’s ear. And Littlefinger was no friend of hers. When Joff had her beaten, the Imp defended her, not Littlefinger. When the mob sought to rape her, the Hound carried her to safety, not Littlefinger. When the Lannisters we’d her to Tyrion against her will, Ser Garlan the Gallant gave her comfort, not Littlefinger. Littlefinger never lifted so much as his little finger for her.” Sansa I, AFFC

Wow, so there’s a lot to unpack here but most of it isn’t relevant to this post. However, this is one of the many times she compares Sandor favorably to other men.

2. “‘Forgive her, my lords,’ Petyr Baelish said softly. ‘She still has nightmares of that day. Small wonder if she cannot bear to speak of it.’ He came up behind her and put his hands gently on her shoulders. ‘I know how hard this is for you, Alayne, but our friends must hear the truth.’ Her throat felt so dry and tight it almost hurt to speak.” Sansa I, AFFC

I see two SanSan parallels in this brief passage. Putting his hands on her shoulders from behind reminds me of her first interaction with Sandor and her throat hasn’t been “dry and tight” since the Blackwater. All of the language in the Blackwater scene is highly sexual, but here, those are the only words that stand out and I only noticed them because they’ve been used before.

Lothor Brune

1. “Sober, he was a quiet man, but a strong one. And Petyr says he’s loyal.” Alayne II, AFFC

The only thing I’ll say about Lothor is that Sansa also compares him to Sandor/he triggers memories about Sandor (ex: the incident with Marillion where she thinks it might be the Hound saving her for a moment before she realizes that’s impossible).

Here’s a chart for the visual learners

Conclusion: Sandor is the only man worthy of Sansa, as per her father’s parameters

While, just like Sansa, “I knew the Hound would win,” I didn’t expect the results to be this conclusive. He hits all three points while no one else scores above a two. SANDOR BB IS THE ONLY ONE WHO MEETS MORE THAN ONE CRITERIA. SHE NEVER DESCRIBES ANOTHER MAN AS BRAVE. NOT ONCE. ONLY HIM. She talks about brave men in general, but he is the only specific man she ever calls brave.* And it’s not internal monologue like all of the other instances I’ve outlined—she’s saying it aloud, thanking him to his face. And it’s also worth noting that several of the occasions she describes another man as gentle or strong are callbacks to interactions with Sandor. Knowing GRRM, there’s no way that’s an accident. So SanSan is endgame or GRRM is the world’s biggest troll. Either way, my heart hurts.

*While bravery only shows up once in this analysis, Sansa does frequently describe women (herself included) as being brave and also reminds herself to be brave a lot (that whole weird thing where GRRM writes female characters like actual people instead of accessories to the men in their lives).

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punwolf · 6 years

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I know it’s YouTube and that’s the armpit of the internet in a lot of cases, but the amount of misogyny in the comments can be enough to make my bile rise.

I just browsed through a video about an ambassador wolf who a woman raised and tamed for the good of wild wolves and public education. Wolves need that kind of representation. They’ve got a foothold in the U.S. again but they’re extinct in a lot of places where they used to roam. The Mexican wolf and the Red wolf are still horribly endangered.

Her video was essentially about wolves not making good pets, and that wolf dogs can also be dangerous because they don’t necessarily think or behave like a dog. When the genes lean more toward the dog the animal is much easier to handle. As much as I love wolves, my house isn’t a place for one to live. They belong out in the wild. There’s plenty of actual dogs out there which look like a wolf if I want the aesthetic.

Yes, dogs came from wolves. Yes, wolves will choose to interact with humans on rare occasions in the wild. Yes, I’ve seen plenty of instances with wolf sanctuaries where tamed / social wolves and people are fine together. Yes, I’ve met wolf dogs in person. No, they didn’t rip off my face. (I consider myself privileged to have worked with them.) No, none of them acted exactly like dogs, even if they weren’t dangerous. They were skittish, suffered horrible separation anxiety, and needed a different diet than a normal dog. They were beautiful and intelligent creatures. I’ve even seen articles where wolf dogs saved the lives of their owners.

That doesn’t mean the average wolf dog is a good pet. Dogs are one of the biggest human experiments in genetics to ever exist. When you look at a Yorkie or a bulldog the last thing anyone is going to think is “wolf.” All that breeding has changed the animal into something truly domestic.

Do I think there are people who are capable of living with wild animals? Yes. There’s a few, like Bart the Bear’s family, who clearly have a deep understanding and respect of the animals they work with. Those people are few and far between. Most people who want an exotic animal want it for their own ego, to show off to everyone how they have such a cool and unique pet, or because they feel “connected” to the animal somehow from seeing 100 internet memes.

Maybe you’re a person who has a bunch of open land, a proper enclosure and the time and knowledge to own a wolf dog. Good for you. I still have to wonder why it’s so important that any human has to have a wolf when there are dogs available which look as much (or even more sometime) wolf like as some “hybrids.”

Misogynistic language about women ahead.

So this lady is basically saying what I just stated above and that you can’t “own” a wolf. Legally and on paper you’re the owner, but you coexist with them and don’t really “own them.” She also goes on about how they’re not good pets.

Naturally you get the kids who are “Therins” or “I’m a werewolf” or “I’m a wolf.” Yeah, okay. Sure. Whatever it takes to get you through puberty.

Then there were all the comments -- legions of them -- calling her “stupid bitch” and “dumb cunt” the ever classy “don’t open your mouth unless it’s for my dick” and so forth. The spelling alone was almost unintelligible.

I have no idea why the flames unless it’s because they feel like their fursona is threatened or their werewolf lifestyle is interrupted by actual facts on wolf vs. dog behaviors. Or they want to own a wolf someday for the exact reasons no one should have one - to appease their own egos.

The only way they seem to have of their feeble attempts at communication is to insult and attack the fact she’s a woman. “Stupid fucking bitch” doesn’t discredit anything she’s said. All it does is point out that she lacks a penis. That has nothing to do with wolves last time I checked.

Time to turn on the add on with blocks YouTube comments.

#misogyny #sexist bullshit #sexism #misogonistic langage

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goat-yells-at-everything · 4 years

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Because this asshole decided to spew a bunch of absolutly WRONG information and then blocked me so I couldn’t reply, we’re gonna do it here because its so fucking WRONG that it needs to be fucking corrected.

This statement was clearly not about people who hunt or people who live in areas where they need protection from wildlife such as polar bears.

My statement was about using guns against people. About every idiot being allowed to own a gun.

And if you think that carrying a gun is helping anyone, then lemme ask you some questions too:

You think it’s free speech that kids shoot themselves on accident when parents are leaving guns out?

Think it’s free speech that kids shoot up schools?

Sure, gun for self-protection sounds very nice. Until you use your brain and discover that other people are also allowed to carry guns. What are you gonna do when the people come into your house carrying more than just a knife?

What about the people who suffer at the hands of guns?

Fucking kids.

Is that free speech? Is that necessary?

There are other ways to protect yourself. Non lethal.

Most areas you’re not even properly background checked. Three days for a licence?

Yea, in trained hands a gun is lethal. That is not a good thing.

Free speech? Don’t make me laugh. Guns don’t protect your free speech. KKK is walking through the streets like a fuckin carnival parade and screaming free speech. And they can carry guns. And they will use them. Is that what your free speech is? Or is it teens shooting themselves in the head? Shooting their bullies? Vigilantes? Kids who think guns are toys. Police who have an excuse to shoot kids because they’re apparently carrying a gun?

The threshold is so low.

And yes, i live in a place where it’s fucking dangerous. And i know other people aren’t allowed to carry guns so why would i need one? I’m not afraid of using a knife if i should ever feel the need to kill. At least then, it’s personal and i know I’m fully responsible.

As someone who lives in a country with gun control, never in my life have i ever needed a gun.

I have never even felt the need to have a gun.

Ya’ll just brainwashed js

This was NOT in response to people who hunt. At least, it sure as hell wasn’t OBVIOUS. Also, polar bears? You know there are other dangerous animals out there, right? Dangerous animals that exist ALL OVER THE WORLD, even in your own back yard. As I noted before, large bears (aka black and brown bears are SUPER common), large deer (the one my uncle shot while protecting their goats was a record setter in my area. it was HUGE), foxes and coyotes may not seem like a huge threat but they ARE and you show your ignorance of wildlife when you dismiss them. Other than that you have mountain lions, wolves, moose, venomous/aggressive/HUGE snakes (I have pictures of a 6 foot rat snake my uncle had to kill on their property cuse it was eating their chicken eggs and was a threat to the baby goats), wild pigs, large reptiles, large birds (most moderate to large predatory birds can take off with a chicken at least and even a baby goat. not to mention how easy it is to take off with a small to medium sized dog).

2) Humans ARE a threat. Period. No, its not good to go around seeing every single stranger as an imminent threat but they CAN pose a threat. Wanting to protect yourself is not wrong.

3) How the HELL do you go from me saying “a well armed public is essential to the protection of freedom of speech” to you accusing me of thinking shooting a CHILD is free speech?! I gave you very clear examples of what I meant. A dude in Scotland was arrested for making a joke on the internet and had his life thrown into chaos for 2 years. Its been 4 or 5 years since the incident and he STILL has problems just finding a JOB not to mention the death threats he still gets that the cops dont give a shit about. A woman in Britain was arrested in front of her daughters and held for 7 HOURS, unable to call anyone to check on her young children, all because she offended someone on twitter. Police in the UK have cited people for carrying a fucking SPOON on their person. You have to have PERMISSION to own a STEAK KNIFE. You give up your right to defend yourself, your right to hold your government accountable for its actions, then you give up your right to freedom of speech. Its. A. Fact.

4) I live in Illinois. My state has some of the HARSHEST gun control laws in the US. We are the 4th highest in violent crime, beaten out by the likes of California and New York. Why? Gangs. Gang violence is the PRIMARY source of gun crime in the US. These people do not get guns legally. No amount of gun control will stop someone from getting a gun illegally. Why should I, a law abiding citizen, be refused the right to protect myself when someone who wants to hurt me can easily get one illegally? Why should I HAVE to defend myself with a knife when they CAN get a gun? Why cant I have the means to fight back?

5) If gun safety was taught in schools then the number of accidental deaths/injuries by guns (which are a large chunk of gun death/injury statistics) would be cut to almost nothing. Not knowing what a gun can do and how to act around them is a SERIOUS problem in the world in general, let alone in the US. Accidental deaths by guns didn’t happen often just a few generations ago because basic firearm safety was common knowledge. I SERIOUSLY suggest anyone who has an issue with guns to actually take a firearms safety class. 99% of fear of guns would be wiped away if people just KNEW about them.

6) Kids shooting up a school or killing their bullies is not the fault of guns. Its the fault of our bullshit public school system that punishes kids for standing up for themselves and belittles the harm psychological abuse does. If they cant get a gun they will use a knife. If they cant get a knife they’ll use a bomb or acid or worse.

7) Yes, actually. The KKK, Arian Brotherhood, Communists, Socialists, BLM, Black Hebrew Israelites, Nation of Islam, all of them can say whatever the fuck they want. Thats what free speech MEANS. Free speech means nothing if you are not willing to stand up for speech you do not agree with.

8) The taking of a life is already illegal. It doesn’t matter what tool the person uses. HH Holmes confessed to killing at LEAST 27 people; likely his body count was over 50; never used a gun. Jack the Ripper, 5 women no gun. Jeffrey Dahmer, 17 victims no gun. Harold Shipman, 217 deaths (likely closer to 250) no gun. Pedro Lopez, over 300 victims no gun. These people didn’t need guns to kill dozens, sometimes hundreds of people. They used other tools. Are their crimes inherently less horrible because they didn’t use guns?

9) You aren’t allowed to carry a gun. That does not mean that someone else wont. Just because there is a law saying other people shouldn’t have guns doesn’t mean they wont. People who will break one law (breaking and entering, assault, ect) dont give a damn about gun control laws. Again, taking a life or harming another person is a crime already. Criminals. Do. Not. Care. But if a rapist with a gun himself has two choices, the girl with the gun and the girl without, he’s going for the girl without.

I’m not brainwashed, as you so elegantly put it in your first reply. I’m simply pragmatic and understand the world is not filled with rainbows where everyone just goes along with the laws like happy little drones. My life is in my own hands. Its up to ME to protect myself, no one else.

#long post #longpost #fuck off with this bullshit #learn a thing or two before debating a topic you know SHIT about

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notesfromcenter · 6 years

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Motherhood: A Consideration of Moderation

“Why is your wife so intense?” asked my husband’s class of graduate students. He had just finished describing my response to their request of a pre-discussion lecture on a particular text. I admit I had a strong reaction, but one I am still willing to defend. Students should learn how to confront material, formulate questions, and through discourse come to meaning. (I have a favorite line from the movie State and Main: “Everybody makes their own fun. If you don't make it yourself, it isn't fun. It's entertainment.” Analogously, there’s no passivity in learning.) Even if knowledge can be conveyed, wisdom can not. My husband reported my outrage (which is a hyperbolic way of stating my case, but I suppose it makes for a better story.) Their response is not an unfamiliar one. I often have strong, and I’m not proud to say, black-and-white responses to situations. Not that my responses don’t respect a gray area, but they do so in a decidedly adamant way.

It has occurred to me that having recently been pregnant and having a baby have noticeably tempered this tendency. For example, my dietary habits. A vegetarian for 27 years, I now eat meat. All meat. I especially love steaks and hamburgers. I fed my son grass fed steaks just today for breakfast. As I considered these facts this morning, both my so-called intensity and this laissez-faire approach to my new diet, it occurred to me that they bear a relationship between the ongoing theme of one vs many that has emerged over and over again in the quest for femaleness and identity more generally. Provisionally, I considered whether the domain of femaleness is generated in part by the bodily entanglement required by motherhood.* I suppose it is trite to talk about how a mother shares her body with someone else in pregnancy, and even to talk about a so-called fourth trimester (and beyond), which I now fully understand. My selfhood is indeed moderated, quite literally by someone else’s. I am not me. Not entirely at any rate.

A friend recently remarked that it must be exhausting being a mother, the constant consideration of another being’s needs. Although I am certainly exhausted, my relationship to my son’s needs is not one of active consideration any more than I consider what I’d like for dinner. I won’t draw the comparison between the consideration of my own respiration, or better yet, my heartbeat, because his needs are not quite so automatic, but they are firmly in the territory of sustenance, of biological imperatives. There is a diffusion of identity, of ego, that comes with sharing your body with someone else. Extending it into autonomous space inhabited by another will, another ego.

I’m sure there are plenty of examples of this physical extension. As I sat in a group Vipassana meditation session, I marveled that someone else’s sneeze, across the room, should send such waves of feeling through my body. It really is as simple as an adrenaline rush from being startled. But, regardless of how I describe it to myself, the bottom line is that I’m very affected by others, who are ostensibly outside of myself.

I continued this musing as I walked my four dogs this morning, baby strapped to my chest. I experienced the slow growing rage that accompanies these walks, the subtle sensory onslaught, the gauntlet of perils that besiege the springtime morning. So let my description to follow sound less like a rant and more like an meditative investigation of my bodily response to this routine. It begins trying to leave the apartment, gathering the coats, definitely the baby’s and sometimes all four dogs. A process no one is particularly keen on, making the challenge of lifting everyone’s spirits while completing tasks they’d rather not, all the more daunting. So it’s coats, baby carrier, leashes, bags for poop, house keys, and cell phone. I try to time this so that there is minimal time for either animals or baby to grow cranky from overheating while finishing the rest of the routine. I also try to minimize the number of squats I do holding a twenty pound baby, for fear of an increasingly long day ahead. Then, it is getting down the five flights of stairs and two doors (heavy ones that open towards me and threaten closing on dog tails and noses.) All of this trying to watch my steps amidst a tangle of leashes. I cannot see ahead of me as I step out of the door, not onto a landing, but down another short flight of steps, often occupied by neighbors sitting and trying to enjoy their morning when I come, pack in hand, bursting towards the sidewalk propelled by four urgent bladders. The wild card: will I happen upon a passing dog inciting this already precarious circus act into complete chaotic lunging, barking, and frantic snapping tethered only by the deep breathes as I attempt to keep my balance and some semblance of equanimity. Now, if all of this goes as smoothly as possible, it is none-the-less accompanied with the kind of hypervigilence that knows, bodily, how tenuous any calm. The rest of the mile and a half journey is about the same. A woman passes by, “You’ve got a lot going on,” she remarks. A not uncommon observation. (Although, thank you to the young woman who remarked to her friends, that lady is the MVP - she’s got four dogs and a baby!) Varying degrees of weather related events punctuated by squatting to pick up dog feces in what I’ve learned is called a hell strip, although, if I want to be more romantic about it, I could refer to as the road verge. When it is permanently littered with dog feces, cigarette butts and other trash in various states of matter, and I squat (remember that twenty pound, squirming baby), four dogs attached, clothing skimming the ground, it kind of feels more like a hell strip to be honest. I’ll give you one more image, congestion, both human and canine, on both sides of the sidewalk approaching as I maintain this delicate balancing act. I try to take refuge in traffic to let others pass as I wait to resume our morning walk on the sidewalk. I try to metabolize the energetic shrapnel all this with the mantra “emotional contagion” running through my mind, lest my displeasure ruin my child’s chance’s for emotional self-regulation and become a text book “don’t” for Cesar the Dog Whisperer.

This is a portrait of my body. Fully dispersed by 9 AM.

Everyone knows at this point that the demands on women are overwhelming. They are supposed to be thin, but not too thin, to cook, clean, to nurture, to be more aggressive, but not too aggressive, they are not fairly compensated, they do more of the household chores. Maternity care and family leave is abysmal. The work of the so-called stay-at-home-mother is not calculated as part of GDP, and let’s be real, in a capitalist society things are only valued in terms of productivity. This we already know. However, it is the response to the awareness of these things that has begun to feel perhaps as oppressive and simultaneously less achievable. The counter-demands, if you will. We are called to love our bodies as they are, to care about health and not appearance, to embrace imperfection, and to generally act in consciousness of the double standards, the oppression. Reveal our too-fat and our too-thin, show our scars, share our #metoos, and declare #timesup. Any lack of self-acceptance, self-care, self-esteem, or self-advocacy is just another way we can fail. On top of it all, it has been proven that practicing gratitude is how mentally strong people lead healthier lives. If we fall from this high wire, it is surely through our selfishness and mental weakness.

As a palliative, there’s the endless babble about how to find, or more accurately, how to achieve (our character is hence invoked and our success or failure measures our very integrity) the ever-elusive ‘balance.’ Now, let me throw out a suggestion: balance is not desirable. I contend we actually already have balance and we hate it. That’s because balance is a state of perpetual tension. As my grandmother used to say, “think about it.” What we want is actually integration. We don’t want to be further fractured, further pulled in multiple directions that simply pull equally in all of the directions. What we want is to be integrated. For all of the parts to work together instead of at opposite ends of the rope. Is it easier to stand on one leg or two? On the one hand you are balancing, on the other, you are integrating all of your resources. Even our zen is preposterous: Be here, now. Live in the present. Don’t forget to make the maximum contribution to your 401K, your IRA.

There is one final, perhaps ultimate demand: Forge an identity. If my identity is actually moderated by this fundamental dispersion, this inexorable confluence of mutually exclusive imperatives, identity is truly a Sisyphean joke.

Last Saturday, I sat in a group Vipassana meditation. Afterwards, there was a speaker, he said, “the path is not ‘be here now,’” but instead “the path is suffering, this [Vipassana] is a way out.” Finally, the resonance of truth.

Where does that leave me but to embrace my bodily reality for its implicit wisdom. Surely there is power in the invisible extension into space that has become the special place relegated to women, if not by nature then surely by nurture. It seems increasingly important to inhabit that space rather than retreat into a singular, if visible, entity.

*Femaleness does not require motherhood, nor does bodily entanglement require pregnancy. Table the subject. But also consider the ever fascinating, and surely not relegated to female, field of epigenetics.

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lovehaswonangelnumbers · 4 years

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New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/comet-neowise-july-2020-message-under-the-stars/

Comet NEOWISE, July 2020 ~ Message Under The Stars

By astrologyking

Comet NEOWISE is one of the brightest comets for over 20 years, and one of the few comets visible to the naked eye this century. It was discovered using the NEOWISE space telescope on March 27, 2020.

Comets have always inspired awe as well as dread. Seen as carrying messages from heaven, they have also inspired predictions of war and famine. In 1997, 39 members of the UFO religious group Heaven’s Gate died in a mass ritual in order to reach what they believed was an extraterrestrial spacecraft following Comet Hale–Bopp.

Recent newly discovered comets have looked promising but ended up fading away when they neared the Sun, like the ‘Doomsday’ comet Elenin in 2011. In 2013, the “Comet of the Century”, ISON, was supposed to be brighter than the Moon but also broke apart and no cataclysms ensued.

But according to Space.com, “The early reviews are in: Comet NEOWISE is a hit!” [1] And NASA said this inner-Solar System intruder “might become known as the Great Comet of 2020.” [2]

Comet NEOWISE should be visible in the Northern hemisphere for all of July 2020. The best time for viewing is between July 14 to 19, before sunrise and after sunset.

Comet Astrology

Vivian Robson says the effects of comets “appear to be exerted through the constellation in which they appear, and also through the zodiacal sign and degree to which their position corresponds. They are said to cause inordinate heat, pestilence, sterility of the earth, wars and changes in kingdoms, winds, earthquakes and floods, and are assigned to the planets according to their colors. [3]

According to Jonathan Flanery, the “effects of comets were supposed to last for 1/8 of their period; to the ancients this would most likely have been their period of visibility… Their appearance was heralded by disturbances in humans, animals, and the weather. The comets then dispensed, by perihelion position and their dispositor, their good or ill effects – usually ill. They also often heralded the rise of an agent. This agent could be a war leader but might, depending on the position of the comet, show a religious leader, reformer, or great trader.

The message is not delivered until the comet makes its closest approach to the Sun where the message is assimilated into the system… These new decrees are issued at perihelion. Perihelion is the sensitive point to watch during the duration of influence of the comet as this is the message. The message alters trade and political arrangements and form alliances into new patterns – it creates new connections… When the place of perihelion is transited by Mars or the Sun, effects begin in earnest, the decree is implemented and arrangements change radically.

Comets signify realignment of trade, financial and political arrangements with an initial disruption in the system. Later on, after ignition, that is transit by Sun or Mars, the winners and losers become apparent. Even so, the effects may linger for some time with the perihelion as a sensitive point for many years, sometimes centuries.” [4]

Comet NEOWISE Astrology

Comet NEOWISE was discovered on March 27, 2020, at 5:07:28 UT, at 01°16′27″ Leo. (from astronomical data at the Minor Planet Center) [5]

The chart below shows the comet (X) at 01°16′ Leo, opposite Mars and Saturn, and square Uranus. The most significant aspect is the comet opposite Saturn (0°52′).

Comet Neowise Discovery

Comet NEOWISE opposite Saturn signifies restriction, contraction, delays, boundaries, isolation, worry, depression, trade losses, unemployment, infirmity, and poverty. It puts pressure on governments, leaders and corporations. It forces you to be responsible, patient, practical, economical, loyal, respectful of tradition, and also to look after older people.

The arrival of this comet has coincided with a great upheaval for humanity and the biggest restrictions for generations with the coronavirus pandemic (declared on March 11). The result has been just as you would expect from an opposition to Saturn: fear, death, suffering, unemployment, poverty, geopolitical change, and possibly famine. On March 27, the number of confirmed cases in the United States overtook China and Italy, and the US death toll surpassed 1,500.

The opposition to Mars adds irritation, meanness, cruelty, violence, operations, fevers, rioting, and danger of war. It places pressure on police, security guards, and the military. It urges you to be strong, brave, and to use your initiative and take the lead.

The square to Uranus brings great disruption from radical change and unexpected events, anxiety, nervousness, accidents and revolution.

Remember Robson said the effects of comets “appear to be exerted through the constellation in which they appear, and also through the zodiacal sign and degree to which their position corresponds.” [3]

The Constellation

This image from The Sky Live shows the comet first appeared in Constellation Puppis, the Poop Deck of the Ship, Argo Navis.

Constellation Argo is said to give prosperity in trade and voyages, and strength of heart and spirit, but it has been observed to accompany cases of drowning. According to Ptolemy, the bright stars are like Saturn and Jupiter (dignified, pious, conservative, acquisitive, retentive.) [3]

The Zodiacal Sign

The influence of comets in the zodiacal sign of Leo: Destruction by wild beasts and vermin, trouble to the nobility, war towards the end of the year, especially in the east, and ailments affecting the eyes. If in the east, storms and drought; if in the west, sickness and danger of madness to dogs. [3] (Comet Neowise is seen in the east.)

The Stars

“The long-period comets with periods of much more than 200 years come in from the Oort Cloud… Those from the Oort Cloud bring messages and decrees from the fixed stars.” [4]

Comet NEOWISE has an orbital period of 6,766 years. The list below shows the fixed stars conjunct comet NEOWISE at its discovery:

29 ♋ 48 – η Canis Majoris 00 ♌ 34 – π Puppis 00 ♌ 35 – η Ursae Minoris 01 ♌ 06 – 23 Ursae Majoris 01 ♌ 16 – Comet NEOWISE 03 ♌ 04 – ι Canis Majoris

23 Ursae Majoris (0°10′) is named Alhaud IV, from the Arabic word Al-Haud, meaning ‘the Pond’. [6] Constellation Ursa Major the Greater Bear is said to give a quiet, prudent, suspicious, mistrustful, self-controlled, patient nature, but an uneasy spirit and great anger and revengefulness when roused. According to Ptolemy, Ursa Major is like Mars (violent death, ultimate ruin by folly or pride.) [3] Astrologically both Bears were said to presage an evil influence. They are particularly injurious as regards to the affairs of nations and kings. [7]

Eta Ursae Minoris (0°41′): Constellation Ursa Minor the Lesser Bear is said to give indifference and improvidence of spirit, and to lead to many troubles. [3]

Pi Puppis (0°42′) has the traditional name Ahadi, which is derived from Arabic for “having much promise”. [8]

There are also significant fixed star conjunct the planets in the discovery chart:

Sun conjunct fixed star Algenib (09 ♈ 25): Mental disturbances, fevers and ill health, some danger of accidents, but also fighting spirit and a love of learning. Algenib gives a quick temper, bad morals, drink or bad habits, and denotes the naked and poor professional beggar.

Moon conjunct fixed star Menkar (14 ♉ 35): Mental anxiety, hatred of the vulgar, ill-will of women, danger from thieves, sickness to native and family, loss of marriage partner or near relative, quarrels, legal losses, legacies and inheritances attended by much evil. Lean and infirm, many miseries.

Mercury conjunct fixed star Skat (09 ♓ 08): Peculiar events, occult interests, psychic, many friends.

Venus conjunct fixed star Zaurak (24 ♉ 08): A struggle to overcome melancholy and feelings of great loneliness. So try not to take life too seriously and put too much weight on everything people say. Otherwise, this star could trigger off fear of death and suicidal tendencies.

Mars, Jupiter and Pluto conjunct fixed star Terebellum (26 ♑ 07): Fortune but with regret and disgrace.

Saturn conjunct fixed star Altair (02 ♒ 03): Sorrow and disappointment, mental disturbance necessitating asylum or hospital treatment and probably death there, separation from family or parents, danger of accident involving an inability to work or lifelong affliction.

Uranus conjunct fixed star Sheratan (04 ♉ 14): Bodily injuries, unscrupulous defeat, destruction by fire, war or earthquake. Danger is indicated when acting impulsively and in a foolhardy fashion.

The Color

Robson said comets are assigned to the planets according to their colors. Recent images of comet NEOWISE show it is mainly a golden orange color. It actually has a number of different colors coming from the nucleus and its two tails.

Comet Neowise over Stonehenge, July 14, 2020 [apod.nasa.gov]

“The first tail’s color is magenta and made of gas and ions; the second twin tail is a golden color and made of dust.” [9]

The false nucleus glowed brilliant yellow, the tail a delicate shade of orange. The comet is also developing a fainter, blue-hued ion tail from fluorescing carbon monoxide. [10]

Gold, orange and yellow colors could be applied to the Sun, Venus and Jupiter: “Those of the nature of Jupiter, abundance of corn and fruit; Sun, plague, sickness, and death of kings; of Venus, drought and trouble to kings and women” [3]

Comet NEOWISE Perihelion

The comet made its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) on July 3, 2020, at 16:21 UT. [3] This places the comet at 29°54′ Gemini. More comet NEOWISE predictions can be interpreted from its perihelion position (X) in the chart below.

The comet is exactly quincunx Saturn. So, like the June 21 solar eclipse it is conjunct, it causes an imbalance between personal freedom and responsibility, between self-expression and restriction.

A patient, cautious, and responsible attitude is required. But flexibility and openness are also needed as you adapt to changes in the level of restrictions in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The eclipse should amplify the effects of the comet.

Comet NEOWISE Perihelion

The list below shows two important fixed stars influencing the comet.

29 ♊ 02 – α Orionis, Betelguese 29 ♊ 08 – North Node 29 ♊ 54 – Comet NEOWISE Perihelion 00 ♋ 11 – β Aurigae, Mekalinan 00 ♋ 21 – June 21 Solar Eclipse 00 ♋ 52 – μ Orionis

Fixed Star Mekalinan gives great initiative, high enterprise, and enthusiasm. But caution and objective second thoughts are needed because of impulsive, reckless, combative, and destructive nature. It may cause ruin, disgrace, and a violent death because of excess pleasure-seeking. Only when really in good aspect is this fixed star rated as a positive acting one. Badly positioned, this star will be most unhelpful.

Fixed star Betelgeuse gives martial honor, preferment and wealth. [3] War and carnage are presaged by Betelgeuse. [7]

When the Sun or Mars transits the perihelion position, the effects of the comet will “begin in earnest”. Mars next transits 29°54′ Gemini on April 9, 2021, followed by the Sun on June 12, 2021.

The closest approach of comet NEOWISE to Earth will occur on July 23, 2020, 01:14 UT. It will be located in the constellation of Ursa Major, at 20°34′ Leo [see chart].

References

How to see Comet NEOWISE in the night sky this month, space.com.

Comet NEOWISE Rising over the Adriatic Sea, apod.nasa.gov.

Fixed Stars and Constellations in Astrology, Vivian E. Robson, 1923, p. 226.

Unexpected Visitors: The Theory of the Influence of Comets, Jonathan Flanery, Skyscript.co.uk, November 2005.

COMET C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE). Minor Planet Electronic Circulars, April 1, 2020.

Star-Names and Their Meanings, Richard Hinckley Allen, 1899, p. 442.

Fixed Stars and Judicial Astrology, George Noonan, 1990, p. 7.

Night Sky: A Field Guide to the Constellations, Jonathan Poppele, 2010, p. 264.

C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE), Wikipedia.

Comet NEOWISE Delights at Dawn, Sky & telescope, Bob King, July 9, 2020.

C/2020 F3 ( NEOWISE), Seiichi Yoshida.

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theisaacnewton101 · 7 years

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Midterm Essay #1: “I’m posting it online because I feel like it, GOD”

Prodigal Summer is an interesting novel written by Barbara Kingsolver that examines the relationship between man and nature in a rural farming community. This story follows three drastically different characters with their own unique relationship to the environment. These three develop their understanding of the environment and learn ways that they take better care of it. This essay will focus on Garnett Walker, a stubborn old man who feuds with his ecocentric neighbor. In this novel, Garnett’s character is meant to represent the standard anthropocentric worldview.

Anthropocentrism is the idea that the world is man-centered. In terms of the environment, it means that man is top dog, ergo the environment should submit to man’s whim. This is seen everywhere in modern culture, with deforestation and pollution running rampant. Capitalism takes center stage in Western culture; nature and the environment are just tools now used to make money. Killing the planet doesn’t matter as long as money is being made, but how did we get to this worldview?

Anthropocentrism has been deeply rooted in society since the advent of Christianity. Prior to Christianity, many religions incorporated animism: the idea that nature and wildlife have spirit. This principle created a greater respect for the environment, as man would have to appease nature before taking the materials they needed for building or survival. Man would not take to excess in fear of angering the spirits, so they only took what they needed; it was sustainable, and man could coexist with nature pleasantly. Christianity, on the other hand, had no concept of animism. The Christian God created the planet for man; man was made in his own image, paralleling man to the creator, giving him an inherent superiority over nature. “Man shares, in great measure, God’s transcendence of nature. Christianity, in absolute contrast to ancient paganism and Asia’s religions, not only established a dualism of man and nature but also insisted that it is God’s will that man exploit nature for his proper ends” (White Jr., 407). The Christian God told man that he created the world for him; go forth and name the animals, eat the fruit, use the materials given to you for whatever you like. In effect, the environment was created for man, and he is free to exploit it. This ideology placed man at the top of the food chain and removed the spirituality from the environment, which effectually removed the inhibition to exploit the environment. Christianity spread over the world like wildfire during the colonial era and set its ideals deep within society. Even as man moved away from religion, the ideology still remained ingrained into society.

Another anthropocentric idea ingrained in Western culture is that nature is feminine in concept and is therefore subservient and passive. The dualism between masculinity and femininity places men in the active role and females in the passive role. This makes men the dominant within the dualism, which also places man over nature. Within the gendered depictions of nature, there exist two sides: “a kindly beneficent female who provided for the needs of mankind in an ordered, planned universe” and “wild and uncontrollable nature that could render violence, storms, droughts, and general chaos” (Merchant, 10). Obviously, the latter half of nature was an issue; man was dominant, so something more powerful and violent than man would need to be subdued to retain the hierarchy. In order for man and nature to coexist, nature must submit to man. Grasslands were turned into fields, forests were chopped down to make room for development, and deep wounds were carved into the planet to mine for minerals. This new perception was necessary for society to grow, for as long as man is perceived as dominant and the earth is perceived as passive, there’s no moral issue with exploiting the planet. In the need to subdue the planet, man has made many a tool to make it more convenient to forcefully suppress the planet. From plows and machinery to pesticides and chemicals, man has made it easier to keep the wild in line. Areas of wild that still exist today are marketed as tourist attractions, surrounded by high fences and civilization.

So how does this relate to Prodigal Summer? Well, as Garnett is meant to represent the standard anthropocentric worldview, these ideas are deeply ingrained within him. As we begin Garnett’s story, we find that he is a sad old man who misses his wife. Still following the male and female dualism, he believes that she was his “anchor,” holding him to his house. However, the main conflict in his story arc comes from his neighbor, Nannie Rawley. Nannie is an active old woman who will voice her opinions and advocate for the preservation of nature. She believes that wildlife should be able to run its course without human interference, as she believes interference will make things worse. These ideas are drastically different to the ideas Garnett has about women. She is active, as opposed to passive, and she vouches against the domination of nature. The first conflict between these two is illustrated within the book, immediately pitting them against each other with their conflicting ideals. Garnett notices a sign on his property, “his roadside, two hundred feet over his property line,” proclaiming his field “to be a ‘NO SPRAY ZONE.’ As if all a person had to do to rule the world was concoct a fool set of opinions and paint them on a three by three square of plywood” (Kingsolver, 84). This passage sets Nannie up as an obstacle to Garnett; she plays the active role by placing a sign onto his property in order to protect her orchard from pesticides. This example shows a woman defying gender roles, and Garnett struggles to accept these ideas.

Religion also plays an important part in Garnett’s character. Garnett sees Nannie as a godless old woman because she acts differently than how he expects a Christian woman to behave. Even in the Bible, the woman is portrayed as passive; Eve was created from Adam. This creates a precedence that man is again superior to women. After seeing Nannie in a store talking about setting free endangered lizards, Garnett wrote a letter to Nannie:

Or are we to think of ourselves as keepers and guardians of the earth, as God instructed us to do in Genesis 1:27–30, “So God created man in his own image, … and God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it! … Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree-yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth’”–such as salamanders, Miss Rawley—“‘wherein there is life, I have given every green earth for meat’; and so it was so.” If the Holy Bible is to be believed, we must view God’s creatures as gifts to his favored children and use them for our own purposes, even if this occasionally causes this one or that one to go extinct after a while (Kingsolver, 186).

Within this letter, Garnett shows that he doesn’t much understand the environment, for he only knows of his anthropocentric worldview where God made him king. When an animal goes extinct (or reaches the brink of extinction), there are very large effects that make their way up the food chain. It’s like the butterfly effect, something small and insignificant could have devastating effects that we don’t foresee. The extinction of a salamander could cause an overabundance of insects or plant life that would normally be eaten by the salamander. Alternatively, the birds and turtles that preyed on this salamander could struggle to find food and begin to die off. Garnett doesn’t think about these things, though, because he carries his Christian ideology with him, wherein it proclaims that destroying the environment is fine for it is yours. Nannie is able to expertly refute this, also by using the Bible. She states that gluttony is a sin, and “thou shalt not kill,” arguing that the Bible does not vouch for dominance over the environment, but to coexist with it, and to not harvest to excess. She also argues that God made plant life with the animals in mind as well, interpreting the passage Garnett outlined as creating food for them, too. Again, as the woman shows him a different worldview that refutes his own, he goes into a tizzy and begins writing back an angry letter.

To finally end the arc between these two, Garnett and Nannie have a discussion. A tree falls onto Garnett’s property, so he goes over to her property to talk to her about it. However, Nannie has something she’d like to talk about as well: Garnett is spraying weed killer himself. She finally explains why she thinks weed killer is counterproductive by way of the Volterra Principle. “Predator bugs don’t reproduce so fast, as a rule. But see, that works out right in nature because one predator eats a world of pest bugs in its life. The plant eaters have to go faster just to hold their ground. They’re in balance with each other” (Kingsolver, 275). By spraying his land, both insect populations are reset to zero, which gives the pest bugs the upper hand as they reproduce faster. Garnett believes this to be true, and from there, their relationship improves to where it is at the end of the book. Nannie is able to make Garnett see the error in his ways, which is to say that it is possible to overturn our anthropocentric thinking. By a woman showing a man that he was wrong, it shifts the power balance within the dualism back to equal, which in turn places the earth back on equal footing with man.

In conclusion, Garnett Walker is a grumpy old man who was able to change his thinking with the help of his pushy neighbor. Garnett was set to represent the anthropocentric view that man holds as a whole; the advent of Christianity and the inherent male to female dualism ingrained in society holds man over the earth, free to exploit it for his own gain. When Nannie was able to convince him to change his thinking, it symbolized challenging the anthropocentric thinking of society, which would in turn help save the world.

Kingsolver, B. (2000). Prodigal Summer. London: Faber and Faber.

Merchant, C. (2008). Nature as Female. In The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution (p. 10). San Francisco, CA: HarperOne.

White, L., Jr. (2008). Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis. In American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau (p. 407). Toronto, ON: Penguin Random House Canada.

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tipsycad147 · 5 years

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Animals and Witchcraft

(The Witches Familiar)

Written and compiled by George Knowles

Introduction

Since time began animals have been revered and worshipped as spirits of nature, known to the ancients as power animals or the animal guides of the Gods. Many animals therefore became associated with various deities, such like: Diana and the Hound, Heqet (or Heket) and the Toad, Proserpina and the Raven, Pan with the Goat and Athena with the Owl. Most other deities in one way or another became associated with animals. The ancients believed animals were closer to nature than humans, and would perform rituals and make offerings to their spirits in attempts to communicate with them.

Old shamans believed that all things and beings, particularly animals, were possessed of a spirit or soul, and that one could attract parts of their soul, thus their spirit and powers with mimicry. To achieve this they dressed in appropriate animal furs and feathers or wore horns and fierce looking masks while performing dance and imitating their antics. The novice shaman would acquire his animal spirits on completion of his initiation. These he would send out on errands or to do battle on his behalf, however if they failed or died, then so too did the shaman. The shaman would keep and use the same animal spirits until his death, upon which time they would disappear or be passed on to aid his apprentice.

Given the animal kingdoms intimate relationship with nature, its not surprising that witches as they evolved should adopt certain animals as their own link to nature, spirits and deities. Wise men and women commonly used animals, while wizards, magicians and village healers used them to diagnose illnesses, sources of bewitchment, divination and to find lost property or treasure.

It was not until the Middle Ages and the rise of Christianity that the witches pets and animals became thought of as agents of evil. As the persecution of witches began, so the church started teaching the concept that the Witches’ familiar was an associate of the Christian devil. They became demons and evil spirits in animal form, sent out by the witch to do their nasty bidding. They also believed witches possessed the power to transform themselves into animals, in which guise they committed any number of diabolical deeds. Later they were believed to use animal products in spells, making potions and concoctions to aid transformation, gain power over nature, or even to harm and kill.

The most common animals associated with witchcraft were the: Frog, Owl, Serpent, Pig, Raven, Stag, Goat, Wolf, Dog, Horse, Bat, Mouse and of course the Cat, though virtually any animal, reptile or insect would be suspect. Obsession with the witches familiar was most prevalent in England and Scotland and was mentioned in numerous trial records of the period, particularly those related to “Matthew Hopkins”, the infamous Witch Finder General (see Matthew Hopkins).

According to the ancient Witchcraft Act of 1604, it was a felony to: “consult, covenant with, entertain, employ, feed or reward any evil or wicked spirit to or for any intent or purpose”, an act that Hopkins used with zeal when extracting confessions. He also used the “Malleus Malificarum” the so-called Inquisitor’s Handbook. Though it offers no instruction concerning familiars in the interrogation and trial of witches, it does acknowledge that an animal familiar “always works with the witch in everything”. As such it advises the inquisitor never to leave a witch prisoner alone, “or the devil will cause him or her to kill themselves, accomplished through a familiar”. This in mind Hopkins would tie the witch up in a cell and leave them alone, while watching secretly for their arrival. If so much of as a fly or beetle approached them, it was deemed proof enough that they were indeed witches.

Today in contemporary witchcraft any thoughts of animals as “demonic spirits of evil” has been left by the way side, though many modern witches still use animals when working with magick utilising their primordial instincts and psychic abilities to attune with nature and deities. Animals are sensitive to psychic power and vibrations, and are welcomed into the magick circle when power is being raised or spells are being cast. They are also used to aid scrying, divination and spirit contact. When working with magick animals act as a guard in psychic defence for they react visibly to negative forces and harmful energy.

Perhaps the most famous of contemporary witches to keep a familiar was Sybil Leek and her pet jackdaw named “Mr. Hotfoot Jackson”. Sybil was a hereditary witch with a long lineage going back to the witches of southern Ireland in 1134, but her choice of a pet jackdaw bears an uncanny relationship to one particular ancestor called Molly Leigh:

Molly Leigh

As the story goes, Molly was born in 1685 and lived in a cottage on the edge of the moors at Burslem near Stoke-on-Trent. Molly was a solitary character who never married; she talked to the animals and kept a pet Jackdaw. She made her living selling milk from a herd of cows to travellers and passers-by. An eccentric person, the Jackdaw was often seen perched on her shoulder as she delivered milk to the dairy in Burslem.

Molly was known for her quick temper and the people of Burslem were suspicious and frightened of her. This was not uncommon in those times, for throughout the country ‘women’ and particularly elderly women who lived on their own in remote places, were labelled as witches.

In Molly’s case it was the local vicar the Rev. Spencer who made witchcraft accusations against her. He claimed that Molly sent her Jackdaw to sit on the sign of the Turk’s Head pub, a pub that the vicar frequently visited, and when it did the beer turned sour. She was also blamed for other ailments suffered by numerous townsfolk.

Molly died in 1746 and was buried in the Burslem churchyard, but then many claimed that her ghost haunted the town. A short time after her burial, the Rev. Spencer along with clerics from Stoke, Wolstanton and Newcastle went to open her cottage and retrieve her pet Jackdaw. When they arrived they were shocked to see Molly (or an apparition of her), sitting in a favourite armchair knitting with her pet Jackdaw perched on her shoulders (just as she had often been seen in real life). Frightened, the vicar and others returned to the graveyard and reopened her grave. They drove a stake through her heart and threw the living Jackdaw into the coffin. The vicar then decreed that as she was a witch, she would not rest easy until her body was buried lying North to South. To this day, Molly's tomb is the only one that lies at right angles to all the other graves in the churchyard.

Many believe that an animal familiar is not acquired through personal choice, more that an animal will choose you as its guardian and companion. One cannot go down to the local pet-shop and choose a familiar simply on its symbolic significances: “I shall take an Owl for Wisdom, a Dove for Peace and a Spider for Imagination and Creativity”. Sorry, but that won’t work. Animals have their own in-built wisdom and intelligence, their own spirit and skills, and a bond needs to be made with them if they are to volunteer to work as your familiar. Most often the animal itself will let you know when this has been achieved.

Generally there are four different kinds of animal familiar. The first is our physical everyday live-in pets, most commonly the cat or dog. As with all our other family members an instinctive bond and psychic link is created over time. Silent communication of their needs exists and instinctively we know if they are happy or sad, hungry, hurting or in need of attention. They in turn reciprocate and adapt themselves to our life styles, intuitively they attune to our mood swings and circumstantial changes.

The second type of familiar is an imaginative creature, one you can closely identify with but never hope to own such like a lion, tiger or leopard. This is an animal whose characteristics you admire, and you may collect and hang pictures of it in your home. It resided in the astral plane and because of your intense liking for it; you consciously or unconsciously attract its aid. It’s said that deceased pets with which you had an affinity return in this capacity.

The third type of familiar is magickal, an elemental spirit. Witches and Magicians often call upon elemental spirits for aid when working with magick. When making talismans or amulets for specific purposes, they may call upon a particular familiar elemental to inhabit an object to enhance its effect. It is believed that Paracelsus; a medical academic (1493–1541) instilled such a familiar into a large precious stone on the pommel of his ritual sword.

The fourth familiar is the spirit of a human being, someone who has died. Many adept magicians will command the appearance of a human spirit but such spirits are hard to control, for instance, a spirit who has been commanded against his or her desires can be troublesome, in which case you need to be sure of your ability to get rid of them and this can be much more difficult than the original calling. Those spirits willing to act as our astral guides or teachers are commonly called ‘Guardian Angels’.

The most effective familiars tend not to be our domesticated pets, for due to their life expectancy our pets come and go, though the spirit of a deceased pet can still be used. The use of our domestic animals as familiars is merely a stepping-stone to the raw power and energy of wild animals that are much closer to nature; for instance, a domestic dog is a softened version of its wild counterpart the fox, wolf, coyote and other wild canine creatures. Similarly a domestic cat can be linked to other wild felines such like lions, tigers and leopards. Many witches and magicians start with a domesticated animal as a familiar in the hope that one day they will be able to handle and work more effectively with its true power form, the wild animals of nature.

https://www.controverscial.com/Animals%20and%20Witchcraft%20-%20Intro.htm

Picture https://earthdna.wordpress.com

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questionsonislam · 7 years

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TAHARA (Cleanliness or Purification)

Islam is based on five pillars: Bearing witness to God’s Existence and Oneness and the Messengership of Muhammad, praying five times a day, fasting during the month of Ramadan, paying zakat (the prescribed purifying alms), and hajj or pilgrimage. The first pillar includes all essentials of belief, which were discussed in other parts of the site.

Tahara (Cleanliness or Purification)

Islam requires physical and spiritual cleanliness. On the physical side, Islam requires Muslims to clean their bodies, clothes, houses, and community, and they are rewarded by God for doing so. While people generally consider cleanliness desirable, Islam insists upon it and makes it an indispensable fundamental of religious life. In fact, books on Islamic jurisprudence often contain a whole chapter on this very requirement. Prophet Muhammad, upon him be God’s blessings and peace, advised Muslims to appear neat and tidy in private and in public. Once when returning home from battle he advised his army: “Soon you will meet your brothers, so tidy your saddles and clothes” (Abu Dawud, “Libas,” 25). On another occasion he said: “If I had not been afraid of overburdening my community, I would have ordered them to use a miswaq (to brush and clean their teeth) for every prayer” (Bukhari, “Iman,” 26). Moral hygiene also was emphasized, for the Prophet, upon him be God’s blessings and peace, encouraged Muslims to make a special prayer upon seeing themselves in the mirror: “God, You have endowed me with a good form; like-wise bless me with an immaculate character ” (Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, 1:34, 6:155). He advised modest clothing, for men as well as for women, on the grounds that it helps one maintain purity of thought. Being charitable is a way of purifying one’s wealth. A Muslim who does not give charity (sadaqa) and pay the required annual zakat (the prescribed purifying alms), contaminates his or her wealth by hoarding that which rightfully belongs to others: Of their wealth take alms so that you may purify them (9:103). All the laws and injunctions given by God and His Prophet, upon him be God’s blessings and peace, are pure. Any law established by Divine guidance is just and pure.

The Purity of Water

Pure water is used essentially in matters of purification or wudu’ (minor ablution) and ghusl (major ablution). Hence the necessity to investigate water’s purity. Water has four essential attributes: smell, color, taste, and fluidity. Any pure and purifying water is judged according to whether it retains these attributes or not. As a result, water is classified into two categories: mutlaq and muqayyad water. Mutlaq water is “natural” water, such as that which comes from rain water, snow, hail, sea water, and water from the Zamzam well. It is subdivided as follows: * Water that is both pure and purifying (e.g., rain water, snow, hail, sea water, and water from the Zamzam well). * Water that drips from a person after he or she has performed the minor or major ablution, and therefore is considered “used.” It is considered pure, but cannot be used for another minor and major ablution. * Water that is both pure and purifying, but whose usage is disliked (makruh) (e.g., water left in a container after a cat, bird, or another “allowed” animal has drunk from it). * Water mixed with impure elements. Water whose taste, color, or smell has been altered by an impure substance cannot be used for purification. However, if the liquid is still considered water, meaning that the impure substance has not altered its taste, color, or smell, it can be used for purification. * Water that is pure but may or may not be purifying. One example of this type of water is the water that remains in a pot after a donkey or a mule has drunk from it. Muqayyad water includes naturally muqayyad water, such as fruit juices and water that has been mixed with various substances (e.g., soap, saffron, flowers) or objects that the Shari‘a considers pure. Such water is considered pure until, due to being mixed with other substances, one can no longer call it water. In this case, the water is still considered pure, but it cannot be used for purification (minor and major ablution).

Types of Impurities

Najasa refers to impure substances that Muslims must avoid and wash off after coming into contact with them. God says: Purify your raiment (74:4) and: God loves those who repent and who purify themselves (2:222). * Animals that died naturally (e.g., not killed in the Islamic manner) are impure, as is anything cut off a live animal. However, dead sea animals and those that have no flowing blood (e.g., bees and ants) are not impure. The bones, horns, claws, fur, feathers, and skin of dead animals, except for pigs, are pure. * Any blood that flows from a person’s or an animal’s body (e.g., blood from a killed animal or menstrual blood) is impure. However, blood that remains in the veins is permissible. Also, any blood that remains in edible meat, livers, hearts, and spleens is not impure, provided that the animal was sacrificed in the Islamic way. * A person’s vomit, urine, excrement, wadi (a thick white secretion discharged after urination), mazi (a white sticky fluid that flows from the sexual organs when thinking about sexual intercourse, foreplay, and so on), prostatic fluid, and sperm is impure. However, according to some, sperm is not impure but should be washed off if it is still wet, and scratched off if it is dry. Any part of human flesh is impure. * The urine, saliva, and blood of all animals whose meat is prohibited, and the excrement of all animals except birds whose meat is allowable, are impure. * The excrement of poultry (i.e., geese, hens, ducks) is impure. * Pig and alcohol are impure. * Dogs are considered impure. Any container that a dog has licked must be completely washed and sterilized. If a dog licks a pot that has dry food in it, what it touched and what surrounds it must be thrown away. The remainder may be kept, as it is still pure. A dog’s hair is considered pure. * The impurities mentioned are considered “gross impurity” (najasat al-ghaliza). Any amount of them contaminates whatever it touches. However, if it is on person’s body or clothes when he or she is praying, or on the ground or mat where he or she is praying, its amount is taken into consideration. Any solid filth weighing more than 3 grams, and any liquid more than the amount that spreads over a person’s palm, invalidates the prayer. * The urine of horses and domestic or wild animals whose meat is allowed to eat is weak impurity (najasat al-khafifa). When more than one-fourth of a limb or one-fourth of one’s clothes are smeared with it, the prayer is in-validated.

The Ways of Purification

Purifying the body and clothes. If these are contaminated, they must be washed with water until no impurity remains. This is especially so if the impurity is visible, such as blood. If some stains remain after washing, such as those that would be extremely difficult to remove, they can be overlooked. If the impurity is not visible, such as urine, wash and wring whatever it has contaminated three times. Purifying the ground. Purify the ground by pouring water over it. If the impurity is solid, the ground will become pure only by its removal or decay. Purifying contaminated butter and similar substances. If a dead animal has fallen into a solid matter but has not swollen or disintegrated, whatever the corpse touches and what is around it must be thrown away, provided that one can make sure that it did not touch the rest of the matter. If it fell into a liquid substance, the majority say that the entire liquid becomes impure. Purifying a dead animal’s skin. Tanning purifies a dead animal’s skin and fur. The Prophet said: “If the animal’s skin is tanned, it is purified” (Muslim, “Hayz,” 105). Purifying mirrors and similar objects. Mirrors, knives, swords, nails, bones, glass, painted pots, and other smooth surfaces that have no pores are purified by removing the impurity.

Useful Points

* If an unknown liquid falls on a person, there is no need to ask about it or to wash one’s clothes. * If a person finds something moist on his or her body or clothes at night and does not know what it is, he or she does not need to smell it in order to identify it. * Clothes that have street mud on them do not have to be washed. * If a person finishes praying and sees some previously unseen impurity on his or her clothes or body, or was aware of but forgot about them, his or her prayer does not have to be repeated. * If a person cannot determine what part of his or her clothes contains the impurity, the whole garment should be washed, for “if an obligation can be fulfilled only by performing another related act, that act also becomes obligatory.” * If a person mixes pure clothes with impure clothes (and cannot tell them apart), he or she should investigate the matter and pray once in one of the clothes. * It is not proper to carry something that has God’s Name upon it while going to the bathroom, unless he or she is afraid of losing it or having it stolen. * One should not talk in the bathroom, respond to a greeting, or repeat what the muezzin is saying. One may speak if there is some necessity. In the event of sneezing, one should praise God silently by moving his or her lips. * One should neither face nor turn his or her back on the qibla while answering a call of nature, especially if in an open area. * One should seek a soft and low piece of ground to protect against any impurity. The Prophet said: “When one of you urinates, he should choose the proper place to do so.” * One should avoid shaded places and places where people walk and gather. * One should not answer a call of nature in bathing places or in still or running water. * One should not urinate while standing, though some allow it. * One must remove any impurities from one’s clothes and body after relieving oneself. * One should not clean himself or herself with the right hand. * One should remove any bad smell from one’s hands after answering a call of nature. * One should enter the bathroom with the left foot, saying: “I seek refuge in God from noxious male and female beings (devils),” and exit with one’s right foot, saying: “O God, I seek your forgiveness.” * After a man has relieved himself, he should wait until the urine stops completely and make sure that none of it has fallen onto his clothes. This is called istibra (seeking full purification). Ibn ‘Abbas related that the Messenger of God, upon him be God’s blessings and peace, passed by two graves and said: “They are being punished, but not for a great matter (on their part). One of them did not clean himself from urine, and the other used to spread slander.” (Tirmidhi, “Tahara,” 53) To erase all doubt, the person should sprinkle his penis and underwear with water.

Acts That Correspond to Human Nature

God has chosen certain acts for all of His Prophets and their followers to perform. These acts, are known as sunan al-fitra (acts required by human nature), are as follows: Circumcision. This prevents dirt from getting on one’s penis and also makes it easy to keep clean. The Shafi‘i scholars maintain that it should be done on the seventh day, although it is permissible to do it later. Shaving pubic hairs and pulling out underarm hairs. Doing so is sunna. However, it is enough to trim or pull it out. Clipping fingernails, trimming and shaving the moustache, and keeping the beard tidy.Abu Hurayra reported that the Messenger of God, upon whom be God’s blessings and peace, said, “Five things are part of one’s fitra: Shaving the pubic hair, circumcision, trimming the moustache, removing any underarm hair, and trimming the nails.” (Muslim, “Tahara,” 49) A moustache should not be so long that food particles, drink, and dirt accumulate in it. If one grows a beard, it should not be untidy. Honoring and combing one’s hair.Abu Hurayra reported that the Prophet, upon whom be peace, said: “Whoever has hair should honor it” (Abu Dawud, “Tarajjul,” 3:4163). Cutting one’s hair off is permissible, and so is letting it grow if one honors it. Leaving gray hairs in place.This applies to both men and women. ‘Amr ibn Shu‘ayb related, on the authority of his father from his grandfather, that the Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, said: “Do not pluck the gray hairs, as they are a Muslim’s light. A Muslim never grows gray in Islam except that God writes for him, due to that, a good deed, raises him a degree, and erases for him, due to that, one of his sins” (Ibn Hanbal, 2:179; Tirmidhi, “Adab,” 56). Dyeing one’s gray hair.According to the accepted opinion, dyeing one’s gray hair by using henna, red dye, yellow dye, and so on is permissible, provided that the dyes are religiously allowable. Using perfume. Using musk and other perfumes that are free of alcohol and similar forbidden things is highly advisable, for they are pleasing to the soul and beautify the atmosphere.

Menstruation and Post-childbirth Bleeding

Menstruation is a natural type of blood that flows at regular intervals from a woman’s uterus after puberty. God has laid down certain rules in connection with this, as a concession to the woman, in consideration of her condition. Menstruation usually lasts 3 to 10 days and nights, varying from woman to woman. Most women have a regular number of days for their monthly menstrual period. The number of days may fluctuate and the period might come a little early or a little late. So when a woman sees menstrual blood, she should consider herself to be menstruating. When it stops, she should consider herself clean. If more blood appears after her menstrual period has ended, but does not have the same color as menstrual blood, it should not be considered as menstruation Post-childbirth bleeding is the blood that comes during and after childbirth. It may begin to come 2 or 3 days before delivery and be accompanied by labor pains. There is no minimum limit as to how long a woman will bleed, but generally the upper limit is within 40 days. Women are prohibited from performing certain acts while they are in this condition, such as follows: * She cannot pray (salat) after she begins to bleed and does not have to make up any missed prayers. * She cannot observe any obligatory (Ramadan) or supererogatory fasts. She must make up the obligatory fasting days after regaining her ritual cleanliness. If bleeding begins during a supererogatory fasting day upon which she had intended to fast, she must make it up. * She can do all pilgrimage rites except circumambulating the Ka‘ba (tawaf). * She should avoid mosques or places of worship, and cannot touch the Qur’an, whether the original or in translation. She cannot recite it from memory, but can read the verses of prayer and supplication with the intention of praying. (She cannot perform salat but can supplicate and recite the prayers mentioned in the Qur’an with the intention of saying prayers or making supplications.) * A man cannot have sexual intercourse with his wife while she has post-childbirth bleeding, for she is not allowed to make herself available to him. However, he can kiss, hug, or touch her anywhere besides the pubic region. It is better and highly advisable to avoid the area between the navel and the knees. When a menstruating woman stops bleeding, she must perform a complete ghusl (major ablution). After this, she must resume praying and fasting, can enter the mosque, make tawaf, recite the Qur’an, and engage in allowable sexual intercourse. She must make up the fasting days that she missed during Ramadan, but not the prayers. The same rules apply to women in post-childbirth bleeding.

Istihadha (Non-menstrual Vaginal Bleeding)

In some women, bleeding never stops; in others, it continues for longer than normal. This blood is called istihadha. Likewise, any blood coming before puberty and after menopause is also considered istihadha. A woman with this condition should calculate when her period would normally end, and then stop praying during the days of her calculated period and follow all of the other menstruation-related rules. For the rest of the days, her bleeding should be treated as istihadha. If she does not have a regular period or does not remember when it used to occur, but can distinguish between the two kinds of blood based on color, thickness, and smell (i.e., menstrual blood is dark, thick, and has a strong odor, while istihadha is bright red, thin, and less disagreeable in smell), she must act accordingly. If she does not have a regular period and cannot distinguish between the two types of blood, she must consider the blood coming for 3 to 10 days every month as menstruation and calculate it from the time she first noticed her vaginal bleeding. There is no difference between a woman beset by istihadha and one who has a complete cessation of menstrual flow, except as follows: * If the first woman wants to perform wudu’ (ritual ablution), she should wash the blood from her vaginal area and then apply a menstrual pad or wrap the area with a clean rag on top of a wad of cotton to catch the blood. Any blood coming out after that is of no account. * She must perform wudu’ for every obligatory prayer.

Ghusl (Major Ablution)

Ghusl means major canonical ablution or a complete washing of the body. It becomes obligatory after sexual intercourse, even if only the head of the penis disappears into the vagina. Any discharge of semen, and the completion of menses and post-childbirth bleeding. Taking ghusl every Friday before the congregational prayer is highly advisable, for the Prophet always did so. Before beginning ghusl, one should make the intention to perform it and, if one will pray after performing it, also the prayer.

Things Forbidden to a Ritually Impure Person

People who are in this state cannot pray, circumambulate the Ka'ba (tawaf), enter a mosque or place of worship unless necessary, or touch the Qur'an or any of its verses except with a clean cloth or something similar.

What Makes One’s Ghusl Valid?

* Rinsing the mouth thoroughly so that all of its parts are cleaned properly. * Rinsing the nose right up to the nasal bone. * Washing all bodily parts thoroughly, including the hair. The best way to perform ghusl is as follows: * Having the intention (niyyat) to cleanse the body from (ritual) impurity while washing oneself. * Washing the hands up to the wrists three times. * Washing the private parts thoroughly. * Removing all filth from all bodily parts. * Performing ablution. * Washing all bodily parts three times, including the hair thoroughly. No part, even the size of a pinpoint, is allowed to remain dry. Rubbing and pressing the body is not obligatory.

Tayammum (Ablution with Clean Soil)

When a person is too sick to use water or none is around when it is time to pray, he or she can perform tayammum in place of wudu’ and ghusl. The requirements are as follows: * Intending to perform tayammum to remove any impurity. * Striking the pure soil lightly with the palms of both hands and passing the palms over the face one time. * Striking the pure soil again with one’s palms and rubbing the right and left arms alternately from the fingertips to the elbows. Tayammum is nullified as soon as the cause for performing it is removed (i.e., the sick person recovers or pure water is found). If a person performs tayammum and then prays, he or she does not have to repeat the prayer if the conditions for it are removed before the time for that particular prayer ends.

Wudu’ (Ablution)

Wudu’ involves washing with water at least once the usually exposed bodily parts, namely, the face, hands and arms up to (and including) the elbows, and feet, and wiping one-quarter of the head. It is obligatory for any obligatory or supererogatory prayer, circumambulating the Ka‘ba, and touching the Qur’an with bare hands. Wudu’ is performed in the following manner: * Ensure that the water to be used is pure. * Intend to perform wudu’ to offer prayer, if you plan to pray after taking it. * Recite: “Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim” (i.e., in the Name of God, the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate). * Wash the hands up to the wrists three times, and do not miss the parts between the fingers. * Clean your mouth with a brush or a finger, and gargle with water three times. * Rinse the nostrils with water three times. * Wash the face from the forehead to the chin and from ear to ear three times. * Wash the right arm followed by the left up to the elbows three times. * Wipe at least a quarter of the head with wet hands, pass the wet tips of the little fingers inside and the wet tips of the thumbs outside the ears, and pass the palms over the nape and sides of the neck. * Finally, wash the feet up to (and including) the ankles, the right foot first and then the left, taking care to wash in between the toes, each three times. The obligatory acts are as follows: * Washing the face. * Washing both arms up to and including the elbows. * Wiping a quarter of the head with wet hands. * Washing both feet up to and including the ankles. The following acts nullify wudu’: * Whatever comes out from the two private parts (front and back): waste matter, urine, wind, wadi (a thick white secretion discharged after urination), mazi (a white sticky fluid that flows from the sexual organs when thinking about sexual intercourse or foreplay, and so on), and prostatic fluid. Semen, menstrual blood, and post-childbirth blood require ghusl. * Emission of blood, pus, or yellow matter from a wound, boil, pimple, or something similar to such an extent that it flows beyond the wound’s mouth. * Vomiting a mouthful of matter. * Physical contact for pleasure between men and women without any obstacle (e.g., clothes). If the head of one’s penis disappears into a woman’s vagina, ghusl is required. * Loss of consciousness through sleep, drowsiness, and so on. * Temporary insanity, fainting, hysteria, or intoxication. * Audible laughter during prayer.

Wiping over Clean, Indoor Boots (Khuffayn)

While performing wudu’, one can wipe over (the top of) their clean, indoor boots once with wet hands instead of washing the feet. * Boots should be waterproof and cover the whole foot up to (and including) the ankles. They must have no holes wider than three fingers in width. It does not matter if their mouths are so wide that the feet can be seen when looking down at them. * They must be fit, strong, and tough enough so that the feet would not come out of them, and they should not fall down when walked in for 3 miles. * They cannot be made out of wood, glass, or metal. * One must put on the boots after washing one’s feet while performing ablution. One can wear it for a whole day if one is resident. If traveling, one can wear it for 3 consecutive days.

#Allah #quran #islam #ayat #hadith #revert #help #team #reverthelp #reverthelpteam #questionsinislam #questionsonislam

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romancatholicreflections · 8 years

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7th February 2017 >> 'Ecology Respects Both Nature And Humanity' ~ Daily Reflection on Today's Mass Readings for Roman Catholics on Tuesday, Fifth Week, Ordinary Time

SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ GEN 1:20-2:4; PS 8:4-9; MARK 7:1-13 ] In the first reading, we read of the beauty of God’s creation. The magnificent works of God are seen in His creation. The author in a simplistic manner suitable to his time described the various stages of creation, the sea creatures, the birds that fly in the air; the creatures of the land and finally, the creation of human beings as the summit of creation. But unlike the rest of creation, “God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.” Clearly, man has a special place in God’s creation. He is distinguished from all creatures and creation. His special dignity lies in the fact that man is like God, sharing the life of God and yet not divine like God. Because he shares in the life of God, he is given special authority to exercise dominion on behalf of God. God said, “Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves, and let them be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of the heaven, the cattle, all the wild beasts and all the reptiles that crawl upon the earth.” “God blessed them, saying to them, ‘Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and conquer it. Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all living animals on the earth.’” Man, then, is given powers over the rest of creation. Man did not create the world and so he is not the creator but only a steward. We do not have full authority over creation to do what we like, but to exercise stewardship on behalf of God for His creation. We are therefore not absolute masters but merely exercising stewardship in the name of God. What is proper stewardship of God’s creation? Firstly, God created the world for the service of human beings and for their good. God said, “See, I give you all the seed-bearing plants that are upon the whole earth, and all the trees with seed-bearing fruit; this shall be your food. To all wild beasts, all birds of heaven and all living reptiles on the earth I give all the foliage of plants for food.” Creation is therefore for the service of man. Other creatures and plants exist to serve humanity. In this sense, we have a right over creation and we can make use of them for our needs and growth. Yet, there are limits as to how we can use them for our purpose. Proper stewardship also means that we do not destroy their existence. They are created by God and we have a duty also to protect them and help them to fulfill their roles in creation, be they plants or animals. Everything has a finality. We are created for a purpose. Dogs are given to humanity so that they can protect and guide us; and be our companions. All creatures exist for something or someone. The meaning of life is when we fulfill our finality in life. Otherwise, we live our lives in vain. Women are created for motherhood and they find the most fulfilling task in bearing children and looking after them. Of course, some are also called to serve humanity in leadership roles. But fundamentally, women are given a nurturing nature to look after the young. This explains why most women choose family over their career if a choice has to be made, even when they are doing well in life. As for the case of the Father, he finds himself when he gives himself to his wife and family by being their protector, defender and provider. Of course, such conventional roles are not exclusively the role of any particular sex. The point remains that unless we fulfill our roles in life, and this goes for all of creation, we cannot find fulfillment. Hence, the greatest joy of a dog is to serve his master or mistress. Accordingly, we cannot abuse creation. The failure to respect ecology is a serious sin in today’s world when many, especially multinational corporations, exploit creation out of greed, profit and selfishness. Instead of being wise stewards, we have destroyed creation. The severe climate change we are experiencing today, resulting in freak typhoons, floods, extreme temperatures, etc is a consequence of our neglect and irresponsible exploitation of creation. Hence, the rallying call today, not just by religious leaders but all of humanity, to protect creation, especially plants, animals and the environment. The truth is that there is a deep and intrinsic relationship between human beings and creation. When we manipulate creation, and do not respect the laws of nature, we will suffer the backlash of nature. Nature has its own natural laws to govern them. By upsetting the ecosystem, the principle of cause and effect sets in. Nature is blind and will respond according to its own set of laws. The uncontrolled and irresponsible treatment of nature will cause the entire creation to suffer because we are inter-related and inter-dependent as creatures of God. This was the case of the Jews as well. They were manipulating the laws for their own self-interest. Jesus reprimanded them for acting hypocritically because they used the laws not to glorify God or to help their fellowmen or fulfill their obligations to their loved ones, but in order to escape responsibility. Citing from Isaiah, Jesus answered, “It was of you hypocrites that Isaiah so rightly prophesied in this passage of scripture: This people honours me only with lip-service, while their hearts are from me. The worship they offer me is worthless, the doctrines they teach are only human regulations.” The hygienic laws are in themselves good but they are means to an end. They are meant to help foster healthy lifestyles; not to separate people from God or hinder them from coming to God. Most of all, the practice of such rituals without understanding will not achieve its purpose. This is true for other practices like the Sabbath. The true meaning of Sabbath is to ensure that man rests properly, not so much that God needs to rest. Rather, it is to remind us that God ultimately is in charge of His creation. We should not think that we are in full control. We are to cooperate with Him and do what we can to protect and use His creation to glorify Him. When we take the Sabbath rest seriously, we are reminded that God is our creator and that all we have come from Him; and that we are called to use them for the good of our brothers and sisters. We should not have a blind observance of the laws. Slavery to the laws is no better than not observing them. Those who observe them could do so for wrong motives, selfishness and for their ego and escape from a wrathful and unreasonable god. So we must use the gifts of God rightly, according to what nature determines. We must have respect for natural laws. Even then, this is not enough. The world is quite short-sighted. It does not go beyond respect for nature to human nature. The world only speaks of the environment and the other creatures but fail to consider human ecology as well. Increasingly, recent popes have been warning of the danger of seeing nature as more important than human beings. It is not enough to protect the natural environment. We must also protect the human environment. Environmental ecology suffers only because human ecology is not respected. The weakening of humanity, especially in human virtues, will affect the way we treat the environment. It is for this reason that we need to pay attention to the ecology of the human family, marriage and social life. The social role of the family is to build a civilization of love. John Paul II wrote, “The first and fundamental structure for a ‘human ecology’ is the family, founded on marriage, in which the mutual gift of self as husband and wife creates an environment in which children can be born and grow up” (Centesimus Annus, No. 39). The complementarity of man and woman must be underscored in fostering a new human ecology. Both have an indispensable contribution to society. When the family and marriage are subjected to redefinition by ideologists, we forget that the family is an anthropological fact, not something left to be determined by concepts based on some preconceived ideological notion that changes with time. Because of individualism marriage as a permanent institution is no longer embraced by many, nor is marriage seen as a union between a man and a woman. When this human ecology is not respected, we will have many problems in the future with respect to the raising of holistic children and families. Human ecology also extends to the care and respect for life in all its stages. Every human life must be respected from conception to old age and death. The dignity of every human person, because he or she is created in God’s image and likeness, must be protected. An authentic human ecology restores the balance between creation and the human persons. We must never forget that persons live in environments, natural, social and economic. So stewardship is necessary if we are to restore the integrity of creation. When the human person is in danger because he forgets his place in creation, the person will abuse creation as well. The crises affecting the natural world, society, marriage and the family are manifestations of the loss of our dignity and vocation in life. The real problem affecting ecology today is not simply a question of economics, but ethics and morality and most of all, our understanding of anthropology. Who is man? This is the ultimate question in ecology. Once we appreciate that man is created in God’s image and likeness and has been entrusted by God with the task of helping creation to realize its fulfillment by protecting and caring for it, we would pay attention to every human person, the importance of the family, the dignity of life, the culture of solidarity, the danger of a culture of consumerism and waste. When everyone and everything is in right relationship and in the right order, there will then be world peace. Written by The Most Rev William Goh Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved Best Practices for Using the Daily Scripture Reflections Encounter God through the spirit of prayer and the scripture by reflecting and praying the Word of God daily. The purpose is to bring you to prayer and to a deeper union with the Lord on the level of the heart. Daily reflections when archived will lead many to accumulate all the reflections of the week and pray in one sitting. This will compromise your capacity to enter deeply into the Word of God, as the tendency is to read for knowledge rather than a prayerful reading of the Word for the purpose of developing a personal and affective relationship with the Lord. It is more important to pray deeply, not read widely. The current reflections of the day would be more than sufficient for anyone who wants to pray deeply and be led into an intimacy with the Lord.

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thekrustiestpunk · 4 years

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The Dogs of War

Maurice despised his choice in profession. He oft wished that he had taken his father’s advice and become a carpenter. A long line of carpenters preceded him, afterall. His father, grandfather, great grandfather, all had been employed in the noble trade of carpentry, as well as all men in his recorded ancestry. Maurice had rejected his inherited creed. He sought adventure and this singular desire had led him to the Glavian Explorers Guild. It was two years ago that Maurice had met Domingo. The old sailor was having drinks in a seedy pub, in a foreign city. A city much further to the east than his home in Glavius, but not quite as far as to extend into the eastern territories. This pub was Ginatia’s Folly, a popular pub in the small, western city of Hayrun. This pub was one frequented by many a citizen of Hayrun, but most importantly to our story, Maurice Hingler II. Maurice immediately noticed Domingo, for his skin was darker than any local, his facial hair was trimmed oddly, and he wore strange garb and a feather in his cap.

When Maurice sat himself in front of the Glavian man with a handlebar mustache, he cut right to chase. “You are an explorer, yes?” only considering after he spoke that he may have seemed somewhat over excited, which would no doubt be perceived as Naivete.

In spite of his notable ecstasy, the sailor responded in a tempered, unaffected tone. “Forgive me. I am unfamiliar with your dialect. What is it that you believe I am?” He spoke in perfect Kaerman.

Maurice answered in a more measured voice than he had before. “An adventurer, a voyager, one who travels.” listing off every way he knew to describe an explorer.

The man grinned, and chortled. “Of course. I am indeed an explorer, as you say. I hail from Glavia.” He took a moment to think before asking. “That is how you say it, yes? Explorer?”

“Yes. Perfectly.” Maurice retorted, glad that he could aid this charismatic foreigner in some way. It wasn’t quite perfect, of course. The man’s accent prevented flawless pronunciation. That mattered not to Maurice, though. What mattered was that they were getting along just fine.

The man acted as if he were about to speak, before coming to a realization. “Oh where are my manners. I am Captain Domingo Montez.” He removed one of his leather gloves, before extending his hand to Maurice.

Maurice firmly grasped Domingo’s hand with his and shook, wearing a grin on his face. “Maurice Hingler.” Perhaps he’d escape Hayrun afterall.

“Say no more.” Domingo began. “We are in no state to converse.” He placed two of his ungloved fingers between his lips and whistled at the nearest waitress, a pale, red-haired girl. “Bring us two tankards of your finest ale.” He instructed boisterously, grinning madly.

The woman was nervous as she responded “We only have one type of ale sir.”

Domingo retorted “Then that’s what we’ll have.” still wearing a great smile on his face.

With some hesitance, the lass smiled back, although warily. “Of course.” She walked away from the table to retrieve the men’s drinks.

The woman returned with the tankards and the men carried on with their conversation. Maurice couldn’t recall the specifics. All that truly mattered now was that, one way or another, the men came to an agreement. It was agreed that Maurice would do manual labor aboard the Captain’s sailing ship, as well as provide whatever aid was required of him in the foreign lands they ventured. In exchange, he would receive room and board.

At the time this seemed like an appealing proposition, but as the sweat that coated his skin, from the sweltering heat of a day on the pikeland savanna, added a further chill to the frigid night, he came to the realization that he had been incorrect. He took little satisfaction from his work, primarily moving supplies from place to place and occasionally aiding one of the several mad scientists in the menial aspects of their research. He had anticipated the lack of catharsis from his labours. What he had not anticipated was just how dull the exotic locales he had desperately craved would be.

He had heard stories of the southern continent. Tales of cyclopean, ancient jungles and otherworldly creatures. All he’d seen of the savanna was sparse flora, the size and nature of which struck all too familiar, and wild hares, which were a common sight in Hayrun. Maurice was certain that there was no way that all the stories he’d heard had been total fiction and that, in the vastness of the continent, there were no doubt jungles and beasts, the likes of which he’d heard of in fables. While of this he was certain, It seemed that the glavians were uninterested in anything, but the savanna.

As he jotted his lamentations in his journal, Maurice heard a shuffling. The flap of his tent had been opened. Maurice grabbed the dagger that lay near his inkwell and blew out the candle that lit his tent. A familiar voice sounded off near the entrance. “I’m not a pike, you melodramatic imbecile.” It was only Kat.

Maurice fumbled a bit, before once again lighting the candle, illuminating the tent’s interior, as well as the attractive young woman at the entrance. Kat was a short, lean girl with raven hair that she wore in a bob. Her dark hair contrasted perfectly with her pale skin, as did her sizable bust with her small stature. Unlike women in Hayrun, Kat did not wear dresses, preferring tunics and leggings. Kat was only made more attractive to Maurice by her enigmatic nature. Her country of origin was a subject she was never open with and many other aspects of her history were equally vague. When questioned on this matter, Domingo admitted that he had met her whoring herself on the harbor of a Glavian port town. In spite of this, Kat’s physical features betrayed that she was certainly not Glavian.

Curiouser still was that fact that Domingo took women under his employ at all. Maurice had rarely heard of a working woman, let alone a woman deckhand, as was Kat’s job aboard the ship. Maurice had initially figured Domingo to be sexually motivated, but Maurice had never so much as heard Domingo express a passing interest in a woman, which truthfully did not fit his outgoing demeanor. Maurice was not one to complain though. Kat was one of the few comforts he had in this endeavor.

“One can never be too careful, Kat.” Maurice sought to explain his unwarranted paranoia. He knew it to be ridiculous. If native’s were to attack he would not be the first to know, nor would he be the first victim.

Kat invited herself into Maurice’s tent, as had become customary between the two “You should know better than to fear the pikes as you do. We met pikes at the port. They’re just like you and I, really.” The woman was correct. They had met the dark skinned indigenous peoples at the port they’d arrived at, part of a small primitive republic. The republic by no means safe, but civil and bearing the illusion of structure, much like many places to the north.

“The continent is vast and much of it is still undeveloped. The port of Hout being free of savagery does not mean that all of the pikelands are so safe.” Maurice continued his defense, though not wishing to completely disregard Kat. He felt a respect for Kat and her opinion that he’d truly never held for another woman. “Besides, it is not the pikes I fear. I’ve seen things moving in the darkness, at the edge of the camp, large, alien things.”

Kat chuckled at this remark “You really are a fool, Maurice.”

“I’m serious Kat. I’ve seen things…” Maurice wore a shocked expression on his face, as he raised his hand to point towards the entrance.

Kat was now somewhat shaken herself “What is it? Maurice, what is it?!” Kat was beginning to panic, as she finally looked over her shoulder, just to feel a sudden weight atop her. Maurice was not a large man, but Kat was not a large woman and Maurice was certainly large enough to completely knock her over. “Maurice!” Kat rolled over beneath the man, to see him grinning, proudly, down at her. “You’re a prick.”

“Sorry. I couldn’t resist.” Maurice apologized, only half hardheartedly. Kat was going to tell him to get off her, when her eyes met his. She’d never looked at his eyes before. They were a dark, stormy, grey. She’d never seen grey eyes before. She thought that she should pull him closer, take him into her embrace, follow her body in a way she hadn’t before. Before she could, she came to her senses and pushed Maurice off of her, he gave easily, having no intention of forcing her down. She wasn’t that kind of woman, she wasn’t some sort of harlot.

Maurice lifted himself from the ground and began to approach Kat, who had moved to a corner of the tent. There she stood, her arms wrapped tightly around her torso. It seemed to Maurice that Kat may be on the verge of some kind of emotional break and he knew that it was important to think his next words out carefully. He was fairly certain he had found the correct words, but he would never know for certain. The moment he reached his hand out towards Kat’s shoulder, his attention was drawn away by the frightful sound of a man crying out into the night.

Frantically, Maurice grabbed for the dagger he had taken up in defense earlier. He crept towards the tents opening and glanced outside. Beyond the tent flap was a nightmarish fray. His comrades were being ripped to shreds by hideous beast men, with the heads of rabid hounds and weaponry carved of bone. The degenerate pack mutilated men and violated women, clearly having no respect for human life or common decency. Fires had been set around the camp, by whom Maurice was unsure. He was certain, however, that these fires would make escaping the camp quite difficult. Luckily, the dogs had yet to make their way to Maurice’s side of the camp.

With his right hand still gripped tightly around the knife, Maurice backed away from the flap and approached Kat, who bore a mortified expression on her face. “What’s happening.” She croaked.

“The camp is under attack. I want to help us get out of here. Do you trust me?” Maurice retorted in a panicked state. He was nervous, but he knew that they had a better chance if they ran than they did if they remained and fought, neither of them being warriors.

Kat nodded and Maurice reached his left hand out to her, which she took in her smaller hand. Maurice led her to the exit, glancing out before leaving the tent. The coast was clear, as far as he could see. Believing the path safe, he led Kat into the bitter night air. The wind bit Maurice, protected by little more than a course pair of trousers. His tent sat at the very edge of the camp, believing his safest course to be abandoning the camp as soon as possible he made his way into the night. Only to meet one of the beast men face to face.

Face to face is merely an expression, of course. The creature stood far taller than Maurice did. So it was more like face to chest. Maurice had very little time to contemplate the creature, the beast’s bone dagger thrusting through his lung. Maurice toppled over as the dog drew its blade out of his torso. It stared down the small woman, with vile yellow eyes. It bore its blood splattered teeth, before leaning in to sniff her. Kat wanted to run, but she couldn’t, held in place with unshakable fear, as she heard the sound of more dogs trotting up from behind. The creature's nose probed her body, violating her with every snort. Then came a sharp pain at the back of her head and it all went black.

Zimos’ pike penetrated the skull of the last remaining dog, spraying its grey matter across the dirt. The westlanders’ encampment was near barren. Looted for all it was worth. Most, if not all men slaughtered. As he looked to the south, the proud juhuru warrior prince, saw Terun and Gahana, his prospective bride, approaching, a battered, but breathing, westlander between them. He was barely able to stand, but the two strong fighters had no difficulty holding him up. Zimos listened as the man spoke the name “Katalina”, then pointed towards a tent near the end of the encampment.

Zimos had heard the name before, a lillifoot explorer that had spent some time with his tribe had bore the name, it was a woman’s name. Zimos instructed Terun to watch over the man, they would aid him later, and had Gahana follow him to investigate the tent. There was not much of interest in the tent, but rather, it was what was outside the tent that was telling. There was the mangled corpse of a man and, next to it, a runt. The underdeveloped dogman was kneeling on the ground, sniffing a certain spot. Zimos grabbed the beast by its throat and pulled it to face him. As he suspected, the dog’s genitals were engorged. Katalina had stood where the creature kneeled. The hounds had taken the woman.

Zimos dropped the hideous, pathetic creature, handing it over to his bride to be. Gahana pushed the creature down to the ground with her foot. She then knelt down to place her palm on its forehead. The beast howled in pain as her hand burned into its brain, wrenching all it knew from its mind, leaving the beast completely inert. Having drained what she needed, the dark, swole woman drew an iron dagger from the harness that laid over her bare breast and sliced open the creature's throat. Zimos observed the paw prints that dotted the ground. He did not want to go to war, but he could not allow the dogs to mate with a human woman. To do so would ensure doom for his tribe and many others, as well. For the good of all mankind the dogs must die.

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