those were the days... Picture the scene: Monty Python's Flying Circus ran from 1969 to 1974. Nothing, I mean nothing, had been seen like this before on TV. To really appreciate their courage and brilliance you need to know something about these days when gay marriage was not even on the horizon and most people would lose their employment if they were outed at work. The first Pride Parade was in 1970 and it was only in 1973 that the American Psychiatric Association in their generosity declared that homosexuality was not a mental disorder. Being LGBTQ+ was gradually decriminalized in various parts of the UK and a bit later in the US starting slowly in the late '60's.
Meanwhile, Monty Python was winning over hearts and minds through the funny bone. Groundbreaking.
I think Graham Chapman, the 4th man to join the scene, being gay and being a member of Monty Python is worth noting. He had a partner, David Sherlock, and was publicly open with his homosexuality as early as 1972. I just think it makes a difference in how Monty Python treated queerness in sketches when one of their members, their good friends and collaborators, is himself gay.
It lets people access scientific articles for free. This is dangerous. It helps the free flow of knowledge and reduces the competitive edge of all the people who worked really hard to have been born into a wealth.
Like, itâs literally a website where you can type in the DOI of an article and read it, without ever having to pay the publisher who exploited the author.
So, again, do not, under any circumstance, use Sci-Hub. I mean, can you imagine a world where knowledge is free and easily accessible to everyone? Even, y'know, poor people?
Libgen also has many books online, including textbooks, searchable by name, author, and ISBN. Can you imagine textbook companies not getting their hard-earned income from poor college students? Here is the link just so you make sure that you never accidentally stumble across this horrible, unethical website.
Oh, and while weâre talking about books, if youâve managed to stay clear from Libgen, definitely donât go to zlibrary, where you can also find a lot of textbooks, but unfortunately theyâre completely free.
Another inside tip from academia: Those papers in really expensive journals that are effectively inaccessible to anyone not in a university network? Depending on the discipline itâs very likely that same paper is on a âpreprintâ server somewhere, with no access restrictions.
Like if you want to read basically any physics, math, or CS paper, arXiv.org will have you covered, because everyone uploads their papers there before submitting to a journal (and generally updates it after peer review). I know all of my papers are on there. This is such common practice that journals have it baked into their licensing agreements that authors retain the right to upload their work to these places.
So the next time you get hit with that paywall, you may not even need sci-hub, just click the arxiv link on google scholar instead.
if for some reason none of this works, the old âsend a email nicely asking for the paper to the authorâ is always a good trick. remember most scientists hate the commercialisation of scientific knowledge
Many authors of papers are on ResearchGate! You can ask for papers there, if they donât just post a copy to download. If theyâre associated with a college, you can usually find their email addresses in the department directory, also.
Worldcat is my bestie and my one true love!! Not only does it tell you what library a book is at, but it also price compares different used book sites against each other for easy view! It's how I got Tarot For the Master for $10!!
Oh, and since I have your attention: z-library (books and textbooks) and sci-hub (gatekept scientific journal articles.) I just ripped a textbook for class off z-library and snatched a required reading from sci-hub. Life is good and education should be accessible at every stage and station of life.
Transcription of screenshots in the original post are below the cut.
I would like to add that if anyone wants an ordinary search engine (for the kind of ordinary searches they make on Google) that isn't Google, I would highly recommend Ecosia - the search engine that plants trees.
Dr. Arash Daneshzadeh
@A_Daneshzadeh
Google is so powerful that it "hides" other search systems from us. We just don't know the existence of most of them. Here's a list of sites you may have never heard of, it's how we overcome the madness:
refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.
worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.
link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.
bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.
repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.
science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.
pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.
this post made me deeply depressed and i reread f&b which was my first mistake.
tldr iâm making the argument that jaehaerys definitely sexually abused saera and alysanne, and likely viserra and gael, and also i hate this man. if you disagree and want to say so *nicely* thatâs cool but if you hardcore love jae and donât want to hear criticism, maybe just scroll past bc iâm not nice to him at all (obviously, iâm accusing him of csa lol).
breaking this down by each woman, so thereâs 6 sections: saera, viserra, daella, gael, alysanne, and alicent.
saera targaryen
If she were the kingâs firstborn, or better still his only child, she would be well content. Instead she finds herself the ninthborn, with six living siblings who are older than her and even more adored. Aemon is to be king, Baelon most like will be his Hand, Alyssa may be all her mother is and more, Vaegon is more learned than she is, Maegelle is holier, and DaellaâŠwhen does a day go by when Daella is not in need of comfort? And whilst she is being soothed, Saera is being ignored. Such a fierce little thing she is, they say, she has no need of comfort. They are wrong in that, I fear. All men need comfort.
thatâs septon barthâs opinion on her and barth is always right. simply put, sheâs a deeply neglected child who acts like a brat to get her parents attention because sheâs learned the only way theyâll pay attention to her is if sheâs causing a problem.
Before she was eleven, she was stealing wine and ale instead. By twelve, she was like as not to arrive drunk when summoned to the sept for prayer.
The kingâs half-witted fool, Tom Turnip, was the victim of many of her japes, and her unwitting catspaw for others. Once, before a great feast where many lords and ladies were to be in attendance, she persuaded Tom that it would be much funnier if he performed naked. It was not well received.
stealing alcohol at 10 and being a committed alcoholic at 12 is not normal behavior. it is a sign of something deeply at wrong at home. also, the way she kind of, sexually humiliated tom, someone who is too âinnocentâ to even realize sheâs sexually humiliating himâŠgives me the ick re: how she views sex.
Saera had learned the art of getting anything she wanted from her father: a kitten, a hound, a pony, a hawk, a horse (Jaehaerys did draw a firm line at the elephant). Queen Alysanne was far less gullible, however, and Septon Barth tells us that Saeraâs sisters all misliked her to various degrees.
i donât like this. nothing wrong with giving your child gifts (see ned going above and beyond to get arya not just instruction on how to fight but also a specific style that would gel with being smaller than your average opponent) but in conjunction with âjaehaerys ignores saera unless sheâs pressing him for an expensive gift which he immediately gives her and alysanne doesnât get why he caved so quicklyâ its an alarming dynamic.
also speaks to how isolated saera specifically was, that the only siblings that like her (aemon and baelon) are usually out and about, and thereâs a clear wedge between saera and her sisters, even viserra.
The screams were coming from Tom Turnip, who was lurching helplessly in circles trying to escape from half a dozen naked whores, whilst the patrons of the house laughed uproariously and shouted on the harlots. Jonah Mooton, Red Roy Connington, and Stinger Beesbury were amongst those patrons, each one drunker than the last. They had thought it would be funny to see old Turnip do the deed, Red Roy admitted. Then Jonah Mooton laughed and said the jape had all been Saeraâs notion, and what a funny girl she was.
again with sexually humiliating tom.
it continues with her friends. itâs not unusual for a 15 year old girl to want to fool around with other 15 year olds but alys and perri are all guilt ridden and upset and alys is with child. it reminds me a lot of cersei sexually abusing taena in affc. when sheâs caught (now, mind you, sheâs been marched in front of her parents sitting on the throne and not brought to them in their private rooms. sheâs being treated right off the bat as if sheâs guilty of a crime and not guilty of being a shitty teenager):
âShe went from denial to dismissal to quibbling to contrition to accusation to justification to defiance in the space of an hour, with stops at giggling and weeping along the way,â Septon Barth would write. âShe never did it, they were lying, it never happened, how could they believe that, it was just a game, it was just a jape, who said that, that was not how it happened, everyone likes kissing, she was sorry, Peri started it, it was such fun, no one was hurt, no one ever told her kissing was bad, Sweetberry had dared her, she was so ashamed, Baelon used to kiss Alyssa all the time, once she started she did not know how to stop, she was afraid of Stinger, the Mother Above had forgiven her, all the girls were doing it, the first time she was drunk, she had never wanted to, it was what men wanted, Maegelle said the gods forgave all sins, Jonah said he loved her, the gods had made her pretty, it was not her fault, she would be good from now on, it will be as if it never happened, she would marry Red Roy Connington, they had to forgive her, she would never kiss a man again or do any of those other things, it wasnât her who was with child, she was their daughter, she was their little girl, she was a princess, if she were queen she would do as she liked, why wouldnât they believe her, they never loved her, she hated them, they could whip her if they wanted but she would never be their slave. She took my breath away, this girl. There was never a mummer in all the land who gave such a performance, but by the end she was exhausted and afraid, and her mask slipped.â
What does Jaehaerys ask after all of this? âHave you given any of these boys your maidenhead?â Her response:
âTrue?â said Saera. It was in that moment, with that word, that the contempt came out. âNo. I gave it to all three. They all think they were the first. Boys are such silly fools.â
Now mind you, Alyssa and Daella have both died of childbirth recently and her parents are mad she had sex as a 16 year old bordering on 17 year old, and not the fact that she like, at best peer pressured her besties into having sex and now one of them is pregnant. jaehaerys has only asked if sheâs still a virgin.
âI will be married,â the princess said. âWhy shouldnât I be? You were married at my age. I shall be wedded and bedded, but to whom? Jonah and Roy both love me, I could take one of them, but they are both such boys. Stinger does not love me, but he makes me laugh and sometimes makes me scream. I could marry all three of them, why not? Why should I have just one husband? The Conqueror had two wives, and Maegor had six or eight.â
i keep trying not to give my opinion and just lay it all out but the thing is iâd just be reposting the whole scene because itâs just filled with so much weird sex stuff. if you donât remember it, go reread it. it doesnât feel (to me) like regular âgeorge is bad at writing sexâ vibes but âgeorge is purposefully trying to skeeve you outâ vibes but i am willing to admit i could be wrong and he really just doesnât understand what he wrote.
anyways remember how i said saera acts out to get attention from her parents? all sheâs done here is act out, her âcrimesâ are basically nonexistent; beyond how alys feels about being pregnant, saera consensually had sex with boys around her age who arenât married, and then blithely compared herself to some asshole relatives. if your teenager idolizes dick cheney thatâs probably worrying but not a crime! this is not how jae treats it however.
When the princess heard his words, she rushed toward him, crying, âFather, Father!â but Jaehaerys turned his back on her, and Gyles Morrigen caught her by the arm and wrenched her away. She would not go of her own accord, so the guards were forced to drag her from the hall, wailing and sobbing and calling for her father.
The king was angry and unyielding, for his shame was deeply felt, and he could not forget Saeraâs taunting words about his uncleâs wives. âShe is no longer my daughter,â he said more than once. Queen Alysanne could not find it in her heart to be so harsh, however. â
saera tries to escape.
This time the princess was not allowed to return to her own chambers. She was confined to a tower cell instead, with Jonquil Darke guarding her day and night, even in the privy.
Princess Saera watched from the window of her cell. Jonquil Darke, her gaoler, made certain that she did not turn away.
thatâs as her dad is murdering stinger btw. is he a creepy 19 year old? yeah. but like, making your 15 year old watch you murder her 19 year old trust fund baby stoner boyfriend sure is something.
so then they sent her to the silent sisters where sheâs beaten all the time and has to pray all the time and she runs away, becomes a sex worker and literally never looks back.
The truth did not come out until a year later, when the former princess was seen in a Lysene pleasure garden, still clad as a novice. Queen Alysanne wept to hear it. âThey have made our daughter into a whore,â she said. âShe always was,â the king replied.
âYou need her as a Dornishman needs a pit viper,â Jaehaerys said. âI am sorry. Kingâs Landing has sufficient whores. I do not wish to hear her name again.â
but before we move on, letâs look at one more related ick, when saeraâs sons show up to the great council:
From Essos came three rival competitors, grandsons of King Jaehaerys through his daughter Saera, each sired by a different father. One was said to be the very image of his grandsire in his youth.
after her drinking, acting out, and jaehaerysâ focus on calling her a whore, explicitly pointing out that one of her grandsons looks just like jae is a choice. i know theyâre super inbred. itâs still uncomfortable in context.
viserra targaryen
alysanne makes no sense here but iâm just gonna quickly explain instead of lay it out or we will be here all day bc viserraâs engagement is completely nonsensical. theomore manderly is old, ugly, has a shitton of heirs, and viserra clearly doesnât want to marry him. also if she wanted to be queen, why is she going after baelon, aemon is still alive. anyways jaehaerys is no help here, then she goes to baelon for help, but sheâs also super drunk.
Frustrated, Viserra next turned to her brother Baelon in hopes of rescue, if court gossip can be believed. Slipping past his guards into his bedchamber one night, she disrobed and waited for him, making free with the princeâs wine whilst she lingered. When Prince Baelon finally appeared, he found her drunk and naked in his bed and sent her on her way. The princess was so unsteady that she required the help of two maids and a knight of the Kingsguard to get her safely back to her own apartments.
she gets drunk with some friends again, goes riding, breaks her neck. i wanted to point out this pattern of drinking and acting out at a young age. as well as this pattern of targaryen daughters who arenât âmeantâ for a brother and are promised to men who are old and with heirs
daella targaryen
i wanted to add daella because her getting married at 15 makes as little sense as viserra, and her match to a old man with several heirs is equally nonsensical. but also this:
âI would never marry her,â the boy said, in front of half the court. âShe can barely read. She should find some lord in need of stupid children, for thatâs the only sort he will ever have of her.â
where did vaegon get that mouth.
Daella was not clever, even her septa had to admit. She learned to read after a fashion, but haltingly, and without full comprehension. She could not seem to commit even the simplest prayers to memory. She had a sweet voice, but was afraid to sing; she always got the words wrong. She loved flowers, but was frightened of gardens; a bee had almost stung her once.
Jaehaerys, even more than Alysanne, despaired of her. âShe will not even speak to a boy. How is she to marry? We could entrust her to the Faith, but she does not know her prayers, and her septa says that she cries when asked to read aloud from The Seven-Pointed Star.â
The queen always rose to her defense. âDaella is sweet and kind and gentle. She has such a tender heart. Give me time, and I will find a lord to cherish her. Not every Targaryen needs to wield a sword and ride a dragon.â
so daella is 12 at this point.
Her sixteenth nameday was fast approaching, and with it her womanhood. Queen Alysanne was at her witâs end, and the king had lost his patience. On the first day of the 80th year since Aegonâs Conquest, he told the queen he wanted Daella wed before the yearâs end. âIf she wants I can find a hundred men and line them up before her naked, and she can pick the one she likes,â he said. âI would sooner she wed a lord, but if she prefers a hedge knight or a merchant or Pate the Pig Boy, I am past the point of caring, so long as she picks someone.â
i just donât like this. other âsimpleâ targs are not required to marry, like vaella and aelora, two of daeron iiâs grandfaughters so i donât get why daella is pressured into marrying before sheâs even of age. at least jae 2 forced rhaella and aerys because of a prophecy? what is jaeâs reasoning for so sexualizing his daughter?
gael targaryen
this one is definitely a reach but iâd like to point out that this is basically all we know about gael:
Princess Gael, a sweet, shy child of seven, became the queenâs constant shadow and support, even sharing her bed at night.
and our information on how she dies is so shady:
A sweet-natured girl, but frail and somewhat simpleminded, she remained with the queen long after her other children had grown and gone, but in 99 AC she vanished from court, and soon afterward it was announced that she had died of a summer fever. Only after both her parents were gone did the true tale come out. Seduced and abandoned by a traveling singer, the princess had given birth to a stillborn son, then, overwhelmed by grief, walked into the waters of Blackwater Bay and drowned.
how does gael get pregnant by a traveling singer when she never leaves her motherâs side? why doesnât anyone in court know gael got pregnant and killed herself until after aly and jae both die and how was this even found out?
am i implying that jaehaerys sexually abused all four of his daughters? yes because he literally sexually abuses his own wife.
alysanne targaryen
âI am forty-two years old,â she told the king. âYou must be content with the children I have given you. I am more suited to be a grandmother than a mother now, I fear.â
King Jaehaerys did not share her certainty. âOur mother, Queen Alyssa, was forty-six when she gave birth to Jocelyn,â he pointed out to Grand Maester Elysar. âThe gods may not be done with us.â He was not wrong. The very next year, the Grand Maester informed Queen Alysanne that she was once more with child, to her surprise and dismay.
he uses the birth that killed their mother and that is condemned by rhaena and alysanne as reckless and cruel of rogar to force on her. that birth.
at this point as well, he had abused saera and daella, then theyâre gone, then viserra starts drinking and dies, then jae marital rapes aly into having gael, giving him access to another young girl to abuseâŠiâm aware this is a very uncharitable reading of him butâŠ
alicent hightower (and kind of alyssa targaryen)
Ser Ottoâs precocious fifteen-year-old daughter, Alicent, became his constant companion, fetching His Grace his meals, reading to him, helping him to bathe and dress himself. The Old King sometimes mistook her for one of his daughters, calling her by their names; near the end, he grew certain she was his daughter Saera, returned to him from beyond the narrow sea.
saera is the one he fixated on yet again but notable that heâs fixated on his daughters as he dies and not his sons, despite jaehaerys turning to drink after aemon died bc he was so upset.
He announced his intention to wed Lady Alicent of House Hightower, the clever and lovely eighteen-year-old daughter of the Kingâs Hand, the girl who had read to King Jaehaerys as he lay dying.
The Hightowers of Oldtown were an ancient and noble family, of impeccable lineage; there could be no possible objection to the kingâs choice of bride. Even so, there were those who murmured that the Hand had risen above himself, that he had brought his daughter to court with this in mind. A few even cast doubt on Lady Alicentâs virtue, suggesting she had welcomed King Viserys into her bed even before Queen Aemmaâs death. (These calumnies were never proved, though Mushroom repeats them in his Testimony and goes so far as to claim that reading was not the only service Lady Alicent performed for the Old King in his bedchamber.)
i know itâs just mushroom being a perv but a rumor that 15 year old alicent âservicedâ jaehaerys existing besides rumors that he mistook 15 year old alicent for the daughter he last saw when she was 17 - and viserra was 15, gael 19, and daella 15, all around alicentâs age and all died before age 20. all the targaryen girls that werenât born âforâ a brother exit the narrative after some sort of sexual abuse that centers around jae, as teenagers; daenerys was born for aemon, alyssa for baelon, and maegelle for vaegon before they both fucked off and maegelle was too pious (and too old). this idea of being âforâ a brother leads directly to alyssaâs death before 30:
âYou were made for battles, and I was made for this. Viserys and Daemon and Aegon, thatâs three. As soon as I am well, letâs make another. I want to give you twenty sons. An army of your own!â It was not to be. Alyssa Targaryen had a warriorâs heart in a womanâs body, and her strength failed her. She never fully recovered from Aegonâs birth, and died within the year at only four-and-twenty.
and alysanne being âforâ jaehaerys is how he excusing sexually abusing her into a risky pregnancy. essentially what i fear is that because saera, daella, viserra, and gael arenât âforâ someone, jaehaerys gets it into his mind that that are for him. even without him raping them tho, that subtext is there! he is entitled to saeraâs virginity and calls her a whore multiple times, even decades after sheâs left, and murders her boyfriend in front of her. he claims a weird sexual ownership over his neurodivergent daughter daella and his alcoholic, depressed daughter viserra, and we get zero information on gaelâs pregnancy or his reaction to it. but jaehaerys deciding his daughters are âforâ him certainly has a basis in canon just judging from the erratic and worrying behavior of his younger daughters.
jaehaerys is a creep and i hate him and i donât know how much of this is on purpose (like, will aegon vi or dany find out jaehaerys was a shady pedo and it shatters their world? will dunk and egg find it out and it affects their plot somehow? did george just put it in there to make a comment on power and monarchy and misogyny, similar to aegon iv raping the bracken women? or is just there for window dressing creepiness, like âi will pepper in the fact that jaehaerys is sexually obsessed with his daughtersâ thing?) or if george just made jaehaerys sexually obsessed with his daughters on accident?
on the one hand, it seems out of character for george. he romanticizes drogo thru danyâs eyes but itâs clear heâs meant to be seen as a creep (dany talking about being pregnant followed by âshe had just turned 14â is sickeningly jarring for a reason) and also, drogo dies bc of his own pride. sansa doesnât like any of the old dudes touching her; she is at least marginally freaked out by her wedding night, the unkiss, and lf & dontos taking liberties with her, and rightly. the story thatâs told about the mountain raping a girl and making the father pay him is meant to disgust us. the walk of shame is a harrowing chapter to read, because whatever cerseiâs crimes, this sexual humiliation is not something she deserves. on and on. yes, we all hate the way arya is sexualized in the mercy chapter, but crucially, sheâs not blithely and happily seducing these pervs, sheâs going hard candy on their asses. is this just messy set up for something like that?? i think, given how little dany knows about her familyâs crimes that somehow learning jae sexually abused (and maybe even impregnated) his own daughters after she herself experiences sexual abuse would be huge. the same goes for aegon vi learning that sexual abuse runs rampant in his family tree; would he empathize with saera hiding out in essos to escape the sexual abuse of her father, see some of elia and his own plight in her? in gael?
or did george really just. not realize how sexually obsessed jaehaerys was with his daughters?
idk how to end this. whereâs the winds of winter george i need answers.
@tracing-rivers thank you for your thoughtful reply, i love the way you described jaehaerys bc that really is how he comes across, you put it very succinctly. heâs not so much âgrayâ the way say, maekar, is shown to be in the dunk & egg stories where he will do shitty things for understandable reasons, or like the tyrells in the main series, who will do good things for kinda shitty reasons, thereâs just an odd, stark line in his behavior wrt the realm vs his family that is incredibly jarring to read.
but imo, jae is at best a mediocre king and at worst just as useless politically as like 70% of the targ kings. he builds a dirt road instead of a stone road even tho valyrians can make fused stone with dragons (i know itâs a stupid thing to be annoyed at but twoiaf mentions the black fused stone literally a dozen times and this man doesnât even try to replicate that??? itâs potentially likely that balerion has even made that stone before like george PLS!!), he has to be talked around to giving the smallfolk clean water & abolishing prima noctus by barth & aly, the only marriage alliance he makes that makes any sort of sense politically is aemon/jocelyn, all his enemies are complete idiots he defeats easily so he doesnât have any impressive military wins either.
some of that can be chalked up to grrmâs lackluster understanding of battle and economy (no shade i also refuse to understand the economy) but the fact that we have no main characters give their opinion on him besides mention him as âthe conciliatorâ really makes me wonder if jaeâs lackluster everything is partially on purpose. i donât know if he specifically meant to imply that jae rapes his daughters, but he certainly makes it clear jae sexually abused aly & i am suspicious of how all three of the Good Kings (jae, daeron ii, and aegon v) start with admirable intentions but seem to go super sideways at the ending of their reign & what that means for The General Themes of the main series and for dunk & egg.
i try to compare it to the way other patriarchs and other kings and rulers are treated by the narrative and when you hold the way jae is written up to the likes of our mains, imo the structure of his story seems to fall more along the lines of âasshole patriarch brings about the ruin of his house due to the way he mistreats peopleâ a la tywin, all three viserys kings, walder, balon, and robert rather than with âa well meaning patriarch fucks his house because he refuses to deal with his own weird traumasâ a la ned, davos, aegon the dragon, and probably egg & daeron ii. not as extreme as tywin or balon maybe, more along the lines of the viserysâ and stannis; men who experience trauma as young boys and instead of dealing with it, they make it the entire realmâs god damn problem.
[which isnât to say that the weirdness in jaeâs writing canât just be grrm trying and failing at moral grayness bc he spends like a hundred pages telling us that daemon was both good and bad but daemonâs goodness is more informed and heavily subtextual/accidental than anything grrm wrote him doing lmao. sure, i love to post about how daemon wants to be a targaryen bride and how his pursuit of rhaenyra (and laena and nettles) is just as much about him working through his grief over his motherâs death and his confusing attraction to viserys as much as it is about his own attraction to rhaenyra and desire to be in control at all times, but like, obviously george did not write daemon as a bisexual genderfucked menace with an oedipal complex ya know. iâm aware some of this is just my personal reading of the text lollll]
A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. âDo I look like a fool?â said the frog. âYouâd sting me if I let you on my back!â
âBe logical,â said the scorpion. âIf I stung you Iâd certainly drown myself.â
âThatâs true,â the frog acknowledged. âClimb aboard, then!â But no sooner than they were halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the frog, and they both began to thrash and drown. âWhy on earth did you do that?â the frog said morosely. âNow weâre both going to die.âÂ
âI canât help it,â said the scorpion. âItâs my nature.â
___
âŠBut no sooner than they were halfway across the river, the frog felt a subtle motion on its back, and in a panic dived deep beneath the rushing waters, leaving the scorpion to drown.
âIt was going to sting me anyway,â muttered the frog, emerging on the other side of the river. âIt was inevitable. You all knew it. Everyone knows what those scorpions are like. It was self-defense.â
___
âŠBut no sooner had they cast off from the bank, the frog felt the tip of a stinger pressed lightly against the back of its neck. âWhat do you think youâre doing?â said the frog.
âJust a precaution,â said the scorpion. âI cannot sting you without drowning. And now, you cannot drown me without being stung. Fairâs fair, isnât it?â
They swam in silence to the other end of the river, where the scorpion climbed off, leaving the frog fuming.
âAfter the kindness I showed you!â said the frog. âAnd you threatened to kill me in return?â
âKindness?â said the scorpion. âTo only invite me on your back after you knew I was defenseless, unable to use my tail without killing myself? My dear frog, I only treated you as I was treated. Your kindness was as poisoned as a scorpionâs sting.â
___
âŠâJust a precaution,â said the scorpion. âI cannot sting you without drowning. And now, you cannot drown me without being stung. Fairâs fair, isnât it?â
âYou have a point,â the frog acknowledged. âBut once we get to dry land, couldnât you sting me then without repercussion?â
âAll I want is to cross the river safely,â said the scorpion. âOnce Iâm on the other side I would gladly let you be.â
âBut I would have to trust you on that,â said the frog. âWhile youâre pressing a stinger to my neck. By ferrying you to land Iâd be be giving up the one deterrent I hold over you.â
âBut by the same logic, I canât possibly withdraw my stinger while weâre still over water,â the scorpion protested.
The frog paused in the middle of the river, treading water. âSo, I suppose weâre at an impasse.â
The river rushed around them. The scorpionâs stinger twitched against the frogâs unbroken skin. âI suppose so,â the scorpion said.
___
A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. âAbsolutely not!â said the frog, and dived beneath the waters, and so none of them learned anything.
___
A scorpion, being unable to swim, asked a turtle (as in the original Persian version of the fable) to carry it across the river. The turtle readily agreed, and allowed the scorpion aboard its shell. Halfway across, the scorpion gave in to its nature and stung, but failed to penetrate the turtleâs thick shell. The turtle, swimming placidly, failed to notice.
They reached the other side of the river, and parted ways as friends.
___
âŠHalfway across, the scorpion gave in to its nature and stung, but failed to penetrate the turtleâs thick shell.
The turtle, hearing the tap of the scorpionâs sting, was offended at the scorpionâs ungratefulness. Thankfully, having been granted the powers to both defend itself and to punish evil, the turtle sank beneath the waters and drowned the scorpion out of principle.
___
A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. âDo I look like a fool?â sneered the frog. âYouâd sting me if I let you on my back.â
The scorpion pleaded earnestly. âDo you think so little of me? Please, I must cross the river. What would I gain from stinging you? I would only end up drowning myself!â
âThatâs true,â the frog acknowledged. âEven a scorpion knows to look out for its own skin. Climb aboard, then!â
But as they forged through the rushing waters, the scorpion grew worried. This frog thinks me a ruthless killer, it thought. Would it not be justified in throwing me off now and ridding the world of me? Why else would it agree to this? Every jostle made the scorpion more and more anxious, until the frog surged forward with a particularly large splash, and in panic the scorpion lashed out with its stinger.
âI knew it,â snarled the frog, as they both thrashed and drowned. âA scorpion cannot change its nature.â
___
A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. The frog agreed, but no sooner than they were halfway across the scorpion stung the frog, and they both began to thrash and drown.
âIâve only myself to blame,â sighed the frog, as they both sank beneath the waters. âYou, youâre a scorpion, I couldnât have expected anything better. But I knew better, and yet I went against my judgement! And now Iâve doomed us both!â
âYou couldnât help it,â said the scorpion mildly. âItâs your nature.âÂ
___
âŠâWhy on earth did you do that?â the frog said morosely. âNow weâre both going to die.â
âAlas, I was of two natures,â said the scorpion. âOne said to gratefully ride your back across the river, and the other said to sting you where you stood. And so both fought, and neither won.â It smiled wistfully. âAh, it would be nice to be just one thing, wouldnât it? Unadulterated in nature. Without the capacity for conflict or regret.â
___
âBy the way,â said the frog, as they swam, âIâve been meaning to ask: Whatâs on the other side of the river?â
âItâs the journey,â said the scorpion. âNot the destination.â
___
âŠâWhatâs on the other side of anything?â said the scorpion. âA new beginning.â
___
âŠâAnother scorpion to mate with,â said the scorpion. âAnd more prey to kill, and more living bodies to poison, and a forthcoming lineage of cruelties that you will be culpable in.â
___
âŠâNothing we will live to see, I fear,â said the scorpion. âAlready the currents are growing stronger, and the river seems like it shall swallow us both. We surge forward, and the shoreline recedes. But does that mean our striving was in vain?â
___
âI love you,â said the scorpion.
The frog glanced upward. âDo you?â
âAbsolutely. Can you imagine the fear of drowning? Of course not. Youâre a frog. Might as well be scared of breathing air. And yet here I am, clinging to your back, as the waters rage around us. Isnât that love? Isnât that trust? Isnât that necessity? I could not kill you without killing myself. Are we not inseparable in this?â
The frog swam on, the both of them silent.
___
âIâm so tired,â murmured the frog eventually. âHow much further to the other side? I donât know how long weâve been swimming. Iâve been treading water. And itâs getting so very dark.â
âShh,â the scorpion said. âDonât be afraid.â
The frogâs legs kicked out weakly. âHow long has it been? Weâre lost. Weâre lost! Weâre doomed to be cast about the waters forever. There is no land. Thereâs nothing on the other side, donât you see!â
âShh, shh,â said the scorpion. âMy venom is a hallucinogenic. Beneath its surface, the river is endlessly deep, its currents carrying many things.âÂ
âYou - Youâve killed us both,â said the frog, and began to laugh deliriously. âIs this - is this what itâs like to drown?âÂ
âWeâve killed each other,â said the scorpion soothingly. âMy venom in my glands now pulsing through your veins, the waters of your birthing pool suffusing my lungs. We are engulfing each other now, drowning in each other. I am breathless. Do you feel it? Do you feel my sting pierced through your heart?â
âWhat a foolish thing to do,â murmured the frog. âNo logic. No logic to it at all.â
âWe couldnât help it,â whispered the scorpion. âItâs our natures. Why else does anything in the world happen? Because we were made for this from birth, darling, every moment inexplicable and inevitable. What a crazy thing it is to fall in love, and yet - Itâs all our fault! We are both blameless. Weâre together now, darling. It couldnât have happened any other way.â
___
âItâs funny,â said the frog. âI canât say that I trust you, really. Or that I even think very much of you and that nasty little stinger of yours to begin with. But Iâm doing this for you regardless. Itâs strange, isnât it? Itâs strange. Why would I do this? I want to help you, want to go out of my way to help you. I let you climb right onto my back! Now, whyever would I go and do a foolish thing like that?â
___
A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. âDo I look like a fool?â said the frog. âYouâd sting me if I let you on my back!â
âBe logical,â said the scorpion. âIf I stung you Iâd certainly drown myself.â Â
âThatâs true,â the frog acknowledged. âCome aboard, then!â But no sooner had the scorpion mounted the frogâs back than it began to sting, repeatedly, while still safely on the riverâs bank.
The frog groaned, thrashing weakly as the venom coursed through its veins, beginning to liquefy its flesh. âAh,â it muttered. âFor some reason I never considered this possibility.â
âBecause you were never scared of me,â the scorpion whispered in its ear. âYou were never scared of dying. In a past life you wore a shell and sat in judgement. And then you were reborn: soft-skinned, swift, unburdened, as new and vulnerable as a child, moving anew through a world of children. How could anyone ever be cruel, you thought, seeing the precariousness of it all?â The scorpion bowed its head and drank. âHow could anyone kill you without killing themselves?â
you guys know problematic early 2000âs post 9/11 era copaganda like law & order svu where a guy like Stabler would fly off the handle and have to be physically stopped from murdering a suspect that hasnât even been read miranda rights yet and may not even be guilty but everyone understood he was only doing it bc he cares soooo much and the captain might scold him out of concern but the whole team loves him and the person he suspected is the bad guy every time and also he saved the children as well as his female partner who heâs sort of condescending about protecting even through theyâre the same rank and every time he went near a church during investigations he would get down on one knee and cross himself in front of a drawn out shot of Jesus Christ on the cross? that is where Criston Cole would thrive, but through a terrible mishap he was born in westeros
The writings of children who studied at the New-York African Free-School did not differ substantially from the responses in 1834 of African American pupils in Cincinnati, who answered the question âWhat do you think most about?â Their responses reveal concerns about their enslaved contemporaries. A seven-year-old child addressed the question in an epistolary manner with the salutation âDear school-mates.â At the outset, the brief letter mentions buying a farm, working, studying, and visiting family members. The remainder of the letter concentrates on the long-range ambitions of growing to manhood and âget[ting] the poor slaves from bondage.â That goal was overshadowed by a more immediate concernâthe news of a boat sinking with âtwo hundred poor slaves.â That subject, he wrote, âgrieves my heart so that I could faint in one minute.â The young boyâs sense of distress was embodied in the thought of an immediate loss of consciousness, a temporary respite from reality.
[...] Another letter from a ten-year-old pupil in the Cincinnati school, is laden with anxiety about enslaved family members. The missive begins with a statement of fact and registers despair about two cousins who were living in slavery. He claimed that his cousins, whose owner had died, were âentitled to their freedom.â He wrote, âThey have done everything that the will requiresâ but the heirs of their former owner âwont let them go.â It was not unusual for descendants of slave-owners or others to contest a will, especially when property, real and personal, was at stake. Obviously interested in financial gain, the heirs were threatening to sell the slaves âdown the riverâ rather than execute the will. The possibility that the will would be scuttled, thus removing the opportunity of immediate freedom for his relatives, distressed the schoolboy, who remained focused on his relatives. âIf this was your case,â he asked, âWhat would you do?â
The child did not end the letter with the question but added an anxious plea, âPlease give me your advice.â This elevated the assignment from a classroom exercise to a personal concern that had serious consequences for the enslaved children and their cousin. The teacher, to whom the letters were addressed, may have responded in the margins as he evaluated the assignments. Instructors in Cincinnati and New York urged children to think about slavery and freedom. It is also likely that the teachers helped shape what the children thought and wrote.
A cache of letters written in the 1850s and 1860s by African American boys at the Societe Catholique pour lâinstruction des orphelins dans lâindigence in New Orleans provides a virtual cornucopia of data about the teachersâ instructions and the studentsâ comprehension of historical and political events. A study of these letters by historian Mary Niall Mitchell argues that the assignment educated the children about the possibility of establishing themselves as prospering citizens in places far away from the slave environment in New Orleans. The studentsâ knowledge of black emigration from the United States after the passage of the Compromise of 1850 and its threatening fugitive slave clause made Haiti and Mexico their destinations of choice.
Wilma King, Stolen Childhood: Slave Youth in Nineteenth-Century America
these cats are displaying remarkable theory of mind skills by not only registering that the humans can perceive them but actively trying to manipulate that perception! that requires one to be aware that other individuals have complicated interior thoughts of their own, to know that those thoughts are not always based on truth, and to quickly decide on the best possible âlieâ for the situation. this is why I despise animal intelligence tasks based on obedienceâ some of the most clever moments stem from intelligent disobedience.
Did you know that the english word âstarâ and the japanese word æïŒă»ăïŒdonât actually mean the same thing?
Language does not simply name pre-existing categories; categories do not exist in 'the world'
â Daniel Chandler, Semiotics for Beginners
I read this quote a few years ago, but I donât think I truly understood it until one day, when I was looking at the wikipedia article for âstarâ and I thought to check the Japanese article, see if I could get some Japanese reading practice in. I was surprised to find that the article was not titled ăæă, but ăææă, a word Iâd never seen before. Iâd always learnt that æ was the direct translation for âstarâ (I knew the japanese also contained meanings the english didnât, like âdotâ or âbullseyeâ, but I thought these were just auxiliary definitions in addition to the direct translation of âstarâ as in "a celestial body made of hydrogen and helium plasma").
Itâs an easy difference to miss, because in everyday conversation, æ and star are equivalent. They both describe the shining lights in the night sky. They both describe this symbol: â . They even both describe those enormous celestial objects made of plasma.
But they are different - different enough to not share a wikipedia article. æ is used to describe any kind of celestial body, especially if it appears shiny and bright in the night sky. âStarâ can be used this way too (like Venus being called the âmorning starâ), but itâs generally considered inaccurate to use the word like this, whereas there is no such inaccuracy with æ. You can say âoh thatâs not actually a star, itâs a planetâ, but you CANâT say ăćźăŻăăăŻæă§ăŻăȘăææă ăă (TL: thatâs not actually a hoshi, itâs a planet). A planet IS a æ.
æ is a very common word, essentially equivalent to âstarâ, but its meaning is closer to âcelestial bodyâ. I havenât looked into the etymology/history but itâs almost like both english and japanese started out with a simple, common word for the lights in the sky - star/æ , but as we found out more about what these lights actually were, english doubled down on using the common word for the specific scientific concept, while japanese kept the common word generic and instead came up with a new word for the more specific concept. If this is actually what happened, Iâd guess that kanji probably had something to do with it - æ as a component kanji exists inside the word for planet, ææ, and in the word for comet, ćœæ, and in the scientific word for âstarâ, ææ, so it makes sense that it would indicate a more general concept when used standalone.
This discovery helped me understand that quote - categories donât exist in the world, we are the ones who create them. I thought that the concept of âstarâ was something that would be consistent across all languages, but itâs not, because the concept of âstarâ is not pre-existing. Each language had to decide how to name each of those similar star-like concepts (the â symbol, hot balls of gas, twinkling lights in the sky, planets, comets, etc), and obviously not every language is going to group those concepts under the same words with the same nuance.
Knowing this, one might be tempted to say that ææïŒăăăăïŒ is the direct translation for âstarâ. But this isnât true either. In most of the contexts that the word âstarâ is used in english, the equivalent japanese will be simply æ. Despite the meanings not lining up exactly, æ will still be the best translation for âstarâ most of the time. This is the art of translation - knowing when the particulars are less important than the vibe or feel of a word. For any word, there will never be an exact perfect translation with all the same nuances and meanings. Translation is about finding the best solution to an unsolvable problem. That's why I love it.
Something I think ppl who aren't used to it struggle with when it comes to ancient history is that frequently 'we do not and cannot know this' is the only truthful response a historian can give. People severely overestimate how much we actually know about Ancient Rome.
I remember talking to someone at a party once about the debate over Septimius Severus's ethnicity (whole other can of worms) and they asked if genetic testing of his remains was not a way to settle it and I was like oh. Oh okay you are under the impression we have the physical remains of Roman emperors from the second century AD alright then. (We. Do not.)
Can't stress how much of high level study of Ancient History is devoted to trying to make sense of what actually factually happened. When I was at university (10+ years ago now) the discipline was embroiled in the lengthy and ongoing process of trying to unpack not just the biases in ancient sources but the centuries & centuries of biases within the field itself. I don't imagine this process is ever going to Stop. It's not uncommon for historical accounts to be so garbled & contradictory that it's not possible to reconstruct the real events behind them.
Once in an introductory lecture one of my professors was talking about this problem and articulated it very simply as 'we know real things happened between real people, but we aren't sure what they were'. Sums it up really!!
"Sys how is your decent into fiber arts hell going"
Glad you asked. I have arrived at 'modern flax is Bullshit compared to what we had in historical textiles, the flax widely available for handspinning is basically the tow that would be discarded from textile creation and used with tar to caulk ships back in the day'
This naturally led me down a hole of 'why is the staple length of this stuff a bullshit 6 inches' and the answer is 'we have bred modern flax more for the oil than the fiber because cotton usurped the place of everyday textile thanks to slavery and the cotton gin'
Anyway, THIS led me to a rabbit hole that culminated in me finding flax seed bred for proper 30 inch tall plants for fiber, sold by some fellow minded nerds on a website that has not been updated since 1998 and you have to email them to buy anything.
I FAILED YOU ALL here is the site. You can also buy flax fiber from them. The PROPER shit, not the hot garbage ass tow fiber sold as flax top for handspinners.
When I was a kid, maybe 14 or so (which is, you know, 20+ years ago), I belonged to a Yahoo! mailing list for an anime called Gundam Wing. It was mostly populated by other teens, of varying ages, as it was started by a teen and her friends. Eventually it migrated, when Yahoo! groups started as forums, and even branched off into non-GW related stuff in a second forum.
One of the things I remember the most clearly is the oldest person in the group. Her name was Steelsong. She was a 40-something Dom with a sub whose name we knew even though we knew nothing else. She ran her own fanfic archive because the web was still handmade HTML and navigated in webrings and Iâm pretty sure Google didnât exist or was only barely, barely launched and not well known. She was kind and patient and we loved her. She treated everyone on the group with the respect given any adult, even though most of the rest of the world was still treating us like we were children. Not teenagers even, but children. She never once condescended to any of us, never made our youth a barrier to her respect, never treated us like we were incapable of being full people or like we were less than her because we were young.
I remember that she hosted our fanfiction, as absolutely terrible as it was (and I still have some of it, I am WELL aware of how cringingly terrible it is, just absolute nonsense garbage), right there alongside of other fic that was soul-achingly beautiful. Not a separate section for her friends or for kids, just right there like we were good enough to feature alongside other authors. I never once received crit from her that I didnât ask for, only support. Only love. I am still writing today partly because Steel was so kind about our fic, fanfic and original.
I remember that when I started doing clay sculpture, she commissioned a tiny pair of dragons from me, to support me doing artwork. She sent a check my mom cashed for me, and my mom helped me mail it when it was finished. It broke in transit, and Steel assured me that she mended it and that it was still beautiful. It was a small gold dragon curled up with a small silver dragon.
I remember that her patience knew no bounds. I remember that she was there for us, regardless of reason. When we wanted to know silly things like what to do with a single AA battery, she answered. When we had serious questions about sex, she answered. When we had questions about writing, she taught us. When one of our group members, a young gay teen in Australia, ended up in the hospital and then stopped making posts, and we all knew what had happened, she let us talk to her about it because we couldnât go to our own parents, even though we had just lost a friend.
She was not a replacement to my parents, but she was an extra parent, in some ways. A friend, certainly, but someone that had been through more life than we had and was willing to pass on knowledge if we asked for it. Someone older that we trusted with things that were too uncomfortable to go to our parents or teachers or whatever about, because we already knew she wasnât going to judge us or something, and that we would get an honest answer.
I donât know why Iâm remembering this so hard tonight, and Iâm not sure if thereâs a point to sharing this, except that I know sheâs gone now. She was ill the last time we spoke, and her site went down a long time ago, and I miss her. She was a huge influence on my life, then and now. She was hope, for me, that life as an adult didnât have to be boring, it wouldnât have to mean giving up the things I loved and Becoming Only Responsible With No Fun. Her presence meant I had hope I could still write and play with friends even when I wasnât âa kidâ anymore. And sheâs gone, and I miss her, and I wanted to share her from the perspective of youth, and the perspective over twenty years later has provided me.
And I think of her, when people go off about older folks being in fandom with younger folks. Iâm an older folks now, or at least middle aged folks because there are certainly folks older than me still, but I wasnât always. Iâve been here since i was a younger folks, and I know how much Steelâs presence and support meant to me, how much she helped not just me but everyone on that group. And I think of the people saying older folks donât belong in fandom, and that they shouldnât interact with younger folks at all, and I just think⊠I canât agree. I needed that kind of solid presence in my life back then and even at the age I am now, I need the folks older than me to stay. I want them here.
So I guess, like, if youâre here and youâre 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 or whatever, I want you here in fandom with me, still. Your presence here is a comfort. It is hope. It is a reminder that life will continue to be fun, even as I get older, myself. And if youâre younger and you have this sort of elder in your groups, I hope that they are like Steel. I hope they are kind and patient and supportive, and that knowing them gives you hope for your own future. I hope in twenty years you look back and remember them fondly.
Magneto the holocaust survivor, my beloved. A man whose entire motivation is that such an event will never happen again. You will forever be my blorbo.
