gdp's Comments

Mark Reads : Mark Reads 'Monstrous Regiment': Part 23

Fri, 20 Jul 2018 15:34:12 +0000

I'm late to this party, but just wanted to say that when it comes to the great Jackrum gender quandary, I find it very telling that we never learn what Jackrum was named at birth. Jade, Igorina, Magda, Alice, etc., etc. - the council of generals - we even hear about Maledicta, briefly, before returning to Mal. But Jackrum never offers, and Polly never asks, and the narrative doesn't care. Jolly Jack Jackrum is jolly Jack Jackrum, period, and that's the truth of the matter. In a book full of "unmaskings", that choice stands out sharply to me.

Mark Reads : Mark Reads 'Monstrous Regiment': Part 22

Tue, 17 Jul 2018 15:06:45 +0000

It might be helpful, in that case, to reframe this argument from "this culture doesn't exist" to "I don't like many aspects of this culture". That avoids at least some of the inherent issues. (I do think it's giving white American mainstream culture too much power/credit, in a way, to claim that it's uniquely terrible and without value. Papering over the rest of the world with any culture to the degree we've done with this one would be...not great, simply for the loss of diversity alone.) (Also, separate argument but a lot of the Greek and Roman philosophers were real shitbags. Just saying. Have you seen Pliny the Elder's rant on menstruation? That guy had issues. XD; )

Mark Reads : Mark Reads 'Monstrous Regiment': Part 22

Tue, 17 Jul 2018 14:43:26 +0000

I don't want to assume anything about your identity, but I do want to say that it's very common for mainstream white American culture to be called non-existent, especially by white Americans. This is a "'What's water?' quoth the fish" phenomenon. Mainstream white American culture, accents/dialects, cuisine, clothing, music, hobbies, etc., are all so culturally dominant in the US and abroad that they're perceived by many as a sort of default. This is a problem in many ways. (Examples: It privileges this specific culture as "normal", it exoticizes other cultures in comparison, it encourages young people within this culture to appropriate other cultures because they can't see anything "special" about their own, it makes young people with ties to other cultures feel "weird" for embracing/studying their own heritage in ways that white kids don't for - say - playing baseball or violin, etc., etc.) Learning to recognize the markers of this culture, as just one more among many, is actually really helpful in breaking out of these patterns! Strips it of some of that power and privilege when you see it for what it is.

Mark Reads : Mark Reads 'Monstrous Regiment': Part 16

Fri, 29 Jun 2018 14:50:20 +0000

Jryy, V tvir hc. Ng guvf cbvag V guvax V'q orggre fgbc ubcvat gung gurer'f tbvat gb or n zbzrag - rira ng gur NSNO erirny - jurer Znex qrpvqrf gung ur npghnyyl qbrf yvxr Wnpxehz, rira n yvggyr. Be Oybhfr, sbe gung znggre. Ba gur bar unaq, V ernyyl qb nccerpvngr Znex'f qvssrerag crefcrpgvir ba guvf obbx. Vg'f tbbq gb unir lbhe vqrnf nobhg n orybirq obbx punyyratrq, naq znal bs uvf cbvagf ner irel inyvq naq unqa'g bppheerq gb zr. Ba gur bgure unaq, vf vg greevoyr bs zr gb or qvfnccbvagrq? V'ir orra ybbxvat sbejneq gb guvf Qvfpjbeyq obbx zber guna nal bgure, orpnhfr V gubhtug Znex jbhyq nqber vg. Vafgrnq, n ohapu bs gebcrf V unqa'g rira abgvprq, juvpu ner irel ivfvoyr naq hapbzsbegnoyr sbe Znex orpnhfr bs uvf crefbany uvfgbel jvgu gur zvyvgnel, ner birefunqbjvat rirelguvat V ybir nobhg vg gb gur cbvag jurer vg frrzf yvxr ur pna'g rawbl be rira abgvpr gur tbbq ovgf va erghea. V bcra rirel puncgre erivrj nagvpvcngvat gur ortvaavat bs qryvtug naq rkpvgrzrag, naq xrrc svaqvat qvfthfg naq jbefg-cbffvoyr vagrecergngvbaf bs rirelguvat vafgrnq. Vg whfg xrrcf ohvyqvat hc ba vgfrys. Vg'f...xvaqn qvfpbhentvat.

Mark Reads : Mark Reads 'Monstrous Regiment': Part 13

Thu, 21 Jun 2018 14:19:26 +0000

So I finally figured out who I keep picturing when I read the descriptions of Sergeant Jackrum. More human, obviously, and in a different mode of dress, but the overall look and attitude are otherwise spot-on: <img src="https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/disney/images/9/90/Treasure-planet-disneyscreencaps.com-3985.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20131006174237" style="width:800px;">

Mark Reads : Mark Reads 'Monstrous Regiment': Part 11

Fri, 15 Jun 2018 14:30:14 +0000

[expectation spoilers, this book] Vf vg fgenatr gung V'z fgnegvat gb srry qvfgerffrq nobhg jung n artngvir urnqpnaba Znex frrzf gb or ohvyqvat sbe Wnpxehz naq uvf zbgvingvbaf? V qvqa'g rfcrpvnyyl gehfg guvf punenpgre rvgure ba zl svefg ernq, hagvy V tbg gb gur zvyvgnel gevny fprar, ohg guvf vf fgnegvat gb srry yvxr gur punenpgre-zbgvingvba rdhvinyrag bs gur Fhcerzr Tenaq Znfgre Irgvanev vapvqrag. Vg'f yvxr ur'f zvffvat nyy gur yvggyr zbzragf bs trahvar zragbevat naq cebgrpgvir centzngvfz, naq frrvat bayl gur frysvfuarff naq phaavat naq oybbqguvefgvarff (juvpu ner yrtvg cnegf bs Wnpxehz'f punenpgre, ohg abg gur fhz bs vg). Vagrecergvat rirelguvat gur fretrnag qbrf va gur jbefg cbffvoyr yvtug, lbh xabj? V xabj vg vfa'g zl cynpr gb gel gb vasyhrapr Znex'f ernpgvba gb n punenpgre, ohg V'z trggvat jbeevrq gung ur'f bireybbxvat fb znal cbvagf bs punenpgre qrirybczrag naq ohvyqvat Wnpxehz hc vagb fhpu n zbafgre gung ur'yy raq hc ungvat uvz pbzcyrgryl...naq gung jbhyq or fhpu n funzr.

Mark Reads : Mark Reads 'Monstrous Regiment': Part 11

Fri, 15 Jun 2018 14:18:22 +0000

My mom is a sweet and kind-hearted person, but every time I bring friends over or chat with her about having recently spent time with friends, she wants to know, "What do you do?" or "What are they doing these days?" By which she means, their jobs. I think it's a generational thing? She's trying to show a pleasant, solicitous interest in their lives and goals. Her own age cohort (the Boomers) tend to identify strongly with their professions, and find a lot of meaning in them. Keeping up with what's going on in your friends' work lives is a way of signaling interest in them as people, for her. But for most of my millennial peers, that question is instantly and intensely painful. An honest answer would be deeply embarrassing. "Oh, you know, still struggling to work two different thankless shifts at a couple of generic big box stores that treat me like an interchangeable cog without human needs, so I can pay for food and don't get evicted, while paying off my student debt for the degree in a field I still haven't managed to find a relevant job in, despite my best efforts." Many of my friends are struggling; many of them hate their jobs and feel no sense of identification with them, and I would worry about them if that wasn't the case, since their employers freely exploit them. We don't talk about our jobs when we hang out, because we don't want to hurt each other. We express interest in each other's lives by discussing things that do actually reflect our interests, like hobbies, politics, and activities/fandoms we mutually enjoy. And yet again and again I've seen my normally perceptive and empathetic mother stumble into this mistake without even realizing that her well-meant getting-to-know-you questions feel more like accusations of failure to launch. It's like a yawning generational gap and I'm not sure how to explain it in a way that will sink home.

Mark Reads : Mark Reads 'Monstrous Regiment': Part 9

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 16:09:50 +0000

Reminds me of Sojourner Truth's famous speech (which, incidentally, was rewritten into its most famous Southern vernacular form by a white woman, years later, who apparently didn't know or care that Truth was born and raised in New York and did not have a Southern accent). Excerpt from the original as recorded contemporaneously: "I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal. I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man that is now. (...) The poor men seems to be all in confusion, and don't know what to do. Why children, if you have woman's rights, give it to her and you will feel better. You will have your own rights, and they won't be so much trouble." Never hurts to be reminded that "feminine" delicacy and coddling have always been the preserve of a very particular subcategory of woman. Some of us have struggled to break free from their smothering confines; others have never been anywhere near their protective embrace. : I

Mark Reads : Mark Reads 'Monstrous Regiment': Part 8

Fri, 8 Jun 2018 15:11:03 +0000

Funny how often that particular superstition crops up, in everything from sailing to religious rituals. "I'm sorry, ladies, but your femaleness is just too unlucky/damaging/ritually impure to be allowed near this delicate male-only activity. For some mysterious reason. It's nothing personal, of course! Now, begone with you." Even as recently as this year, there was a genuine attempt to shoo female nurses out of a sumo ring when they rushed into it to provide life-saving care to a man suffering a brain hemorrhage. Saving his life seemed less important to the sumo official, in that moment of knee-jerk reaction, than preventing their femaleness from defiling the ring. There's nothing like a veneer of tradition for lending weight to an attitude that's honestly no more sensible than a cardboard NO GIRLS ALLOWED sign on a children's fort. : I

Mark Reads : Mark Reads 'Monstrous Regiment': Part 2

Thu, 24 May 2018 13:58:09 +0000

Now that the discussion for this chapter has more or less wrapped up, I wanted to stop back in here and thank all of you for your thoughtful responses. I appreciate your taking the time to share your various experiences and educate me about this, and I'll bear your thoughts in mind going forward. <3

Mark Reads : Mark Reads 'Monstrous Regiment': Part 2

Tue, 22 May 2018 17:00:01 +0000

Ubarfgyl, sebz gur crefcrpgvir bs n pvf jbzna jub'f pebffcynlrq sbe zrer pbfcynl checbfrf, V ernq gur nfvqrf nobhg gur fbpxf "znxvat" gur pvf tveyf npg pregnva jnlf nf n abayvgreny jel pbzzragnel ba gur jnl lbhe orunivbe ernyyl pna nqwhfg vgfrys nyzbfg jvgubhg lbhe rkcrpgvat vg jura lbh'er cerfragvat va n arj jnl. Trggvat vagb gur ebyr, fb gb fcrnx (fvapr vg <v>vf</v> whfg n ebyr va bhe pnfr), naq orvat fgnegyrq naq n yvggyr pneevrq njnl ol gur furre yvprafr vg pna cebivqr, rfcrpvnyyl jvgu ertneqf gb qvfcynlvat nffregvirarff naq ntterffvba, jura lbh'er hfrq gb gur qvssrerag pvephzfpevcgvbaf bs n srzvavar cerfragngvba. V pna qrsvavgryl frr vg abg orvat gur orfg cuenfvat, gubhtu.

Mark Reads : Mark Reads 'Monstrous Regiment': Part 2

Tue, 22 May 2018 13:44:06 +0000

Okay, honest question from an ignorant but eager-to-learn cis woman. Attempting to pass as a particular sex, for various reasons within a broad range of positive and negative motivations, is a pretty ancient human activity. Mark seems concerned that any portrayal of this activity that is not specifically trans representative is inherently transphobic and hurtful. Is this true? I ask for two reasons, the first being that I genuinely don't want to hurt trans people and would like to promptly amend my behavior and fictional output if it is true. My assumption to date has been that it's a topic that requires tact and careful awareness of the overlaps and parallels with trans passing, at the very least, but that there were thoughtful ways to include it in fiction without being hurtful. I am very willing to accept if I was wrong about this. Still... The second reason is what gives me pause Passing as male while identifying as female has historically been a very real and useful way of gaining access to male-exclusive spaces and privileges which were closed to female-assigned people for sexist/chauvinist reasons, such as medicine, the arts, and - yes - the military, and I admit that it instinctively rubs me a little wrong to see it implied that there's no acceptable/non-hurtful way to portray that act of social subversion. It's a behavior that comes with genuine benefits and drawbacks, and serious dangers, which are adjacent to those faced by trans men but also distinctly different. tl;dr - Is there really no way to tell a girl-disguised-as-a-boy story without hurting AFAB people who -are- boys?

Mark Reads : Mark Reads 'Monstrous Regiment': Part 2

Tue, 22 May 2018 13:15:42 +0000

"...but that's another story, never mind. Anyway!" Into The Woods reference?? :D

Mark Reads : Mark Reads 'The Wee Free Men': Chapter 8

Wed, 2 May 2018 21:29:35 +0000

It's an eerie lay, to be sure, but the edge was taken off it permanently for me by the Flanders and Swann joke translation: "Ah, yes, 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci'...the beautiful lady who never says 'thank you'." :D

Mark Reads : Mark Reads 'Page': Chapter 8

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 04:28:36 +0000

Reading back through these old comments years later, due to a reread of the POTS quartet, and grinning very hard at this note in retrospect, from the vantage point of having read the Spy's Guide. Spoilers, indeed. :D

Mark Reads : Mark Reads 'Night Watch': Part 7

Wed, 21 Feb 2018 15:32:28 +0000

Oh yes, very mixed feelings here about that dig, too. On the one hand, my own father (a doctor himself) was the one who expertly caught me as I made my way into the world, and I had no better lay attendant at the birth of my own firstborn than my brave, kind husband, who was an unflagging assistant to the midwife and would have been banished to pace the hallway just fifty years ago. By no means do I think men should be banned from childbed... And at the same time, our shitty outdated model of maternal care in the US, with its pointless How We've Always Done It bad habits that strain against best practices and current research, and its callous disregard for the mother's health (especially postpartum) in comparison to its tight focus on the infant (very important! but so is their mum!), is absolutely the legacy of male doctors who thought they knew so much better than women how babies should be delivered that they didn't even bother to back up their assumptions with proper scientific research, and who were historically more concerned with women healing "tightly" in a particular area than recovering well overall. So. (Sigh.) Yes, definitely mixed feelings there.

Mark Reads : Mark Reads 'Thief of Time': Part 17

Fri, 25 Aug 2017 15:00:12 +0000

I had a flicker of unease about the same thing on this read-through, actually. It's not wildly egregious - oftentimes we do get great ideas for self-reinvention from others - but I think it rankles a little more because Susan is so generally suspicious and hostile to Myria/Unity, so it reads a bit like Susan trying to reshape her into something more likeable, according to her own standards. Fortunately, her idea does end up being meaningful for Unity, who embraces it without hesitation. Still, the scene would sit a lot better with me if the ex-Auditor had come up with her new name herself.

Mark Reads : Mark Reads 'Thief of Time': Part 17

Fri, 25 Aug 2017 14:48:34 +0000

Do you have Sees Candies where you are, or are they only a West Coast thing? I know they sell marzipan dipped in chocolate there... (I was in a Sees shop just this week, treating myself after finishing a translation project, so I have extra sympathy for the temptation in this chapter. They may not be the priciest or the swankiest chocolatier, but their dark chocolate raspberry cremes would pop an Auditor on smell alone.)

Mark Reads : Mark Reads 'Thief of Time': Part 16

Wed, 23 Aug 2017 15:26:50 +0000

I admit, it took me a while to get used to the Mark Reads policy, because before coming here, my only concept of "spoilers" was "plot" information. MR is the only venue I've encountered that also avoids "premise" information (aka stuff you'd find out from the book jacket), which is generally considered fair game for suggesting media to friends. It was especially tricky back when Mark was accepting suggestions more often, because I was eager to see my faves read and had no idea how else to pique someone's interest than dropping some premise information. (To use an already-Read property as an example, I'd always thought of stuff like "Tris calls up a storm to destroy the pirates" or "Rosethorn has to help research a mysterious magic disease" as spoilers, but it took a while to realize that "there's this grouchy ginger girl with incredible weather powers!!" or "magic in this series is this really cool natural system with laws that can be researched!!" also counts as spoilers here.) Consequently, I had a moment or two early on where I mentioned premise information and was shocked to be told I was posting spoilers (and dismayed, since I was trying to participate in good faith and still getting it wrong). That said, once I got the idea, I shut up properly, as anyone should. Your house, your rules. : )

Mark Reads : Mark Reads 'Thief of Time': Part 15

Mon, 21 Aug 2017 15:00:20 +0000

Speaking of bonding... [Spoilers for this book] Nz V gur bayl bar jub jnf n yvggyr orjvyqrerq, yngre va guvf obbx, jura vg orpnzr pyrne gung Ybofnat vf byq rabhtu gb or Fhfna'f ybir vagrerfg? Hc gb gung cbvag, V guvax gur bayl ersrerapr gb uvf ntr unq qrfpevorq uvz nf "ng yrnfg fvkgrra", jurernf Fhfna'f grnpuvat wbo unq zr cvpghevat ure va ure rneyl gjragvrf, ng zvavzhz. Nz V zvffvat fbzrguvat? Vf Fhfna lbhatre guna V gubhtug, be qvq V snvyrq gb pngpu gur fvtaf gung Ybofnat vf byqre? Be vf gurer na ntr tnc nsgre nyy, ohg vg whfg qbrfa'g znggre zhpu gb frzv-vzzbegny unys-uhznaf...?