campfire_octopus

no one expects him to do this, not even himself but there is Danger (tm) and she did not respond quick enough for his taste so she is now in his arms/over a shoulder, and they are getting out of here expeditiously.

After this? The protection detail has to reevaluate Grace completely, eventually sticking him into a special category that's about 85% "VIP normal civilian, high-value target, to be protected", 5% "minor trouble-magnet" (because Grace is a Protagonist and also not scared of mouthing off to people, and he's potentially vulnerable to any kind of 'pull on his heartstrings to lure him away from the group and get kidnapped' ploy), and 10% "emergency getaway runner for Stratt in the event that things REALLY go to shit".

HELLO you are asking questions that literature and poetry THROUGHOUT the middle ages has asked, and it is from this questioning that we derive things like the Codes of Chivalry (which is not "how to treat a noble lady really nice" but is actually "how to be an ethical person when you're rich and you own a horse" and includes such things as "don't run people over with your horse")

In fact I daresay you already know instinctively just from cultural osmosis what a good boss -- a good liege lord -- is and does based on the tropes that have survived to the current day and the kinds of things that get Hugely Praised in things like legends of King Arthur.

A good boss (liege lord) is:

Merciful. He is not having his peasants killed for things like poaching rabbits during a famine. In fact, he is working to mitigate famine. During times of individual hardship, he might negotiate with a peasant for a payment plan on their annual rent.

Patient. He is not impulsive, he does not lose his temper.

Prudent. He makes choices that are thoughtful, considered, conservative (in the sense of not needlessly risky--he's not investing his entire fortune in having everyone plant an unproven crop). He is making sure local infrastructure like roads and public buildings are maintained and kept in good nick.

Gentle. He doesn't haul off and slap a servant or a tenant for breaking a dish or making a mistake. He doesn't abuse animals, his wife or children, or his employees. He doesn't rape the servants.

Generous (both in money and in spirit). He is not extorting the peasants for an amount of rent that is beyond their means, he is not raising taxes every year to cover his own lavish lifestyle. He is paying his servants a living wage (or, if wages are low, he's giving them room/board/clothing to make up the difference). If someone in a tenant's family dies, the lord is sending a gift of condolence, or helping to pay for the funeral, or possibly even ATTENDING the funeral and speaking a few kind words about the deceased, ESPECIALLY if they were a really upstanding and important member of the community. If one of his tenants is gravely sick, the lord is sending a basket of food or paying for a doctor. He is giving charitably (generally this will be, like, a bequest to the church so that they can run a hospital or an orphanage or a school for the local village children).

Pious. This classically means "goes to church, submits with humility to God" but to me this quality is subtextually standing in for "maintaining an ongoing sense of Perspective that HE'S not god, that there are higher powers he is Accountable to, that he too can be Judged, etc, so that he doesn't end up going on a weird fucked up power trip"

Humble. One of the most admiring things you hear about a lord doing in literature and epic poetry is, "He ate off of wooden plates while his followers ate off of gold and silver." Humility isn't about being meek, it's just about not thinking so much of yourself that you turn your nose up and sneer at what "lesser" people do. In other words: Don't be a fucking diva. If your carriage gets stuck in the mud, climb out and help everybody else push, you're not gonna die from getting mud on your shoes.

Condescending. This word has changed wildly in meaning/tone over the last couple centuries -- it's now a rude thing to do (because we've done away with legal social hierarchies, so someone acting like they're lowering themselves to your level IS insulting), but in older times, a high-ranking person "condescending" to a servant was worthy of praise and admiration: it means they were setting aside rank and privilege to speak to them with the easygoing, friendly respect and compassion they'd give a peer. This is things like... Treats those beneath him with courtesy and respect (ie: listens soberly and attentively when one of his servants or tenants comes to complain about a problem). Having a sense of humor and kindness about it when the lord and a servant both come around a corner at the same time and run into each other and the servant gets knocked to the ground and starts babbling apologies--the condescending (positive) lord helps them to their feet with his own hands and cracks a joke to show them that it's ok (as opposed to just walking off without a word or insulting/scolding them). This is also things like trusting a farmer, woodcutter, or artisan to speak with expertise about their own livelihood and taking their advice into consideration if they tell the lord that one of his ideas won't work.

Good boundaries. The ethical liege lord knows that it's normal for the staff to probably be softly bitching about him in private (even with a really good boss, we all grumble from time to time). He's not eavesdropping on them, he's not going into the staff areas where they should reasonably expect to have a degree of privacy, etc.

Righteous and protective of "the weak". The "weak" here doesn't necessarily mean physically weak, this is often used in the sense of someone politically or socially weak, aka The Marginalized -- the poor, the disabled, women, children, the elderly, etc. If a lord sees someone like this being mistreated or abused, he's supposed to step in and put a stop to that.

Committed to reciprocity. In a highly hierarchical system like feudalism, every person (from the lowest peasant all the way up to the crown prince) legally OWES their liege lord certain things (taxes, labor, service, loyalty, etc). A good liege remembers and takes very seriously the idea that this should be a balanced and reciprocal relationship -- in other words, he owes something BACK. Feudalism is modeled very strongly on the family system: If children owe their parents obedience and service, then parents owe their children care and protection. This still applies when the "child" is a farmer and the "parent" is a local baron. Or when the "child" is a duke and the "parent" is the king.

Basically, we get so caught up in the aesthetics of nobility that we forget that it literally is a managerial position that comes with responsibilities that were... very similar back in the day to the same ones we have now. Humans have not changed all that much. At the end of the day, a really good boss in the 1400s versus in one from the 2020s displays most of the same qualities of personality, even if the details of execution are different.

The next question is, of course, "well, but this theoretical liege lord is HIGHLY idealized -- how often did that actually HAPPEN? Wasn't it more likely that everyone was exploited all the time?" and to that I say: Well, maybe. But again, I don't think humans have changed all that much. Just like the bosses of today, there's a SPECTRUM: A really really good boss is rare and precious and one that you tell stories about for years after you've left that job, but a truly, genuinely, homicidally nightmarish boss is also pretty rare. Most bosses are sort of meh -- they have their good moments, they have their shitty moments, but they're tolerable and you can get along with them well enough to do your job, and then you roll your eyes at them behind their back. Generally, humans don't take outright exploitation lying down. Being a bad boss in the historical period is how you get peasant uprisings and revolts, and you know that to be true because your parents raised you with that knowledge, so unless you are very stupid or inbred or an egomaniac, there is literal personal incentive to at minimum be a Tolerable liege lord. And that means hitting at least SOME of the above bullet points.

TL;DR: In the words of Honore de Balzac, "Everything I have just told you can be summarized by an old word: noblesse oblige!"

I’m sorry but that’s thinking way too small, hear me out:

We need to have Miss Piggy as Odysseus, and Kermit as Penelope.

Think about it… who’s the more fickle, prideful, warlike one in that relationship? Who is absolutely ready to go ham, at a moment’s notice?

canon is what happens in the text. e.g. merlin tries to poison morgana

a headcanon is a fact that you have personally made up as an elaboration of canon. it is your invention. e.g. i think morgana and gwen had a teenage lesbian situationship before the events of canon. or, i think modern morgana would love evanesence.

an interpretation is how one reads the existing text. it is not an invented fact nor is it a headcanon, it is a reading. e.g. i think merlin tries to poison morgana out of misplaced self-hatred. or, i think that one line was delivered with suppressed malice and shows a nuanced relationship.

fanon is the general fandom’s accepted headcanons and interpretations that elaborate or recontextualize canon. e.g. merlin is a badass waif and morgana is a bitch.

As far as I can tell the reasons that this happens are:

The interpretation of disability accommodation as wokeness - a lot of the same people who are shitty about food limitations are also shitty about sign language interpreters and ramp requirements (also building regulations relating to the latter) because they view any accommodation as capitulation to a group they think should "suck it up and deal with it" (quietly exist without named or obvious accommodations). The conversations around peanut-free or milk-free classrooms to accommodate children with allergies are similarly unhinged and possibly more horrifying.

Conflating specialty diets as a result of proximity in the popular consciousness - you're a lot more likely to see something described as "vegan + gluten free" or to see vegan/vegetarian/g-free options grouped on menus than you are to see keto/vegan/gfree options so the "lefty" animal-free diets get grouped with gluten-free (it's also interesting that there are right-wing diets, and I wonder how many of these people remember when you used to be able to find "atkins-friendly" symbols on casual dining restaurant menus)

Gluten free diets became a fad fifteen years ago; tons of people read "Wheat Belly" and stopped eating wheat as a weight loss hack and when they went back to eating wheat because it's actually pretty difficult to get around a major staple grain they didn't experience any negative consequences; people saw this and basically think that it's a trend, that people are faking medically necessary diets as part of a fad. When questioned about this they always go "but, I mean, it's okay if you REALLY need to skip the wheat because you have a condition but most people are doing it because it's popular" when g-free diets haven't been a major trend for quite a while now. TO BE QUITE FAIR, I think that things like "Gluten Aware" cookies and beer and such, which contain a little gluten but not NO gluten contribute to this perception (these have annoyed me forever for two reasons: 1. They make people without celiac think that a little gluten is fine for people with celiac, which it is not; 2. fucking commit, companies. *I* want the cookies and beer and it's deeply annoying that these business will go to the lengths to create products with minimal gluten but won't actually make g-free foods - this is often because of the risk of cross contamination, they won't claim to make g-free things because they won't work with a dedicated g-free facility)

Anyway, in conclusion: it sucks, I'm sorry.

US specific:

Is your ham made with vinegar? Does your ham have the generic word "spices" on the ingredient list? Does your ham include "smoke flavoring"? Does your ham include caramel coloring?

Because malt vinegar has gluten in it. "Spices" may include wheat products in a mix. Smoke flavoring may be made with barley flour. Caramel coloring may be made with wheat or barley syrup.

If the label says "gluten free" that means that the "spices," caramel coloring, vinegar, and smoke flavor are certified to contain 20ppm or less of gluten.

If the ham is cured in any way, it may include gluten. If the ham was marinated, it probably includes gluten. If the ham was prepared in a facility that processes wheat in any way, it might be cross contaminated with gluten.

There's a company out there called "Gluten Free Water" that makes water in plastic bottles, poking fun at the idea that too many things have a gluten free label. I fucking hate that company. Because that company is functionally saying "lol, people are so sensitive and over the top about this, let's be a little silly and laugh about how crazy people can be with their 'gluten free' nonsense."

Did you know that there are sustainable food containers and straws that contain wheat? And that you don't have to label them? There are definitely people with celiac who have been sickened by biodegradable plastic straws in their "obviously water is gluten free there's no risk here" water.

"It's over-labeled so it looks trendy" just means you don't know how foods are made or what foods contain gluten. Gluten is ridiculously common in foods in general, and also in packaged meats.

Your ham has to say gluten free because it distinguishes it from the hams that do contain gluten, which is a fucking lot of them. And you're annoyed that your ham has to say gluten free and I'm annoyed that I'm standing in the grocery store calling a ham company to figure out where they source their caramel coloring so I can figure out if the damned ham is safe to eat.

"lol, oats don't have wheat in them, are people so stupid that they have to be told what is and isn't wheat? why does this oatmeal have a gluten free label?" Cross contamination; gluten free oats are not grown near wheat and are not processed in facilities that process wheat.

"lol, rice doesn't have wheat in it, why is this rice labeled gluten free, all rice is gluten free" Cross contamination; the rice isn't processed on equipment that processes wheat.

"lol why does this turkey breast say gluten free, it's just fucking turkey" read the ingredients on your "just" turkey, lots of packaged meat is packed in broth, some of which contains modified food starch, which may contain wheat.

"lol why are these strawberries labeled gluten free? they're fucking strawberries" WAX, BUDDY. SOME FRUITS ARE COATED IN PRESERVATIVE WAX FILMS BY THE MANUFACTURER AND SOME OF THOSE FUCKING FILMS CONTAIN GLUTEN.

I think that part of the reason that people are so irritated by g-free labels is because it exposes them to just how vast and alienating their food systems are.

"Ham should just be meat from a pig, maybe with sugar and salt; what on earth is happening that there might be wheat in that process? Nothing in that process should involve wheat." And then you might have to think about it for a second, might have to wonder what "sugar" and "salt" mean when someone is producing a million hams to be delivered thousands of miles away. It's not just sugar and salt; it's preservatives and nitrates and batch cooking and getting corn syrup instead of sugar and getting smoke flavoring instead of smoking the ham and turning your "whole food" into all the ingredients that make up the ingredients that make up the ingredients.

A "gluten free" label says "you can eat this" to somebody with celiac disease, who has already pounded their skull against the shittiness of the medical system and the food system.

But to someone who doesn't have to worry that their food is going to disable them, a "gluten free" sticker on ham takes a known quantity and turns their sandwich into a hyperobject that contains animal agriculture and industrial additive production and shipping pollution and the ongoing assault on regulation.

If it doesn't have the label, you can just eat your lunch. If it does have the label, you are haunted by the specter of RFK junior imploding the FDA.

I can tell when companies are cost cutting because they start using corn sugar or maize starch as a bulking sweetener and it makes me incredibly fucking ill. Are they kind enough to put a "new recipe" label on it? Sometimes! Only fucking sometimes. A bunch of times I discover it when my stomach is trying to exist my body in aggressive, stabby maneuvers. It sucks.

And people will literally laugh at it and pretend it's no problem that they don't know why every yoghurt in the shop has cornflour in it rather than real fruit. Or their meat is all preserved with corn to make it look good for longer.

People have no idea what is in their food unless they have to have.

She literally clocked the change in the label — it wasn't marked as changed, she just noticed that the "gf" label was gone — and that was enough for her to flip the jar over and check.

I gotta say that the most infuriating recipe change I've had to deal with was when a company started using "barley syrup" instead of their previous HFCS, which is how I suddenly started sweating and whimpering from drinking frozen lemonade.

"Lemonade is always gluten-free, it's stupid for them to label that shit!"

lmao ok bud

They didn’t even remove an icon or anything, because these were peanuts bars, so when we called to complain that they’d added a whole ass major, deadly allergen to their recipe, they told us they’d never claimed the product was nuts-free. Because it was the peanut butter flavour.

Motherfuckers, peanuts are NOT NUTS!! When a product says “peanuts”, IT DOES NOT MEAN “ALSO EXPECT NUTS”!!!

There was a golden age period of my life when you could trust most peanuts-flavoured products to not also contain fucking almonds. But that time is long past, because almonds are cheap and they are shoving them into fucking everything

Moral purity is a myth that does not survive contact with the real world.

Having an all purpose, universal set of perfect and unproblematic things to say, words to use etc is actually functionally impossible. The words that one person from a marginalised group tells you are polite and respectful may sound horribly insensitive to a different person from that group.

The varied responses to the first question in this video illustrate it pretty well:

Which is NOT to say you shouldn't bother with trying to be respectful, and it's NOT that you should avoid interactions for fear of making a mistake.

It's just that you need to start thinking of your mistakes, and other people correcting them, as learning opportunities rather than moral transgressions. Learn to say "sorry" and "thank you" and mean it.

Telling someone, "But... but somebody else said that I should say..." is generally unhelpful. It reads as defensive and resistant to learning.

Never mind whether you're following The Universal Unwritten Rules of Being Morally Pure and Unproblematic, because those don't exist.

I am

1. Offended this doesn't have monster fucking in it still

@echoiiing said it very well.

this is why I insist that the tendency of many to elevate marginalized people's words as somehow beyond disagreement is itself a form of dehumanization.

I think this bears out in the countless examples of theoretically beloved transfems who are suddenly condemned as irredeemable and attacked from all sides the second anyone disagrees with her. you were never treating her as a person. the shift is not actually from friend to enemy, but from one abstracted idea of transfeminity (the oppressed woman to whom we should all defer on principle) to another (the evil manipulative predator).

Natural Black Hair Tutorial! Usually Black hair is excluded in the hair tutorials which I have seen so I have gone through it in depth because it’s really not enough to tell someone simply, “Black hair is really curly, draw it really curly.”