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woman-loving · 5 years ago

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I’m curious about “respectability politics” and how it applies to variations on the “born this way“ / “it’s not a choice” argument for toleration of homosexuality.

I’ve heard that “respectability politics” was theorized by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham in Righteous Discontent: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church 1880-1920, which I have not read yet. (Although this might be a good time to start it, cause I’m just about to finish my current book!) My impression was that it referred to appeals to middle-class norms of respectability as a basis for claims to citizenship and protection and nondiscrimination under the law.

I associate the “it’s not a choice” discourse (and I’m not entirely sure if that’s a bit different from the “born this way” discourse) mostly with a counterargument to conservative Christian pronouncements about homosexuality in the US. I had previously rejected the idea that this argument was a form of “respectability politics,” because I didn’t think that “not being able to choose your sexuality” was a typical marker of middle-class respectable citizenship. I had instead described this argument as “toleration politics,” where, rather than being seen as meeting moral (or citizenship) requirements just as well as everyone else, a special exemption from the standard requirement was being requested based on a (tragic) inability to fulfill it.

But I’m thinking about some things I’ve read and feel like variations of these arguments (which each have their own particularity, but also some commonalities imo) may have more to do with respectability than I originally thought.

But the other part of the equation is that they may involve appeals to religious patriarchal moral authorities. And I’m curious about the relationship between patriarchal religious morality--which I would basically describe like that, although I’m trying to work “religious” out of it--and class and citizenship dynamics. Because it seems like, at least in Christianity (and also in Islam from what I know about it), the acknowledged orthodox sexual morality is patriarchal and doesn’t authorize sex outside heterosexual marriage, even if it overlooks it. (But what variations might I be overlooking because they’re not considered orthodox by more institutionalized authorities?) Is there an automatic link between orthodox patriarchal sexual morality and “middle-class respectability,” just because the former is taken as a basis for the later? In the US, appeals to Christian patriarchal morality are also important to citizenship given the influence of Christian conservatives in politics, but is this also/only about middle-class ideals? (This has all got me thinking about the argument I heard Naomi Goldenberg make on The Religious Studies Project that religions can be understood as vestigial states.) I’m also thinking of religious authority here in terms of patriarchal authority: is this a good way to think about it and how is it incomplete?

Anyway, there are some passages that have been fitting themselves together in my brain:

Karen, editor of Frauenliebe, used sexological concepts of congenital and acquired homosexuality to draw a strict boundary between the two. She argued that anyone seeking same-sex love out of enjoyment of transgression [acquired homosexuality] damaged society and should be "separated from the public." On the other hand, Karen continued, "Same-sex behavior, entered into voluntarily and clearly by both partners [congenital homosexuality], belongs, like every intimate heterosexual behavior, to the realm of things one accepts but does not talk about."[68] Karen also warned aspiring writers to avoid writing explicitly about sexual experience in their stories and essays.[69]

Categorical exclusion shaped a debate in Frauenliebe about bisexuality. Like prostitutes, bisexuals were excluded from homosexual community. Frauenliebe printed fifteen responses to a letter asking readers to express their view on women who had relationships with both sexes.[70] They saw homosexuality as moral and bisexuality as immoral. It was not only movement leaders who wanted to discipline sexual desire in their followers. Letters from readers grouped bisexual women with prostitutes and "sensual" heterosexual women, accusing all of seeking homosexual experiences out of curiosity or sensual desire rather than as an expression of inner character.[71] [...]

Vilification of bisexual women allowed women the opportunity to enter into the classification and definition work of sexology and to create a purified figure of the female homosexual suitable for political citizenship. The "sexual" in homosexual was tamed through strict denial that irresistible desire defined the category. Rejection of prostitutes and bisexuals allowed women to construct "female homosexuality" as materially and sexually pure. As a type, they argued, "true" homosexuals kept desire under the control of the individual will.

-- Marti M Lybeck, Desiring Emancipation: New Women and Homosexuality in Germany, 1890-1933, 2015 Fuller quote here. This one links sexual morality and citizenship most directly and perhaps in the most “respectable” way (the realm of things you don’t talk about).

To understand how MSM is read, it is important to examine how explicit and implicit boundaries are drawn around the category gay. Consider, for example, a passage from Paul Farmer in which he claims that, in recent years, there have been fewer HIV cases than predicted among gay men in the United States, a category he implicitly racializes as White via the contrast with “injection drug users, inner-city people of color, and persons originally from poor countries in sub-Saharan Africa or the Caribbean.”21(p47) He further excludes gay from poor and suggests that ��males involved in prostitution are almost universally poor, and it may be their poverty, rather than their sexual preference, that puts them at risk of HIV infection. Many men involved in homosexual prostitution, particularly minority adolescents, do not necessarily identify as gay.”21(p47) With this juxtaposition, Farmer seems to suggest that same-gender behavior among poor men of color (especially youth) is sex work rather than sex for pleasure and is devoid of identity and community; same-gender behavior among White men is read as synonymous with gay identity.

Compare these assumptions with a recent ethnographic report on men at risk for HIV in Dakar, Senegal.22 While many of these “men who have sex with men” are poor and engage in sex work, the authors found that they have indigenous sexual-minority identities that are differentiated and socially meaningful. Senegalese sexual-minority identities serve as a basis for social organization, including, but not limited to, sexual roles. The authors describe ibbi as men who “tend to adopt feminine mannerism[s] and to be less dominant in sexual interactions,”22(p505) whereas yoos are men who “are generally the insertive partner.” They also stress that the categories have “more to do with social identity and status than with sexual practices.”22(p506) [...]

Is MSM a useful term for describing groups that eschew prominent LGB categories? Much has been made of the fact that men on the DL lead secret lives and do not consider themselves gay.25,26 But DL is not a behavioral category that can be conveyed as MSM. As Frank Leon Roberts has put it, “DL is . . . about performing a new identity and embracing a hip-hop sensibility [italics added].”27DL functions not as a nonidentity but as an alternative sexual identity and community denoting same-gender interest, masculine gender roles distinct from the feminized sissy or faggot, Black racial/ethnic identity, and a dissociation from both White and Black middle-class gay cultures.26–28

-- “The Trouble With “MSM” and “WSW”: Erasure of the Sexual-Minority Person in Public Health Discourse,“ by Rebecca M Young and Ilan H Meyer, published in American Journal of Public Health, July 2005. This one doesn’t deal with the “it’s not a choice" argument directly, but suggests who people might want to exclude and have actually excluded in practice from categories of “sexual orientation" and “born this way” gay identity.

Omar’s analysis of linguistic terms has direct impact upon the issue of interpretation of the Qur’an. This analysis, published in 1997, predated the El-Moumni Affair by four years, yet illustrates exactly the conflation of terms which the imam pronounced in that controversial interview. Omar writes, “Many words are used to express sexual relationships that take place between man-and-man or between woman-and-woman. . . . Whether in modern standard Arabic or local dialects, there are terms like sexual deviance (al-shudhudh al-jinsiyya) and sodomy (al-liwat) and also homosexuality (al-junusiyya). . . . The problem is that most people use these different terms as synonyms, creating a situation of naming experiences with names that do not really fit, thereby generating misunderstanding and confusion about the topic of sexual orientation. . . . I see the critical importance of writing about homosexuality as the attempt to remove these confusing mix-ups of terms and issues.”[15] In this crucial passage, Omar explains that his project is to differentiate between homosexuality and sodomy. In his understanding, the Qur’an condemns sodomy as the act of anal penetration rather than homosexuality as sexual orientation, while the Islamic legal tradition mistakenly conflates the two.[16]

The distinction between homosexuality and sodomy makes sense if one asserts that there is a psychological reality called sexual orientation, which is separate from and prior to any sexual act. He writes, “Sex is a phenomenon that happens by way of the body, whereas sexuality is a matter existing at the level of psyche and personality.”[17] In his analysis, only a person with a psychological identity of constant and exclusive same-sex desire should be called “homosexual” (junusi in his terminology, or mithli jinsiyya in the Arabic terminology of other contemporary writers). The person who performs same-sex acts without doing so within the framework of exclusively homosexual orientation can be described as sodomite (luti). It is this behavior that characterizes the Tribe of Lot, who wanted to perform same-sex acts for reasons other than as a genuine expression of their sexual identity and psychological persona.[18] Omar’s analysis challenges classical Islamic law. Jurists instituted practical norms forbidding same-sex acts such as sodomy (liwat), with the assumption that those performing them were, in their inmost character, actually heterosexual (or at least functionally bisexual).

--Living Out Islam: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims, by Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle, 2014. I read this one yesterday. I can’t be sure whether bisexual people are considered at all, even as a footnote, in Omar’s analysis, and if they are, whether their pursuit of same-gender sex would be categorized with the acceptable homosexuals or unacceptable heterosexuals. I’m not sure here if Omar has in mind for sodomy rape specifically, or any anal penetration, or sexual activity (anal or not) between men that’s perceived as ‘voluntary’ rather than following the demands of exclusive sexual orientation.

But I think it’s interesting how intent/context/constraint of orientation is factored into ethical analysis here and in the first quote, in a way that accepts some forms of or reasons for having same-gender sex as unethical or socially disruptive. And in the first quote, these ‘voluntary’ expressions are imagined to be rooted in hypersexuality and sex work, distinctly un-middle-class. The last quote is engaging with Islamic legal traditions as well as theology, and I don’t know much about how this articulates with “citizenship,” although the author was writing in the Netherlands where LGBT rights were guaranteed by secular authorities.

Anyway, that’s what was bouncing around my head last night.

#lgbtq #born this way #it's not a choice #citizenship #respectability politics #religion #patriarchy

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shieldedsouls · 5 years ago

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rules

This is going to be a long post, and I apologise for that. However I do not apologise for putting my boundaries as clear as possible, and will not apologise for doing so. All of the rules below exist for a reason, and I have them for my own comfort.

It is okay if you don’t agree with them but it’s not okay to ignore them. If you think you cannot follow the posted rules, then do not follow this blog. Thank you !!

General

These are the basics, a re-hash of rules that almost everyone has but that I like to cover anyway just in case!

Read ALL important pages: rules, disclaimer, muse list & info for the muse(s) you want to interact with

Use proper punctuation and spellings to the best of your abilities

Mark clearly whether an ask is IC or OOC

No godmodding

No maiming, killing, etc. of my muses without my permission

No choosing of thoughts or big actions of my muses without my permission

Hate, anon or otherwise, will be reported and deleted. Users will be blocked.

There may be an occasional mention that I do this if there’s some kind of repeat, but I will not place the content itself on the dash.

Asks and IMs are always welcome!!

More in the < Asks & Memes & Messaging > section

tracked tag is SHIELDEDSOULS and is the best chance of getting me to see a post. @’ing me will also work, but please be sure to use my url tag on top that! please also put somewhere which of my muse(s) the post is for.

Specifics

These are some of the rules that have been established over time for my own sake, and to make everyone’s time on here a lot easier!

Your age must be listed somewhere I can easily find it! I’m not comfortable writing some content with muns or muses who are under 18

If I cannot find that information I am unlikely to follow, and I will not write that content with you, as it’s safer to err on the side of caution.

If you are not comfortable with discussion and usage of DID ( dissociative identity disorder ) please do not follow as it ties heavily into my portrayal of Bucky Barnes and James ( the Winter Soldier ).

It takes time for me to check through all my followers, so please don’t ask if I haven’t followed back right away or unfollow, unless I post very specifically about dumblr fucking things up.

There’s any number of reasons I may do either, but the more we happily interact and talk the more likely I am to follow or re-follow.

With rare exception, I will not interact with any blogs that contain digits in them.

Please, please, use regularly accepted punctuation within threads.

Please.

Do not spam-reblog from me, which is reblogging 3+ posts in rapid succession. It messes up my notifications and I lose other things.

Mark clearly between IC/OOC, and which muse or npc a message is for.

ALL PERSONALS WILL BE BLOCKED

unless I can tell with a glance that there are RP sideblogs attached to them

I love my ships and will not stop writing them for someone else’s sake. I tag all visual content, but if there’s a short tag or something to be added, give me a quick little heads-up and I’ll happily tack it on. Everyone wins!

If I cannot easily navigate a blog for information, I will not follow back

easy navigation includes:

rules page

disclaimer/ooc page of some kind

tagging system

cut posts

Formatting

this little section is for what to expect from me and my writing preferences, but it is a flexible section!

I do both regular capitalization and zero capitalization for threads, depending on partner and length of the thread

memes and asks will be done in whichever I’m feeling

I do small text ONCE for aesthetic, but will leave text regular size if asked

Headlines will be done in subtext size, again mostly for aesthetic

Parentheses and brackets will be bolded and italicized, on the whole

I will @ the url of the person who sent the ask or is part of the thread

thread partner urls will also have their muse’s name listed after a slash for further clarity

I occasionally use icons, but mostly for asks, dash commentary, or silly things

all icons are 100x100

I enjoy using bold, italics, and strikethrough, but that’s about the extent of my text formatting and I try not to overdo them too much

Asks & Memes & Messaging

Asks are open to everyone!

IMs are ooc and mutuals only.

If a meme is shippy or nsfw, it is mutuals only and will require previous interaction.

All others are freebies!!

due to asks being fucked for formatting: i will tag the url of the sender on a new post, have a header to show which muse is answering, and tag the user within the post. i will also link it and privately answer the original ask where possible, to help ensure responses are seen.

for the time being I’m putting a graphic in the direct reply to an ask, adding a blockquote for tagging the sender, additional commentary, and the source meme if there is one

Any reply to an ask must be in a new post. Reblogged asks will be ignored.

Any messages saying ‘wanna rp?’ or asking for an IM will be deleted. I’m far more receptive to being approached with ideas to work with

Any messages that do no specify a muse will be deleted.

While not explicitly reblog karma, I am not a meme source and will talk to you if you always take memes from me but never send anything in or talk to me. Sometimes a meme doesn’t work and that’s fine, but there’s no excuse to never interact with me.

I often have a mix of platonic, general, and nsfw/shippy memes at my disposal, but feel free to improv something from the gist or edit sentences to suit our muses better!! Creative fun is why we’re here <3

OCS & Sideblogs & MuMus & Second-Gens

Information must be easy to navigate and read, same as for canons/single muse blogs!

Sideblogs, please list somewhere OBVIOUS what the main blog is called so I know what to look out for.

Mumus, I love you and your dedication, but I am most selective with you. Yes, even as a mumu myself.

The more fandoms covered and more muses included, the less likely I am to hop on board mostly because I prefer a clean dash.

If we’re close friends ooc I’ll likely be far more lenient

OCs with an mcu-canon faceclaim will not be accepted unless the muse has been around longer than the canon being cast or if they look markedly different than the canon ( Karen Gillan with all her hair vs as Nebula, for example ).

more in the < canons & fcs > section

Unless plotted otherwise, they will not know my muses, but they can know of my muses

Second-Gens ( kids of the original set(s) of main canons ) make me uncomfortable for a number of reasons, and so will be interacted with on a case-by-case basis.

I am unlikely to follow unless we know each other very well ooc

Canons & FCs

Again, OCs with mcu-canon faceclaims will not be interacted with unless they meet at least one of the two criteria listed above.

However, if I pick a FC for someone related to this blog that isn’t canon, it’ll likely be shrugged off as uncanny lookalike, or we can otherwise plot around it.

Animated FCs are welcome, but I’ll admit that specifically anime blogs are unlikely to be interacted with. Sorry

If a canon has an alternate faceclaim: cool! Just have it listed somewhere obvious, please

FCs I will not interact with: Mark Sheppard, Selena Gomez, Mads Mikkelsen, Miley Cyrus, Justin Beiber, Sara Bareilles, Andrew Scott, Zooey Deschanel, Natalie Dormer. The list may be periodically updated; yes, it is okay to ask me about specific names and why these ones are listed.

Shipping

There will be a good deal of F/F, F/M, and M/M on this blog both in visual and text.

May ( read: probably will ) include three+somes.

Implication and mention to graphically clear are likely, and will be tagged.

By default, ALL my muses are single, with the noted exceptions of Frigga ( until Odin chooses to pass ) Dugan and Peggy if it’s circa 1952-after, and Sam who is widowed and single post-2012, unless plotted otherwise.

Please don’t assume there will be a ship between your muse and mine without plotting first, positively or negatively !!

Specific to Peggys: don’t be alarmed by my above warning, Dugan/Peg is my muses only and not something I expect to be followed. I will also not expect a ship with Steve.

specific to Steves: I will not expect a ship with Peggy, Bucky, or Sharon

However, Bucky loves Steve, bordering on obsessively. Whether it’s platonic, romantic, or completely one-sided pining is up to plotting and muse chemistry.

if we are writing stucky, Bucky is the one who will be in it first.

James is incredibly anxious about dealing with Steve for many reasons, and more anxious about the possibility of infringing on Bucky’s territory.

It is one of few ships that will require Bucky’s active participation if you want James involved, because James will refuse Steve otherwise.

if we are writing steggy, it will not be eg-canon compliant

Specific to Peppers: Tony cares ( depending on point in time, deeply ) for her, but I will not expect a ship and it must be plotted out.

They could be exes, almosts, currently dating, platonically attached, whatever we would like! But it must be plotted.

specifically for Janes: I do not automatically lead with fosterson! My default is somewhere between slow burn infatuation or mutual, friendly separation. Thor adores her in any type of relationship though, and supports her endeavors and enthusiasms

For Bucky and James, dating one of them does not mean you have to be dating the other.

It would be marginally easier depending on time and verse tho

Specifically for Natashas: I include the generality of James being at the Red Room, but we must plot about including the affair or not. It is not my default canon.

if we are defaulting to winterwidow, James is the one most familiar with her, not Bucky. James was the fronting personality when they originally met, and Bucky’s recollection of events will be hazy if present at all.

If you want to ship Nat with Bucky, it must be plotted and must account for the prior/continuing relationship with James

For Sharon, she has no romantic interest in men ( yes including Steve ).

if she ends up with a comics-inclined verse this may change but will still require heavy plotting.

I will not be ship-exclusive with any blogs

I will have mains but it’s on unofficial terms

For all my writing partners: I will happily plot ships, and details! But I won’t have an assumed prior romantic/sexual history between our muses.

Again, I know this bit is particularly long !! But it’s very necessary for my comfort and yours as a baseline of whether we might get along or not. Thank you again for pulling through all the reading; if you’re staying, awesome !! If you’re not, I’m sorry to see you go but I hope you find the writing happiness you want <3

#( rules )#long post for ts

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ivyquinnauthor · 6 years ago

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12, 17 and 25 for the ff writer asks please :)

Responding to the fanfic writer questions, if anyone else wants to ask some, feel free!

***12 - Who is your favorite character to write for?***

I guess since I’ve written pretty consistently in three fandoms so far, I’d list the ones that I liked the best for each or used to like. I mean, I was first in Buffy fandom so Spike. In Smallville---which I can’t write for anymore at all cause whoo boy all the scandals there turn my stomach----I liked Chloe Sullivan but again the real life terrible, literal cult stuff means I can’t do anything in that fandom anymore, and I haven’t written for that character in over 4 years. Such things happen. In Lucifer, I prefer Lucifer the most cause lots of just angst to mine but also sarcasm, lol.

************

***17) Post a line from a WIP you’re working on:***

Honestly, I have a few I spin plates for, keep up in the air, between two multi-chapter fics and a sort of interconnected series of one-shots. So, lines from the following:

A) From “Recurrence” -

As musicals go, he appreciated ones with a more intense difficulty level and, in that regard, The Music Man left much to be desired. Doing the quid pro quo to show the lads trying out for Harold Hill how it’s supposed to be done was far from a challenge---he much preferred being out with Ella in Vegas with some Lady Luck---but he muddled through the inferior song anyway. After all, trouble with a capital T is something he knew everything about.

B) From “This Ebony Bird Beguiling” -

He wasn’t sure how he got from playing helpful house guest, preparing sugary-laden treats for the urchin and the detective (when Chloe woke up, talk about a rough night) in a sunny beach house to giving Trixie Espinosa preening advice. Oh, don’t get him wrong. His interminable life had been nothing but bizarre, depending on whose perspective one took, but it usually didn’t vacillate between almost mind-numbingly boring and human one moment to worrying about someone else’s loose pin feathers the very next.

C) From “Queer Eye for the Chef Guy” (next Culinary Advice one-shot) -

“I agreed to this, sort of, because you clearly need a distraction while Linda works through the whole you’re-the-devil-thing.”

Lucifer narrowed his eyes at Gary. “You have a fine talent for making the infernal and, frankly, formerly---very formerly---divine sound mundane, Preston. It’s more than a just a ‘thing.’”

Oh Christ...wait shouldn’t even think it. He'd gotten the devil extra prickly already. “Fine then. You want a project, and I want to keep Ms. Smith happy and, by extension, both my arms intact, but does it have to involve my clothes?”

“These!” Lucifer said, holding up a pair of cargo pants littering the floor. “Cannot be labeled clothes. In fact, do you have lighter fluid? Never mind I can immolate anything...”

“You can what?” And he didn’t yip, not really. Okay, maybe a little.

“Well, what all do you think I can do?”

Gary pinched the bridge of his nose. If he’d known that, he’d have just dragged his rucksack to Lux. Let Lucifer accidentally set his own bloody flat on fire.

***

And just cause sometimes I keep notes on things to do one day if little scraps of things come to mind, a couple snippets from stuff that’s just ideas and files for now:

A) From “Hair of the Dog” -

He should send Miss Lopez home. Lucifer knew that the moment he spotted her arguing with Patrick in a very colorful and completely un-Ella-like mix of Spanish and English curses grumbling about being cut off. A good person would call her an Uber or even a private car---he could more than afford it---and send her home with a spare bottle of aspirin from under the bar to boot. Lux kept plenty of other first aid remedies around. After the hangover she was sure to have in the morning, Miss Lopez would even thank him for such chivalry.

Except Lucifer was not a good person.

Just a week ago, after the worst moment of his long suffering life, the detective had more than established that to her, he was not a person at all. And it was perversely impressive that in literally billions of years of existence, including permanent exile from his entire (mostly rubbish) family and burning for millennia in a lake of fire, that the detective yelling about being terrified of him would be the worst, but it was. So, no, Lucifer was not a good person or even pretending to be one right now. And he was well and truly soused for once after a steady effort at not only drinking every handle in his personal bar and half of Lux’s but also from downing more than his fair share---celestial metabolism or not---of some molly from the last party he hosted in the penthouse.

He was probably for a precious hour longer even less clear-headed than Miss Lopez. So when he pulled her away from the bar and smoothed things over with Patrick, he couldn’t quite make himself send her away, especially after she curled into his side. He definitely couldn’t refuse her suggestion to go up to the penthouse either...

B) From “What to Expect When You’re an Expecting Devil” -

“No.”

He arched an eyebrow back at his therapist, who, to be fair, was also his former lover (and before things got utterly complicated and pear-shaped, he’d still have kept up that arrangement with her; she was that good as he found the uptight ones tended to be when they got a chance to let loose), currently the mother-to-be of his first ever nephew, and the only other person in history that he or Amenadiel knew about who was also dealing with a celestial pregnancy. Which sodding perfect. However, just because they were all kinds of enmeshed and, eventually, would be family and boy had his brother cocked that all up (literally), it didn’t mean he had to always listen to her.

If his track record was anything to go by, he rarely did.

Still, Linda kept her hand held out till he relinquished the handle and then coughed at him till he yielded the tumbler too. There were demons he’d beheaded in Hell for far less insolence. Sad state of affairs he’d reached where a wisp of a thing who couldn’t even hope to come up to his chest got him to acquiesce with merely her glare.

“First of all, if this is even...whatever Remiel thinks she senses and it’s assuredly not that because Dad likes his jokes but that’s...” He stuttered a bit there. “I am not that. Even if I were, I don’t think drinking would hurt the little larva and, maybe if it did, bully for everyone. Surely, by now you’re at least passingly familiar with Revelation?”

Linda’s glare hardened, and she gestured to the bar. “Don’t even. I’m not drinking with an angel-baby cause who even knows and you’re not going to...”

“With the antichrist?”He bit back, tone cutting, but the fight leaking from him. “If Remiel is right---and let’s all just hope she’s not because her spider sense is busted---I’m going to need to a drink or all of them worse than ever now.”

“No, Lucifer. Not self destruction for one or, well, both of you that way.”

He pursed his lips but grabbed a bottle of water from behind the penthouse’s bar instead. “Fine then. I suppose that’s the price of you being the only doctor I know who can help me out on the other end of things, you know, if Remy’s not just cracked.”

Linda blanched. “Nope not doing. First, there’s such a thing as too much family togetherness but also I’m not even close to that kind of doctor and it’s been three decades since medical school. Add in that...” she paused then, fumbling for the politic way to phrase something, he was sure.

“Right, like I said, the antichrist. Maybe. I don’t rightly know, John was very stoned when he wrote all that down. Psychadelic nightmare fuel and all that. So, then, I just go it alone, again, assuming Remy’s right?” His hand strayed to his hip because, honestly, self preserving powers of denial aside, even he knew something was really different about him these last two months.

And it shouldn’t intimidate him to have Linda waddle over to him with her eyes narrowed and, if anyone but Amenadiel ever asked him, it didn’t. Not really.

She sighed and bit her lower lip. “Okay, so not an optimal idea, but I have a friend from my residency and his son’s really talented just tends to fuck up...I mean he has his license but if you pay enough....no questions asked so that was what I was thinking?”

“Question or a statement, love?”

“Little of both, but I’m sure no booze is good booze till seven months from now.”

Lucifer drained his water. “Well, and I thought I knew something about Hell. Clearly, I was wrong.”

*******

***25) Have you ever cried writing a story?***

Yes, I have. Back when I still wrote Smallville, I have a very dark trilogy of stories called the Lara-verse. When writing two parts of that series, Black as Sackcloth and Of Wolves and Lambs, I cried because the first involved some fairly gruesome and distressing lead character deaths and because the second dealt a lot with dissociation and PTSD. Honestly, I never finished the series with the four installment because it was such a weird, hard headspace to be in that I just didn’t have the strength to go back to it. It’s on my livejournal here if anyone reads Smallville - https://legendarytobes.livejournal.com/?skip=30&tag=lara%20verse - people would have to friend me there to read, but if anyone’s that curious, feel free to.

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crazygaysex · 3 years ago

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OHHHHHHH the meaning of all eyes on me just really crystallized proeprly coherently for me just now. it is about the apathy, existential dread, giving way into depression and complacency in the face of extensive suffering all around you and within yourself. it is also muchly about his fixation with the nature of performance and his role as an entertainer

the repeated demand of "all eyes on me" could be to just give in to the distraction, complacency, mindless entertainment, serving that underlying depression... having a nice time in the moment and ignoring the world coming apart around you,.. but also demanding your unwavering attention, drawing your eyes away from all else.. reminds me of make happy where he is tellign everyone how the world is not funny in the beginning, clearly strugglign for a while now wiuth the legitimacy and purpose of his life's work

are you feeling nervous, are you having fun- do you know that restless feeling when you are spending all your time trying to avoid your insides and distract yourself? some of the time it's fun, and then sometimes it breaks through and even as you keep going you can feel it there crawling underneath the surface

it's almost over, it's just begun- this always made me think of climate change, the beginning of the end of the world, this song really breaks me because i just felt this so much that it almost frightens and soothes at the same time. i think this also reminds me though of that idea that AI or technology at large have already progressed beyond the frightening fateful point of no return, beyond our control

dont overthink this, look in my eye- this ties in i think to his overarching anxiety that comedy doesnt have a role in current affairs and seems to imply that he is instructing us to watch him perform and forget all the rest, despite the obvious disparity of the song's actual message

dont be scared, dont be shy, come on in, the water's fine- just give in to the despair and hopelessness

we're gonna go where everybody knows- we all know we all know how bad it is, the internet it's pasted all over, we all know it's falling apart, we're all sitting in it, the oversaturation of information and resulting dissociation and dread

heads down, pray for me- i think this falls in line with the other ideas of celebrity worship, ironic christ imagery and the heavenly backdrops implicating him as a savior in the special in his role as a performer and entertainer, as well as the fact that he is trying to relay to his audience a deep and likely authentic fear and pain that he is suffering from

you say the ocean's rising, like i give a shit, you say the whole world's ending, honey it already did, you're not gonna slow it, heaven knows you've tried, got it good now get inside- this is the overall takeaway i originally had from the song, the encouragement to give in to your depression and apathy and hopelessness which actually encourages you to inspect that automatic animal urge he is presenting to you by voicing it himself..

i'm talkin to you, get the fuck up- it becomes pretty blatant to me especially by this point that the underlying message of the song is not to give in to the apathy but to examine and reject it

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wersoverytired · 8 years ago

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Writing fic about DID/OSDD is tricky

Since dissociation is a constant in my everyday life, and it’s a very isolating experience, I’ve been trying to deal with it (among other methods) by writing fanfic. I suppose having characters I actually like -- rather than myself -- experience this shit helps me cultivate more acceptance for my own struggle, in a weird way.

It’s been challenging, though. I keep “going away” while writing, and waking up (metaphorically and sometimes literally, we apparently decide to physically go to sleep at times) hours later, with a sentence or two of gibberish typed where I was planning on a chapter. Kind of frustrating.

I’ve been thinking about writing a fic that not only deals with general dissociation but has the protagonist experience shifts and have "others”, the way I do for so many years. But I admit I’m scared. It’s so damn hard to write this experience in a way that people who are not dissociative can relate to. And on the other hand, and fellow dissociatives will know this -- the dissociative spectrum is very diverse, and it’s easy to anger someone else whose experience is different than yours and feels misrepresented. DID in particular is often exploited and vilified in popular culture, so it’s a touchy subject for many of us, and we can get defensive. The current state of affairs pisses me off to no end, so I’d hate to make someone else feel that way.

On the other hand... it’s near impossible for me to read DID/OSDD fics whose authors admittedly don’t live with the disorders, and quite clearly derive their knowledge from Wiki or (worse) the “split personality” movie du jour. It’s not that I think you can only ever write about what you’ve experienced, and I do appreciate it when a writer is humble enough to admit right off the bat that they don’t know what they’re talking about, which many do; that’s fine. But it’s easy to miss the mark when writing about this, and we do need better representation. That kind of makes me want to write, not because I’m convinced I’d do a good job, but just to add to the body of work out there that is written from an inside perspective.I might try, but damn, this is some explosive shit.p.s. I’m ancient and have no clue how to reply on tumblr, so my apologies in advance if anyone responds to this.

#DID/OSDD #DID fic #osdd fic #writing about dissociation #actually dissociative #ddnos #DID #OSDD

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