#we certainly haven't been always able to keep working towards building the communities we worked hard to create and maintain

[thedandelionresistance]

What is a revolution?

I've seen so many people think of a revolution as a bloody, violent thing. Taking a better society, wresting power from the hands of the powerful with force. Eliminating societal undesirables as the unspoken bonus goal: the disabled who rely on medical supply lines, the homeless who rely on community and state support initiatives, the children already caught in the crossfire of their parents' ownership and the state's enforcement of it.

I've seen fellow leftists - socialists, anarchists - reject the concept of revolution for that reason, and I'm right there with them... except the word revolution is still meaningful to us.

So... what is a revolution?

Is blood the only fuel, or can we find a clean energy source? Can it be so unlike YA revenge fantasies and instead be a tsunami of overwhelming compassion and community? Can it be gradual, ongoing, not a Rapture nor a cleansing but simply a process day by day? Can it be a living thing, breathing with the collective oxygen and dreams of a whole world?

What if a revolution is all the small things? Asking your disabled neighbor what form of help would be most helpful to them and doing what you can. Making (food-restriction-safe) food for people who can eat it. Sharing resources and building social programs that'll catch the vulnerable as the rot in the state condemns it. Sharing freely and fearlessly and not blaming others for the way they cope with a world that is still often cruel when they aren't hurting anyone else. Taking according to your need and giving according to your ability, including with how you take action to take care of others.

rev·o·lu·tion·ar·y

adjective

1. involving or causing a complete or dramatic change.

Things never truly change when power is seized and hierarchies redistributed. Every "revolution" of blood and death fails at its fundamental intent.

But what, then, could be more revolutionary than one step at a time, making the world a little brighter? Call me naïve, call me idealistic, but those who cannot even imagine a better future largely can't make one. (If you can't imagine it because of despair though, let us do that work for you, and we'll bring you with us for as long as you'll come.)

What could cause a more complete change than simply changing how each of us treat other people, bit by bit? What could be a more dramatic change than merely building a home and a hearth, brick by brick?

What could make things better more than never stopping trying to make things better? (Not doing everything right all the time, but just pushing to do as much as you can, whatever that means in any given moment, and forgiving yourself your own flaws and mistakes.)

Our revolution is life lived, not checkbox checked. It lives, it breathes, it feels, it laughs, it cries, it grows. Most of all, it seeks out a thousand thousand other small revolutions and builds communities of change.

That is revolution.

[folcanta]

i was describing this to Katia, but i want to put it in its own post, too, just to get my thoughts out.

I don't write much fanfiction anymore, though when I did it featured trans men (Jotaro) too, just like in my original work. I also don't really play with "headcanons," despite what it seems like. Because I focus on my own work now, I do just like to muck around in the text itself. If anything, I just spin yarns with my partner in real life, you know, like random "what if"s lol. But I do know that even though it's obviously not part of the story, a big reason Folken resonates with me comes from the experience of being a transgender child, and for the first time seeing something very familiar.

Born to either succeed by someone else's standards or die trying to fulfill it, death being preferable to them over failure, the traditions of home running counter to one's values, the strange cold relationship with parents, the role and responsibility that comes with a younger sibling + the pain of disappointing them, not being able to return home, wanting desperately to be understood, and even after leaving home, finding little sanctuary in the world— being othered by his surroundings in Zaibach as someone distinctly different even for reasons not understood, disliked by the generals of Fanelia and even disliked by the other sorcerers in Zaibach. Disliked even by his cohort due to the results he gains from attaining a degree of sight they aren't even aware of. No one is aware of it.

To me there's also an element of autism in that too— having a mysteriously off-putting vibe to people who then position that as your fault, especially people who believe they have something to gain through cruelty. And the complicated issue of believing your intentions and meaning are self-evident even when they're not. And even so, despite all this, and even with the wrong ideas, trying to do the right things within such constricting limits with the time he has.

Folken is an example of a man who, while his job is in anticipating it, does not personally engage in bloody warfare except on one occasion. He is multiple contradictions at once, coping with his illusions shattering once, twice, three times, trying to keep up with the change. He's non-reactive, soft, and quiet, until pushed past his limit. He has long hair and wears makeup. His singular focus, his personal form of love, means he abstains from romance. In trying to end a cycle, he finds himself stuck inside one. To me this isn't an indictment of manhood, certainly his existence isn't one either. The story's gaze on him is rightfully fitful as well as compassionate. He's Hitomi's parallel. He, Hitomi, and Van are three of a kind.

Being forcibly changed for someone else's convenience. For their world, one you're conditioned to believe in, although it was never made with you in mind.

The way Van reacts to seeing him again— not recognising him and believing he's become violent, and a traitor— is similar to how a lot of people react to their sister/daughter/girlfriend/wife "choosing" to become a man. Somehow, it's a betrayal to them. We've dared "escape" our designated role, but it's not much of an escape if we're continuously punished for trying. As if we aren't just becoming what we've always been, as if trans manhood is a poison or evil to be excised. As if a trans man models himself on the evils of cisgender men, rather than forging a path without a map. Trying to build toward a future even when you don't believe you will ever get to experience it. It would be worse to die having done nothing.

But, as with being trans, Folken is still the person he was before. He's peaceful and loving, but his outlook is radically changed by his experiences. Even something like the dragon rite, I could spin a metaphor out of that: born to be sacrificed, then realising and being altered by a powerful, deeper truth about the self and world that's not easily communicated to those who haven't also experienced it.

The double homelessness of being thrown out of your home into what you try to make a home but that too becomes a brand new prison, abandoning it for the only thing that's ever made sense.

And then dying in the name of that same truth that can't be expressed to those who don't want to hear it. Often, with the world being cruel as it is, the best we can hope for is that we'll be remembered as who we honestly were to the people who saw us in ourselves and loved us for it.

I'm personally interested and invested in (and like to write) "imperfect" transition narratives, which is why the complicated concept of him transitioning in Zaibach interests me, too. With so many limits placed on gender-affirming care, we so rarely get to choose the circumstances of our becoming, running for the window of opportunity before it shuts. Even if it isn't ideal. And I lost a lot of things many times over in the pursuit of an honest self.

As far as being "reset" through death... If through enlightenment/in Heaven we both achieve and transcend our base selves, I want to believe that sense of purity and wholeness requires self-embodiment, rather than nullifying it. Enlightenment is about surpassing ignorance and escaping denial, honouring what we have and what we need, not what we want. And I would say being trans is an ultimate act of self-acceptance and honouring our needs... although I also want it very much, ha ha.

plus... it's extremely transgender to be goth :,^)