#and nothing about these two fits the socially acceptable norm!!!

[daevstroders]

i just read your most recent work because someone put it on my dash multiple times (good thing) and holy shit. definitely going through your backlog now. that was so so so good. the intersection of affection and possession. sometimes it feels like the only way to have true love. also beach life in death lyrics spotted! the first stanza that starts with "last night i dreamed he was trying to kill you" is also quite good for them. thanks so much for publishing your stuff. it's very inspirational and raw, but like more like fresh meat than carpetburn.

i wamt that last line put on my fucking grave tou dont understand i literally sent a pic to my friend of me crying with a screenshot of this ask. thank you so much :'))))

[thevelaryons]

As parents of queer children, Alyssa and Corlys have rather different approaches to how they handle their children’s sexualities. They’re sensible enough to know that being gay in their society isn’t socially acceptable; though it’s not openly condemned either. But, because of their circumstances, they would hold private misgivings: Alyssa needing her family to conform to societal norms in order to ensure stability for the realm and Corlys wanting heirs of his own blood and feeling frustrated at the lack of.

Alyssa’s daughter, Rhaena, has her share of female companions. I don’t think Alyssa could have anticipated that Rhaena would develop affectionate feelings for other girls. But once it happens, Alyssa, who had previously tried to have her daughter form close bonds with girls now tries to distance them from each other. Of course, she doesn’t isolate Rhaena completely because her daughter is still a princess and therefore, she needs her ladies about her. So instead, Alyssa ensures that if she sees Rhaena getting too close with any girl, she switches them out. Rhaena does not like all the companions her mother provides her but the ones she does like are also the ones that are taken away from her. It’s probably for this reason that Rhaena’s girlfriends are often described as former favourites because they were not allowed to remain by her side for long once they reached the favourite status. As the Queen, Alyssa has complete authority to dismiss any of her daughters’ companions as she sees fit.

Though her mother provided her with a succession of suitable companions, the daughters of lords great and small, Rhaena never seemed to warm to any of them, preferring the company of a book.

[…]

Not long after, Rhaena made her first true friend in the person of her cousin Larissa Velaryon. For a time the two girls were inseparable…until Larissa was suddenly recalled to Driftmark to be wed to the second son of the Evenstar of Tarth. The young are nothing if not resilient, however, and the princess soon found a new companion in the Hand’s daughter, Samantha Stokeworth.

— Fire & Blood, The Sons of the Dragon

It’s the same thing Alyssa later does with her younger daughter, Alysanne. The reason here being the reputation of the family. That is what drives Alyssa’s actions. She is often shown to be a person that does care about public perception.

Alysanne did not choose these companions for herself; they were selected for her by her mother, Queen Alyssa, and they came and went with some frequency, to ascertain that the princess did not grow too fond of any of them. Her sister Rhaena’s penchant for showering an unseemly amount of affection and attention on a succession of favorites, some of whom were considered less than suitable, had been the source of much whispering at court, and the queen did not want Alysanne to be the subject of similar rumors.

— Fire & Blood, A Surfeit of Rulers

Though there are times when Alyssa does allow Rhaena some leniency to spend time with her favourite companions, those moments are very rare. For the most part, Alyssa’s priorities tend to be about the realm.

The princess had been most loath to be parted from her dragon, Dreamfyre, and her latest favorite, Melony Piper, a red-haired maiden from the riverlands. It was only when her mother, Queen Alyssa, sent for Lady Melony to join them on the progress that Rhaena finally put aside her sullenness to join the celebrations.

— Fire & Blood, The Sons of the Dragon

Rhaena was described as being a shy child. Though she did grow out of her shyness, she still had a quiet nature. I think for someone like her, to have even the smallest hint of her identity denied by her parent would feel rather suffocating. Alyssa is the type of person who always looks at the bigger picture but it makes her miss smaller details in the process. She’s too focused on organizing the kingdom/preserving the peace/guiding the King. She’s said to be concerned about rumours that may follow her daughter because of the closeness she shares with other girls so from her perspective, she’s acting to protect her daughter. I doubt she would even realize how Rhaena could feel hurt and isolated by her actions (and Rhaena does voice that she feels pushed away by her own family).

I’d say all this is part of the reason why Rhaena so thoroughly excludes her mother from the new life she attempts to build for herself, with her old favourites by her side. It is either Rhaena seeking out her companions or her companions seeking her out, but it always happens away from Alyssa.

Two of Rhaena’s former favorites, Samantha Stokeworth and Alayne Royce, made their way to Fair Isle in some haste to stand with the widowed queen, together with the groom’s high-spirited sister, the Lady Elissa. The remainder of the guests were bannermen and household knights sworn to either House Farman or House Lannister. King and court remained entirely ignorant of the marriage until a raven from the Rock brought word, days after the wedding feast and the bedding that sealed the match.

[…]

Chroniclers in King’s Landing report that Queen Alyssa was deeply offended by her exclusion from her daughter’s wedding, and that relations between mother and child were never as warm afterward.

— Fire & Blood, The Year of the Three Brides

By the end of Alyssa’s life, she and Rhaena are essentially estranged from each other. Alyssa’s concerns are understandable. With the Targaryen dynasty still young, she would feel that they have to make sure to conform as much as possible with the social norms. The wars against the Faith Militant and Maegor further push her to become more concerned with the family’s discipline. But this does cost her a relationship with her daughter.

Skip forward a few generations and the dynamic between parent and child is different now.

Corlys’ son, Laenor, is said to surround himself in the company of other boys. Since house Velaryon was isolated on Driftmark for many years, after distancing themselves from the royal court, this could have actually helped create a feeling of being free from societal constraints. Laenor’s male companions are considered a steady fixture at his side over the years. He’s allowed such complete freedom in his relationships that his sexuality is basically an open secret, unlike with Rhaena, where it was hushed whispers barely spoken of.

One objection was raised: Laenor Velaryon was now nineteen years of age, yet had never shown any interest in women. Instead he surrounded himself with handsome squires of his own age, and was said to prefer their company. But Grand Maester Mellos dismissed this concern out of hand. “What of it?” he said. “I do not like the taste of fish, but when fish is served, I eat it.”

[…]

The princess knew much and more about Laenor Velaryon, and had no wish to be his bride. “My half-brothers would be more to his taste,” she told the king.

— Fire & Blood, Heirs of the Dragon

Laenor’s easygoing manner at his wedding suggests a level of comfort. He openly gives his favor to another man as if he is not used to hiding himself.

When Rhaenyra bestowed her garter on Ser Harwin, her new husband laughed and gave one of his own to Ser Joffrey.

— Fire & Blood, Heirs of the Dragon

Despite the fact that his wedding turned into a disaster, Laenor’s life does not change too badly.

He is allowed to openly grieve his lover, Joffrey, and he is allowed to return back home to High Tide, rather than conform to a marriage that would give him misery.

Borne bloody from the field, Ser Joffrey died without recovering consciousness six days later. Mushroom tells us that Ser Laenor spent every hour of those days at his bedside and wept bitterly when the Stranger claimed him.

[…]

Ser Laenor returned to Driftmark thereafter, leaving many to wonder if his marriage had ever been consummated. The princess remained at court, surrounded by her friends and admirers.

[…]

Ser Laenor preferred the comforts of High Tide, where he soon found a new favorite in a household knight named Ser Qarl Correy.

— Fire & Blood, Heirs of the Dragon

Qarl is a knight directly under Corlys’ service. As such, if Corlys wanted to, he could have him removed from his household for daring to be in a relationship with his son. Instead, he allows the relationship to persist for many years.

Although Corlys may be frustrated that things aren’t going according to plan, he clearly cares about Laenor’s happiness first and foremost, even if it interferes with any ambitions of his own. But sometimes, Corlys does let his plans interfere with Laenor’s happiness. When Laenor states his intentions to name his sons, Corlys denies him (perhaps the first time he’s ever done so) and has the child named like a Velaryon: Jacaerys. He continues to deny Laenor for the second son too by giving the boy another Velaryon name: Lucerys. But by the time the third son is born, Corlys finally relents to Laenor’s wishes.

Laenor’s wish to name the child Joffrey was overruled by his father, Lord Corlys. Instead the child was given a traditional Velaryon name: Jacaerys.

[…]

Ser Laenor was at last permitted to name a child after his fallen friend, Ser Joffrey Lonmouth.

— Fire & Blood, Heirs of the Dragon

Btw, it’s not Rhaenyra giving the permission here but Corlys. The text makes it rather obvious when she’s finally allowed the right to name her own child and it’s certainly not when it comes to the elder three boys (that’s just a Corlys vs Rhaenyra issue though). I think a lot of people miss this key detail that even naming a child can be a power play among the nobility. Corlys has his own reasons for what he does when it comes to any of his grandsons, but the main reason he would be okay with letting them be his grandsons is surely because Laenor called them sons first. There’s a certain level of indulgence present in the relationship between Corlys and Laenor.

Concerning Laenor’s sexuality, Corlys’ problem appears to be that Laenor does not do his duty to sire actual sons of his body. If Laenor did his duty, then I do not think Corlys would care if Laenor started having relationships with a dozen or a hundred different men. But it’s a frustration that Corlys does eventually come to terms with. He allowed Laenor a freedom of identity and so it’s Laenor who chooses to remain comfortably by Corlys’ side.

[sothasil]

hi! so, first of all, i love your khajiit art, it's awesome to see someone expanding on khajiit lore in such a thoughtful and interesting way. second of all, i have been looking for ages for any information on marriage in khajiit culture and i have found little. obviously there ARE marriages in elsweyr, but i wanna know traditions: what clothes are worn, what kinds of rings are exchanged, if any, what foods are eaten, etc. but i cant find anything! do you have opinions on this? i'd love to hear!

thank you very much! i can't help with official lore sources (since ESO came out i stopped following that :')) but i do have my own headcanons on the matter!

marriages are a big deal when it involves the linking of two notable families/clans. in the northern regions, where clans are more important to everyday life and social structure, notable members marrying are grounds for large celebrations and larger amounts of discourse between family heads. expected topics include with whom the family will live, how both spouses fit the clan's skill and values and of course, how [insert party currently talking] is better than [insert the other clan involved]

marriages are more important by the greater families union they provide than other aspects surrounding the actual individuals. as a strongly communal society, to khajiit, marrying is first and foremost to officialize your relationship with a partner in relation to what that means for your families. the formation of elsweyr itself under that name happened with a marriage, and that historical example is propped up by some as what should be the cultural standard.

when a marriage does happen, it's a huge party. both sides of the couple's family come over to show off and have fun. it's a good occasion to meet other people and demonstrate the skills and power of you and your clan. as with all big parties, there will be guests who have nothing to do with either families coming too! those party crashers can just come for fun, but some attend to make connections and deals while taking advantage of the events.

romance, sex and having kids are not that tied to the concept. for marriages between important people, if they do have kids matters a lot but it's not that linked to the marriage in itself. khajiit are not very strict when it comes to why and how you have your lovers. it isn't a shame to have sex outside of marriage (including if you end up with kids), and if you are indeed married and want a lover, the big deal won't be ruining a sanctity of marriage, but more what your partner thinks of it. it is however considered unsightly to marry someone you do not have some feelings for, as well as marrying your friend for each other's benefits. again, greater family above all

who was there when it happens and how much you talk about your union are probably the most important factors for officializing it all. divorce isn't really a thing because khajiit aren't bureaucratic. if your marriage falls apart, it's up to you to make it clear you are ending it and face the likely familial backlash. it is however completely acceptable to marry several times - if your spouse is gone, if you find a better one... if that latter case applies and both sides don't remarry, the one who doesn't might get a bad rep. marriages between more than two people aren't a social norm, and while you might have a clan mother who celebrates that, it is rare and polyamoursly inclined khajiit tend to not marry at all and just stay lifelong lovers with their partners.

The only place in my personal khajiit musings where I explored marriage was for my own characters - Ma'Jahrann's parents, Elaahni and Qa'Husar. In those two, each hails from a very different culture - Elaahni is from a more traditionalist mid-sized Anequina clan, and Qa'Husar is from the southern parts with a more cosmopolitan structure, born to a small immediate family who dissolved as he grew up. Their marriage was a bit of a deal when it happened. Elaahni was a local celebrity and her family didn't see too kindly the nobody from those big humid cities marrying their daughter. Qa'Husar himself had to face acquiring a gigantic extended family overnight which he had no experience with. Both ended up fucking off to a smaller town where they settled on an in-between of living a settled lifestyle close with the local community, with Elaahni's close relatives visiting when they saw fit.

[sp0o0kylights]

Like the Wolf Steve/Eddie Werewolf AU

I  have so much of this stupid thing written and it’s stuck on ch. 2 so imma just throw all the pieces up here now. 

This is a werewolf AU, not an A/B/O fic. My version of Alphas and Omegas runs like a mixmash of Patricia Brigg’s, Ilonia Andrew’s, and Carrie Vaughn’s. There is no second gender, werewolves establish a hierarchy within a pack by who is most dominant/submissive, with two Alpha’s to a pack and Omegas being an extremely rare gift.  Direct eye contact is considered a challenge and society has evolved to accept multiple types of Packs, including ones that include others beyond werewolves. All is explained in fic.

Warnings: Period typical homophobia, Eddie having trauma responses/being bullied/being hunted, mentions of Chrissy’s bones going snappy snappy,  and a general mention of the delightfully dumb social/moral/ethical issues that paranormal creatures raise.

Eddie Munson was not anyone's idea of a proper pack Alpha. 

Nor was he the kind of guy people wanted in a Pack, (capitol P intended, because “Titles are important, Edward.” and fuck did he hate when adults called him that. He went by Eddie for a reason.) or anywhere near them, period. 

Experience taught him that even in a traditional Shifter town like Hawkins, filled to the brim with werewolves and not much else, people would pick literally anyone over him when it came time to pair up.

Witches, the Fae, hell, even humans were better than him in the eyes of his peers. They wouldn’t pick him to be their PE tennis partner if he was the last guy left, let alone allow such deep and familiar actions like “treating him nicely” or “waving hello.” 

Letting him in their Pack? Any Pack, from a “true” one with the whole bond thing and fancy magic, down to the stupid social ones that did nothing more than let you know who your friends or coworkers were? 

Perish the thought!

“My mom says you’re a total freak.” One of the old-blooded, rich brats had said in third grade, and the nickname had stuck like glue ever since. 

It followed him throughout the years like it was branded on his forehead, accompanied by a steadily growing list of insults.

Weird. Faggot. Failure. Lone Wolf. 

Other.

Different.

He'd tried long ago to stop letting it hurt him. The way they made him aware that he fell so outside the realm of what others considered normal that they actively shunned him. 

It took until his sophomore year to get good at pretending it wasn’t painful, and at least by his third attempt at graduating, he had it down to where others believed it. 

Had even carved out a place for himself, starting with the Hellfire club. 

Gone about, rounding up all the other undesirables, the outcasted freaks who just didn’t fit into the stupid little social circles or dumb hierarchies of small towns the world over. 

Took in Grant the human, and Jeff the half vampire and Gareth, who was sick all the time even though he was a werewolf. 

Then the small group of incoming Freshman who’d been too loud, too proud, and far too nerdy to walk the halls without some kind of protection. 

It wasn’t much, but for someone like Eddie?

It had been everything. 

Too bad he was in Hawkins, Indiana, where people like him didn’t get to enjoy things.

Not without bad things happening.

Really bad things. 

Chrissy Cunningham pulling an exorcist level of demonic possession, dying on his ceiling, and crashing down like a broken porcelain doll to the floor of his trailer level of bad things. 

Suddenly Eddie wasn’t just the guy who couldn’t follow the same societal norms as every other bland teenage werewolf. 

He was dangerous. 

Satanic. 

His freak status elevated from “guy with long hair and weird clothes who wouldn’t stop acting like he was an Alpha” to “wolf willing to exchange his very soul in order to bring about the end of the world”-or something. 

Eddie hadn’t really listened much to Jason Carver’s rabid ranting, but he got the gist well enough. 

It didn’t even matter that for all the magic in the world, demons and satan were more of a human concept than anything that had proven, hard hitting magic sitting behind it. Satanic panic was just in, and Chrissy-

He couldn't think about Chrissy. 

Not that the  truth mattered anyway. 

No, the only thing that did was that one of their golden children had died in their town. A town they built, full of old werewolf families and a handful of powerful allies, that catered to them. 

They needed reparation for the insult that had been brought upon their power. 

Eddie was just the convenient lamb they had chosen to slaughter. 

So here he was, outcasted by the whole town. Watching as the people who hated him collectively lost their minds, regressing back to the days of one singular Pack hierarchy controlling everything. Two Alpha’s to rule them all, with Jason fucking Carver was taking on the role as one of them. 

Screw all the centuries of the world that had built past that. The way society was no longer “letting the inner beast win” but was instead getting along, moving forward. 

Eddie hadn’t needed whatever had actually happened with Chrissy to know how much of a lie it was, but then he hadn’t planed on pulling back the facade either. 

To bad for you, you idiot. 

Not that there was anything he could do. Not with his van, stupid idiotic, easy to spot van out of commission, blown up transmission leaving him stranded not even two miles from his house. He’d exhausted himself just to get to the boathouse, knowing damn well that it wouldn’t make one ounce of difference if he’d bolted or called the cops. 

They were gonna lay Chrissy’s death on his head, and now his chance to escape their wrath had all but dropped to zero. 

Best he could do was hide. Wait it out. 

Hope whatever the fuck had gotten Chrissy wasn’t going to come after him too. 

The reminder didn’t help, that he had no idea what the hell had even happened. His  mind ran in circles with his terror, trying to make sense of it, but all he could think about was how he could leave this damn boathouse. 

How he could get out.

Out of Hawkins, out of Indiana, just fucking out. 

It was that terror, the surge of adrenaline and the pure knowledge that if anyone caught him, his chances of survival dropped to damn near zero that he blamed for not recognizing Henderson’s voice. 

Hadn’t even picked up on the younger wolf’s scent, he’d been so freaked out. 

Wired with the intensity of a cornered animal, Eddie’s wolf staring out of his eyes and firmly in control the second he realized he wasn’t alone and whoever was here was calling his name, and all rational thoughts went right out the door. 

Add in Steve fucking Harrington, former King of Hawkins High and total asshole violently poking around, and well. 

There wasn’t a thought to be had at all. 

Not in Eddie’s head, anyway. 

He’d attacked when hiding no longer remained an option, proud of himself for pinning the larger wolf to the wall, snarling like the devil they thought he was. 

And Harrington-Harrington let him. 

Put his hands up as he crashed back against the wall. Kept his eyes off of Eddie’s, kept his throat exposed until Dustin could talk Eddie down. 

Explain some things.

Explain all the fucking things, which didn’t help his situation, at all, but did at least help his overall mental state. 

“We’ll work this out.” Henderson had said, voice confident, and Eddie, exhausted, starving, haunted by Chrissy’s bones snapping every time he closed his eyes-believed him.

Even if it was the stupidest thing to do. 

Because for all his bravado, all his jumping on tables and loud speeches, the Throne he DM’d from and the Hellfire Club he ran-Eddie Munson had a secret. 

He desperately, desperately, needed someone on his side.  

Anybody. 

Especially now, when he could feel himself seconds away from falling apart, life ripped out from under him a second time. 

Pity this time round he didn’t have yet another Uncle to run to. 

(It took Eddie a long time, in that same boathouse, to realize that Harrington had never retaliated against him for Eddie’s attack. For pinning him to the wall in front of his Packmate’s and making him look weak with a broken glass bottle, of all things.  

 Had in fact, backed down. 

Which was a hell of a thing, when Eddie had discovered that the damn freshman hadn’t been fibbing for fun.

They really did have a little established Pack, bonds and all, and Steve Harrington really was the Alpha in control of it. 

A born werewolf from one of Hawkins oldest families, with all their rules, fancy parties and refusal to be anything other than the best and he’d let Eddie, trailer park trash and son of two bitten, made, werewolves, pin him down like a puppy. 

If Eddie hadn’t been wrestling with the existence of a hell dimension, hand made superpowers, and the reality of a world where humans were experimenting on species of various kinds, the long held treaty laws be damned while they raced the Russians to do fuck knew what, he might have caught on that Steve was just as different as he was, a whole lot sooner. 

As it was, he just remained exhausted, hungry, and very, very grateful for the stupid freshmen.) 

                                                         xXx

Shit hadn’t really gone sideways in the boathouse until the third time Henderson's little crew had dropped off food. 

Dustin took in the look on Eddie’s face when Steve had unloaded the honeycomb cereal box, like the man had just seen water in a desert, and outright cackled. 

Eddie reached out automatically, hooking his arm around the freshman’s neck and pulling him taught to his side. Dustin shrieked as he was put into a nuggie, Eddie spinning them as the younger wolf pushed ineffectively at his arms. 

“Say uncle!” Eddie taunted with a grin.  

“Ow, ow, Eddie!” Dustin whined, before finally going limp and shouting; “Fine! Uncle!” 

Eddie dropped him with one last hair ruffle, grinning widely at him. 

Dustin grinned back, even as he pretended to fuss at his hair and clothes. “God, it’s not my fault you just realize Steve adopted you.” He said, rolling his eyes dramatically. “Why you gotta take it out on me?” 

Eddie went to automatically deny that he was taking anything out on Dustin. He was just the youngest wolf in the Hellfire Club which meant by all the rules in the universe, he was the automatic target for all teasing. 

The the kids words sunk in. 

Sunk in the same way fucking teeth went into a steak, all sharp and deep and pointed. 

Eddie froze so fast he almost nailed his face on one of the overhanging oars. 

“What?” He said, positive he misheard. 

“Those are your favorites right?” Dustin said, pointing at the offending cereal box on the ground. “He’s always been like, weirdly good at knowing what his packmates eat. I’d say it’s an Alpha thing but it’s totally not.” 

“What.” Eddie said again, his voice coming out as more of a surprised croak. 

“Max insists he pays super close attention but come on, it’s Steve. I once watched him trip trying to do the dance from the Breakfast Club. It’s absolutely just like, his weird little superpower.” Dustin hummed for a moment, face scrunched up in thought. “Like, snack-sense. Stevie Snack Sense!” 

Eddie stared, the words “Steve adopted you” and “weirdly good at knowing what his packmates eat” ping-ponging around his head. 

Henderson’s grin grew impossibly wider. “Get it? Like Scooby snacks?”  

Then he laughed his weird little cackle again, ignoring the way Eddie had crashed like one of the shitty computers their school was so proud of owning. 

‘Danger alert, the Freak is overheating. Danger alert, the Freak is-’ 

“Henderson are you coming or what!?” Steve yelled, causing Eddie to jump and Dustin to spin around, shouting something rude back.

“Keep your walkie on, okay?” Dustin said, turning back with a worried look that would have been touching if Eddie had been paying any attention at all, before scampering off to have an argument with his Pack Alpha. 

The same one who apparently, allowed such things from whiny, teenage puppies, and also, was trying to adopt Eddie. 

Into his Pack. 

Eddie just stared after them, feeling vaguely like the world no longer made sense.

Probably because it didn’t.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Julian Adorney

Published: Jun 1, 2024

When I first heard about queer theory, I assumed that it had to do with gay rights. I was familiar with the LGBTQ acronym, and I assumed that a field called “Queer Theory” would have as its central focus helping to advance lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans rights. But while queer theory does focus a lot on advancing negative and positive rights for trans people (for those not familiar with the philosophical distinction, negative rights don’t infringe on others’ rights, and would include in this case the right for adults to get gender-transition surgery; positive rights do infringe on the rights of others, and would include in this case the “right” of trans-identified males to enter women’s bathrooms), its central focus is very different.

The central focus of queer theory is on rejecting the received wisdom of our ancestors. That is: our society has certain things that we consider “normal,” such as monogamy, having a job, or the notion that there are two (and only two) separate and distinct sexes. The central aim of queer theory is to subvert, problematize, and ultimately undo these norms. Here’s how women’s and gender studies professor David Halperin defined queer theory in his book Saint Foucault:

As the very word implies, ‘queer’ does not name some natural kind or refer to some determinate object; it acquires its meaning from its oppositional relation to the norm. Queer is by definition whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant. There is nothing in particular to which it necessarily refers. It is an identity without an essence.

What does this attack on social norms look like in practice? It can take almost any form; society has a lot of norms, and a field that defines itself in opposition to these norms will have a target-rich environment.

But let’s walk through a few examples.

First, queer theorists reject what they call “homonormativity.” This is the idea that gay people are just like straight people, and want to fit into the mainstream of society rather than simply living at the margins. It’s the idea that gay people, like straight people, mostly want to put on a suit and tie, go to work, get married, and have children. For queer theorists, this is problematic. Here’s how professor Tyler M. Argüello put it in a paper for the Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services:

Extending modern capitalism and consumption, homonormativity has emerged in queer theory, entrenching a transparent White, neoliberal subject, one who replicates heteronormativity (Duggan, 2004). In this variation, homonormativity anesthetizes queer communities into passively accepting alternative forms of inequality in return for domestic privacy and the freedom to consume (Manalansan, 2005).

This rejection of homonormativity can even lead queer theorists to oppose (or at least problematize) the gay and lesbian community’s long fight for marriage equality. Argüello, again: “A preeminent example of this is the fight for “marriage equality,” which privileges a specific form of intimacy and relationship-making (i.e., legal marriage) while silencing and eclipsing other aggrandizing notions of intimacy, domesticity, sexuality, and sociality, among other discourses.”

That is: it’s problematic that gay people fought for the right to get married because this prioritizes (or “privileges”) monogamous relationships over other expressions of sexuality and intimacy (such as hook-ups or open relationships).

Queer theorists also take aim at traditional gender norms. In their paper “Drag pedagogy: The playful practice of queer imagination in early childhood,” co-authors Harper Keenan and Lil Miss Hot Mess (no, really) complain that society and schooling can reify traditional gender norms.

Although individuals’ experiences are profoundly complex, schooling often categorizes people in ways that train each of our ways of being into compliance with an inflexible ‘script’ (Keenan, 2017b). That script, which is enforced through formal institutions as well as through social interaction, operates on multiple levels. The script of gender teaches the public not only what gender is in some essential sense – setting up a binary between womanhood and manhood – but that some gendered ways of being are acceptable and others are not. In the USA, for example, many people learn that the most valued boy will be white, engage in rough-and-tumble play with other boys that will toughen him up and straighten him out, allowing him to mature into a man who wears a suit and tie, makes a lot of money, enters into a sexually monogamous marriage with a woman, buys a home, and has enough but not too many children. In other words, a script that may begin with gender shapes how individuals are taught to understand their expected roles in society in ways that extend far beyond gender alone.

For queer theorists, even the existence of this script is problematic—adhering to it even more so. Boys shouldn’t be encouraged towards rough-and-tumble play, and men shouldn’t be encouraged towards monogamy, high-paying jobs, or buying a house. According to queer theory, men who find a wife and a high-paying job aren’t following their passions or a well-worn societal template that mostly works. Instead, they are merely playing roles that were not written for them, adhering to rules not of their making but imposed by societal pressures.

Queer theory sees these scripts, especially around gender, and delights in breaking them. Keenan and Lil Miss Hot Mess’ paper is about drag queen story hours, which involve drag queens teaching children. A key aim of these story hours, they argue, is to allow and even encourage children to break conventional rules. Because the teacher in this setting is a drag queen, he “breaks the limiting stereotype of a teacher: she is loud, extravagant, and playful.” As a result, he “encourages children to think for themselves and even to break the rules.” They note that drag, which is a powerful manifestation of queer theory, “ultimately has no rules – its defining quality is often to break as many rules as possible!” Of course, this goal makes sense because the authors don’t believe that rules (even the rules of a classroom) matter. They talk about the “arbitrariness of rules” and how drag queen story hours can make this arbitrariness apparent.

Because queer theory focuses so much on sex and gender, norms and social rules of decency are frequently in its crosshairs. In their book Queer Theory, Gender Theory, Riki Wilchins describes a surreal interaction with one of their trans-identifying friends.

I am reminded of the first time my friend Tony pulled down his jeans to show off his new $33,000 penis. As I looked on with fascination, he began razzing me with various invitations, all of which had the words “my dick” and “suck” in them. I quickly found myself immersed in the usual complex reaction I have to the idea of giving head, until it dawned on me that—given the donor site for his graft—I would be sucking off his forearm.

As far as I can tell, there’s no point to this story. It doesn’t advance any of the conscious arguments that Wilchins makes in their book. The only point seems to be that it’s subversive. Wilchins gets to talk about performing oral sex on a simulated penis in a quasi-academic book, which certainly breaks some social norms.

It gets worse. Wilchins, to their credit, wrote their sexually subversive passage in a book primarily read by adults. However, some other queer theorists target a more foundational and essential norm: the idea that we shouldn’t sexualize children. Michel Foucault might be called the grandfather of queer theory. While not himself a queer theorist, he (along with Jacques Derrida) founded the school of postmodernism which has heavily influenced queer theory. Celebrated by queer theorists from Wilchins to Judith Butler, Foucault, in The History of Sexuality, Volume 1, dismissed the criminalization of pedophilia as a solution in search of a problem. Here’s the relevant passage:

One day in 1867, a farm hand from the village of Lapcourt, who was somewhat simple-minded…was turned in to the authorities. At the border of a field, he had obtained a few caresses from a little girl, just as he had done before and seen done by the village urchins round about him; for, at the edge of the wood, or in the ditch by the road leading to Saint-Nicolas, they would play the familiar game called ‘curdled milk.’ So he was pointed out by the girl’s parents to the mayor of the village, reported by the mayor to the gendarmes, led by the gendarmes to the judge, who indicted him and turned him over first to a doctor, then to two other experts who not only wrote their report but also had it published. What is the significant thing about this story? The pettiness of it all; the fact that this everyday occurrence in the life of village sexuality, these inconsequential bucolic pleasures, could become, from a certain time, the object not only of a collective intolerance but of a judicial action, a medical intervention, a careful clinical examination, and an entire theoretical elaboration. 

Got that? The man in Foucault’s story paid a small girl to give him sexual favors. Foucault dismisses this act of sexual abuse as one of life’s “inconsequential bucolic pleasures.” He’s struck most by the “pettiness” of putting this man in jail, a man who until then had been “an integral part of village life.” For Foucault, it seems that laws criminalizing sexual abuse of children represent just one more socially constricting norm that we should interrogate, problematize, and ultimately do away with.

Why have queer theorists built an entire field centered around identifying and rejecting societal norms?

First, because they think that all knowledge is socially constructed. This idea goes back to Derrida, another grandfather of queer theory. Derrida rejected the idea that we can ever find or know capital-T truth. Instead, all of our knowledge is arbitrary; and we only think that it’s all true because we’ve been conditioned to think this way. Here’s how Wilchins summarizes Derrida’s argument: “Derrida’s constructedness is like what you get when you use a cookie cutter on a freshly-rolled sheet of dough. There is no truth to the cookies, and no particular shape was any more inherent in the dough than any other.” Our “discourse”—the intellectual paradigm of our society, the ideas in which we swim—is the cookie cutter, and it determines how we see the world.

Given this premise, we could have a discourse that emphasizes and focuses on the separateness of men and women. Or we could have a discourse that emphasizes their sameness. Or a discourse that has six sexes, or none. We could have a discourse that sees penises and vaginas as different. Or, as Wilchins argues, we could have a perfectly valid discourse that sees a vagina as just an inward-facing penis (no, really); as “providing, not primal difference, but strong evidence of [male and female] bodies’ underlying and inherent similarity.”

Of course, this can take us into territory that normal people find pretty offensive. For instance, Wilchins argues that there’s no such thing as a real woman. Drag performers frequently seek to imitate women, but for Wilchins, they aren’t imitating anything real. What they’re imitating is itself an imitation. Biological females, in their view, are simply “doing” their best impression of womanhood in an attempt to fit in, and their performance is no more or less authentic than the performance of men wearing dresses and makeup who are also trying to “do” womanhood (in Wilchins’ sort-of defense, they’re not singling out womanhood as fake; to them, manhood is equally fake). Here’s how Wilchins puts it: “Woman is to drag—not as Real is to Copy—but as Copy is to Copy. Gender turns out to be a copy for which there is no original. All gender is drag. All gender is queer.”

Not only is all knowledge socially constructed in the worldview, but it’s constructed for a particular reason: to keep the dominant people in society in power. Knowledge is a weapon used to build some people up and keep others down. Or as Wilchins quotes Foucault: “Knowledge is not made for understanding; it is made for cutting.”

This brings us full circle to why queer theorists reject social norms. For the queer theorist, norms are built from knowledge that is arbitrary and socially constructed, and in turn are constructed only in order to help the ruling class to maintain its power. In this worldview, the dominant intellectual paradigm of any given period doesn’t tell us any more or fewer true things than would a different paradigm. Indeed, the current paradigm is particularly bad because it’s a tool for perpetuating racism, sexism, homophobia, and (worst of all, and somehow intermingled with all of them) capitalism.

The second reason that queer theorists reject so many social norms is that there’s a certain presentism to queer theorists’ worldviews. The idea is that what’s come before hasn’t worked, and so we need a radical break from tradition. In a discussion on HIV, Argüello argues that “Queer theory can be a productive, additive analytic to comprehend risk and radicalize this longstanding war [against HIV].” Why? Because existing tools haven’t worked: “Frustratingly, incidence (of HIV) persists to be stable annually in the United States.” Our progress has stalled, and so we need to try new and different tools.

Of course, our society has made (and continues to make) remarkable progress in many areas. This means that sometimes presentism has to rely on claims that aren’t true. In the case of HIV, for instance, the CDC notes that we have made tremendous progress in reducing incidence of this deadly disease. New HIV infections per year fell from over 130,000 in 1985 to just 34,800 in 2019. 34,800 is of course still far too high, but it’s tough to look at a decline of 73.2 percent in just over 3 decades and conclude that our tools aren’t working.

So queer theory sees all knowledge as socially constructed in order to entrench the dominant group’s power, and sets itself in opposition to what it sees as the rigid and oppressive norms that this socially-constructed knowledge creates. Fine. In queer theorists’ defense, sometimes knowledge production does look like what they describe. For example, the 19th-century science of phrenology, where white intellectuals sought to maintain dominance by promoting a false science claiming genetic inferiority in non-whites, supports this view. The pathologization of homosexuality is another example where knowledge production looks both arbitrary and malicious. Pathologizing people for wanting to have sex with other consenting adults isn’t something we should ever have done.

However, many social norms are generally good. Keenan and Lil Miss Hot Mess bemoan the idea that men should get married and put on a suit and tie and go to work. But, for most men, this lifestyle works. Monogamous relationships endure better than polyamorous ones. Humans’ willingness to go to work is one reason that our society is so wealthy and that we’re able to provide materially better lives for our children than we ourselves were given (economic data show that Generation Z is on track to be the wealthiest generation in human history).

More broadly, capitalism gets a bad rap from queer theorists, but it’s also lifted billions of people out of poverty.

[ Source: World Bank ]

Norms against pedophilia are unequivocally good. So are norms against cheating on our spouses, abandoning our kids, and (I would argue) biological males hanging out in female locker rooms.

In their campaign against social norms, queer theorists might accidentally do a lot of harm. For instance, Argüello bemoans the fact that “barebacking [having sex without condoms] is met with social and public health policing.” He argues that barebacking isn’t “reckless,” and that, “Instead of indictment, a queer epistemology would be interested to regard this phenomenon as one of strategic behavior and dialectical.” But normalizing barebacking might do a lot to increase the prevalence of sexually transmitted infections, for the simple reason that using condoms actually does work to reduce transmission.

It seems to me that knowledge can fit into one of two categories. First, it can be born out of, and reify, our existing biases. Phrenology and the pathologization of homosexuality are examples of this kind of “knowledge.” Alternatively, it can represent the received wisdom of our ancestors: what millions of humans have learned through trial and error before us, and passed down to us so that we don’t have to make their same mistakes.

Sometimes, knowledge can fit into both categories. For example, monogamous marriage grew out of a Judeo-Christian norm, which might be called a bias. But data also suggests that this norm works. Research is hard to come by, but one study suggests that open marriage has a 92 percent failure rate. The rate of failure for monogamous marriage is much lower.

Queer theorists assume that all knowledge fits into the first category. This makes them good at seeing the flaws in society and the areas where our collective biases are running away with us. However, it makes them bad at seeing the areas where our accumulated inter-generational knowledge actually makes life better for almost everyone most of the time. 

If queer theorists consider social norms to be oppressive and want to tear them down, what do they want to put in their place? No one knows—not even the queer theorists. In a book that otherwise spends a lot of time praising both deconstruction and postmodernism, Wilkins acknowledges that:

Deconstruction and postmodernism are not so much a set of truth claims as a set of philosophic tools and ideas for dismantling existing truth claims. That it, is [sic] intended to take knowledge systems apart rather than to suggest what might take their place […] It’s more than a little like Scarlet O’Hara, promising breathlessly that ‘tomorrow…is another day,’ without knowing that tomorrow will be better, or even explaining why it should be. In this sense, postmodernism seems to trade on the assurance that newness itself is filled with enough promise.

In his book Cruising Utopia, queer theorist José Esteban Muñoz put it even more bluntly.

Queerness is not yet here. Queerness is an ideality. Put another way, we are not yet queer. We may never touch queerness, but we can feel it as the warm illumination of a horizon imbued with potentiality. We have never been queer, yet queerness exists for us as an ideality that can be distilled from the past and used to imagine a future. The future is queerness’s domain. Queerness is a structuring and educated mode of desiring that allows us to see and feel beyond the quagmire of the present. The here and now is a prison house.

To put it another way: queer theory is nihilistic. It’s better at throwing bombs than creating blueprints. It wants to tear society down, but has no idea what to build in its place. It promises that once we tear down the oppressive norms, our politics can have a different shape; but theorists openly acknowledge that they don’t know what that shape is.

The received wisdom of our ancestors is part baby and part bathwater. Queer theorists are very good at identifying the bathwater, though they’re far from the only ones. But they assume that it’s all bathwater; they’re completely blind to the existence of the baby. Queer theorists deserve a seat at the table, because no society is perfect and they might be able to see bathwater that other people can’t.

Those of us who see the baby need to have the courage to speak up to ensure that, in the pursuit of progress, we don’t inadvertently transform our world into something far worse than it is now.

--

About the Author

Julian Adorney is the founder of Heal the West, a Substack movement dedicated to preserving our liberal social contract. He’s also a writer for the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR). Find him on X: @Julian_Liberty.

==

Unlike gay identity, which, though deliberately proclaimed in an act of affirmation, is nonetheless rooted in the positive fact of homosexual object-choice, queer identity need not be grounded in any positive truth or in any stable reality. As the very word implies, “queer” does not name some natural kind or refer to some determinate object; it acquires its meaning from its oppositional relation to the norm. Queer is by definition whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant. There is nothing in particular to which it necessarily refers. It is an identity without an essence. “Queer,” then, demarcates not a positivity but a positionality vis-à-vis the normative—a positionality that is not restricted to lesbians and gay men but is in fact available to anyone who is or who feels marginalized because of her or his sexual practices. ― David Halperin, "Saint Foucault"

That is, you cannot be "queer," you can only do "queerness." Those who claim to be 'queer" - usually heterosexuals - have no idea what they're talking about, that it's performative.

Whatever is the norm, do the opposite, or just something else. It's just being contrary. It's rebellion without a point or cause.

"Lisa, what are you rebelling against?" "Whaddya got?"

Because when whatever is currently "queer" becomes the norm, that then needs to be "queered." Just look at "non-binary" and how much of a stereotype and trope that is now.

It's pathologizing everything that's normal, and normalizing everything that's pathological.

Gay people fought to blend in with society, for their lives and relationships to raise no more eyebrows than any heterosexual relationship. Queer Theory's goal is the exact polar opposite of this.

[duckduckhjonk]

Part 1 of analyzing every total drama character.

hi ho! i’m going to do this in elimination order for each season/character. So obviously part 1 has gotta be Ezekiel. I have very much Opinions ™️  on him.

Before we begin i would like to say that i am in no way a professional in anything I’m doing, this is just for fun and to get a better grip on characters from my favourite show.

Zeke from the get go is an absolute loser. He’s homeschooled and doesn’t understand many social cues/norms. He’s dirty and mostly antisocial. Even Chris tells him not to say much and to try not to be first off the island.

Overall review of his time on the show:

I think the biggest part that he does in island is that he says a very sexist remark, claiming that men are better than women. He quickly learns his lesson, then eliminated because of it. During the special, TDDDDI, Zeke teams up with Lindsay and Beth, with the only terms of “treating them with respect”. I feel this heavily implies that during the time at Playa Des Loser, Zeke is trying to actively better himself from his old views on gender, as he happily accepts the two girls’ terms of teaming up. He also tries helping them during this time, pointing out the case that is tied to the tree. Although he is quickly silenced and ignored by the two girls chatter. Which costed them to be the first to the prize.

Ultimately, Zeke is not in Action and doesn't do much for the aftermaths either, but during his time in Playa Des Losers, he takes on a gangster-esque persona in an attempt to be seen as cool. It does not work well, as he is never seen as cool. I have nothing much to say with Action, so lets just move along.

World Tour is where things get very interesting for him. He dropped the gangster persona and became super determined to win, claiming he’s been training. Unfortunately, he is eliminated first again, twice. His determination drives him to stay on the jet, hanging onto the wings and landing gear of it in order to live in the cargo hold. This is where he begins to lose his humanity. He begins to act more like the rodents that live in the plane, and even begins to turn a sick green colour and lose his hair and also his hat. I dont know how he lost his hat, i think he should have kept it. Chris tries to take advantage of his determination to win and hires a still vaguely human Zeke to play the ripper. After that, he finally goes full feral. He’s a full on animal by now and Chris once again uses that to his advantage in the Serengeti episode, when he is used to be hunted for sport. In the finale, Zeke’s determination makes him attack Chris or Heather depending on the version for the million where he is thrown into the volcano but quickly launched back out.

During Revenge of the Island, Zeke lives in the mines with a bunch of mutated creatures, acting as their king. During A Mine is a Terrible Thing to Waste, Zeke finds Anne Maria and begins giving her a bunch of treats in order to impress her. He gives her the burnt prize money and a diamond he doesn't know is fake. I find this glimpse of Zeke still being human to be a nice breath of fresh air for him, which is gone soon after as he tries to attack Lightning on sight. During the finale of Revenge of the Island he also tries to protect Anne Maria from the weird squirrel in hopes of getting a kiss from her.

In All Stars, he is originally brought back as a joke to scare the contestants before being launched away again. During this season, Zeke has enough of Chris using him as a punching bag and kidnaps him, holding him above a vat of toxic waste using only a thin rope that rats are eating away at. While he is hanging, Chris actively taunts Zeke, causing him to go into a fit of rage. Though the contestants save Chris and defeat Zeke before Chris falls into the vat. Lucky for him, Zeke gets a happy-ish ending where he is accepted by the rest of the mutants on the island.

My personal thoughts/headcanons about him:

I have reason to suspect Zeke has some form of neurodivergency that probably went undiagnosed due to his parents being of a much more “traditional” mindset and refusing to give him mental help.

Equally so, i have every right to suspect that Zeke’s parents are neglectful. Did they never do anything legally to the producers or Chris for making him into a wretched beast. Did they never think to sue the show? The show’s situation caused him to never be normal again.

I also think that Zeke orignally was trying to act like his father in Island, i dont know the exact reason but maybe within the farmer community they live in his father was considered cool? i’m unsure but i think thats why he tried to act like him. Once that failed he would try to act like a gangster because maybe he saw they were perceived as cool.

Zeke just wants to be seen as cool by people, i think its sad he never got that, I mean he was sexist so ig thats why.

also please note that Duncan has said far more sexist things than Ezekiel ever has

Overall, Ezekiel is an amusing character that i find super interesting. Albeit he’s more interesting in a feral form but that doesn’t make his human form not interesting. I wouldn’t say he’s quite top 10 favourite character, but i do enjoy him.

[azureflight]

Young Rhaenyra, Old Rhaenyra and the point of children

I have a personal pet peeve, of a certain trend I see especially in adaptations.

Stop erasing what makes a story/char unique and different from mainstream/conventional wisdom/contemporary perspective.

This used to be most dominantly seen when a non-western, or non-American work gets a "USA" adaptation. They would just erase the fundamental differences in perspective and approach to a certain topic or subject, that mostly stemmed from the cultural differences between USA and the original country.

One of the latest and most egregious examples of this would be Ghost in the Shell live action movie with Scar Jo. And no, it was not the choice of actress, that was actually fine. But they have fundamentally changed and in fact reversed the philosophy and conclusion of the story from the original, turning from a profoundly different take on transhumanism and question of what is a human and do we even have to be one, and made it into a generic "oh you are you no matter your memories or body and should stick to regular modern human individualism".

Which would be fine, if this was an original work. Ghost in the Shell 2017 would be a damn fine sci-fi action movie, if it was an original work. A bit flawed and somewhat cliche, but damn fine.

But it isn't. It is an adaptation of the iconic Ghost in the Shell, and as an adaptation, it has one of the most gratuitous examples of betraying the soul of the story.

Now, this brings me to HotD, and specifically the depiction of young Rhaenyra and the constant fandom arguments about her seemingly random turn from not wanting kids to having a brood of them.

Up until the very recent past (and indeed in a lot of countries in the rest of the world still), women having children and many of them, was the norm, the expected, the forced upon. However, within the last two generations, this has most certainly reversed in the western world, at least for the overwhelming majority of the population.

Nowadays, women not wanting kids and then not having them, is the norm. We understand and accept this as a perfectly valid position to hold. Beyond that, a lot of the traditional gender roles imposed on women got a lot of pushback, with defying and denouncing them being seen as not merely a novelty, but almost a necessary condition of being a truly independent woman.

This means we are now a different society with different norms, different expectations and different judgements. For us, now, a female character who doesn't want kids and doesn't like the traditional gender roles, is the normal person that we can all identify and sympathize with. For a lot of us, when such a character opens their mouth, our words come pouring out. And there is nothing wrong with that.

However, this does mean, now, the unique and different character would be someone who doesn't fit this new norm, this new expectation. And indeed, it is difficult to foster sympathy and connection between audience and a character, if the character has a fundamentally different perspective on some crucial social and cultural aspects of life. But therein exactly where the power and importance of fiction lies: The ability to produce and introduce different humans with different opinions and give us the ability to try and understand them.

The main function of fiction isn't to reaffirm and reinforce our contemporary morals. Indeed, validation is the least and perhaps the most debased thing fiction can do. And we most certainly oppose it, when some group or institution tries to do that for their own morals and values which we disagree with. No shortage of accusations of indoctrination and propaganda, and rightfully so.

But when we are faced with characters, societies and stories who defy and challenge our own conventions, suddenly we get chicken shit and start bending them to make them palatable ourselves instead of enjoying the difference and charging into see what this other perspective might provide us.

Rhaenyra in the books, never had a "not like other girls" phase. She was not a tomboy, she was not a generic pseudo-modern "gender no-confirming" girl from west coast who didn't want no kids and no husbands.

Rhaenyra was very feminine and enjoyed it. She wanted power and felt entitled to it, without trying to imitate traditionally masculine behaviors or trying to fit into some Madonna role. As far as we know, she wanted to have children, wanted a large family, and loved her kids to bits. Her being fully and unapologetically female, feminine and embracing all of the sensual, sexual and biological aspects of it while still demanding power and authority, is what drove the sexist green shits up the wall.

If she had been some tomboy, her attempts at trying to be "more like a man" would actually garner her more sympathy and support, as she would be seen as admitting and accepting the "weakness" of her sex. If she stuck to some virgin/maiden role, she could have been put on a pedestal and celebrated by the established sexist power holders.

Instead she was the Realm's Delight. A gorgeous woman who didn't know how to fight but dressed impeccably, who was not interested in swords or pants, but rode, hawked and feasted, who flirted and danced with admirers and deigned to tour the realm to see if there was a man she would enjoy having as a husband and when she was forced to marry a gay guy, she took a lover and started to pop out kid after kid with him.

Rhaenyra was undeniably female, in a society where being a woman was lesser. She was not someone they can put into a sterilized icon to strip from her flesh and blood humanity and she was not some "not like other girls/almost like a boy" type that they could rationalize accepting as their ruler because she "technically didn't count as woman" due to how different she behaved.

She was the embodiment of every fear about women these people had: Powerful despite lacking traditional mastery of arms, charming and hot, making her deeply desired by men which meant she could influence and "control" them, sexual meaning they couldn't control her, holding authority, meaning she could reject them, and cuckolded her husband, meaning she could emasculate them. Oh, and she also had a dragon so she would most definitely win if they were to ever try to assert themselves physically against her, as they would try against women like this in general.

The books try to paint Alicent as virtuous against fat Rhaenyra with her whorish ways, but it cannot hide the fact that Rhaenyra had men fighting, dying, killing and conspiring to be with her, even when she was "fat". 

The Rogue Prince they all feared, despised and admired, was caught in her orbit since she was 14 and stayed there until his death and despite all the attempts at trying to make Nettles into a big deal, the man died fighting for Rhaenyra.

Almost all of the lords who courted her, save for Lannister twins, remained loyal to her to death and even beyond her grave.

She was not a warrior herself, but she had gallant, honorable sons all accepted as competent and capable. And she was a mother who loved her children to the death, to the point of insanity and her sons loved her back, to their own ends.

Erasing this more feminine and traditionally conforming aspect of Rhaenyra, robs the story of the fundamental dynamic of her tragedy, how her more traditionally "normal" sides conflicts with rest everything else about her and work to exacerbate the opposition and vitriolic, murderous hate against her.

HotD traded away a beautifully complex character and a very interesting take on a sexist social dynamic, for a cheap narrative shorthand of "this is the character you should like".

If they had stuck to the truth of the story, of the child Rhaenyra who was isolated, tormented and abused in her own home by her own step-mother and her lackeys, under her father's nose, with his willful ignorance, they wouldn't need to invent such a generic skinsuit to shove her younger version into, in order to make the audience "sympathize" with her. A dutiful daughter, who loved her father but still felt entitled to her birthright, a feminine woman who still wanted to rule, a sensual woman who wanted to have a brood of her own because she lacked a proper family to belong to in her own youth, would be a much more complex, deep and interesting character. And one we could all cheer for, if the writing was decent.

Instead we have a pretty generic teenager powergirl who then grows up to be a completely different person as an adult and half the audience complains about how this was a “disservice” to her character or the change didn’t make sense. And you know what? They are right. The show never explained it because of time constraints, but also the show just refuses to properly set-up and explain stuff when they know the plot demands something happen anyway, which is shit tier writing. And it is a great disservice to Rhaenyra’s character, but in the opposite direction.

The story didn’t take a strong, independent woman who wanted no kids and made her a mother of 5. The story took a strong, independent woman who loved and wanted her kids and injected a completely made up phase of not wanting them into her youth just to make her more palatable to modern audiences with minimal effort.

So now, half the people who liked the first 5 episode version of fake Rhaenyra are stuck with a never explained, never resolved dissonance and all of us are robbed of a truly interesting and unique character and story.

[issybaker]

A different point of view

For this project we had to pick 2 books that had nothing to do with each other and take 3 lines from each and combine them into one story. We then had to make an outcome to represent this new story.

Source A- VILE BODIES-Chris Downsend

She would draw lines on her body-like those drawn by a cosmetic surgeon prior to an operation-and then try to diet until the outline of her body fell within these imaginary, ideal contours.

 But however insistently we try to control and monitor our bodies, they have errant lives of their own-sagging and bulging, contaminating themselves with disease from within, decaying and expiring.

 I’m not dealing with the perfect body, I'm dealing with another kind of truth, that is how the body really is and why don't we accept it, because that's our norm.

Source B- GHOST TOWN- Kevin Chen

Their limbs would go numb.

Devine exaltation and bloody butchery were two parts of the most bizarre song in history.

The past is never dead. It's not even the past.

This is the story I created from these books :

A- she would draw lines on her body-like those drawn by a cosmetic surgeon prior to an operation-and then try to diet until the outline of her body fell within these imaginary, ideal contours.

B- their limbs would go numb.

A- but however insistently we try to control and monitor our bodies, they have errant lives of their own-sagging and bulging, contaminating themselves with disease from within, decaying and expiring.

B- devine exaltation and bloody butchery were two parts of the most bizarre song in history.

A- I’m not dealing with the perfect body, I'm dealing with another kind of truth, that is how the body really is and why don't we accept it, because that's our norm.

B- The past is never dead. It's not even the past.

My story ended up being much darker and sad than I was intending however this inspired my colour palate - red, white and black. I used this colour palate for all my outcomes and it represents the morbid meanings behind the book. The black to represent the darkness of the book, the red to represent the blood and pain throughout the book and white to represent the hope of change in the line " I’m not dealing with the perfect body, I'm dealing with another kind of truth, that is how the body really is".

These were some of my first thoughts after creating the story :

Artist inspiration - Chris Legaspi

I really like how he draws bodies that aren't complete which gives them a kind of messy vibe which I wanted to use in my art to represent that body are ruining and messing up their bodies whilst trying to achieve the perfect body. This link to the line "bloody butchery", I also like his use of lines on the body, this made me think of the line "She would draw lines on her body-like those drawn by a cosmetic surgeon prior to an operation"

References pictures

Final outcomes

I really like this one however I would've done the writing bigger or in a thicker pen as It is a little hard to read. I like how this one had no facial features as it brings more focus on the body and the meaning of the book is about people focusing so much on their bodies they are destroying it. It also represents that people are more focused on how peoples bodies look than their personality.

I really like this one as the girls look happy and unaware of the bloody finger prints around them and the knife hovering behind them. It shows they are unaware how they're destroying their bodies to fit in to the social standards. I like the font I used however it is a bit wonky which annoys me so I would fix that if I were to do it again.

This was my most direct outcome from the story. I was inspired by the line "She would draw lines on her body-like those drawn by a cosmetic surgeon prior to an operation and then try to diet until the outline of her body fell within these imaginary, ideal contours." I really like the red against the black, it makes it stand out. I really like the font however it got a bit squished at the end.

[thistle-and-thorn]

Hey hun,

I really enjoyed the second chapter of float. I hope it’s ok if I ask you some questions about how echo and float came about? You don’t have to answer them, or just answer some. How did you get the idea for the first story? Obviously it’s at least somewhat a show story, do you feel it’s an amalgamation? Can Sansa and Yara get to a place of parity do you think, or will there always be a power imbalance between them? What’s your writing process for echo and float been like? Thanks for reading my random questions.

♥️♥️♥️s (and I hope your foot? ankle? is better)

Omg you can always ask me questions about anything!! With writing, especially, it’s often an exercise that helps push my thinking about stories! I love love love talking about it; it’s an essential part of the process for me, so always feel free to share thoughts and ask questions and tell me if you think I’m wrong about things! Apologies if this gets absurdly long but I spend so much time thinking about these two fics lol this will be therapy.

float and echo came out of a prompt game that @attonitos-gloria and I were (are still?) doing for each other last year to make us write something different than the WIPs that we were working on. And her prompt to me was “sapphic Sansa.” I really believe that canonically Sansa is queer but I hadn’t really ever explored it in any of my fics and so it was a good opportunity to do so. And I have had a life-long fantasy about lesbian pirates. Like, it’s so embarrassing but true! I was an Elizabeth Swann obsessive, I have truly read every pirate AU in every fandom I’ve been in. It just does it for me, I don’t know why!!! And there was a lack of Sansa/Yara content that troubled me because...here is a show with a canonically lesbian pirate—my dream!—and I had next to NOTHING to play with.

The specific inspiration is a fic called Wendy Darling…which is a smut fic, also dubcon, also about lesbian pirates. And this fic has always fascinated me, since I first read it. Like, yes, it’s well-written and hot and it fits a very specific interest of mine lol, but there’s something else about it that is fascinating. In the story, Wendy returns to Captain Hook’s ship and endures a really intense, sexual introduction to what her role will be on the ship. And it’s kinky and fun. But then, it ends…tenderly? The last scene is her and Hook doing aftercare together…it’s very romantic. And it’s such an unexpected choice. As I thought about how to respond to the prompt, I kept thinking about this story and the dual languages in it. The lack of consent, the forced submission, and then, Wendy’s own pleasure and comfort in Hook. Because it’s told from Wendy’s perspective, it’s hard to parse out for the reader what is real and not real, how much she’s been influenced by her trauma to trust Hook by the end or how much she trusted Hook all along. She’s going to live on this ship with little privacy, in defiance of her own social norms. It’s a really challenging choice and, in the end, Hook doesn’t make her make that choice, Hook decides for her.

And I think dubcon in erotica often serves this purpose…a lover who just knows your darkest desires and will indulge them no matter what you say, sex pollen that allows you to free your sexuality publicly being kidnapped and falling in love with the type of person who no one would ever approve of are all cut from the same cloth. When I gave the first part to Attonitos to edit, one of the first comments she gave back was, “Having a woman pin you down and say “You’re going to like it” is a really brutally direct way of confronting your bisexuality lol.” And she’s right…I think that’s part of the root of the fantasy for me and a lot of people. An expression of sexuality through extenuating circumstances feels excusatory on some level; in a way that a fantasy about picking a girl up at a bar doesn’t. That’s too real, that’s something that, like, I have to do in reality. And my reality involves a choice and an acceptance of something that, for me, was harder to accept that I probably would like to admit.

I think erotica is an incredibly important and overlooked type of literature and can be used really effectively to explore characters! Sex is a character study. I think it’s hard to find a lot of erotica I really like though…because there’s a level of theatricality to it. You know it’s role play or that they’re playing a character. A lot of power exchange fiction also has an end or doesn’t acknowledge…like a person living in your house. And maybe they’re your sex slave but you also share a bathroom lol. At the same time, another common romance trope, arranged marriages don’t acknowledge that they are essentially dub/non con fantasies. And so the form of this story came from: what if we took a dynamic common to power exchange and made it real? What if “fear” and “desire to please” isn’t a simulated experience but real and essential? What if, when you zoom out, their arrangement and history was not different than a hundred thousand other couples in this world? I wanted to very intentionally imply that fear (of security, of keeping your partners attention, of physical safety) must exist in lots of these relationships. Sansa was married to Yara for political gain, not for love. The only thing that makes it dirty is…they can’t have biological children. And there’s a thinner tradition of sapphic love stories compared to het or mlm romances, I think, so…inevitably, for someone like Sansa, who defines her experiences through fictional precedent, the arranged marriage love story is her only template and it doesn’t fit neatly for them…and the narrative looseness feeds this cycle of anxiety for her.

As to the story itself, it takes place in an alternative show. Essentially, the best way to think of it is, instead of marrying Sansa to Ramsay, he married her to Yara. So, all the things she would have experienced, like reuniting with her siblings, having Petyr at Winterfell and executing him, or experiencing the Long Night hasn’t happened to her. Yara rescued Theon from Ramsay. There’s more there in the background that makes it more of an AU but that’s the gist.

Because of their beginning, I don’t know if they’ll ever have parity. I do think they view their relationship differently. For Yara, she sees it as an arranged marriage. She sees it as a love story à la those romance stories about people getting married under crazy circumstances and falling in love! I think, for her, she views Sansa as a partner. She has her controlling her accounts and running the household. It’s traditional and, by their world’s definition, a marriage. Sansa’s protection is her charge because she’s her wife. (There’s a lot of influence from me reading about Anne Lister in this. 19th century lesbian who essentially conceived her relationships in a really, really traditional way. She wanted a wife with all that meant in the 1800s.) Yara sees their bedroom games as being fun; she’s a domme, she enjoys it. But it is theatrical for her, in the way I was talking about erotica previously. For Sansa, she sees their power exchange as her life. She grows more secure in it and I think it’s clear that she loves Yara deeply, is devoted to her, completely but, for Sansa, it’s not a love story. And I think Yara recognizes that Sansa is working out some issues through their sex life; but she sees something like maintenance spanking as the scaffolding of a support system and Sansa doesn’t see anything, just the process of how to have emotions. I think for them to achieve parity…either their marriage would have to have come from a different context or Sansa would have to get on the same page as Yara. And…I don’t know if she…wants to? I really, really don’t know if she knows that for sure. There is a part of me that believes: Sansa is a sub by nature and this happened to work out for her 😂😂😂

It takes me a long time to write it. I tend to write in layers: a skeleton draft, then layer on top the decorations and the linking pieces. It’s similar here. Writing sex always is happening on three levels: the blocking, then the physical experience, and then the emotional experience. Because it’s a smut story, the choreography is important and scenes that in another story I might keep vague or cover with pretty metaphors have to be explicit. And choreography is hard for me! I write that first and then later in the physical experience and the emotional experience afterwards, which take less time over all.

Argh sorry to ramble!!! 🫣 But thank you so much for asking!!! This fic is a joy and so are you! 🥰🥰🥰

[thekatea]

The Eclipse

Watched: 22.02.2023

Simplistic symbolism and how being a teenager is actually hard.

A rare case when my brain sees all the flaws, but my heart says: I don’t care. The whole show has a great juvenile charm to it, and the sloppy storytelling and in your face symbolism just adds to it. Sure, I strongly believe that with a few different directing choices this could easily become one of the best BL shows up to date, but even as it is right now, it’s truly enjoyable.

Yes, the setup on the surface is painfully stupid. We are sold the story of this abusive authoritarian school and students fighting for their rights, but what is presented is 3 students not wanting to wear uniforms. Is it that simple? No. It was never about uniforms, it was about self expression and more accurately sexuality.

The uniforms and the rules were supposed to represent the norm in terms of sexuality. Following the rules in school meant following social norms. Suppressing your sexuality to fit with what was established and deemed as "normal". The whole show is a commentary on the conservative and outdated ideas and how they harm the youth. It’s a great subject with a idea on how to present it, but not as good of an execution.

The storytelling was not detailed enough. We are presented with a wall of rules that were established, yet we actually know about only two. What are the others? No idea. What consequences are the students facing if they break the rules? No idea. There is the curse, but that’s it. Where are the parents? The whole adult side of the show is ridiculously unbelievable.

On the other hand, it made perfect sense why the teens were being “overdramatic” - they are teens. Suppression of individuality at the time when it's most crucial to figure yourself out is not really a small thing. The Eclipse did a great job to make me sympathize with the issues these kids were facing and how big of an impact it has on them. From the point of view of an adult, my initial reaction was: why are they so dramatic? Just be patient for the next few months, graduate and move on. But that type of thinking is the issue - if they are told to follow the rules and not question anything now, how will they learn to fight for their rights later? Their actions as teens will shape their behavior, motivations, personalities later on. Nothing really changes as you grow up. First you are told to do what your teachers say, later you are told to listen to your professors. Then you need to follow your bosses instructions. That’s why it’s so important for the youth to ask questions, debate, reflect on the problems and issues and not just do what adults tell them.

For the characters, the leads were phenomenal - both in the writing and portrayal. Seeking validation and purpose. Sticking to the role one obsesses over, because it feels like it's the only thing that defines who we are. The fear of being seen as disappointment. The drama also touches on the subjects of depression and suicide. How we should not judge one’s struggles based on our own standards. How we should be patient with others, because we cannot know and truly understand what they are going through.

What I appreciated the most was the takes on coming out and accepting your sexuality. It’s not the “I don’t like guys, I only like you”. It’s not “everyone is either gay or loves gay”. None of the unrealistic scenarios here. It often takes time to figure yourself out, it takes time to accept what you find, it takes time to then admit it to others. In that aspect I could not like the relationship between Akk and Ayan more. Not to mention one of the best on screen chemistry I have seen in ages.

For the acting, I've been a fan of Khaotung for some time. Realistically speaking, he is one of the best that Thai BLs can offer. I rewatched some scenes simply because of his performance. Thank god First was cast as his co-star, also delivering a solid portrayal.

Production wise I don’t really have complaints. I think some of the setup and directing ideas were too big for the production team, which led to a few questionable and ridiculous takes, but damn the show was pretty.

Overall, I liked it a lot. Yes, the setup and the way they decided to present some serious issues was questionable, but I still believe it was better than the majority of BLs out there. The biggest problem was the transition from rules at school being the issues, to how they relate to the overall social norms and homophobia - it was too jarring. You get the idea behind it all, but you still feel like it’s a bit too disconnected from each other.

[hgghgfd]

Blissed Out: The Raptures Of Rock

(New Zealand)

by Simon Reynolds Sent by Nick White

This essay/interview was taken from the book "Blissed Out: The Raptures Of Rock" by Simon Reynolds (Serpent's Tail, 1990). The interview was conducted in 1988. It can be a bit too earnest and academic (in another chapter, on Sonic Youth, Reynolds applies the theories of Roland Barthes to the music of My Bloody Valentine- gulp!), and occasionally it covers familiar ground. Nevertheless, I think it's very illuminating, and furthermore, it proves that Nick Cave and his work can quite easily absorb and reward academic analysis.

Discipline and Punish

Nick Cave looks the part. Deep gashes of black under the eyes, skin the colour of ashes, a slight wobbliness to his movements. His speech is fastidious, precise in a way that would seem pompous if he were at all ebullient; but with his small, grave voice- sometimes withering, always withered- the impression is of a wary distrust of words and the way they can be misconstrued. But he's much more forthcoming than in an earlier, abortive encounter. Almost affable.

Pardon the ignorance, but what exactly is The Mercy Seat?

"It's the throne of God, in the Bible, where he sits and throws his lightning bolts and so forth. But it's also about this guy sitting on Death Row, waiting to be electrocuted or whatever. It's juxtaposing those two things. A person in his final days, thinking about good and evil and all the usual fare."

So the fallibility and the arogance of human justice is something that obsesses you?

"It's something that interests me a lot. My social conscience is fairly limited in a lot of ways; there's not much I'm angry about that doesn't affect me quite directly. But the prison system- not particularly capital punishment- but the penal system as it is, and the whole apparatus of judgement, people deciding on other people's fates...that does irritate, and upset me quite a lot."

Is that why you got involved in the film about prison life, Ghosts of the Civil Dead?

"It's a two-way thing: I had those feelings long before I wrote the drafts for the script, but the process of writing and research inflamed them. It should be clear to anybody that the basic idea behind the prison system is corrupt and unjust, but the more I worked on the film, the more I understood how extreme the injustice was. This particular film has quite a strong political statement to make, which is something I'm not really known for.

"I was involved in writing the first two drafts of the film, but by the sixth draft there weren't that many of my ideas left. I also had a small part: I play a kind of known provocateur, who is brought into the prison- one of the new hi-tech ones- in order to disrupt the equilibrium. He's a psychotic with some kind of death wish...spends his whole time screaming abuse.

"What angers me about the system goes beyond the unreliability of "proof"... it's that the way criminals are dealt with has nothing to do with rehabilitation and readjusting people who've stepped outside society's norms. The same goes for mental institutions and so forth. But it's also the very idea of someone being judged "criminal" or "insane" because they're unable to fit into what a basically corrupt society considers "social" or "sociable"".

So you take issue both with the very idea of the "the normal" and "normalisation", and with the fact that the authorities don't even bother to fulfill their professed project of "rehabilitation"?

"Yeah, something like that. I did a lot of homework when I started working on the script. The initial plan was to use the prison world to create a certain kind of ready-made atmosphere. But over the eight drafts, what emerged was a particular vision of the whole penal system as almost a plot by the higher powers to perpetuate the whole system of crime, keep it rolling, keep criminals on the streets..."

In order to terrify the population into accepting the existence of the police. All this reminds me of the ideas of Michel Foucault. He looked back to an era (pre-industrialism) before the things we consider "natural"- prisons, asylums, hospitals- had been devised, in order to trace the "genealogy" of pseudo-sciences like penology, criminology, psychiatry and sexology. What he discovered is that these "disciplines" were not really about uncovering truth for its own sake; the "knowledge" they generated was inseparable from and instrumental in "techniques of domination". Later, he shifted his focus from social hygiene (segregation /surveillance /normalization) to study mental hygiene: the ways in which each individual is involved in self-policing. We define ourselves as "normal" by repressing our own capacity for violence or the visionary- just as we suppress and marginalize those people in the body politic who've gone over limits.

Looking back, it's clear that Cave has always been obsessed with this latent other within each individual, that can be catalysed by an extreme predicament. See how he describes his novel And the Ass Saw the Angel:

"It's set in a small valley in a remote region somewhere in the world. A sugarcane-growing valley. It's the story of the people who live there. The fascination of these closed communities and hemmed-in lives, that recur in my work, is that they breed a certain ignorance, can be the breeding ground for very extreme, absurd emotional releases."

In Cave's work, most of the characters are in a sense prisoners- of an obsession, or a claustrophobic environment. But maybe this sounds glib when set against the specific and extreme misery of imprisonment.

"I've been writing songs about prison ever since I started writing songs. But I have a less romantic conception than when I started. The film is in two sections- the population section and the maximum security section. When the film-makers were in America, going from penitentiary to penitentiary, looking in libraries, interviewing people, they stumbled on this amazing story about Marin.

"Over six months, the inmates were subjected to these totally unfair changes of routine, from small things like not getting coffee one day, to next day having their cells raided and all their possessions confiscated. The whole balance between guards and inmates was totally disrupted. The convicts became more and more upset, the guards were afraid, but they kept getting orders from above telling them to maintain these random violations of the equilibrium.

"Until eventually it broke- and a prisoner stabbed two guards to death. This was leaked to the media, who began to clamour for stricter control. Marin was put onto immediate lockdown- which is where no one is allowed out of their cell and all privileges are removed. Twenty-one months later it was still in lockdown.

"The point is that two guards were sacrificed by the authorities in order to achieve this control situation. That's the kind of system you're dealing with.

"The Mercy Seat is about this person in solitary confinement, becoming more sensitive to inanimate objects, and as he sits thinking about human and Divine Justice, finding himself judging these things as Good or Evil."

Some say that The Mercy Seat is the best thing Cave has done for five years, since Mutiny in Heaven. I wouldn't go this far (that would be to devalue all the peaks in the interim)- but the single is stupendous. It's a gigantic, near illegible swirl-surge, a horizontal, disciplined avalanche. With its maddened strings, echo-chamber vocal and the odd filigree of lonesome country whistling, it is vaguely suggestive of the sixties pop-melodrama of Wichita Lineman or Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart. But a sense of the epic driven to such histrionic pitch that it verges on Velvet's white noise and viola hysteria.

"Dignity" is not a word that figures in my lexicon of praise (too redolent of the prattle of soulboys) but with Cave's work since Kicking Against the Pricks, it's unavoidable. A ruined dignity, the courage of someone staring into the abyss with "nothing left to lose".

Here it's the condemned man waiting to "go shuffling out of life/just to hide in death a while". Eventually, the song becomes a real-time simulation of a locked groove, an out of control roller-coaster of dread but also of resilience: "And the Mercy Seat is waiting/And I think my head is burning/And in a way I'm yearning/To be done with all this measuring of proof/An eye for an eye /And a tooth for a tooth/And anyway I told the truth/And I'm not afraid to die." Over and over and over, 'til you think your cranium is set to bust.

From Her To Eternity

Nick Cave surfaced at a time when post-punk's handle on the workings of desire was diagrammatic and programmatic. Punk had bequeathed the idea that demystification was the route to enlightenment. "Personal politics" was the buzzword: the acknowledgment of the "dark side" was always grounded in progressive humanism, the belief that what was twisted could be straightened out, that the shadows could be banished by the spotlight of analysis. The idea was that through deconditioning, unblocking, a ventilation of the soul ("airing your problems"), it was possible to achieve some kind of frank and freeflowing exchange.

Against this view of love as contract, Cave, in The Birthday Party, was almost alone in reinvoking love as malady, monologue, abject dependence, whose ultimate expression could only be violence: the recurrent theme of girl-murder, or at the opposite pole of the paroxysm of desire in Zoo Music Girl, "Oh! God! Please let me die beneath her fists!" Cave was the first writer, in a post-punk climate of positivism, to start using Biblical imagery (sin, retribution, curses, bad seed, revenge)...

"Perhaps I'm kind of emotionally retarded...but basically I've just written about things how I've felt about them, myself, emotionally. Things like revenge, which you talk about as almost an Old Testament feeling, I see as completely now. It's just one of those things this society has repressed, along with any other strong or extreme outburst of emotion. I think there's a certain numbness in the world today...that accepts certain kinds of violence, but is against other kinds of violence."

So you have a kind of ethics of violence? Certain kinds of violence- the crime of passion- have a kind of aesthetic integrity?

"That's one way of putting it...There's something more noble in revenge, than in...sadism, or violence through greed. Maybe there's something more aesthetically pleasing about it, I don't know...I just find those subjects the easiest to deal with: on the one hand, they're the most tangible feelings I have to pull out of myself; on the other, they make me want to make a stronger statement when I ultimately do that.

"I don't deny any feelings of happiness just because I don't write about them. For me, there's just something more powerful in Man's ultimate punishments- whether they're on a humanist level or a more mystical level- than in his ultimate rewards. The rewards of happiness and contentment and security, I see as mostly drawn out of a routine of things. And they have no aesthetic interest for me, or much lasting value.

"But then again, my favourite song in the world is Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong. If any song really chokes me up, it's that one. If there's a song that I would like to do, but would never attempt because I wouldn't know how to begin, that's the one. If I could produce the same effect on other people as Louis Armstrong does with that song, then I'd be really happy. But there's something so unintentionally tragic about that song. Although I'm sure that has a lot to do with the way I listen, Louis Armstrong being this all-time winner and happy guy."

Do you resent the arbitrary power that beautiful people have? Something shallow, unearned, but capable of putting you in thrall. Revenge would seem to originate in this feeling of powerlessness.

"You're asking me if I'm some sort of embittered, wounded animal, who only wants to reach out and break things because he can't be happy or possess them?"

No, more generally than that: the idea of beauty as terrorism. Of possession as the delusion we all run aground on. It seems like there's a negativity at the heart of romantic love, because love is nothing if not the always already doomed fantasy of possession. Doomed because of the flux (growth or decay) that is the loved one. You were talking about life's punishments just now, and maybe the fact that love is doomed from the off is one of them.

"There's lots of different angles you can look at things from. I accept all that. Although I don't think it's impossible that it can't be the other way, that two people can't grow toward each other. I don't particularly believe all love is doomed. But I guess, one is usually kinda suffering from some aborted love affair or association, rather than being a the peak of one. I think it's fairly obvious that a lot more suffering goes on in the name of love than the little happiness you can squeeze out of it. But I wouldn't like to dwell on it. Perhaps you could lighten up a bit."

Condescendingly, like an agony aunt or something, he adds: "There are plenty more fish in the sea."

The Singer

Since the death of The Birthday Party, Nick Cave has steadily made a transition from exhibitionist, incendiary live performer to something more stately and, yes, dignified. The fireball has become an ember. Kicking Against the Pricks, an album of cover versions, marked the key shift from poet visionary of sex-and-death to interpretive balladeer, from torched singer to a croon the colour of cinders, from Dionysiac excess to a ruined classicism.

And on Your Funeral... My Trial, Cave and the Bad Seeds were staging their own dilapidated equivalents to By the Time I get To Phoenix and Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart, in the gently obliterating, slowly gathering, morose grandeur of Sad Waters and Stranger Than Kindness. Cave has influenced other kindred spirits to leave behind self-immolation in favour of The Song.

When did he start getting into what he calls "entertainment music, although some might call it corn"?

"I've just found myself usually more affected by the cliches in pop, in art, in life, than I have by the..."

Wilful difference?

"Yeah. I find that wilfulness in itself is enough to make me turn away from something. When people are attempting to be different for the sake of it, I find it incredibly irritating."

Do you have different influences now than when you started?

"I think I've been through being influenced by people. I don't think that could happen to me now, in the way that it did in my formative years. My ideas are self-generating now, they spring from what I've done before. It's all very inward-looking, and a lot of the time I find myself- it may sound unforgiveable- ignorant of what's going on outside me and the influences that are going around. I don't think I'm fully formed or ever will be, but my basic creative journey is now self-perpetuating."

But musically at least, you've moved from Stooges-meets-Beefheart conflagration to something more classically structured: the songs are like the charred and gutted husks of magnificent pop architecture. And figures like Dylan and Leonard Cohen and Tim Rose have become important to you...

"But not as a matter of influence as such. I only look towards someone like Dylan because I see the things that have happened in his career and the conclusions he's come to and the way he's responded to outside forces, the audience, the press...and I recognize a similarity to how I feel in my career.

I have a vague inkling of why Dylan has progressed the way he has, which I don't have about other people. The particular songs of his which affect me have helped me to understand what I ultimately want to make of my music, and what I'm failing to make of my music. What I've found to be the most inspiring of his work have been the songs which are ultimately almost meaningless in their simplicity."

"Take Nashville Skyline. I found the fact that he made that record much more affecting than, say, Highway 61 Revisited. Nashville Skyline was one of the albums he put out after his motorcycle accident, from which the critics concluded that he must have somehow injured his brain...

All the complexities of his lyrics were ironed out...He made some very basic country records. It's these songs, or albums like Slow Train Coming, which affected me more than Blonde On Blonde. The simplicity of the statement, and the bravery...in a way, it requires more courage than making something more 'experimental'."

So you feel the same enlightenment that happened to Dylan has also befallen you? You no longer want to be marginal or difficult?

"I am still waiting for what happened to Dylan to happen to me. I'd be a lot happier if I could disentangle myself from what I've already done and create songs from a completely fresh perspective."

The Bad Seed

When did you first feel different or destined? At school? Later?

"I assumed everybody felt they were different from anybody else...it would be a pretty sad individual who didn't feel that they were unique."

But such an individual usually defines him or herself against a body of people who are meant to be homogeneous and standard-issue.

"I didn't have any great coming out. Perhaps my basic thoughts were externalized by reading Crime and Punishment by Dostoievsky, and realizing that I had a basic Napoleonic complex. That was quite a revelation in those years of juvenilia. That book is all about the idea that the world is divided into the ordinary and the extraordinary, and that the extraordinary shouldn't have to live by the dictates of the mediocre majority. As an adolescent, this made sense to me."

Do you think everybody has the potential to be extraordinary, if pushed over a limit?

"No, I don't, actually. I think everybody probably does feel they do. But I think they're probably deluded. I don't believe that we're all born equal, as lumps of dough that are later shaped by our peers and parents and so forth...I believe in innate inequality."

Did you have an unusual childhood? Was there something to colour your worldview with its tragic perspective?

"I'm sure there was...but I'm not about to start psychoanalysing myself..."

You see it as a bogus science?

"Yeah. Anyway, rather than attributing it to my childhood, I prefer to believe that I was born into the world with greater or lesser faculties than other people and that I can take full responsibility for them. I wouldn't put it down to the way I was manipulated as a child."

Doesn't that mean you have even less responsibility? Wouldn't that make you even angrier with the world?

"I think people get even angrier if they think about this precise thing that was done in their so-called formative years that made them the way they are. I just feel that I can take credit, or blame, for what I do or have done. That it came from within me, not from without.

"I'd rather see what makes me different as something almost congenital. And I have these inklings that what you commit or endure in this world, relates to some kind of justice or balance. Maybe if you get a bad deal in this world, it is because of something you did, or were, in a previous life. Which is why I don't feel sorry for the poor."

Cave's departure from progressive humanism, with its belief in individual and social transformation, is so extreme that his worldview verges on the Mediaeval: the language of curses, bad seed, the worm in the bud. The world is a vale of tears, a giant ball of dung. Even more than Morrisey and his bad memories, Cave's vision is the antithesis of the idea of pop as a remaking of yourself. For Cave, the sole possibility for heroism is in fatalism, a stoic dignity in the face of your plight, the blight that is your negative birthright.

[badheart]

he knew why & it had nothing to do with luck, but with their cultural belief. she didn't fit the beauty standard, nor did she conform to social norms, which was what made her so different & appealing in his eyes. some men couldn't handle it, as it would be a threat to them—the ones that were supposed to be bigger, stronger & with her kind of job while she remained a stay at home mother or did something like nursing instead. it was a surprise to him that she hadn't tried elsewhere, maybe in america where they'd be more accepting of what's considered different.

& despite all this, futaba remained a feminine woman—dressing up, applying subtle makeup that the colour of eyes pop up, spraying a perfume that he hadn't smelled on her yet... she still wanted to be perceived as one. the little hints that her outfit offered were enough to tell him that.

han didn't say anything until it was her who reached out, leaning against his shoulder as she cried. an arm was wrapped around her, offering the centre of her back a couple of light pats. "it's not your fault either. you are a wonderful woman that should not settle for anything less than what you deserve." which was so much more than what he could offer emotionally ; keeping a barrier between the two. "you will ruin your mascara if you cry."

She rubbed her face against his shoulder, almost like she wanted to completely escape in him, hide from the world. Her sobbing quiet down when he spoke of her make-up, which made her slowly pull back. Her regret in her confession only rose more, wishing she had never said it, now things will be only more awkward between them, but maybe he would no more call her anyway, so far he had not really needed her help anyway with any matters.

"Yes... of course," she mumbled, and still moved her hands across her eyes to finally get rid of the wetness. She did not care about her make-up too much, not right now at least, and he was possibly just trying to lighten the situation. She was not sure. She already felt ugly enough in this moment. Nothing a man would ever desire to see. "I'll be, ... I'll be going now," Futaba decided, before he would see her in an even worse state. Remaining near him had turned out to be like hugging a block of ice, anything else would have only raised her last hopes for something that could not be. She only felt upset in this moment and nothing seemed to be able to change that now, ... maybe her dog, as she already started to desire her home, her couch and blanket, with Apollo on top. She did not know how to say goodbye now, thus she bowed with one last apology, before turning around and walking away, with her pace slowly increasing.

[thebarefootcajun]

Leonard, the First Feline Cajun Vet of Cajun Land

Often he played under the house. It was up on piers to keep it cool. Shady, cool, dusty with some interesting indentions in the hard soil. It was a kid’s paradise. Cousins joined him there, too, in play. As a little boy of two ish he could pretty much stand and run under the house bumping into lower pure cedar beams and heavy metal plumbing. And all of that underbelly was pretty darn simple since there was not a whole lot of plumbing in the day. Only running water in the sink of the kitchen. There was no water in the bathroom that was a mere closet for using a lavabo, washbasin, or the pot de chambre, chamber pot. Outhouses were where bathroom needs were met; often men and boys just went outside.

The little boy’s name was Leonard. And that’s what people called him. His Mom didn’t like shortened names or nicknames; so it was Leonard. His best friends were his cousins, in rural areas back in the day those were your first best friends. Leonard really liked his girl cousins the most and they really liked him back. Leonard was so

happy to be one of the girls.

As Leonard began to grow up, hanging out with only the girls began to be less comfortable for others, not for Leonard. The boys called him sissy. At first Leonard ignored that word; it meant nothing to him. Leonard felt comfortable in his own skin. He was a happy kid and wasn’t out to prove anything. But he wondered why the boys and some of the girls wouldn’t just let him be.

See, Leonard wasn’t a jaded individual yet. He lived in a rural community with family who had always known him as he was and accepted him. It was when he met a larger less known community; individuals who didn’t know his innocence and that he was just being what he had to be, Leonard.

As he aged he began to merge into more difficult circumstances. Leonard wished to live again underneath the house where he felt safe and understood by his best friends, his cousins. Under pressure from their peers the cousins distanced themselves from Leonard; they had their own images to uphold.

Leonard and his peers had turned thirteen and they were now in junior high school where outliers, other than the norm, take brutal hits from raging hormones. Leonard began to be increasingly more unsettled. He just didn’t fit in anymore. Painfully, he withdrew from any social activities and became more of a recluse. His only refuge was at home home where he spent almost all of his time outdoors with a group of feral cats that lived on the farm. There were nine of these cats to be exact. Leonard gave them names. They became best friends.

Leonard fed, watered and doctored these cats. Attentive to their every needs, they were his best friends. These cats knew Leonard’s needs as he knew theirs. Each cat and Leonard had a need to belong, to live and be loved.

It was during junior high school at the Ecole Chaud, hot school, Prairie Junior High, that Leonard knew he wanted to be a feline veterinarian. He knew that he wanted to devote his life to felines who had accepted him just as he was, loving, sensitive, feminine with an air of creativity about him.

Leonard moved on upward to Ecole Chaud High School. There he excelled in the sciences, his favorite classes and also in the maths. Of course, biology was his love soaking in everything he could possibly learn. His peers still didn’t know what to make of Leonard, but his teachers embraced his academic prowess. Leonard was a sponge, an academic genius with a zest for learning. At home he used his knowledge to make life comfortable and healthy for his nine feral cats. They were only too happy for Leonard to practice bandaging legs, paws and to brush their teeth examining for inflamed gums. Leonard loved giving the feline pride baths and flea treatments using many organic prairie plants, not toxic to the health of his beloved cats. Leonard was establishing his own veterinary feline practice. And when people referred to him as l’homme de chats, the cat man, he beamed from ear to ear.

During Leonard’s senior year his focus rare, most of his peers wanting to make the most of those years at ball games, proms, class trips and graduation. Leonard continued to be studious, never letting up. He knew he had to be the best trying for scholarships to a veterinarian school with a focus on cats. Leonard had his sights set on one in North Louisiana, a region foreign to his beloved South Louisiana Cajun Prairie. A new program at one of the private universities was giving a full scholarship for a degree in veterinary science with a major in felines. This was Leonard’s dream!

After filling out applications, taking exams and with a GPA OF 4.0, Leonard was accepted with a full paid scholarship including room and board. He had garnered every biology award possible since his freshmen year at Ecole Chaud.

Leonard had never traveled away from his beloved Cajun land and from his pride of cats. With tears in his eyes, hugging each cat tightly calling them by name, he told them he’d be home again to live with them and care for them. They would join him in his new practice as the first feline veterinary on the Cajun Prairie. Leonard swore he saw tears in their eyes, too, as he shed big tears stirring up the dust.

And off Leonard went with a small suitcase in his hand, big dreams in his heart, clothes full of cat fur, and a love for cats that could not be measured.

Another Barefoot 🦶 Cajun petite histoire, short story

[wheeloffortune-design]

Alright, lemme explain you a thing about heteronormativity and gender norms but quick my sleeping pills are making me drowzy

You were in your mother’s belly, and there was infinite potential to what you could be. (I mean, despite race and religion and genetics and capitalism-- but we’re not talking about these righ now.)

First, you were infinite potential. 

And then, the doctor said what would shape your life forever.

‘It’s a boy!’ or ‘It’s a girl!’

And sometimes the doctor doesn’t even have the decency to wait for your birth. They just annouce it, that life sentence, like it’s a good thing. 

But what it is, actually, is the death of that infinite potential, and the start of getting fit in the box.

From that point on, the words said by the doctor will dictate your name, how you are raised to interact with the world, the hobbies they want you to have, the colors they want you to wear, the sports and arts and activities that you should partake in, the friends you should make, how you interact with said friends, how you should deal with emotion, what emotions are acceptable to have and to show, it will dictate how people interact with you, from the doctors to teachers to mechanics, it will give you the chance to succeed at school or simply make it more difficult, it will give you different diagnostics for the same ilnesses, different treatments. it will give you different money for the same work, different chances, different work environments. it will dictate how you should stand, sit, eat, what you should eat, wash, how you should wash. it will dictates the smells that you should like, the textures, the concepts. it will dictate the virtues and sins you’re supposed to have. 

There are two boxes. They will put you in one of them, and then your life is all traced in front of you. ‘Oh honey, I was thinking a light pink for the nursery!’

The thing is, people reading this already know gender is not as simple as those two boxes. We know there’s more than penises and vaginas, testes and ovaries, XX and XY, testosterone versus oestrogene. Science has proven again and again that there are exceptions to every simplified belief we hold over gender and sex. Every single of these elements that are part of us, are also all on a spectrum, an infinity of choices that can mix and match between themselves. There are as many combinations as there are humans. 

It’s just that a lot of people could pretty much fit in a loose definition of man, and a lot of others could fit as woman. Outliers don’t count. Except, only by existing, a single intersex person just throws apart their basic understanding gender. ‘Men have penises and women have vaginas ans nothing else exists!’ Oh yeah, and what about Steve over there? Steve has both. Steve doesn’t fit your world. Are you saying Steve doesn’t exist? Oh, how many more Stedes will you need to stop denying their existence?

Anyway, you’re readind this, we’re past Gender 101: People can be trans, you know, and even Gender 102: Hey did you notice all those rules were made by us?, and we’re getting straight into Gender 103: wow this is all bullshit I want out.

So, heteronormativity. 

In general, people take it to mean that the norm in a society would be that people are supposed to be heterosexual an form men/women pairs. 

But it’s more insidious than that. If the goal of heteronormativity is to ultimately form men/women pairs, the tools of heteronormativity is all that gender bullshit we’ve just enumerated. 

Because all the things that society pressures you to perforn are in fact to attain the ultimate goal-- pair with a person with the opposite gender.

Girls, you all know how we’re supposed to be soft and kind and submissive and ditzy, and desirable, and graceful, etc. They will teach us social skill and empathy at the youngest age so we can be ready to be the emotional crutch of whatever emotionally stunted dude who walks our way. 

Because boys, you don’t have it perfect either. You got toxic masculinity stunting your emotional growth and stopping you from forming healthy attachment with your friends. You’ve heard it often, how to be a man? A real man? People have so many opinions on what makes you a man, some are as dumb as saying that that specific soap makes you unmanly, because it doesn’t have the typical manly men smells that are Courage, Valor, or Gun.

So, anyway, gender norms that are imposed on us are all bullshit. Not only are they all MADE UP, they’re also STUPID AS FUCK.

But the system is there, it’s in place, it’s everywhere and fueled by capitalism because fuck, they make so much money out of convincing us of this bullshit. 

Alright, we’re on Gender 104: Why are the queers... you know... like that?

There is something very specific that happens in the life of pretty much every queer person, confronted to the machine that is heteronormativity. That’s the realization, often early in life, that they don’t fit what is expected of them. They like green instead of pink. They want to be a ballerina insteand of a soccer player. They want clothes they’re not allowed to wear, their hair to be at leanghts that are not acceptable. 

And before the straights jump at this with their me toos-- what a baby queer often realizes is that the ultimate goal of heteronormativity is not for them, thank you very much. Maybe they don’t like the idea of marrying a person of the ‘opposite gender’. Maybe they don’t want to feel romance at all. Maybe they’d like to have a girlfriend and a boyfriend. Or maybe they’d rather be the bride instead of the groom.

This disconnect from heteronormativity happens to people all over the lgbtquia+ spectrum. We don’t fit the boxes, so there must be something out of the boxes. 

People don’t like it when you leave the boxes. We all know how furious, how violent they can become when you don’t do the things you should be doing. Like men wearing lipstick. Women not desiring men. People asking them to be addressed by new names and pronouns. 

But, there is something wonderful to this rejection of the heteronormative mold. By leaving the boxes, we are free to explore further, with culture, music, fashion, sex, philosophy, relationships, families. Art inside of a rigid structure tends to decome dull and repetitive. How many portraits of pretty girls made by men have you seen in your life? But the same portrait of a pretty girl, seen by the eye of a woman, was taboo, and by existing, becomes a subversive act that redefines boundaries. Also think of fashion, one of the most gender regulated industries, and how incredibly creative it can get when you throw gender norms out of the window. 

Leaving the boxes behind and redefining yourself as a being of infinite potential is hard and constant work. But the good news is that, the more of us do it, the easier it’ll become.

[the-soliloquies-of-sadists]

#269

“C’mon in. Don’t be embarrassed. When we were talking in the bar, I told you that I’m looking for a service boy and servant, this is what I am talking about. I want to be comfortable throughout my day. I don’t plan on hiding anything due to some social norm, nor do I want to. You’re just going to have to deal with it. You can start to deal by kneeling in front of me, knees spread, with your head bowed….

“Last night you mentioned that when you were discharged from the Navy a couple of weeks ago, that you felt lost with no direction. Hell, you barely have a roof over your head. I took you home to see how well you take my cock. Well, not good. Not surprising considering how thick my cock is. You will need training—lot of it. Starting with, when I place you in a position, keep it. My cock in your ass needs to be at the right angle to give me the most pleasure. You will need to quit fidgeting. Just go with it.

“What impresses me about you is how you naturally fit into the servant role. Keep that mindset up. Clearly that comes from your time in the Navy. If you have been one of those pushy bottoms, —or what do they call them now, power bottoms,—it would not have ended well.

“Like I told you last night, I served 12 years as a captain. I can tell you that the time in service to the country never leaves you. You need to harness that continued willingness to submit to authority. Channel it. Let it serve you here. I will require nothing less. I’ve been looking for a boy that will carry out my orders without question, just like in the Navy.

“Last night you demonstrated that. Is that something you can live with on a permanent basis? You want to service me 24/7?...

“Good! Let’s start off by understanding that I am always in control of every aspect of my life: from my home to my consulting work, to my motorcycles, to my cigars, and to the boys I fuck.

“Inhale deeply. That’s from this cigar I was gifted by a client. It’s supposedly from a private collection of an exclusive maker. It tastes like shit. It’s a good thing we are in the toilet. The smoke has a better smell.

“You are inhaling deeply. That’s good. What do you know about cigars, other than it makes your wang hard when a real man smokes one sitting on the can in front of you?... Figured. You will be required to be educated in every aspect. I need a boy who will manage my collection. I want you to be to the point that you can recommend a smoke based on my mood and what I am doing, like what goes well with an afternoon scotch or what goes well on a bike run or even what cigar goes well with a blumpkin.

“Do you know what a blumpkin is? It’s when a man gets blown while he’s using the toilet. Yeah, move your mouth here. Reach in and pull my cock out. Get to work. I’m going to enjoy whatever I can out of this rather bland cigar.

“I expect a blumpkin every time I sit on the toilet. I want you to get to the point where you believe that my shit don’t stink. I’m not into shit, so don’t worry about that.

“Now, what you are wearing is all you will wear around here. Just a tightly fit T-shirt, cropped just above the pubic line. That’s referred to as ‘shirtcocking,’ that is wearing a shirt that does not hide your exposed pecker and ass. It gives me uncovered access to my toys when I want to. Yes, they do belong to me. I’m not going to put you in a chastity cage. There’s no way I am going to cover up such a beautiful cock, or that perfect ass. I have an at home gym in the basement, you will maintain your physique and ass. Every day, I want to see your ripped lean body filling out that shirt with a plump meaty fuckable ass exposed underneath it. I’m going to get you a script for Cialis, I want you to have a perpetual hard-on, or at least be semi-hard, throughout the day.

“Yes, you will be able to play with yourself, but no cumming without me allowing it. Pretty much the only time that that usually happens when my spent sloppy deflating cock is being cleaned off in your mouth. You still will need permission though, but that’s the best time to ask, pretty much the only time

“Speaking of cleaning, your job is to clean this place spotless. I will break out the white glove from time to time. You will cook. I want this house to run as smooth as if we were both back in the Navy. You will treat me like the officer I am. That includes saluting me. I expect a full sharp salute from you, none of this pansy-assed shit I see out there.

“Oh man, your mouth feels good. You are doing a better job on all fours in front of me than you did last night. Open your throat, I need to take a piss…. Also, I don’t usually announce when I do that. I mean why would a man walk up to a porcelain urinal and announce he’s going to piss in it?... You’ve drank piss before, haven’t you?... I knew it. You will need to fill me in on the details of that. Later.

“Fuck boy. You really are a natural at this. I would never have guessed it from last night. You were a bit drunk. Well you don’t have to worry about that. You will not drink alcohol from this point on, unless it’s in the form of my piss.

“While I am thinking of you in the bar last night, I saw you cruising the bathroom frequently. That’s going to stop. I am in control of you. I’ll decide later if it will be full monogamy from you, or partial with the caveat that I decide who and when. Get this, monogamy to me is not a two way street. I will certainly not be monogamous to you, bring boys home to fuck whenever I feel like. You will not only accept it, but you will welcome it.

“No fucking jealousy. In fact, I want you turned on to me satisfying my pleasure. Your hole should pucker every time you know I am balls deep in another boy’s ass. And after he leaves, I want you to beg to clean his juices off my cock, no matter how nasty.

“Speaking of nasty. You can stop with the blumpkin. You did well with that.

“Lay on your back. I’m ready for the clean-up. Every blumpkin ends with you eating my ass clean. I control the fiber in my diet enough so that I don’t require toilet paper, and wiping is merely a courtesy. So I should be clean. But if not, don’t mention it. Instead put that tongue to good use and clean me up.”

[thebibliosphere]

So I'm currently unemployed because I got fired for taking too much sick leave (it was legally sketchy blah blah blah but in the end I just can't work and take care of myself and investigate my mystery health problems at the same time). So I've been spending more time writing!

I really admire your writing and loved Hunger Pangs. I'm looking forward to the poly elements developing and I'm wondering if you have any advice for writing about poly. I've made one of my projects a snarky take on "write what you know" ... Apparently what I know is southern gothic meets Pacific northwest gothic, chronic illness pandemic surrealism, and falling back-asswards into threesomes.

I know this is a very open-ended question and I don't expect an answer, I'm just curious about it if you have the energy. As a writer, trying to write honestly / realistically about polyamory/enm, I'm curious if you have any thoughts on what's different about portraying monogamy or nonmonogamy in books, romance or erotica or otherwise.

I'm trying to read examples but it's hard to find examples that fit the niche I'm looking at. Excuse me if this question is nonsense, it's the cluster headaches.

I'm sorry to hear you've been dealing with all that and solidarity on the cluster headaches. But I'm glad you're finding an outlet through writing! And I hope you're happy with an open-ended ramble in response because oh boy, there's a lot I could talk about and I could probably do a better job of answering this sort of thing with more specific questions, but let's see where we end up.

There's definitely a big difference between writing polyamory/ENM (ethical non-monogamy) and what people often expect from monogamous love stories.

Just even from a purely sales and marketing standpoint, the moment you write anything polyamorous (or even just straight up LGBTQIA+ without the ENM) you're going to get considered closer to being erotica/obscene than hetero romances. It's an unfair bias, but it's one that exists in our society. But also the Amazon algorithm and their shitty, shitty human censors. Especially the ones that work the weekends. (Talking to you, Carlos 🖕.)

So not only do you start out hyper-aware that you're writing something that is highly stigmatized or fetishized (at least I'm hyper-aware) but that you are also writing for a niche market that is starving for positive content because the content that exists is either limited, not what they want, or is problematic in some fashion i.e. highly stigmatized or fetishy. And even then, the wants, desires, and expectations of the community you're writing for are complex and wildly varied and hard to fit into an easy formula.

When writing monogamous love stories, there is a set expectation that’s really hard to fuck up once you know it. X person meets Y. Attraction happens, followed by some sort of minor conflict/resolution. Other plot may happen. A greater catalyst involving personal growth for both parties (hopefully) happens. Follow the equation to its ultimate resolution and achieve Happily Ever After. 

But writing ENM is... a lot more difficult, if only because of the pure scope of possibilities. You could try to follow the same equation and shove three (or more) people into it, but it rarely works well. Usually because if you’re doing it right, you won’t have enough room in a single character arc to allow for enough growth, and if ENM requires anything in abundance, it’s room to grow.

And this post is huge so I’m going to put the rest under a cut :)

There's also a common refrain in certain online polyam/ENM circles that triads and throuples are overrepresented in media and they may be right to some extent. Personally, I believe the issue isn't that triads and throuples are overrepresented, but that there is such minuscule positive rep of ethical non-monogamy in general, that the few tiny instances we have of triads in media make it seem like it's "everywhere" when in actuality, it's still quite rare and the media we do have often veers into Unicorn Hunter fetish porn. Which is its own problematic thing. And just to be clear, I’m not including this part to dissuade you from writing "falling back-asswards into threesomes." If anything, I need more of it and would hook it directly into my brain if I could. I'm just throwing it out there into the void in the hope that someone will take the thought and run with it, lol.

I’d love to see more polyfidelitous rep in fiction, just as much as I’d like to see more relationship anarchy too. More diversity in fiction is always good.

Another thing that differs in writing ENM romance vs conventional monogamy is the feeling like you need to justify yourself. There's a lot of pressure to be as healthy and non-problematic as possible because you are being held to a higher standard of criticism. Both from people from without the ENM communities, and from the people within. Granted, some people don't give a shit and just want to read some fantastic porn (valid) but there are those who will cheerfully read Fifty Shades of Bullshit and call it "spicy" and "romantic," then turn around and call the most tooth-rottingly-sweet-fluff about a queer platonic polycule heresy. That's just the way the world works.

(Pro-tip for author life in general: never read your own reviews; that way madness lies. I glimpsed one the other day that tagged Hunger Pangs as “ethical cheating” and just about had an aneurism.)

And while that feeling of needing to justify yourself comes from a valid place of being excluded from the table of socially accepted norms, it can also be to the detriment of both the story and the subject matter at hand. I've seen some authors bend so far over backward to avoid being problematic in their portrayal of ENM, they end up being problematic for entirely different reasons. Usually because they give such a skewed, rose-tinted perspective of how things work, it ends up coming off as well... a bit culty and obnoxious tbh.

“Look how enlightened we are, freed from the trappings of monogamy and jealousy! We’re all so honest and perfect and happy!”

Yeah, uhu, sure Jan. Except here’s the thing, not all jealousy is bad. How you act on it can be, but jealousy itself is an important tool in the junk drawer that is the range of human emotion. It can clue us in to when we’re feeling sad or neglected, which in turn means we should figure out why we’re feeling those things. Sometimes it’s because brains are just like that and anxiety is a thing. Other times it’s because our needs are actually being neglected and we are in an unhealthy situation we need to remedy. You gotta put the work in to figure it out. Which is the same as any style of relationship, whether it’s mono, polyam or whatever flavor of ENM you subscribe to* And sometimes you just gotta be messy, because that’s how humans are. Being afraid to show that mess makes it a dishonest portrayal, and it also robs you of some great cannon fodder for character development.

Which brings me in a roundabout way to my current pet peeve in how certain writers take monogamous ideals and apply them to ENM, sometimes without even realizing it. The “Find the Right Person and Settle Down” trope.

Often, in this case, ENM or polyamory is treated as a phase. Something you mature out of with age or until you meet “The One(tm).” This is, of course, an attempt to follow the mono style formula expected in most romances. And while it might appeal to many readers, it’s uh, actually quite insulting. 

To give an example, I am currently seeing this a lot in the Witcher fandom. 

Fanon Netflix!Jaskier is everyone's favorite ethical slut until he meets Geralt then woops, wouldn’t you know, he just needed to find The One(tm). Suddenly, all his other sexual and romantic exploits or attractions mean nothing to him. Let's watch as he throws away a core aspect of his personality in favor of a man. 

Yeah... that sure showed those societal norms... 

If I were being generous, I’d say it’s a poor attempt at showing New Relationship Euphoria and how wrapped up people can become in new relationships. But honestly, it’s monogamous bias eking its way in to validate how special and unique the relationship is. Because sometimes people really can’t think of any other way to show how important and valid a relationship is without defining it in terms of exclusivity. Which is a fundamental misunderstanding of how ENM works for a lot of people and invalidates a lot of loving, serious and long-term relationships.

This is not to say that some polyam/poly-leaning people can't be happy in monogamous relationships! I am! (I consider myself ambiamorous. I'm happy with either monogamy or polyamory, it really just depends on the relationship(s) I’m in.) But I also don't regard my relationship with a mono partner as "settling down" or "growing up." It's just a choice I made to be with a person I love, and it's a valid one. Just like choosing to never close yourself off to multiple relationships is valid. And I wish more people realized that, or rather, I wish the people writing these things knew that :P

Anyway, I think I’ve rambled enough. I hope this collection of incoherent thoughts actually makes some sense and might be useful. 

----

*A good resource book that doesn't pull any punches in this regard is Polysecure by Jessica Fern. It's a wonderfully insightful read that explores the messier side of consensual non-monogamy, especially with how it can be affected by trauma or inter-relationship conflicts. But it also shows how to take better steps toward healthy, ethical non-monogamy (a far better job than More Than Two**) and conflict resolution, making it a valuable resource both for someone who is a part of this relationship style***, but also for writers on the outside looking in who might have a very simple or misguided idea of what conflict within polyam/ENM relationships might look like, vs traditional monogamous ones.

** The author of More Than Two has been accused of multiple accounts of abuse within the polyamorous community, with many of his coauthors having spoken out about the gaslighting and emotional and psychological damage they experienced while in a relationship with him. A lot of their stories are documented here: https://www.itrippedonthepolystair.com/ (warning: it is not light material and deals with issues of abuse, gaslighting, and a whole other plethora of Yikes.) While some people still find More Than Two helpful reading, there are now, thankfully, much, much better resources out there.

*** Some people consider polyam/ENM to be part of their identity or orientation, while others view it as a relationship style.It largely depends on the individual.