#and that oppression is a sliding scale based on how much you are oppressed but also how you are used to or on your own will oppress others

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Pro-variation vs. pro-selection culture

Evolution requires three things: some form of information that’s inheritable, some way to create variation from that information, and some way to select what information will be passed on to future generations. In biological evolution, of, course, we all know what these three things are: genes (information) can mutate (variation) -- well, it’s more complicated than just mutation, but this isn’t a biology lesson -- and those that are worse at surviving and reproducing themselves are of course naturally weeded out through cause and effect (selection). But other things -- art, culture, language, science, technology -- evolve as well, and they all need the same three things.

When it comes to variation and selection in things like culture and politics, there’s a sliding scale of which one people think is most important -- whether they’re more pro-variation, or pro-selection.

People on the pro-variation end of the spectrum tend to view diversity as a positive thing and selection as something that will take care of itself, or even something to be actively suspicious of because of its tendency to cause harm -- a rainbow queer community, an education system available to people of all cultures and economic backgrounds, country borders that are as open as practical, and embracing a diverse array of art make a community stronger, and things like gatekeeping, means testing and heirarchies on ‘what counts as art’ should be abandoned unless there’s a really good reason for the selective process to exist, in which case it’s grudgingly tolerated. To pro-variation people, exclusion and oppression within a community are threatening. Pro-variation people recognise that yes, you’re going to get some freeloading drains on resources and obvious money laundering schemes masquerading as terrible art and a few people pretending to be gay for a few years to look more interesting to their straight friends, and this is largely a non-issue, a perfectly acceptable price to pay for a diverse and fair world.

People on the pro-selection end of the scale tend to view selection as the main means of advancing or healing a society, and see diversity as something that will take care of itself and as something to be deeply suspicious of. Gatekeeping, unequal opportunities and financial heirarchies are needed to sort the what from the chaff and make sure everyone does their best (”capitalism breeds innovation”); initiatives to redress inequality and give minorities or poor people an ‘unfair’ advantage or make it easier for outsiders to enter the country should be abandoned unless there’s a really good reason for their existence, as they’re dragging down the ‘deserving’ and polluting the culture. To pro-selection people, contamination or invasion from outsiders is threatening. Pro-selection people recognise that yes, you’re going to lose some talented geniuses in sweatshops and stop some deserving people from achieving success and bully some LGBT people out of the community to face abuse and oppression alone, but this is largely a non-issue, a perfectly acceptable price to pay for an advanced and fair world.

“Oh, Derin, you’re just talking about left-wing vs. right-wing philosophies.” Sort of, but not really. It fits the stereotypes and common arguments to a T, but one can’t assume that all righties are pro-selection or all lefties are pro-variation. I have met pro-variation righties, although I’m not really sure how. And there are leftie TERFs out there, despite TERFism being an undeniably pro-selection philosophy. I find determining where people sit on the variation-to-selection scale to be a lot more useful for communication than left-to-right.

I say this because often I’ll see pro-selection and pro-variation people talking to each other, and notice that they’re having fundamentally different conversations. For example, let’s look at the issue of meritocracy. Most modern people would say that meritocracy is a good thing, but ’meritocracy’ means a fundamentally different thing to pro-selectionists than pro-variationists.

A pro-selectionist, when conceiving of meritocracy, tends to think in terms of, well, selection; devising a system where the strongest (those that excel in whatever the thinker thinks is important; innovation or determination or whatever) rise to the top and gain special privileges and power over others, that they can use to determine the rules and make life better for themselves and their children, elevating society as a side effect. To the pro-variationist, this is absolutely not a meritocracy. “You’ve built a system whereby those who don’t start out with more, those who are born poor or disabled or underprivileged in some way, have to work way harder and be lucky in order to get anywhere than those born lucky. People don’t get ahead on merit in this system because the playing field becomes drastically uneven after a couple of generations. This is not a meritocracy.”

A pro-variationist, on the other hand, would concentrate on making sure that everyone has a fair chance at exercising their skills and getting ahead. They’d focus on making sure that people had the space and security to exercise their skills and that, when it came to supporting the society to make that happen, those with more contributed more. To a pro-selectionist, this is absurd. “So those who have pulled ahead and succeeded are being penalised by having to give more? That’s the opposite of a meritocracy! That’s a system designed to drag the best down!”

I find this framework useful in explaining a lot of weird political quirks of certain subcultures. TERFs and tradwives, for example, are theoretically political opposites, but in practice their logic sounds almost identical to outsiders, sounding rather a lot like standard right-wing talking points and Fascism Lite. This is because they’re all using pro-selection arguments. To a pro-selectionist, the arguments of these groups look very different -- “we’re saying that X kind of people are good/virtuous/victims, and Y kind of people are bad/oppressors/sinners, which is the exact opposite of what the other group is saying!” To a pro-variationist, the fact that they are making literally the same argument makes them identical -- “you’re still putting people in your little ‘keep or cull’ boxes for exactly the same reasons, you just wrote different names on the boxes to keep or cull according to your personal taste.”

I think a lot of the things associated with right-wingers could be more accurately associated with people on the pro-selection end of the spectrum in general. It’s known, for example, that right-wingers tend to have a more sensitive disgust reflex and, as a consequence, be generally more xenophobic. You can see this in the way xenophobes talk of making room for outsiders; they talk of invasion, contamination, infection, hygeine, purity. LGBT exclusionists, lefties and righties, talk in the same sort of language. So do antis.

It’s also notable in the sorts of innocuous-seeming things that such people get really angry about. Right-wingers and authoritarians are known for their trend of an almost comical hatred of modern art. The idea that anything can be art, or that art can be measured on any level that isn’t strict complexity and realism of paint and sculpture, causes a surprising level of dislike in such groups. (See also arguments like ‘what is a video game’, ‘does this even count as a game’, althoughpeople thankfully seem to be bored of that now). Exclusionists are equally renowned for campaigns against inclusive terms like ‘queer’, and TERFs get obsessively nitpicky about people’s genitals to a really creepy degree and get very uncomfortable when you mention the ‘grey area’ in biological sex. This is normally assumed to be just dislike at people challenging their arguments, but I think it’s deeper. I think it’s like the modern art thing. Any kind of radical inclusivity is threatening to pro-selection thinkers, not because it’s a challenge to their rules and definitions -- they can have those arguments perfectly comfortably -- but because it is an attack on the very concept of meaning. “Words mean things! Groups exist! You can’t just... just get rid of groups and open up categories to include more people without putting them through a serious, rigorous proving ground first! You can’t just call anything you want to ‘art’, you can’t just call anyone outside cisheteronormative expectations part of the LGBT community, you can’t just call people men or women based on how they feel! That’s chaos! How can any progress be made if we just decide words don’t mean anything??”

(I also think this is a much-overlooked aspect of the same-sex marriage debate. Yes, most of that was garden-variety homophobia, but I’ve known a lot of people who were perfectly fine with ‘the gays having equal rights’, they just didn’t want it called marriage. To a pro-variationist, having the same legal language for partnerships regardless of the sex or gender of the participants is really important -- it’s a shield against future discrimination as the laws relating to either marriages or civil partnerships change over time. To a pro-selectionist, changing the definition of words related to fundamental cultural activities is a huge deal. “They’re eroding the very meaning of marriage! Chaos! How much more will the word change? Can people marry animals or cars next?!”)

As I said, this is a spectrum. I’ve met very few people who are on either extreme end -- even the most pro-equality liberal anarchist acknowledges that some standards of behaviour, community responses to inappropriate action and definitions of different communities do have to exist, to protect people, and the most hardocre fascist admits that there needs to be some measure of generating diversity to avoid stagnation and extinction. And people’s default reaction isn’t necessarily their position on all issues -- somebody who’s generally pro-variation might feel specifically threatened by immigration and think a strict proving ground for immigrants is necessary, or someone who is generally pro-selectionist might think that a robust social system is necessary because one’s economic status at birth has no bearing on one’s merit or value. But I’ve always found it to be a very useful general model.

[c-is-for-circinate]

Thinking today about viruses, allergies, oppression, and anti culture.

(under a cut because WHOOOPS this got long)

Racism is a virus. Homophobia, transphobia, sexism, antisemitism, ableism, etc etc etc, they are all viruses--a topic that many of us have learned a great deal about in the past year. They are ideas, yes, not literal physical diseases, but the analogy holds up. They are infectious, and often spread from person to person without anyone involved realizing they have it. They can sit latent for years, never showing up because the carrier never finds themselves in a situation where the issue comes up, only to flare up and take over when you least expect it. And they mutate, just like the flu, just like the common cold; they put on a new jacket every year and slide in undetected yet again, slip past our internal sensors and bury themselves in our brains until we go in and deal with them as best as we can.

One more thing we've learned about viruses this year is how we can fight them. The viruses of oppression are a little different because they tend to hurt the people around their carriers even more than the people they've infected (although let's talk about internalized anything-ism sometime), but in a lot of ways the attack is the same. You treat the symptoms even when you don't know how to cure the disease: we invest in respirators, antiviral treatments, hospitals; we create and sponsor programs to help those who've been hurt by various oppressions, we uplift our neighbors, we try to keep people safe from violences both big and small. You work to stop the spread: we wear our goddamn masks, we stay home when we can; we train ourselves not to say racist shit that might foster a culture of hate, we stop that guy in our office from making rape jokes, we make slurs unacceptable. You pay attention to your immune system: we seek medical attention when we experience symptoms, we get COVID tests, we talk to our doctors before the symptoms get deadly; we protest and we pay attention to the people who do, we take them seriously when they tell us that something is wrong.

You vaccinate. We train ourselves and our immune systems to recognize the thing that infects us, the thing that we fear. We try to teach our children about history, bit by little bit, on fragments of dead violence the same way we train our bodies on dead virus shells, so that someday they'll recognize the live disease when they see it. We learn about slavery and Jim Crow and the Holocaust. We tell kids bedtime stories about why hitting and bullying is bad, before we ever start teaching them the specific shapes that violence so often takes. As we get older, as we get stronger, we learn about the living stuff, all the new forms that same old virus has mutated into; we educate ourselves, we listen, we read. Just like vaccines, of course, there are anti-vaxxers and denialists shouting about how racism and sexism are already dead and they don't need any propoganda besides Fox News. Hell, just like anti-maskers, there are plenty of people screaming about how political correctness is ruining the world and they demand their right to spread their virus to anyone they can. Often these are the same people.

But we try. And make no mistake, we all of us are already infected, and just like a real virus, once you've caught it once it probably won't ever go away again--but we can prepare, and we can try to lessen the severity of our cases, and we can support our immune systems of activists and protesters and our own internal sense of this is wrong, and we can work, bit by bit, if not towards eradication (not yet, not in this world, but maybe someday in another), then at least towards control.

And then there's allergies.

An allergy is what happens when a human body's own immune system freaks out over an enemy that wasn't particularly harmful in the first place. All our immune defenses--those precious immune defenses, which work so hard to protect us against all those viral, deadly ideas--go screaming into high gear. All of that fear and fury and attack power gets brought to bear all at once, against a bit of pollen or bee venom or cat dander or peanuts, and your body is left itchy and runny-nosed and gasping--sometimes literally--as it tries to keep up. Allergies are miserable. Sometimes they're life-threatening. And the biggest danger isn't the foreign agent that triggers the allergic reaction; it's the immune system trying to fight it in the first place.

Which, yes, brings us to anti culture--but not JUST anti culture. It's a good example, a little internet-centric microcosm of the same force that drives progressives to tear bloody shreds out of moderate liberal politicians. Hell, it's the same force that enables both TERFs and the Capitol rioters. It's a combination of an immune system that points in the wrong direction, flagging the wrong thing as bad, terrifying, danger, NO, and a freaked-out response that can manifest as anything from mildly irritating to absolutely deadly.

To be clear, I am not by any means equating the scale or even the source of these things, any more than hayfever is the same as anaphylactic shock. Likewise, the sources are different. Sometimes, a disease can infect an immune system and point it in the wrong direction. (Terror of the other is the absolute cornerstone of white nationalism, and when that terror gets triggered by a harmless environmental condition like, god forbid, other people asking for rights, the allergy response can be deadly.) Other times, it's the other way around. Our internal immune systems, so well trained to protect ourselves and those around us from the insidious viral ravages of prejudice and oppression, start seeing traces of it everywhere.

And they freak out. And we suffer for it.

We talk a lot of well-deserved shit about TERFs, but it's useful to remember how much their nastiness feels to them like activism. Their immune system, trained and primed and sensitized over years of exposure to misogyny and sexism, catches the tiniest whiff of something that might seem at some point to have possibly been taken for male, and freaks out, because why is that trying to get into our system. Never mind that they're wrong. An immune system that flips out over penicillin is wrong, too. It's still trying to help, and it's still doing more harm than good trying it.

So bringing this back around to anti culture, which was absolutely where I started thinking about all of this this morning: anti culture, the terror of porn and the attempt by antis to protect themselves an other people from sexual content, is an immune response. It is a trained immune response, in people who have been taught and re-taught again and again that rape culture is a dangerous insidious virus that should be fought at all costs. And, right, there's more than a bit of 'the sexism virus infected this immune system and reprogrammed it to fight itself' involved here, but look, we are all of us infected with all of the viruses at least a little bit everywhere. If we tried to direct our immune systems to rip every last shred of -ism out of every last bit of us, we'd rip ourselves apart. Which is exactly the problem.

Porn, in and of itself, is natural. As natural as environmental pollen, and living near dogs and cats, and eating wheat or nuts or citrus fruit. It's even healthy, for a whole host of reasons that belong in another essay. And citric acid and nut-based proteins and whole grains are nutritious, and pets are physically and psychologically helpful, and being exposed to lots of different environmental substances as a child can actually help train your immune system in the first place. Porn can help us figure out what we like. It can help us figure out what we don't like. And while the processes that create it are sometimes unethical and awful, we don't condemn all dogs because puppy mills and dogfighting rings exist, even if we do have dog allergies.

What we see in anti culture is often a good-faith attempt on the part of antis to attack and subdue an environmental trigger that they read as dangerous. It's a panic attack over something that is by nature harmless or mildly harmful, blown out of proportion by the very instincts that are supposed to keep us safe. It's the response of an immune system that's been taught over years and years, by everyone from parents to school systems to the activists they look up to, that negative stimulus is to be feared, avoided, and fought. Of COURSE they're going to freak out.

And of course, early exposure to controlled amounts of allergens can help prevent later allergies from developing. Of course when kids are raised with abstinence-only education, sheltered from the very concept of sex, they're going to grow up allergic to it. (Of course they're going to try to protect other kids from the same, like worried mothers who refuse to let peanuts or wheat products or dirt near their precious babies, whose kids grow up with a whole suite of allergic triggers because their bodies never learned what was okay in the first place.) And no, that doesn't mean we hand pornography to ten-year-olds any more than we should give raw honey to an infant--but of course if our culture refuses to introduce kids to the fact that sex and desire and the inside of their own brain can be messy and silly and kinky and downright weird, we're going to have a higher rate of allergic reaction to the entire concept in adults.

I wish I had a better answer for what to do with understanding that this is what's going through so many people's brains. The best I have is a prescription for allergy-sufferers, who probably haven't read this far through this wordspew of an essay in the first place--but we all get a little hayfever once in a while, and we all sometimes run into content that makes us angry. So some thoughts on how to deal with metaphorical allergic reactions, inspired by the ways we deal with literal ones?

First: we recognize that what is happening is an allergy. The thing we're reacting to might be gross, or irritating, or even unpleasant, but the danger is not and never has been the thing itself. Whether it's triggering a response because of its similarity to an actively dangerous pathogen, or our immune system just doesn't like it, our aversion to one kind of story or another universally says more about us than about it. Luckily, we have a lot more control over our social responses than our biological ones!!! If vocal activism is our sociocultural immune system firing itself up to fight an infection that may or may not exist, then we get to tell our metaphorical white blood cells to stand down. We get to decide.

Second: we get some space. The funny thing about allergies is, while early exposure to allergens can help prevent them, re-exposing yourself to dangerous allergens after you've already developed a reaction to them can make them worse. Anaphylaxis is always more likely after someone's experienced it the first time. Repeated exposure to triggers, whether biological or psychological, can make the effects worse. So stop exposing yourself.

If something makes your throat itch every time you eat it, stop eating it. If something makes you mad every time you read it, stop reading it. Obviously this can be easier said than done in a world that's a lot worse about warning labels on stories than ingredients labels on foods, but that's why fic tags exist. And: sometimes, the croissant is delicious enough that we decide we're willing to suffer through the way the almonds make us feel, just this once. Sometimes the ship or the characterization or, hell, those other kinks that we really like are tasty enough that we'll put up with the trope we hate. We're allowed to do that. But we do it knowing there will be consequences, and we don't blame the baker when they hit.

We also don't have to blame ourselves. It sucks to be allergic to shellfish when all your friends are raving about the new seafood place. But that's not our fault any more than it's theirs.

Third: sometimes, if we need one, we go to the doctor. Or a therapist. Yes, really.

Not because there's anything really wrong with an aversion or even mild breakouts of hives, annoyance, and bitching in your friends' DMs--but it sure isn't pleasant, and sometimes your doctor might have a better solution than 'avoid it and take a Benadryl' that makes you feel a little better in the long run. And sometimes, it's not a mild breakout. Sometimes it's the kind of story that lingers with you for days, makes your skin crawl; sometimes your throat swells up and it gets hard to breathe. Sometimes we get angry enough about something we've read that we can't stand down our immune system, don't want to stop ourselves from writing that angry comment, that tumblr post, that abuse report to the mods for something that didn't actually break any rules. And that's dangerous, because when our immune response can flare out of control like that, we don't always know where and when it will happen next, and the risk of what we'll do if it happens gets way, way higher.

Sometimes it really is worth getting a second opinion. Sometimes you need somebody to tell you, "actually, it is not normal to get tingly and sweaty every time you eat potatoes." There are ways to train your brain and leash your white blood cells that I sure as heck am not expert enough to address. There are, it turns out, ways to feel better. There are ways to mitigate the damage your own well-meaning defense mechanisms might do to yourself or other people along the way.

And: we can take a deep breath when someone with an allergy to something we've baked, something we've written, something we like, is lashing out trying to protect themselves and everyone around them from something they've registered as a threat. Of course they're wrong. Yes, we told them there were tree nuts in the brownies ahead of time; yes, they chose to eat them anyway. But it can be worth reminding them and ourselves that there's a difference between "this thing is toxic" and "this harmless thing has driven my own system into a defensive response that sure makes it feel like I've been poisoned." And it can be worth reminding ourselves as well as them that sometimes, that difference can be really hard to spot.

[zet-sway]

Spiritual Shrios Summer Prompt Fill - “Pray”

My second fill for @rosenkow's Spiritual Shrios Summer! At this point I can't look at it anymore or my eyes are going to fall out. I really wanted to get this right.

Rating: General Audiences - Safe for Work AO3 Link: "Your Gods are My Gods" - (Chapter 1) Note: Chapter 2 is identical, but with Male Shepard instead Pairing: Female Shepard / Thane Summary: Thane helps Shepard gear up in the minutes before the Omega 4 Relay, and offers a prayer for her protection.

If you would prefer Male Shepard / Thane, click here!

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Thane smiles at her, gracelessly pushing one leg into the underlayer of her hardsuit. It's strange to see her like this, hanging somewhere in the middle of a of transition between Shepard the woman, and Shepard the soldier. He crosses the room to help, offering an arm to lean on and holding the sleeves out for her to thread her arms into.

"Is it standard practice for Alliance soldiers to help their commanding officer dress before battle?" He asks with a smile.

Her answering laugh is a ray of light in the darkness before the storm. "Absolutely not." The zipper of her suit is still undone but she steps close and meets his eyes, arms threading around his waist. "But we aren't Alliance soldiers." A quick kiss on his cheek. "Lucky us. Fraternizing with a superior officer is grounds for dishonorable discharge."

He could melt into her embrace. Somewhere in the long hours between stars, they found each other. Their meeting had been professional, and he was unsurprised to find her coming to ask him questions about his illness and the mission. But somehow, little by little, he met the Commander, then the soldier, and then... her. The woman, the human, the person - Shepard - surprising him at every turn.

She listens with her full attention, interjecting her own thoughts and validations as he damn near gushes about his dogma, his gods... his wife and son, his hurts and regrets. At times when the night cycle drags on, she retires to her cabin only to ping him on his comm. By the time they're ready for the mission they've been training for, it feels like he has known her for a lifetime. He still doesn't understand why it's her that brings out the conversationalist in him. Maybe no one else had wanted to listen. Maybe he'd never given anyone else a chance.

"If faith is your pillar of strength... then your gods are my gods."

Those words echo in his mind, warming him to his bones. She isn't exceptionally spiritual, but she listens and receives him without question or judgement. The kindness in her makes his heart swell, standing together, assassin and commander, in the cool quiet of Shepard's cabin.

"Shepard, if you will permit me," he says hesitantly, "I'd like to offer you a prayer."

"A prayer?" That smile again - corners of her mouth tugging upward, lifting his spirits despite the oppressing anticipation of battle. "I'd be honored."

Shepard touches her forehead to his and he takes the zipper of her undersuit, slowly dragging it upward, watching it close over her skin. In his mind, the fabric is the armor of her spirit and he is welding it closed. Eyes sliding shut, he makes his hushed call to the goddess of protection.

"Mother Arashu, I ask protection for your daughter,"

The zipper slides closed in the hollow of her throat and he kneels before her, sliding her feet one at a time into her boots, sealing her greaves around her calves. The material is scuffed from use but sturdy and lightweight. He feels the muscle tensing beneath each piece, compressing, relaxing, gently forming into the confines of each specialty fabricated stim plate and shock absorber. Her armor is as much for her enhancement as it is for her protection, and later he will watch her legs propel her across the battlefield with inhuman speed, dodging enemy fire, weaving in and combat as she was born to do.

"Repel the evils that would harm her,"

Scaled hands run over her knees and thighs. She pulls her cuisses from her locker and holds each one steady for him to clamp reverently around her thighs. Straps thread around her legs, he takes care not to make them too tight. A full body hardsuit is impractical - she needs unrestricted movement to meet the demands of combat, but he hates himself for knowing how vulnerable she is with merely flexible kinetic weaves to protect her femoral arteries. He presses a kiss below her navel as he rises from his knees, palms gliding up her sides, pausing again to kiss above her heart.

"Be her shield and sword of flame,"

She holds her hair up as he fits her gorget around her neck. It supports the heaviest and most reinforced part of her armor - segmented carbon and titanium plates that hug the curve of her back all the way down to the base where it connects to her cuisses. She checks to make sure it's properly fitted and connected. It has to be - one stray shot is all it would take to sever her spine. She sighs and stretches upwards as it clicks into place, plates moving fluidly against her back.

"None shall come to hurt or maim,"

Thane's thumb passes over the embossed N7 symbol over the right breast of her curiass before he lowers the unit over her head. Custom fabricated seals meet at her sides, hissing closed and tightening around her ribcage like a glove. Reinforced joints over her breastbone and collar allow it to expand and contract with each of her steady breaths and flat plates against her abdomen stiffen her posture. Shepard guides his hand to the seal just below the collar of her chestplate and when he presses it, the onboard electronics sputter to life, lights flickering on and fans humming in the dim silence of her cabin. She almost seems taller now, calmer; the soft creature he'd lain with just an hour ago safely encased in the familiar armaments that have carried her through battle after battle.

He can't help but embrace her, forehead meeting hers with eyes closed. Her measured breathing steels his nerves and deepens his understanding of her as a solider - why so many, himself included, have unwaveringly sworn wage war against impossible odds with her at their side. Tonight, he may die for her cause, but it would be his privilege to die by her side - his warrior angel. His Siha.

"Let her be an impenetrable wall,"

She kisses his cheek as his arms enfold her, attaching her belt. It clamps around her waist, arcing over her hips. Pivoting hinges hang over her hipbones, catching easily on her cuisses to form one complete unit - a clean design that conserves her mobility while protecting her soft waist... where his hands had clung not long ago, when they were as one. He clicks the assembly together just below her navel, and his prayer continues.

"She will be a shield for all,"

There's nearly a tangle of straps that meet over her shoulders. Jointed pauldrons click into place where they intersect with her chestplate supports. With her curiass attached, these are automated, designed to be quickly donned without assistance, software tightening each strap to preset customizations. Around her biceps, forearms, and hands, each vambrace is a fully contained set of panels and joints. He kisses each gloved palm as he draws the seals closed one at a time. She is nearly complete.

"Great Arashu, lend your power,"

Their lips meet one final time in a chase kiss. Thane gently tucks her hair behind an ear, drawing her visor around her forehead in an upward, unpowered position. He etches her eyes into his memory before they nearly disappear behind her combat HUD.

"Keep her safe in this final hour."

She is in his arms for a few precious seconds and they breathe together as one. Her voice is a mere whisper: "Thank you." It's not goodbye, but... "May Arashu protect you this night and every night."

It's time to go.

Their hands lock together as the elevator descends to the CIC.

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Thanks for reading! If you like creating shrios content, please consider participating in the summer challenge!

My previous fill: "Secrets in the Steam" (AO3) - Note the rating before proceeding.

[popculturebuffet]

Star Vs Tom Luictor Retrospective Detour: Skooled!

                                         Dedicated to Jessica Walter                                                     1941- 2021

Welcome back all you still mourning people to Prince of Wishful Thinking, my Tom Lucitor Retrospective... or at least a detour from it as I need to cover the Meteora arc to cover Divide/Conquer properly. When we last left off with Star she and Tom were going closer, but both are taking a break this time. We’ll get back to them in April... oh will we get back to them in april.  For now we’re back to Meteora who I forgot was ABSENT for a while. not forever, but while her parantege, the cover up related to her and all of that has been vitally important, Meteora herself vanished after Monster Party and hasn’t been seen till now. But i’ts a good storytelling engine.. it ratchets up tension for her inevitable return, and gives us time to find out what happened with her and let that sink in.. granted i’td also be the last time it sunk in but I can dunk on the series decline later... I still have season 4 episodes to cover after all. So join me under the cut as we get the welcomed Return of Henious, an unexpected hero.. and Ponyhead because this series clearly hasn’t hurt me enough. And as usual for my Star Vs Reviews, i’d like to thank one of my Best Friends @jess-the-vampire for her insight on this episode. It’s always welcome and she always manages to find something I didn’t think of . 

So we open at Saint O’s with Ponyhead returning to the school, having previously run it post rebellion before leaving because.. I don’t know. She probably got tired of being a leader, and out of universe they needed her to be around star more. Look the series has far more important things it never explained and never will, not explaining why a recklessly irresponsible asshole left a position of authority and responsibility I can let slide. 

She’s come for brunch but things have changed... the school is still a warm, free environment for princesses to better themselves and party hardy, no longer an oppressive brainwashing gulag run by someone who as it turned out was horribly brainwashed herself.. it’s just now it actually has rules and structure. 

It now also has an actual leader, Princess Patty Arms who showed up in the school’s previous appearance this season here and.. that’s it. I think she showed up in the background of the original st o’s episode. And it’s a shame because she’s a really fascinating character. No really she’s calm, dosen’t take Pony’s shit, and while a brunch exam SEEMS like a waste of time... it really isn’t. A good meal can loosen up a dignitary and some rulers have sticks up their keisters about things like this, so being able to do it just right can win them over. It’s still a touch ridiculous but given the world of star is a touch ridiculous to start with, it works. 

Pony naturally leaves in a rage over this especially when no one backs her up.. but soon the School has bigger issues and we get to why we’re actually here: Meteora is back. And while she has changed, now having grown larger and stronger, easily scaling the wall, she still wants payback and we get a damn fine battle sequence as the princesses all unite against their former tormentor. It’s also sad in hindsight.. because as Jess pointed out to me almost NONE of these characters show up again. And I only added the almost because Penelope is in there. They all seem interesting, the setting of ST O’s itself is interesting, and the idea of a school for princesses of various types is a cool idea. I’ts something the show could’ve come back to to see how they bounce back from this attack.. but like most cool background elements in the show they forget about it. It was intresting to see the schools slow evolution from horrible nightmare to princess ran utopia and like many things coming up it feels like a lost opportunity. 

That being said the fight is awesome, with Meteora proving to be a juggernaut in strength and outplanning her enimies, having brought an overide switch for the robots (Patty reprogrammed them to work for the school) and having them throw their hearts/ power sources as bombs. It’s a damn fine sequence as she finds way after way to keep going, with a now restored rasticore helping them simply portal in.

Pony meanwhile.. is hiding , as Patty find sout when she finds her, and Pony assumes this is about her... though for once i’ts not JUST ego.. but because she was one of the two who started the uprising at the school in the first place and THE person who tossed her out. We also get a nice character moment as while Pony tells patti she still hates her.. she puts the princess behind her when Meteora approaches. She may be a selfish twit whose massively unlikeable.. but she has a good heart.. and not just the one she keeps in a jar she got from one of her boyfriends. 

But Meteora has more important buisness and finds her way to the depths of St. O’s.. where we meet the Schools namesake and her adopted mother a robot played by tress macneile.. another thing the series never bothered to care about as where did these robots come from and why? 

Turns out Meteora came to find out her own personal history, with the remote from before used to find the real dirt.. and what we find .. is heartbreaking as we slowly journey back through Meteora’s childhoods as Henious.. and it’s fucking heart breaking with Tress voicing her younger versions, hence why I didn’t use this as the jessica tribute as while walter’s good in the episode, she isn’t given much. 

We see her as a teen, forced to hide her tail and insulted over it by her mother.. and it only gets worse as when her cheeks glow as a kid St. O tries to wash them off and we get the poor child desperately begging that “she can be better”

We do finally get the answers Meteora saught as we see Shastacan dropping off the baby meteora, calling her “Henious”.. which St. O took as her name. Proving the spiderbites minus penelope’s dickishness is indeed genetic and why I have no sympathy for the prick getting eaten later... and hopefully globgor will do an encor with penepople’s parents. Here’s hoping. 

So Meteora now knows she’s the rightful queen, and decides to go take it back.. though Pony does try to stand up for her friends... and while we don’t see it hte next episode confirms she got her horn ripped the fuck off. And this horribly traumatic injury.. is magically fixed via 3d printing next time we see her after an episode grappling iwth it instead of having pony deal with not having a horn, or her prostetic not giving her magic powers again. Because this show again really likes to leave good ideas out to rot in the sun like that  package of hamburger I left out in the sun yesterday. And I actually had a reason there: I need a lot of Racoons for an elaborate scheme involving a map to tex cruz’s house, a used apache helicopter and a bulk order of tiny parachutes. 

We do get some payoff to things though, as Henious comes on to rasticore who not so politely rejects her for being nuts.. before it’s revealed Gemini, her loyal servant is also a robot and she uses his heart to blow up rasticore and take the arm with her... which is ALSO never brought up again. Seriously this episode is so full of loose ends i’m suprised it just dosen’t end with Zuko asking his dad about his mother. Gemini’s death is genuinely tragic as his last words are “If you wanted my heart.. all you had to do.. was assssskkkkk”. God damn. So with that Meteora heads out to reclaim her birthright.. no matter the cost. 

Final Thoughts on Skooled!: This one is decent.. but like the last episode I covered, the lack of payoff off for almost anything here, excluding the Meteora plotline and the Pony thing which instead got a BAD payoff, is really starting to rear it’s ugly head as the series greatest weakness. Yes bigger than the romance plot. And given that romance plot after this season can be best discribed as...

The show just.. forgets a good chunk of things happened to keeep things chugging along. It sets UP plots, what happens to st o’s from here, buff frog and a small caravan of monsters leaving forever, the message from shastacan, who built the st o’s robots, and on and on.. but it never PAYS them off. It dosen’t care to. It just does things so the plot can move but never bothers to think about the fucking consequences. It just gets more and more irrtating to think about as other shows throughly DO: Amphibia has the fact the characters get into shenanigans become a commented on running gag and something they grow past, and everything that happens matters. Every episode of Owl House builds on the foundation of the previous episodes. OK Ko dosen’t forget one episode had the characters not be able to turn back into humans and implies their wearing human costumes for the rest of the series. Which is fucking weird, but it was their memory. My point is other shows around the same time or right after didn’t magically forget things happened for convience sake. While it’s OKAY to loose some things in the shuffle, it happens to the best of us, it’s not okay to do it SO fucking often and with no clear care for the audiences desire for payoff. The show just ignores what plot points, like the huge cliffhanger of Star telling marco how she felt at the end of season 2, it dosen’t care about till it needs them and ignores the ones it never does. You can’t just.. bring shit up like it’s important and then try and forget it ever happened. People remember stuff, we are NOT stupid. KIDS are not stupid. When I was younger I REMEMBERED things that happened on KND, Danny Phantom, Xiaolin Showdown, TMNT 2003, because those shows, which are from decades ago, knew I would and trusted even if I missed something and was thrown off i’d tune in for the quality. 

And in an age of streaming and more story based tv you can’t just.. ask kids to act like something they saw didn’t happen because your fucking lazy and frankly YOU never should have. Kids deserve better, my niblings deserve better and frankly the adults your clearly also writing for.. deserve better. This episode is eh, but the problems it represents are so fucking worse. 

Next time on tom. If you thought I got angry towards the end of this one, just you wait. Next time i’ts Booth Buddies. Yeah.. yeah that one. Stay tuned.

[crowsent]

a fuckton of things i want in da4

a few words censored bc tumblr will swallow this in the void if i dont. long ass fuck list ahead

a romanceable dwarf

more romanceable elves/qunari

more elf/qunari/dwarf companions

consistent writing for once

more nb representation

good hair. please just give me good hair options. give me long hair. give me luxurious flowing locks. give me braids. give me good fucking hair options

let me shittalk the chantry

dalish elf npcs that impact the plot in unique ways

dalish elf companions that are proud of being dalish

if it is set in tevinter maybe uh. maybe address the issue of systemic oppression (and slavery) of elves???????

a return of the friendship/rivalry system in da2 but improved. maybe instead of a friendship rivalry sliding scale its friendship/rivalry/animosity sliding scale. bc rivalry is more like. two people pushing each other to be better than they were before. friendly competition. hes an idiot but hes my idiot kind of deal. animosity would be just regular disapproval. i liked the crisis cutscenes in dai so high animosity would be the same as low approval and might make the companion leave still, but theres more variety with high approval. high approval “friendship” would be the “were best friends and we share many opinions and agree on almost everything” while high approval “rivalry” being “we disagree on almost everything but goddamn it youre my friend and ill follow you into the fade if i have to” so you can have a high approval with someone instead of being a kissass

actions and choices having consequences again

multiple endings again (epilogue slideshows dont count)

dialogue wheels with descriptions that match what you actually say

characters from rivain, antiva, anderfels, etc

gifts. bring back the gifts. i want to give my companions gifts

maybe. maybe a focus of non-andrastian religion for once?

let me shittalk the chantry

i know its a stretch, but maybe. diverse skin colours. please?

nd characters that are written respectfully and treated w dignity

please bring back the talent wheel from dao and da2

more bi romance options

more wlw romance options

more mlm romance options

ace romance options

nb romance options

background romances

let me shittalk the chantry

far fetched but maybe a polycule?

i lowkey LOVED the fast-paced feel of da2s combat so maybe bring that back in some form? maybe improved to mesh with the tactics of dai to give players absolute freedom of playstyle whether they want to be like me and rush into every encounter or play more strategically

companions with unique companion abilities

would be nice to explore cities

would be nice if the open world were a little smaller so it doesnt feel empty all the gd time

more mage spells. mages felt like just another class of fighter to me in dai. they dont really have any awe-inducing wow factor like in dao or even da2. if the narrative wants me to believe that mages are powerful and dangerous and that it takes multiple templars to hunt down an apostate, maybe show that? give me strong mages

remove the jump ability. its pointless

a narrative that addresses the oppression that the chantry and templars perpetuated please

bring back the attributes

make the choices in dai matter. mages governing themselves? i wanna see that

let me shittalk the chantry

please bring back the healing magic for fucks sakes

multi-class system between rogues and warriors?

multiple specialisations that feel like specialisations and not just skill tree+

player-only skill trees

hardening

companion quests that affect their abilities and further dialogue

actual morally grey choices instead of this stupid mage freedom vs templar oppression narrative that is in no way morally grey but is presented as such and thus leaves the conflicts and narratives set up by dao and da2 to be fucking meaningless

bring back the tactics

would be nice to have an origins-esque prologue again. maybe one that would determine future events in game just to give your character better narrative cohesion with the plot

an approval/disapproval system but for companions with other companions. bringing certain companions together may bring them closer or make them pissed off with each other which affects banter maybe quests maybe combat

give me a fucking mabari bioware. give me back my fucking mabari

day/night cycle

a nightmare mode where you have to finish the main quest on a time limit. it is absurd that dai expects me to believe that i have all this time to do wartable missions that can take literal real life DAYS to finish and still thwart corypheus’ plans in time. bullshit

that said. no more wartable missions. waiting for a countdown to finish isnt very fun

let me shittalk the chantry

kal-sharok. ive been hearing about it since dao let me fucking see kal-sharok

dwarven politics

politics in general. my fav dao quest was the succession crisis plotline in orzammar/the landsmeet and wewh in dai

npcs i can talk to. even with generic dialogue like in dao. makes the world more alive

using the environment to your advantage. far fetched but i would love to be able to pull down boulders if were in the mountains or freeze water to get to places as a mage

home base customisation but the customisation choices you make actually. mean something. and do something. or at the very least give more companion dialogue/banter/approval change

laconic and ergonomic codexes. like. sorted by what kind of codex it is, etc etc but then you just get a brief summary of the codex and the option to read more about it so i dont spend eternity scrolling through cards looking for a specific codex entry. cool aesthetic dont get me wrong but real irritating to deal with. also. maybe. the pc making comments about the codex if you do read more about it? like a dalish elf saying “they got it all wrong” when reading a codex about dalish elves written by a human??? that would a) give character to the pc b) incentivise people to actually read the codex to see what was so wrong about it c) summarise the codex for people who want to learn the lore but dont want to spent the entire game reading text

maybe have the merchants in your home base close to crafting stations so you dont have to take a fucking hike if you miscounted the amount of elfroot you need?

let me shittalk the chantry

avvar companion maybe??? interesting lore right there

bring back stat requirements for weapons and remove the class restriction for most shit. obviously a dagger would be better for a rogue than a longsword and a mage would do better with a staff than a sword and shield but its not about efficiency. its about the roleplay. its about the options. give me the option to make a mage with wildly inappropriate stat distribution

bring back sustained mode abilities

traps. bring back traps. bring back the option to stealth into an area, trap the fuck out of it, and go from there

have the three available classes in kind of a rock paper scissors scenario. warriors do real well against rogues who do real well against mages who do real well against warriors. so you can plan your party depending on who/what youll face AND how much their approval will change during the quest you take them on

let me shittalk the chantry

actually resolve the plot points introduced in dai

a more threatening villain. the inquisitor thwarted every attempt made by corypheus in dai. he was not threatening at all

queer characters. background, companions, etc. queer characters

mounts were meh in dai. maybe. make them faster? or less cumbersome? or have your companions on mounts too so theres still banter?

i liked the armour tinting. let me have armour tinting from the beginning

i would really like mages to move and attack at the same time bc lowkey standing in one spot is uhhhhhhh kinda boring

let me check companions friendship/rivalry levels

would be nice if the narrative acknowledged that elves suffered greatly at the hands of the chantry and stopped victim-blaming them

more taverns. specifically like tapsters in dao where theres a dwarf just reciting something in a language i cant understand and if you look its a ballad/poet about dwarven culture and that was a real nice touch let me have that

dalish elf clan. dalish elf clan that does not get murdered please and thank you

meaningful quests. more cinematic dialogue

make found gear / quest reward gear more valuable than crafted gear

game modifiers like in dai were real nice. i want more

let me shittalk the chantry

quests that can be resolved in multiple ways. like connors fate in dao. and for those ways to impact further quests

companions with varying moral alignments

companions that are mutually exclusive (like alistair and loghain) but are both good companions so itd really make you think

a pc that IS NOT a “chosen one” vanilla da2 is my fav dragon age game for one reason and one reason only and that is because hawke is just some random refugee who escaped lothering. no chosen one magic at all. just an ordinary person who is a real good fighter. and that appealed to me more than this “you are the only one who can do it” narrative

let me meet more elvhen gods

if the setting is in tevinter, GIVE ME FUCKING ARCHITECTURE. give me the high spires, the archways, the buttresses, give me statues lining city gates and magic infused into the buildings. tevinter is a land ruled by MAGES give me magical architecture. give me floating buildings. give me fire floating as orbs above the streets like lamps. GIVE ME ARCHITECTURE

SHALE

let me shittalk the chantry

PIERCINGS GIVE ME FUCKING PIERCINGS BIOWARE

more main quests, longer main quests

if it is set in tevinter maybe. maybe address the fact that tevinter has been at war with the qunari for a while? on and off war is still war. and maybe give us the option to influence the outcome of that war?

more voice options. instead of just american voice or british voice, do the thing in dao again where there are multiple voices of different tones to further cement the pcs personality

more armour designs

biased but uh. can. can taliesen jaffe va a character?

i already said qunari companions but specifically saarebas companions

blood magic

FINISHING MOVE ANIMATIONS

please do not let it be as long as inquisition. inquisition was a SLOG in later playthroughs

body sliders. what if i want a tall but lanky qunari? what if i want a buff as shit elf? body sliders

more eye options

let me call out companions

btw bioware. if you really wanted cullen to be a good guy. maybe handle his fucking redemption arc a little better instead of retconning all the terrible and creepy shit hes done in the past k thx

can female walk/run animations not have. so much swaying hips? no one moves like that

personality dialogue that affects future dialogue like in da2 but meshed with the wider range of emotions introduced by dai

keep the race/s*x lock on romance candidates like in dai. keep the fact that some characters can only be romanced by certain races or s*xes

nb and genderqueer options for the pc

cutscenes of companions interacting

ngl i lowkey liked the random encounters of dao so maybe bring that back

my fav quest in dao is the landsmeet / orzammar succession crisis questline but you know whats my second favourite? the rescue mission if the warden gets captured and you have to play as your party members. give me that again

more creepy/dark shit. dai was too lighthearted for me esp after da2 and dao

let me shittalk the chantry

broodmothers. in hd.

red lyrium broodmothers. in hd

companions with different backgrounds. different faiths. different statuses. different families. etc

maybe make the pcs appearance make an impact on the story? like how bull says he likes redheads, but even if you are a redhead, he says nothing about it????? maybe keep track of which slider the player picks so that can affect the story?

i love my inquisitors but maybe. dont. bring the inquisitor in as anything more than an advisor/npc in this game? let me fall in love with a new pc???

if theres gonna be a homebase like skyhold where youre not in armor. maybe give us better clothing?

a kind of gear skin mechanic similar to ac:odyssey where you can change how the gear looks but keep the stats. so you can equip that higher level armour and keep the look and aesthetic of your old armour and you unlock the skins/looks of the armours you discover/make so you can be both powerful AND aesthetic

i enjoyed the nobility/underworld/arcane/etc knowledge in dai unlocking more dialogue options so maybe keep/expand on that but make it more accessible by side missions or companions or something that isnt the abysmal perk system in dai

let me shittalk the chantry

customisable walking animations. does the pc walk straightbacked? slouched? with a swagger? please

since there will undoubtedly be an obligatory fade sequence, maybe have an option for nightmare demons that ARENT spiders. thank you

slap on subtitles and conlang some languages. i want to hear elvish. i want to hear tevene. give me the languages

more dragons. esp if they look vastly different

more bard songs

i am completely biased here, but i would like to hear laura bailey as a va for a character. preferably a voice option for the pc

hey maybe have the true ending actually included in the base game and not in a dlc (tresppasser cough cough)

better val royeaux

please remove the had to do it to em idle animation tis distracting

on that note, more idle animations. maybe some unique to companions?

very trivial but. unique stair climbing/descending animation

bring back talking to companions on the road. maybe with some dialogue that can only be said on the road???

if banter is interrupted, make like rdr2 and pick up where the banter left off

more vallaslin designs please?

if theres another formal scene like dai maybe. give us. decent clothing. or better yet, decen clothing OPTIONS. i wanna decide how i look in a ball full of haughty orlesians

mage vs templar conflict resolved and addressed please. it is NOT resolved in dai. what we got was sequel bait and a slideshow. resolve it please

let me shittalk the chantry

a pro-mage anti-circle circle mage companion like anders

religious person who doesnt victim-blame elves in the codex or in game or anywhere please

characters more like leliana who question the chantry and acknowledge its corruption and greed

unapologetically sapphic companion

idc if its tevinter i dont want to fucking see queer people being disrespected

a true tal-vashoth companion, one who escaped from the qun

have quest decisions affect whether or not a companion will turn hostile to you or not

if IF solas will be redeemed, please do the redemption arc right

more horn options for qunari

an apostate mage who doesnt use me for their personal agenda whilst hiding something from me (morrigan, anders, solas) thanks

i really dig the whole “leader of an army” thing dai was trying to go for. but you didnt actually. lead. anything. would be nice to have that option. command soldiers. send them places that affect further quests. would even use the wartable for its intended purpose. planning wars. battles. like. you get sent word that there are bandits harassing villagers. you can set up an ambush with your soldiers or confront them headon, and theres a new mini-location on the map like the manor you meet vivienne in where you can go deal with the bandits and depending on your choices, there are actually soldiers with you in a field, or traps in a narrow pass, or even in a city. id rather the wartable shit dont return but if they have to, at least this way youre not just waiting real life time for a bunch of text to appear

i am real fucking excited for the possibility that da4 companions can just fucking die on you. good shit. give me that angst

missions that certain companions would refuse to go with you to. you know. so you actually have to use other members of your party instead of the same 3 (three) people all the goddamn time

disabled characters (i want a character who suffers from the same chronic bad leg disease as i do is that too much to ask)

kinda touched on by the da2 combat point but let me do close combat damage with the staff

no multiplayer. and if there is a multiplayer, dont tie it with achievements

let me fucking explore weisshaupt

(i dont think solas will be the endgame villain of da and i dont think da4 will be the last da game but still) again. for emphasis. resolve the plot points dai brought up

full-body scars and tattoo options

companions and npcs changing their opinions about things over time. eg: a pro-circle mage wanting instead for circles to be abolished after a specific side mission or a main quest decision etc

keep the multiple companion quests. and maybe change what kinds of companion quests are available further down depending on choices made in previous companion quests

please for fucks sake give us more characters of colour

let me shittalk the chantry

[apollos-favourite-bastard]

I’m going to say this once, and honestly probably several more times while defending my stance, but here goes- Gate keepers are bad people, and almost everyone agrees on that. We all hate the people who gatekeep different bits of culture, as is right. They’re selfish people, and arrogant, too, believing that they get to dictate who does and doesn’t get to participate in something. The act of gatekeeping is, in and of itself, hostile and bigoted. It depends on one placing their own self higher than those around them and passing judgement, trying to push someone out of a space because they find that they are more rightfully entitled to that space than someone else.

There are two very bad fronts of this in the LGBTQIA+ community in particular. The first, which is very well known and acknowledged, but not what this post is about, are TERFs and other groups that are transphobic in nature. Fuck TERFs is an extremely common sentiment on tumblr, as it should be, because fuck TERFs. TERFs are bigots, and their stance comes from a place of bigotry. We mostly all agree on this, except for the TERFs who think that they’re rightful and justified in their bigotry, and nothing that I say, think, feel or do is going to change that. Until they recognize their own bigotry and realize that they don’t want to be hate filled sacks of pus shaped like a human, they’re going to continue to be hate filled sacks of pus shaped like a human. However, most of the LGBTQIA+ community agrees that TERFs are bigots and wants nothing to do with them.

So, why do we give aro/ace exclusionists a pass? Why do we, as a community, not band together to fight it the same way that we do with TERFs? Why do we look at this gatekeeping of our community and not feel disgust in the same way that we do with TERFs? Why do some people in our community think that they have the right to exclude others?

Well, I have a theory about that, although I’m going to say up front that it’s just my opinion. Ace/aro people have, for quite a long time, been partially invisible. Up until the advent and popularization of social media, and even to this day in a way, the LGBTQIA+ community has been pretty heavily segregated. At first, this was out of necessity. People opened gay and lesbian bars and clubs decades ago, out of necessity. We built specific spaces for ourselves because that was literally crucial to our survival. While our communities banded together when necessary, there was always a sort of rivalry or distaste for other members of the community if they fell under a different letter. This was heavily present all the way up until the early 2010s. As a teenager in the aughties, I saw so many examples of queer people who didn’t like other letters on principle, because they had nothing in common with one another, and that hasn’t exactly vanished. I knew gay men who hated lesbians, lesbians who hated gay men, both who hated bisexual people- The list goes on.

Then Myspace and Facebook happened, and people began finding solidarity with one another without having to be in a shared space. People began sharing their experiences, and became more comfortable expressing themselves. While pride has existed for decades, it wasn’t nearly as accepted or widespread as it became AFTER social media exposed people to the realization that these communities encompass more people than they realized, and also encompassed people that they knew and cared about. It eased the way for a second wave of the LGBTQIA+ rights movement that helped the community gain several rights, including marriage rights, adoption rights and legal protections. It eased tensions, particularly in the gay and lesbian communities, and paved the way for the more solidarity focused community that we have today.

HOWEVER

After gaining these things, many members of the community decided that that was enough. Discrimination against gays and lesbians had lessened, and acceptance had become more mainstream, so they stopped giving a shit. Trans issues didn’t affect them, so they didn’t care. Ace issues didn’t affect them, so they didn’t care, and they stopped fighting for the other members of the community. That doesn’t apply to everyone, but it applies to more people than anyone should be comfortable with. 

Like I said before, the communities were pretty segregated, and we continue to be. What so many people don’t realize is that our community only has strength together. People under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella represent a sizeable chunk of the population, but each individual group doesn’t represent that much on their own. We don’t have power on our own. Unlike religious or racial minorities, the LGBTQIA+ community is completely random. Anyone could fit into it. The people in our community don’t necessarily have the same experiences. And while shared experience was a founding principle of our community out of necessity, it cannot continue to be so.

Let me explain that point, because I feel like people are not going to realize that it’s the entire point of this post unless I highlight it. Defining our community based on trauma and discrimination was, at the time, necessary. In order to increase our safety, we clumped together, because there’s strength in numbers. There’s also the completely human desire for community because as a species we are not designed to go at it completely alone. Shared experience is a good foundation for that, and if that shared experience is negative, it can make those bonds all the stronger. But that also creates a system wherein the validity of people’s experiences is judged on a sliding scale, which creates the even more unpleasant sliding scale of validity applied to a person’s existence and position in our community.

In particular, this is applied to aro/ace people, bisexual people, and transgender and nonbinary people. There are so many arguments that I could write a book on the subject, but there are more talented and knowledgeable people than I am who have written on the subject, and I implore people to seek out literature and media that can help them understand these things. But I made this post, and I’m going to talk about the main argument that I have seen applied, which is privilege.

Privilege is something I know all too well about having, as a cis white man. It has kept me safe where other people would not have been, and given me more power than I have deserved at times. I do my best to amplify voices that are shouted over, without speaking over them myself, and while I hope I have done a good job of that, I know and openly acknowledge that I am not perfect and have probably messed up too many times to count. I know that when I was younger, I certainly was not as supportive as I could or should have been to people who needed that support, because I saw someone different than I am reaching out for help, and decided it wasn’t my problem. That made me part of the problem. Over time, I have been humbled, sometimes painfully, and forced to recognize that privilege. I am not proud of things that I have done and said. I am embarrassed by who I used to be, and strive every day to be better than I was the day before. I don’t always get it right, but I am trying.

The point of that isn’t to pat myself on the back, or say ‘look how much I’ve grown!’. It’s to tell you that I have been in that place. I have seen someone different than I am and decided to keep quiet and turn a blind eye to their suffering. I have thought to myself ‘they haven’t had to struggle with the things that I have had to struggle with, so it’s not my business’. It’s also to say that privilege is a WILDLY inappropriate way to gauge someone’s position in a community.

Our community cannot and must not continue to use the meter-stick of privilege to judge the validity of someone’s worth and place in our community. It promotes its own kind of bigotry. That’s not to say that cis or white people in the community shouldn’t examine their own experiences and privilege, because we should. What I mean is that it shouldn’t be used to JUDGE someone else. Aro/Ace people and bisexual people have somehow gotten the reputation as having privilege because they are’ more easily able to blend with cishet society’, and are therefore safer and less oppressed, but that’s a bullshit argument. Trauma and oppression cannot continue to be the way we determine someone’s worth. What we should be fighting for is for discrimination to end, not for people who are more oppressed to be the only valid voices in our community. It is tearing our community apart when we need to stand together.

Otherwise we aren’t a community, we’re just a bunch of different people only standing with those who are like us, and nobody else, which is exactly how systems of oppression have been maintained throughout all of human history. People point to the most different group from themselves and say ‘they’re different, and different is bad, so they’re bad’. That’s the insidious nature of bigotry at work, and I refuse to allow myself to fall into that trap. I refuse to be a part of the problem anymore, and that means that I’m not going to keep quiet on subjects like discrimination against people just because their experiences are different than my own.

People who gatekeep communities are coming from a place of bigotry, and it has to stop. People have to speak up about it, and I hope that they do it better and less rambling than I have. TERFs and exclusionists and racists are too prevalent in this community, and we have let their bigotry form the insidious cracks that will tear this community apart if they aren’t spoken out against.

[stillness-in-green]

MLA Week, Day 2: Judge/Shackles/Freedom

A threefer!  Spinner and his brand new lieutenants.  (Look, until Horikoshi starts deigning to give these guys names, they are free real estate.)

I was originally going to use this day to write about one of the more thuggy or delinquent-looking lieutenants, spin out an ex-con not being able to get his feet back under him and so sliding into the MLA’s sphere, but then I remembered this three foot tall goblin in a drugstore Halloween costume and decided to go with him instead.

Also included is Spinner’s number 1, this gal: 

Content Notes: Discussions of disability, portrayal of the marginalized having become the radicalized.  The Liberation Army’s really fascinating, y’all. 

———–      ———–      ———–      ———–

«I think you’ll like this one,» Nimble announces, the rainbow-colored letters of her quirk dancing in the air.  

“You thought I’d like the first two, too,” Spinner replies skeptically, looking away from the floating words to focus on his brand new number one, a woman with a face like a doll whose sculptor had gotten as far as the eyes—huge and green—before giving up on the rest, little things like a nose and a mouth.  She breathes by absorbing air through her skin like a frog, apparently, which is why she dresses the way she does, a distractingly low-cut tank top and a sweater jacket that he has never once seen covering her shoulders.  

She shrugs, expressive eyes briefly fluttering closed, and movement in the air draws Spinner’s attention back over to where her quirk—Sky Write—has spelled out her response.  

«I thought you’d like them too.  Can I call him in?»

“Yeah, go ahead.”  Just as long as he’s not a not surly bastard like the last two.  They’d had good quirks, the last two, but damned if Spinner’s going to work with people who can’t even manage to keep resentment out of their eyes for the length of a job interview, or whatever this process of picking subordinates out of an army full of people that were trying to kill him less than two weeks ago is called.  

Nimble’s letters dissolve into a shapeless blur as she looks over to the door, eyebrows briefly lowering in concentration.  A few seconds later, the door to Spinner’s makeshift office opens. Spinner’s eyes drop almost half-a-person’s length in height and he tries to keep the surprise off his face.  

“A kid?”

«He’s twenty-one, actually.»  

“What she said.”  The voice comes out a bit muffled through the black hood covering the kid’s—okay, the twenty-one-year old’s face.  But if he’s the same age as Spinner, he sure as hell doesn’t look it.  He can’t be over a meter tall, with the skinniest legs Spinner’s ever seen sticking out from under the hem of the black robe he wears like a kid running around the house beneath a sheet.  A big feathery ruff sits around his neck like a dried-out wreath.  

“Scarecrow, reporting in.” The weird little gremlin settles into a military rest in front of the desk, far enough back that it’s not too obvious that he has to tilt his head to look over it.  “It’s an honor to meet you, sir.”  

Spinner stares at him, trying to suppress a grimace.  Scarecrow stares back through little eyeholes cut in the hood, but without being able to see more of his face, it’s impossible to tell if he’s glaring or just has really piercing eyes.  

“Right.”  Spinner glances over at Nimble, who nods.  Her response scrawls itself in the air between them, facing first him, then angling to face the gremlin.  

«Show him your meta-ability, Scarecrow.  Catch!»  

She pulls out a 100 yen coin and deftly balances it on her thumb before flicking it out into the air over the desk.

Spinner bites back a yelp as bug legs unfold from beneath Scarecrow’s ruff, long, segmented things that narrow down to sharp points at the tips.  Two thin lines of silk jet out from the knobby second joints, catching on the spinning coin, and the legs reel it back in, bouncing it in the air, spinning it like a weight on a string, then cocooning it up with quick efficiency.  It falls neatly into his hand—not a normal human hand, Spinner notices belatedly, but a prosthetic, hard plastic and super articulated, with cables visible beneath the individual parts.

“I can fully cocoon up to twelve adult men a day,” Scarecrow rattles out.  “I can also pull myself up the sides of walls and move between buildings, if they’re close enough together.  I was inducted into the Meta Liberation Army on my sixteenth birthday; my parents have been members for ten years.  I know we’re a relatively new family, but—”

“I don’t—”  Spinner stops himself from finishing that sentence with care about that stuff, amending to, “I’m not worried about your—generation or whatever.”  Is that better?  Neither Scarecrow or Nimble react to it with narrowed eyes or a snarl, anyway. Promising?  “Why’d you join up?”  

Jumping on a bandwagon is one thing, but at least that takes a running start and a leap.  Not like joining a cult because it’s just the family business, Spinner thinks viciously at his memory of that greasy asshole Trumpet’s plated mask.

Scarecrow stares at him for a long second.  Spinner does his best to look serious, like he’s actually got a whole prepared list of questions or whatever.  Like he knows what he’s doing.  

Finally, Scarecrow holds up his hands, both spread wide, both obvious prosthetics.  His bug legs twitch and probe at the air.  

“I was born with no arms,” he says.  “Just my forelegs.  It’s not the same as having opposable thumbs, obviously, but it’s better than you’d think. But my teachers used to scold me for raising a foreleg instead of a hand to answer a question or carry things.  The kind of stuff a kid who didn’t have a birth defect could use their quirk to do and no one would look twice.  If I go out in public and so much as open doors for myself with them, people look at me funny.  Because I look funny.”

Don’t use your quirk at school outside of training lessons, Shuuichi-kun.  Spinner remembers that kind of bias, yeah.  All the non-heteromorphic kids could run around the schoolyard playing tag with snowballs in July, but heaven forbid he use his quirk to climb a tree so he can get away from bullies for the length of a lunchbreak.  

He pushes the memory away and nods at Scarecrow to keep him talking.  Not that the guy needs much pushing—he talks like someone who’s told the story before, hard-edged, voice intense despite a mid-ranged pitch.  He’s got just a hint of a—a hiss or a lisp, something that muddles the edges of his hard consonants.  The hood doesn’t move like he’s hiding mandibles under there, but…

“I’ve been wearing prosthetics for longer than I can remember.  The government pays for most of it, since I was born this way, but there’re a lot of limitations on it.  How often they’ll replace them, what my folks got charged for them.  It was always tight, and the kinds of prosthetics government money buys definitely weren’t as nice as these.”  He flexes his false fingers demonstratively.

“My folks and I met Re-Destro—” and there’s that note of reverence, the same tone Re-Destro himself’s using about Shigaraki these days “—when I was nine.  A family friend recommended Detnerat’s products to us, and he took an interest. That’s how we found out about the Army.”

“Yeah?”  Spinner crosses his arms over his chest.  

“My parents joined up because of me.  But I joined up for myself.  Because people think that because I have prosthetics, I shouldn’t need to use my forelegs in public.” Scarecrow’s voice sharpens.  “Like I don’t have the right to use the limbs I was born with.  I should have that right.  We all should.”

“We’re not out to reform society, you know,” Spinner cautions him.  He’s had to tell Re-Destro that too many times already, and that’s just having grasped it himself there in the ruins of Deika.  “That’s not what Shigaraki’s after.”  

Scarecrow gives him another long, quiet look, unreadable behind his hood.  Finally—slower, less practiced—he nods and answers, “Destro’s teaching was that oppression will always lead to revolution.  The Grand Commander of the Liberation Army is the one who’ll throw off those chains.  Whatever he makes of the world, I want to be there to help, not sitting in my shackles waiting for someone to hand me an answer.”

Spinner breathes out hard. He scratches at his hair.  

“…Right,” he manages. Don’t admit he said it better than you could.  “Well put.” He turns to Nimble and adds, “Well, he didn’t offend me.”

«I know you’d like him.»  Her words practically shimmy in the air, flickering green and yellow and pink.  «Then do we have our number 2?»

Spinner glances back over at Scarecrow, who’s staring determinedly out the window behind the desk, his back toy soldier straight.  He still looks more like a kid in a costume than anything else, but…  

Well, I like him better than people like the politician.  And we need to keep things moving, anyway.  Don’t stop running or someone might catch up.  

“Yeah, I think so” he says aloud, then takes a breath and leans over the desk, offering a hand.  Scarecrow takes it without a second’s pause, plastic clicking against Spinner’s scales.  “Welcome to the Support Regiment.”  

———–      ———–      ———–      ———–

I’ll have some links up about things here when I post this to AO3, but in the meantime, Scarecrow--whose condition at birth was called amelia--wears a hood not because he’s embarrassed of a bug face, but rather because he’s embarrassed of the way various surgeries to repair cleft palate and cleft lip have left his face looking.  He’s much more confident in showing off his meta-ability than what he thinks of as his disability.  

Scarecrow is also vaguely modeled on an insect called a webspinner, a tiny little bug that lives in big communal web “galleries” and has the unusual feature of its silk production apparatus being located on its front legs rather than the base of its abdomen like spiders.  The choice felt appropriate for an unusually tiny cult member with top-mounted spider legs.   

[sinister-bob]

Truthfully, each time there is some sort of outbreak (namely from foreign countries because the racism really jumps out), I get irritated.  If there’s nothing you can do, have hope, keep clean, and monitor yourself/surroundings.  That’s it.  That’s all you can do.

I have a chronic illness, and with that comes a compromised immune system, which means that even flu shots are out for me.  But for the most part I live like this, since a common cold can lay me low for a month or longer.  So it’s more so a drudge, and seeing people panicking like this feels like an overreaction, though if I care to be empathetic enough, I know why.  You’re not used to the thought of all this, or the great finality of it all.

It’s going to get better, guys.  Just like it always has before.  Yes, there are risks, but that’s for the people with the compromised immune systems, IE., people like me, pregnant folk and the elderly.  You are going to survive.  Remember that.

But, people are scared.  Just like they always are.  Which makes sense, so okay, you want to be healthy along with your friends, family, and other people.  But, in doing so, people are buying out stores, using not really necessary things that are bad for the environment, and buying hand sanitizer, which was found years ago to be BAD on a whole other level because it makes super-bugs that can’t be killed by antibiotics.

There are things, though, that you can get, that you can make, that will work in place of them.  All it takes is a little effort, so in the long run, these things will probably be cheaper too.

Wet wipes 2

Disinfectant 2 3

Thieves oil 2 mix it with oil based hand lotion, or a carrier oil, like coconut oil, which is antibacterial in itself.*

Four thieves vinegar 2 3 4 (white vinegar is fine, don’t believe their lies.  You can also eat this, unlike the thieves oil.)

Then there are the things you can buy, which are a little off the beaten path, but are still good.

Carbolic soap:  It’s antibacterial, kills acne, and is good for open sores.

Coconut oil: As stated above, it has antibacterial properties, and as well is good for open sore.  Don’t over do it, though, because it can clog pores. (It’s also good for healing tattoos.)

Honey: it’s antibacterial and antifungal.  I once made a mix of this and coconut oil of equal measures, and it’s wonderful for cuts and the like.  Honey is also good for getting rid of acne.

Edible plants 2 3 4: Because, oh shit, there’s a lot of them!  The ones linked are actually lists that give their properties, but they are all either antibacterial/antiviral.  Check to make sure you aren’t actually allergic to anything.  You can’t be healthy if you’re dead.

Capsicum: Eat spicy foods.  The spice helps your immune system, and helps keep you healthier longer.  At least one meal every day.  Even if you don’t like spice, start small.  Start with paper-thin garlic, and work your way up the peppers, starting at something like an anaheim.  It looks like a giant jalapeno, but it is pretty much a green pepper.

*Essential oils: This one is tricky.  You have to make sure that you are getting the right ones, and you will have to do some research.  They can be harmful to pets, especially small ones like rodent, birds, lizards, ETC.  But you have to make sure the ones you’re getting are the antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral ones, like tea tree, eucalyptus, rosemary, cinnamon . . .

Lemon concentrate:  Lemon helps boost your immune system, and if you catch anything, it can help you get better quicker.  It also helps loosen phlegm stuck to the walls of your lungs.  So, if you have asthma or bronchitis besides, this would be a good thing to keep in your fridge.

Ginger: Ginger is like lemon only a 100 times better.  It does so much more, like help with blood flow and is an anti inflammatory.  Tastes great with lemon and pretty much everything else.  Fresh or dried, it doesn’t matter for the most part, but fresh always tastes best.

Turmeric:  It’s again anti everything, including anti-inflammatory.  Good for both the inside and outside of you.

Then there’s prep.

Soap

Take the carbolic soap, melt it in a double boiler with some water.  Once it’s dissolved, you have a choice: either you can make liquid soap, or you can make some small hard ones so you can take it wherever you’re going.  If you are making it liquid, you add some more water, and once that is done, you add it to the bottle.  If you’re making hard ones, use an ice cube tray or the like.  I don’t suggest using a plastic one, because it can melt it as well as the soap scent will linger.

Either way, you can add things to it to either make it pull double duty or to make it stronger.  Things you can add?

Baking soda:  About a teaspoon per bar.  Warning:  It foams a lot when you introduce it, so make sure the walls of your pot are high enough to keep it contained.  Mine went about twice the volume.  It makes it a better cleaner.

coconut oil: About a tablespoon.  It retains it’s antibacterial properties.

Honey: About a tablespoon and a half.  It makes it lather well.  It keeps it’s properties as well.

Essential oil: For the most part, I don’t suggest adding more than 30 drops (a tablespoon).   You can do more, I just think you’d be wasting it at that point.  This would be a good use for the thieves oil, too.

*Note*  Always vent, especially if you have pets or small children.

Antibacterial ETC ETC ETC Hand Lotion

All you need is coconut oil, wax, and your choice of essential oil.

Depending on how hard you want the lotion, I would say about 1/3 wax to 2/3 oil.  Use a sliding scale to see where you want it, but remember, you cannot tell when it is in a liquid state.  If you are unsure, you have to let it completely cool before checking.  To add your essential oil, add it by the drop and stir.  You have to experiment, rather than just dumping stuff in.  Always add your scent last, otherwise you’ll kill it while smoking yourself out.

As for wax, believe it or not, you can use most anything.  I recently made hand lotion with the wax that comes off baby bells.  Certain candles work too.  You can even use crayons.  You dilute them so much, that they don’t really leave a colour on you, but that said, you might want to stick to colours that are complimentary to your skin tone.

You can steep a couple teaspoons of turmeric in the oil while keeping it over a low heat, and you’ll get the added benefit of it.  Steep it for about 4-5 minutes.  You can later throw the bundle in your bath for your health.  *Turmeric can dye things including you, so be careful.  I would more so suggest this step for people who have naturally occurring yellow or gold tones in their skin, unless you don’t mind looking like a Simpson.

Honey Lemon Ginger Drink

1/4 c. lemon concentrate

2/3 tsp. powdered ginger

2 tsp. honey

3/4 c. water

Optional: 1/4 c. gin (Decrease water to 1/2 cup)

Add all of the ingredients (except gin) to the pot.  Bring to under a boil.  Pour into cup and drink when cool enough to handle.  Tastes great cold, so you can make it a few days ahead.  Strain if you don’t want to contend with the sludge in the bottom.

Sage and Thyme Tea

1/2 tsp. powdered sage

1/8 tsp. powdered thyme

1/8 tsp. cinnamon

1 c. water

prep like regular tea.  Let steep for 6-8 minutes.  Strain before drinking to get rid of the sludge.  Sweeten to taste.

Fermented Milk

Yes, it sounds weird and gross, but it is good for you and boosts your immune system.  It doesn’t taste bad.   Kind of creamy and nutty.

1 c. warm milk

1/4 tsp. bakers’ yeast

1 tsp. honey or sugar

Combine all ingredients in a jar, shaking until the honey is dissolved.  Put the lid on loosely, not even barely closed, so that if you were to tip the jar, the contents would spill out.

Let sit for four hours, checking on it occasionally.  Sometimes you need to agitate it a little.  Once the time is up, you can drink it.  Leave it any longer, and it will turn to alcohol.  Don’t drink the dregs.

Wash your hands.  It’s a little terrifying that that has to be a reminder, since I got that drilled into my head as a child first from my mother and then by countless kid shows and ASPs.  Didn’t that happen with you guys?

20 seconds right?

Have a soliloquy:

Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable As this which now I draw.

Have a poem:

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire?And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet?

Make Big Bird proud.

[amphtaminedreams]

A/W 2020 Fashion Month: Before Vogue Went Blank (Part 2)

Hi to anyone reading,

I was going to start this post by jumping straight into Dion Lee and part 2 in general but there's been a lot going on the past couple of days-although this blog is primarily fashion, it wouldn’t feel right to start talking about designers without acknowledging all the shit that’s been going down.

^Photo Credit to @spiltcoco on Twitter

Yesterday, police footage came out of US police murdering yet another black man in broad daylight-George Floyd. He joins Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, and Alton Sterling, plus hundreds more named and god knows how many more unnamed African American citizens in the ever-growing list of victims of police brutality.

The majority of these are just people going about their daily lives, a majority of them doing absolutely nothing wrong; even those we know to have committed crimes have been unarmed and non-violent offenders. That being said, their offences are beside the point when we’ve seen the white perpetrators of mass shootings be calmly cuffed and escorted into the backs of police cars as if they were the ones selling cigarettes without permits. American police, given the amount of them that are armed, regularly become judge, jury and executioner trained for 8 weeks by an institution that originated from slave patrols. I cannot imagine how terrifying it is just to walk around as a PoC in America. I cannot imagine the collective trauma that has been suffered because of recent events on top of the intergenerational trauma that most likely exists because of centuries of oppression. I cannot imagine what it’s like to live in a country that was built to suppress you and was by law allowed to do so until very recently, those original structures still in place. I cannot imagine what it’s like to be made to feel like this is your fault. I mean, Boris Johnson is a useless, cold-hearted twat and I won’t defend him or this country for a minute (we have much blood on our own hands, and racial profiling is just as much a thing here as it is in America-I read earlier that you’re 28 times more likely to be stopped and searched in London as a non-white person compared to a white person), but I still can’t imagine him publicly advocating for the mass murder of groups he knows to be primarily made up of black people via Twitter. This whole situation is so unimaginably fucked up; anyone who still sees America as one of the world’s most developed nations needs to take a long, hard look at what is going on and reconsider that opinion.

Whilst we can’t fix everything, we can all speak up and make our voices heard, and it is our duty to do so. It’s not good enough to just “not be racist”, you have to be ANTI-racism, even if that means constantly reflecting on your own privilege and challenging your assumptions. Neutrality is complicity. Signing a petition isn’t going to change the world, but it’s a start:

https://www.change.org/p/mayor-jacob-frey-justice-for-george-floyd?recruiter=false&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=psf_combo_share_abi&recruited_by_id=7ba70000-a127-11ea-87fb-d1ff0bf6ea96

As I publish this, there’s less than 50,000 signatures needed to hit the target of 6,000,000 so if you happen to see it, get signing! There are lots of other petitions online but Change.org seems to be the only major one you can sign in the UK as the other are US based and require a zip code. I never thought I’d close a paragraph by quoting Macklemore but the line “no freedom 'til we're equal, damn right I support it” is at the forefront of my mind right now. Again, neutrality is complicity. We’re never going to achieve a fair society by sitting on our asses and hoping things will improve. Let’s all do the best we can.

Sorry if that intro wasn’t what you came here for, but I just think it’s so important to talk about. I know I’ve said in the past that fashion is supposed to be an escape from everyday life but there are some times when real life needs our attention and this is one of them. Feel free to unfollow if you disagree.

Anyway, onto the fashion. If this is the first post you’re reading, welcome! There’s a part 1! But I don’t wanna be pushy so start here if you wish!

If you read part 1, welcome back! 

I ended that post by practically falling at the feet of Dilara Findikoglu, and I so wanted to start this post by regaining a sense of dignity and go straight into what-the-fuck-ing at Dior, but I know breaking chronological order would really piss off those “OmG I’m SoOo OCD, tHis BuzZfeEd aRtiCle WiTh DiFfereNt SiZed TiLes ToLd Me!” which is basically me minus claiming liking things to be organised means I have OCD-no, just dermatillomania and the denial that a compulsive skin picking disorder has anything to do with OCD because the neuroses club that is my brain doesn’t have any space left. SO, I have to continue where I left off and star the post with Dion Lee, whose collections I am a big fan of.

I could ramble a bit more but I did enough of that at the beginning of part 1 and am sure I’ll do more than enough in this post anyway, so here it is, Dion Lee:

Considering we ended with the maximalism of Dilara Findikoglu, sliding back over towards the other far end of the scale with a designer that tends to pitch their tent on the borders of the minimalism camp feels correct. Dion Lee, fortunately, seems the perfect collection to open with. There aren’t many other brands who do edge in such an understated and masterful way. If you want to be ready for combat and look like you’d fit right in at Vogue at the same time, look no further. This season’s collection is full of perfectly placed cut outs and immaculate tailoring and subtle street fighter-esque details as ever, and that’s why it pains me to say it:

Not that this is enough in the way of critique to restore my dignity by any means, it’s not a patch on last season.

I don’t think there was a single bad look in that show, and at times it felt like I was weeding through them here. When the looks were good, they were GOOD but a lot I found to be disappointing. Plus I have no idea why you’d put tie-dye in an A/W collection. I appreciate that it’s an Australian brand and that our winter is their summer, but they’re presenting to the rest of the world at fashion week and anyone in Paris, Milan, London and New York is going to be freezing their tits off and looking like a twat in an orange tie-dye sundress. There wasn’t much of a dip in quality for the menswear compared to last season, but honestly womenswear left a lot to be desired. That’s what happens when your expectations are high.

I used to think that if you assume the worst, it’s impossible to feel let down. And then I saw Dior’s A/W 2020 collection. Did a full 180 on that statement.

I suppose it’s a step up from haute couture, but then at least the styling in that was simple, and it just didn’t look like anybody had tried at all; here it’s clear Maria Grazia chucked everything she could at this collection, every headscarf, every gingham print, every shallow feminist undertone, and it was still a fucking mess. At first you think some of the individual pieces are cute but have just been ruined by the styling, and then you begin to look, and realise that even those individual pieces could’ve easily been bought in a New Look Boxing Day sale.

THIS IS CHRISTIAN DIOR, SUPPOSEDLY ONE OF THE MOST LUXURIOUS BRANDS OUT THERE. WHAT IS GOING ON!? 

I don’t know, I included as many looks that I didn't mind as I could, but it’s like there always has to be a crappy, unnecessary detail in there. Everything is so literal. Of course the collection based around the divine feminine has the models dressed like basic ass Greek goddesses, so of course the collection based around the modern woman and equality has women walking the runway in ties and ill-fitting shoes too. Maria Grazia, here is a box:

Think outside of it. 

Next is, thankfully, Elie Saab:

No, not exactly a trailblazer of a collection, but executed with poise and elegance as always. I mean, the styling is spot on. It looks like each part of the outfit was made for another, to contribute to a whole clearly envisioned look, similar to what we saw in the Alberta Ferretti show. Elie Saab is known for its haute couture shows where all the tiny details, the sequins and the silk and the embroidery come together to make something beautiful, and this is just that on a larger scale, with less “wow”s and more quiet admiration, more wishing you were the one wearing that outfit. If you’re gonna play safe, do it this well. The night dresses are stunning of course, but not even my favourite bit of the show. It’s the casual looks, the pussy bows and the ruffles and the neck scarfs and the private girls school monochrome colour palette with the occasional pop of red or purple, a toned down version of what we saw at haute couture, any of which deserve to be worn whilst eating macarons in front of the Eiffel Tower before trip to Musee D’Orsay. It’s Poppy Moore’s school uniform grown up and made fit for a fashion magazine editor:

Somehow managing to cram an Emma Roberts early 2010s fashion moment into every post is my talent, who knew. Wild Child was really a gem.

Erdem was a mixed bag:

With a lot of the outfits, I can’t tell if I actually like the garments that much or if I just like the look as a whole. I mean, without sounding too gluten-free Callie from the Valley, I like the VIBE, but there was a lot of outfits I almost included before I had to ask myself “LAUREN, do you ACTUALLY like this or do you just like the walking-into-your-sugar-daddy’s-will-reading-to-claim-his-fortune DRAMA of it all!?” 

It happened a couple of times, where once I took off my black and white, theatrical violin accompanied entrance filtered sunglasses, I realised that the actual print was ugly. A collection so cohesively ornamental and kitschy is going to lean too far into that at times, and they were a few overly-fussy moments where it seemed less nudge nudge wink wink and more like Erdem Moralıoğlu fell into his grandma’s wardrobe, stole some fabric, and called it a day. I don’t want to sound like I’m not a fan of the collection because overall it’s gorgeous, I just thought it was a bit much at times.

Continuing with the theme of clever seasonal continuity that weaved its way throughout this year’s A/W offerings, Ermanno Scervino kept the core of his summer collection and made it just that little bit darker, added some weight to everything, and this is one of the rare occasions where I like the winter incarnation a lot more. I’m not huge about either but there’s a lot of things I’d love to wear here, the coats especially.

Up next is a reliable favourite of mine: 

Etro.

Was it REALLY necessary for you to include ALL those coats I hear you ask?

Alaska Thunderfuck as Gia Gunn voice: Absolutelyyyy.

When it comes to bohemian fashion, Etro is unbeaten. Everything is always exquisitely coordinated and styled. Like I usually fucking hate aztec print but I love the way it’s done here. I’ve never known a brand to make belts seem like such an integral, tasteful part of the outfit in a field where they so often seem like a last minute addition for the sake of accessorising; it pains me to say it, but Elie Saab, I’m looking at you. It’s your only fault. 

Yes for bringing back embroidered jeans! Yes for all those high necks! Yes for the tapestry print! Yes for the Afghan waistcoats! Etro will keep fedoras cool forever and I love them for that; I don’t know if she ever actually wore any of their stuff but I just know Stevie Nicks was in her prime would’ve ate this shit UP and she is my style icon for the ages. Plus, I might be way off base here but a lot of the collection seems to be inspired by traditional Romani style and it’s a beautiful direction to take things, a treasure trove of layers upon layers and rich textures and opulent prints.

I can’t wait til the phase of my phase of my life where I can swan around in maxi dresses and ponchos. I just hope those maxi dresses and ponchos are Etro.

Onto another brand which hasn’t had a bad show since I started my reviews: Fendi. This season, they took their late 60s/early 70s wild child aesthetic and gave a millionaire’s high maintenance wife spin on it, and what’s not to like about that? 

I mean, Fendi is a brand which is always going to excel in its F/W presentations-the rich, bohemian prints (pro-tip: if you can’t already tell, me mentioning the word bohemian in a review pretty much guarantees I like the collection), the furs, and the warm colour palette all perfectly translate into clothes suited for walks through a city going through a post-summer burnout, where it rains red and orange leaves. You can tell Silvia Fendi is in her element when she’s got texture to play with, something that comes across in the gorgeous coats Fendi consistently puts out, and this season continues that trend. Plus, there’s a lot of adorable details here-shoes that show off the decorative socks underneath, the cube shaped bags and those furry ear muffs which I hope bring about a high street muff renaissance because they’re the equivalent of slipper socks for my ears and THEY’RE ACTUALLY REALLY PRACTICAL. The only thing I’m not in love with is the mirrored glasses, and I can’t help but think how replacing them with a pair of grandad style aviators would be the icing on the cake for the collection. Maybe I just need to see Miss Robyn Rihanna Fenty wearing them and then I’ll get on board. Usually works.

Ah, GCDS. I got so excited for it after last season but this time round, it was a bit of a disappointment. There were a few outfits that semi-matched up to how cutting-edge I saw their last collection, however a lot of the pieces looked pretty low quality. I get that streetwear is in the name, but it’s supposed to be a high fashion take on that, and a lot of the looks were quite pedestrian. Stand outs are the top 2 rows and the leather motocross style jumpsuit on the far right, third row down, but the quality of these pieces wasn’t consistent across the board and I feel like I ended up having to convince myself I liked some of the others just so I had enough photos to justify including the brand. It really sucks when I look back on how ahead of the game last season’s collection was-we’re talking outfits that wouldn’t be out of place on Instagram’s Tokyofashion page and as far as I’m concerned that’s the fashion holy grail. Some of these looks, especially the menswear, could be from a Boohoo TV ad and that makes me sad.

Meanwhile, Giambattista Valli put out a collection that looked like a virtual postcard of Parisian fashion; if a St-Germain-des-Prés streetwear themed Instagram doesn’t exist already, someone should capitalise on that, stat, because if my typical vision of French feminine fashion is correct it would be full of outfits like this. I feel like this is what a fashion novice EXPECTS Chanel to look like. Trust me-these days the reality is much more disappointing.

There’s many things I'm happy to see here besides the tulle and florals and prettiness I expect of the brand. Obviously the berets and the bows and the elbow length gloves are the kind of off-duty ballerina style touches I’ve become accustomed to but there are also some nice surprises here: the military style white jacket, the unexpected snake motif on clothing that’s otherwise overly delicate, and to my delight the return of the boater hat. IDGAF, this is the summer where I’m buying myself one off Ebay and making this happen for me whether they become a “thing” or not. I shouldn’t squander having this little of a double chin; the opportunity may never present itself again. 

I haven’t watched Killing Eve in a longggg time since there’s only so much of two women attempting to kill each other and then miraculously avoiding death you can watch but I’d love to see Vilanelle prancing round a city in this kinda shit slitting some necks again. I hope that doesn’t make me sound like too much of a sadist; only in a purely fictional world is this something I want to see, I assure you.

Givenchy was really, really great this season too, imo. Definitely a step up from the last RTW anyway. Aside from the drama of the exaggerated floppy brim hats and the quirky tassle detail dresses a la Schiaparelli, a lot of these outfits kinda remind me of something a Miranda Priestly/Cruella De Vil type would wear, and you know me; I’m all for that kind of intimidating, about-to-either-slap-you-or-fire-your-ass bad bitch energy. The gathered leather gloves with the androgynous subtly checkered power suits feels CORRECT and if Giambattista Valli is the bottom in this relationship, Givenchy is the top. Am I allowed to reinforce sapphic relationship stereotypes as a bi girl? Probably not. I’m sorry. Won’t do it again. Just this once. And you know I’m right really xoxo

And OMFG Gucci. Another impeccable collection for me, honestly. Once again, it’s probably my favourite of the season. How it is that Alessandro Michelle gets it SO right for me despite his vision being so bold and different every time? He has this specific brand of strange, conceptual beauty which blends past and present trends in a way so supreme it should be considered art. It’s not a term to throw around loosely but the man is a genius, and tbh I’m still not over the human head props from the 2018 F/W winter show.

In my Haute Couture week review, I talked about the Viktor and Rolf collection (which I loved, don’t get me wrong!) and said that pretty meets grunge is my fave thing ever-this is that, but much even more substantial and intelligent. The Wes Anderson-esque pieces or that late 60s/early 70s hipster aesthetic that I loved in last season’s show hasn’t been done away with either-be it the level of detail or the colour scheme, it all somehow fits together. Never did I think I’d see dresses fit for porcelain dolls through the lens of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen seamlessly slotted in between outfits that could’ve been put together from the clothing rack of Dazed and Confused’s costume department. I want it all-opulent fur-trimmed coats, crucifix jewellery and pilgrim hats I’m sure both Edgar Allan Poe and modern goths would approve of, and the tiered skirts that wouldn’t be out of place in a Westworld saloon. The models were delightfully sad and almost creepy looking and I wouldn’t change that for the world. To say 10/10 doesn’t do it justice, so I’m gonna have to open a reviewer’s can of worms and say 100/100.

Gucci is a tough act to follow, and I’m sorry it has to fall onto the shoulders of Halpern. In the nicest possible way (as if there is any nice way of saying it), I don’t think I any expected anything but a downgrade, so if anything, my standards will be lower so...Michael Halpern, you can thank me I guess? 

That was really mean, I’m sorry. It’s not a bad collection, and I definitely like it more than last season’s. It’s a slightly garish colour palette at times but an exciting one in spite of that, which when paired with the animal print dotted throughout makes this collection the perfect fit for a tropical beach party or at the very least, a semi-decent night at the Caribbean themed bar in your local town centre. The sequins and silk, a Halpern trademark, are as tastefully done as ever, and seeing them on the models, I can’t deny these are some power fits-the kind of clothes you are bound to look and feel confident in; if you wanted to play queen of the urban jungle for a night, this is what you need to be wearing.

Ah, Hermes.

Generally not one to stoke a fire inside me. In all fairness, the tailoring here is really, really nice and French biker chic, and the pieces are perfectly crafted-it’s not that I don’t like the outfits because I think that if I saw one of them individually in a natural, messier setting I’d probably be impressed. These are classy, elegant winter looks and what more could you want when you’re looking for outfit inspiration for this season? It’s just that it’s always a little too neat and uniform for me, and on the runway I like my fashion to be risky. This could almost be the sophisticated mother to a Tommy Hilfiger collection and whilst that’s something I would probably wear if I wanted to look put together, it’s not what you get excited to see at fashion week. Primary colours all together aren’t where it’s at for me either, the infamous colour scheme of the cheap plastic playhouses you’d find in the garden of every working/middle class British household back in the day. Yes, I had one. So did the after school club I was forced to attend whilst my mum was at work. Apparently the negative connotations are still too much for me (a boy I went to the after school club with did once fall off the back of one and crack his head open so maybe it’s justified).

Isabel Marant was pretty much exactly what you’d expect from Isabel Marant; if the Etro bohemian woman is one who rolls out of bed and chucks on the first thing she sees, the Isabel Marant bohemian woman is the one who claims she’s done the same thing but who actually planned it all out the night before. She designs for the gluten-free, bikram yoga Kourtney Kardashian style “hippy” who claims to be a free-spirit but would definitely not do acid with you. I was gonna say it was a collection for the Gwyneth Paltrows of the world but then I remembered Gwyneth proudly released a candle she claimed smelled like her vagina and changed my mind-she’d definitely do acid with you. 

It’s definitely a cohesive transition from the summer collection; both have that seemingly laid-back, clean-cut vibe, and cater to the rich, impeccably groomed scented candle loving woman everywhere. Obviously the pieces are a tad more suited to an alpine lodge in Switzerland than a beach in Malibu this time round, but that same mild colour palette, pretty, naturalistic patterns, and generally relaxed fit persists. It’s cute enough.

J.W Anderson is a bit of an enigma.

Despite the experimental silhouettes and the kooky details that you think would very “look at me!”, the collections still seem to have a chilled, easy-going feel to them. They toy about with the strange but remain entirely sophisticated whilst doing so-I think it’s because aside from the little quirks that make the garments J.W Anderson, they’re otherwise fairly reserved and simple; even the quirks themselves mostly tend to be exaggerated, more conceptual takes on more typical stylistic motifs anyway. Anderson has a knack for producing statement pieces that don’t look like they’re trying too hard to be statement pieces, a talent he expertly deploys at Loewe as well. Whilst Maison Margiela collections are like the fashion equivalent of that Jughead “I’m weird, I’m a weirdo” speech, J.W Anderson’s refusal to conform is quiet and modest. I like it. It’s not generally my personal style but I can admire the thought behind the work, and there are still some things I’d love to try. I have a few standouts-the shoes with the hoop detailing dancing from the ankle straps, the dress on the bottom right with what appears to be art nouveau typography on, the trench coat with the cape detailing and the gossamer dress to its right are all stunning, especially that dress. If I ever want to dress as the bubble Glinda the Good Witch descends in when she meets Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I know where to go, though I don’t suppose there’s going to be an occasion that calls for that any time soon. Can I just have the dress anyway?

Kim Shui is another new designer I found through blessed Twitter screencaps-thanks guys for doing my research for me. Much appreciated.

But anyways! Like Charlotte Knowles, it’s clear she’s still establishing her aesthetic as a designer, and thus far I love it. The whimsical, throwback prints on urban silhouettes that range from the androgynous suits of city dwelling cool girls to the amped-up sex appeal of nightclub dresses is gorgeous, especially twinned with dainty headscarfs and opera gloves-all in all I think this a very cool and wearable collection and I’m looking forward to the next collection she puts out.

Next up is Lacoste, and IDK why I always include their collections to be honest, considering they’re not really known for “high fashion”. I guess it’s because my dad has collected Lacoste shirts since I was little so I kinda have a soft spot for it and feel obligated to include it every time presentation season comes around. Yes, the outfits are unbearably preppy and the colours are garish but I feel like that’s kind of the appeal? So what if some of the tracksuits look like they could’ve been pulled out of a bad mafia movie? I see the argyle jumpers, with a bit of wear and tear, as a charity shop gem my sister would come across (she has the #Y2K Depop girl knack for finding old designer pieces in the shittiest charity shops without the audacity to try and sell them at a 70% markup) that I would then steal from her wardrobe to wear myself, contrasted with a ripped mini skirt, chains and and docs. I see the POTENTIAL of a look that is very fuck you to the rich middle age tory styling we see here. It’s punk, okay?

Lanvin was STUNNING this time around. Maybe it’s because I’ve been watching Mad Men recently and it reminds me of the fashion on that-which I hope somebody won an award for at the time BTW, it is SO fucking good-but I just adore every look here. I can’t even remember if I reviewed Lanvin’s SS20 show, and so clearly if I did it wasn’t that memorable (no shade intended), however this collection is a different story. Every single one of these outfits is iconic movie moment worthy, a 60s Cher Horowitz plaid two piece equivalent that would get screencapped and replicated ad-nauseam, all the best looks of Betty Draper and Peggy Olsen and Joan Holloway and Megan Calvet brought together and refined for the modern day woman. I might even consider sacrificing my anti-royalist principles if it meant I could transport myself back in time and switch bodies with Grace Kelly so I could make this collection my princess-off-duty wardrobe and drive around Monaco in that Bella Hadid look, roof down, all the drama of the fur trim and the gloves and hair whipping about in the wind (but in this unrealistic vision I can actually see what I’m doing and I’m not choking on random strands and swearing at Mother Nature as if she is a real entity with a personal vendetta against me).

Loewe! More J.W Anderson! I’m gonna try not to repeat myself by arsekissing too much all over again and get the good points out of the way quickly! So rapid fire: elegant! Delicious colour palette! Interesting shapes! I think I’m seeing a Victorian/Edwardian influence there! Correct me if I’m wrong! I like it! The coats are strong! Remind me of the suffragettes! But lets pretend in this case these Loewe style coat wearing suffragettes are not raging classists!

AH. Apart from that, it was a bit too austere for me. I definitely preferred Anderson’s eponymous collection; there were a fair few recurring details in this show that I couldn’t get behind that I didn’t include, in particular this bib-like black panel that just kept popping up on everything. Sorry J.W Anderson. But a 50% success rate is still good! And at the end of the day, having 2 collections on Vogue Runway at once is more prestigious than the accumulative total of every accomplishment I’ll probably ever have achieved in my life by the time I’m on my deathbed so what do I know anyway? Sigh:( At least I’ll always have the honour of having the largest head by circumference of my class in year 4, right *sweats nervously*!?!?! 

Louis Vuitton was definitely a downgrade on last season for me. There were for sure elements I liked-the Vera Wang-esuqe mixing of the tulle bustle skirts with the rougher, more masculine biker inspired vests and jackets was a cool choice, reminiscent of Gucci’s mixing of the lace dresses with harnesses. I enjoyed the baroque jackets and subtle nods to steampunk style too. Though we’ve already seen it a lot this season, the wet look coat with fur trim I can’t help falling in love with, and I’m immune to the potential ugliness of the muted blue monotone look purely on the basis I can picture Ripley from Alien in it. So like I said-it’s not as if I hated it. I guess when it comes down to it, the collection wasn’t bad so much as I just had higher hopes. I will say though, the staging was INCREDIBLE. As a history nerd, I never thought I’d see the day when a Henry the 8th lookalike actor was part of the backdrop of a Paris fashion week show-and I always thought there was no interesting career path for me in the subject!

And another big name I don’t tend to be so partial to, Maison Margiela. IDK, I did like last season but I wasn’t a fan of haute couture and it took me a while to warm to this. Call it deconstructed, experimental, whatever, but you know when you can’t decide what to wear and you’re in a rush so you kinda just throw all the shit you decided against into a pile? Well, my initial thought was that this season Margiela is kinda that, on the runway.

I will say, once I let go of my need to see a clear shape, a lot of the individual pieces were stunning (NOT the puffed up tabis though, I still can’t even get behind the regular ones). I guess I just wish they’d go for less is more with the styling because as it currently stands, it makes it hard to actually take the clothes in. 

Ultimately, one thing you can always say about Margiela, like their clothes or not, is that it has a monopoly on being effortlessly bold.

Marc Jacobs I really liked again, though I will say it doesn’t stand out quite like the S/S collection did. That was absolutely STUNNING-I can’t remember specifically where I ranked it in my top ten but I know it was at least in the top 5. This, on the other hand, is...pretty. It’s very pretty, and very put together, so I’m not saying at all that I don’t rate it. I suppose it’s just a lot simpler than I expected it to be-I don’t have a problem with simplicity, at all, especially if it’s what a brand is known for but I feel like part of the appeal with Marc Jacobs is that it’s pretty kooky. I mean, not Thom Browne or Margiela kooky, but commercial kooky at least. I feel like the kookiness is lacking here? And that’s where this feeling is coming from? And also, the fact that Lanvin tackled the same era and did it a lot better? So there’s that, too. Plus, I adore Miley Cyrus but...why? Random celebrities waking the runway just doesn’t do it for me-it always comes across as a publicity grab, as if the designer isn’t confident enough in their collection’s ability to get people talking on its own, and I suppose in this case that says it all really.

Margaret Howell was...well, Margaret Howell. She’s known for her basics, and they’re always pretty non-offensive “regulation hottie” in the words of the icon that is Damian from Mean Girls. It’s been, what, four years? More? Since I last watched that film but I’m pretty sure watching it about twenty times between the ages of 9 and 15 tattooed it on my brain. I include her because even though they don’t get my pulse racing, I like these pieces; considering the fact that expecting straight white men to ever have style on the level of barbiedrugz (his instagram is my favourite thing ever) or Rickey Thompson is ludicrous, Margaret Howell’s menswear looks are probably are the best, realistic goal for any future partner. Because I like my men dressed like Paddington bear/a depressed Brown University English lit lecturer, okay? Or in other words, Will Graham from Hannibal.

Marine Serre had a few good moments-the looks that I liked were the ones that stayed within her lane of blending the weird with the visually appealing. There were a lot of cool things going on, and I like the utility vibe (the boot with the pouch detailing and the mask are perfect examples of this done well), but outside the fits I picked out a lot of it went over my head tbh.

Marques Almeida is a show I was looking forward to-it has such a youthful, experimental quality to its collections (it’s no surprise the designers said they were influenced by the HBO show Euphoria this year!), similar to Central Saint Martins, and you can tell the designers (Marta Marques and Paulo Almeida) are based in London too; we are talking about the birthplace of the punk fashion movement, and as a designer it’s probably almost a rite of passage that you incorporate elements of that into your work. Marques Almeida does that with a flair and consistency you can count on. Their clothes don’t have the wildest silhouettes or anything like that but the fun they have playing around with print and colour and the ease and confidence with which they settle on those combinations always comes through-the black and white coat with the yellow furs trim is one of my favourite pieces from the entirety of this season’s offerings.

I wasn’t so fond of Max Mara’s SS20 collection and I'm not gonna lie, this isn’t THAT much of a step up for me personally. It’s just one of those brands I feel obligated to include because it’s talked about quite a bit but I’m not totally sure if it’s for me. Too monotone, but I’ll give it another season! And I mean, there is a slight improvement here-this collection is a lot more laid back than the stiff, austere feel of the last, and there are some very well fitted and structured pieces. A lot of the looks kinda remind me of a 2020, fashion take on The Breakfast Club’s “Basket Case”, which is kinda cool, and just from looking at the clothes, the high price tag is palpable. Also, scruffy hair club unite! Though obviously it’s intentional here! That’ll be my excuse for the next time I turn up at work looking like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards-Max Mara made me do it.

Ending on those words of wisdom, I’m gonna bring this post to a close, because I can’t fit any more photos in! I’m desperately hoping that I can fit this all into 3 parts like I did with my last RTW review but even if I do have to make 4 posts, I still include my top 10 shows as I did before. I hope to get that post up within the next couple of weeks! After that, I’ve shot a Lana Del Rey inspired by each of her different albums and “era”s though given last week’s events I’m on the fence about whether to post it or not, especially given her silence over the last couple of days. I’m really proud of what I’ve put together and I’ll always love her art and music (I have 2 bloody tattoos, for fuck’s sake!), so I’m trying to think how I can reconcile that with those awfully worded posts and just the general lack of awareness of bigger issues that she’s displayed the last week. JFC, being a Lana stan has always been so chilled up until now. All the very valid and important takes aside, that “Lana pls delete that post and apologise, we can’t fight the barbz all your stans are depressed” tweet is the only good thing to come out of this shitshow. He got a point. Breathing feels like effort lately:( IDK, if you’re also a Lana stan and you have any opinions on the matter, feel free to DM me, because I’m feeling pretty conflicted rn.

Most importantly though, are the issues I opened this post by talking about, and I thought I’d finish by including the thread of petitions I saw on Twitter. Like I said, a lot of them aren’t available to sign in the UK but to anyone who read up until this point (thank you!) idk where you’re reading from so maybe some of them will apply to you:

https://twitter.com/yericvIt/status/1265801832930045953

Also, while we’re at it, because every tory voting twat seems to treat our country as if it’s some beacon of hope where racism is non-existent and love to tell PoC to stop moaning about their experiences, here’s a thread of black British men and women who have lost their lives to police violence:

https://twitter.com/illh0eminati/status/1266441604170223617

Thank you for reading until the end. I hope that you enjoyed the fashion part of the post but also that if you did read this far, you read the other bits too if you didn’t know what was going on already. It seems like everyone does but you forget that Twitter’s a bit of an echo chamber and that outside of it, there’s a lot of ignorance, whether intentional or not. I know Tumblr has a similar audience to Twitter so I imagine there’s loads on here about everything going on too, but ya know. I wanted to talk about it just incase. 

Stay safe, keep fighting the good fight, and again, thank you for reading!<3

Lauren x

[north-of-annwn]

would you mind speaking about your experience with reiki? i'm thinking about getting my first level because i've definitely benefited from receiving reiki and would love to do that for others, but i also don't know how i feel about any spiritual practice where i have to pay someone to initiate me, you know?

Sure! I am certified in Reiki I and II. I learned about Reiki initially after I was in a road accident. My body had a lot of healing to do on its own and that process was very painful. Reiki helped me bear the pain better and feel empowered to move energy through my body to encourage the healing it needed to do. I absolutely recommend Reiki as a method of learning energy work that is gentle and unable to be used incorrectly or harmfully. The way that Reiki works is first you go through what is called an Attunement. During an Attunement, the Master will essentially take you through a very special energy working of your own body to help start the healing of your own traumas and wounds in your heart of hearts that may separate you from Source. Source is basically the One that is made up of All. The Source of all life and the Source that all things return to. It’s pure love and life and oneness. 

Once that is done, the Master will basically connect your essence to Source by connecting you to themselves - and every Master before them back to the first Reiki Master that achieved oneness with Source through lots of spiritual work. This Attunement is the *only* way someone can practice Reiki. Without this attunement, you are not connected through the line of Masters and you are not practicing Reiki. This focus on lineage is why it’s an initiated practice. Even if you are able to somehow appropriate the symbols from some internet source doesn’t mean that you know their meaning, how to use them, or are connected to the lineage of Reiki. 

This Attunement can have a myriad of results for the person being attuned and it can be very emotional when approached correctly. Direct attunement to source often brings on sudden healing of old wounds and trauma that can sometimes take several months to a year of processing. My suggestion is to drink plenty of water before and in the weeks after. And plan on spending a lot of time in reflection and self care. If you are not prepared for the amount of self care needed, wait until you are. 

Once you are Attuned, you are prepared for Reiki I. Reiki I training teaches you how to use Reiki on yourself for healing and what’s called bioscanning. Bioscanning is just a fancy word for using intuition mixed with energy work to find where your body is holding on to emotional pain. You can then spend about a year or so learning to work Reiki on yourself in ways you need it most. After about 1 year your Master will offer to teach you Reiki II which is initiation on how to use Reiki and energy healing on others correctly, safely, ethically, and legally. 

As for feeling weird about paying people to initiate you, I can understand that. Money has been used for gatekeeping of spirituality for a long time and it’s worse today. While I agree gatekeeping is wrong, there is a racial and cultural history with Reiki that needs to be understood. Reiki was brought to the US by a Japanese-HI, Master Takata. During the time she was teaching, almost all of the Reiki Masters were killed in Hiroshima. She was the only one left and charged with protecting this lineage during a time where appropriation of Japanese artifacts, spiritual teachings, and culture was rampant. Americans wanted Japanese Zen but were also demonstrating a chronic allergy to discipline and respect for Japanese people and culture. Mrs. Takata realized that financial investment was the only way western initiates would respect it and devote the time and discipline required to learn it. There was great fear among her initial Japanese-American students that it would become watered down, bastardized, and a shadow of the original lineage if it wasn’t protected. Considering that’s exactly what happened with many other zen practices here in America, their fears weren’t unfounded. Through Mrs. Takato’s efforts, Reiki has successfully been preserved and every Reiki Practitioner knows the name of every Master in their lineage. 

Any Reiki Masters you learn from had to paid for their attunements, training, and initiation as well. If they’re a master, they made an oath to discipline in preserving this lineage and to passing it on through teaching. Appropriate financial compensation is part of ensuring right relationship between us and our teachers. Starting anything with spiritual debt is the wrong way to begin.

Now, I understand that financial oppression is a huge problem and I disagree that impoverished healers should be kept from learning Reiki. Today, there are Reiki Masters that will offer Reiki I for much less money than was expected in years past due to the economic situation. My suggestion would be to try to seek out someone that offers sliding scale options based on income or a donation-based Reiki I attunement. 

I hope this helps! Sorry about the length.

💙 Elisa

[schraubd]

The Problem of "Centering" and the Jews

Note: I wrote this piece quite a few months ago, shopping around to the usual Jewish media outlets. None were interested, and I ended up letting it slide. But it popped back into my mind -- this Sophie Ellman-Golan article helped -- and so I decided to post it here. While I have updated it, some of the references are a bit dated (at least on an internet time scale). Nonetheless, I continue to think a critical look at how the idea of "centering" interacts with and can easily instantiate antisemitic tropes is deeply important. * * * In the early 2000s, Rosa Pegueros, a Salvadoran Jew, was a member of the listserv for contributors to the book This Bridge We Call Home, sequel to the tremendously influential volume This Bridge Called My Back. Another member of the listserv had written to the group with "an almost apologetic post mentioning that she is Jewish, implying that some of the members might not be comfortable with her presence for that reason." She had guessed she was the only Jewish contributor to the volume, so Pegueros wrote back, identifying herself as a Jew as a well and recounting a recent experience she perceived as antisemitic. Almost immediately, Peugeros wrote, another third contributor jumped into the conversation.  "I can no longer sit back," she wrote, "and watch this list turn into another place where Jewishness is reduced to a site of oppression and victimization, rather than a complex site of both oppression and privilege—particularly in relationship to POC." Pegueros was stunned. At the time of this reply, there had been a grand total of two messages referencing Jewishness on the entire listserv. And yet, it seemed, that was too much -- it symbolized yet "another place" where discourse about oppression had become "a forum for Jews." This story has always stuck with me. And I thought of it when reading Jews for Racial and Economic Justice's guidebook to understanding antisemitism from a left-wing perspective. Among their final pieces of advice for Jews participating in anti-racism groups was to make antisemitism and Jewish issues "central, but not centered". It's good advice. Jewish issues are an important and indispensable part of anti-racist work. That said, we are not alone, and it is important to recognize that in many circumstances our discrete problems ought not to take center stage. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be heard. It just means they should not be given disproportionate attention such that they prevent other important questions and campaigns from proceeding. Ideally, "central, but not centered" in the anti-racism community means that Jewish issues should neither overwhelm the conversation nor be shunted aside and ignored outright.

Yet it also overlooks an important caveat. Too often, any discussion of Jewish issues is enough to be considered "centering" it. There is virtually no gap between spaces where Jews are silenced and spaces where Jews are accused of "centering". And so the reasonable request not to "center" Jewish issues easily can, and often does, become yet another tool enforcing Jewish silence. Pegueros' account is one striking example. I'll give another: several years ago, I was invited to a Jewish-run feminist blog to host a series of posts on antisemitism. Midway through the series, the blog's editors were challenged on the grounds that it was taking oxygen away from more pressing matters of racism. At the time, the blog had more posts on "racism" than "antisemitism" by an 8:1 margin (and, in my experience, that is uncommonly attentive to antisemitism on a feminist site -- Feministing, for example, has a grand total of two posts with the "anti-Semitism" tag in its entire history). No matter: the fact that Jewish feminists on a Jewish blog were discussing Jewish issues at all was viewed as excessive and self-centered.

Or consider Raphael Magarik's reply to Yishai Schwartz's essay contending that Cornel West has "a Jewish problem".

Schwartz's column takes issue with West's decision to situate his critique of fellow Black intellectual Ta-Nehisi Coates by reference to "the neoliberal establishment that rewards silences on issues such as Wall Street greed or Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and people." Magarik's reply accuses Schwartz of making the West/Coates dispute fundamentally "about the Jews", exhibiting the "the moral narcissism in thinking that everything is about you, in reading arguments between Black intellectuals about the future of the American left and asking: How can I make this about the Jews?" Now, Magarik is surely correct that the Jewish angle of West's critique of Coates is a rather small element that should not become the "center of attention" and thereby obscure "the focus [on] Black struggles for liberation." But there is something quite baffling about his suggestion that a single column that was a drop in the bucket of commentary produced in the wake of the West/Coates exchange could suffice to make it the "center of attention". If Magarik believes Schwartz overreacted to some stray mentions of Jewish issues in an otherwise intramural African-American dispute, surely Magarik equally brought a howitzer to a knife fight by claiming that one article in Ha'aretz single-handedly recentered the conversation about the West/Coates feud onto the Jews.

What's going on here? How is it that the "centering" label -- certainly a valid concern in concept -- seems to routinely and pervasively attach itself to Jews at even the slightest intervention in policy debates?

The answer, as you might have guessed, relates to antisemitism.

As a social phenomenon, antisemitism is very frequently the trafficking in tropes about Jewish hyperpower, the sense that we either have or are on the cusp of taking over anything and everything. Frantz Fanon described antisemitism as follows: "Jews are feared because of their potential to appropriate. ‘They’ are everywhere. The banks, the stock exchanges, and the government are infested with them. They control everything. Soon the country will belong to them.” If we have an abstract understanding of Jews as omnipotent and omnipresent, no wonder that specific instances of Jewish social participation -- no matter how narrow the contribution might be -- are understood as a complete and total colonization of the space. What are the Jews, other than those who are already "everywhere"?

Sadly, the JFREJ pamphlet does not address this issue at all. When "central" crosses into "centering" will often be a matter of judgment, but while the JFREJ has much to say about Jews making "demands for attention" or paying heed to "how much oxygen they can suck out of the room", it does not grapple with how the structure of antisemitism mentalities often renders simply being Jewish (without a concurrent vow of monastic silence) enough to trigger these complaints. It doesn't seem to realize how this entire line of discourse itself can be and often is deeply interlaced with antisemitism. JFREJ's omission is particularly unfortunate since Jews have begun to internalize this sensibility. It's not that Jewish issues should predominate, or always be at the center of every conversation. It's the nagging sense that any discussion of Jewish issues -- no matter how it is prefaced, cabined, or hedged -- is an act of "centering", of taking over, of making it "about us." When the baseline of what counts as "centering" is so low, I know from personal experience that even the simplest asks for inclusion are agonizing. As early as 1982, the radical lesbian feminist Irene Klepfisz identified this propensity as a core part of both internalized and externalized antisemitism. She instructed activists -- Jewish and non-Jewish alike -- to ask themselves a series of questions, including whether they feel that dealing with antisemitism "drain[s] the movement of precious energy", whether they believe antisemitism "has been discussed too much already," and whether Jews "draw too much attention to themselves." Contemporary activists, including many Jews, could do worse than asking Klepfisz's questions. For example, when Jews and non-Jews in the queer community rallied against the effort by some activists to expel Jewish and Israeli LGBTQ organizations from LGBT conference "Creating Change", Mordechai Levovitz fretted that they had "promoted the much more nefarious anti-Semitic trope that Jews wield disproportionate power to get what we want." Levovitz didn't support the expulsion campaign. Still, he fretted that even the most basic demand of inclusion -- don't kick queer Jews out of the room -- was potentially flexing too much Jewish muscle. In this way, the distinction between "central" and "centering" collapses -- indeed, even the most tertiary questions are "centering" if Jews are the ones asking them. This is bad enough in a world where, we are told, oppressions are inextricably connected (you can tell whose perspective is and isn't valued in these communities based on whose attempts to speak are taken to be remedying an oversight and whose are viewed as self-centered derailing). But it verges on Kafka-esque when persons demand Jews "show up" and then get mad that they have a voice in the room; or proactively decide to put Jewish issues on their agenda and yet still demand Jews keep silent about them. Magarik says, for example, that Jews "were not the story" when the Movement for Black Lives included in its platform an accusation that Israel was creating genocide; we shouldn't have made it "about us". He's right, in the sense that this language should not have caused Jews to withdraw from the fight against police violence against communities of color. He's wrong in suggesting that Jews therefore needed to stop "wringing our hands" about how issues that cut deep to the core of our existence as a people were treated in the document. Jews didn't demand that the Movement for Black Lives talk about Jews, but once they elected to do so Jews were not obliged to choose between the right's silence of shunning and the left's silence of acquiescence. To say that Jews ought not "center" ourselves is not to say that there is no place for critical commentary at all. We are legitimate contributors to the discourse over our own lives. I'm not particularly interested in the substantive debate regarding whether Cornel West has a "Jewish problem" -- though Magarik's defense of West (that he "has a good reason for focusing on Palestine" because it "demarcates the difference between liberalism and radicalism") seems like it is worthy of some remark (of all the differences between liberals and "radicals", this is the issue that is the line of demarcation? And that doesn't exhibit some sign of centrality that Jews might have valid grounds to comment on, not the least of which could be wondering how it is a small country half a globe away came to occupy such pride of place?). The larger issue is the metadebate about whether it's valid to even ask the question; or more accurately, whether it is possible -- in any context, with any amount of disclaimers about relative prioritization -- to ask the question without it being read as "centering". The cleverest part of the whole play, after all, is that the very act of challenging this deliberative structure whereby any and all Jewish contributions suffice to center is that the challenge itself easily can become proof of our centrality.

But clever as it is, it can't and shouldn't be a satisfactory retort. There needs to be a lot more introspection about whether and how supposed allies of the Jews are willing to acknowledge the possibility that their instincts about when Jews are "centered" and when we're silenced are out-of-whack, without it becoming yet another basis of resentment for how we're making it all about us. And if we can't do that, then there is an antisemitism problem that really does need to be addressed. When discussing their struggles, members of other marginalized communities need not talk about Jews all the time, or most of the time, or even all that frequently. But what cannot stand is a claimed right to talk about Jews without having to talk with Jews. The idea that even the exploration of potential bias or prejudice lurking within our political movements represents a deliberative party foul is flatly incompatible with everything the left claims to believe about how to talk about matters of oppression. West decided to bring up the Jewish state in his Jeremiad against Coates. It was not a central part of his argument, and so it should not be a central part of the ensuing public discussion. But having put it on the table, it cannot be the case that Jews are forbidden entirely from offering critical commentary. One might say that a column or two in a few Jewish-oriented newspapers, lying at the tertiary edges of the overall debate, is precisely the right amount of attention that should have been given. If that's viewed as too much, then maybe the right question isn't about whether Jews are "centering" the discussion, but rather whether our presence really is a "central" part of anti-racism movements at all.

Drawing the line between "central" and "centering" is difficult, and requires work. There are situations where Jews demand too much attention, and there are times we are too self-effacing. But surely it takes more than a single solitary column to move from the latter to the former. More broadly, we're not going to get an accurate picture of how to mediate between "central" and "centering" unless we're willing to discuss how ingrained patterns of antisemitism condition our evaluations of Jewish political participation across the board.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2MjQd84

[magebomb]

I don’t want to be a part of this I don’t want to share the blame I don’t have to know the body count But I will, oh, but I will

It’s been a while since I’ve done anything, or shared anything for Ignite. I don’t have much, and it’s getting completely flipped around, with the same themes. I’m taking some bravery and sharing a bit of what I wrote on my original story. (Take it with a grain of salt, I’m an artist–not a writer)

EDIT: HEY I messed up my other post of this by trying to make the readmore work on mobile, so uh. Here’s a repost.  

Walking away from everything was not easy.

That was the sort of thing that ended in whispers between soldiers, those who were tired and should’ve never enlisted in the first place. It happened between people with dissonance in their heart. With the ones who spoke their script under scrutiny, but spat venom from under a cloak of security.

It was always something that just came with the backdrop. You shouldered the sentiments like an extra piece of gear to go between the Geiger counter and canteen. The uniforms were so covered pockets, it hid well–something you could easily forget until the morning recount.

Nobody really meant it. Sure, sometimes a soldier walked away. Maybe they disappeared into a foreign village. They could’ve dropped their helmet in the street and walked into gunfire. Words may have flown, only to have the person disappear the next day. Their names forgotten in a week to all but those who really gave a shit about them.

Every bit of it was a distant sort of idealism that held so little reality to most.

Here he was–walking away. That reality had all but shattered from under him.

He was home. Home didn’t hold the same weight for him that it did for most others. It was only a small security detail. The base held one of the larger weapons facilities on this side of the midwest, and they needed the manpower to guard it. That duty fell on most any enlisted who knew how to hold a rifle without shooting themselves in the foot.

The need for bodies was up. They attributed it to something vague. Something that was out of his pay grade to know about. Organized crime was the obvious answer. They had volleyed for munitions with the military for a long time now.  

He was in a blindspot between cameras. Not in any sense of convenience to him–only that they needed extra eyes to watch said blind spots. It wasn’t a perfect opportunity. He could so much as make one step to his right and the camera had him in full peripheral view. To the left, though? To the left was the key. It took pressing his back into the wall and his rifle held close enough to his body that it wouldn’t swing forward and activate the motion sensor.

That’s the funny thing about being trained for stuff like this. They drill and drill the procedure and protocol until they hope it sticks into their plastic little army men. There’s no chance it could be thrown back in their faces. No, that was inconceivable. Really, true deceit was far from his mind, as he walked away. As he slid past that camera and stepped away from the armory. As he kept himself to a brisk walk. The helmet hid his face, and his expression in kind, but he had to keep control of his feet. Everyone would alert on the sight of a running soldier.

The urge to sprint still bit at him. It spilled out from the stilted breaths behind his helmet and he barely suppressed the urge to toss aside his rifle and book it across the base.

A half-track rolled by, full of soldiers likely headed to the ancillary base on the other side of the city. They were kitted less than him, save for one or two actually on duty and not just bunked up for a trip. Still, he found himself hooked onto the back, swinging up to the edge. Supply crates hid him from those on the vehicle, and it had served him well enough to get him through the checkpoint at the gate. Everyone unaware, thanks to the anonymity his uniform afforded him. If he kept his head down, he would make it.

He made it. Opportunity to ditch the vehicle rose when the city actually began to show a civilian population no longer culled by the oppressive nature of the military base. Here, he hopped off the back of the half-track and jogged the short distance between the street and an alley. People left him at it. A geared up and armed soldier on the streets detaching from his company with an obvious purpose? Not something the average person really wanted to mess with. He wasn’t afraid to use that little bit to his advantage–temporarily.

Crouching now, in the alley, he palmed the charge from his rifle and stuffed it behind a dumpster. He wasn’t aware he had company until he finally yanked the helmet off, his face immediately stinging with the early autumn chill.

A woman’s gasp accompanied the movement, and he wheeled around, helmet still in his hands. The look she flashed him said that she had never really seen someone like him without a faceplate before, let alone someone with such a young face. She wasn’t sure of why he was there, standing in front of her in that alley.

She held no real threat. Not with her sparkling dress, lit up by the focused street lights. Her heels dangled from one hand, and from the other a perched a lit cigarette. She had a name tag that said something he couldn’t read from their distance from one another.

Still he froze, while her mouth worked like she wanted to say something. Maybe she would scream? It wasn’t like he could do anything about it. Not a civilian. Not one whose work break was interrupted by something that would make quite a story later.

He chose the most elegant option. The one where he tossed the helmet aside like a hot coal and darted further into the alley. A chain-link fence blocked off the back, garnished with hardly any remaining barbed wire at the top. It was easy enough work to scale it and drop himself to the other side. “Hey–!” Her high voice called out, but he was too busy sliding into a turn to get the hell away from the street.

He shed gear like a hemorrhage. Most of it he tried to stash, in piles here and there for people to find later and sell. All but the base fatigues on his back, and his dog tags. He really didn’t care. The worst was that rifle. It wouldn’t fire without the charge, and especially not without his fingerprint. But that was the problem. If found, there’d be no doubt it was his, and it still pointed a big fucking glowing arrow in his direction.

So he made his path through the city a convoluted one. A confused one. It wasn’t like he knew what to do or where to go.

Because here he was, walking away.

He could see the made-up future file in his head. One held between officers with a angry red confidentiality stamp on it.

Dallan Macguire. Twenty-three years old. Barely.

Didn’t he have a promotion recently? A inconsequential rank that meant nothing but that he was moving up. A corporal. That was a good start. Soon a sargent and later even further. He could be the career type. ‘I don’t know,’ one would surely say, ‘them Marine guys aren’t into that.’

No, you’re mistaken, he’s affiliated with that—He was bound for trial.

Twenty-three fucking years. Dallan shivered now, shoved between the wall and a pile of trash. He could feel the pulse of whatever business was on the other side of the brick. Music of some sort, with a low beat that drove people through a chilling night like this. He let that sound ground him as he slowly emptied the clip from his remaining gun. It was a small one. Ballistic since the pulse rifles weren’t always so dependable.

Click, click, click. Each bullet fell as a punctuation.

Eighteen, mostly, quiet years. Five years of family, again. Five tumultuous and controversial years he really wouldn’t have put up with if it weren’t for the people he had surrounded himself with.

Three whole fucking days of absolute hell that led up to today. Three goddamned days on the chopping block.

Really, this would still be favorable to what would’ve been an incoming court martial.

===

The steps were killer. It called back memories to movies where the characters always exclaimed: ‘Oh, it couldn’t get worse!’ before rain would break open over their heads. Yeah, Dallan had plenty of that. Rain. Like something said he wasn’t miserable enough, that the fucking sky had to crack open while he couldn’t even fathom a roof over his head to protect him from the onslaught. Poetic…probably. If he gave a fuck about that.

Now it made the steps difficult. Breathe wheezed in Dallan’s chest the further he went. He wouldn’t complain so much on normal day, but it hurt to breathe today even when he wasn’t moving in the first place. Hell, it hurt to exist at the moment. The pain warred between that in his chest and the sloppily covered burns on his hands. Both a wonderful reminder of stupidity that led him to his next brilliant idea.

There was an elevator here, but it felt wrong. The complex wasn’t all that ritzy, but it was clean. He was not. Soot that clung to parts of his jacket and fatigues he couldn’t quite scrub out with just the rain to help. Even Dallan himself was sure he looked a tad crazed from lack of sleep. Here was probably his fifth stupid idea of the week. He needed contact, and he needed help. He didn’t want the help but he still selfishly sought it out like some pathetic…something.

Dallan shook his head, dodging the step that tried to trip his toes up. A curse fell from him, ringing up and through the deserted stairwell with no answer.  

Dallan leaned against the railing for a moment, needing to catch his tight breath. It had been almost impossible to track this apartment down, at first, but Dallan got it with enough patience that he almost didn’t have. He couldn’t use his own ID to use a terminal. Not without getting honed in on in a heartbeat. But not everyone kept a tight eye on their own.

It was a simple swipe, a search, and he found it. Jarringly easy, at that point.  

The database for this guy was startlingly sparse. No real history listed. Nothing but a current residence and current employment. There wasn’t even the scarring mark of an extra database entry that marred a select few.

But now in that apartment complex he had hunted down, Dallan’s steps grew heavier with each flight of stairs.  

Not heavy enough to stop him from edging his way to the landing he was looking for and out the door into the hallway. Silence greeted him. It was that strange hour of the evening where people either holed up at home with dinner, or kept to the city to shake off their work day.

Silence accompanied him to the door he was looking for: apartment 514. He killed it by rapping his knuckles in a knock.

For a beat, he began to hope nobody was home.  

A beat that didn’t last too long before the door opened a crack.

Most people wouldn’t even go that far, instead choose to use the view hole to decide if they wanted to ignore their visitor or not. Not like this guy had that choice.

There was definitely a chain on the door, and accordingly it barely opened onto the empty light of the apartment beyond and a hesitant response. “I didn’t order any–” a low man’s voice responded, intercepted by Dallan’s hand jamming into the space to swipe at the chain. When it popped off of it’s hook, he gave the door a strong shove with his shoulder. The person on the other side had to have staggered back with the force, because it only met with the slightest resistance before swinging completely open.

Dallan extended his arms, a gun training upwards on the face of the man inside the apartment.

“Back up,” He spoke as steady as the tremor in his voice could let him. “Hands up, and back the fuck up.” Here he was. His fifth, sixth, seventh stupid idea of the week. A barrel pointed straight at a face that had only sharpened out with age from the last time he had seen it as a teenager.

Here he was, pointing a weapon at a frightened blind man who’s dinner had been interrupted. His hands still at his side, despite the order and the compliant steps backwards.

Here he was, threatening someone he was rapidly realizing that he’d have preferred the court martial to doing this. Preferred the imprisonment and whatever might follow.

Someone who didn’t remember Dallan like he remembered him, as completely evident with the lack of recognition on his face.

It didn’t make anything easier, Dallan thought, kicking the door shut behind him.

[noir0neko]

seasons of you- jjk

the best things bloom in spring. 

all genres, mature content / 15.9k words / reincarnation!jjk au / enjoy !

req(s); Jungkook; Reincarnation!AU, forbidden lovers throughout different lifetimes starting from royalty; but in the present lifetime, the reader is already married (+) a slice of both dom and sub!jungkook smut

a/n; i spent so many weeks and days and hours on this and it is the longest oneshot/fic i have ever written by far, bUt i loved writing it so I really really hope you love reading it ! give me your thoughts nd such if you would be so kind,,,,  i’d super duper appreciate it for this monster, much love <3

“You never know how truly you love someone until you lose them,” your mother always told you. It seemed an obvious thing, nodding your head with a smile as she brushed through the ends of your hair at the vanity. Her opulent necklaces always glinted in the firelight, or the sunshine coming through the windows on early mornings, lips parted with wise concentration and dresses making hushed sounds against the old concrete when she swayed back and forth. She didn't believe in servitude, allowing them to keep place and tidy things in order to hold appearances, but when it came to personal tasks, and tasks regarding her children, your mother was certain the only way something was done right is if it was done by oneself. An idea that was deemed preposterous by much of the aristocracy.

You never understood the allure of royalty, the title of noble Lady holding such an snobby tone to it, one that your sisters wore with painfully obvious pride and arrogance. The palace felt far too large, even for the multitude of families who lived there, not to mention the king, Queen, Prince, Princesses, and all of the royal families’ bastard children, who ran amok unattended and judged based on their father’s decisions. You kept to the outskirts, never gathered in the fancied gardens, or dinner parties unless required, which was more often than you favored.

Like tonight, for instance, the annual King’s dinner and ball which was to be attended by all royalty and titled people living both within and in close proximity to the castle. Whenever people gathered here they seemed to have a hard time leaving, and those who lingered always ensnared themselves into the most troubling of situations.

Your mother’s fingers are soft and gentle as they work out the tangles of your hair. Since your father died when you were a young girl, your mother had blossomed, no longer kept down by the oppressive tendencies of men. She could go as she pleased, dress as she pleased, and her favor with the queen granted her access to any area she pleased. They were playmates as children in the palace, and while your mother spoke ill of no one, she never failed to minutely scrunch up her nose in distaste at mention of the king. She claimed that he dampened her friends once vibrant spirit, made her nothing more than a housewife, a domestic mother, and while your sisters wondered what else a woman could be for than to make heirs and tend to their husbands, you could see the inequality and dreary living that the scales of renaissance life possessed.

You never sought a husband, half out of disinterest and half never wanting to be controlled by anyone other than yourself, and if that earned you whispers and eyes behind your back so be it. Better to be standing with it to other people than constantly on it.

“What is this occasion for?” You ask, running kohl along the lines of your eyelids, “another ambassador in town?”

“Not quite so,” your mother's tone dissuades yours, catching her eye in the mirror as she sets the forgotten comb beside you, “the king's son has returned from his schooling and military exploits in Western Europe.”

“I didn't hear him announced,” you remark, wondering where you could have been when the trumpets went off, “the queen must be overjoyed.”

“On the contrary,” your mother stays silent for a moment, watching your face work out the puzzle. “He is the son of the king’s first mistress, who died in childbirth. The king favors him greatly, so don’t act as a shutin. Remember, those who favor those the king favors-”

“-get king's favors, I know,” you mock her, repeating the line she always did in order to get you to play nice, “but if he's a bastard, why would the king throw a celebration in his honor?”

The light catches the gold in her dress as she spins, firelight igniting her hair while she speaks. “I believe the king is aiming to get him legitimized. He has bribed the church a great deal and sum in order of persuade them into attending this event tonight, therefore we must all be present to show our appreciation and love for his son. You were playmates once,” she adds, “as young children.”

“I don’t remember that,” you state the obvious, continuing with your prior train of thought, “but if he’s legitimized, that would mean-”

“Yes, flower,” your mother silences you with her favorite nickname, “it means he would be king. And that centuries of tradition and birthright would be absconded in the name of male pride.” Her tone savors slightly of bitterness, bringing the trace of a grin to your lips.

“What's his name?” You ask, setting the stylo down and replacing it with a puff for rouge. “The son’s?”

“I believe it's Jungkook,” your mother says absently, drifting away to lay out your gown, “I'm quite certain it's Jeon Jungkook.”

You flip her response over in your mind, pinching your cheeks to pour some fire onto their smooth surfaces before taking a good look at yourself. If church officials were in fact attending this ceremony, there was more pressure on the invited to behave accordingly, especially because in many respects, the church held far more power than the king ever did. Not to mention, the king had the right to sever your head from your body if you embarrassed or dishonored him.

The dress your mother laid out for you is one of the seamstresses finest works, adding to the importance of this feast. The intricate patterns of silver and red silk weave little flowers and cinch your waistband in ribbons of gold that fall down the back of the white chiffon skirt and compliment the beige underlay of the see-through material. The dress has long sleeves, and no doubt runs long enough to cover your shoes, for any skin showing would shock the priests into running the other way. Red and gold were the colors of the church, and wearing this dress was just as much a political statement as a fashion one.

After a few struggling attempts, you manage to tighten up your corset and tie it closed with help of the mirror’s reflection. You can hear your mother humming from the other section of your chambers, wondering where your sisters were and why they were not already here, interrupting the nice silence of you and your mother’s companionship as they usually did.

“Where are the others?”

“I sent them for more ribbon quite some time ago,” her voice is farway, “probably weaved themselves into some trouble along the-”

“Mother!” Your two sisters come bursting through the door, young twins barely of age, but already searching for suitors every way they turned. Nearly inseparable, they commanded an air of mischief wherever they went, linking arms, whispering secrets and flirting with amused strangers. If they weren’t careful their reputations would be ruined before they were even of age to marry. Not that you could say much about yours.

You stand, watching as they fuss over your mother in regards of tonight’s attendees. “Dukes!” They exclaimed, “from neighboring kingdoms. Acquaintances of the King’s bastard, though not friendly enough to be a disgrace to marry! Isn’t that wonderful?”

“It won’t be disgrace at all if he becomes King,” you reply with a dry tone, watching your mother shoot you a disapproving look.

“King?!” They squeal, shifting their opinions as quick as the wind, “we knew there was more worth to him than just his good looks!”

“Have you ever even had his acquaintance?” You challenge them, wiggling the skirt of your gown around your waist. They give you an annoyed look and go to retort before their eyes settle on your dress, fabric billowing from your waist and falling to the floor.

“You always give her the prettiest ones, Mother!” They complain, stomping their feet like spoiled children.

“I don’t control what the seamstress spins,” she waves airily, dismissing their whines, “besides, you girls look lovely in lavender.” She gives you a small, knowing smile before pushing the girls onto the vanity bench to begin their hair.

Though yours was freely down, the braid you had left in it a day prior allowed it a soft wave, the silky strands falling along your back and tickling the nape of your neck, alongside a jeweled headband adorned with diamond flowers that sparkled in the light.

Before you were caught in another bidding war, you slide on your shoes and slip out the chamber door, closing it gently behind you. But the scene when you turn around is no more comforting than before, trays of food, flower arrangements and large ornaments being quickly carried in the direction of the ballroom, the hustle and bustle of things a change of pace from this usually quiet wing of the palace. Working your way with the current of people, you focus on the light coming in through the stained glass windows, making shapes on the opposite chamber doors.

Between the people moving, you can see a face coming opposite from the crowd. A face that stirs panic in your stomach. Lord Keyan, a man who had been mercilessly courting you for months, despite your obvious disinterest. But you could never outright tell him no, or refuse him, then not only you, but your entire family, and your sister’s chances of getting married would be ruined. He held high court with the king, and though you knew the marriage would be advantageous on paper, you could see no gain for you within. There were whispers around from servants, that he had been talking to the jewelers in the hopes of fashioning a ring, in your name, and the thought of him asking you to marry him and the thought of you having no other choice but to accept, broke your heart and shattered it into a million pieces.

Keeping your head down, you skirt around to the edges of the mass and flit towards a wall tapestry, hoping it will give you cover. Quickly looking both ways to ensure no one is watching, you slip behind the large piece and hold your breath, praying no one- namely the Lord hadn’t noticed you. There is no support behind your back though, and instead of leaning against a wall you stumble into an open space, no wider than your figure. There is hardly any light to see where you could be going, but the alternative of returning out is akin to social suicide, so with quiet feet, you feel your way along the stone wall to wherever the passage leads.

In less than a hundred feet, the space opens up into a dimly lit room. There is a musty scent, no windows, and despite being in the middle of two walls burrowed in the castle, the area is big, open. There is hardly any furniture, just a sofa, a plush rug, and a large fireplace, ash and dust collected at its base.

“Who are you?” A voice comes from behind you, startling a gasp that carries around the room. Jumping around, near the opening that brought you in, is a boy. He is tall, dark hair framing his round face and falling over the milky skin of his forehead. His eyes are dark, glinting from the flames and his lips are pink, full, and parted in the aftermath of his question.

“I’m Lady Y/N,” you dip your head, long enough to be respectful but short enough to not lose sight of the mysterious man. He is wearing long trousers, a loose white shirt tucked in and open at his chest, exposing a generous slice of his torso. There is something obviously beautiful about him, and his features mimic someone’s you’ve seen before, but you can’t place your finger on whom.

“Who are you?” You ask him back, both confused and intrigued on the minute smile that turns his mouth up. His expressive eyebrows are raised, and as he takes a step out from the shadows you get a better grasp of how he looks. His hair is a chocolate color, strands looking of honey running through it and his feet are bare, yet clean. You can’t place him, or determine his social status. He doesn’t behave as a servant, but what would a royal be doing in a hidden place like this before a massive celebration?

“I believe I have heard of your household,” he begins, with some thought, “and me? I’m late,” he half-answers you, “how did you find this room?” “I stumbled in,” you brush the hair from your shoulders, “behind the tapestry in the main hall, on accident.” You pause, getting more in before he can, “what are you late for?”

“On accident?”

“I’m trying to evade someone,” you admit, cheeks aglow with the yellow light.

“Family can be quite pesky,” he assumes, dusting himself.

“A suitor, actually, if you could call him that.”

“Aren’t suitors a blessing?” He counters, tilting his head to the side and looking back at you. His features are illuminated gold, skin shimmering.

You pause, unsure of how to respond in an appropriate manner, “I suppose for some. Marriage just seems like a more quaint phrase for control.”

He seems to understand what you are saying without you having to say it, reading between the lines and reading you, a small smile playing with his lips. “Though, it’s supposed to be about love.”

“That’s the reason for my evasion, his… affections are not what they ought to be,” you trail, unable to look him in the eyes, coughing awkwardly. “What is it you are late for again?”  

His voice is soothing, sweet and low with compassion and curiosity, “the festivities,” he says, gesturing a soft hand towards your attire, “which it seems you will be attending.”

“Everyone is attending,” you reply, thankful for the transition, “it’s required by the king.”

He smiles, the look calling upon the wings of butterflies to float in your stomach, disliking the feeling. “Do you know what it’s for?” He asks, his tone light. He walks towards you, and you begin to imagine a million possibilities of what could happen before he passes, bending by the sofa to retrieve his shoes.

“The king’s son,” you reply, following his actions with a sharp gaze.

“I thought it was his bastard,” he sits down on the sofa, countering you.

“Still the king’s son,” you mutter before you can stop yourself, putting a foot in your mouth. Saying something like that, especially in front of a stranger, could get you into bad places very fast. And although your mother was in the queen’s favor, it didn’t mean you were.

But he just laughs lightly, turning to you with a gentle expression, “I suppose you’re right.”  

He smells strongly of timber, the ones around Christmas time, strong and adventurous as he moves past you once more, no longer with naked feet. “I must be going, I’m afraid my father will near kill me if I am not on time” he says, turning back to you at the mouth of the passage into the real world, a wistful, appreciative look on his angelic features. “I suppose now I have a good reason to attend. I do hope to see you tonight, Y/N.”

You can’t seem to open your mouth, realizing he did not use your formal title, meaning he is either a station above you or just very rude. His figure disappears into the tunnel, a sliver of light appearing at the end as he slips away. You hadn’t even gotten his name, and perhaps that’s for the better, this feeling in your stomach, and flush to your cheeks means no good. Men, mean no good, especially when it comes to women.

But he seemed kind, loving, caring, and something about his demeanor intrigued you. And the tone in which he called you, brought a warmth to your soul that was unwanted but welcome. How did he find this place? Perhaps he was dodging someone, as you were? Or perhaps he discovered it on his own? Perhaps you were the one impeding on his personal hideaway.

By the slow raging of the fires and the dimming illumination around you, you can tell it is later than you want it to be. And you can also tell that your mother is probably worried trying to search for you, taking one last look at the hidden sanctuary before following in the young man’s faded footsteps down the alley.

As you approach the tapestry, you can hear the sound of people chatting, though it is much more quiet than before, allowing you to slip out and into the light. The air is warmer, nearly hot, and there is only a little boy who notices you, giving you a quizzical look before his mother commands his attention once more. You can hear music, indicating the ball has begun, and following at the last trailing of the rest of the guests, you keep to yourself while making your way to the gathering.

The harps and violins are loud, the sound of indistinct chatter filling the air. The ballroom doors are as large as the ceiling, grand and adorned with beautiful artworks from one of the kingdom’s finest painters. You loved to sit and trace the constellations on them during nights when cloud cover was thick, finding a way of feeling comfort in their white twinkling as you did with the outside stars.

“Where have you been?” Your mother gently hisses, coming from near the entryway to grab your arm.

“I’m quite sorry, Mother,” you give her a kiss on the cheek, “I found myself lost in all the commotion.”

“The queen truly outdid herself. As she does with every new event,” your mother admires the splendor around. Gushing fountains with chocolate and bright strawberries, raspberries, and boysenberries, surrounding freshly baked treats, tarts, and cakes, caskets of free flowing wine, dozens of red bouquets entrapped in gold vases, blooming and beautiful. The walls are lined with tasteful tapestry, religious depictions aimed for the church's liking and of course, the attendees themselves, all polished, perfect and prim citizens of the King's rule.

There are at least two hundred people in the room, easily three with the servants, and amongst all the movement you can't find the boy from earlier, searching for his dark hair and light skin in the crowd of faces. Your mother busies herself with a few fellow noble ladies, who still seem to be paying their grievances a decade after your father's death.

You wander off without your mother's eye, spotting your two sisters crowded in a circle around their friends, daughters of the noble women your mother shared acquaintance with, who did not care about your father's death a decade ago, and most certainly did not now. They're whispering excitedly about something, the six girls bouncing on the heels of their shoes to the music, their brightly colored dresses twirling about.

Abruptly, the music dies down, and the crowd of people part in the middle to make way for the king's page, a small round man who must've been running to get here, cheeks red with exertion.

“May I announce, the King.” He says, voice commanding much more attention than his figure. Everyone is bowing, continuing to stay down and lower their heads as the page speaks off the list of royals attending. You wonder if the boy from earlier is bending with you, or if perhaps he is one of the royals rattled off that you were too busy looking at the floor to see. You entertain the idea of looking up, but know that if you were to be caught by one of the Church officials or the King it would be highly disrespectful.

“And finally,” the page interrupts your thoughts, “may I announce, the guest of honor on this fine evening,” you peek your head up just an inch to get a glimpse of the mystery son, relieved to find others are doing the same. “The soon to be Prince, Jeon Jungkook.”

Without thought, your head flies up, the only fully upturned face in a crowd of hundreds to see him walk down the parted aisle with his family and smile at the page. It’s him, a dark and beige embroidered vest opened to reveal his tunic, now laced to cover his chest and his hair artfully swept back, dark and light like marbled chocolate. His boots are shined, tan to match the color on his clothing, pants pressed and tucked into his shoes. You are agape, eyes wide and stomach flipping once more at the sight of him. That is why he laughed when you coined a bastard as simply the king’s son, he was testing you. He is the king’s bastard, the king’s son, the guest of honor. The man whom the king is attempting to legitimize. He looked so familiar because you could see the ghost of the King’s facial features in him, and you observe him carefully, just as those he passes does.  

The church officials are eyeing him, watching as he pays his respects to every one of them down the line. This is his first impression, this is when they decide. What they feel would not change from this moment, in their minds they were already making the choice as to whether or not the man before them would be fit to rule the country. The amount of weight on his shoulders must be immeasurable, and you find a part of you feeling sympathetic towards him.

Half of you wishes to catch his eye, yet the other part prays he will not notice you, moving behind a line of bowing people with as slow grace as possible, relieved when everyone regains their normal posture and you blend back into the crowds.

“Lady Y/N?”

You freeze, every bone in your body completely and utterly frozen in dread. Goosebumps appear on your arms, under your dress, and with polite a smile as you can muster, you turn to find the Lord Keyan standing there. His trousers are slightly crinkled at the knees, vest buttoned and collar stiff against his neck, with blonde hair reaching its peak. His eyes look over you, unabashedly, disgustingly, a smile morphing his face into a devilish fiend.

“You look ravishing,” he says, nearly salivating.

“Thank you,” you look past him, searching for something, anything to get you out of this situation as fast as humanly possible.

“How have you been enjoying the beginning change in season?” He asks, tilting his head to the side. You can see your sisters watching you from beyond the Lord’s figure, helplessly curious and nosy.

“It’s been quite enjoyable,” you force a small smile, feeling it come out more of a grimace.

“I must say the Spring light has revived you, as well,” his eyes rake over you again, feeling violated, “I’m sure winter will miss you when it goes.”

“Thank you, my Lord,” you bow lightly, using the opportunity to try and take your leave. “Now, if you’ll excuse me I have to-”

“Wait,” his fingers snake around your wrist, holding you in place while he fishes into his pocket. Your eyes widen, and your wrist feels as though it’s desiccating from his grasp. This is it. This is the moment. This is the second when everything you wanted with your life is over. You would never get to travel. You would never get to be free. You would be claimed by him. And be claimed by all of his ideals and abuses of rights. Pure and utter panic flutters across your face, and your sister’s must sense it because they begin furrowing their eyebrows with questioning looks.

“Lady Y/N, from the moment I laid eyes on you, I wanted you to be mine,” the way the words come out of his mouth stab you, each syllable a swift gutting straight to the heart. You could not refuse him. He had the power to ruin the name of your entire household. And by the achievement in his eyes you could tell he already full well knew that. He enjoyed the game. The hunt. Presenting the ring in front of you, you have to sink your teeth into your lip in order to keep from sobbing at the demise of your hope, eyes blinking rapidly and sister’s eyes like saucers and people around you beginning to whisper.

“Will you do me the hono-”

“Everybody dance! The musicians are playing a wonderful piece from abroad!” A booming voice interrupts the Lord’s proposal, and before you can utter anything, a hand is pulling you away into the middle of the filling ballroom floor, music livening up to drown out the guests voices in the surrounding area. It’s Jungkook who is holding your hand upright, then your body, an arm looping around your waist and floating you around to the sound of the music.

He is in fine form, a divine figure in front of you, around you, and you can’t think of anyone else in the world you would have rather been saved by than him. You can’t express your appreciation, giving him a shaky smile waterlogged with tears, trying desperately to blink them away and focus on the steps of the dance that Jungkook guides you into. He saved you. He saved you from saying yes. He saved you from the life you told him you never wanted. He saved you from the thing that haunted your dreams and froze up the blood in your veins.

“You saved me,” you manage to spit out, adjusting your posture and keeping your eyes on him as other couples join in the routine, “thank you.”

“I’m trying to make a good impression,” he says with a grin, and you’re not sure if he is talking about on you or the church, “you’re my first damsel in distress.”

“I’m not a damsel,” you scoff, feeling weird at the sparkle in his eyes.

“Trust me,” he pauses, following the steps in perfect rhythm, “I know.”

You can feel the way he’s looking at you, and you can feel the way it’s making you feel, an unusual sense of emotion choking you up. The way his hands feel on your body makes you feel so alive, the wind in your hair as he whisks you around to the beat of the orchestra has you spinning on cloud nine, and the weird sense of wholeness you had been feeling since the moment you met him pulls you in a million different directions.

“I think I need some air,” you blurt, abruptly stepping back from him and dodging through an opening in the crowd to the ballroom doors. You can hear one of your sisters call your name, ignoring her and pushing on until you reach the blessed night of the hallway, only illuminated by dim firelight from the celebration.

You can feel yourself trembling, turning to face the wall as Jungkook comes out after you, hoping you can melt away so he won’t notice. But of course he does, why wouldn’t he, coming closer and shielding you from the rest of the light with his body.

“Don’t push me away,” he says, taking your shaking hands into his and pressing you against the stone wall. Tears are now freely flowing down your face, and the terrible panic in your stomach continues to rage. You turn yourself away when a small gathering of people walk out, not wanting to draw any more attention than you already had with him.

“I think I need some air,” you repeat, seeing the endless night as refuge stretching on in the windows behind him, imagining the late spring to feel so nice on your skin.

“Okay,” he says, backing up and placing his hand on the small of your back, “let’s go.”

“But you must stay,” you fly a hand back towards the party, “the church-”

“My father has already forced their hand,” he says in a hushed voice, a secretive tenor to his tone, “this is more of a… formal display of respect.”

You furrow your eyebrows, “that means, you’ll be-”

“-yes, I will be King. Until Prince James is old enough in ten years to usurp me.”

You feel weak all over again, the sensation of his hand on your back melting you into a pool of jelly. Jungkook, soon to be King Jungkook is guiding you in a different direction than what you know, sniffing quietly and not speaking as he takes a servant’s path through the kitchens, empty and desolate due to the high staffing volume at the event.

“Do you know all the secret passages here?” You ask, nodding in thanks as he opens the door to a small courtyard.

“All I used to do as a boy was explore them. When my father wasn’t trying to teach me how to be King. I never listened. Never thought it was even possible-” He stops, looking at you with an odd expression, “but I suppose he has been planning this day since I was born.”

The air is crisp, wet and bursting with rain. The first flowers of spring had begun to bloom along the edges of the concrete, baby’s breath. Your favorite. Jungkook’s hand brushes against yours as he breaks eye contact and bends down to pet the plants, eliciting shivers down your spine.

“You’ll be a great King,” you say, the words somehow seeming to fall so short of what he needs to hear. He spins around and plops down on his bottom, the grass cushioning him while music floats from within the palace. He gestures you to sit next to him with a hum, taking your wrist in his grip and enticing you to the ground. The grass can’t be felt through the thick material of your gown, leaning further until you’re lying on your back, gazing up at the stars.

They hadn’t been visible for some nights, and the appearance of them now soothes an anxious part of your soul. You feel at ease, with the sky, with Jungkook, sighing deeply and smiling when you feel him settle next to you.

“Why were you crying?” Jungkook ventures, the warmth from his body seeping into yours, “when the Duke proposed?”

“Because it wasn’t love,” you say without thinking, knowing it is true, “he looks at me as he does a deer. Like I would be great to boast about and hang on his mantle during the winter. I am a prize to be won in his eyes, that ring, and the obscene amount he paid for it, was his bid on me.”

“A fool,” Jungkook shames after a moment of silence, “men are fools.”

“I’m afraid most women are no better,” you reply, wistfully thinking about your sisters and their awed faces when you couldn’t force yourself to accept Lord Keyan’s proposal. But he had saved you, and the leftover adrenaline running through your system is making your mind race to places it shouldn’t be. Jungkook sits up, plucking one of the blooming flowers in the grass and tying it in a circular knot.

“What are you doing?” You ask, but he stays silent, observing the pink of your lips and cascades of your hair with blades of grass sticking from between its silk strands. You are no object, no deer in the woods. You are only beauty and-

“Love,” he finally responds, taking your hand from beside you and sliding the flower onto your pinky finger, the simple ring with no tangible price unlike the Duke’s, but wringing your insides with emotion. “I want you to promise me that you’ll marry for love,” he begins, “not all of us have that luxury, and not all of us have the strength to wait until we find it. But I want you to promise me you will, Y/N, you deserve nothing less.”

Your lips part, tears welling in your eyes and throat clogged up with appreciation, looking at this boy, this prince, who by some trick of fate managed to capture your heart in a mere two hours that felt like days. The heart you thought was locked up tight, away from anyone’s grasp or words. But right under your nose he stole it, swiped and devoured it in the sweetest way.

“Okay,” your hand wraps around his, looking up at him, “I promise.”

The faint trace of a smile bewitches his lips, and you close your eyes to the starry skies as he reaches down and runs his knuckles against your cheek ever so lightly. His skin is impossibly soft, the back of your eyelids going darker as he leans across your field of vision. You can feel his face inches from yours, staying completely still and letting him make the first move, lips descending upon yours with such gentility you question whether they’re there at all.

You grip his arm, indulging him in more, but also imploring him to stop, utterly terrified at the implications his kiss would ripple. He deepens his presence, moving to straddle you, staining his knees with grass and moving his body along yours. His lips are ethereal, opening to invite you into the heaven beyond, the warm recesses of his mouth swallowing yours whole. A whine emits from your throat, running your fingers through the art of his hair and pulling him closer to you, unable to resist the temptation welling in your bones.

You can’t feel anything but wonder, beauty, purity and sin all in the same breath that he steals from your very lungs. It is an out of body experience, being kissed by him, one of his hands fitting to your waist and applying liberal pressure in the most perfect of ways. Jungkook moves from your mouth, kissing down your jaw and arching your body up so he can mark along your neck, making sure to keep everything invisible to the physical plane. But emotionally, he is branding you with every touch, opening your eyes to the winking stars and dancing baby’s breath in the peripheral of your vision.

Running your hands down his back and around his sides, you marvel at the fine linens, wondering how much more there is beneath it, endlessly curious to feel the lines of his torso and back in their bare nudity. A part of you knows doing this out in the open is the opposite of smart, but another part of you doesn’t care, wanting to only feel his lips and hands all over you, wishing they would dip lower… push up the fabric of your dress… slip between your legs… and… completely, utterly, and totally destroy you with his-

“Y/N,” his voice is beautifully breathy, calling you back to reality. He has stopped kissing you, lips swollen and full when he comes up to look down at you. You understand the caution in his eyes, and feel ashamed that you didn’t stop it first, taking a huge intake of fresh air to cool your flushed skin and burning lungs.

“We’ve been gone for quite some time,” he says, tracing the outline of your face tenderly.

You nod, wordlessly, for he has sucked all the speech from your vocal chords. You watch as he stands, dusts himself off, and then extends a hand to you, which you take gratefully, following suit.

With your hand still in his, he places it in the space between your bodies, smiling down at the makeshift ring still on your finger. “Meet me,” he says, “tomorrow at noon where we first laid eyes on one another.”

You blink, exhaling slowly, “okay. I will.”

“Let me go in first,” he says, releasing swiftly and stepping back, the air suddenly seeming so cold without him near. “If you hear the music cease for ten seconds, you know it’s safe for you to return.”

With a shake of your head, he gives you one all knowing smile that combusts you before hurrying back in, leaving the kitchen door ajar behind him. Your head is spinning, the stars swirling and creating hearts in the sky. You can still feel his hair between your fingers, hear your name on his tongue. How could you have let this happen? How could you be locked up tight for all these years and then…

fall in love in one day?

The Spring was beautiful, as it always is in the kingdom and you never thought anything could rival the beauty of blooming flowers, blue skies, and sweet rain until you fell in love.

Everything you did with Jungkook had to be in secret, an open relationship between you two had the capacity to destroy his ascension to the throne and your chaste reputation into that of a mistress. But every Tuesday, in that little room hidden deep between the castle walls, you and him were allowed two hours of illustrious magic. You talked, drank tea, or coffee imported from the New World, sang and danced as you became high on its caffeine.

He was a King, and by his birthright you were equivalent to a commoner. But that didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Two months of constrained passion and quiet love seemed enough, the future suddenly did not matter as much as it had before. And instead of being alone for the remainder of your existence as you expected, you felt as if the small amount of time with Jungkook would keep your body full forever.

There had been many stolen kisses, touches, moments of pure ecstasy that were always stopped before they escalated too far. But a part of you no longer cared if you were ruined, for how could making love with Jungkook ever bring anything but brilliance, and heaven?

Yet a deeper part of you knew it would not last eternity. A slice of you died each time servants talked of him getting a bride from the river. You would wonder if he would kiss her like he kissed you, put flowers in her hair like he did yours, call her name in the way he called you. But as quickly as the dark thought came, light expelled them. He was yours now.

For the Spring.

You began coughing up blood a week before the new season was supposed to turn over. Just as the air became stifling hot, just as the windows were steamed with heat. He was chasing you through the fields of tall grass, arms outstretched, hands flexing and clutching at the air just behind your dress ribbons. You opened your mouth to laugh, but instead, you began to choke, abruptly stopping your light trot to bend over and stain the green blades a dark red.

Jungkook was by your side in an instant, holding back your hair and producing his handkerchief to wipe at the corners of your lips with worried care. He had shielded your body from any possible passerby with his, you arms weakly pushing him away as you turn your back to hack up chunks of fluid into the grass.

“You need to leave, I can make it back on my own.”

“Y/N-”

“It’s contagious, Jungkook,” you forced out. Everyone had heard about the spreading white plague. About the fast death time, about the untreatable disease, about the pain, the suffering, the suffocation, “it’s consumption.”

Jungkook remained silent, too stunned to say anything. You began to catch your breath, but it seemed your lungs would not allow a gulp of oxygen before it was being revolted back out, along with the very force of your life. Beginning to think Jungkook had left, you startle when his hand is on your back once again, quietly consoling you through the panic.

Both of you were well aware of what happened to those infected. They were quarantined. Locked away to die alone where they could not permeate others with the disease. Your father had died of it nearly a decade ago, and while you were sure you had been infected as you nursed him, you were not. And not even your Mother’s pleadings to the Queen would allow him to die in our chamber. He was ushered down, forced to bear his last breath by himself, surrounded by stones and the echo of silent death. Your love with Jungkook, especially the secretiveness of it, would get you nowhere. And the last thing you ever wanted to do was infect your family, or Jungkook.

You heard Jungkook’s wet lips part, but nothing comes out but wind through the trees. This was it. He pressed a handkerchief into your hand, muttering some kind of prayer under his breath.

“One season with you wasn’t enough,” he said rushedly, “we’ll find a doctor who can fix it.”

You smiled half heartedly, loving him more for his optimism in the face of certain doom, “I am afraid it is too late. I don’t think I can be fixed.”

“Someone has to know. Some people must have survived it.” But both Jungkook and you knew that there has been no such thing you had heard. He was fervent, insistent, and instructed you to act sick with cold and cough into the handkerchief to hide the blood as he brought you to the infirmary. You had begun to obey, the closer to the palace you returned, the more laborious your breathing became, and the more people looked upon with curious eyes. You could barely breathe, and Jungkook’s insistence on a swift getaway made the matter no better. Blood was beginning to seep through the white of his embossed handkerchief, and a million and one things were racing through your mind. At this rate, he would be infected along with you.

Purposely tripping on one of the stones on the garden pathway leading to the main entrance bridge, Jungkook hurried to help you up, a few guards stepping forward to do the same. You had taken the moment to breathe for one last minute, to look into Jungkook’s eyes, wide and bright and so stunningly devastated.

This angel would not go down with you.

You pushed Jungkook off, allowing the guards to get close enough to hear you before raggedly whispering the true name of your sickness, flashing the blood soaked handkerchief to their bewildered eyes and watching as they backed Jungkook away and harshly told you to stay in place and keep your mouth completely shut while someone fetched the mortician.

The mortician. The bearer of death. The true judgement man in the decision of life or what would come after. You had to gather enough courage to seek out Jungkook, the look on his face the true stamp of extinction, a wounded bird in such pain that it seemed you could feel the extreme degree of his hurt resonating within your own body. His lip was quivering, his eyes were glued to your crumpled form, and he had no will to move now that you had sealed the fate for the both of you in that one second decision.

You tried to communicate with a glance. You attempted to explain. To reconcile before the time passed. But his eyes wavered from yours as the mortician arrived to take you away, and the ticking of the clock continued on without you. You can’t recall anything the mortician said, you don’t even remember being taken away. The look on Jungkook’s face was imprinted on the back of your eyelids when you blinked, replicated on every stranger’s face who stared as you passed. You were not allowed to see your family one last time, and the selfish part of you desperately wished they would open the door as you went by, so you could at least tell them you loved them.

Jungkook followed behind on the journey, at a safe distance with a row of fully covered guards in between and lit torches to burn the air of its infection for his safety, but you could still feel him there, distantly. And you could sense his hands following behind your own as they trailed down the stone stairwell to the dungeons, just as they always traced one another with the field flowers.

They gave you the third door on the right to die in, the air musty and rank with desperation and death. The guards turned to leave abruptly, gagging at the smell but lingering on the stairwell when Jungkook didn't follow. With a long stick, the mortician had shoved you through the doorway, Jungkook holding up a hand to halt him a moment from shutting you in.

His figure was just on the other side, five yards away but an impossibly large distance separating you. He was now crying, mimicking what you hadn’t realized you were doing as well.

“I forgive you,” he had said, reading all the sorrow on your face.

The man asked him to back away, and slowly began closing the door, Jungkook on the other side with tears freely streaming down his cheeks. Your body suddenly caved with all the sadness you had tried to repress in the past hour, drooping with the horrible feeling of having to live out the days you had left in containment. Without him.

But a small sliver of hope stretched to your heart as he says he loves you one last time.

As you remember meeting him, his dance, his kiss, his body against yours, his smile, his eyes, his lips, his tongue and teeth and fingers and impossibly soft hair. You remember the months you shared, the laughter, the tears, the impending time clock that had loomed above and is finally striking the final hour. You think about earlier that day, you think of him helping you, trying to save you, like he always did.

You think of him loving you. And you loving him.

And the absolutely, positively, beautiful mess that made.

You hold onto that as the handle clicks, lock turns, and the solitary wilting of death that accompanies the grasp of summer consumes you whole.

-

Someone is screaming your name, coughing up ash and dust as the crumbling building around you settles. There is smoke curling in the air, and your blurry eyes and have conscious brain can barely register the thick beam of wood sitting atop your leg, blood staining the brown dark red.

The voice screams again, deep and masculine, commotion surrounding you as other fires are lit, intruders pillaging the streets. You can not see any members of your family, trying to crane your neck but it won’t move, chest lifting in small, shallow movements with your breathing. Part of you can’t believe that this has happened to you, everyone fears war, but no one knows of its true pain and width until it arrives on your doorstep. Until it knocks politely, until it introduces itself and throws a lit match past you to set your house ablaze.

Once they began it was impossible to stop them, and once the door was barricaded you couldn’t escape. Red, orange and yellow licks at the peripheral of your vision, getting closer with every second. There is a banging at the door, a thudding that resides deep in your brain, and a sliver of blue sky light reaches you as someone works themselves through the entryway.

You can only move your neck enough to just see the upper part of his figure, swallowing thickly and struggling to make out the detail of his features. Bright skin, smeared with gray ash and red blood, dark mop of hair, and a shiny white patch with a red t on the front, the red cross, a movement of volunteers birthed to aid those in need.

But this man, this stranger, is screaming your name, as if he knows you, lips too thin and papery to form a cry for help. You can feel your subconscious taking over your thoughts, blinking rapidly to try and stay awake until you know it’s alright to rest, for if you dozed off you could never wake again.

The material of your dress is scratchy and hot, beads of sweat layering your skin both beneath the dress and on your free skin, feeling the increasing heat of the flames as they approach. Your eyes are so heavy, little weights seeming to press them closed, a swift slap to the face from someone above you unable to stir you into consciousness.

“You can’t die,” the voice holds so much will you almost believe it, focusing solely on keeping your lungs filled with air and the sounds he makes as he tries to rescue you. He is coughing, affected by the smoke, grunting with exertion as he lifts the beam of wood from your leg. It feels like a dream, his voice sounds like someone’s you’d heard in a dream, and the lack of feeling in your leg confirms the fact you must be slipping away from reality into a dream.

He slaps you again, more forceful this time, neck falling sideways and eyes opening into small slivers, irises rolling back before he slaps you again. “I need to get you out of here,” he says, “you can’t fall asleep.”

Without being able to make any sounds to indicate you understand him, he puts his hands under your back and lifts you up, body weight solid and falling into him. He smells like smoke, but also like trees, the pine ones, something about it comforting you immensely. “Just a little bit longer, that’s all, a little more, stay with me, Y/N.”

You open your mouth, trying to ask who he is, but your throat is thick and brimming with smoke, coughing violently into his shirt until blood stains it, dread settling into the pit of your stomach.

The man hisses a profanity, cradling your head closer to him as he kicks at the door. “It’s not Spring yet,” his voice is broken, seeming to be begging some higher power to get you out, the entrance finally giving way and allowing him to run out into the streets. Fresh air hits your face, and small droplets of rain have begin to dot your cheeks. If only the storm had begun ten minutes ago, maybe things could have been different...

He lays you down in the grass across the street, kneeling over you and placing his hands on your chest, feeling the low pumping of blood from your heart. “Hold on,” he says, a ripping sound filling the air as he fashions a tourniquet with a slice of his shirt. His face is getting blurrier by the second, looking beside you to find flowers brushing up against your open hands in the wind. Baby’s breath… your favorite.

You feel his hand on your thigh, wrapping the cloth around it and cutting off circulation from the rest of your leg, coming up with bloody hands and a desperate face. “I’m going to take you to the infirmary,” he says, mouth moving faster than his words, “I need you to stay awake.”

But your conscious is already wearing thin, watching darkness take over his face and feeling a drop of winter’s rain purify your ashy cheek before eclipsing into oblivion.

Three months have gone by since that night, since he saved you. And while it was a miracle in and of itself that you made it out alive, it was even more of a miracle that nothing seemed to be wrong in the aftermath of it.

You’re running through the fields by your house, the remnants of the old ash and dust still lingering on the ground. Even in your haste, you stop to pick a bunch of winter flowers and sprinkle them over the remains, saying a hushed prayer to your family. Not everything died in winter, and not everything bloomed in spring. Jungkook had helped you mourn their deaths after that night, and everyday since he has held your hand and brought you through the darkness into the light.

It had been an entire week since you saw him, rushed letters the only correspondence you had, pretending to be one of his apprentices in the Red Cross so his family didn’t catch wind of anything. They had already arranged him a match from across the Ocean, her impending arrival in the spring making every single moment you and Jungkook had together that much more meaningful. A letter from Jungkook arrived at your aunt’s home this morning, saying that he would be alone for the day as his mother and father were gone to their old home until tomorrow evening, and that you should come keep him company as soon as you could.

Your aunt, while a smart, intelligent woman, was also insensibly strict, insisting you do every chore precisely and in certain orders before you were even allowed to properly dress in the morning. But as soon as you were finished, you slipped his favorite dress on, adorned with the red cape that reminded you of his red cross, slipping out into the freezing afternoon before she could make you stay.

Luckily, Jungkook’s large home is just down the street and around the corner, setback with all the other large houses for the wealthy elite. But if you didn’t know Jungkook was rich, you wouldn’t think it, his quiet, humble demeanor and careless way of dressing made him seem so common, average, and normal in all ways except his handsome face. He is already on his porch when you swing the gate with a creak, coming down the cobblestone path through the front garden to swirl you in his arms, laughter filling the air.

“I missed you, my flower,” he says, kissing your cheeks and forehead and lips tenderly, the cold of his nose colliding with yours. You smile so wide you think your face will split in two, letting him rush you to the warmth of his parlor. You’d only been in his house once, the night after he dragged you from the fire, when he insisted on taking you home to observe you until you were okay. His parents were kind, skeptical of you though, and were always sure to keep their distance and keep an eye on Jungkook when he was around you.

He was able to have his own personal parlor due to the size of his home, large couch, large, rectangular drinking table littered with charcoal and thick parchment paper, along with all of your handwritten letters. Below the window side of his property, there were two chairs facing one another and a couple books strewn in the space between their wooden legs, large fire crackling in the corner and warming the air. Jungkook unbuttons your cloak from the front, hanging it with his own.

“I almost forgot how posh this is,” you say with a teasing tone.

“I was starting to forget the lines of your face,” he responds, tracing them with a chilling finger, causing you to shiver. He is only wearing a loose long sleeved blouse, tucked into his high waisted pants and black suspenders. His hair is messy, as if he’s been running his fingers over it, palms smudged with drawing material.

“You best not get any of that on my dress,” you gesture to the smears, “I wore it just for you.”

“And you look just… transcendent.” He pulls you closer, purposely using all the parts of his stained hands with a twinkle in his eyes. You shake your head, attempting, but not trying to push him away before he steals your breath away in a kiss. His lips are chapped but impossibly soft, barely getting to enjoy the sensation before he pulls away and goes to the table.

“I’ve been working on something this past week,” he exclaims, his voice carrying that familiar excitement. The happiness that he got when he talked about medicine, or art. It is perhaps the most endearing thing about him, the genuinity he could possess, the raw emotion he could command and draw you in with. He flips around his masterpiece so you can see it, the crinkling parchment covered in a face.

Your face.

Jungkook had drawn you, stunningly accurate from memory, the curve of your jaw and rise of your cheekbones. Your hair has the perfect length, his hand able to apply the proper pressure to give an array of shades to it. His face is expectant, waiting for you to say something, but you can’t, opening your mouth and closing it again.

“It’s wonderful,” you manage, “I don’t understand how you’re so talented.”

“I’ve found my muse,” he says, a sheepish look on his face.

You smile, looking down at the floor to hide your blush. “It seems done to me…”

“Nope,” he sets it back down and comes closer, inspecting you, “not quite… I think a few more freckles have come along your cheeks since I last saw you,” he says, poking them on your cheeks, “only you would get them in the winter,” he smiles bigger when your face brightens with red, “the sun must live within you.”

“It’s you, Jungkook,” you lick your lips, his eyes swirling in chocolate hues, “you’re the sunshine.”

His expression deepens, humming in thought and planting a firm kiss on your forehead, pushing your hair behind your ears with a gentle hand, another shiver moving you. “Are you cold?” He asks, worry flitting over his face.

“A little,” you admit, not mentioning it is mostly him that gives you goosebumps. His mere glance igniting your nerves with fire. He purses his lips, suddenly spinning you around so your back is facing him. You had wisely chosen not to wear your hoop skirt today, the wiring so large you would not have been able to feel the heat from his body like you can now. His fingers tug at the end of your hair, and you’re just about to ask what he is doing before you feel his fingers on the strings of your dress, beginning to unlace its top.

“I’m making you warm,” he says for explanation, tone dropping fifty octaves.

“I highly doubt this will do that…” You trail, voice not entire convincing as the first teases of his fingers against your bare back set you ablaze. You can feel heat pooling in every part of you, Jungkook’s fingers moving excruciatingly slow with the ribbon, pulling them back through the hand sewn holes piece by piece by piece.

You let out a breath of air, the sound too loud in the extremely silent room. His chuckle sends indignance through you, pouting your lips and whining again. Reaching his hands beneath the now completely unlaced back of your dress, Jungkook rounds them to tap along your bare stomach, butterflying kisses onto your shoulder and neck and back, until pushing the dress top down your arms and causing the skirt to fall to the floor with nothing holding it up any longer. You had only bothered to wear a slip underneath, the cold air peaking your nipples and momentarily shaking your knees until Jungkook pulls you back against him, chest to chest, body to body, warmth to warmth.

His lips are parted, wet with saliva, using the soft pad of his thumb to tilt your head back so your mouths are parallel. His eyes reflect the racing of his mind, and you can see him somewhat quibbling with whether it is fair for either of you to continue, to keep going, to push all the way…

“You’re insufferable,” you tease, not giving him time to react before you smash yourself against him, letting him fill you up from top to bottom with jolting sensation. Everytime you kissed him it felt like the first time, and everytime he touched you it felt like the world spun faster and the stars shined brighter.

His hands are fast around your waist, gripping at the silk covering your body and guiding you near the sofa, your fingers hurriedly working at the waistband of his trousers, unhooking his suspenders before either of you can stop this, moving your body back so they can fall and Jungkook can step out of them. His gray drawers are tight against his thighs, leaving no line of muscle, vein, or arousal to the imagination, his shirt partially covering his already straining erection. Jungkook is hungry for you, like a starving man, sitting below you and not breaking contact as you settle atop him. The lines of his face are soft beneath the pads of your fingertips, his skin smelling of soap and tasting like his morning coffee. Your chemise shifts to settle around your hips, cold air shocking your extremities and wringing a moan into the air when Jungkook’s hands grip your bare thighs.

He rises up beneath the thin fabric, tapping his fingers against your skin and only allowing a second of air to move it over your head, then another to look at you, completely naked. As if a goddess, your breasts peak in the winter air, the soft curve of your stomach gliding down to your hips and then beautifully delicate flower puckering between two stretched legs. He is eager for the taste, the sound, the sensation, of your bodies interconnected with one another. He would ravish you. Destroy you. From the inside out.

Leaning back along the velvet throws, Jungkook raises his knee between your legs when you follow him down, smothering you in more osculation of the lips. Arousal pools between your legs, Jungkook’s bare thigh stimulating the area, beginning to rhythmically ride him and consume his lips and scrape his chest with your nails while moaning softly to the heavens. He feels ethereal, looks primordial, sounds serendipitous moving and craving and exploring all of the land he had yet to cover on you, the months of desire culminating into an epic explosion that erupted in the space between your bodies.

You turn your head so he can suck blossoms of purple beneath the intended line of your dress, the sun setting in a blaze of fire across the skyline, almost as beautiful and breathtaking as the boy beneath you, who with just one touch completely eradicates the air from your body and sense from your brain. In a slow rush, your hands swim below the surface of his shirt, warm muscle rippling and waving in response.

Jungkook whispers your name as his shirt is removed, bringing your eyes from the light planes of his torso to the melted chocolate of his eyes. “There is no place I’d rather be than right here, right now, with you.”

You cradle his face, a wisp of a smile on your lips, pausing for a moment to enjoy the languid peace of being with him. Nothing else matters, nothing else permeates the space of love and desire lingering like a bubble in the air. His hands swipe down your back, eliciting goosebumps along your skin, his patterns of touch like a song your body yearns to hear.

“I love you,” you respond, kissing his suited reply away.

The true ephemerality of this moment is painful, the notion that tomorrow at this time he would be someone else’s, that he would belong to another, tore up your heart and shredded it into slivers of broken glass. You close your eyes, trying to suppress the rushing sadness by encapsulating every second with him to your memory, letting the feeling of making love, and being in love with him eternally brand your conscious.

Jungkook lifts up, with your weight, and slides his undergarments down his legs, your hands hurrying to help as his arousal is freed from its constraint, arching and pink and deliciously throbbing to feel you, your own body mimicking the lust. Sin is suddenly the only relevant emotion in mind, licking your lips and letting Jungkook dominant you, taking your hips in between his hands.

“Are you ready?”

You look at him, the love of your life, your moon, your stars, your universe. The only thing keeping you tethered, the only reason you were alive. Your savior. You wanted nothing more than to immediately say yes. Throw all caution to the wind, even though you know that the act was not a wise one. But love isn’t supposed to be wise, it’s impossible, and wonderful, and breathtaking, and a beautiful mess. Selfishly, you nod, blinking rapidly with anticipation.

Positioned above him, Jungkook settles you down an inch, ever so slowly, ever so gently, but a burning pain radiates from your core as you take him in, biting your lip and throwing your head towards the ceiling. You’re dripping wet, and swollen, his hand going between your thighs to distract you with clitoral stimulation.

It works.

He pinches the nub with one hand as he directs you up and down with the other, eyes half glazed as he watches your breasts move and hair shift with each of his movements. Faster, rougher, harder, he pushes and pulls in and out, completely controlling your movement and seething your name every time a high pitched moan tears itself from your throat. Almost as quickly as it came, the pain melts into pleasure, feeling his length in every inch of your body and soul. You’re biting your lip so hard you think you taste blood, Jungkook taking his hand from your clit to bring it up to the reddened caterpillars, pushing past their boundary into your mouth.

You look flawless like that, sucking on his finger while riding him, impeccably sexy, and all his to have, and to hold, and to love. He isn’t sure what he ever did to deserve you, overwhelmed with amazement at the fact that you came into his life and showed him ten lifetimes worth of happiness in just this one season that he’d been in love with you.

“Promise me,” Jungkook’s voice is breathy, rough, the words somehow giving you a strong sense of deja vu. He is surrounded by you, your body on fire, hips twitching and stomach rolling and toes curling.

“Promise me this is forever,” he holds you, weight of his words hanging in the air.

“I promise,” you lean down to kiss him, his hips crashing back into yours and continuing the discourse between you two. You can’t stop moaning, his lips feral and desperate against yours. You can feel your body building up, the power climbing up your spine getting ready to implode you from within. His hands follow the line of your back and around your backside, squeezing and spanking the skin roughly, as if he is pushing you off the edge into oblivion beyond.

You cry out his name, body spasming and walls tightening around him, clutching onto the silk strands of his hair and burying your face in his neck to shower sloppy kisses all over the hot skin. Your eyes are squeezed shut, color bursting on the backs of your eyelids with everyone of his thrusts, hips rolling and legs tightening with the beginnings of overstimulation.

He begins to growl, trying to hold himself back until you’re done so he can pull out and finish himself off, sweaty bodies mingling together as you struggle to catch your breath. Rising up from your burrowed position, you push the hair from his forehead and remove yourself from him, moaning with the blessed friction. Without him you feel empty, watching his face carefully when you grip his hard shaft in between your hands, the skin sticky and glistening from your own arousal.

He whines, indulging you to continue on, back arching and eyes rolling back. He is a chaotic artform, a demonic angel, a picture of glorious divinity and slice of life as you immortalize the sound of his ragged breathing as he begins to orgasm. Taking him into your mouth, you allow him to finally cum in ropes of white, letting him fill you up and bloat your cheeks. He lets out an absolutely gorgeously loud moan, repetitively breathing your name like both a prayer and a curse.

It takes him a few moments to calm down, looking at you with a devilish grin and wiping the excess cum from around your lips before forcing you down to smother him in a hug, smiling against him and losing track of time in the aftermath with peaceful pillow talk. He reaches his arm to the back of the sofa to drape the two coverlets over your bodies, their thick warmth cocooning you two in your own world.

“No matter what happens,” he says, kissing your nose tenderly, “I’m yours forever.”

You nod your head, laying it against the warmth of his chest to hear his beating heart, steady and soft, letting the wondrous silence of just being with him eclipse you. It is night, the stars glittering through the parlor window and winking at you and Jungkook, still caught up in the last remnants of soft love, nuzzling each other under his blankets, and marveling at the nothing and everything of each other’s company when there is a knock on the door.

You’re quick to cover yourself as Jungkook gets up from beneath you and puts his shirt on, round curve of his backside looking so smackable beneath the long shirt as he passes by, hiding your body with a blanket as he lets in the cold to greet the visitor. You wonder if you should hide, the frightening prospect that his parents could have come home early and caught you two in such a scandalous position positively terrifying. They would gossip to everyone, both in town, and in the neighboring village of how impure you were, hoping to forever ruin your reputation.

Not that in mattered, you would never belong to anyone else but Jungkook.  

“Mail!” A boy’s voice calls, and a sense of relief settles over you that quickly turns to panic as you remember your aunt, who would no doubt worry more with each passing hour you did not return home. You rip off a piece of paper from one of Jungkook’s blank drawing pages, scrambling for a pen as Jungkook takes the correspondence from the boy.

“Wait!” You halt him, Jungkook peeking his head around the corner in question.

“My aunt,” you say, hearing him politely ask the boy to stay a moment.

Hurriedly, you scribble down an apology to your aunt, explaining that the hospital had an emergency and you were asked to stay and volunteer for the night, praying she would not go out of her way to go check on you as she occasionally did. The mailboy stands just beyond the doorway, waiting patiently for you to neatly fold and package the letter in one of Jungkook’s high class coverings, rushing over in your improper state of blankets.

“Send this to my parish, please,” you tell the young boy, “for my aunt.”

He nods wordlessly, none the wiser to the scene, rubbing the thick, expensive envelope between his fingers before trotting off with it, whistling an old hymn on his way. You wrap the coverlet closer around your shoulders when you step out to shut the door, teeth chattering dramatically and feeling weak in the knees. You give Jungkook a half worried and half relieved look, his smile easing all the tension out of your bones as he comes to give you a kiss on your forehead.

“I’ll make some tea,” he says, “your favorite.”

You smile warmly, going back to the sofa to wrap yourself in another one of his velvet coverlets, feeling the soft, heavy fabric warm your cold skin. You can hear Jungkook in the other room, moving things around to find where the housekeeper’s put things. You feel somewhat numb from the cold, trying to rub sensation back into your legs under the blanket, but as the left one stirs to life, the right one stays dead, not even a prickle or needles when you push down on your thigh.

Hitting it against the couch, you rap your knuckles onto the skin, furiously rubbing the inner stitching of the coverlet on your flesh in attempt to invoke some feeling. Yet, nothing happens, and confusion sets in your features when you hear Jungkook returning.  

“I can’t feel my leg,” you say when he gets back by your side, taking the steaming teacup from his hands and sipping on the liquid, letting it warm your throat.

“What?” He asks, setting his own cup down.

“I can’t feel my leg,” you repeat, poking the skin of your thigh and feeling nothing once more. Jungkook does the same, feeling the skin for something you aren’t aware of, nowhere near a medically advanced as him.  

“Y/N, I think it’s an internal infection, this is the leg that got wounded in the fire,” he holds around your thigh, turning it from side to side to infect the swelled, but otherwise unblemished skin, “I’ve never seen one spread so fast, or so suddenly after so much time, it’s nearly consumed your entire leg and hip.”

You’re too afraid to look, but can’t tear your eyes away, feeling nothing when he pushes his thumb down on your thigh. “Is it possible it’s just temporary? Maybe it’s asleep from the cold?” You ask, getting an immediate and sure ‘no’ from him, with a shake of his head.

“You would be able to feel at least something if it was just asleep. We definitely need to get you to a doctor before it spreads anymore…”

“Will it be okay?” You ask, finding him unable to look you in the eye. He doesn't respond right away, taking the time to slide your slip and dress back over your head, not bothering to lace it right up the the back.

“Of course,” he says, swallowing thickly and covering up the swollen limb with your dress before plucking you off the sofa. There is dread and sadness and what looks like regret all over his face, inspecting his features with worry until you are pressed into the soft white of his clean tunic.

The medic center is barely a stone’s throw from his home, just past the spread of mansions in a small, white, square building, painting with a big red cross on a sign swinging in the wind. You burrow into his chest to keep the cold night away, but noticing a thaw from the usual icy grass as winter tries to linger onto what it has left, hoping the letter you sent to your aunt reached her alright.

There are a couple other families in the infirmary, giving solace to their loved ones. Jungkook lays you on one of the far cots, away from the rest, and kisses your forehead before going to explain the situation to the doctor. Perhaps the fire had finally caught up to you, maybe there had always been an infection in your leg, it just took months to surface.

The head doctor introduces himself and uses various instruments and tools to assess you, humming and writing things down. You can feel your body breaking out in a cold sweat, feeling sick enough to throw up, but finding nothing in your stomach but chamomile tea. Jungkook watches the doctor like a hawk, following his every movement with the brown of his eyes to ensure your safety and his thoroughness.

“Your heart beat is very weak,” the doctor observes, placing one hand on your chest and another on your back as he asks you to inhale deeply. When trying to fill his request, you find that you can’t, only able to shallowly take in oxygen. Suddenly, it seemed all of the things you could do twelve hours ago with no issues were coming with great effort.

“I need to consult with another doctor about this…” He trails, hurrying from the room and shutting the curtain to give you and Jungkook some privacy from the rest of the people. Jungkook comes beside you and takes your hand, a look of extreme worry harrowing his features. You smooth his hair behind his ears, smiling.

“I’ll be okay,” you say, but he doesn’t respond, something about him off.

Before you can continue on, you can hear the medic’s shuffling shoes outside of the curtains, dread settling in your stomach as he has to stop and take a breath before entering, obviously being the bearer of bad news.

“Just as I thought, it seems the infection has spread from your leg to other vital parts of your body,” the medic says, a grave tone in his voice, “with our current technology, I am afraid there is nothing we can do. I am greatly surprised it took so long for you to feel any symptoms of such a condition. Your body seems to have begun to shut down on itself,” he hurries on, “you will feel no pain. You will continue to go numb, and then…”

“Please,” Jungkook interrupts the doctor, begging him to not go any further, to not finish his sentence, looking away with an anguished face until the man leaves the room in suspended silence.

He starts crying, nearly sobbing at the side of your cot. Dying coughs and moans surround you, feeling a tear slide down your cheek as well. “It’s nearly spring,” your voice is meek, “I won’t get to see the baby’s breath bloom this year.”

His face is flooded with pain, swallowing thickly. “I- I-”

“What?” You ask, losing more feeling in your legs. But oddly enough, you feel no panic, or dread. You feel happy with him next to you, unafraid of death. You weren’t ready for it when it came three months ago, but after living what felt like a million years of love with him, you could go satisfied. Content.

But the expression he wears is worrying you, something clogged up in his throat that he seems to want to get out but can’t figure out how. “Y/N…”

“Tell me,” you inquire again, “tell me what’s wrong, I pray of you.”

“We’ve met before,” Jungkook begins with a hurried confession, inhaling slowly to steady his words, “in 1630. We weren’t allowed to be together. But we were anyway, we were in love all Spring. And then, just as summer was about to begin, you came down with what we now know was tuberculosis. And died. We only had one season of love…” He continues, “and now, over two hundred years later, I kept having dreams of that past life, and then I somehow I found you again when my family moved, and that was when I knew the dreams were more than that. I kept seeing you around, learned the local language- I just wanted to watch over you from afar and make sure you were okay and real and not my imagination, but the night of the fire I couldn’t sit idle as you were inside... Now, here we are, not supposed to be together, but in love again. Because, my god Y/N, I love you. But it has only lasted a season. I can’t help but feel like it’s my fault, that maybe this is fate’s way of punishing us for trying to defy what we are supposed to be.”

“We are supposed to be together, Jungkook,” you say, sweat and tears running down your face, “I can’t remember any of that. But I know that from the moment I met you, I felt like I had known you before, that I had seen you before… that I had loved you before.”

His hand is gripping yours, openly crying now. The dark of his hair is matted from going so long by your side, cheeks a little caved from lack of appetite, and eyes dark from absence of sleep. “Be happy,” you tell him, “live long and live hard. “I’m sure we'll meet again. Promise me we'll meet again.” You give him a tiny smile, feeling your body start to go numb from the bottom up.

“But it’s too soon for this life,” he is desperate now, unable to tear his eyes from you as the last bits of your consciousness float away, “and I can’t Y/N, I can’t deprive you of your life anymore.”

“It’s not your fault,” you respond, but it obviously doesn’t convince him, “and if you won’t come to me, then I will come to you. I will try to remember and I will come.”

He bites his lower lip, kissing your forehead and pushing the hair from your face. “I love you.” He sobs, “I’m so sorry.”

“I’d rather have one season by your side,” you run your hand along his cheek, eyes falling shut for the last time with a breath, “than a thousand lifetimes without you.”

-

You open your eyes, gray light filtering in slants through the closed blinds. You can hear classical music, smell burning bacon, and stretch your arms in bed, wiping the film from your eyes. Your nightstand, your lamp, your phone, illuminated with missed notifications. And the time: 9:03 a.m, the latest you had slept in for quite some time.

“Honey!” Your husband’s voice calls, feeling disoriented, like you’re forgetting something, or someone, padding across the warm carpet into the hardwood of the hallway and then out into the kitchen.

He stands in front of the stove, suit pressed and clean, hair gelled and briefcase at his feet. A piece of bacon sits between his lips, which moves when he turns to smile at you, “morning, sleepy head, you must’ve been having some crazy dreams last night.”

He sets a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast down on the table, hurriedly chowing down the strip of food in his mouth and kissing your cheek. “Thank you,” you give him a groggy grin, appreciating the returning of your usual breakfast making gesture.

“Who is Jungkook?” He asks lightly, sitting on the couch and slipping his shoes onto his feet, giving you the strangest feeling of deja vu.

“Who?” You ask, sitting down and furrowing your eyebrows at him.

“Jungkook,” he repeats, “you kept saying his name in your dreams last night.”

You pull the bacon apart, biting off a bit of the deliciously burnt edges with a shrug. “I don’t know.” You rotate your plate, “must be someone random I subconsciously picked up.”

He hums in agreeance, standing up and telling you how he has another conference meeting at 10, and then at 2, so he’d be home at 4. You nod wordlessly, turning over the guy's name in your brain. You didn’t recognize it one bit, but something stirred within you when it fell from your husband’s mouth. Something distant, otherworldly, yet so present. Kissing him goodbye, you watch him walk out the front door with absent thought.

The eggs are a little runny, picking around the mucus like yellow to eat the substance, his playlist of classical morning music cutting off as his phone goes out of bluetooth range, eclipsing you into silence.

The sky is cloudy for a near summer day, and you can’t even count the cotton in the sky as you put your plate in the sink due to them being one congealed mess. The cotton of your pajamas feels itchy on your skin, and looking at the rain laden sky with the scratchy clothing brings you an uncomfortable sense of deja vu like earlier.

A sort of claustrophobia consumes you, and you suddenly feel an overwhelming urge to leave the house, throwing your sleeping clothes into the laundry and sliding on a sundress, knowing the future rain would not take the swamping humidity away from the air. Spring had barely passed and summer was already in full heat, the dread at the season to come filling you with nostalgia for autumn and winter.

“Where are my shoes?” You wonder aloud, not bothering to put any makeup on in your haste. Bending down to the floor, you see your discarded flats halfway under the bed, reaching your arms to fish them out and slide them onto your feet, then grabbing your purse and locking the door behind you.

There is a small coffee shop on the main street a few blocks from your apartment, the idea of an iced tea sounding refreshing in the odd weather. The streets are barren, only a few brave souls like yourself willing to brave the forecast. You watch the street lights change from red to green, allowing the small stream of cars to cross the intersection before timing out to yellow again.

The quiet hum of city life eases your earlier feeling, tapping your foot to an invisible beat when hitting the crosswalk button. The shop across the street looks fairly busy, a couple people walking out with iced drinks or fresh pastries, a man holding the door open for you with a smile as you slip inside. Your wedding ring glints off the fluorescent lights, observing the general crowd of studying college kids and elderly friends talking at the small round tables. You used to be one of those kids, and you were sure someday you’d be one of the elderly, a weird sense of unfulfilled panic encapsulating you as the true brevity of life washes over you.

“Just a small iced chai,” you smile, giving the cashier cash that she takes with chipped fingernails. You tell her to keep the change, watching her throw it into the tip jar and hand you a receipt with nothing but an unenthused thank you. Managing to snag a corner table near the straws and coffee sugar, you settle into the wooden chair and pull the book you always kept in your purse out just as the barista calls your name.

The pages of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist are worn from the amount of times you flipped them, desperately in need of a new copy, but finding something so charming in the wear of the one you’d had for nearly a decade. The chai latte is heavy with cinnamon, the iced drink and air conditioner cooling you down from the walk over.

You’re just starting to get into your favorite part when a loud gasp comes from behind you and suddenly you’re being splashed with beverage, someone spilling their cup from the counter behind you. You startle, turning to find a man hurrying to get napkins, his head down in apology as he begins hurriedly wiping up your table before it seeps to the floor.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, voice melodic and somewhat familiar to you.

“It’s okay, no worries,” you grab more napkins and attempt to help him, the sound of your voice causing him to look up.

Your book continues dripping with coffee, the liquid now spilling onto your lap in little cold drops as he stares at you. Dark hair sweeps along his forehead and an ‘o’ shape is forming along his pink lips. Something about him looks familiar, something about the white of his skin makes you want to cry, something about the glimmer in his eyes makes you want to fly.

You’re trying to remember where you know him from, where you’ve seen him, because something about his face is far too familiar for you to forget, another rush of deja vu sweeping you away.

“Do I know you?” You ask, tilting your head to the side.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, voice so hushed you can barely hear him, and then he is gone, the door bell ringing with his exit and his drink still dripping from the table. An employee comes to assist you just as the barista calls.

“Jungkook, your second caramel macchiato is ready. Jungkook?”

That name. The one your husband had asked about earlier. Was it that man? Was he Jungkook? What an odd coincidence, you think, shaking your head and sopping up the liquid from your dress and legs. The lady helping you is talking about how rude he was for leaving but you’re not paying attention, overwhelmed with the weird feeling of forgetfulness.

“Do you know him?” You interrupt her soliloquy, waiting until she returns from throwing the wad of paper away before listening to her reply.

“He’s come in a couple of times in the past week. Jungkook, I think. Weird he left without his drinks, usually he’s super kind, this is so out of character.”

So it was him. And with the realization a sudden sadness comes over you that he’s gone, and that you have no way of reaching him again. The thought embodies you on the way home, and if the clouds in the sky weren’t enough, a personal bunch of them seemed to have taken residence above you, following you and raining down confusion at who that man was all the way back home.  

The house is still quiet when you return, husband not yet back from work and no animals to greet you, setting your stuff down on the table and sighing to fill the still air. The sense of something wrong begins to overtake you again, and you try to think of another place to go to fill your time with something else besides empty, oddly suffocating silence. You feel like there’s somewhere you should be, someone you should be with, mind flitting back to Jungkook for a moment before flying elsewhere.

But then, quietly at first, in the back of your mind there is a loud beeping. Sounding like a heart monitor, it is rapidly alarming you, so near it sounds to be in the room, yet turning around to find nothing but the gloom filled kitchen.

“Maybe it's the smoke alarm,” you wonder aloud, getting up to double check that the stove is off and that the ceiling alarm isn't blinking red.

There’s nothing, just the loud incessant beeping that makes your head spin. Your chest feels as if it's being weighted, palpating like you have the hiccups but no sound is emitting from your mouth or throat, vision feeling blurry and the sound of the monitor raising in tenor.

“Y/N?” A voice comes from beyond, drawing you down to the floor, “Y/N, can you hear me?”

You open your mouth to cry for help but you can’t speak, melting into the floor and onto the sensation of scratchy sheets beneath your skin. The beeping of the monitor steadies next to you, and your eyes begin to clear and allow you to see the picture around you.

“She’s stabilizing again,” a voice says, continuing to spout out some medical terminology you can't understand and injecting the needle in your arm filled with clear fluid as another nurse rubs the defibrillator together again, ready to use it once more if needed.

Your husband is at your side, saying something you can't hear over the ringing, his hand in yours and the movement of white coats swishing along the peripheral of your vision. The air smells sterile, clean, and you part your dry lips to ask what is happening but you can't, feeling your spouse smooth down your hair and hush you.

“Where am I?” You attempt to say, but it comes out as a babble of indecipherable words.

“Don’t try and talk, just rest,” he instructs, “you’re okay, it's going to be okay now. You’ve been in a coma since Spring ended,” he continues slowly, “I came home from work, you were lying on the kitchen floor and… and… it’s nearly September… But your heart suddenly stopped for six minutes, Y/N… we didn’t know what was going to happen.”

You try to move your hand, your leg, anything, finding you seemed to have lost feeling in your bones. Whatever the doctor injected you with keeps you from feeling panic, a serene calmness settling over you as your husband continues. You don’t know how you got here, or why, or when. All you remember is eating those runny eggs, sitting in the coffee shop, your ruined book…

“They need to run some more tests, but now that your heart rate has stabilized, they think you'll be fine.” He pauses, “the REM dial was going insane for those few minutes, the doctor said the portion of your brain that controls your subconscious recollections, was the most active they've ever seen in a sleeping person, let alone a medically… unresponsive one.” He says, tip toeing around the mention of death.

You can hardly remember any dreaming, though the loud beeping of your heart monitor is consuming any trails of thought you might've been able to walk down without it.

“Some people speculate that after you die,” the nurse begins suddenly, coming by and shining a light in your eyes to take your vitals, “that for those last few minutes of your life you relive all the important moments you’ve gone through,” she pauses, “do you remember anything, Mrs?”

You shake your head, the fuzzy recesses of your mind barely able to process the room you’re in, but the feeling as if you’re missing something important distantly tugs at you. Like an anchor. Weighing you down to somewhere you can’t see.

“Now that I know you're okay,” your husband speaks again, “there is someone here to see you. Came last night,” His voice sounds faraway, like he’s speaking to you underwater. “Is it okay if I let him in?”

You manage to nod once, feeling bad that your family had put their lives on hold to be by your side. The fluorescent light is blinding you and you can barely comprehend him telling the nurse to allow the person back here, focusing your eyes on the figure now approaching the door from across the hall.

His hair is dark, skin milky, and a bouquet of flowers in his hand. Baby's breath. Your favorite. And definitely not a member of your family.

He stops at the precipice of the entry way, looking at you with an expression of both wonder and amazement in his eyes. Watching you as the realization hits you. As what was once subconscious from lifetimes ago becomes conscious in your brain.

You manage to rise to your elbows in bed, tears rolling down your cheeks of their own accord. You can almost feel his fingers wiping them away, as they did the night Lord Keyan proposed to you at the King’s celebration. You can feel him looking at you as he did when he first saw you in that hidden room, when he saw you again at the ball. When he saved you from the fire, nursed you to health, and then back into the grave with promises you didn’t remember to keep. When he spilt coffee all over your book, the confusion you felt when he point blank ran away from you with a barely there apology. You could never remember him in your waking life, the moment you took your last breath giving way to the few minute memorabilia of your lifetimes with him. Lifetimes of loving each other, only to get ripped apart. But somehow, the two of you always found your way back to each other, puppeted by the blessed hands of fate and somehow… this time, you opened your eyes again. You lived.

His name is on the tip of your lips, the word rolling off your tongue as if you could've spoken all along.

“Jungkook?”

He looks at you, cocking his head to the side and letting the flowers fall to the floor with a crushing sound. His eyelashes are wet with tears, droplets of water falling between his parted lips as he goes limp. He is in awe, amazement, complete and utter bewilderment at the sight of you, breathing, alive, beautiful. Everything is rushing you at once, the Autumn sun setting in the windows across the hall. Autumn. It is autumn, leaves falling with golden hues like the tenor of his astounded voice.

“You survived a season.”

~Admin Eggplant

[topfygad]

The Most effective & Worst of Expat Residing in Hoi An, Vietnam

It seems jail that I used a 12 months of my lifetime residing in Hoi An, Vietnam and I’ve nonetheless to supply a solitary, solitary time period in regards to the put. You’d be forgiven for questioning I used to be adhering to the previous adage of “In case you have acquired virtually nothing superior to say, say virtually nothing“, however that couldn’t be further from the actual fact. Truly, presently being ready to get in contact with Hoi An family has been unimaginable. In reality, I’ve been so quick paced loving expat day by day life in Hoi An that sitting right down to create meant missing among the enjoyment.

There is no such thing as a questioning that Hoi An is 1 of Vietnam’s most lovely areas. The place else within the setting are you able to see brilliantly verdant rice paddies, breathtaking seaside areas, and the colourful attraction of a Colonial-period Earlier Metropolis within the area of fifteen minutes?

While extra substantial cities some of these as Da Nang, Hanoi, and Saigon (Ho Chi Minh Metropolis) may probably be ready to boast higher facilities, it’s exhausting to seem previous Hoi An’s laid again once more vibe and massive purely pure splendor.

It’s not all peaches and product, however. Although Hoi An is low price and enticing, there are certainly negatives to residing in a scaled-down Vietnamese metropolis with these a transient expat inhabitants.

The Better of Dwelling in Hoi An

Let’s begin off optimistic. There are far more explanations to love expat existence in Hoi An than there are to despise it. Why else would we now have achieved a 6-month stint listed right here in 2018 after which arrive once more for lots extra?

Hoi An is a superb small-phrase basis and I do know some who’ve often known as the town property for a lot of a number of years. 

I under no circumstances acquired uninterested in driving my scooter by means of Hoi An’s rice paddies.

Enticing Surrounds

At first, Hoi An may probably be 1 of the prettiest cities within the planet. There’s a cause that Lonely Planet listed Central Vietnam at #6 within the Easiest of Asia-Pacific in 2019.

On the coronary coronary heart of Hoi An is the town’s Aged Metropolis, the place colonial properties in a choice of colours converse to the nation’s colonial earlier when additionally symbolizing its exuberant restoration from a few years of oppression. On this article, vivid wildflowers, dangling vines, and paper lanterns criss-cross the streets, distributors promote each factor from regional treats to knock-off watches, and innumerable eateries and espresso retailers vie on your consideration.

Hemming all of this in is the rice paddies that present considerably of the area’s staple meals. Depending on the time of 12 months you might be in Hoi An, these assortment from lush carpets of vivid environmentally pleasant to shimmering mirrors that seize the setting sunshine and established the total trade ablaze. Farmers and consuming water buffalo wade through the lifestyle-offering waters, although the slightest breeze brings about this sea of foliage to extend and slide like stormy seas.

And did I point out the shorelines? After you’re out of Outdated City and also you’ve witnessed the rice fields, you’ve obtained a stunning strip of seaside entrance ready to chill you off and sluice away a day’s actually price of actually hard-acquired sweat.

On the subject of Insta-fantastic bases, I’ve nonetheless to find a single that may keep a candle to Hoi An.

An Bang Seaside is Hoi An’s most well-known seaside, however appear farther afield for some privateness.

Hoi An’s Seashore areas

As a born and bred Australian, I’ve typically been drawn to the ocean. It’s 1 of the issues I respect about residing in Australia, even when my sleepy minor New England hometown is a little bit bit far eradicated.

Hoi An has a unbelievable, beachy vibe that’s finest represented by the thriving An Bang location. 

When it may be a tad crowded with Korean vacationers and locals at moments, it’s nonetheless attainable to stake out a little bit little bit of major seaside genuine property if you happen to actually don’t thoughts strolling absent from the consuming locations and bars. Our personal favourite is the aptly named ‘Hidden Seashore‘, the place you’ll be able to escape the crowds and soak within the serenity.

This isn’t to say the hustle and bustle of An Bang is terrible. We’ve had fairly a number of pleasurable evenings feasting on mouth watering seafood at Tuyet or sipping extravagant cocktails at Shore Membership.

Personally, my favorite area of Hoi An’s shorelines is the prolong that lies halfway amongst An Bang and Hid Seashore entrance. Right here, you’ll find the Aussie-operate Salt Pub, the backpacker haven that’s Kahunas, and a assortment of recent eating places and bars opening on the usual.

It doesn’t matter what your poison, Hoi An has you lined relating to great seashores, chill seashore bars, and delicious meals. You’ll be shelling out a small further for the views and all of the issues closes inexplicably early, however the seashore vibe is unquestionably a providing stage.

Established alongside the river, Hoi An’s Outdated City is filled with boutiques, locations to eat, and bars.

Earlier City

Let’s be genuine: Hoi An’s Outdated Metropolis is touristic and it’s crowded. In case you’re not a fan of crowds or suppliers shouting on your curiosity, you might effectively even go so considerably as to say it’s mind-boggling.

For me, Earlier Metropolis is a little bit bit like a night membership. I wouldn’t wish to dedicate method too intensive there, however it may be a hell of a great deal of thrilling in case you are within the temper.

Richelle and I like to decide on our telephones right down to Earlier City to snap pictures and catch Pokemon (Outdated Metropolis is the one Pokemon Go welcoming area in Hoi An), love avocado coffees, and folk view.

A number of the metropolis’s best consuming will be positioned listed right here as correctly, with the locations to eat heading wherever the travellers are. Pretty than write paragraphs about each of our many favourites within the spot, I’ll simply report them off beneath:

Mix Grill: Greek delicacies

Com Linh: Low-cost native delicacies

Mango Area: For a factor extravagant

The Hoianian: Wine bar and Euro-Vietnamese fusion

Market place Bar: Wine by the glass overlooking Central Business

Hola Taco: Delicious Mexican

Hoi An Roastery: Vietnamese Starbucks

Pasteur Road Brewing Enterprise: Vietnamese craft beer.

Chu Chu: Superior avocado coffees.

The Aged City area is a photogenic vacationer location by day, however it transforms into the town’s nightlife district as soon as the solar goes down. A choice of backpacker bars and golf gear burst into on a regular basis residing after the tour buses have pulled away, with Dive Bar our personal favourite.

Need a spot to remain that’s close to to Outdated Metropolis with out the necessity of the sounds and chaos? Richelle and I cherished ANIO Boutique.

We woke as much as buffalo grazing in our yard every day. Picture courtesy of Ken Marshall.

Tra Que

This sleepy minimal island amongst Aged City and An Bang is usually ignored, which is a crying shame.

A quaint retreat complete of natural and pure farms, grazing buffalo, and lovable B&Bs, Tra Que was residence for us for six months and continues to be 1 of our most well-liked spots to snap photos and escape the chaos of Vietnamese streets.

In case you are seeking to examine learn how to prepare dinner Vietnamese delicacies (we suggest New child Mustard or Tra Que Consuming water Wheel) or desire a basis that’s absent from the vacationer traps (we like Christina’s for shorter stays), you’ll be able to’t go previous this centrally positioned haven. By ‘centrally positioned’, I point out equally significantly from each of these the seaside entrance and the Earlier Metropolis – pretty than completely discovered for tourism that doesn’t embrace a full bunch of pedaling or a Seize Taxi.

For all these looking for to reside in Hoi An, having mentioned that, it’s a unbelievable concord amongst accessibility to the eating locations of Previous Metropolis and the seaside.

Wanting for a spot to remain on Tra Que? Richelle and I liked Christina’s Hoi An.

Discovering attire created in Hoi An is criminally cheap. Impression courtesy of TEFL analysis

Fairly priced

In case you’re looking for to reside in Southeast Asia, possibilities are {that a} huge variable in that is that your greenback stretches so much additional greater than it might at residence.

You’re going to be delighted to know that that is specifically official of Hoi An, wherein the influx of digital nomads and shorter time period expats has not nonetheless pushed charges as much as an unreasonable stage. 

You possibly can receive homestays and villas with shared kitchens for as minimal as $200 USD for each thirty day interval, although Richelle and I fork out $400 USD per thirty day interval for our house with a shared pool. My brother and his companion paid out all-around $1,000 USD a thirty day interval for a two-tale, two-bed room property with a private pool within the coronary heart of Hoi An final 12 months.

No matter your price range, residing in Hoi An will be as cheap or as lavish as you want. 

The price of meals objects, transport, and services stays cheap by Vietnamese standards, assuming you’re not consuming your entire meals within the Earlier Metropolis.

The Hub turned our surrogate household in Hoi An.

The Hub

For digital nomads like Richelle and I, The Hub has been a godsend.

Side co-working home and portion group, The Hub serves as every our workspace at some point of the working day and our social lifetime. Whether or not we’re signing up for swing dancing evenings, prone to the flicks in Da Nang, getting part within the weekly neighborhood dinners, or heading to a neighborhood attraction, there’s at all times one factor heading on.

A month-to-month membership grants 24/7 entry, large-pace WiFi, a no price espresso each day, and financial savings on the every day group lunch. They even do lodging packages for people who wish to base themselves close to by.

In case you are looking for at dwelling in Hoi An, the Hub is prone to be your go-to workspace.

Our adopted kittens, Woody and Jessie

Jack’s Cat Cafe

Run by Vietnam Cat Welfare, Jack’s Cat Cafe is heaven for cat-lovers like Richelle and I. I admit my love doesn’t go fairly so deep as my higher half’s, however even a grumpy previous curmudgeon like me can’t assist however grin once I’ve received my decide of ninety lovable cats.

In case you’re residing in Hoi An and miss having a pet, fostering the orphan kittens that repeatedly present up on Jack’s Cat Cafe’s doorstep is an effective way to have a pet with no need to fret about the way you’ll get them house.

Richelle and I’ve fostered via Jack’s twice and it has been a fantastic balm for a few cat lovers who miss having the ability to have a pet.

The onsite vegan cafe can be remarkably good!

Searching for contemporary produce in Hoi An is ridiculously low cost.

Recent, Native Meals

Vietnamese meals may not be in my high 5 international cuisines, however I’m hard-pressed to say no to a flavourful bowl of Cao Lau or a plate of Com Ga. Fortunately, Vietnamese meals is criminally low cost in Hoi An, even in case you are paying the foreigner mark-up.

Native eating places and low retailers will be present in nearly each neighborhood, and whereas I have a tendency to seek out Vietnamese meals begins to all style the identical after a number of months, the prepared entry to reasonably priced native meals does make it simpler to stay on a price range.

Native markets comparable to Ba Le and Tan An (Tiger) Market additionally offer you entry to contemporary meat and produce, though you’ll wish to go vivid and early to verify the meat hasn’t been baking within the solar all day.

With most Vietnamese flats having tiny fridges, you’re going to turn into intimately aware of native markets if you happen to’re planning on doing any cooking!

Swing dancing classes have been certainly one of many enjoyable social retailers we present in Hoi An.

Group Occasions

Whereas I’ve made a degree of singling out the Hub as a fantastic neighborhood, there are different methods to make mates in Hoi An.

Richelle and I’ve loved going to the free salsa classes at Kukun, whereas Three Dragons Pub does a weekly trivia evening that’s loads of enjoyable. There may be additionally the Hoi An Author’s Group, which I used to be a member of throughout my first stint in Hoi An. 

My sister-in-law discovered loads of mates via native expat mum teams, whereas the Hoi An Expats Fb group is at all times abuzz with native occasions or individuals searching for journey buddies.

Whereas I’m a little bit of an introvert and don’t socialize a fantastic deal, there are undoubtedly choices on the market!

The Worst of Dwelling in Hoi An

As I mentioned earlier, expat residing in Hoi An isn’t all peaches and cream. The challenges of residing in a small city in a creating nation could also be a bit a lot if you happen to’re searching for a long-term base.

Lack of Conveniences

In case you’re solely on the town for a number of months as a part of an extended backpacker journey, the dearth of supermarkets and western conveniences in Hoi An isn’t prone to show an issue.

If nonetheless, you’re like Richelle and I, going a 12 months with no few tastes of house is usually a little bit of a headache.

Hoi An doesn’t have any grocery shops, supermarkets, or malls. This implies you’re going to depend on a motley mixture of native markets and small, unbiased minimarts to do your buying. Whereas that is all effectively and good if you happen to’re after rooster breasts, contemporary veggies, and a can of Dr. Pepper, it could make discovering something extra unique than {that a} tad tough.

Fortunately, Da Nang is only a half-hour away and has numerous bigger buying facilities together with Costco-esque MegaMart. When you’re nonetheless going to be hard-pressed to seek out all of your favorites from house, you’ll not less than have the ability to supply stuff like cheese, meat that isn’t rooster, and a fairly stable number of East Asian staples like ramen and snacks.

This lack of chain shops and massive enterprise is unquestionably part of Hoi An’s allure, however I’d kill for some first rate deli meat and produce that survives greater than a day or two within the fridge.

The Kitchens

One of many greatest hurdles we encountered with expat life in Hoi An has undoubtedly been the kitchens.

With meals so low cost and with a lot of the expats in Hoi An simply passing via, properties with absolutely practical kitchens are few and much between.

Most of the properties we visited both boasted a tragic, shared kitchen or a bar fridge, a microwave, and a scorching plate masquerading as a kitchen.

In case you’re coming to Vietnam making an attempt to observe a strict food plan otherwise you’re only a eager chef, be ready to hunt a little bit tougher to discover a place with an acceptable kitchen. If you couple that with the dearth of entry to groceries, it may be a irritating place to embrace house cooking.

The Warmth

Hoi An is scorching.

When you need stinking scorching days for whenever you’re lounging round on the seaside, making an attempt to get stuff finished in 43C temperatures is fucking tough. This 12 months, I’ve needed to do the next in insane warmth and humidity:

Get fitted for my wedding ceremony go well with

Shoot a TV present

Play tour information

Take cats to the vet

Transfer home.

As you’ll be able to think about, none of those are issues which might be made extra nice by torrents of sweat cascading down one’s again to gather across the taint and balls. It’s totally disagreeable.

Fortunately, air-conditioners are just about commonplace in most Hoi An leases, however you’ll be forking out 2,000,000+ a month in energy payments throughout the lengthy dry season.

The Rain

When Hoi An isn’t unpleasantly scorching, it’s normally as a result of the wet season has blown in.

From November via January/February, Hoi An is famously moist and – in some areas – flooded.

Whereas the rain isn’t fixed, the dams upriver repeatedly have to have the stress eased, which may result in Previous City turning into very very like Venice.

Whereas house-hunting, it’s at all times a good suggestion to examine along with your actual property agent to see how your property fares throughout the wet season. Locals typically merely transfer to the highest ground throughout the flooding, however you might not have that luxurious.

Picture courtesy of LWYang

Transient Expat Inhabitants

Even with expat haunts just like the Hub to assist us construct a circle of mates, the transience of Hoi An’s expat inhabitants does make it tough to forge lasting friendships.

As Vietnamese vacationer visas are solely good for 3 months at a time, many individuals are solely right here for an excellent time, moderately than a very long time. This interprets into loads of enjoyable goodbye events, but in addition loads of unhappy goodbyes.

We made and misplaced mates so shortly throughout our time in Hoi An that it felt like an episode of Sport of Thrones. Besides, clearly, we didn’t kill them and seize their kingdoms. We’re not madmen.

In case you’re okay with having to make new mates each 3-6 months, it is a fairly minor inconvenience, however it does imply loads of ranging from scratch with new faces.

The Native Drivers

Now, I haven’t been to each nation on earth, however I’ve been to sufficient to really feel assured in making this assertion: the Vietnamese are the worst drivers on the planet.

Whether or not it’s texting on a bike whereas weaving all around the highway, blindly pulling a pushbike out into visitors at velocity, two bikes driving facet by facet so their riders can chat, or shirtless, helmetless ‘younger buffalo’ screaming down a slender laneway at 100km, driving a bike or scooter in Vietnam is usually a harrying expertise.

And Vietnam is the place I discovered to drive. I’d by no means a lot as began a bike previous to our 12 months there, however I now really feel assured I may full the Kessel run in 12 parsecs.

(And sure, I do know a parsec is a measure of distance, not velocity. George Lucas is an fool)

If the unpredictable scooter riders that flip Hoi An’s streets right into a river of smoke and metallic weren’t dangerous sufficient, you’ve additionally received to take care of native automobile drivers who appear to assume their SUVs, buses, and sedans are motorbikes. You’ll discover vehicles driving up the middle of the highway, swerving out and in of visitors, and blindly pulling out into oncoming visitors as in the event that they overlook they’re in 2+ tonnes of metal.

Regardless of all of this insanity, there’s a unusual type of order to Vietnam’s roads. Over the course of a 12 months, I turned fairly used to weaving out and in of visitors with one hand continuously ready to grip the brakes if an fool careened into the streets.

The Legality of Driving in Vietnam

Proper earlier than we left Hoi An in August, the Vietnamese authorities had begun to crack down on foreigners driving with Vietnamese licenses.

They appear to have no downside with the actual fact 90% of locals don’t have licenses, however have been confiscating bikes and issuing hefty fines to those that didn’t have native licenses.

The method for getting an area license will not be a straightforward one, so I simply discovered to be hyper-vigilant for any signal of the fuzz, ducking down a facet avenue or doing a fast u-turn to keep away from being slapped with a effective.

Journey Insurance coverage & Scooters

It’s additionally price noting that, as native regulation means it’s unlawful to drive a scooter with no Vietnamese driver’s license, you’ll not be lined by your journey insurance coverage if you happen to’re injured whereas driving your scooter.

With medical care being reasonably priced in Vietnam, you could be ready to take the danger, however the variety of feckless assholes on Fb with GoFundMe pages for his or her drunken crashes is a fairly stable indication that you just may wish to play it protected.

Hoi An’s Previous City is the one place within the metropolis that is still alive after 9pm.

Early to Mattress, Early to Rise

As a smaller, rural metropolis, Hoi An’s nightlife can depart so much to be desired.

Whereas there are many shady backpacker bars in Previous City and some of the eating places on An Bang Seashore keep open as late as 10 pm, this isn’t a metropolis the place you’re spoiled for selection relating to a late-night get together.

In search of a meal after 9 pm? Your finest wager is to go to Previous City, as issues within the An Bang and Tra Que space are inclined to shut up store across the similar time.

Whereas Richelle and I are calming down in my previous age, we nonetheless had a number of nights the place the get together needed to abruptly come to an finish as a result of none of us felt like inhaling nitrous oxide from balloons at a dingy downtown bar.

Now, if backpacker bars are completely your factor, Hoi An has these in spades. It’s simply not a lot chop for the rest after about 10 pm.

All in all…

Aside from the transient expat scene and the dearth of comforts from house, I actually needed to scrape the underside of the barrel to give you the explanation why I didn’t love expat life in Hoi An. I wouldn’t have come again for a second stint if I’d hated it, would I?

In case you’re searching for a cruisy, cozy base in Southeast Asia the place your greenback stretches a good distance, Hoi An is amongst the very best locations on this planet. It’s additionally terrific if you happen to’re simply searching for a base for 3 months or so.

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[preserving-ferretbrain]

This song is why

by Jamie Johnston

Friday, 11 June 2010Dar Williams' When I was a boy inspires a mixture of analysis and over-sharing.~I had a couple of friends round for dinner the other day and one of them (who is amused by how I think the internet is full of amazingness) asked me what was amazing on the internet at the moment, and I showed them Tiger Beatdown, and there was a bit of 'Oh, er, feminism? Is that... I mean... surely that's a bit... why?' And I answered... in song! Well, no, that makes it sound like my life is a musical, which I'm sad to say is not the case. What I did was I played them When I was a boy by Dar Williams:

Because that, at the moment, is the most complete and coherent and honest answer I can give if someone asks me why I'm trying to be a feminist.

I had never heard of Dar Williams, let alone this song, before I saw it casually mentioned in some blog or other and, as I often do when I see music I've never heard of being casually mentioned in some blog or other, I looked it up on Spotify to discover whether it was any good. I found it (not quite this version, actually, but the one from the Radio Woodstock 25th anniversary album, which remains my favourite version (

1

)), and it started playing, and I carried on reading and clicking stuff and whatever, and really didn't follow what it was about; but there was something compelling in it, and when it finished I felt I needed to hear it again. So I closed everything else down and played it again and properly listened to it, and wept.

As an answer to the sort of 'Why?' that really means 'How did it come about?', this song is an incomplete answer. A more complete answer would perhaps start with some of the

Minority Warrior

stuff here on Ferretbrain, would get a jump-start with

Fugitivus on rape

, and would certainly include Tiger Beatdown as well (

2

); an even more complete one would go back over the many conversations and interactions I've had with female friends over the years that suddenly began to flash through my memory as I read that Fugitivus post and thought, 'Oh god, how could I have so completely failed to understand?' (

3

). But, actually,

When I was a boy

would still be a very major part of any answer, for a simple and important reason. By the time I heard it there had already been feminist writing that had made me think, 'Oh yes, actually that is quite iffy', and there had already been feminist writing that had shocked me, and there had already been feminist writing that had made me feel ashamed, and there had already been feminist writing that had made me feel joyful, and there had already been feminist writing that had made me angry about oppression, but there had never been feminist writing that made me feel (even if only for five minutes) desolate and heartbroken and like I just couldn't bear for the world to be this way. In other words, this song was what changed feminism from an option into a necessity.

It's also an incomplete answer - even more incomplete, in fact - to the sort of 'Why?' that means 'For what reason, for whose sake?' Even at this very early stage of exploration I've absorbed enough to see that

When I was a boy

is by no means a comprehensive catalogue of gender oppression. It isn't hard to think of umpteen reasons to be a feminist that are arguably more 'Important' than anything Williams describes here: endemic rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo, endemic apology for and dismissal of rape in the democratic constitutional monarchy of the UK, the wage gap and the double shift in the US, denial of women's suffrage in Saudia Arabia, and so on and depressingly on. But this isn't a song about every single way women are oppressed: it's a very personal song about a young fair-skinned comfortably well-off first-world woman who could be one of your friends or someone you passed on the street yesterday (

4

). And, you know what, within those limits it actually covers a great deal: the threat of harrassment and rape ('it's not safe') and the way that very threat becomes a way of making women dependent on men for protection ('I need to find a nice man to walk me home'); the way society tries to make women show off their bodies for the enjoyment of men ('more that's tight means more to see') and also tries to mark those same bodies as obscene ('my neighbour came outside to say, "Get your shirt"'); the way gender norms are both imposed from outside ('the signs say less is more') and internalized ('I could always cry, now even when I'm alone I seldom do'); the way we sometimes feel we can't even admit that we don't want to be the way we are ('it's a secret I can keep').

But covering a lot of bases isn't what makes this song so powerful. My grasp of musical theory is even more tenuous than my grasp of feminist theory, but here are a few musical things we can notice. Notice how it starts with various warm and slightly sparkly chords (

5

), matching in each of the first two verses the descriptions of the singer's (

6

) joyfully boyish childhood; and then how it moves to a barer set of two less richly harmonized chords as she moves to the present (leaving the party or standing in the clothes-shop or confessing the missing part of herself), then back to the warmer sound for 'when I was a boy...'. And notice, in particular, the discordant pair of notes plucked loudly just before that first transition ('and I remember that night'), disorientating the ear and wrenching the song for a moment out of the realm of ordinary chords entirely (

7

). And notice the way that the main guitar line roams up and down the scale in quick wave-like arpeggios, and then how during those sadder minor passages the little in-between notes (semi-quavers, possibly?) drop out and leave an unfulfilled two-tone alternation coinciding with the parts of the lyric that most strongly express the sense of a flatter, less complete life. And notice how the words 'when I was a boy' are held back until just after the beat before they canter exultantly up the scale and jump off the end just as the guitar slides up to the next chord. And notice how at the moments when the words move from memory to present sad reflexion ('I don't know how I survived'; 'I know things have got to change') the previously wandering melody rises to a high note and sticks there on that same note for the whole line, as if Williams has suddenly hit the (glass?) ceiling and has nowhere to go. And notice how the parts of the tune that largely correspond to descriptions of the past (when she was a boy) are mostly lower (more 'masculine') in pitch, whereas the parts in the present are higher-pitched (more 'feminine'). And, keeping hold of that last point in your mind, notice how, in a musical tradition (folk / pop / country / whatever) in which a rise in pitch usually signals the singer accessing a new level of power or intensity (e.g. just about any song you can think of), this song is constructed and pitched so that the lower sections (which are also mostly the brighter-chord sections, which are also mostly the sections with the most harmonically rich guitar-figures, which are also mostly the sections where the singer's voice sounds more 'masculine', which are also mostly the sections in which she remembers her 'boyhood') are firmly in the centre of Williams' vocal range and so sound strong and rich and resonant, while the higher sections (which are also mostly the harmonically more dissonant sections, which are also mostly the sections with the flat and incomplete-sounding accompaniment, which are also mostly the sections where the singer's voice is more 'feminine', which are also mostly the sections where she's in her heavily 'feminized' present) are just a bit too high and make her voice breathy and weak. And, with all that in mind, notice how the very highest notes of each verse - the ones where Williams sounds weakest - are in the final lines of the verse, where the rhythm of the vocal line becomes halting and uncertain, emphasizing the singer's capitulation and undermining her inner defiance: 'and you... can walk... me home... but I was a boy too'; 'but I... am not... forgetting... that I was a boy too'; 'and I... have lost... some kindness... but I was a girl too'.

And the lyric. Oh, reader, the lyric. The opening invocation of

Peter Pan

, which both instantly reminds most of us of our own childhoods (which is when we first encountered

Peter Pan

) and tells us that we're hearing about the singer's childhood (because we know Peter Pan only visits children) (

8

), as well as placing the song in the context of a literary work that has some pretty complex stuff going on with childhood and gender (too much to go into here). The telegraphic account of 'liv[ing] a whole life in one night', like a verbal action montage, enlivened by the repetition of sprightly 'L' and 'I' sounds, and rounded off with the heart-warming equality, reciprocity, solidarity of 'we saved each other's lives out on the pirate deck'. The contrast between the you-and-me-against-the-world intimacy of that Neverland adventure and the world-against-me loneliness of what follows, with its blank and anonymous 'some friends' and 'somebody tell[s] me'. It's so much about contrasts, this lyric. One that runs right through is between abstraction and particularity: the passages describing the singer's childhood are composed almost entirely of specific details, images, events (climbing, riding a bicycle, catching fireflies, 'grass-stained shirt and dusty knees'), giving them immediacy and substance, while the present-day passages are much more general and generic (for it's clear that the scenes leaving the party, standing in the clothes-shop, the 'lonesome awful day' are not unique occasions but things that happen quite often), creating a sort of repetitiveness and sameness. Similarly, the childhood passages are full of agency, of first-person active verbs ('I learned to fly, I learned to fight'; 'climbed what I could climb upon'; 'riding topless, yeah, I never care who saw' (

9

)), while the present-day sections are much more passive or third-person ('I hear somebody tell me'; 'walk me home'; 'the signs say'; 'they've got pills to sell'). The linguistic contrasts underline the main device of the whole song, which is of course the rapid switching between past and present. The frequency of this alternation - back and forth at least twice in every verse - means that, once the pattern is established, one hears every section while still retaining a strong memory of the previous and a strong premonition of the next. This makes every joyful return to childhood also sad because it's lost, and makes every glimpse of the present even sadder for coexisting with a contrasting image of the past.

And I haven't even talked about the central metaphor: 'when I was a boy'. So simple and direct, so eloquent and challenging. So eloquent and challenging, in fact, because it isn't really a metaphor at all, and that's the point. It isn't literally true that the singer was ever physically male - I think that's fairly clear from the line 'I said I was a boy; I'm glad he didn't check'. But if gender consists (at least to a great extent) in behaving and having one's behaviour interpreted in certain ways that are strongly associated with physical maleness or femaleness ('he behaves like people with male bodies do or should so he must be a boy'), then in behaving like a boy the singer literally was a boy. If, on the other hand, we flip that round and see gender as a matter of having one's sexed body interpreted as necessarily or probably implying certain types of behaviour ('he looks physically male so he can expected to behave like, and assumed to be, a boy'), then in growing up and becoming visibly physically female the singer becomes a woman, regardless of her own wishes and behaviour. In short, without any kind of conscious or voluntary transition, it is literally true that the singer used to be a boy and is not a boy now. That's why the non-metaphor of 'when I was a boy' is dynamite: the simple use of that word 'was', rather than 'was like' or some other less uncompromising phrase, exposes the fact that socially constructed gender is so crushingly powerful that it has literally changed the singer's identity against her will and based on nothing but her physical appearance. The fallacy of essentialism is rejected: it's clear that she doesn't feel that she's changed, and indeed she hangs on tightly to the memory of 'the other life I lived'. The only things that have changed are things beyond her control, namely her body and the way other people unthinkingly treat her because of it. And I should say here that I don't think it's necessary or even really satisfactory to read this song as about transgender or to see the singer as a nascent or potential transgendered man (though there may well be much in the song that will speak especially to trans people). The singer's 'other life' as a boy doesn't imply that she wasn't also a girl, except in as much as it rejects the distinction between the two. The point, rather, is that as a child she could be both at the same time, or sometimes one and sometimes the other, and - crucially - it didn't really matter: 'you were just like me and I was just like you'. The sadness of the contrast between past and present is one of loss. It isn't sadness that she once had A and now has B; it's sadness that she once had A and B, and one has been taken away.

Because it isn't anything as pedestrian as a nostalgia song, this song. It isn't about how everything was so much better when the singer was a child. That sort of nostalgic exercise generally has at its core the idea that somehow being a child is in itself better: one was more carefree, or more loved, or more innocent, or whatever. Childhood is fetishized as some kind of ideal state. But the singer of

When I was a boy

doesn't want to be a child again: she wants to be an adult who can be herself fully. The importance of childhood is that it was a time when she was allowed to do that; now she is no longer. So the value of her childhood now is as a way to access a certain inner wholeness that's still there even if it can't be expressed; memory is act of resistance: 'I am not forgetting that I was a boy too'. In a sense she's lucky, for although she would perhaps be 'happier' and less troubled (like the person in Plato's cave) if she had no such memories, they also give her a source of strength that isn't so readily available to someone who's so fully internalized her (or his) constructed gender that she (or he) isn't even aware of it. Lucky, but also frustrated and sad. And weary.

That weariness comes across most strongly in the final verse, which begins by evoking the constant, low-level drain on the singer's emotional resources that must (I can only imagine) come from an ordinary day full of ordinary little oppressions (

10

). And whenever I sing this song quietly to myself, if it hasn't already brought a tear to my eye before the last verse, this is the line I always choke on: 'And so I tell the man I'm with about the other life I lived, and I say, "Now you're top gun: I have lost and you have won."' Can there be anything more heartbreaking to a man with any heart at all than the thought that your female friends and relatives might, even only in brief moments, feel like your defeated opponents? And then Williams does something extremely generous and important: 'And he says, "Oh, no, no, can't you see? When I was a girl..."' It's generous because this man's reply could, and in the comments thread of any feminist blog probably would, be treated (quite reasonably) as derailing and possibly also mansplaining (

11

). It's important because it makes a sketch of how sexism diminishes women (which is already a massive and vital point to make) into a sketch of how sexism diminishes everyone. In Kate Millett's phrase, 'each personality becomes little more, and often less, than half of its human potential' (

12

). The song invites women and men to recognize one another as mutually (though not equally) disadvantaged by current ideas of femininity and masculinity, and to remember that 'you were just like me and I was just like you'.

It's hard, in the end, to say why

When I was a boy

affects me so strongly. It isn't because I relate especially strongly to the man in the last verse: I was never that much into flowers, and have I mentioned that I cry sometimes, for example when listening to this song? Ahem. And the rest... well, maybe. It's true, at any rate, that I'm lucky like the singer of this song: lucky to have had parents who gave me a dolls' house as well as Transformers, to have made it through nearly thirty years without ever being compelled to take the slightest interest in football, to have grown up with female friends playing make-believe games that could happily include princesses and robots and (like

Peter Pan

) pirates and fairies together. And this song does sometimes make me think of one of my oldest friends, and how for the first however many years of our lives our different sexes had literally no impact whatsoever on our friendship, and how we're somehow more distant now, and how I remember her once saying to me, when we were both just into double digits, that she liked having me as a friend because with me she could do things that boys liked doing, which surprised me because I'd rather thought of her as someone with whom I could do things that girls liked doing. But I don't think it's really very much to do with whether I relate this song to my own life or identify with anyone in it. It's perhaps the opposite: it's the way this song so so powerfully conveys an experience that I've never had and makes me realize how unfair that experience is and how very much I wish nobody had it. Which is a pretty impressive thing for a guitar and a voice to do in five minutes. I've tried to pick out some of the ways the music, the performance, and the lyric do it, but I'm no music critic, and in the end I just don't know. I can say, though, if anyone asks why this stuff matters to me, this song is why.

Notes

1

· I can't find it on the internet but if you have Spotify it's

here

.

2

· Indeed Tiger Beatdown's

Ladypalooza festival of music criticism

is probably what set me unconsciously composing this article in my head before I noticed that's what I was doing. (Yes, I started writing this about a month ago! It took me a while to get to grips with the music theory parts, okay?)

3

· And indeed further back still, to my English teacher Miss McLaren (who I realize now was probably the first actual feminist I knew and who I like to imagine deliberately chose to teach at a school for privileged boys in order to do undercover feminism at them without their noticing until years later) and to early memories of my mum complaining about women with paid jobs saying 'I work' as if what she did at home all day wasn't work (which, though she wouldn't have thought of it in these terms, was almost certainly the first critique of patriarchy I ever heard).

4

· Admittedly some of this picture is transferred from Williams herself to the character who 'speaks' the song and aren't particularly supported by the lyric. On the other hand, although it's plainly wrong and unhelpful to treat any song as entirely true of its singer or writer, the characteristics of the person who performs the song do inevitably inform our reading of it. So my reading is informed by knowing what Williams looks like and that she's from North America somewhere, and I think it's a reading that's entirely consistent with the lyric.

5

· Lots of suspended seconds and fourths and added ninths, if I'm not mistaken, which are the sorts of chords that make things sound like the Byrds.

6

· I use 'singer' to mean the character whose words are the words of the song, to avoid possibly wrongly (and at any rate irrelevantly) attributing the experiences and feelings expressed in the lyric to Williams herself. Though it's admittedly a bit less clear-cut than that (see note 3).

7

· The interval between these notes is the

diminished or 'devil's' fifth

, which is frequently used to disrupt tonal harmony and is, by suggestive coincidence, called 'oppressive' by Wikipedia. For noticing the use of this interval in this song and patiently explaining to me how it works, many thanks to Joe Templeton (who suggests the beginning of

Purple haze

by Jimi Hendrix as a good example of this interval): needless to say, any error in what I've written about it here is the result of my misunderstanding the point, and not to be attributed to Joe.

8

· And you can see how effectively it tells us this by noticing that that it's actually the only thing that tells us we're in her childhood, and then noticing that you hadn't noticed that. Apologies if the word 'notice' has now started to sound meaningless through over-exposure.

9

· Here too the vowel-sounds in those lines enhance the effect, for not only are the lines filled with the actual first-person pronoun 'I', they are also heavily populated with that same sound within other words: fly, fight, life, night, lives, pirate.

10

· 'Every day a little death: in the parlor, in the bed; in the curtains, in the silver, in the buttons, in the bread', as Sondheim writes in a slightly different context in

A little night music

. Also, incidentally, notice how Williams' voice wobbles on 'off guard', like a stifled sob. One might think it a bit of improvised styling, but no, it's there in every recording I can find.

11

· Those who don't hang out on feminist blogs much can refer to these definitions:

derailing

;

mansplaining

.

12

· In

Sexual politics

(1969), quoted in Cudd & Andreasen,

Feminist theory: a philosophical anthology

(Blackwell, 2005), page 42. I've amended the punctuation: the text in Cudd & Andreasen says 'each personality becomes little more, and often less than half, of its human potential', which must surely be a typographical error (not the only one in this anthology).Themes:

Music and Gigs

,

Minority Warrior

~

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http://puritybrown.livejournal.com/

at 21:58 on 2010-06-11Very well said.

Some years ago I bought a CD single of "Cool As I Am" that had this song and "This Was Pompeii" as B-sides. I remember weeping when I heard "When I Was A Boy" the first time, and playing it over and over again, so that to this day I can sing it from memory (even though I haven't listened to it in a long time, because I can only listen to it in circumstances where I feel comfortable crying). It's a concise illustration of the maxim "the personal is political", an encapsulation of all the reasons why feminism is important

even if

you are an educated white middle-class Westerner with buckets of privilege, a deeply moving personal story, and a beautifully-written song wrapped up in one.

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Sister Magpie

at 22:01 on 2010-06-11Wow. What a great read--because I love this song! And something that's funny is that as a woman listening to it doesn't make me emotional *until* that last verse--so the exact opposite of, as you say, feeling like that verse is mansplaining or derailing. I guess because the first two verses don't hit me as hard--I think because they're basically just describing the way things are. Like, all those things are so everyday, everything she says, but for some reason when she makes it about everyone instead of just about these things, changed the whole song for me.

I think especially because there's such a nice contrast between the details (as you pointed out, the childhood sections are all rich in details) between the two. The girl (or should we say "boy") details are all about adventure and independence and invulnerability. The boy details are about beauty, relationships (well, that's not exactly true--but the girl's relationships are defined through the action of saving each other's lives, the boy's through "always talking" and so sharing thoughts and feelings) and vulnerabilty.

Which I think I also liked because it makes it clear, as you say, that it's about having both, not rejecting one for the other. The girl doesn't want to lose the parts of herself that might code female, because that would just be a different version of what she has now--just one that she might not be as aware of because those things aren't valued as much in her society.

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Frank

at 23:40 on 2010-06-11Beautiful and powerful read, Jamie. Thanks.

but I'm no music critic

I disagree. That was some good analysis.

Because that, at the moment, is the most complete and coherent and honest answer I can give if someone asks me why I'm trying to be a feminist.

I don't think you can be a feminist, but you can be an ally to feminism. For a male to say he is a feminist is to appropriate the term, manhandle it and muffle the authoritative voice of feminism:

girls

and

women

(both links are on the same subject: Terry Richardson).

The song invites women and men to recognize one another as mutually (though not equally) disadvantaged by current ideas of femininity and masculinity, and to remember that 'you were just like me and I was just like you'.

What I don't like about the last lines is that it is the man telling her 'hey I got it bad too' and then she doesn't call him out on it. He is of the dominant sex, what's he doing to further the cause to equality except to say we were the same once?

And because the man has the last word, maybe it's Dar Williams saying something, that the narrator in the song is once again shut down or at least quietly and softly oppressed. With your excellent musical analysis of the song, what do you think the music is suggesting?

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Arthur B

at 23:47 on 2010-06-11I don't gots no purty story about how I done had a political awakening. My mammy just done brought me up right.

That tune be pretty though an it done brought tears to my peepers.

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Andy G

at 00:00 on 2010-06-12Oh wow that's a beautiful song, and a really thoughtful post.

To alleviate your mansplaining concerns (or am I now mansplaining myself?)I thought the final verse (which also makes me well up) was in line with a comment made by C.L. Minou over at

Tiger Beatdown

, in which she mentions "the ways that sexism and kyriarchy hurt men too" (even if the damage isn't equivalent to that caused to women). And I definitely feel on firmer (and less mansplain-y) ground saying that it's true that homophobia is similarly harmful to straight guys (whether as perpetrators or victims).

I did wonder though what your thoughts are thoughts are about the depiction of childhood in the song? I'm just not sure if the poignant metaphorical truth about loss of innocence and freedom overlooks the literal reality of childhood, which involves being subjected to incredible pressure to conform by both the adult world and other children (who can be very judgemental). I wonder if the real tragedy isn't what comes after childhood, but rather that childhood is the period during which people are being rapidly made into women (or men as the case may be)? And doesn't the freedom to challenge those roles only come after childhood?

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Sister Magpie

at 00:02 on 2010-06-12

And because the man has the last word, maybe it's Dar Williams saying something, that the narrator in the song is once again shut down or at least quietly and softly oppressed. With your excellent musical analysis of the song, what do you think the music is suggesting?

It could certainly be that, but personally I never took it that way. I take it more as a validation. His gender conditioning might not have led to oppression--there's nothing in his experience that is a parallel to half the things she's talking about, but he doesn't lay claim to those things, only to the basic idea of having once felt free to act in ways that are now considered exclusive to the opposite gender.

I guess to me the guy's verse sounds enough like something he's sharing that he doesn't particularly like to share--she herself is only sharing because she's tired and caught off guard. Especially the fact that his last line is saying that he's lost kindness, which is I would think a criticism of himself. I guess I felt like it was more a validation that he believed her experience rather than just saying that he had it hard too, because there really isn't much hard in his version. He just hasn't "won," if that makes sense.

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Frank

at 00:43 on 2010-06-12

He just hasn't "won," if that makes sense.

It does. And I can see where he's attempting to validate her experience but, to me, it doesn't need any validation especially by the man she's with. I know he's not a bad man, he's self critical and probably a good man. Still, even though he may not have 'won', he is ahead.

I think the song kind of reinforces the cultural norms (as permitted by whitestraightabledcis male dominance) it's lamenting.

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Wardog

at 10:53 on 2010-06-12Oh wow, Jamie, wonderful article and thank you for the song - which, being generally ignorant about everything, I had never heard before. I loved it, and had a little cry to myself over it too.

I can't really articulate which aspects affected me in what ways, but the first verse really touched on something because I suddenly remembered when I was a boy too, and it awakened in me a sort of yearning for simpler, fearless times.

I didn't see the last verse as particularly problematic. I mean, the bulk of the song and the perspective that leads to the final verse is the woman's - I think one can over-literalise the rhetorical impact of "the last word" sometimes. Also I don't think it's so much the man trying to get a seat on the oppression train, as an acknowledgment that these issues affect everyone, and marginalising the experiences of men in the name of feminism is as harmful any other sort of marginalisation. As the man says: everyone is a loser here, because everyone is denied their authentic selves because of the pressure to conform.

Also if that verse wasn't there, the whole song would carry the implication that it is just plain better to be a boy - to be fearless, and climb trees, and get into fights. That would, of course, be not so great actually. The singer is yearning not to be a boy but for the freedom to self-define within her own terms - and the final verse broadens the perspective by reminding us that this can include crying and picking flowers, as well as riding bikes.

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Sister Magpie

at 15:39 on 2010-06-12

Also if that verse wasn't there, the whole song would carry the implication that it is just plain better to be a boy - to be fearless, and climb trees, and get into fights. That would, of course, be not so great actually. The singer is yearning not to be a boy but for the freedom to self-define within her own terms - and the final verse broadens the perspective by reminding us that this can include crying and picking flowers, as well as riding bikes.

Yes, that's a big part of why I need the last verse. For me, I just wouldn't like the song that much without it. It would feel too much like a complaint, and one lacking in awareness. Not that I think the narrator truly wants to be male, but the way she's feeling she's just longing for those particular things. So I am relieved when the other side is brought into it and "female" becomes something other than something acted on and controlled by others.

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Jamie Johnston

at 17:54 on 2010-06-12Oh no, I've turned Arthur into a hayseed! :)

Er, this reply will be long. Short version: see long version.

Frank

, as to 'feminist' v. 'ally', I'm aware that this is

contested territory

, but it seems to be contested on both sides: arguments against the term 'ally' are expressed

here

by someone who admittedly doesn't identify as a woman, but I have heard the same from women. Interestingly, the Feminism 101 article I linked to in the previous sentence seems to say that the objections to the idea of 'feminist men' come mostly from men, which makes me wonder what happened to the principle of female voices having more authority on these issues. The way I personally apply that principle at the moment (though I'm open to being persuaded in any direction) is that I don't claim either label for myself, and won't consider doing so unless and until I find myself being routinely described with one or the other or both by undisputed feminists. (And in fact I'd do the same at the moment even if there were no dispute about the terminology because I just don't think I know enough or have done enough to claim whatever the appropriate term is.)

Having said that, at the moment I feel more uncomfortable about ever calling myself an ally than about ever calling myself a feminist. One could say that the statement 'I am your ally' is always necessarily a bit of arrogation, and the only things anyone can ever say with full authority are 'I want to be your ally' and (though of course not unilaterally) 'you are my ally'. Maybe that's going a bit far, but maybe not. On the other hand, the word 'feminist' is structured analogously to any number of other '-ist' words that are routinely used and understood to mean 'person who subscribes to a given school of thought'.

Anyway, that may be a discussion for another time and place. In any case, even if it is impossible for a man to be a feminist, I'm perfectly happy with the statement that I'm trying to be a feminist: at worst it's formally analogous to the statement 'I'm trying to perfect', an aspiration that's impossible but probably none the worse for that.

Everyone

, regarding the last verse: I'd pretty much adopt Kyra's answer on this point. In the context of a real conversation, I agree that the singer would have been perfectly entitled to say, 'Well, okay, I sympathise, but please also note that I'm really tired and upset and you've just started your reply with "No no no, can't you see?", which is not very supportive; plus you've then gone on to describe a distinct, though related, problem that is not what I was talking about; plus you still have a lot more going for you than I have; plus what exactly have you done to help me with all this, since you're so sympathetic; plus I've run out of cookies.' And I tried to nod to that in the article. But on balance I think the song itself absorbs and neutralizes the problem. Purely by number of words, the man's experience accounts for only 15% of the song, and more importantly everything he says is there by the permission of, and enclosed within, the singer's narration. It's true that she doesn't come back in her own voice and add anything after it, but her quotation-mark is there after his final word.

And speaking of his final word, I think it's not unimportant that his literal final word is 'you', which returns the focus to the singer. Nor is it unimportant that having said 'you were just like me' (taking himself, and perhaps by implication men in general, as the norm) he immediately reverses it and says 'I was just like you' (comparing himself to a female norm). And, while we're on this last phrase, he doesn't say 'you are just like me and I am just like you', which would be the old 'But men are oppressed too!' line (in which 'too' implies not only 'also' but 'equally' and indeed 'to such an extent that it's unreasonable for you to complain about your oppression because what about mine?'); rather, he says 'you were just like me and I was just like you', i.e. 'the inequality here is not innate or necessary or inevitable', which is of course the point of the song. So although he starts unhelpfully, his comments over all come out as, 'Yes, you're right, and by the way my experience supports your view'.

So I read the construction of the end of the song as Williams actually being quite self-confident and, as I said in the article, generous, by using a male mouthpiece to broaden and sum up the over-all point of the song. On the other hand, as Frank suggests, she may also be making a subtle extra point with the implication that the singer-character herself is so weary from putting up with everything else that she also puts up with the man's intervention in the conversation, even though it has some characteristics of a hijacking as well as of an agreement. Nonetheless I see the song as broadly endorsing what he says (and vice versa).

In musical terms I don't detect any particular clues either way. In all the live versions the guitar does pretty well exactly the same thing under his speech as under the rest of the song; in the studio recording there's a little brass part (or possibly woodwind: I'm terrible at identifying instruments) under the last verse, but that doesn't seem to tell us anything much, and perhaps a hint of extra force in the strum under the 'see' in 'can't you see', which one could read as extra masculinity or as extra interruptiness. The only thing that I do find suggestive is that the instrumental backing doesn't resolve itself to a conclusion at the same time the vocal ends but carries on once more through the section that corresponds to the first four lines of each verse (e.g., in the first verse, 'I won't forget...' to '... pirate deck'). I'd say what that does is to leave the thought hanging, so the effect isn't 'Hurrah, the Man has solved the problem!', as it might be if the music came to an end along with the lyric, but something more like, 'Yes, there's the thing, isn't it? Let's think about that for a while.' It also - and here's where things get very subjective indeed - leaves me personally with the mental image of the singer sitting looking out at the fireflies in the back yard, which is a mental image to which the man, who may or may not be sitting with her, is not terribly relevant. It would be hard to argue that that's a thought the song is in any way designed to leave the listener with, but I do think it's perhaps significant that the instrumental section that's repeated after the end of the vocal is the section that corresponds in the first verse to the Peter Pan adventure, in the second to the topless cycling, and in the third to the awful day (ending, in fact, precisely with the line 'catching fireflies out in the back yard', so perhaps that's why that image sticks in my mind): in other words after the end of the singing the music takes us back to linger on the singer's experience, rather than ending on the man's response.

Andy

, I agree that if there is a problem in the song it is that it does at some point seem to imply that childhood as a whole is a sort of pre-gendered state, which is demonstrably not the case (as one sees from the extremely young age at which studies (can't at the moment lay my googling fingers on a reference, but there was a news story in the last few months) are now showing female babies preferring pink things and male ones blue things, combined with the

evidence

that these colour-preferences vary across time and space in a way that suggests very strongly that they are culturally imposed). But I think I'm inclined to let Williams off the hook for that, at least to some extent. The song does show the process of gendering happening during childhood (especially in the topless cycling episode, but also, more subtly and more sadly, in the line 'I said I was a boy; I'm glad he didn't check', which of course implies (not unjustly) that Peter Pan, and by extension much of the culture that we produce for children, is horrendously sexist and only lets boys have adventures and fight pirates. There's also the interesting question of the singer's mother's attitude: on the one hand, would it have 'scared the pants off' her quite so much if it had been her son climbing stuff? but on the other, is there a joking significance in the fact that we imagine her mother wearing pants (trousers, for those of us in other parts of the Anglophone world) in the first place, in mild defiance of the patriarchy? :) So I think on that score the fault may be more mine than Williams', since I see that the article does largely ignore those aspects and talk about childhood as pretty thoroughly ungendered.

Another reason I'm inclined to give the song a pass on this question is that I'm not sure we're meant to take the depiction of the singer's childhood literally. In the same way that we plainly aren't expected to assume the singer, for all her 'boyish' activities like climbing and cycling and fighting pirates, never did 'girly' things like talking to her mother and picking flowers and crying and being kind, so too I don't think we're meant to imagine that her childhood was as thoroughly infused with ungendered self-determination as perhaps it seems in the song. The thing is that every glimpse of her childhood is mediated through her adult memory, specifically for comparison with the oppressive present. So although it's functioning in the song as a sort of symbol of genderlessness and as a source of emotional support, I don't think that amounts to the song saying that that is what childhood is actually like.

I think part of it also comes down to the thing of this song not trying to be about all women (and men) ever. It speaks to me in part perhaps because my childhood was approximately as ungendered as the singer's: not by any means completely, but just enough that I can compare it to the present as draw pro-feminist conclusions from the comparison. There will be others for whom childhood was much more the site of comprehensive engendering (except that that's a word for something different, but you know what I mean) and is therefore much less an inner source of positivity, and for them adulthood may be the empowering idea because it provides the tools for self-liberation that were denied in childhood. I guess looking at it from that angle

When I was a boy

isn't really saying that childhood is literally or necessarily a time of liberation so much as just using childhood - this particular type of childhood - as a symbol of the equal and full humanity of everyone.

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Jamie Johnston

at 17:56 on 2010-06-12Seen since writing the above: Sister Magpie's

most recent comment

. Response: yes. :)

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http://alex-von-cercek.livejournal.com/

at 18:37 on 2010-06-12I was always taught that "feminism" meant striving for equality of the genders. That seemed a fine and noble undertaking, but I don't see how you can claim that definition if you can't admit the possibility of male feminists.

I call myself a feminist and not an ally because, well, I don't know you! I might disagree with you on a whole bunch of issues you consider quite important. And you can't claim that feminists always agree on everything, no more than other prefix-ists always agree (which is to say, hardly ever). Also, "ally" seems so very personal, like I'm claiming to be your old and trustworthy brother in arms, like I'm claiming this relationship exists between us where in fact there is none.

If I say I'm a feminist, I'm speaking for myself. If I said I'm an ally, I'd be telling you what I am to you.

On the subject of winning, and how though the man may not have won, he is ahead. He is, but it's like a game of Defcon 5 where you "win" or "are ahead" of the other guy because in the last half hour, 60 million people in his country died in nuclear fire, while your own civilian casualties are barely 30 million.

I mean, you've won, but it's hardly a desirable victory.

...er, don't mind me, I just started hanging around this site because you actually analyzed WH40k novels for their literary merit, and then kind of stuck around.

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Wardog

at 18:40 on 2010-06-12On a lighter note, I just can't get past the term Kyriarchy - which, by rights, should mean oppression by me.

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Wardog

at 18:42 on 2010-06-12PS:

...er, don't mind me, I just started hanging around this site because you actually analyzed WH40k novels for their literary merit, and then kind of stuck around.

Not at all, you are very welcome here :)

And I'm sure Arthur would agree that, as far as reasons to stick around go, that must be one of the best :D

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http://roisindubh211.livejournal.com/

at 20:42 on 2010-06-12I'm watching the football while I read, so I couldn't listen to the song, but I read the lyrics. And the last part, to me, read like she gets so tired and worn down that her defenses fail, and she admits to this story that she's been hiding- it felt a little scary, like anything can happen to her because she's vulnerable. And instead of attacking, he's secretly "just like you"- he's her ally, because he knows what gets lost too. So it felt hopeful to me, more than anything else- like, if you look, you can find more people who remember and mourn their own loss.

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Arthur B

at 21:12 on 2010-06-12

On the other hand, the word 'feminist' is structured analogously to any number of other '-ist' words that are routinely used and understood to mean 'person who subscribes to a given school of thought'.

Putting the joke hick accent aside, this is kind of the way I see it. If you consider feminism a philosophy, and "feminists" to be people who adhere to that philosophy (in the same way that "communists" believe in one of the various flavours of communism), then saying "men can't be feminists" is tantamount to saying "men can't accept and believe in these ideas, only women can". That implies that men's brains are just plain wired differently from women's - which I think is a thing called "essentialism", and isn't universally accepted by feminist thinkers.

(Which isn't, of course, to say that if you consider feminism a philosophy you can't criticise men who claim to be feminists but fundamentally just don't get it, or try to mansplain everything. It's like being a middle-class supporter of communism - sure, come to the meetings and wave the red flags, but don't pretend you're a proletarian when you're clearly not.)

On the other hand, you could argue that feminism isn't just another philosophy or school of thought like Marxism or liberalism or whatever, but is an entirely different sort of thing. In which case it might make more sense to deny the "feminist" tag to men.

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Andy G

at 21:29 on 2010-06-12@ Arthur: It's complicated a bit because being a socialist is a matter not just of believing certain things but also being committed to certain values and actions. Someone who believed socialism was true but never spoke up or did anything would not be a socialist. I guess you could argue that the privilege that men enjoy makes it difficult or impossible to be a feminist because it would prevent the ideas from translating into action. Somebody could believe feminist ideas but still act and talk in a very sexist way.

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Jamie Johnston

at 21:31 on 2010-06-12Also, Chloe Angyal just tweeted

'Feminist men are so fucking sexy'

, so after due consideration I've decided to be one of those, thank you very much.

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Arthur B

at 22:04 on 2010-06-12

It's complicated a bit because being a socialist is a matter not just of believing certain things but also being committed to certain values and actions. Someone who believed socialism was true but never spoke up or did anything would not be a socialist.

I think they would, at least by the philosophical definition - it's just that they'd also be a hypocrite or a coward or someone just plain compromising for the sake of a quiet life, like anyone who chooses to behave in a manner not in accordance with their beliefs.

Somebody could believe feminist ideas but still act and talk in a very sexist way.

Which makes them a hypocrite, and a deluded idiot who needs to examine their own actions.

Basically, I think men can call themselves feminists if they want to, but it's not necessarily down to them to decide whether they're actually any

good

at the whole feminism thing. See, for example, Jamie's comments about how he's trying to be a good feminist, even if he knows that sometimes he might not be.

I would say that someone who believes in socialism but doesn't speak up or do anything is still a socialist. They're just a crappy socialist.

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Andy G

at 00:36 on 2010-06-13@ Arthur: Well, the thing is that just believing a rule or principle to be correct doesn't mean you understand how to apply it. For instance, you may know it's a rule of football that it's a goal when the ball goes through the posts - but what if you're playing casual football with friends in the park and a stranger's dog runs onto the pitch and knocks the ball through the goal? If you say it doesn't count because it was the stranger's dog, it's not because you had agreed on some sort of exception to the rule in advance (It's a goal wen the ball goes through the posts unless it was knocked in by a dog), but rather that you understood the point of the rules (to structure the game to make things more fun). Coming at a system of rules or principles from the outside, you can fail to grasp how to apply them unless you're able to understand the point behind them. The situation of privilege can impede being able to understand the perspective that allows you to apply the principles of feminism correctly, even if you believe them to be correct.

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Viorica

at 01:00 on 2010-06-13

That implies that men's brains are just plain wired differently from women's - which I think is a thing called "essentialism", and isn't universally accepted by feminist thinkers.

But isn't that part of the definition of transgender- that the person's brain is one gender while their body is another? If there was no difference between the male and female brain, then surely transpeople wouldn't

exist

, because their brains wouldn't register any difference? Or for a more specific example, there have been cases- I can't remember the names, but I know at least one was in Canada- where a child was born physically male but raised female due to a botched circumcision, and chose to live as a man after being told what had happened. If there was no difference between the male and female brains, then he would have been happy to live as a woman, because he would have identified the way he was raised.

Some feminists do ascribe to the idea that there's no difference between the brains. They're wrong, and they erase transpeople in what they percieve as efforts to prove that men and women are equal. They're doing more harm than good.

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Arthur B

at 01:02 on 2010-06-13I don't see how this changes the situation though. Someone who believes in feminism, or communism, or football, but doesn't really know how to apply this is a just plain bad feminist, or a bad communist, or a bad footballer.

If privilege sometimes ends up hampering men's ability to do the feminist thing in a situation, then that means then men are going to tend to be less successful at being feminists than women. That doesn't mean they're not feminists - that would imply they didn't

want

to do the right thing, when they might well want to do the right thing but not know what that is. It just mean they're not as good at it as people who aren't blindsided by privilege are.

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Andy G

at 01:24 on 2010-06-13@ Arthur: I'd say you need to be able to apply the principles to a certain degree of competence before you merit the label feminist. Sort of like with language - you can only speak the language fluently once you're able to actively and creatively apply the rules you've learned. But it's a moot point about labelling really (see discussion about genre), as long as you accept the difficulties that the privileged male perspective can present to applying feminist principles.

@ Viorica: Are you talking about Julie Bindel? I agree entirely, though I don't think there HAS to be a physiological difference between the brains to justify trans people's gender identities. Even if gender is entirely a social or psychological construct, that doesn't mean it's NOT a building block of someone's identity - there's nothing 'unreal' about it.

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Andy G

at 02:00 on 2010-06-13To clarify: I agree with Viorica. Not Julie Bindel.

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Viorica

at 02:09 on 2010-06-13*looks up Julie Bindel* She's certainly a good example of the phenomena. As to the physiological versus social causes- I don't think that

can

be it, because otherwise, why wouldn't the buy I mentioned above (I think his name was David something) have ID'd as female? He was raised that way. Besides, the social construsts of gender usually imply extremes- the "manly man" archetype or the woman all decked out in pink- but transpeople often vary within the spectrum of the gender they idenfity as. A transman might not identify with any traditional definition of masculinity yet still consider himself a man. Either way, it should definitely be considered a legitimate identity- on that we're in complete agreement.

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Arthur B

at 08:46 on 2010-06-13@Andy: I think it is worth linguistically decoupling belief in a particular -ism from someone's ability to live that belief. If saying "X is not a Y-ist" means that X doesn't believe in Y in the first place, and saying "X is not a very good Y-ist" means that X is just plain bad at putting Y-ism into effect, that's surely less liable to confuse than a situation where "X is not a Y-ist"

could

mean that X doesn't believe in Y, or

could

mean that X in fact does believe in Y but is incompetent at putting it into effect.

I could go around calling myself "a believer in feminism" rather than a "feminist", but I suspect a great many people - most likely the majority - would regard the one and the other as being identical anyway. For the same reason I'd question the utility of using "supporter of feminism" or "ally of feminism", because a lot of the time people will reduce that in their heads to "feminist" anyway.

But I agree at this point we're debating semantics.

@Andy Viorica: To be honest I was using "you're saying mens' brains and womens' brains are wired differently" in the sense that "you're saying that on a cold, philosophical level, there are some arguments that men just can't follow and some arguments women can't follow" (which is a point the argument has moved away from when it became clear that neither side believed it).

Obviously, transgenderism is a real phenomenon, obviously on an experiential level the experiences of men and women (trans and otherwise) are going to differ. I'm not enough of a neurologist to comment on actual physiological differences.

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Andy G

at 12:19 on 2010-06-13@ Viorica: I'm not going to pretend to be any expert, but I'd guess there are complicated different reasons why someone might legitimately identify as a certain gender. A particular person's personality is socially constructed but so too are the kinds of identities available to them - a Western person couldn't identify along the lines of Eastern gender identities, for instance, or premodern European gender identities. Bindel's point appears to be that, because there is in fact no essence behind gender identities (something backed up by the existence of intergender people, for instance), it's nonsensical to feel that there's a mismatch between your body and your 'real' gender, but of course these gender identities (constructed or not) do form the building blocks of our selves.

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Andy G

at 12:24 on 2010-06-13@ Arthur: Now I'm a bit more awake, it suddenly occurs that that Cracked article about women in Red Dead Redemption is a good example of misapplied feminist beliefs. Alternatively, I remember reading that back in Britain's colonial days, men who voted against women's rights at home used feminist arguments to condemn foreign countries as primitive (the same thing happens today with regard to gay rights).

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Arthur B

at 14:21 on 2010-06-13@Andy - All of that is appalling, but it looks to me like a situation where the people involved claim to believe in feminist principles but demonstrably don't, in which case they are not feminists but have deluded themselves into thinking they are, or do believe but are just shit feminists.

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Dan H

at 17:22 on 2010-06-13

But isn't that part of the definition of transgender- that the person's brain is one gender while their body is another? If there was no difference between the male and female brain, then surely transpeople wouldn't exist, because their brains wouldn't register any difference?

I think you're oversimplifying a number of complex issues here, some of them scientific and some of them sociological and gender-political.

This is going to get long, because it's complicated, and like Andy I'm not an expert.

For a start, I'm not sure it's possible to separate "the brain" from "the body" as absolutely as you seem to think. The brain is, after all, part of the body so describing somebody as having a "brain" of one gender and a "body" of another is inherently contradictory. It simply wouldn't be possible for somebody to be "physically male" and yet have a "female brain" because the brain is part of the physical body. It's as contradictory as suggesting that somebody could be "physically male" and still possess ovaries and a uterus. You seem to be using "brain" here as a way of expressing a more nebulous concept of self-identity.

Arguing for the existence of a "male" and "female" brain reduces gender to an observable property of a person's physical body. Saying "this person is male because he has a male brain" is ultimately just as trans-erasing as saying "this person is male because he has a penis". I'd also note that most "male and female brain" studies say very little about actual gender identity, indeed most people who study the differences (if any) between men's and women's brains specifically exclude transpeople from their studies or insist on categorizing them as members of their "biological" sex.

To put it another way, if you tested a trans-man, and found that he had a "female" brain, would that mean that he was a woman? Or is it, in your view, impossible for such a thing to happen? I'd point out that most studies that *do* conclude that there are "male" and "female" brains also point out that some (cisgendered) men have female brains and some (cisgendered) women have male brains, and vice versa. If as you suggest transgenderism has to be explained in terms of the existence of a "male brain" and "female brain" I am not sure how you explain these results.

Or for a more specific example, there have been cases- I can't remember the names, but I know at least one was in Canada- where a child was born physically male but raised female due to a botched circumcision, and chose to live as a man after being told what had happened. If there was no difference between the male and female brains, then he would have been happy to live as a woman, because he would have identified the way he was raised.

You're presenting a false dichotomy here. Off the top of my head I can think of a great many reasons why this guy didn't identify as female, the most obvious of them being that while he was raised female, he was presumably also raised in contemporary western society, and contemporary western society teaches (wrongly) that your gender is what you are born as. Once he found out he was "really" a boy, he would very likely have assumed that it was best to live under his "real" gender.

Adoption might be a good analogy here. If you have two biological children and an adopted child, you wouldn't argue that the adopted child's brain is *structurally different* from the biological children. If the adopted child finds out that they are adopted, however, they are quite likely to consider their adopted parents not to be their "real" parents even though those people raised them. Or they might not. Either way you can't say that it "has to be" something in the brain.

Put simply, gender identity is complicated (as for that matter is identity in general) and reducing it to a single factor is unhelpful, incorrect and (ironically) trans-erasing. Suppose that a conclusive study were to be published tomorrow which proved that men's and women's brains are not structurally different - would you then conclude that transpeople no longer have a valid gender identity?

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Andy G

at 17:55 on 2010-06-13@ Dan: Yes. Exactly.

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Sister Magpie

at 18:26 on 2010-06-13

You're presenting a false dichotomy here. Off the top of my head I can think of a great many reasons why this guy didn't identify as female, the most obvious of them being that while he was raised female, he was presumably also raised in contemporary western society, and contemporary western society teaches (wrongly) that your gender is what you are born as. Once he found out he was "really" a boy, he would very likely have assumed that it was best to live under his "real" gender.

Hmm. But see, in his case he already considered his "real" gender to be male. He just always had people telling him he was wrong, that he was female because that was what his body was and that was what he was socialized to be.

I wouldn't say that his brain was structurally different, but he clearly was born with an inborn *something* that naturally conformed more to behavior people considered "male," and more importantly, with a natural sense of himself as male. And unfortunately, iirc, a lot of this was denied and covered up by his psychologist who wanted him to fit his theory. This also led to the family being ordered to not reveal his original physical gender to him at all costs even when they wanted to tell him the truth because they thought it would be a relief to him.

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Viorica

at 18:30 on 2010-06-13I'm not sure you're entirely understanding me. I'm not saying that the difference between male and female brains are purely physiological. I'm saying that there is a difference, because otherwise no one would ever ID as the gender they weren't assigned to at birth. Since we don't know a lot about how the brain works, it's hard to say exactly what the relationship between the brain and the body is- and how much of what we think and feel is chemical as opposed to sociological- but I don't believe that gender is a purely social construct.

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Sister Magpie

at 18:32 on 2010-06-13Oh, also another thing to consider is hermaphrodites. There is a practice of "choosing" a gender sometimes when a baby is born. I remember in a book I was reading about some of these issues and there was a guy whose mother refused to let them do this. He was giving a talk at a thing for hermaphrodites and he said it was because of his mother standing up for him that he was not standing before them that day as a very angry lesbian.

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Viorica

at 18:34 on 2010-06-13

And unfortunately, iirc, a lot of this was denied and covered up by his psychologist who wanted him to fit his theory.

That was a big part of it too. The case was widely-publicised, and the psychologist involved wanted to make his reputation on it. Plus, the boy didn't only start to ID as male after being told the truth- he always preferred being a boy. He just didn't know why, because he was being purposefully misgendered.

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Sister Magpie

at 18:45 on 2010-06-13

That was a big part of it too. The case was widely-publicised, and the psychologist involved wanted to make his reputation on it. Plus, the boy didn't only start to ID as male after being told the truth- he always preferred being a boy. He just didn't know why, because he was being purposefully misgendered.

Exactly. Iirc, his life was a series of identifying as a boy and having someone tell him, "No no no!" And I remember the kids in his class called him "Bigfoot" because, basically, he didn't move like a girl. Not that it isn't possible for a girl to have the same kind of way of moving, but it really did seem like his behavior was full of millions of little things that people considered "wrong" for a girl.

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Andy G

at 19:15 on 2010-06-13@ Viorica:

I'm not saying that the difference between male and female brains are purely physiological. I'm saying that there is a difference, because otherwise no one would ever ID as the gender they weren't assigned to at birth.

I don't think the 'because' clause follows, because the difference doesn't have to be 'in the brains'. It could be a difference at the level of consciousness/selfhood - in the mind - that is a function of the way the person interprets socially constructed identities and roles as applicable or inapplicable to them (on the basis of their sensibilties, traits, physical features, etc.). Their interpretation could differ from that which is imposed on them by other people but that does not mean that the identity itself is not constructed.

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Jamie Johnston

at 20:25 on 2010-06-13I'm feeling quite squeamish about this chapter of the discussion: it feels like a conversation that's likely to be at best fruitless and at worst, er, worse in the absence of specific knowledge of the state of neuropsychological research and / or first-hand or close second-hand experience of what it's like to be a transgendered person, and I get the impression we have neither of those things here at the moment. So no contribution from me at this stage, really.

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Andy G

at 20:44 on 2010-06-13Yes I'm feeling that too. My arguments are hypotheticals about what must or needn't follow if something is the case. Some solid data would be handy.

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Frank

at 21:05 on 2010-06-13To back up the conversation:

People can choose or opt out of various world views (theistic, philosophic, political, etc.) they were born into. Granted, some may experience some emotional difficulty in doing so but that's mostly due to family relations rather than social ones. People can't chose the sex, sexuality, gender identification, race, or the physical and mental ability they are born with though there are surgical procedures like sex reassignments or cochlear implants which can alter one's appearance or deafness. Neither procedure will grant the full sex change (testicles for ovaries or vice versa, to name one example) or complete hearing restoration. (But maybe the scientists will one day find the means to do so, and perhaps that will be the singularity.)

Women, the LGBTQ community, People of Color, Disabled people grow-up in culture that defines them as 'less than' and/or 'other'. A white, straight, abled male can be an ally to all those communities but still say something unintentionally offensive because those men grewup within the same culture with its institutional sexism, racism, homophobia, etc but who aren't as sensitive to the kyiarchal language or images being used within the culture because it didn't hurt them. This isn't a criticism. It's an understandable, self-preservation tactic. People need to be taught to consider others. Allies make mistakes, and if they are true allies they apologize and reflect on their offense in the hopes of recognizing the institutionalized whatever that gave it to them and learn how to be a better, stronger ally. I think this is best done by reading various blogs within the communities one is most interested in being an Ally to as it is not the responsibility of the non-dominant communities to teach the white, straight, abled man about the minority community.

Returning to the male as feminist argument.

Here's the jist of what a feminist friend told me some years ago:

You're anti-rape, but that doesn't make you a rape victim. You don't know what's its like. You might be able to imagine it, the fear and violation, but you haven't experienced it. You can help rape victims: provide legal support, meeting space, or coffee for support groups, but you can't go to the group because you're not a rape victim. In fact, even though you've probably raped no one, you represent the rapist just by having a dick. So you can support rape victim causes and feminist causes, but that support doesn't make you a rape victim or feminist just a friend (ally).

Now, it was only one woman that told me this and she obviously doesn't speak for all feminist, but it smacked me pretty hard at the time and I was a bit butt hurt about it, yet when the hurt subsided I came to see her perspective, and how it relates to other marginalized communities.

Men are not in the community of women like whites aren't in the community of anyone of color.

Men can offer to volunteer for the community of women like whites can do the same for communities of color.

Women to men: thanks, vote for suffrage, that would help out a lot. PoC to whites: write to your House Rep/Senator and demand that he pass the Civil Rights Bill, thanks.

NOW to men: we got this, but you can donate. NUL to whites: we got this, but you can donate.

But I'm willing to be wrong. According to Sarah Palin, she is a feminist, so why not Jamie and Alex?

Apologies for the US-centric references!

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Jamie Johnston

at 21:47 on 2010-06-13

According to Sarah Palin, she is a feminist, so why not Jamie and Alex?

Ouch! ;)

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Frank

at 21:51 on 2010-06-13:D

In good fun!

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http://alex-von-cercek.livejournal.com/

at 22:37 on 2010-06-13I think the analogy loses something when it tries to equate being a rape victim with being a feminist. I think we can all agree that being raped is not a prerequisite for joining the feminist club.

In fact, they're different in a very crucial way - rape only harms the victim, not the perpetrator. I don't believe that it's actually in my best interest to perpetuate the patriarchy. I don't think I'm shooting myself in the foot when I complain about how women are portrayed in media. I think that when and if we achieve actual equality of the sexes on this planet, in a sort of Star Trek-esque future utopia where all ancient irrational prejudices have been wiped out,

I as a white heterosexual European male will be better off than I was before.

Again, yeah, I'm "ahead", but it's not a desirable ahead. We're not all rape victims, but we're all victims (with varied degrees of actual harm incurred) of the patriarchy/kyriarchy/irrational prejudices that fuck up humanity's shit. That's one of the things "When I was a boy" is about, right?

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Melissa G.

at 22:44 on 2010-06-13For what it's worth (sorry this is late in coming), my very close friend is transgender, and he and I have talked about it a lot. And what he tells me is that he believes that trans people are meant to be born as whatever gender they identify as but that there was a genetic mishap that happened to make them the wrong gender. In which case, there would be a connection with brain chemistry and gender, I suppose. But it's probably also safe to say that not every trans person has the same experiences/beliefs and there could be multiple reasons for why someone identifies as the opposite of their physical gender that have less to do with science and more to do with social pressures/conditioning. But most trans people (to the best of my knowledge) spend their whole lives feeling like they are in the wrong body. It's something that's there with them from a very, very early age so I feel like there has to be a biological reason for it. But I, like everyone else, am no expert on the subject.

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Melissa G.

at 22:44 on 2010-06-13Apologies for opening that topic up again, but I felt like it was important....

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Arthur B

at 22:45 on 2010-06-13To be honest, so long as a person's actions have a net positive effect on things, I couldn't care less what they call themselves, so long as they don't use whatever titles they've given themselves as a stick to beat other people with.

So Sarah Palin pretty much fails on every single point there.

Apologies for the US-centric references!

I wonder, in fact, whether there isn't a cultural thing at work here with the "ally" thing. It's not terminology I've seen from many UK sources, and I kind of share Jamie's reluctance to go out and unilaterally declare myself someone's ally - surely it's their call whether I'm an ally or not? It could be we are being terribly English about the whole thing.

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Dan H

at 23:18 on 2010-06-13

I'm saying that there is a difference, because otherwise no one would ever ID as the gender they weren't assigned to at birth

I think we might be talking at cross purposes here, because I think we're talking about two different things.

One is the origins or otherwise of gender identity. This is a Big Serious Complicated Issue and one I'm not remotely qualified to talk about apart from saying "it's really complicated." It's ultimately reductionist to say that it comes from any one source, be that socialization or some currently unknown neurological factor.

The second issue is the concept of "male" and "female" brains - the notion that women's brains innately process information differently from men's. The first thing to say is that the jury is simply out on this. There's no good scientific evidence one way or the other. The second thing to say is that even the studies which *do* support the idea that men and women process information in different ways observe that there is broad variation between the sexes, so a great many men will have "female-type" brains and a great many women will have "male-type" brains, but these people will not self-identify as a member of the other gender. If there *is* a brain-based "root cause" of gender identity, it's got nothing to do with the concept of "brain type" so beloved of gender essentialists.

It's true that there's a line of transphobic apologia which runs along the lines of "transpeople just reinforce the gender binary," which is of course offensive, but it's important not to go down the line of assuming that transgenderism *requires* gender essentialism. To put this in pure I-statements, I personally do not believe that men and women are "wired differentely" or that you can describe a particular person as having a "male" or "female" brain any more than you can describe them as having a male or female heart. I also believe that trans-men really are men, just as much as I am and I do not, personally, see a contradiction in these two positions.

The question of why some people self-identify as a gender different to the one they were assigned at birth is one to which I do not have, and do not propose, an answer, but I certainly do not think there needs to be a single physiological source which determines a person's "real" gender.

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Dan H

at 23:28 on 2010-06-13

But most trans people (to the best of my knowledge) spend their whole lives feeling like they are in the wrong body. It's something that's there with them from a very, very early age so I feel like there has to be a biological reason for it. But I, like everyone else, am no expert on the subject.

From my (very limited) understanding this is another thing that Varies Really Quite A Lot so I suspect that the best that we can do is to put our hands up and say "This Is Extremely Complicated And It Is Important Not To Make Generalizations".

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Jamie Johnston

at 23:31 on 2010-06-13

Melissa

,

Apologies for opening that topic up again, but I felt like it was important...

No need to apologize: I didn't mean to seem like I was trying to close down the discussion, just to flag up that maybe it couldn't get much further than it had done without referring to actual trans experiences (which is what you've relayed here) and / or scientific evidence.

I'm extremely uncertain about the whole question. My highly non-expert understanding is that it's generally agreed among the relevant experts that a lot of extremely important stuff happens in very early childhood, to the point where it's quite risky to assume that a given characteristic is innate solely on the basis that the person concerned has had it ever since she or he can remember. On the other hand I know of no evidence that transgender isn't at least partly physiological, and it's clearly obnoxious to do the thing Viorica complains of, namely challenging a transgendered person's interpretation of his or her own experience not on the basis of evidence but simply to defend an absolutist position on the construction of gender. On the other hand again (what is this, the third hand? - sorry), surely one could in principle hold that absolutist view while also saying, 'Even if the transgender experience of being born in the wrong body is somehow scientifically false, it's still clearly something that they haven't consciously chosen and that means their bodies are preventing them living the lives they want, and therefore it's extremely important that they be able to make whatever changes to their lives and their bodies will make them feel more truly themselves, and that they not be stigmatized for it.' But perhaps that misses the point, I don't know. I confess on trans issues I'm at such an early stage of learning that I wouldn't even call myself a beginner as I'm now prepared to do on the more 'traditional' feminist issues. Hence I shall clam up again now! :)

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Jamie Johnston

at 23:37 on 2010-06-13Good grief, I've just re-read the hypothetical position in my comment above that starts 'Even if the transgender experience...' and seen that it's very othering and rather awful. Not that I was saying it was my position, but still, gah. I really shall shut up now before I do that again (especially since Dan has done a better job while I was writing).

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Melissa G.

at 04:39 on 2010-06-14

I suspect that the best that we can do is to put our hands up and say "This Is Extremely Complicated And It Is Important Not To Make Generalizations".

Oh, I most certainly agree. I imagine it's a complicated mix of nurture and nature (like most things) that no one can really pin down and make work for every single experience. Which is probably why I find psychology so fascinating. :-)

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Melissa G.

at 04:44 on 2010-06-14

No need to apologize: I didn't mean to seem like I was trying to close down the discussion, just to flag up that maybe it couldn't get much further than it had done without referring to actual trans experiences (which is what you've relayed here) and / or scientific evidence.

Thanks! I was just making sure. Because it's all very well and good for me to be like "Well, my trans friends says..." but I still can't speak to the topic with much authority past what I've been told by the one person I know who's trans.

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Frank

at 05:10 on 2010-06-14

I wonder, in fact, whether there isn't a cultural thing at work here with the "ally" thing.

I was thinking this too when I saw the tweeter from Jamie's link was from Australia, but then continued down the short bio to learn that she went to Princeton and lives in NYC which makes me think she would be familiar with the use of 'ally'. So, yeah, I don't know.

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Dan H

at 23:03 on 2010-06-14

On the other hand again (what is this, the third hand? - sorry), surely one could in principle hold that absolutist view while also saying, 'Even if the transgender experience of being born in the wrong body is somehow scientifically false, it's still clearly something that they haven't consciously chosen and that means their bodies are preventing them living the lives they want, and therefore it's extremely important that they be able to make whatever changes to their lives and their bodies will make them feel more truly themselves, and that they not be stigmatized for it.'

Replying to this point because as somebody who *does* hold the "absolutist" view (insofar as I consider it extremely probable that there is no such thing as a "male" or "female" brain and don't see much room for maneuver on that) I thought it might be worth clarifying a couple of things - if only because otherwise I'm tacitly admitting to being a trans-hating bigot.

The first thing is that, as I understand it, there's a difference between being *transsexual* (feeling that you were born in the "wrong body") and being *transgender* (possessing a gender identity which does not match the identity assigned to you at birth, or by society). Obviously the two often go together but it is possible to be transgender without being transsexual. There are quite a lot of people who self-identify as a member of the "opposite" sex but feel no particular discomfort with their bodies. There are, in fact, men who are perfectly happy with their vaginas.

This again is part of what makes me so uncomfortable about the "girl brain/boy brain" idea. If you assume that trans-identity has to stem from a "dissonance" between the brain and the body, then you exclude all those who feel no such dissonance. There are people who self-define as trans but feel no need to have surgery - something which under the "male and female brains" model should be impossible. I'm also not certain how it accounts for people who identify as genderqueer, or for people who are intersex.

Ultimately some people *do* feel like they were born in the "wrong body" and it's obviously important to recognize the validity of that but at the same time it's important to recognize that when it comes to a person's body "right" and "wrong" are subjective terms. If somebody feels that they're supposed to have breasts, then they're supposed to have breasts - this has nothing to do with gender essentialism and everything to do with people's rights (within the limits of technology and some really horribly complicated areas of medical ethics) to have control over their bodies.

I think it's quite important to recognize that a person's right to define both their gender identity and what happens to their body (which may or may not correlate) does not need to be validated by reference to biology. Indeed most attempts to define gender in biological terms have major problems - some men have ovaries, some women have testes, and if you believe in that sort of thing, some men have female brains. It feels a little like this thread has tacitly accepted Viorica's original dichotomy (embrace gender essentialism or invalidate trans identity) and I think it's quite important to realize that this isn't necessary.

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Andy G

at 15:21 on 2010-06-16I just noticed that there is an interesting series called 'A trangender journey' on the Guardian at the moment:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jun/02/transgender-journey

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Furare

at 20:13 on 2010-07-26I wanted to say something about this article when I first read it, but could never quite work out what to say. So, just two things, then:

(1) Men can absolutely be feminists, and in my opinion "feminist" is exactly what they ought to call themselves. "Feminism" is still treated as something of a dirty word by some people, so I think that anyone who holds genuinely pro-equality opinions should proudly claim the label and not be put off by wondering whether they deserve it. Make people think twice about what feminism and being "a feminist" actually means.

(2) That song is awesome, and I think the last verse is as necessary as any of the rest. Primarily because, even as a feminist who was a tomboy growing up, I still thought "wait, what?" about the man asserting "when I was a girl". Because it's somehow more acceptable for a girl to behave like a boy than the reverse - apparently, even in my head. <cone>

@Jamie specifically: Since you've read some of Fugitivus' blog, I wondered if you'd ever come across

this article

, which I found via a link in one of her posts. It reminded me of what Alex said in this thread about how he believes that abolition of sexism would benefit him as a man, which is something I believe to be true also. (Even though I'm a woman, heh.)

I wish I could write something as coherent as this about why I became a feminist, but every time I try it just fails to come out right. :(

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Jamie Johnston

at 13:27 on 2010-08-01Hi Furare, sorry not to have responded earlier - I've been moving house and things have been a bit wouaeugh.

Yes, I do remember reading that, quite possibly linked from Fugitivus, but I'd forgotten it so it was good to be reminded, thanks. It produces in me a somewhat similar reaction to the line 'I have lost and you have won' in the song, namely a blend of sadness, shame (by proxy, by association, and directly), resolve, and fear at the scale of the task. A this-is-the-price-of-your-privilege smoothie, if you like. Just the thing to drink in the morning before a day of trying not to be a cad. :)

And yeah, I agree that abolishing sexism would benefit men. (Unless of course it turned out that abolishing sexism involved, as some suggest, abolishing 'men' and 'women' as separate categories, in which case it would benefit the people formerly classified as men.) Hypothetical men in the future, definitely. But it's a bit strange to think about whether it would benefit me because it's very difficult to imagine. I mean difficult not just in the sense that it's difficult to imagine a world without sexism but that it's difficult to imagine that happening within my lifetime so that I would be able to benefit from it. I can imagine waking up tomorrow and finding that cars had been abolished, or war, or higher education, because those are external things that could, in theory, just simply stop in an instant and never be seen again, and we'd all be the same people we were the day before except we wouldn't be able to travel / get killed / learn stuff in quite the same way. Whereas sexism is in all our heads and we wouldn't be the same people without it. It's in my head and I don't know what it would feel like for it not to be there and how much I'd feel like me. So trying to imagine a world without sexism involves either imagining a world without me in it, in which case I obviously wouldn't be getting any personal benefit, or imagining a world in which I were a different person, possibly a radically different one, in which case it's hard to identify the 'me' who would be getting the benefit.

You might reasonably accuse me of thinking too literally about a hypothetical situation that's really just a turn of phrase, but that is pretty much my reaction, even without the alternate-world theorizing. I can't imagine getting any serious personal benefit out of not being a sexist or out of other people not being sexist (apart from the 'I feel better about myself' benefit that's always used to 'disprove' altruism). When I think about making myself and others less sexist - when I conceive that task and feel my reaction to it - it feels like a hard and unending slog with little promise of personal reward. I feel like I would be more content and more self-confident and probably even a more interesting and fun person if I made myself not care. I might even, on balance, bring more pleasure and excitement to other people's lives that way, but it would be at the price of doing some harm and supporting harmful behaviour in others.

Which isn't to say that feminism never makes life more pleasant or fun for men who engage in it: I'm sure some, maybe most, find that it makes them more outgoing, or more at peace with themselves, or more exciting, or more relaxed, or whatever. I guess it depends on the mental techniques you use to change yourself. My experience of self-improvement mostly involves self-censorship, self-criticism, and working to neutralize bits of myself, which over all tends to make me less talkative*, less confident, less spontaneous, less relaxed, and generally less interesting. Which isn't a benefit. Of course if sexism were suddenly magically removed from all our minds while we slept I wouldn't have to do so much of that, which I guess would be a benefit, but also I'd be someone different (and so would you and everyone else), so it would be a benefit to someone else. If you see what I mean.

* (Some may be surprised by the suggestion that I'm becoming less talkative. I'd clarify that if this comment weren't already far too long and far too much about me. But it is, so.)

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Furare

at 15:54 on 2010-08-01Ha! I'm afraid that feminism is making me *more* talkative, while at the same time, a bit of a killjoy. Sometimes I'm afraid that I am the world's most boring person for caring about any of this. But - I don't know if you've found this or not - I can't stop caring about it. Once you realise how fucked up everything is, it's really difficult to stop realising. It's everywhere, and once you've started noticing it, you keep noticing. You - or at least I - just can't help it anymore.

You're right that sexism is kind of embedded in our culture and it's difficult to imagine what things would be like without it. But - and I may well be telling you something you already know here - being anti-sexism doesn't actually benefit an individual woman any more than you feel it benefits you. Life is actually a lot easier if you shut up, smile and don't think too hard. Being a feminist has made me paranoid that I sound "too angry" (self-critical, and also a sign of internalised sexism), careful about not making "reverse sexist" comments about men in case someone decides I'm a hypocrite (self-censorship), and as I've already said, I'm afraid it makes me less interesting.

But then I guess, like all activism, the end result is the reason we do it, not because it will benefit us. Not that I particularly mind the idea of being someone different, mostly because that person would probably be less neurotic.

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Robinson L

at 18:30 on 2010-08-02Sorry, may comment more when I've gotten around to reading the article proper. For now I just want to pop in and address this:

Furare: Once you realise how fucked up everything is, it's really difficult to stop realising. It's everywhere, and once you've started noticing it, you keep noticing. You - or at least I - just can't help it anymore.

Seriously, are you reading my mind or something?

Being a feminist has made me paranoid that I sound "too angry"

Yeah, I'd noticed you apologizing for

your mini-rant

on the

gender-segregated exams

a couple months ago. I've also heard Kyra apologize once or twice in the podcasts for having a feminist rant. Personally, I wince at every apology, because I strongly believe it's something you shouldn't be apologizing for, and I hope this site at least is a safe space for people to air those types of feelings.

I'm afraid it makes me less interesting.

Exactly the opposite, to my mind.

But then I guess, like all activism, the end result is the reason we do it, not because it will benefit us.

Agreed, but for myself, I find solution-based activism incredibly fulfilling and satisfying. (Ranting about the problem can be fun too, and a good way to blow off steam, but I don't get the same sense of accomplishment as when I'm participating in a project which I think will - even in just a small way - make the world/some section thereof a better and more equal place. Yay, run-on sentences!)

It sounds like your experience is rather different, and I'm sorry to hear it.

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Dan H

at 10:02 on 2010-08-03

Men can absolutely be feminists, and in my opinion "feminist" is exactly what they ought to call themselves. "Feminism" is still treated as something of a dirty word by some people, so I think that anyone who holds genuinely pro-equality opinions should proudly claim the label and not be put off by wondering whether they deserve it. Make people think twice about what feminism and being "a feminist" actually means.

Just thought I'd chime in on this one.

I think the problem with being a feminist-identified-man is that while "Feminism" is treated as a dirty word by some people, it's treated as a get-out-of-jail-free card by others. c.f. "Joss Whedon Is A Feminist Therefore His Portrayal of Gender Can Never Be Problematic" arguments passim ad nauseam.

A depressing number of feminist-identified-men treat feminism as this abstract principle which in no way requires them to modify their behaviour. I suspect, for example, that the vast majority of Nice Guys also consider themselves feminists (because after all, being a Nice Guy is all about having *respect* for women and that's what feminism *is*, right?).

As a result I (ironically) tend to only self-define as a feminist to anti-feminists, and otherwise just settle for "trying not to be too much of a dickbag".

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Dan H

at 10:22 on 2010-08-03

Yeah, I'd noticed you apologizing for your mini-rant on the gender-segregated exams a couple months ago. I've also heard Kyra apologize once or twice in the podcasts for having a feminist rant. Personally, I wince at every apology, because I strongly believe it's something you shouldn't be apologizing for, and I hope this site at least is a safe space for people to air those types of feelings.

So ... B must try harder?

Sorry if this sounds oversensitive but it just strikes me that Furare's initial comment stands perfectly well on its own as a description of her experiences and doesn't need you to elaborate on it.

Sorry if this sounds overly hostile, but this is kind of the behaviour I was talking about in my previous comment. Your response here is actually a little bit patronising - Furare is an intelligent adult woman who is capable of articulating and understanding her own experiences, she doesn't *need* you to spell it out for her. She certainly doesn't need your permission or your encouragement to express herself.

I'm sure it's not your intent, but your entire comment reads like your primary concern is pointing out to us what a Big Damned Feminist you are rather than actually engaging with anything anybody has said. I mean basically your whole post boils down to "I feel the same way you do, except more strongly, and I'm more comfortable about it, and I do more."

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Furare

at 11:44 on 2010-08-03

As a result I (ironically) tend to only self-define as a feminist to anti-feminists, and otherwise just settle for "trying not to be too much of a dickbag".

Yeah, that's kind of what I meant by claiming the title anyway. It's not like I go up to people and say "Hi, I'm Furare, and I'm a feminist" a la Daffyd from Little Britain. And you're right that there are feminist men who use feminism as a shield rather than engaging with it as an ideology. My original comment did say "anyone who holds genuinely pro-equality opinions", which to my mind involves the behaviour modification that some allegedly feminist men never try to do.

I guess the thing is that, like one of the posters above, I don't like people telling me they're my ally. Call yourself a feminist and I can say "Well, okay then, but if you're a feminist why do you still do X/laugh at Y?" Call yourself an "ally", and maybe it's just me, but I would feel like I can't nitpick as much because "you're not really my ally" sounds more personal than "you're not really a feminist".

I do agree with something you said once, Dan, which was (I think): "Men who identify as feminists should take a good look at themselves because, guys, there is a non-zero chance that you are a creepy asshole". Being male and a feminist involves more self-scrutiny and self-censorship than being female and a feminist. But it's possible as long as you ("you" being the hypothetical feminist man) keep an eye on yourself and make sure your actions match your words.

I stand by the comment that men can be feminists. I don't think that every man who claims to be a feminist is one, which is why men who *really are* feminists should claim the label. And maybe challenge the Nice Guy jackasses who are using feminism as a means to cover their collective asses. I do think there's a negative correlation between how feminist a man actually is, and how willing he is to call himself a feminist.

It sounds like your experience is rather different, and I'm sorry to hear it.

Well, my immediate experience is being told to lighten up and not take everything so seriously by my mother, having my sister tell me that I'm RUINING THE JOKE when I point out that something is problematic, being told every now and again that I'm "one of the boys" by someone who means it as a compliment...

And apparently I'm "too rigid" if I insist on always paying for my own dinner. Even though the reason I want to do it is because there is no good reason for me to let a man buy me dinner, short of me buying him dinner in return at a later date. Or if it's my birthday. Which is, like, once a year.

RE: Apologising - I apologised for the mini-rant because it was technically a massive derail. I do have a tendency to apologise when I don't need to in real life, but I always thought this was just because I'm British.

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Jamie Johnston

at 13:31 on 2010-08-03

But - I don't know if you've found this or not - I can't stop caring about it.

Yes, I know what you mean. In principle I think I have to believe that one could somehow switch it off again, because it feels like as a necessary corollary to my belief that people can make themselves better I have to also believe that people can make themselves worse. But it's quite hard to imagine how that would actually work.

I've also heard Kyra apologize once or twice in the podcasts for having a feminist rant.

Well, yeeees, but also I remember Arthur apologizing for his '

Angels & demons

is evil' speech, so although there is undoubtedly an internalized sexism thing that often makes women feel the need to excuse themselves after expressing strong opinions, we shouldn't necessarily assume that that's what's happening every time. I'd say in the podcast setting there was another factor operating, especially in the early episodes when we weren't used to the dynamics of that particular group yet (and I can only speak for myself, but I suspect the others had variations on this): not wanting to take up more than one's fair share of air-time, and also not wanting to make the tone too heavy for what was essentially a fun and slightly flippant exercise. And when you have a long rant you feels like you've sort of broken both those 'rules', especially if you get to the end and you don't find everyone saying, 'Yeah, totally, that's exactly what I thought'. I think in the later episodes there was less of that because we developed an alternative habit: rather than X rants and then X apologizes, it tended to be X rants and everyone else mocks X a bit for ranting, which is more entertaining for all involved. (E.g. Arthur on 'Everyone has been hypnotized by everyone else' and me on the housekeeper and various people on 'No seriously I think something is going to happen in the next chapter of

The god of small things

'.) My attempt to dive into the depths of The Nature Of Plot came somewhere in between, so although I didn't actually apologize for it I did try to minimize it a bit, and the others didn't exactly mock me but did say 'Oh not this again' next time the subject loomed. So, er, I can't quite remember what point I was trying to make, but anyway there we are.

... short of me buying him dinner in return at a later date.

I'm a big fan of one person paying for both and the other doing the same the next time and so on, and I do it equally with friends of all kinds. It sets up a spirit of mutually dependent reciprocity rather than independent separateness, and it also has that feature you get in gift-exchange cultures where the exchange of gifts never comes to an obvious point of equilibrium where the parties can say 'Okay, we're all square now, we can walk away' and therefore the constant imbalance encourages the relationship to continue, because there always has to be a 'next time' so that the person who didn't pay this time doesn't end up in profit permanently. And eventually it gets to the point where no one can keep track of it any more and it's just become a relationship where sometimes we buy each other stuff and we really don't worry about it, which is nice. But the most important and massive advantage for me is that it means I don't have to do mental arithmetic.

Having said that, I guess it wouldn't necessarily be great for early dates when one might want to keep an element of 'We can get out of this at any time because we're all square at any given moment'.

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Wardog

at 13:55 on 2010-08-03

I've also heard Kyra apologize once or twice in the podcasts for having a feminist rant.

Yes, not to keep flogging this dead horse but I think I was apologising for being anti-social rather than being feminist.

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Robinson L

at 21:15 on 2010-08-03*Looks at last paragraph of previous post, beats head repeatedly against wall*

Thank you for drawing this to my attention, Dan. Ye gods, but that was massively patronizing. I apologize to Furare and everyone else on this thread.

As for the rest, I meant to say, essentially “please, don't apologize.” Thank you, Furare, Jamie and Kyra for addressing that.

Er, so, apologies again for the epic fail.

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Furare

at 21:26 on 2010-08-29I always meant to get around to replying to this.

RE: Paying for dinner - I find it really difficult to relax and enjoy dinner if someone else is paying for it. Even when it's one of my parents. It makes me uncomfortable, and also renders me anxious about what my food choice - with particular reference to how much the meal costs - says about me. Like, if I have the steak, that's expensive, so will they think I'm selfish and greedy? If I really want a cheap dish, though, will they think I'm calling them stingy?

This might not be a concern for a lot of people, but I have social anxieties, and paying for my own dinner cuts out a lot of what makes me feel uncomfortable in that particular social situation. I'm explaining it here for the sake of context, but I should not have to say this to some guy I don't know very well. I probably wouldn't explain it, because anyone who chooses to "insist" on paying after I've already said no is not someone with whom I'm particularly interested in becoming further acquainted. (Oh, you "insist" on pushing my boundaries in the name of tradition? How sweet. Bleh.)

I don't really care what arrangements other people have with their friends or SOs or whoever - what I do care about is that the man paying for the woman's dinner is still seen as the default. I'm not trying to say that Jamie's favoured setup is wrong, and in fact alternating is a very egalitarian way of dealing with these things (and probably more convenient when it comes to paying by card in restaurants). It wouldn't work for me, but that's not the be all and end all of whether or not something's right. Heh.

I only mentioned the paying for dinner thing in the first place because I'd read an article written (for men, by a woman) on How To Guarantee a Second Date. And one of the tips was basically "you should pay. We lied. We don't want to pay half." To which my incredulous response was - Speak for yourself. Because you sure as hell aren't speaking for me. Jeez, way to encourage men not to believe a word that comes out of a woman's mouth. I'm not pretending to be independent and feminist to look "cute".

Bah, now I've gone and made myself angry again.

RE: Robinson's comment - I didn't find it offensive, to be honest. Maybe there's something problematic about him saying I don't need to apologise, or that activism can be fun, but I didn't read it that way. People are always telling me not to apologise for things because I really don't need to, so that's how I originally read what Robinson was saying even before he clarified it.

Though this discussion kind of reminds me of a far more obnoxious argument I once had about feminism on a gaming forum. I actually got people DISAGREEING WITH ME when I said "as men, you do NOT get to decide that women aren't subject to sexist discrimination any more." Christ, what a train wreck that was.

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Robinson L

at 18:06 on 2011-01-19Okay, having now read this perfectly lovely article and perfectly lovely discussion with perfectly lovely links all around I'm sorry all over again for shooting off my mouth and bringing the quality down. So let's try again and see if this time I can avoid losing my foot down my own throat.

I don't have much of an ear for music, and I guess I feel the same about this song as I do about most others: it's okay. The discourse is very good, and as a male, I did feel a resonance when the man in the song says “I rarely cry anymore.” That's also a great analysis of the song's construction, Jamie.

Re: Men as feminists

I was at a workshop over the summer run by a white guy talking about feminism and a bunch of other progressive ideologies/movements.

When we came to discussing the distinction between “feminism” and “pro-feminism,” he shared a story of taking part in a feminist group in which he was the only man, and after a while one of the women in the group pulled him aside and said gently, “Would you call yourself a black liberationist?” And that seems to have made a significant impression on his thinking when it comes to the “feminist” label.

Philosophically, I'm of the school which says that men absolutely can and should be feminists. Feminism to me means replacing patriarchy and sexism with gender egalitarianism, which is a project equally for women and for men.

I generally use the term “ally” to refer to issues within feminism or anti-racism or whatever that do not affect me personally. I can be an ally on an issue without calling myself personally an ally to every person affected by that issue. For what it's worth, I also think it's reasonable to say “you call yourself an anti-domestic abuse ally, but look how you push around your girlfriend all the time” (sorry, there're probably better examples out there, I'm just blanking on them at the moment).

Perhaps,

as Arthur suggests

, all that “ally” stuff from the previous paragraph is more US-based (though I don't recall ever having heard it articulated like this before); but by no means is there an agreement in US feminist circles that men cannot be feminists. All of the feminists I know—American and European—are quite clear that men can and should be feminists.

Of course it's a problem when men (and women, for that matter) who clearly aren't feminists claim that label—but I think cooptation is a problem for social movements pretty universally. People who genuinely care about the issues do need to resist when skeevy people in power (whether macro or micro) adopt the rhetoric of those movements to advance truly destructive agendas. None of this,

by itself

makes for me a compelling argument that men cannot be feminists.

I can't imagine getting any serious personal benefit out of not being a sexist or out of other people not being sexist (apart from the 'I feel better about myself' benefit that's always used to 'disprove' altruism). When I think about making myself and others less sexist - when I conceive that task and feel my reaction to it - it feels like a hard and unending slog with little promise of personal reward.

Agreed on the unending slog, but I wonder about the lack of serious personal benefits. Here are some of the thoughts which occur to me:

It is my belief that a sexist outlook and attitude creates an incredible amount of cognitive dissonance; psychic damage. Achieving a completely non-sexist mindset is impossible in a patriarchal society, but the less sexism in one's outlook, the less cognitive dissonance and the less damage to one's psyche. Similarly for racism, militarism, classism, heterosexism, etc.

Also, as a man, I see sexism as working (somewhat successfully) to cripple my emotional/relational maturity and my ability to make meaningful connections with other people. Terrence Real—one of my touchstones for a feminist masculinity—has written a book exposing how the violent, unemotional, never-lose patriarchal view of masculinity results in internal as well as external damage. (i.e. it hurts the men living it out, even as they in turn hurt other people.)

I couldn't count the times I've caught myself rejecting assistance with something-or-other because, as a man, I'm not supposed to need help from other people—I'm supposed to suck it up and tough it out. I'm generally pretty good at doing favors for others without reward, but I'm bad at accepting favors from others, and worse at asking for them.

I've also noticed numerous little behaviors which I've censored, because they'd mark me out as too “girly,” or gay, or both. You should see the way I agonize over little things like telling my friends how much I love them.

It seems to me that eliminating these manifestations of sexism (and homophobia) in myself will make me a happier and healthier human being, as well as a less prickish one.

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http://lokifan.livejournal.com/

at 21:14 on 2011-05-05Thanks for introducing me to Dar Williams! Wonderful article. The song made me cry too.

this is the line I always choke on: 'And so I tell the man I'm with about the other life I lived, and I say, "Now you're top gun: I have lost and you have won."' Can there be anything more heartbreaking to a man with any heart at all than the thought that your female friends and relatives might, even only in brief moments, feel like your defeated opponents?

That line makes me emotional too -

you were just like me/I was just like you

made me cry. It's not one of the Big Serious Things that happens because of sexism, or even one of the insidiuous unavoidable things, but I do believe patriarchy makes it harder for men and women to reach each other and connect, between the messages telling us we're so inherently different, and the differences in how we experience the world. Which is just unbearably sad.

[celestius]

When social desirability determines artistic quality

In the last couple of months, I have run into several instances of the projection of desirable social stances on the reception of artistic works. The worrying amount of cases when a project was lauded for portraying/implementing (especially racial)  topics well and therefore considered to be of high quality, or conversely criticized for it and therefore considered bad on an artistic level made me consider the level of impact I personally believe a portrayal of particular contemporary opinions on judging art should have.

First off, I would like to say that even from my point of view, it´s a sliding scale that cannot really be applied across the board and each case should be considered differently based on a number of criteria.

(Most of my examples below pertain to the topic of race because it is both most obvious and because it finds much more representation that can be examined, thus giving it a "head start" over topics concerning for example gender)

For the longest time, I was completely unbothered by what some people pejoratively describe as pandering to a preferred social opinion. I never felt like the tendency was very strong or at least not strong enough to warrant examination in light of many other considerations that influence people´s opinions. The first time that the topic really hit me was after I saw Black Panther (and yes, I still bitch about it to this day :)). My best friend and I walked out of the theater and were both unpleasantly surprised by how shockingly mediocre the movie was. What added more oil into the fire was of course the hyperbolically positive response from the critics. The difference between the aggregate score among critics (88) and regular moviegoers (66) marks one of the biggest on the site, and most definitely the biggest for a high-profile movie. As sidenote: a score of 88 would make it by the far the best Marvel movie ever made, which is a claim so preposterous even all those who five-stared it can´t honestly believe. To be even more explicit, the movie would be completely destroyed without its social element, as it simultaneously commits the worse crimes brought against Marvel movies (repetitive formula, generic villain etc), while failing even on a formal level - terrible choreography, uninspired and unclear directions, and even CGI (!). Why such difference between the two scoring mechanisms? Although there are probably some people who rated it poorly because they are simply racist, the majority of critical opinions that one can find for example all over reddit clearly addresses actual issues with the movie regardless of its social message. I think that even those who initially lauded it as groundbreaking, game changing etc etc are now aware of the fact that in spite of how admirable its stance is, it doesn´t automatically make it a quality product.

Even the way that people introduce the validity of their opinion on BP betrays how strong it´s external aspect really is. Most posts on the topic were prefaced by the person´s racial background, so you would read things like "As a person of Jewish heritage..." or even worse "Not even my friend who´s from Kenya thought it was good...". All of these heavily implying that in order to have an opinion you actually have to EXPLAIN your ethnic claim to that opinion, because if you´re white and didn´t like it, you´re obviously racist (evidenced by the absolute shitstorm of racism charges brought down upon the first reviewer who DARED give the movie 7/10, meaning he must be racist because there is no other explanation). Conversely, having to support your opinion by "being from Kenya" means basically saying "My opinion is more defensible than yours because I´m from Africa". Without a doubt, one´s social and racial background does influence their opinion, but to such an extent that you have to provide your color of skin or country of origin so it´s more credible? Absurd. Even the idea of saying "I am black/white and therefore have more to say on the matter" is ludicrous, as no person from any group can claim to know or represent its opinion. By that logic I should be able to represent the opinion of all whites or males, because those are my (many) reference groups.

I absolutely admire and support the many ways in which BP did represent change, and I agree with its "message", if it could be called that, 100%. I am willing to read 50 articles on how much it contributes to the topic and portrayal of race. But that does NOT make it a good movie. It merely makes it a movie with a great message, but we should not let that blind us to its flaws or worse, flat out reconsider its artistic value in the light of what it says.

One of the controversies heavily discussed in the Czech Republic recently was the complete absence of black people in the Czech video game Kingdom Come. Its creator, Dan Vávra, strove from the beginning to make the game as realistic as possible, after which he attracted significant heat and even proposed blockage in several foreign countries, simply because he refused to include an ethnic group for whose presence in the Czech lands of the time there was ZERO evidence. The obvious hysteria over what is socially desirable and what is actually true show that for many people, truth is something to be bent  if it doesn´t align with our direction, rather than something that we can at the very least use to move forward or reflect on an era that was not necessarily up to our current standards.

Videogames in particular attract the attention of critical masses which are very little or often not at all interested in how good the game actually is, but once again chiefly in how it handles a certain topic. The relative failure of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided was undoubtedly supported by the controversy of their use of the word "apartheid" to describe the rift between humans and cyborgs (because apparently the word is copyrighted by Africa and can only be used in that one particular case :)) even though it´s always been very common to apply terms from an actual conflict or problem to it´s fictional counterpart to signify their similarities, the moment someone broaches on the heavily tabooed topic of racial oppression, the roof is on fire. Mankind Divided was also criticized for the in-game posters "Aug lives matter" that actually preceded (!!)  the BLM movement, but even if they did not, transforming a particular zeitgeist into metaphoric art is not criminal. I see no controversy regarding the use of the "not my---" phrase, even though by the logic above we should say "No, that´s only to be applied to Donald Trump and that´s so serious that you should never use it in any other contest!". I wonder how many words and concepts that aren´t going to offend anyone we´re going to have left in the end.

For my last example, I am going to switch from the problem of race to the problem of violence. Both seasons of Punisher, even though beloved by its audience, were harshly torn down by the critics. The main reason provided? Apparently it does not deal with gun violence well (= so not how we want it to), "it´s the wrong show a the wrong time" (because its premiere had to be postponed THREE times because of public shootings; when in reality, he situation in the US is so horrendous when it comes to mass shootings and gun control that if they had to take a break every time there was a shooting, the show would never get released. The way America is now, there is simply never going to be a good time to release a violent show).. But once again - how Punisher addresses this topic is considered more important than how good a show it actually is. As I mentioned above, even for me, it´s a sliding scale. Based especially on what a work of art sets out to do, we can expect it and judge it based on how it deals with a certain topic. In a documentary, I expect certain social sensibilities and a focus on a particular topic. How well it manages to capture or examine this topic could very well be a major part of how good it is in my eyes. But a show about a gun-toting vigilante should seriously not be described as bad just because we believe it owes us something in the way of portraying a real life topic. It owes us nothing. It only owes us to be a good show.

One of my friends, who grew up during Communism, made an excellent point once: his grandfather was a music conductor and opera writer. The value of all the music he played or wrote was primarily considered based on how well it represented the Communist ideals. Some plays were considered better and some worse based solely on their political desirability. The way things are judged now seems to him to be no different from that era, with the extremely important distinction that all the movements today have a noble goal in mind. That is without a doubt what powerfully sets them apart from whatever came before. LGBTQ, movements for the rights of minorities, acceptance of those who are different in any way - all these have very little to do with some sort of patriotic propaganda and rather with honest care for other people. They are truly noble goals. And yet in spite of that I believe that it is still wrong to project how much we want these to be communicated and represented on the perceived quality of the art. At worst, we are no different from the Communist propaganda that required art to align with its opinions if it were to be good, and at best we create a Clockwork Orange scenario in which we are simply forced to compulsorily choose good over evil. I am not against a society formulating which opinions it supports or finds desirable - after all, any society with laws an an educational system automatically does it. I am not at all against an ongoing debate on how the portrayal of these opinions helps or hurts a particular group of people. What I find unacceptable, however, is the idea that any of these make a work of art better or worse.

(Also, Black Panther sucks. In case it wasn´t clear after the three posts I made about it on this blog  :)))