#jane knows a lot about people inherently and uses it against them

[horizon-verizon]

What is this bullshit that the fact that Rhaenyra has children born out of wedlock and yet heirs, will upset the stability of the kingdom? 🙄 As if there hadn't already been "bastards" in power in history or even named as heirs? 😂

Rhaenyra is already doubted to be an effective leader due to her gender. It's not only that, many lords and their male relatives do not wish to be directed by a woman, used to male authority and patriarchal privilege. So there is the fear that some will resist and actually rebel to remove her.

Rhaenyra, just by being a woman, already "threatens the stability of the realm".

We think of how Henry VIII felt about his daughters Mary I and Elizabeth I, how hard he wanted a male heir, and how many wives he got rid of and abused--he wanted to make sure that his lineage and dynasty would survive, and to do that was to ensure he got legitimate males. (He had a few male illegitimate children, but you know.)

Thus the other fear is that some lord(s) will take Aemond, Aegon, Helaena, and Daeron and any children they may have to use against Rhaenyra. So Rhaenyra would be forced to order their executions or kill them in battle.

I understand the initial fear and concern, but I can't really excuse how far it went with what Show!Alicent knew of Show!Rhaenyra, with they were supposed to know of each other because of *close friendship*, the fact that Rhaenyra could have also claimed that those lords were trying to make her commit kinslaying (Jane Grey was Mary I's very distant relative while Aemond and the rest are closer kin to Rhaenyra), and the fact these people had dragons.

Book!Rhaenyra was not afraid to use her dragon either, as we read about Vaemond and the Driftmark Claim (she got Daemon to decapitate him and fed the remains to Syrax).

I also reject judging women for the same action a man can take without similar consequence, reaction, or punishment.

Back to bastards. Because Rhaenyra is already a "liability", her introducing bastards into the mix would complicate things since some lords already do not want a female ruler. Bastards are unfavorable because they are believed to be inherently untrustworthy and evil (Faith of the Seven). 

By having bastards, she acts "unwomanly" and against the standards set for her gender--how can she be a good ruler?! 

As if Jaehaerys I didn't get enough of the lords and peasants to accept Targaryen sibling-sibling incest through manipulation and propaganda, or that there was a time in their pre-Alysanne history that a lord could rape one of his peasant's/vassal's newlywed wife [right of the first night], which does go against what the Faith official doctrine teaches about gender-equal fidelity.

Some have counterargued that the V boys aren't bastards at all because they were born accepted by Viserys, Corlys, and Laenor. Others bring up what you do and counterargue that bastards have always occupied higher positions of power or were allowed to according to their parents and relatives or else's needs and desires for power and resources.

In real life:

before the 1200s in France, England and Spain, it was being born to the right parents–whether they were married according to the Church’s doctrines and rules–that made a child seem more worthy of inheriting their parents’ lands, properties, and titles.

several early medieval kings – Charlemagne as an example– had concubines, mistresses, etc. who mothered children that were very much apart of these kings’ lineages.

there was also a real concern behind this was that kings can marry and annul/divorce a lot easier or how their parents’ resources could provide for the child’s future vassalages.

it wasn’t until more and more medieval lawyers used Church doctrines of marriage to draw up reasons for some illegitimate children to not inherit some lands and rights, such as the Anstey case of the 1160s (if you doubt this wiki page, look through its references listed below).

“There is very little evidence to suggest that an interest in keeping illegitimate children from inheriting noble or royal title outweighed political or practical considerations in the same way that the policing of illegal marriages sometimes did.” (The Wire)

The fact that these medieval lawyers can even use another precept to exclude “illegitimate” children for succession for other lords and ladies when before, illegitimate kids can and often inherited their parents’ right and properties (William the Conqueror) speaks to how immaterial and unreal legitimacy itself is. 

[janeduoe]

im watching the sack lunch bu/nch and this quote is a jane-ism,

“when i was a little kid, i would have nightmares, where like... they would, like, say my name, and then i would just get freaked out.” “do you mind me asking, who’s they?” “idk just like random people” “what is it about hearing your name that seems scary?” “it’s just like, i didn’t know that bad dreams could know your name. just stuff like that.”

[devilsskettle]

oh man i have a Lot of thoughts about the autopsy of jane doe, both positive and critical For Sure, i'd be SO excited to see your analysis of it! definitely keeping an eye out for that 👀

thanks! i'm working on something article-like to talk about the film and i don't know what i want to do with it yet lol but if i don't post it on here i'll definitely link it. it's mainly a discussion of gender in possession/occult films in the same way that carol clover describes in men, women, and chainsaws - that there are dual plot lines in occult films, usually gendered masculine and feminine respectively, where the "main" feminine plot (the actual possession) is actually a way to explore the "real" masculine plot (the emotional conflict of the "man in crisis" protagonist). typically the man in crisis is too masculine, or "closed" emotionally, where the woman is too "open," which is why she acts as the vehicle for the supernatural occurrence as well as the core emotions of the film. the man has to learn how to become more open (though if he becomes too open, like father karras in the exorcist, he has to die by the end - he has to find a happy medium, where he doesn't actually transgress gender expectations too much. clover calls this state the "new masculine," and we might apply the term "toxic masculinity" to the "closed" emotional state). part of the "opening up" feature of the story is that it allows men to be highly emotionally expressive in situations where they otherwise might not be allowed to, which is cathartic for the assumed primary audience of these films (young men). another feature of the genre is white science vs black magic (once you exhaust the scientific "rational" explanations, you have to accept that something magic is happening). the autopsy of jane doe does this even more than the films she discusses when she published the book in 1992 (the exorcist, poltergeist, christine, etc) because the supernaturally influenced young woman who becomes this kind of vehicle is more of an object than a character. she doesn't have a single line of dialogue or even blink for the entire runtime of the movie. the camerawork often pans to her as if to show her reactions to the events of the movie, which seems kind of pointless because it's the same reaction the whole time (none) but it allows the viewer to project anything they want onto her - from personal suffering to cunning and spite. 

compare again to the exorcist: is the story actually about regan mcneil? no. but do we care about her? sure (clover says no, but i think we at least feel for her situation lol). and do we get an idea of what she's like as a person? yes. even though her pain and her body are used narratively as a framework for karras' emotional/religious crisis, we at least see her as a person. both she and her mother are expendable to the "real" plot but they're very active in their roles in the "main" plot - our "jane doe" isn't afforded even that level of agency or identity. so. is that inherently sexist? well, no - if there were other women in the film who were part of the "real" plot, i would say that the presence of women with agency and identity demonstrate enough regard for the personhood of women to make the gender of the subject of the autopsy irrelevant. but there are none. of the three important women in the film, we have 1) an almost corpse, 2) an absent (dead) mother, and 3) a one dimensional girlfriend who is killed off for a man's character development/cathartic expression of emotions. all three are just platforms for the men in crisis of this narrative. 

and, to my surprise, much of the reception to the film is to embrace it as a feminist story because the witch is misconstrued as a badass, powerful, Strong Female Character girl boss type for getting revenge on the men who wronged her, with absolutely no consideration given to what the movie actually ends up saying about women. and the director has said that he embraces this interpretation, but never intended it. so like. of course you're going to embrace the interpretation that gives you critical acclaim and the moral high ground. but it's so fucking clear that it was never his intention to say anything about feminism, or women in general, or gender at all. so i find it very frustrating that people read the film that way because it's just. objectively wrong.

there's also things i want to say about this idea that clover talks about in a different chapter of the book when she discusses the country/city divide in a lot of horror (especially rape-revenge films) in which the writer intends the audience to identify with the city characters and be against the country characters (think of, like, house of 1000 corpses - there's pretty explicit socioeconomic regional tension between the evil country residents and the travelers from the city) but first, they have to address the real harm that the City (as a whole) has inflicted upon the Country (usually in the forms of environmental and economic destruction) so in order to justify the antagonization the country people are characterized by, their "retaliation" for these wrongs has to be so extreme and misdirected that we identify with the city people by default (if country men feel victimized by the City and react by attacking a city woman who isn't complicit in the crimes of the City in any of the violent, heinous ways horror movies employ, of course we won't sympathize with them). why am i bringing this up? well, clover says this idea is actually borrowed from the western genre, where native americans are the Villains even as white settlers commit genocide - so they characterize them as extremely savage and violent in order to justify violence against them (in fiction and in real life). the idea is to address the suffering of the Other and delegitimize it through extreme negative characterization (often, with both the people from the country and native americans, through negative stereotyping as well as their actions). so i think that shows how this idea is transferred between different genres and whatever group of people the writers want the viewers to be against, and in this movie it’s happening on the axis of gender instead of race, region, or class. obviously the victims of the salem witch trials suffered extreme injustice and physical violence (especially in the film as victim of the ritual the body clearly underwent) BUT by retaliating for the wrongs done to her, apparently (according to the main characters) at random, she's characterized as monstrous and dangerous and spiteful. her revenge is unjustified because it’s not targeted at the people who actually committed violence against her. they say that the ritual created the very thing it was trying to destroy - i.e. an evil witch. she becomes the thing we're supposed to be afraid of, not someone we’re supposed to sympathize with. she’s othered by this framework, not supported by it, so even if she’s afforded some power through her posthumous magical abilities, we the viewer are not supposed to root for her. if the viewer does sympathize with her, it’s in spite of the writing, not because of it. the main characters who we are intended to identify with feel only shallow sympathy for her, if any - even when they realize they’ve been cutting open a living person, they express shock and revulsion, but not regret. in fact, they go back and scalp her and take out her brain. after realizing that she’s alive! we’re intended to see this as an acceptable retaliation against the witch, not an act of extreme cruelty or at the very least a stupid idea lol. 

(also - i hate how much of a buzzword salem is in movies like this lol, nothing about her injuries or the story they “read” on her is even remotely similar to what happened in salem, except for the time period. i know they don’t explicitly say oh yeah, she was definitely from salem, but her injuries really aren’t characteristic of american executions of witches at all so i wish they hadn’t muddied the water by trying to point to an actual historical event. especially since i think the connotation of “witch” and the victims of witch trials has taken on a modern projection of feminism that doesn’t really make sense under any scrutiny. anyway)

not to mention the ending: what was the writer intending the audience to get from the ending? that the cycle of violence continues, and the witch’s revenge will move on and repeat the same violence in the next place, wherever she ends up. we’re supposed to feel bad for whoever her next victims will be. but what about her? i think the movie figures her maybe as triumphant, but she’s going to keep being passed around from morgue to morgue, and she’s going to be vivisected again and again, with no way to communicate her pain or her story. the framework of the story doesn’t allow for this ending to be tragic for her, though - clearly the tragedy lies with the father and son, finally having opened up to one another, unfortunately too late, and dying early, unjust deaths at the hands of this unknowable malignant entity. it doesn’t do justice to her (or the girlfriend, who seems to be nothing but collateral damage in all of this - in the ending sequence, when the police finds the carnage, it only shows them finding the bodies of the men. the girlfriend is as irrelevant to the conclusion as she is to the rest of the plot). 

but does this mean the autopsy of jane doe is a “bad” movie? i guess it depends on your perspective. ultimately, it’s one of those questions that i find myself asking when faced with certain kinds of stories that inevitably crop up often in our media: how much can we excuse a story for upholding regressive social norms (even unintentionally) before we have to discount the whole work? i don’t think the autopsy of jane doe warrants complete rejection for being “problematic” but i think the critical acclaim based on the idea that it’s a feminist film should be rejected. i still consider it a very interesting concept with strong acting and a lot of visual appeal, and it’s a very good piece of atmospheric horror. it’s does get a bit boring at certain points, but the core of the film is solid. it’s also not trying to be sexist, arguably it’s not overtly sexist at all, it’s just very very androcentric at the expense of its female characters, and i’m genuinely shocked that anyone would call it feminist. so sure, let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water, but let’s also be critical about how it’s using women as the stage for men’s emotional conflict 

also re: my description of this little project as “a film isn’t feminist just because there’s a woman’s name in the title” - i actually don’t want to skim over the fact that “jane doe” isn’t a real name. of the three women in the film, only one has a real name; the other two are referred to by names given to them by men. i’ll conclude on this note because i want to emphasize the lack of even very basic ways of recognizing individual identity afforded to women in this film. so yeah! the end! thanks for your consideration if you read this far! 

[roscgcld]

THE LOVE OF AN OLDER BROTHER || INUMAKI TOGE

request: Okay if you accept sibling fluff can I request inumaki toge little sister reader(in elementary school) ,where she's deaf and gets bullied for it but doesn't tell him because she thinks it's to much of a burden(like silent voice)

note: hello love! thank you so much for your request! tbh, i’ve never watched the movie A Silent Voice before, so I had to do some Youtubing to find some clips - and I blame you for making me ugly cry at 2 am in the morning lmao. It’s so sweet and such a coming of age story in a way, so I tried to channel that into my writing >< I definitely enjoyed this one a lot!

anime: jujutsu kaisen

characters: inumaki toge

pronouns: she/her

trigger warning: bullying/physical assault mentioned, along with self depreciating and suicidal thoughts. read with caution. 

proof read: N/A

Being from a clan like the Inumaki clan, many from the Jujutsu world would just automatically assume that you’d inherate the powerful Cursed Speech Curse Ability from your family. However, there is always that few exceptions when it came to things like this; and this time, you were that one exception.

You were born deaf, and because of this, you were looked down upon by the elders of your clan for being a ‘waste of an heir’. Your father, a loving man, had always shield you from there vile words; and from example your older brother, a gifted user, became overprotective of you. He would willingly take a bullet for you, constantly showering you in love and affection, and even going so far as learning how to use sign language at a young age so he can communicate with you.

Because he just wants you to grow up in a loving and somewhat normal life. That’s all he wants for you. 

Hence why, instead of following the normal route of a jujutsu student, your parents decided to sign you up in a nearby elementary school with the hopes that you get to bond with normal children. So that’s how you found yourself dressed in a cute floral dress, your white frilly socks with simple Mary Janes, your white hair pulled back into a delicate braid; all excited with your backpack filled with things you picked up at the stationery store and a bento prepared by your mother.

Since it was his day off, Toge took up the responsibility of sending you off on your first day, making sure that the entire process will be smooth sailing for you. Walking down the street of your town, he lets you swing your hands between each other, smiling behind his black mask at how excited you were to start your first day of school. It warmed his heart that you get to experience normal things like this, and without knowing it, you motivated him to push himself harder to become a stronger shaman, to protect the world that brings you so much joy. 

Soon you both found your way into the school grounds and quietly, Toge brought you aside so that he can pull his mask down, revealing his tattooed mouth and tongue. But you just smile at your older brother, who smiles back before he reaches over to ruffle your hair between his fingers. Quietly he signed to you, mouthing the worlds he wanted to say silently instead of wording them out in the open; he was a Cursed Speech user, after all. The safest way for him to communicate for you is for him to use onigiri ingredients. or to word out the words silently whilst doing the signs with his hands. 

‘You ready for school, pipsqueak?’

“Uf huf!” You said happily, your speech clearly slurred and not so clear since you had never been corrected on how to say words properly - but with how you excitedly nod your head with a wide smile, Toge can pretty much interpret what you were saying. Smiling warmly at your excitement, he leans over to kiss you on the forehead on last time before pulling his mask back on. With that he got back up and, after taking your outstretched hand, you two joined the rest of the crowd once more.

After a lot of paperwork and awkward one sided conversations, since Toge went with the excuse that he had a sore throat, you soon found yourself being led to stand behind your new classmates, who were focused on saying goodbye to their parents. Toge squatted down before you and you can immediately tell he was smiling behind his mask, causing you to smile back as well. Quietly he leans forward to rub his masked nose with yours, something that you two always do when the other is about to leave.

With a giggle you happily rubbed your nose against his as well, and with another parting pat to your head, he got up and followed the other parents that were ushered out of the crowded hallway. Soon a few of the more confident students started to introduce themselves to one another, and one of those children came running towards you with a grin. “Good morning! My name is Taku, nice to meet you!” He greeted loudly as he bowed at you and the girls around you, who all gave him an uninterested glance before turning their attention away from him. 

But you did give him an excited smile before you started to sign back a greeting, trying to vocalise your name at the same time. This cause everyone in the hallway to pause and stare at you in confusion, since they had not expected for someone who looks so sweet and soft spoken to have spoken in such a loud and odd way. However before anyone can make a comment about it, the teacher finally arrived with a warm smile on his face, gesturing for the students to entire their new class.

This moment of excitement managed to distract the students and soon everyone flooded into the room, waiting for their seat arrangements to be settled by the teacher before they start their first real day as students. Of course, like any first day of school, you had to do the ice breaker activities to introduce your name and greeting the rest of the class. Everyone had to do it, regardless if they were ready to do it or not - and you were no exception.

You stood up excitedly before you started to say what sounds like your name, signing along the way to try and express yourself better. Once again, everyone was staring at you in confusion, having never heard someone speak like you before. Your teacher just smiles and nods, introducing you to the rest of the students simply. “Inumaki here is actually deaf, meaning she can’t hear you all. So you have to be more creative when you want to talk to her. However, just because she is different, doesn’t mean she is any different from you all. So I expect to treat her like everyone else.” 

The simple explanation caused the rest of the students to nod softly, giving you more curious looks since they’ve never been around someone like you before. But on the outside, you were pretty much the same like the rest of them; so it was easy to forget that you were any different from them in the beginning. 

It was actually really fun for you - for your entire life, you had always been around sorceress, feeling like an outcast in such a well gifted family. Even though you had a disadvantage, you had always been acutely aware of where curses were, being able to locate them quite accurately even without former training. But you were still a child, so you were given a chance to try out the life as a normal child. You were ecstatic, since you had always dreamed what it would be like to start school and live a normal life. 

But, as if the world wanted to spite you, things never tend to go your way.

You remember how things first started out for you - people were shocked at how loud and different you were, but made a real effort to try and talk to you to try and get to know you; since that was what their teachers told them to. However, after awhile, people started to talk behind your back; about how you made no real effort to try and join the conversation, even though the hearing aids you donned on seemed to help you understand them just a little better. At first you ignored the comments of just a few people, having been able to ignore all the backhanded comments that the elders have made for almost your entire life. 

However, the first ever boy who introduce himself to you, Taku, seemed to have deemed you to be the odd one out - and for some reason, had decided that you were going to be the subject of his new taunts and teases. At first it was small things like playful off handed comments about you that made your mood fall, but didn’t do much. You have been subjected to worse treatement from others. However, as the weeks go by, it was getting harder and harder to ignore. 

Toge had noticed that as the weeks go on, the enthusiasm that you once held for school started to dwindle. Every time he asks you about it though, you would just quickly wave him off, saying that you were just tired with how much work it takes to with people who weren’t necessarily used to using sign language and understanding you. Technically you weren’t lying, since you were mentally drained trying to communicate with so many different types of people. But at the same time, all the off-handed comments were getting to you. 

Your answer definitely has him concerned, since he was used to having his baby sister basically talking his ear off on a normal bases; but he didn’t push you too much. It was something he had learnt to do when it comes to you - that when you really need him, you’d come and tell him no matter what. And it was true; even if it was a small trivial matter, you always come whining to him for attention and a listening ear. So he doesn’t necessarily push you to tell him, but he did remind you that if you needed him, he would be there.

And you knew that, but the same time, somehow there were seeds of doubts planted in your mind. 

“Don’t you think you’re annoying people all the time?”

“God, you’re so noisy! Can’t you talk quieter?! No wonder people don’t like talking to you~”

“Can you stop trying so hard? You just sound weird.”

It hurt you, and with how busy he can get with his own school life and rarely get to see you, these words started to fill your head and make you feel like you aren’t worth all the effort that people put into trying to communicate with you. It made you start to become closed off and stop making the effort to talk to people, because in your eyes, you didn’t want to be a bigger bother then you already are for people.

Your sudden silence definitely had your parents getting concerned about you, since they were weren’t sure as to why you were suddenly so quiet and secluded from your family when you all used to be such a close family unit. Toge was the most concerned one out of everyone, so after he finally got home from his classes for the week, he had brought some some of the fruit tarts he knows you love from a nearby bakery.

Quietly he made his way to his baby sister’s room, knocking on the wooden frame of the shoji doors to let her know he was coming in. “Salmon?” He calls out curiously as he carefully pushes open the door to your room open, peeking his head in side. The sight of you curled up on your side on your bed, not even acknowledging that your brother had entered your room. Your lack of response does concern him; so he quietly set the box of tarts down on your bedside table before carefully setting down on the bed beside you. 

Quietly he reaches over to run his fingers through your soft hair, wordlessly giving you the comfort you didn’t know you were needing. Just a simple touch from someone who you have been trying to hide for so long definitely have your eyes watering. Wordlessly you turned to face your older brother, who just gave you an encouraging smile before he opens his arms for you. 

You launched yourself into his arms, and if he hadn’t been waiting for it to happen, he would have fallen back from the sheer force of the hug. Any normal person would have asked you hundreds of questions that will frankly make you feel worse, but Toge was just a pro at understanding you without you needing to say a word.

He might not know just what is it that got you so upset in the first place, and just how much seeing him in your room made you feel a little less lonely; but he wordlessly just wraps his arms around you, pressing soft kisses on the top of your head wordlessly as you soaked his shirt with your tears. It breaks his heart that you were going through the pains of having to live with something that you didn’t choose to have.

But if all you need was someone to lean on, he just wants wants you know that he’s here no matter what.

© roscgcld — all rights reserved to me, rose, the author and creator of these works. do not repost/translate/claim my work as yours on any platform

[ofmermaidstories]

Hi! Might I say I love your Surrender fic 🥺 legit one of the best fits I've ever read. The way you characterized Bakugou was amazing and incredibly accurate. Its also such a comfort fic to me, as I really relate to y/n (ik shes supposed to be me anyways lol). Idk if you meant her to come off in this way, but she strikes me as someone who originally didn't have many close friends or connections to people she really cared about. Not that she didn't want to have them, she was just a bit lonely sans Haru and his grandma. I feel that way a lot so it was nice to see someone else writing about similar feelings. (:

I like to think that if surrender’s Reader is lonely, it’s a tender kind of loneliness — the wistful kind you fall into when the world around you is good, and you like being apart of it, and it’d be nice to share with someone else. Like… a golden afternoon in the flower shop. Or walking home on a crisp autumn afternoon. Carrying a bag with dinner, warm against your side.

Loneliness seems so……. inherently about being unseen. Being invisible. And I think, with loneliness, you can sometimes fall into two categories: the kind of lonely where you know it’s temporary, where you know there’s a wider world and adventure and cities filled with people beyond it — and the kind of loneliness that has teeth, that makes a prison of your life, where you stand. I think most of us will experience the first kind of loneliness, we’re pack animals, it’s natural to want to be around others. But the second kind is much more dangerous — with those teeth around our necks. I’d hope for you what I hope for surrender’s Reader — that your loneliness is the kind that shows you there’s a whole world waiting for you, people waiting for you, and not the kind that traps you. 🌷🍊🌿✨💌

Bluets, Maggie Nelson

Bad Wine and Lemon Cake, Amanda Palmer & The Jane Austen Argument

Seven Years of Silence, Catherine Garbinsky

[traincat]

since forest hills is a historically jewish neighbourhood, i figure just even from a statistical standpoint there's bound to be at least a few existing spider-man related characters who are jewish. so is there anyone besides peter that you think could or should be jewish (like neighbours, classmates, any other supporting castmates who grew up in or nearby the area)?

There aren’t that many other Spider-Man characters who come from Forest Hills -- aside from the Parkers, it’s basically just Flash Thompson and Liz Allan. I think a Jewish reading of Flash Thompson is potentially interesting, but I don’t buy into it myself based on the information available in canon. (Like the MCU’s POC Flash, I think it’s potentially problematic given Flash’s canonical abusive family history, especially when he’s being used, as he very often is, to throw Peter into a better light. I also think Flash’s military history makes it less likely -- not that there aren’t Jews in the US military, but there’s a very different cultural push happening there with Flash.) I could buy Jewish Liz -- I think especially in a Jewish Osborns reading of canon -- but I’m a little wary of it because Liz’s whole thing in the early canon days are that she’s a rich girl, which is Jewish princess stereotype city. So it’s one of those situations where I would be warmer to a reading of the character in that light if Marvel the company was more open about 616 Peter’s extreme Jewish subtext. I think with both Flash and Liz it’s a situation where I feel like it’s very easy to view either or both of them as Jewish in the Lee/Ditko run, but then as canon evolved that reading became less and less relevant -- as opposed to Peter, where I think if anything the Jewish subtext continued to grow. As for extremely minor characters -- I think Sally Avril was probably Jewish, but this isn’t like, based on anything in particular so much as just a feeling.

I brought up Jewish Osborns a second ago, and I’m going to go ahead and double down on my belief that that’s a very valid reading of them in canon, although also inherently a problematic one when Peter himself is not hardline canonically Jewish -- particularly with Norman, who could very easily become the greedy Jew stereotype if viewed in that light. But one thing I’ve pointed out before is that the Osborn hair is a very real curl type people can have, and it is a curl type found in Ashkenazi Jewish people! I don’t think it’s the only read on the Osborns out there -- there’s a lot of mixed race Osborn theorizing I’ve seen and tragically I’m a big proponent of the Norman Osborn: Gay and Closeted theory -- but it’s something that I think is potentially interesting to play around with, but again, y’know, that’s if Peter is allowed to be a proud Jewish man playing off against a Jewish antagonist, and not “Protestant” like Marvel likes to pretend. I think if Norman is Jewish and Peter is not it’s extremely easy to fall into very antisemitic territory. (Meanwhile you know no one showed up to poor Harry’s Bar Mitzvah even though his dad rented out the Plaza.)

I don’t believe Felicia is from Forest Hills in 616, but she is from Queens! Spider-Man PS4 lists her birth place as Flushing, which is historically another big Jewish neighborhood. I like to joke that you know Peter’s Jewish because he dates a lot of shiksas, but I could pretty easily buy a Jewish Felicia Hardy. Same with Mary Jane -- born in Pittsburgh, but her father’s sister is the Parkers’ neighbor, so she’s got that Forest Hills connection, and I’m also not opposed to a Jewish MJ -- especially if, given her family history, it’s not a part of her life she ever put much stock in/harbored resentment against before she met Peter, and then married life opened up whole new doors for her. 

These are just my opinions, though! I think a lot of Jewish headcanons are valid and that everyone has different interpretations of the text -- I am very definite about my feelings about Peter being a Jewish character because there is so much text that adds up over the years, but with most other characters I think there’s a lot of wiggle room. I do usually lean a little towards a Jewish J Jonah Jameson, but I think that’s because Stan Lee put so much of himself into Jonah -- he’s got that real hardboiled New York Jewish man dialogue going and I love it. 

[monkeyspawnskydiamond]

Transcript of Interview

Q: What do you see as the origins of violence against women? Is it cultural? Is it biological?

I believe that the origins of violence against women are completely in systems of gender inequity. In systems of basically male supremacy and although many proponents of male supremacy would have us believe that this is always existed on the planet, that it's biologically endemic, that it's inevitable, there's nothing we can do about it, etc., that's not true at all. Patriarchy is a relatively new institution, the last five thousand years or so. And you can find a lot of evidence for this in archaeology, in myth, in legend, things that are discredited by contemporary modes of knowledge which have to be understood as patriarchal in and of themselves.

The emphasis on rationality of this kind of direct evidence that myth is seen as just a fable, something that never existed. For examine, in the very area here, New Mexico, the creator of all is spider grandmother who thought, spun, dream wove the world into being. And there was a whole different system, that Allen writes about very eloquently in her book, The Sacred Hoop, which she calls a gynecentric system, in which the emphasis is not on competition, power over, domination, but rather on equality, harmony, balance, tolerance for a wide diversity of life styles, the centrality of powerful women, being absolutely necessary for society to function well, not any kind of belief in corporal punishment of children, extremely low incidence of rape, no idea of an institution of prostitution or pornography because sex as sacred and not associated with any kind of negativity. So, these systems did exist on the planet everywhere, in Europe. When I was a child all I wanted to read was myth, and stories of goddesses or I knew that this betokened another kind of reality, that this one that we live in now is not permanent and it was not here always forever.

Q: What causes men to be violent against women? Does it boil down to an underlying inequality between men and women? Does this mean that the answer is equality between the sexes?

What causes men to be violent then is basically an enforcement. That if you have a system of oppression, one group is being subordinated, in this case we're talking about women, and in some way you can propagandize and brain wash the subordinated group into agreeing to this. Well, I really am more passive, I really am subordinate. You know, we're given those messages all the time through the mass media, through religion, in which we're told that women are premordally evil, etc. But obviously, that's not going to work completely, we're going to resist. And we're not going to buy into all that ideology so the second level of enforcement is violence, actual violence. So I see the whole gamut from sexual harassment on the streets, in the office, through rape, through battery, through incest, through sexual murder, through a level of enforcement, to keep women in our place, to tell us that we can't speak out against atrocities and to serve as a lesson to all of the women. This is what will happen to you. You are prey in this culture, you are an object, you be obedient or you're off basically, so I see that violence serves an absolute function. It's not a deviation, it's not a monster from Mars. We have to look at it as absolutely functional to keeping the status quo going, to keeping the system of male supremacy working.

Q: You've said abusive men aren't abnormal or deviant, but the norm. Can you explain? What about rape in the home? You've made an interesting comment that these behaviors are not taboo, that it's talking about them which is taboo.

In that violence, it's not the norm in that everyone does it. It's just I think that there's some deception going on about it that we don't really want incest to happen. There's really an incest taboo. According to a 1992 government finance study, 36 percent of all rapes of women in this country are rapes by a family member. There's some deception going on. What is really taboo is speaking out about that, saying that the nuclear family is not really this haven of comfort and warmth, but that really according to the FBI women are nine times safer on the street than they are in the family. That's where you're most likely to be beaten, most likely to be raped. Eleven percent of all rapes take place of girls under the age, I mean, excuse me, 67 percent of all rapes are under the age of 18. About 29 percent of the girls under the age of 11 -- these are taking place in the home. Eleven percent of all rapes are rapes by a father or step-father. People who talk about family values, it's really a code word for a racist, sexist enforcement of family values, gender inequality, the idea that women and children are the property of the father. These are the values. It's really about control.

Q: What about the theory that violence is an inherent part of male biology?

I think the real stress on biological essentialism right now saying that men are born this way, women are born this way and we also see it in term of racism. For example, when something like the Bell curve, saying that whites or Africans are necessarily more, less intelligent, whites a little bit more so, the Japanese the highest. They put that in to make them not look like white racists. But, you know, all this kind of stuff is a backlash to thirty years of activism saying the culture is responsible for these kind of differences. That even I would argue that what we understand as biology is filtered through our cultural preconceptions. For example, think of the scenario that we all see, whether it be in a movie like "Look Whose Talking" or just what we've understood through education, of when a woman gets pregnant. The sperm is seen as this kind of heroic warrior, traveling up through this dangerous territory to penetrate and conquet the egg. We see that all the time. Really, why don't we look at that as the egg as this magnificent huge dominant fascinating force that draws the sperm to her, etc. We understand biology through cultural lenses. And what is, what was biology in the 19th century is now understood as scientific racism. The sciences of, for example, measuring skulls to prove that women of all races or Africans or Native Americans had smaller skulls and therefore lesser intellectual capacity. I would say that what's happening right now in all this emphasis on men are innately more violent and women are innately more passive and stuff like that is scientific sexism, nothing more.

Q: What sort of role has religion played? Does religion teach that men are superior to women, that female sexuality is linked to evil?

Religion is one of the most important sources of violence against, of the ideology for violence against women. It first gives us this idea of sex negativity. That sex in which women are really always implicated as the sex, we are the sexual ones. Be we mothers or prostitutes or temptresses or whatever. The whole story of Adam and Eve, that Eve was the one responsible.

Religion is absolutely fundamental in perpetrating violence against women. It is one of the key ways to communicate the ideology of male supremacy. First of all, God is male. There is no female principle. It was the people who demanded that Mary even in the Christian religion be given a place of honor. The cathedrals in Europe were built to her to recognize people's understanding that there is something feminine about the divine as well. But patriarchal religions would have us believe that all divinity is male and only male. And that coupled with the idea that female sexuality in women is evil, as for example in the Garden of Eden myth and that it is up to men to dominate both women and the earth, give us a script for all kinds of violence against women, which, of course, I connect up with violence against the earth in that the earth and women are seen as passive, as submissive, as out of control and thereby need to be controlled, dominated, etc. God tells Eve, "This is your husband, Adam, you will submit to him, he will lord it over you and basically you'll love it.” Yeah, right. That's the Bible.

So, religion often promotes an ideology of male supremacy, which as I said I see as the root of violence against women. We also get this whole idea of sex negativity. That sexuality is sinful, that the body is shameful. Then of course women are the sex, so it is our bodies that are seen as somehow contaminated, that we are seen as somehow kind of filthy. And so therefore you're given the choice to be this Madonna, this absolutely pure virgin mother or whatever or the whore, the one who epitomizes sex. These are of course both aspects of one persona. So it seems to me that therefore, it's also Christianity that even though, for example, fundamentalist Christianity rails against pornography that pornography is really Christianity's evil twin, to use soap opera jargon, that it's really the same thing. That both of them depend upon women and the idea of sex negativity, that the body and sexuality is somehow obscene, filthy and dirty. You don't have pornography without that, you don't have Christianity without that. On the submission of women, on a rather deadness, a kind of loss of the sacred involving sexuality that I see in both, in Christianity, the only kind of sex you can possibly have and then you're not supposed to enjoy it too much except as marital heterosexual procreative sex. No idea of ecstasy, of communing with the Universe, in any kind of sacred sexuality which characterizes what are seen as pagan cultures. So, pornography is of course the off-shoot of this terrible negativity, of sex as really just objectification, filthy, obscene, behavior.

Q: Doesn't this also lead to eroticizing the forbidden?

Okay, so what I see as happening in the Garden of Eden Myth is that sex supposedly was the sin that Adam and Eve committed. So then there's this injunction like that's considered to be the forbidden fruit. So we have this whole notion of the forbidden as being something that is also extremely desirable. And it seems to me that what patriarchal culture is about is about eroticizing the forbidden and therefore sanctioning taboo violation, making taboo violation itself an act of sex. An act that someone's supposed to get off on in a way which I see therefore as feeding, for example, incest. It's the forbidden that actually becomes more appealing, it's the violation of innocence. You're really acting out the culture's dicta. I mean, think of "Star Trek," to boldly go where no man has gone before. So there is no limit. No taboo, we just sort of march in uninvited and I think that's an injunction that is tied to this idea of the taboo. That rules are made really to be broken. It's thrilling to march in without invitation, justifying everything from incest to manifest destiny to all kinds of cultural imperialism.

Q: And so we have incest as an ultimate taboo?

Well, as I talk about incest in the nuclear family, obviously incest is not a real taboo. It's committed at an alarming rate. And that's just what is reported. We all know that these kinds of crimes are grievously unreported because of ideas of shame, because of pushing the memories so far back you don't have ready access to them, etc. So, incest in the nuclear family or child sexual abuse by priests, has been hushed up forever. You know, it's not really taboo. Everybody knows it's going on. But the taboo of silence is breaking up. That's what the feminist movement has been about. Breaking that conspiracy of silence: be it against child sexual abuse, wife beating, etc.

Think of what happened to Sinead O'Connor when she was on "Saturday Night Live." That time, I think it was in 1992, when she ripped up a picture of Pope John Paul II. And she was making a political statement. She was protesting the church's complicity in covering up incidences of child sexual abuse by the priesthood. She was excoriated for that in the press and the very next week Joe Peshi comes on and says, "I'm Italian and thank God it's Columbus Day.” And then goes into saying how he wants to smack her around and the crowd is roaring its approval of him smacking her around. So clearly here we see what I'm talking about -- about violence against women as enforcement of women staying in their place. Not speaking out and naming the atrocity, that's the taboo, not committing it. And I find it very interesting that when feminists are always accused of censorship, here's a real incident of censorship, in that when Saturday Night Live repeats these episodes, they censor Sinead O'Connor. They do not censor Joe Peshi advocating battery as a solution to women speaking out against abuses.

Q: What of the inherent differences between the sexes? Doesn't it all boil down to gender difference? Can we discuss these things without discussing gender differences?

I think absolutely we have these ideas that there are these genders, masculinity and feminity and that masculinity is something that all beings with certain kind of hormones and male genitalia have and there's this femininity. I think that differences between men and women, this whole creation of the opposite sex is a way to create male supremacy. You create difference and then you repress one-half of it and you create enmity, you create this kind of opposition. So, I really look at and then everybody says it's nature and it's innate. But why do we have so many cultural, so much cultural brainwashing to make it happen. Little boys, what you wear, how people can speak to you. You know the whole masculine or feminine conditioning which begins right at birth if not before. How you know now that everybody's finding out the sex of their child and probably even treating it differently in the womb when it's a fetus. But okay, what were we going on? I'm thinking, okay, the cultural construction of masculinity.

It seems to me that masculinity in all of the culturally approved avocations of masculinity is somehow associated with force and violence. That men are suppose to be identified by their bodily strength and that almost all the male initiation rights, all the whole culture of masculinity, the heros that we see be it Indiana Jones or Rambo or John Wayne or Charles Bronson, or whomever, they're all predicated on some kind of violent action. Therefore we understand that to be a man and that being a man, you're not born a man, you become a man according to how the culture says what a man is. The culture makes you into a creature who is ruled by a commitment to violence and that male heroes and male villains, be they cops, be they criminals, they're all bonded by their commitment to violence. And so I think what we really need to do is deconstruct masculinity, destroy notions of cultural masculinity and femininity. I would be much more in favor of a world in which we didn't see ourselves as opposite sexes but as existing on a continuum in which the feminine within men as well as within women was honored. And there would be women who be more traditionally masculine even than some men, etc. Understand that we're on a co-continuum, we have much more in common than we have separating us.

Q: What do you think of Robert Bly and his theories?

Robert Bly. I mean, I find him interesting in that I basically like his response of going back to the old tradition, but my liking of it stops about there. He goes back to an extremely sexist fairy tale in which the guy becomes a hero by basically winning in war and then capturing as his prize a princess. I mean this is absolute sexism. Violence initiation, and then you know the princess as object trophy prize. So, the women is a sex object. I think what he preaches basically is that women are inadequate. That men need to find themselves in a separatist community with other men. And I find historically that men having separatist communities, and even right now culturally male fraternities, male sports, etc. These are the sites of some of the worst violence against women. And that's where I think men are suppose to, the way in which one becomes a man in this culture is by rooting out the feminine within the self. By denying the mother, which Robert Bly is all about. Bonding with the father and rooting out all traces of the feminine within the self which he says you can only do in all male communities. That's completely the patriarchal root to manhood. And women are inadequate for this. What Sheri Hite's research shows is that boys who grow up in households run by single women are far more respectful to women, show lower incidence of violence, etc. So you know, I think that's absolute nonsense that women can't really create men. So what my problem with Bly is that I think he's profoundly misogynist. Women are again a lesser contaminating presence and need to be conquered or overcome in order to actualize manhood. That's again the patriarchal script.

Q: Hasn't violence against women been legally sanctioned for centuries?

It's been different throughout the history of patriarchal culture. For example, we talked about patriarchal religion in the early modern period, around the same time as the voyages to the new world, beginning with the use of Africans in slavery, you had the European and the whole enlightenment, the whole ascendence of rationality. You had the burning of women as witches, throughout early modern Europe, and some men. Probably anywhere from 300 thousand to a million. And this was completely legitimated by both church and state. So violence against women there was the law. You had to do it, it was absolutely approved.

Now a'days, we live in this time of that kind of pseudo taboo I was talking about. It's supposed to be taboo but we all know that on "General Hospital" when Luke raped Laura. It makes it glamorous, it eroticizes that kind of violence against women and it makes it appear consensual. As if women seek this out and want it. It makes it extremely normal as well. Let me just think of a few examples. I mean, we all know the notorious "General Hospital" where Luke raped Laura and then later married her, so it made it seem as though rape was some kind of courtship ritual (laughter). I mean Calvin Kline sells this obsession and gives us these very erotic images of a man, of a naked man carrying a naked woman over his shoulders.

It's underscoring both male dominance but also the idea that love is somehow synonymous with obsession. I mean that's what leads to four women in this country every day being killed by men who say they love them (chuckle) but most women in the country who are killed are killed by men who say they love them. That's really obsession and we should never confuse the two, obsession and feeling that the woman is somehow your property. But we're taught this all the time. And "Pretty Woman" considered a light-hearted flick and Richard Gere decides that he wants to marry Julia Roberts after he realizes that marriage is really ownership, he's not just renting her as a prostitute any more. He can actually own her. Remember the scene where he looks at the jewelry and says, "Oh, I don't have to just rent this, I can own it.” And he's talking about her too. So, I think in all kinds of ways it's made to seem either very normative, very happy and beneficial, or very erotic, a very heroic, be it these constructions of masculinity as violent enforcer, such as Rambo, etc.

Q: So, does the media contribute to these notions or merely reflect them?

Well, I think it's a dialogic process. The media both sells us what we want but also decides and conditions us to want what we want. So it's a two-way street. It's always going back and forth. And it's not just sort of an injection, but media puts these things in our heads. But it shapes what we want as well as then satisfying that want.

We all react differently to those messages. That's a real common theme in contemporary cultural studies, that people can negotiate meanings and take something out of it that somebody else didn't get out. For example, and you'll see that argument used to justify pornography all the time. Well, I read pornography and I haven't raped anyone, etc. etc. But what we need to do is take collective responsibility that, for example, the most common sexual activity of serial murders according to the justice department is using pornography. And that even if an individual can look at a particular type of pornography and not cultivate a desire to go out and sexually murder, we have to take responsibility for that a significant portion of the population does use this material to feed those fantasies and to provide a script for carrying out that kind of behavior. And so it's not a question, I think that a capitalist consumer culture always emphasizes, we have this kind of liberal emphasis on individual rights, my rights, my rights, my rights. How about cultural responsibility. Again I think that's a feature of a gynesophical or gynecentric system. That we really do have to look for a common good in some way and take some responsibility. Understand, set some limits. And again, we live in a culture in which limits are there only to be transgressed.

Q: Is the solution censorship?

I would veer away from censorship. That's why I like the law that Andrea Dworkin and Catherine McKinnin drafted that would make it that a woman or anyone injured by pornography could sue in civil court. So I would never give the police power to seize materials and to prohibit because I think that we could go into the kind of society that Margaret Atwood describes in the Hand Maid's Tale in which you have what I talked about as the right wing side of the women oppressive agenda that sort of the Christian woman as object, woman as reproductive breeder and maybe whore on the side and that's it. Right, that kind of circumscription of women's freedom. But I don't want the purely pornographic libertarian you know, all the women getting raped and incested that we have right now either. So, we're allowed to swing back and forth between modes but never to get beyond them. I'd like to get beyond that. So no, I'm not in favor of censorship.

I'm in favor of one kind of collective responsibility, maybe suing in civil court, there's some legal remedies that have been proposed but I'd never give the police power to seize materials. That would be immediately abused. What I think we need is to really create an alternative consciousness and to create change in the culture through what I call in psychic activism, through generating alternative forms of eroticism, alternative forms of erotica, alternative myths, narratives, symbols, stories. And I think what I would call upon women to do is to reverse the kind of sex negativism. Part of our oppression has been to tell us that we're either these pornographic whores or we're completely asexual. To demand and exercise our sexual autonomy, to become what I think of as bawdy women. You know, were really to speak. I mean we're not really suppose to express our sexual desires outside of pornography. Its seen as some how very lacking in taste, a very unlady like or whatever. I think whenever we criticize pornography we have to do it in a bawdy way to affirm sexuality, to reverse the kind of sex negativism of that strain of patriarchy of the Christian side. To be vulgar in the sense of like bawdy, earthy, in touch with our sexuality. And therefore, I think we break those false opposites of sex negativism or pornography. And move into a new paradigm.

Q: There's some controversy as to whether rape is a crime of violence or a crime of sexuality? How are violence and sex intertwined?

I think it's really specious to separate violence and sexuality. I would disagree with some of the early feminists who you know we all change our minds as the theory gets worked out, who would say rape is a crime of violence, not a crime of sex. Because unfortunately in this culture, sex is completely interfused with violence, with notions of dominance and subordination. As I said, I believe our gender roles are constructed so we have these two constructed genders, masculine and feminine that are defined by one being powerful and one being powerless. And so therefore, powerlessness and power themselves become eroticized. And in that violence becomes eroticized. Domination, subordination become eroticized so that whether you know somebody is actually exerting dominance in a sexually explicit way as in pornography or doing it in a mainstream way, for example. That's seen as somehow sexual. Because the domination itself, the violation itself has become sexual according to this gender hierarchy system.

I realize that there are some biologists that would say that violence is just a means men use to get sex as if sex were just this sort of innate thing that we're all born knowing what it is and wanting. Rather I see sex as a culturally constructed in the way our sexuality is expressed. For example, the idea that intercourse between a man and a woman is sex. Right? Preferably with him on top penetrating and thrusting and her lying still. Right? I mean that's a cultural notion and one induced by male supremacy. So this sex that he's getting is really a model to justify, that he's saying is innate, is a model to justify a very oppressive male dominant form of sexuality that is completely culturally conditioned. Rape is sexual, yes in that force and domination of women has been sexualized. That's how it's both violent and sexual at the same time. We need to recognize how they work in tandem.

Also, I mean, some theorists who I would see as whether consciously or not in complicity would rape would say, "Well, it's just that there's this very attractive woman and rape is the only way I can get her or something like that,” that this justifies. But that in no way speaks to the reality of rape in which extremely old women who are seen in this country or in this culture again in a patriarchal culture as completely undesirable are raped, in which little babies are raped, in which it's just a question of which woman is most vulnerable at a particular time, is most easy to be preyed upon. That theory doesn't jive at all with the way that rape is actually promoted. It's based on there's an available victim that I can intimidate and conquer at this particular point.

Q: What do you think about developing alternate notions of eroticism?

Anything that I talk about with pornography, I stress the needs of developing an alternative notions of sexuality alternative notions of erotica. I think we have to have a counter culture. I know Newt Gingrich has declared war on the counter culture. But that's because I think that's the reason he does it, I think is because that's where the most powerful force is for change. If we change cultural attitudes, behaviors, desires, I mean, all these things are culturally constructed to begin with. Male dominance is a cultural construct. It can be deconstructed and changed and we do that through every day acts, through subversions, as a title of a book by a woman I don't know but it's a good title, Every Day Acts in Small Subversions. That we don't believe them that it's inevitable. And that power is only exercised from the top to the bottom. That we recognize that creation is ongoing every day.

There's a social construction of reality that we participate in and that we can become the creators of an emerging alternative reality. It's happening now. Thirty years ago you would go to medical journals and find no references to wife beating. Not its they're trying to put it back they're trying to say incest is all false memory, etc. They can't completely put it back in the box, we have broken that conspiracy of silence and we're not going to shut up. And not only do we have to tell the truth about the abuses that are heaped on us, but we have to articulate a new emerging consciousness in reality and practice of sexuality that is not based upon that sex negative norm of what the heterosexual monogamous procreative couple, etc. We have to encourage sexual experimentation, the wiring and production of erotic materials, the infusion of the resacrilization of sexuality. Understanding that is why I really hate porography because it teaches us that the life force can be commodified, packaged and sold.

There has been a division in the feminist movement between feminists who are opposed to pornography and feminists who say we shouldn't concentrate on that because it's antisexual. But I see and I think they have a point but I think we need a medium ground here and I understand that pornography is anti-sexual, its about destroying packaging containing exploiting, abusing the life force. Pornography teaches us that the life force can be consumed, used and abused. Then women, children can be consumed, used, abused, the planet can be consumed, used and abused, etc. I see pornography as paradigmatic of other kind of abuses that are taking on. So I think some of the solutions would be to treat, to teach notions of respect for other life forms whether they are human or not, to understand that if you don't treat the life force with respect, understand that you cannot take without giving back, that you have to respect limits, boundaries. The life force will strike back at you. We're always told that there's no limits, that we can boldly go where no man has gone before, a dictum that I see justifying both incest and manifest destiny. I might have said that already.

Q: So how do we begin to change things? How do you inculcate a sense of respect for all life?

This notion, celebrated on "Star Trek," that we can boldly go where no man has gone before, recognizing that's a dictum that justifies everything from incest to manifest destiny, and that what we really need to understand is that we can't go everywhere, that we need to expect an invitation, to understand that you can't take something without giving back in equal measure. That we need to respect, not only other human beings, but all creatures in the land, the land, I would say herself. And then if we don't, the life force will strike back. We talk about with such arrogance that humans can save the planet or not. I mean, you know, we'll only destroy ourselves if we go on in this way. I see all this violence against women as very apocalyptic in some way. I mean it is about destroying and contaminating the future and the life force itself and it's folly. An absolute folly!

Some people say that for things to change the punishment for crimes against women must be severe. What do you think?

Oh, punishment. I have to say in terms of punishment, I mean yes, I think that some abusers are so far gone they're just going to keep doing it and they have to be kept away from the rest of the population. While I certainly agree that we have to say this is not allowable, you know clearly many rapists get off, I mean, it's not a highly prosecuted and convicted crime rate, etc. Batterers continue to do this, people see it as just a lover's quarrel. We do have to change cultural attitudes about that. I'm not in favor of any kind of police state idea of avenge, punish, torture, etc. I'm much more in favor of a model that if somebody cannot change, if somebody is really a danger they should be banished in some kind of segregated way. They have to be, and all modes should be put toward prevention. I mean, I just see sadomasochism and even like punishment itself has become so sexualized under the parent of patriarchal pornographic role view that I'm seeing, that I think we need to really break with all those kind of attitudes.

Q: So how do we break with all those attitudes?

Remember I talked before about grandmother spider creating the world through telling stories, story-telling is what creates consciousness and through consciousness reality is created. And, so the media is our contemporary story teller, and it's in a way, very much like religion. It gives us parables, it gives us values to live by, it gives us role models to emulate, saints or whatever. If you will, new deities almost whom we worship, as in celebrities. So the media has to be recognized as the cultural story teller and understand that it is there to enforce the status quo. We can resist it occasionally. For example, in horror films are where you'll see the most vehement critique of family values. I mean, families are always insane and the father's always out to kill everybody in families, if you think about it, he's like the step father.

I think some people talk about teaching media literacy and I would completely agree with that, that we need to be able to critique the advertising , recognize when there's pictures of little girls posed like Marilyn Monroe when they're four years old. Recognize that images of rape in the ads selling us jeans or something like that so we are consciously aware of them, and I think they lose some of their power over us. But I think on the other hand, we have to get beyond that because these images are meant to appeal like cocoa, he says, they're going to the back of your mind, to your subconscious and we are programmed by our culture to respond to certain things, to react in certain ways and what we as activists have to do is reprogram, recondition, create, and that is through generating what I talked about before, these alternative myth narrative. If we give people an alternative erotica which I see in some women's communities, a lot of lesbian erotica. There's something like Four Fat Dikes, and it's this movie in which women, fat lesbians, who are despised by this culture, right, who are seen as everything a woman should not be, celebrate their bodies and their sexuality. That to me is fabulous and it is also erotic. And it is about celebrating the life force. So those are the direction I think we need to move in as well.

Q: Tell us about your book, The Age of Sex Crime.

The Age of Sex Crime is my first book in which I analyze the phenomena of how serial sex killers have become hero figures in this culture, which goes back to my argument that these are not deviants, these are not monsters from nowhere, they're actually performing a cultural function in enforcing misogyny in showing that women are prey, etc. and acting out masculinity in totally dominating the feminine. So that's the base, and what I mean by that is that the characteristic act of the serial sex killer like Jack the Ripper, sort of the founding father of the movement was the mutilation of a woman's body. And leaving her out for display and it seems to me that the mutilation, particularly of the sex organs is a paradigmatic, a model for the other kinds of abuses that are going on. Be it splitting the atom, be it raising an entire old growth forest or whatever, that kind of again destruction focused on the life force, the generator.

I think particularly in native American philosophy, we're taught that you can only go so far with that before retaliation sets in, that the life force will not let you, the life force does strike back. So do women. Can I say something about "Thelma and Louise?" Why was that movie hated so much? It was one movie in which women bonded, and in which women fought back. They killed one man, who had initiated the violence. But it was seen as this terribly violent movie. And I think that shows about the power of the kind of narratives that I'm talking about. The power to just as Jack the Ripper has become legend, we hear that "Thelma and Louise" live forever on the T-shirts or the bumper stickers. So we've projected into that legendary realm and are able to fight at that level too.

Q: Not all men obviously are violent and they all grow up in the same culture. So, why do you think some men are violent?

As to why individual men are violent, there isn't just one cause. I mean patriarchal science would tell us there's cause and effect and you have to be able to scientifically study it and link it, well experiment on all these college students and see if after watching pornography they'll go rape or something. That's nonsense. That's not how it works. Listen to the anecdotal stories of narratives of people who have lived through violence and abuse and there's always different kinds of reasons. I mean, we can all watch a beer commercial and some of us will go out and drink beer and some of us will even become alcoholics, so there's complex reasons - what happened in the boy's childhood, how much violence he was exposed to. How susceptible he was to images from the media, how strong an influence his mother was in his life, etc. and I mean usually the influence of the mother is a good one generating respect for women as opposed to what movies like Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock's patriarchal narratives, would have us believe. Does that answer it well enough?

What of the media? How does its portrayal of women reinforce certain notions,particularly in advertising?

We see these kinds of advertisements everywhere. I mentioned Calvin Cline's Obsession. There are adds for jeans in which women are shown licking the floor. That's a common technique in domestic violence, not just hitting the woman, but humiliating her. Either with words or through making her perform demeaning acts, etc. Lots of images of couples seeming to tussle and the woman on high heels ready to topple over which we're told again. It normalizes violence, it makes it seem as just a love spat, etc. What other ones did I talk about? Movies? Movies, even if you go back. "Gone with the Wind” is of course classic in that we do see a scene of marital rape and the woman is made to smile as if seeming to enjoy it. Now, hopefully race, consciousness of racist oppression has made us realize that the slaves weren't really enjoying life on the plantation as "Gone with the Wind” shows. I think we should also recognize that Scarlet would not in actuality have enjoyed being raped.

Another movie I love to hate (and I found profoundly distressing because so many children see it and see it uncritically), it's Disney, it's "Beauty and the Beast." If you look at that movie, a young girl, no mother, there's never any mothers in these movies. She lives alone with her father, she ends up getting taken prisoner by the beast. She's literally a prisoner, all the household help conspire to hide the fact of how violent he is and then he actually turns violent on her, breaking furniture, threatening her, a scene of absolute domestic abuse, but we're told that she just loves him enough, he can change and the beast will turn into a prince. That is an extremely dangerous myth to give young girls. That if you just love a man enough you can change him. It also says that it's men's nature. They're beastly. The bestial nature. Not a cultural construction that makes men violent towards women. So I think the movie is deceptive on all these counts but also in particularly in telling the young girl, if she just loves the beast enough, he'll turn into the prince and that keeps a lot of women waiting around, hoping, hoping he'll change. And he keeps telling her that.

We see this also graphically in an adult movie, "Internal Affairs,” in which the character played by Andy Garcia, and both these movies are very racist. The beast when he turns into the prince changes from being bestial into being like Apollo or something like that. This blonde god and the darkness and the bestial is associated with I think people of color very graphically. Andy Garcia in "Internal Affairs” beats his wife in public. And then, he breaks into Spanish right after beating her in public which makes it seem as if you know this hot Latino kind of thing. So again, it's somehow associated with race here, not with just male supremacy and privilege. And then he goes home the next day and she fights back. She's angry at him for beating her in public and he tells her he's jealous of her and he's seen her with another man and he's saying....He goes and spends the night drinking and with women of color are whores, so again the racism and I mean whores, oh, I'll have to start again. He beats his wife in public and she of course is a blonde, white trophy kind of desirable woman in a racist-sexist culture. He goes and then spends the night with the so-called despised women, women of color who are then whores. He then goes home the next day and confronts her and starts accusing her of sleeping with other men, etc. and tells her if you ever do that I'll kill you, I'll kill you!. At this point they fall to the floor and make passionate love while he keeps reminding her - I'll kill you, I'll kill you. This is not foreplay, these are not words of endearment. When women hear that they should get out and not be told by the movies that this is a prelude to the greatest sex you're ever going to have.

Q: What about portrayals of women in music videos and elsewhere?

Guns and Roses in, for example, Axl Rose has been accused by two of his former wives and/or girl friends of beating them. And he shows women being beaten and murdered by himself, by him in many of his videos including "Don't Cry,” "November Rains,” etc. So, very clearly there's this idea that it's completely normal and acceptable for a heroic figure like Axl Rose to beat women. What else on MTV? I know because I've done some of these.

Q: It goes all the way back to Shakespeare. Think of "Othello."

I've never read "Othello," so I can't tell. Again, you know you're getting into this where it's so much easier for a racist culture to select out men of color and say they're the ones who are doing this. They're the rapists, they're the beasts, etc. And I'm saying that men of color don't abuse women, they do. I'm just saying they're given disproportionate attention in a racist media. And its all, they're scapegoated. It's all put on. They're the ones who are doing it. And then women we're told, we're sex objects, white women particularly young, blonde white women are said to be the trophy objects, the objects to claim and of course, the most common reason men give for abusing and/or killing women is the jealousy and the idea that if I can't have her, no one can. She's my property. There's a T-shirt that's actually sold that says, "If you love something, set it free, and if it doesn't come back, gun it down and kill it." Yeah, which I see as like the mantra for the abusive generally femicidal man.

But think how often in the media that when we're taught that when a man begins to show jealousy, that's when he's in love, no that's when he's obsessed and use you as property. And you should get the hell out. But you know "Pretty Woman,” that's one where the minute Richard Gear begins showing jealousy, the audience says, Oh good, he loves her. You know, that kind of thing and that's again one way we're seduced to these attitudes that condone, legitimize and endorse in this case wife beating.

Q: How does the mass media make women sex objects?

Women being sex objects and what we mean by that is that we're reduced to things. Property, objects to consume, to use, to abuse, to own. Which is related obviously to the issue of jealousy. But if you look at the mass media you'll see an endless supply of women being portrayed as what I call fem-bots, these kind of sex robots. For example, there's a very famous, not famous, it's famous on college campuses because it shows, it's up so much in the men's dorms. It's an ad for a motorcycle that just shows a woman's body fused into the motorcycle. And her rump is where the man sits and drives her. So woman as the object that you can own and use at your pleasure, at your will, that image says it but all the kind of rituals in which women are -- the cheese cake things. The cultural rituals or the images that show us as objects, that we are there to be looked at, that we are there. Let me think of some other images I have that show this kind of objectification going on. But see when I'm saying that, I can give you some images of women as that motorcycle image -- the woman as yeah, that we are therefore, we're not recognized as significant human beings. We are rendered soulless when actually it's the ones who are soulless who are trying to portray women as like these kind of simple dolls, objects, puppets, and it's very curious. Ted Bundy, and many people think that he wasn't, that he was just copying this idea that pornography made him do it the last minute. He talked about that since he was caught in 1979 how pornography, not just pornography but Coppertone ads in which women were just shown as display items, were used, you know, draped on cars, that he became identified with the car. That women were literally sex objects to them. He says he never talked about the women as she but as the object, the puppet, the doll.

Q: Can you think of responsible portrayals of women?

"Thelma and Louise" Let's see. It's harder to come up with responsible portrayals of women I think that we can certainly find some. I think Allison Anders film, "Gas, Food and Lodging" is a very complex, it's a female initiation story. It's a female coming of age story. There's a movie called "Desert Bloom,” that's again interesting. I think "Thelma and Louise” is genuine feminist art. "Daughter's of the Dust” by Julie Desh which is, she the first African-American female filmmaker to make a feature film. You know which shows the combined racism and sexism in the system that thus far there have been, she was the first just 19, just three years ago I believe. Ah, the responsible portrayals of women.

Roseann. I think Roseann is marvelous. I mean, you know obviously I'm going to quibble sometimes, but Roseann proclaims her autonomy, her power, her sexuality. The show deals with complex issues. I love it.

I'm going to surprise you with this, but I think that sometimes in soap operas, because they are pitched toward a women audience, that you will find, for example, on the "Young and the Restless,” more responsible treatments of date rape, battery. For example, in movies like "Sleeping With the Enemy,” we see a woman stranded. She's being beaten by her husband and she has nowhere to go. She's completely on her own. There is no social system to support her. On the "Young and the Restless” there are friends who intervene. She goes to a battered woman's shelter and talks about her problem. They all give her the support to leave her husband. So that I consider that to be a genuine feminist portrayal. And another instance of a treatment of a date rape on the "Young and the Restless,” the sexual harassment, excuse me, an episode of examining sexual harassment on the "Young and the Restless,” which again has a lot of problems. I'm not portraying it as pure feminist intentionality or anything like that, but there was a very interesting treatment of sexual harassment in which the male lawyer harassing the younger female lawyer at the end tells her, "You know, just between me and you, you really wanted it, you really desired it. And you know you secretly were yearning for it.” She faces him down and says "Absolutely not. You were trying to use your power to dominate me. You get off on power. I don't get off on powerlessness.” something to that effect. I'm not quoting her exactly. Again, these kind of shining feminist moments on soap operas. Which is, of course, seen as a degraded women's kind of form of amusement.

[noesa]

TMA entities rated by how good of a fear avatar I would be

The Buried - Burying people alive freaks me out tbh. No thanks. 2/10

The Corruption - I’m fine with some bugs and some mess, but I’m too much of a neat freak to be a good Jane Prentiss, and I definitely hate being sick too much to be a good John Amherst. 3/10

The Dark - I’m pretty good at walking around in the dark, but I don’t think I’d want to do it all the time. 4/10

The Desolation - So the Desolation is definitely the “you are a Bad person” one when it comes to avatars because it’s 100% about making people suffer. Which is why I hate to say that I don’t actually think I’d be that opposed to it, since there’s something almost absurdist about making people go from having all this hope in the future to losing it all. 7/10

The End - RIP to all the former Deaths who are tormented by their immortality but I’m different. 8/10

The Extinction - This is the ideal for tormenting conservative Christians. There are so many apocalyptic futures you can show them: everyone uploads their brains into “soulless machines”, everyone gets raptured away and demons stalk the ruins of civilization, everyone does so much genetic modification against “God’s design” that they can’t be recognized as human anymore, etc. Plus you get to not be human anymore? Sign me the fuck up. 10/10

The Eye - This is a fun one because you get to know all of the drama and the dirty little secrets, and all you have to do to make people freak out is just occasionally drop a tidbit of information you absolutely should not know here and there. 9/10

The Flesh - I’m not actually that disgusted by the idea of cannibalism, I just don’t really like handling raw meat and gore and all that. 5/10

The Hunt - I do have a competitive streak, which seems to be a common trait among avatars of The Hunt, but if I see a monster I think I would be more likely to mind my business and let it be than want to kill it. 2/10

The Lonely - I do love ghosting people, but I think I’d have too little impulse control when it comes to not responding to people. 6/10

The Slaughter - I’m not really inherently opposed to violence, it just isn’t really my thing. 4/10

The Spiral - I already like to blatantly lie to people’s faces for fun. 9/10

The Stranger - The idea of this one appeals to me, but I don’t know if I’m good enough at subtlety to dip into the uncanny valley without passing it entirely. Maybe I could be a haunted doll seller or something, that could be fun. 6/10

The Vast - While I am aware in the abstract sense how little any of us matter on a cosmic scale, I don’t think that awareness is as acute as it should be for an avatar of the idea of nihilism. Also, I like roller coasters but I’m generally not much of a thrill seeker. 6/10

The Web - Spiders are cute, and I’ve definitely thought about how if I were in control of things and everyone did exactly what I wanted then things would go much smoother. The whole “taking away people’s free will” is a bit of a sticking point though - it just feels worse than a lot of the other stuff fear avatars can do, you know? 7/10

[quarantined-with-bucky]

Dichotomy

Bucky x Reader

Words: ~ 3,500

Summary: Bucky’s in the poetry feels. And his own feels.

Warnings: Mentions of abuse

Dedication: I’ve had a couple readers express their interest in mythology and the like, either in reblogs, replies, or private messages, so this is dedicated to them (you know who you are) Thanks! :)

A/N: This was taken from my mythology cultivation (I mentioned it in Poetry (this is kinda a part II to that?)), so I have no author credits to the poem :( please let me know if anyone does! This one is also more of Bucky’s view on his relationship with the reader. Sorry it took me so long to write, I wasn’t sure where to take this for a while!

...

You were a myth.

You had to be. Bucky was convinced.

You were beautiful. But he would never mistake your beauty for stupidity – not for naivety, vulnerability, or even weakness.

And They Said Aphrodite Was Soft: Smear your lips in blood, dust your eyelids with stars. Hang rubies around your neck, wear a nude leather dress. Kiss him hard, make him groan. Rip him apart, muscle from bone. Breath in, breath out. Begin step one.

Such a beautiful creature could never be so cruel. He saw the way you moved so gracefully on the battlefield and the way just a single touch from you could melt the heart of any man. You had no tolerance for the men that talked down to you and, sure, you were an exquisite creature, but your prowess that lied beneath the surface – that could tear any unassuming man limb from limb – was what drew him to you.

You were resilient. Despite what anyone may think, you were one of the strongest on the team.

I have wondered what it was like for Aphrodite. For Hera, Medusa, Artemis, Athena. For them to be worshiped, feared, sung of and powerful. What did it feel like to fall into myth and legend? To be remembered mostly for the men they loved, or the ones who fought for them when they didn’t need it, didn’t ask. To be pushed into the corner of the bar, to only be talked about when someone else decided, and to watch their daughters, their children of the earth, fall to the same fate.

Despite your effort to write your own story, to be the best damn Avenger you could be, there would always be hurtles in your way, whether that be the media shoving you into the shadows of Captain America and Iron Man, your inherent lack of any sort of super-ability, or you almost too innocent-looking appearance: how could you hold your own when you look like you can’t even open a jar by yourself? It was the same for those before you, women being washed away in history as lab assistants or had their valor just plain stolen from them. It couldn’t be you and you wouldn’t let it.

You were hurt. Years of physical pain, emotional torment, and past abuse took its toll on you. After all, you were only human.

Dearest Medusa I am so sorry no one told you that the Gods could be so cruel. You had beauty so unlike the rest. Your mother deemed it a blessing. A blessing that would one day deal your curse. Dearest Medusa I am so sorry that no one told you the love of a god is as good as the hatred from a god. Dearest Medusa I am so sorry that he pillaged your body in the temple of goddess meant to shelter you. Dearest Medusa I am so sorry that Athena in all of her wisdom turned blind eye to your pain. Dearest Medusa I am so sorry that no one ever told you the gods could be so cruel.

You’d known what it’s like to have been cast away in your time of need. Your strength somehow came around to backfire on you. You’d been so strong your whole life, there’s no way you could be upset – especially about something so small. You’d been discredited to your own feelings. When you cried out for help, you never received, instead met with neglect and following misfortune. And that’s what built you, but that’s also what broke you.

It was only through poetry that Bucky realized there were two sides to your story – every story, he’d supposed.

And goddamn, there were two sides to his story.

He’d wondered if one day, such myths will be written about him. Would he be seen as the monster: a harsh, unforgiving, unrelenting man – whose true tragedy is unbeknownst to most? Only after years of examination and internal debate could change anyone’s perspective on him.

But he knew they’d be writing about you someday. Hell, it seems like they already had been. The most celestial being in the universe and he just happens to be lucky enough to share a bed with you. He’s the one who knows your backstory, knows your own tragedy, knows the strength that its built. It’s almost like he’s been studying you – and he would if he could. He applies every beautiful book or poem he’s read to you: to your grace, your poise, your struggles.

You meant more to him than words could describe; not the likes of Homer, Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, nor even Jane Austen could even capture half your complexity. He didn’t think there were so many layers to life. There was only one way he could see himself: damaged. But from the day he met you, you’d proven quite the opposite. He had depth, substance, an intricacy that only you could unravel. You’d welcomed him into your open arms, taking him under your wing as you showed him the ropes of the twenty-first century. That’s how it started, anyway. You’d shown him the internet, the DVR, how his phone works, plastic Tupperware. The world had become quite a different place, but it wasn’t just the material objects that shifted either.

People seemed to be a bit more complex than Bucky remembered – and he didn’t know whether it was a twenty-first century thing or if he just hadn’t been around people in such a long time. It took a lot of questions, a lot of research, and a lot of late-night discussions before Bucky finally grasped the concept you’d been trying to instill in him. And one night it just made so much sense. It was in everything you read – every novel and poem – everything you wrote, and everything you’d been teaching him.

Bucky’s night of clarity consisted of a nightmare, two giant mugs filled to the brim with hot chocolate, and some frighteningly serious pillowtalk. “You don’t have to let your past define you, Bucky,” you whispered, before taking a sip of your drink. Bucky’s head rested on your chest, the two of you laying in bed, wide awake after having been woken up by Bucky screaming in the middle of the night. Your hand ran through his hair, strands stuck together and tangled up, tacky with sweat. His eyes were shut, his focus being the vibrations of your chest as you spoke. “You aren’t what they made you.”

You’d seen the side of him that nobody else saw; the soft side of him. It was the half of him that the media would never portray, that his closest peers – his housemates, his team members – would never see, the part that even he forgot existed.

Hell, it was hard for him to remember how to be kind – how to be vulnerable. It took years of physical torture and mental torment for Hydra to beat it out of him. The majority of his life, he’d gone without physical affection, a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, any kind of touch that didn’t result in a bloody nose.

That wasn’t the only issue. He had to overcome his own bravado. It took him years of solitude and half-assed coping mechanisms for Bucky to come to terms with it himself. Even after jumping over the first hurdle of undoing Hydra’s psychological damage, he had to rewrite his own programming. He never confided in anyone in the Avengers; not the therapist and psychologist Tony brought in, not Clint – a college familiar with being a victim of mind-control, not Natasha – someone who had understood similar hardships, not even Steve – his childhood best friend. He’d come from a time where you would simply grin and bear it.

Sounds cliché, sure, but he couldn’t help it. It was hard not to act this way when even those closest to him – those who shared similar trauma – acted in the same manner. He’d never seen Clint bring it up. Natasha never spoke of her past, or let it affect her work or well-being – in fact, she made jokes about it. And Steve? Forget it. He was one of those who used his past as motivation and to share to kids for “life lessons” (Bucky could gag just thinking about it). Anyway, where did that leave Bucky? With no options but to suck it up and not let it bother him.

When you started spending multiple nights in a row with him, he knew you’d get him to confess about his past, his feelings. Bucky hated feelings. In the thirties, the only feeling he liked was to have a woman wrapped around his finger. He supposed that’s all he had to worry about, back then, anyway.

Now, he was the one wrapped around his finger. So much so, in fact, that he let you twirl his hair around in your hand, stroke his stubble with the backs of your knuckles, and press your cold feet against his legs while the two of you were sleeping (supposed to be sleeping, at least). “Remember what I told you?” You murmured, pulling him out of his thoughts. He opened his eyes to meet yours peering down over him, as you now sat propped on one elbow to lean your head over his. “About it being okay for you to be upset?”

He rolled his eyes and then quickly shot you a soft apology. Don’t dismiss your emotions, it was what you’d told him numerous times before. He wasn’t supposed to be acting like nothing was bothering him; he promised you that he’d tell you anything on his mind. It was easy when the only thing that was on his mind was you naked in his mind. This was way harder, he mentally groaned.

It was hard for him to come to terms with his past. With all of the terrible things he’d done? There was no way he’d ever be able to accept it, to forget about it, forgive himself for it. There are two sides to every story, you’d reminded him once.

Bucky’s two sides: assassin, murderer, beast; victim, vulnerable, manipulated.

He couldn’t even come to terms with that. He wasn’t manipulated. Manipulation carries the connotation that he still had control. Bucky wasn’t manipulated into doing any of the things he did – into committing those atrocities. Nobody used their cunning wit and skills to get him to willingly commit such crimes; Bucky wasn’t convinced by someone to go against his free will and better judgement. No, that right was stolen from him – his free will.

He didn’t even have an adjective to describe himself.

But he had others who could describe him on his behalf.

Name one hero who was happy. Was Heracles, remembered in the stars, satisfied with his life? Risen to glory and fame, but at what cost? The memory of his wife and child’s blood on his hands, their cries etched in his head. Ask Daedalus, whose cleverness was no match for his love for Icarus, if he was happy to escape confinement. To soar amongst the heavens only to watch his son plummet to his death, perished by his own creation. And Achilles, what of him, was he happy? The boy with the golden feet and lion-heart, who upheld battle for a decade, to watch his beloved slain? To live out the end of his days grieving, yearning for death, was he truly happy? Once again, I must ask: Name one hero who was happy.

It validated his thoughts, at lease. No matter how much people could grow to love him, how accepted he’d be into society, how much he’d be celebrated, he’d still never forget – never be happy, haunted forever by his past barbarity, the lives he took, his loved ones gone. His own life and power ripped away from him, missing from his life for so long that he didn’t know how to live anymore.

He’d found you, at least. You gave him some semblance of his life and freedom back. But he couldn’t help but think, deep down, so low that he’d never be able to muster up the words to say it aloud, that one day you’d be taken away from him. He didn’t know if it would be on the battlefield or if it would be karma finally coming around – but he was scared.

But, despite you being totally oblivious to Bucky’s deepest thoughts (although, you were fairly intuitive. He assumed you’d already known this was his greatest fear), you’d taught him that it was okay to be scared. It was okay to be scared, vulnerable, and hurting. That must have been more accepted these days. While Bucky was never able to marry back in his original time, he wasn’t even sure if this was something husband and wife talked about. He’d remembered hearing stories of his war-buddies back in the trenches. They wrote home to their wives, telling them everything was okay, nobody was hurting, all was as well as could be a – when the opposite couldn’t be truer. It was his job to make sure everything was okay in the home, and part of that required staying strong; being the immovable force that held the family steady. And he looked up to those men more than anything. Fighting a goddamn war, writing their wives in a matter that wouldn’t make them worry.

Now that wasn’t necessary. Women had embraced their strength and independence. He was relieved, to be honest, he knew he’d never compare to his own father – not after everything he’d endured. But maybe twenty-first century life was where he belonged, anyway. So that he could have you next to him. Outspoken, rowdy, cutthroat, bold, passionate you.

You understood Bucky’s hesitation to open up to you. It took him a long time to get acclimated to his new environment, to people, to having emotions – let alone expressing them. That was okay with you. You had nothing but time. You’d tried early on to express to him the fact that his past is what gave him his strength today. He’s been through so much during the past one hundred years of his life that it would be easy for him to just quit, throw in the towel of life, give up and spend the rest of his days spending his days in Wakanda raising goats. But every day, he found the strength to get up, return to the clutches of Hydra and fight them one by one with the promise of the world one day being free from their grasp.

That resonated with him a bit. To come to terms with his struggles because they made him who he is. Not necessarily in a bad way: in the way that he could realize how much he overcame in his long life. He was a survivor.

“Yes,” he whispered, turning his head to press a kiss to your palm.

He wasn’t sure how you were able to resonate with him on such a level. It was probably the way you talked to him. You treated him like a human. Not that the others didn’t necessarily, but they just treated him differently – like they were afraid of him. Like anything they said might trigger him, they cowered in fear when he walked into a room, they avoided him at all costs. But you, you treated him like he was fragile – like if you held him, he’d crack.

He smiled at the thought, holding back a laugh. That’s the exact same way he held you.

Like you were made of porcelain. And that mutual consideration just drew him to you in awe. There was something so inherently soft about you. You were so genuinely kind to everyone, always lending a helping hand, putting everyone else’s needs above yours. He hadn’t known somebody like that for a long time; since he was a young kid in Brooklyn.

No Mortal Words Describe Her: Mortal, on the ground, drenched in sweat and tears: Are you a dream? Are you a nightmare? Aphrodite, baring her teeth, drenched in blood and ash: I am everything in between.

You were a dichotomy. He didn’t understand it. He met you on the battlefield, killing Hydra agents. Your hair was pulled up tight, eyes wide but eyebrows narrowed. You threw your punches with such force; you were kicking men through walls and windows. You’d looked as if you were born and bred to kill – which, in all truth, you were. You’d accepted that fact and you held your head high. He was intimidated by you, and he loved that fact that everyone else was, too. And you were proud of it. There was nothing you cared about in those moments more than making the scum of the earth pay for the atrocities they had committed, for all the years they had Bucky Barnes locked up.

But then it was him laying on your bedroom floor, reading poetry you had scribbled on scraps of paper, littered around the room; some laid out neatly beside you, others crumpled up and tossed in the corner. Bucky liked those ones best – the ones you’d discarded in a frantic, haphazard manner, too busy to even aim for the garbage can. He’d felt that those were the ones that described you best: they were raw, real, undeniable; they came from the deepest depths of your mind, the part that took you hours of searching to even skim the surface. It was the truest form of yourself, and Bucky was lucky enough to have been granted permission to read.

All Antigone wanted was to bury her dead. How many times do women hang themselves in the shadow of their fathers’ sins? I am no exception, I flinch at comparisons, the easiest way to unmake me is to throw his name over me like an old mantle of anger and hate: I’ve worked too hard to be broken down by a story I had no hand in, braced my arms against flood and falling sky and sometimes I get so tired. But I am more than my father’s venom tongue. I am my grandmother’s eyes, my grandfather’s bleeding heart, I am the daughter of women stronger than any Greek playwright could forgive.

Just as it did for Bucky, it took you time to open up. To delve into your past was a process in and of its own. It was when he found this poem crinkled beside your bookshelf that he finally asked about it. This one felt a little too personal to just ignore. He recrumpled the piece of paper and tossed it towards you, landing in your lap. Unfolding it, you skim the words, tossing it beside you once finished, continuing your current work. “Do you want to talk about it?” Bucky asked, breaking the silence that surrounded the two of you.

At first, you’d said no and simply continued writing. How were you supposed to tell him the stories of your so-called family? The pains you’d suffered as a child. You’d continued on your poem about Achilles: the strong, brave, invincible, soldier; the broken, touch starved, damaged man. You huffed to yourself and threw your pen down. What kind of girlfriend would you be to make Bucky relive his own terror without at least reciprocating – especially when you knew it took so much for him to let you in in the first place.

It was a long night after that, setting up the timeline of your life. And everyone had their own right to deal with their past in their own way; each memory hurts in its own particular way, and it is up to you with how to deal with it. But your past is what makes you, and that’s what you’d told Bucky days before. It doesn’t define you, but it gives you something to fight for, something to live for.

It took years of explaining it to him for you to finally find it true for yourself.

…

But he was pulled back into the present once your hands pulled apart an exceptionally tight knot from his hair. He brought his eyes back to meet yours, your face illuminated by the now rising sun shining behind the white shades. Your eyes were half lidded, face completely relaxed, gazing down at Bucky with a sleepy lust. You’d been sitting in silence for hours. It was fine, you had nothing else to do. It was better that Bucky worked it out on his own anyway; you knew how he could get lost in his own thoughts.

All you’d hoped was that he wasn’t beating himself up about it anymore.

“Hey, doll,” he murmured, grabbing your hand in his, turning up to lean against the headboard next to you. And, god, the way you looked at him could make his heart stop; nothing but admiration and affection in those eyes. Your eyebrows were slightly raised, corners of your mouth pulling up slightly.

“Hey, Buck.” You fully smiled at him, offering him a soft, sleepy grin.

“I love you.”

You slid down on the bed, this time resting your head on his chest, wrapping your arms around his large torso, snuggling up into him as the sun rose behind you. “I love you, too.”

[2nerd4this]

Also, movie night! They both are free (they are on standby from the musical that night) so while the others are performing they have dinner and a movie night and fall asleep on the couch and when the others come home they're like "awww" and take a photo There's a secret album of similar photos that at some point gets gifted to them both :3

Oooh, I love these so much! I decided to combine the two to make it longer, and it’s just a little drabble, but I had a lot of fun, so thank you so much!!!

Just a little note- I know nothing about cooking or dishes from any of those countries, so I kept it pretty vague, but I hope I did it justice!

It wasn’t often, that Cathy and Catalina both had nights off together. Because of how the alternates were organized, they were usually covered by the same girl.

As such, when they looked at their schedules and saw they had a free Thursday together, they had started planning immediately, intent on making the most of the free few hours they would have alone with each other.

In the end, they decided on something fairly simple- dinner and a movie, but for them, it was more than they usually got together. In this house, the only place to get time together was out in public, which was inherently full of other people. 

This was why, then, when the others realized what the two were planning, they decided to leave the house an hour earlier than normal, allowing them as much time as possible together.

So, at 4 in the afternoon, the godmother and goddaughter duo found themselves standing alone in the quiet kitchen.

“So,” Lina started, leaning up against the fridge and smirking at the smaller girl.

“So,” Cathy replied, smiling widely, “Are you finally going to tell me what you’re planning for dinner? Because you better know how to make it, you know how useless I am in the kitchen, except for pasta.”

Catalina chuckled good-naturedly and nodded. “Of course. Give me a sec.”

Cathy smirked, then jumped up and hoisted herself up onto the counter, watching as her godmother turned and dug around in the cabinet above the sink, before pulling out three separate cookbooks and laying them beside the other woman. 

“Take a look.” Catalina nodded towards the books as she opened each of them to a previously bookmarked page. Cathy leaned over and skimmed through each page quickly before her face broke into a smile and she nodded.

“You’re brilliant.”

“You’re just now noticing this, mija?”

“Oh, very funny, Catty. Never heard that one before.”

“Alright, you snarky little brat,” Catalina chuckled, “But seriously, you like this idea?”

“Oh, yeah,” the sixth Queen nodded vehemently, “They’ll love it.”

“Alright then. I’ll get out the ingredients, you choose a Spotify playlist and preheat the oven.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Cathy mock-saluted, causing Lina to slap her arm lightly before moving the cookbooks and put an empty mixing bowl in its place. 

.

An hour later, the duo were both covered in dough and flour and leaning over the sink, trying to wash their hands at the same time, with little success. 

“Would you just move?” Lina asked playfully, bumping the smaller woman gently. Cathy smirked and stood her ground, bending her elbow so she could move the faucet towards her side of the sink.

“I have to go take it out of the oven, so let me finish first.”

“I could take it out of the oven.”

“I thought you said you didn’t want to have to bend down and get it.”

“Well if it means I get to wash my hands first, then my back will just have to deal.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll sacrifice my clean hands for your poor old lady back.”

Catalina stepped back and gasped dramatically, putting a hand on her heart. “Old lady?!”

“No,” Cathy smirked proudly, “I guess not. But-” she grinned, sliding between the woman and the sink, “you are quite gullible.” 

And with that, Cathy shoved her hands back under the water and finished scrubbing, laughing softly as Catalina’s faux perturbed expression came into view.

“Very tricky, mija. Just know that payback can be cruel.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Cathy shook her hands to dry them, then gestured to the now free sink. “I just saved your back.”

“Fair enough, I suppose. You get that, and I’ll start the next recipe. At this rate, we’ll be done in another hour.”

.

Sure enough, another hour later, the two stood proudly in front of the three cooling pans on the counter, each with a different meal from the foreign Queen’s homeland. 

The first two, for Anne and Anna, were covered in aluminum foil and ready for the freezer, to be brought out as a surprise for the two. The last, which they had made first, was ready to be served. 

“There’s more than enough for us tonight and then for lunch tomorrow.”

“Awesome,” Cathy started, smiling softly. Catalina glanced at her, eyebrows creasing in sudden concern.

“What’s up, mija?”

“Nothing...”

“That didn’t sound very convincing.”

“Sorry, I just...” Cathy shifted awkwardly, twisting her hands roughly. “I had a lot of fun tonight. With you, I mean.”

“Oh, mija,” Catalina smiled dopily, turning to her goddaughter. “I had fun too, but we aren’t done yet. Do you want to go pick out a movie while I dish this up and put them in the freezer.” 

“Yeah, sure, just-” Cathy paused, hesitated for just a moment, then threw her arms around the older woman and squeezed tightly. Catalina froze for just a moment, then reciprocated the gesture, pulling her in close and placing a soft kiss to her forehead.

“Love you, mija.”

“I love you too, madrina.”

.

Hours later, long after the show had ended and the movie credits had rolled, the other Queens had yet to return home. Anne had been trying to stall as long as possible, but Jane eventually declared that she was tired and that she would bet money that the women were already asleep anyway, so they might as well head back.

And Jane was rarely wrong about such things.

When Anna pushed the front door open and slipped inside silently, she made it only a few steps into the room before turning to the others and placing a finger to her lips. They all three nodded in understanding, moving as quietly as they could to take their shoes off and shut the door behind them.

On the couch in front of the dark television, under a thick golden blanket, lay Catalina, curly hair splayed out on the throw pillow, eyes shut and breathing even. 

Under her arm, of course, was Cathy, face buried in her godmother’s sweatshirt and body curled in so she was just barely hanging off the cushions. She had a slight smile on her face, and when Kitty tripped over the rug, she shifted slightly and sighed contentedly. 

“Alright, Anne, I give in,” Jane whispered playfully, nudging the woman’s shoulder, “The wait was definitely worth it.”

“Told you. Anna, you’re going to get a photo, right?”

“Oh, absolutely.” The fourth Queen nodded, already pulling out her phones. “This is front-page material.

“Wait, you’re really making that album you were talking about?” Kitty asked incredulously, causing Jane to shush her immediately. 

“Yeah, why?”

“I have some photos you might appreciate.”

Before Anna could respond, though, Jane covered her mouth with her hand and held a finger to her lips. All four froze in place as Catalina muttered incomprehensibly under her breath, shifting and pulling Cathy closer. 

When she settled again, they breathed a collective sigh of relief and Jane dropped her hand.

“Should we really leave them on the couch all night? That can’t be comfortable.”

“Nah, they’ll be fine,” Anne smirked, turning to herd the others upstairs. “Besides, they knew what they were doing. And,” she added, chuckling softly, “They’re reactions in the morning will be totally worth it.”

[allicekitty13]

Born To Run: Chapter 1

Mary-Alice Brandon has just returned to her hometown after an incident causing her to relocate just a year ago. Meanwhile, Jasper has become increasingly frustrated with his home life and decides to uncover just what exactly his brother had been hiding. In 1957 two people, with two drastically different personalities meet for the first time. Will their worlds clash or will they realize the only ones they can truly trust with their secrets are each other.

Read On Ao3

Read On FFN

Her eyes fluttered open at the prompting chime of her alarm clock currently ringing on the bedside table to her right. Mustering up as much energy as possible when one was just pulled promptly frum slumber, Alice rolled from the comfortable position on her side to lie flat on her back. Despite the powder blue clock still ringing throughout her bedroom, Alice couldn't help but to reflect on the wonderful dream she'd been having.

In the night vision, she'd been back in Paris shopping with her step-sister Kate. Being in France the past year had been like a dream come true, a much-needed break from the reality she'd been forced to return to. Kate was newly engaged and thus had decided to return home to Nevada with Alice and her fiance, Garrett, in tow. 

Alice's stomach grumbled loudly and painfully, pulling her from the reminiscing session. She snapped her eyes shut tightly, attempting to ignore the alarm's offending bell and the painful ache in her stomach.  Of course, it was no use; her vacation was over. It was time to come down from the clouds and return to reality. Needing to focus on one issue at a time and the alarm still prompting to her side currently being the most prominent, Alice took a deep breath accepting her fate. Summing the energy to flick the little tab on top of the clock to the off position effectively silenced the alarm blanketing the room in silence. 

Willing herself to sit up fully, Alice removed the pale pink sleeping mask covering her eyes, finally greeting the day. She pulled the plush comforter away from her small body and swung her left over the mattress, placing her feet in the house slippers kept neatly next to the bed. She pulled the think pink satin robe that hung from her bedpost over her thin shoulders as she crossed the room to the window overlooking the back garden. Pulling open the lace curtains, Alice gazed down at the flowers.

It was just before dawn, her favorite time of the day. Alice reveled in the way the dim twilight touched down on the beautiful flowers and the small white iron bench she had coerced her father into placing in the middle of the lovely space. The scene was peaceful; day had started, although night hadn't quite ended. Nature reflecting how nothing was black and white; there were gray areas in everything, in everyone. Nothing like the reality she would be walking into in only a few hours. 

Turning her attention back to the clock, the small teen accepted that she had been staring out the window, lost in thought for far too long. Something her step-father, whom she was meant to meet for breakfast shortly, was regularly scolding her for.

She didn't remember her biological father, and her mother rarely spoke of the man. The facts she had were that her parents had been wed young in an arranged marriage in 1938, Edgar Brandon had been drafted to join the war just two years after Alice was born. The man had gone missing in action, presumed dead. 

Shortly after Alice's fourth birthday, Lilian had met a charming man by the name of Eleazar Burke. Before the year was out, the happy couple were married. Eleazar was the only father Alice had ever known. The now seventeen-year-old adored her unusual family; Kate was more than she could have ever asked for in an older sibling they, of course, fought at times but very close. While they may not be biologically related, Alice couldn't imagine a kinder, more understanding father in Eleazar. He loved all three of his daughters, including Alice, equally never playing favorites. He didn't play favorites, distributing the wealth and opportunity attached to his name evenly between the three girls.

Once she'd gotten moving, preparing for the day came like second nature. She now stood in front of the mirror with her hair and makeup done. She was fully dressed in her favorite skirt and sweater set, complete with the new petticoat she had picked up shopping with Kate over the summer. She'd been saving it specifically for her first day at school back in her hometown since the incident. The way it flared out the red skirt was both fashionable and made her hips look just a bit thicker. The matching cardigan hung somewhat loose, also in line with the current trends while slightly masking the frailness of her frame. She smoothed down the skirt and straightened out her pan collar perfectly before pinning both sides down with the lucky pearl collar pins inherited from her maternal grandmother. Alice took one final look in the mirror with a deep breath and silent prayer. She plastered a smile on her face, ready to face the day.

Meanwhile, across town, Jasper Whitlock was in for a quite literal rude awakening. "Wake up, sleepyhead. We're gonna' be late for school." With a groan of annoyance, Jasper opened his eyes to the familiar face of his cousin Rosalie. The sassy blonde was simultaneously one of his favorite people yet also the curse of his existence. Jasper frequently shifted between feelings of gratefulness for having such a fun-loving relative living next door and wishing her family had never moved across the country to help out after his mother's passing.

With her presently standing next to his bed, hands on her hips, very likely fully prepared to throw something at him if he didn't get moving. He was currently feeling the latter. "Since when do you care about school?" He groaned, sitting up on the thin mattress lying on the floor. "More importantly, why are you here, and how did you get in my room?"

"The door, your dads passed out again and it was unlocked." Rosalie shrugged, crossing the room to take a seat at the only chair not covered in clothing, sheet music, or records as she examined her nails. "Anyway, I don't care about school, but I don't want to miss the fireworks, so we're at least going to morning classes. Now, get up and get dressed."

"What are you yammering on about?" Jasper responded as he threw the worn, tattered blankets to the side and grabbed a white t-shirt from its place, lazily shoved into an already open dresser drawer directly to the side of his mattress.

"Mary-Alice Brandon is coming back today."

"Yeah," The other teen rolled his eyes. "Well fuck Mary-Alice Brandon."

"Oh, come on, tell me you don't care about the inherent entertainment of watching everyone flock back to following her lead and leaving poor Charlotte in the dust."

"You're demented."

"You know how petty high school politics amuse me so." The tall blonde woman shrugged before she stood straightening out her leather jacket as she crossed the room. "At least come to support your best friend? Charlotte is either going to be elated or upset. If it's the latter, it's going to make Pete upset. Relationships are kind of like dominos that way. Now hurry up, Riley's waiting outside, and we need a ride, oh favorite cousin of mine."

With that, Rosalie confidently strutted out of her cousin's room, down that hallway. In the Whitlock's living room, her mother and uncle were engaged in the same decade-old argument they'd been having from the moment Ruth and Joseph Hale had packed up their family moving from New York to Nevada. Rosalie had only been one at the time, having no memory of what actually happened. The backlash, however, had caused a ripple effect through the lives of everyone in the family. Because of this, it was no secret that Irene Whitlock had passed away shortly after Jasper's birth. That uncle Thomas had fallen into deep despair losing his job and drinking the days away. 

It was concern for the boys, James and Jasper, that had prompted the move. Her mother so worried for her nephew's well being that they'd relocated their entire lives to be there and help take care of them. It was meant to be temporary until Thomas got back on his feet. Seventeen years later, the siblings were still arguing over it. Her mother pleading for the man to think of his children. 

Unwilling to witness the same fight yet again, Rosalie left the house and headed to the street where her twin brother stood leaning against Jasper's car. "Is he coming?" Riley asked, disinterestedly kicking absently at the pavement, scuffing up his shoes in the process. 

"Yeah, I had to guilt-trip him, but he's coming."

Just as the words had left Rosalie's mouth, the seventeen-year-old in question came shuffling out of the house. Once the door was carefully and quietly shut behind him, Jasper's demeanor shifted, and he confidently stalked down the sidewalk, climbing into his car without uttering a single word. No sooner had the twins piled into the vehicle behind him than Jasper had peeled out of the driveway headed in the direction of the local high school, barely giving Riley enough time to pull the door shut.

Outside the school, Peter, Jasper's best friend, a tall boy with dark hair, was standing in the parking lot talking to Charlotte. The pair had begun dating over the summer, much to Jasper's annoyance. Their relationship had started in the fall when the girl had entered the antique shop owned by Jasper's uncle that Peter worked in part-time. The two had hit it off as instant friends. Despite a plethora of drama involving Charlotte's now ex-boyfriend Demetri and her friend Jane, the pair had entered into a romantic relationship.

While Jasper didn't particularly care for the girl or her crowd, Peter was gone for her. So the teen put up with Charlotte, and more often than he'd like the teenage queens who followed her around like puppies. Over time, though he would die before admitting it to anyone, he'd even begun to almost like her.

So, when he exited his car, Jasper nodded in greeting to the new couple from across the parking lot before turning to his own social circle in the parking space next to his own. The teens were gathered around admiring Benjamin's new car that he'd won in a race just a few weeks prior. Maria, one of his oldest friends having grown up in the same neighborhood, was already stretched out across the hood leaning back against the windshield. A cigarette burned from its place tucked loosely between her fingers as she chatted with Lucy and Nettie about their plans for the afternoon once they'd ditched.

Jasper was well aware that most if any of the assembled teenagers would be ducking out before the end of the school day. Personally, he intended to be long gone as soon as Rosalie's attention was elsewhere. Which, judging by how engaged she seemed to be in her conversation with Benjamin and Randall on the mechanical details of the new car, wouldn't be long. However, he was already here, and it wouldn't hurt to at least stay for first period. So he elected to join in on Riley, Makenna, and Charles's conversation about the new Buddy Holly single.

Jasper had just made plans with the latter two to head to the local diner later and play the song on the jukebox when Peter, followed closely by Charlotte, headed over to collect his best friend for homeroom. Bidding his friends goodbye, Jasper followed the other boy, his girlfriends, and the group of students she associated with into the building where their lockers were located. As always, because lockers were assigned alphabetically by surname, Peter and Jasper's lockers were right next to each other. 

Not planning on being an active student, let alone showing up at school more often than necessary, Jasper hadn't brought alone anything to warrant keeping in a locker. So, he took a seat on a bench located under a window next to the set of lockers letting the other teens chat as they placed their belonging in the metal storage structures. 

"Is that Mary-Alice?" Eric Yorke, a rather talkative and, in Jasper's opinion, annoying boy gasped out capturing his and Charlotte's attention. The latter turned away from her conversation with Bella and Jane to look at the boy in confusion. 

Charlotte had known her best friend was back in town, but when they'd spoken earlier Alice, as she'd decided to begin going by dropping the first half of her name, had stated her parents would allow the tiny teen to skip the first week of classes. Being an exceptional student well on the way to becoming valedictorian, and taking the incident into consideration, the school had happily accommodated.

"I thought you said she wasn't coming back until next week Char?" Bella spoke quietly, her eyes now following the same trajectory of Eric's

"Looks like the reign of Charlotte is over." Mike snickered, also staring at the top of the stairwell. Following her friends' gaze, Charlotte's expression quickly morphed from one of confusion to that of utter delight. 

Jasper didn't care much for the particulars of high school politics. Prior to Peter's entanglement with Charlotte, the name Mary-Alice had been nothing more than a blip on his radar. The two ran in vastly different circles, he being a proud greaser surrounding himself with like-minded truants who cared more about races and the newest records than anything else. She, a spoiled overachiever. The goody-two-shoes type who headed every committee whose word the majority of student's hung on. Still, even he'd noticed when the girl had disappeared a year ago. So, he turned his attention to the sight that had captured everyone's attention, curious as to what the commotion was about.

 He was met with the sight of a girl who's smile was so pure she almost seemed to glow. Short despite her blatant attempt to make up the difference with the kitten heels she wore. Her slightly curly hair was a chocolate-colored brown rested just short of her chin. Based on the perfect angles of her collar and the way she kept nervously smoothing out her skirt, it was apparent that she'd taken great care to ensure every aspect of her appearance was perfect. His dislike for the teen was instant; he hardly tried to hide the scowl from his face as he watched her scan the hallway. Once her blue eyes landed upon the small group, she burst into a bright smile and a somehow graceful run down the stairwell.

"Charlotte!" Alice exclaimed in a melodic chirp as she reached the gathering. 

"Alice!" The taller girl responded with equal enthusiasm throwing her arms around her friend. "What are you doing at school?" She questioned the smile never leaving her face as she released her friend.

"Papa thought it might be best to just jump right in if I was up for it since I'm home already." Her smile faltered at the statement but returned quickly. "Who are our new friends?" She asked catching sight of Jasper and Peter eyeing the two with curiosity. The former of whom rolled his eyes at the assumption, he was not nor would her ever be her friend.

Jasper opened his mouth to inform this 'Mary-Alice' of as much, but Charlotte responded before he could get the words out. "Alice," She stated grabbing Peter's hand. "This is Peter, my boyfriend. And that's his best friend Jasper."

"Wow," Alice's eyes widened. "I have missed a lot. It's lovely to meet you both." She smiled once again as she took a seat on the bench next to Jasper, expertly tucking her skirt underneath her slim legs as she descended. "The four of us should go bowling after school; I'd love to get to know the both of you better."

Jasper's annoyance grew at the suggestion, unable to put up with anymore he stood in a haste. "That's never going to happen." He shot the small girl a glare and stormed down the hall out of the building. Forget Rosalie, he thought approaching his vehicle in the parking lot. Forget school, and most of all forget Mary-Alice Brandon.

[ardenttheories]

To add another to the BS tally of HS2: what’s with all the political matters all of the sudden? ACAB Vriska (I don’t know how that happened and I don’t wanna know), facist Jane, rebellions... HS did have those political matters, sure, but it wasn’t scrubbed against your poor face with Equius levels of strength. Yet I swear the Epilogues and HS2 are half politics half misc fuckery. Whatever happened with playing a godly game and random shenanigans? Oh wait HS2 also has that! Badly done! Bluh.

I don’t think including political matters into fiction is an inherently bad concept; it can be one of the best ways to immortalise current events and to encourage discussion about them, and Homestuck has never really shied away from political discourse (such as Caliborn’s rampant misogyny, the facist dictatorship of HIC, both on Alternia and on Earth Alpha, and the entirety of the hemospectrum being an anaolgy for real life racism and classism, as well as the multiple rebellions against HIC in Alternian history). 

However, it was often handled a lot better, and wasn’t so fucking heavy-handed. Hussie incorporated these issues a little more naturally, explained them in much better and much more subtle terms. The hemospectrum is definitely something we can relate to our own world, but it’s also just a cool piece of lore for the trolls that makes them a completely unique species. Caliborn’s rampant misogyny is a fun prod at the type of men you find on the internet who are just... like that, and making him a villain was both fitting and making him childish about it was a good way to belittle the point of view he was presenting. And the rebellions on Alternia? Things like Feferi wanting to make things better, but also being morally grey about it herself? It was naturally integrated into the lore of Alternia and into Feferi’s personality as a whole.

Overall, it was just more palpatable because it flowed with the tone of Homestuck. It was presented as part of the lore, as part of the characters, in such a way that it won’t seem like Homestuck has a lot of politics in it unless you pick up on the IRL parallels. But the parallels are there, are intentional, and are firm - and it’s an amazing point of discussion in and of itself, really, when you dive into it. 

The Homestuck^2 team have... a lot less tact about it. They’re going less for natural progression and more for what will shock and horrify. They want it to be as much of a slog to get through as possible, as blunt and brutal as they can make it, which is okay, I guess, and gets the point across, but being so outright about it isn’t... the best way to do it. It doesn’t fit in with the rest of the themes of Homestuck; it’s clearly something that isn’t meant to fit in; it’s clearly something that has been crowbared in from our own world. This, admittedly, is just really bad storycrafting. It ruins the immersion of the text, which is why it’s now so obvious that it’s a “political text”; Homestuck has always had moments like this, but never so out of place. 

And, in general, while it’s good to include politics into media and to appeal more widely to an audience with genuine real life issues, giving them more traction and showing your solidarity with a point of view, you do still have to remember that, like... people read fiction to get AWAY from the world. Sometimes, shoving in harsh and clearly abrasive reminders of what’s going on in the world around your readers isn’t going to go down very well, and can come across as extremely tone deaf (especially since at least Kate seems to be focused more on ACAB as a statement and a non-race-related protest rather than part of the Black Lives Matter movement, which deeply diminishes the fact that ACAB because of the violence they commit especially towards people of colour). 

On top of this, in Homestuck, any negative political commentary wasn’t done with the villains being characters we loved. 

Like, there’s an inherent difference between recognising that HIC is, for lack of a better analogy, like Trump - someone who has always had power, was always born into power, and who got power and went too fucking far off the deep end because they were corrupt to begin with - and watching Jane just... go so violently against everything that we as fans love - which, while not perfect, would be a bit like if Obama suddenly turned around during his presidency and said “close off the boarders, get rid of health care, let the poor die”. It’s not shocking and deeply expected from someone like HIC. It’s deeply shocking and disturbing from someone like Jane. 

It also lessens the point you’re trying to make with ruined character development. People are so lost and confused over Jane suddenly being a fascist that anything they could be trying to say ABOUT facism is being talked over by fandom feelings of betrayal. The joke they made out of Karkat being a Solid Snake ripoff gives no credit towards anything they’re trying to make out of the rebellion. 

In fiction, it’s almost always better to parallel real life issues with clearly defined traits; a villain and a hero. HIC is a villain. Jane is a hero. You can add in morally grey characters, of course, especially those in positions of power, because things aren’t always so well defined - but for something like politics, we’re well aware that there are Good Guys and Bad Guys, or at least Bad Guys and Even Fucking Worse Guys. And we know, for instance, that these people are almost always RAISED to be racist, to be xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, abelist, classist, murderers - it’s in every ounce of their blood to continue white supremacy because it benefits them most. 

So the fact that Jane is now suddenly a villain, for no actual reason - without a full character arc, without any real justification, she just takes over and all of a sudden she’s paranoid about trolls and being incredibly xenophobic from the start - is what people are going to focus on most. They’ve upheaved so fucking much, it’s almost impossible not to look at the upheaval and to make that the point focus of attention. Like, how much clearer could it be that they’re making Jane a portrayal of white people in power despite the characters supposedly being aracial? And where the fuck did any of this come from? Why are such important and VERY close-to-home topics being thrust onto a character that we used to associate with? Why are they putting Jane up onto the rung of fucking Trump, when they could have chosen a completely new character for this to have been and actually gotten their point across away from the hurt fury of “what the fuck did you do to Jane?”

When you do something like this, you seriously run the risk of detracting away from the point you’re trying to make - which is exactly what’s happened. 

Unless, of course, there’s no fucking point at all. A lot of HS^2′s writing focuses on the “nitty gritty of being an adult”, so there’s a fairly big potential that this... isn’t meant to reflect on anything in specific. It might just be what the writers think are “adult issues”, which, again, almost completely discredits the entire fucking point they’re trying to make. They might be doing this just to be shocking, to be upsetting, because they know ruining Jane will piss a lot of people off - and how much does that undermine the very real issue of facism when a lot of what’s going on in HS^2 is happening in our world right now? 

This isn’t the sort of climate where you just turn someone into a fascist to be shocking. Not when real world fascism is on the rise and becoming more violent. That goes beyond shocking - it’s upsetting and tone deaf and horrifying, actually.

But, yeah. Homestuck has always has politics involved at its very core, like you said. It’s just that it was handled a damn slight better than whatever the fuck’s happening in HS^2 now.

[aion-rsa]

Doctor Who: Why Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor Needs an ‘Everybody Lives!’ Moment

https://ift.tt/39pw5MX

Doctor Who! The children’s own show that adults adore.

Doctor Who, as a format, requires an intrinsic joyfulness in its stories to be so adored. If adventures become too continually grim, or not sufficiently fun, then ultimately there’ll be a tipping point where it becomes implausible for the story to continue. Why, ultimately, would the character keep travelling if they weren’t enjoying it? And even if they did, would this be something that would sustain a family audience?

It’s not that you can’t have darkness in Doctor Who, it’s just that it can’t be sustained and eventually something has to give. As such, there’s an inherent optimism in a lot of Doctor Who, even in episodes where it isn’t high in the mix. For the show to make sense, there has to be some hope that wrongs can be righted.

For example: even though William Hartnell’s Doctor starts off trying break his own programme by getting rid of Ian and Barbara as quickly as possible, the show quickly settles into “a great spirit of adventure”; the Second Doctor comforting a grieving Victoria by pointing out that “nobody else in the universe can do what we’re doing” followed by the Doctor letting Victoria leave the TARDIS because it’s the best thing for her. In both cases, the gesture is one of compassion. The Fourth Doctor refers to Sarah Jane Smith as his best friend and she only leaves because he has to go somewhere she can’t (His home planet of Gallifrey, something that on original broadcast had more dramatic weight as he’d only visited it once before in the series and then been forced into regeneration and exile).

When Russell T. Davies relaunched the show in 2005, the unspoken idea became explicit. “Can I just say: travelling with you…I love it,” says Rose Tyler, who – despite portentous trailer statements – survived her travels. In episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures Russell T. Davies expanded on the Tenth Doctor’s victory lap in ‘The End of Time‘ to make it more celebratory, giving past companions happy endings (some in stark contrast to their grim fates in Nineties’ spin-off media). The departures of Rose and Donna are tragic, but the journeys to get there are framed in terms of joy and excitement.

The next showrunner, Steven Moffat, preferred happy endings. Companions had previously been married off (Susan, Vicki, Jo, Leela, Peri) as they left the show. Amy Pond got married and stayed, travelling with her husband. This was a leap forward, but unfortunately the following series’ pregnancy storyline was handled poorly and attempts to deal with its repercussions were not successful either. Clara, the next companion, dared to be like the Doctor but unlike Donna managed to both die and have a happy ending.

Moffat enjoyed Immortal LGBT+ Women Having Adventures in Space so much that he used it again for Bill Potts in Series 10. An important aspect of both characters’ storylines is that they suffer a terrible fate, but the version of Doctor Who in which companions die is rejected in favour of one where they get what they live happily ever after. Moffat, a comedy writer to his core, was unwilling to make Doctor Who a story where travelling on the TARDIS left you in a worse place. Davies also tried to give his companions happy endings of sorts to ameliorate their loss.

If we look at the populist peaks of the show, Doctor Who has never been overwhelmingly cynical. Whenever it’s been taken in a darker direction it usually rejects that approach in favour of a lighter balance. In Season 21 the show put its characters through a series of almost unrelenting grimness (‘The Awakening’, the story where a demonic entity attempts to get an entire village to slaughter each other is the light and fluffy one) culminating in the Fifth Doctor’s heroic regeneration story ‘The Caves of Androzani’– voted the best Doctor Who story in several polls – where the Doctor goes to extreme lengths to save his companion and distances himself from the violence that surrounds him.

And then in the next story ‘The Twin Dilemma’, the Sixth Doctor strangles his companion.

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Taking ‘Grimdark’ storytelling to mean stories in which violence and misery is perpetuated throughout the story universe in a seemingly never-ending cycle, that period in the show’s history is a perfect example of it. Why diminish one of the finest stories ever by immediately negating the heroism involved? Why would you have the main character reject the violence that he’d become a part of only to immediately embrace it again? Among the many problems it means we have a Doctor/companion relationship that seems grim at best. Why would you keep travelling with someone who strangled you, refused to apologise and then continually harangues and shouts at you? I don’t watch Doctor Who to see the companion trapped in an abusive relationship. I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that the ratings went down as the production team systematically removed as much hope from the show as possible, ridding it of that great spirit of adventure. After ‘The Twin Dilemma’,the show was put on hiatus, and ultimately cancelled.   

Which brings me to the current version of the show.

I don’t think Jodie Whittaker is miscast or that the current version of the show is woke nonsense – which is a relief because I think using the phrase ‘woke nonsense’ unironically is quite the red flag. I think that the enthusiasm Jodie Whittaker has for the part hasn’t been used well, because we currently have a Doctor who is great at showing unabashed joy travelling the universe, but whose stories lean towards grimdark and don’t give her anything approaching ‘Everybody lives!’

One of the most lauded episodes in Series 11 is ‘Rosa’, which was co-written by Malorie Blackman and showrunner Chris Chibnall. In it, the TARDIS crew see Rosa Parks in the run-up to her being arrested for violating segregation laws, and need to stop Krasko – a mass murderer from the future – interfering in this event and stopping it from happening.

The inclusion of Krasko makes an interesting and depressing point in this story, and I’d be fascinated to know the villain’s development in the writing process. For what we have here is a story about an important act of defiance that changed human history, and is celebrated for its impact, alongside an acknowledgement that there will still be racists in the future. In fact, there will be racists who murder 2,000 people in the future. Racism and its associated violence is not, the episode says, going to go away.

In isolation this might seem like optimism tempered with caution, but since Chris Chibnall became showrunner, edgy, provocative ideas have crept in and given stories a cynical edge. Small moments have a cumulative effect, such as Epzo’s story about his mother in ‘The Ghost Monument’, Robertson surviving ‘Arachnids in the UK’ without learning any moral lessons and indeed likely to cause more suffering, ‘Kerblam!’ ending with the system that blew up an innocent woman being allowed to continue (while closing the warehouse for four weeks and offering employees two weeks’ holiday pay), Daniel Barton escaping freely in ‘Spyfall’ while the Doctor wipes the memories of someone doomed to die, ‘Orphan 55’ shows us the unavoidable destruction of the human race, as does ‘Ascension of the Cybermen’. Under Moffat, we had some episodes ending with cynical quips that left a bad taste in the mouth, but under Chibnall the bad taste is there before the outro quip.

Series 11 showed us a joyful Doctor in a nasty universe, and the latter regularly overwhelms the former, but at least ended with Graham and Ryan clearly rejecting murder as a solution. Series 12 was less focussed on real-world evils, and uses them on the fringes of its storytelling (with the Doctor now seemingly embroiled in the universe’s cynicism, using Nazis to imprison a Master now played by a British Indian actor), but we’re still getting real issues reflected back at us along with the message that the Doctorcannot sort this, which is based on the false assumption that this is what Doctor Who is for.

I hope that this is building towards a reversal, that the Thirteenth Doctor gets her Androzani moment where she gets to take a stand against everything that she’s seen. However, we have now had a fully grimdark finale as the lasting impression of Doctor Who for nine months. ‘The Timeless Children’ has proven controversial for its approach to continuity; as well as the retcon of the Doctor’s history this was a ‘Twin Dilemma’(also the last story in its season) to ‘The Day of the Doctor’s Androzani. The heroism is now nullified. When we watch ‘The Day of the Doctor’and the day is saved at the end of the story, now we know all the Doctor has done is defer those deaths (those two billion children’s deaths) and the cycle of violence will continue. At the end of ‘The Timeless Children’the following is presented to us as the good guys winning:

The heroine cannot bring herself to destroy the animated corpses of her entire species, so Joe from Derry Girls has to do it for her. An entire planet now a lifeless husk. The main character’s centuries of trauma are revealed. Their best friend is now a genocidal maniac.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

This is Doctor Who in 2020: violent, cynical, cyclical. A mirror when it should be a window. If Series 13 repeats these trends then I fear history may repeat itself once more. But then, what is Doctor Who mostly about if not seeing a cycle of oppression and then breaking it?

The post Doctor Who: Why Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor Needs an ‘Everybody Lives!’ Moment appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[maddie-grove]

My Top Ten Victorian (Ish) Romance Novels

Notes: Queen Victoria’s reign lasted from 1837 to 1901, but I learned in a literature class that sometimes the Victorian era is defined as lasting from 1832 (when the First Reform Act was passed) to 1901 (when Victoria died). When it comes to historical romance novels, I think the second definition works better; a romance set in 1831 usually comes at the tail end of a series or universe beginning in the 1810s/1820s and still has a Regency flavor, while a romance set 1832-1836 has a decidedly non-Regency feel. Incidentally, I’ve noticed that 1830s-set Harlequin Historicals are labeled “1830s,” rather than “Regency” or “Victorian.” No one knows what to do with the 1830s! Also, many of these novels are set in the USA. Three are specifically set in Chicago, which is kind of weird!

1. The Heiress Effect by Courtney Milan (2013) 

Exact Setting: 1860s England.

Premise: Politician Oliver Marshall has ambitions of enacting egalitarian laws, including the proposed Second Reform Bill, but his illegitimate birth and non-aristocratic upbringing make that an uphill battle. Then a marquess makes him a peculiar offer: in exchange for supporting the Second Reform Bill, he wants Oliver to publicly humiliate Jane Fairfield, an heiress who is despised by high society for her bad taste and oblivious rudeness. Oliver, too often the object of aristocratic bullying, has no desire to harm Jane, but he doesn’t feel that he can refuse the marquess outright. Then he realizes that Jane isn’t what she seems; instead, she’s a brave, clever, lonely woman who’s putting on an act so she can stay unmarried and continue protecting her younger sister. Also, he likes her and finds her wildly attractive, despite her nightmarish fashion sense.

Why I Like It: This is my favorite romance EVER. Jane is an all-time-great heroine: intelligent enough to engineer a complicated marriage-repellent scheme (and change it when circumstances require), strong enough to expose herself to ridicule out in the world (and come home to an uncle who thinks she’s inherently a bad person), and vulnerable enough to break your heart. Oliver, a bruised idealist who must reassess his go-along-to-get-along approach, is nearly as compelling. Their romance is full of top-notch banter and solidarity in the face of a world that wants them to be enemies. And there are almost too many excellent subplots to count: Jane’s sister’s secret romance with an Indian student at Cambridge, Oliver’s younger sister’s foray into activism, and Jane’s brittle frenemy-ship with the Johnson twins, to name a few.

Favorite Scene: The first time Jane drops her act in front of Oliver, or the defeat of the marquess.

2. A Hope Divided by Alyssa Cole (2017)

Exact Setting: North Carolina, USA, during the Civil War.

Premise: Marlie Lynch's life has always been complicated. The daughter of a free Afro-Caribbean root worker, she spent half her childhood with her mother before being sent to live with her white paternal relatives. Now she works for two different secret organizations: the Underground Railroad (with the help and approval of her white abolitionist sister) and the black-Unionist-run spying organization the Loyal League (with the knowledge of no one). When she’s not doing that, she’s pursuing her scientific interests while still honoring and using her late mother’s rootworking practices. Her situation becomes even more fraught when she agrees to harbor Ewan McCall, an escaped Union POW, in a secret chamber behind her bedroom wall. They bond over their shared intellectual interests, but is there any time for romance when Marlie’s home is being overrun by loathsome Confederates?

Why I Like It: Many historical romances have good love stories but don’t do much with the setting, while a few excel at portraying the past but fail at creating a compelling central relationship. Alyssa Cole’s Loyal League novels are the total package, and the Southern-Gothic-tinged A Hope Divided is the standout among them. Marlie and Ewan’s courtship is portrayed with tenderness, intelligence, and delicacy. Cole brings just as much sharpness and nuance to her portrayal of the time and place, representing groups of people who tend to disappear in popular discussions about the Civil War. I also really appreciate Ewan as a character. His mind works differently from most people’s (in that he would probably now be considered to be on the autism spectrum), and he worries that he’s a bad person because he doesn’t feel a lot of angst about some morally complicated decisions he made in the past. The narrative does a good job of showing that Ewan is no better or worse than anyone else for using tools other than empathy in his moral reasoning. Also, Marlie is a top-tier Gothic heroine.

Favorite Scene: Marlie reflects on the villain’s oh-so-convenient conception of Southern womanhood. I’m also a big fan of the entirety of the bedroom-wall courtship.

3. The Suffragette Scandal by Courtney Milan (2014)

Exact Setting: 1870s England.

Premise: After his hateful father and self-serving brother abandoned him to a grisly fate in war-torn Strasbourg, Edward Delacey narrowly survived, with his faith in himself and the world around him shattered. Now he’s back in England, and his younger brother stands to inherit the viscountcy that legally belongs to him. He’s not interested in the title; however, he does feel compelled to stop his brother from ruining the life of Frederica Marshall, a daring investigative reporter who writes about discrimination against women. As he lends his (jaded, reluctant) assistance, Frederica’s optimism begins to infect him...and that’s not the only reason he wants to stay around her.

Why I Like It: I love Frederica as Oliver’s little sister in The Heiress Effect, and she’s even better as the cocksure firebrand heroine of her own story. It’s rare that a heroine is allowed to be so successful in her chosen field at the beginning of a romance novel, but Milan accomplishes this while still giving Frederica enough vulnerabilities and flaws to make her interesting. Yet Edward, a wounded cynic who chooses to do good despite believing that he’s a garbage bag and the world is a shit-pile, is what really pushes the novel to all-time-great status. Their story is a wonderful illustration of the best things that love can do; his faith in the world is revived by her ideals, and her worst impulses are tempered by hearing about the lessons he’s learned in his darkest moments. Plus, they have some really funny banter. 

Favorite Scene: Edward explains why torture is ineffective and wrong. (I put years of hard work into getting my torture degree at torture college! Fuck off!)

4. After the Wedding by Courtney Milan (2018)

Exact Setting: 1860s England. 

Premise: After her father was accused of treason and committed suicide, Lady Camilla Worth was passed from home to increasingly shabby home, eventually fading into obscurity as Camilla Winters, a housemaid in a corrupt clergyman’s home. Adrian Hunter, the son of a black abolitionist activist and a white duke’s daughter, is visiting the clergyman in disguise to gather information when he and Camilla fall victim to a dastardly plot. Force to wed at literal gunpoint and thrown out of the house, they must work together to annul their marriage and get to the bottom of the clergyman’s sinister doings. 

Why I Like It: Camilla is the first bisexual heroine I ever encountered in romance, so I was already primed to love her, but it would’ve happened regardless of her orientation. Desperate for any kind of affection after losing her family in a particularly cruel way, her struggle to find love while trying to protect herself is extremely moving. Adrian also has an affecting arc, in which he learns how to let go of family members who don’t really care about him and acknowledge his grief for his brothers who died in the Civil War. Finally, the conspiracy plot is absolutely explosive.

Favorite Scene: Camilla deals with trauma through legal research. 

5. An Unconditional Freedom by Alyssa Cole (2019)

Exact Setting: USA (mainly Illinois and Mississippi) during the Civil War.

Premise: Daniel Cumberland once believed that freedom and justice would prevail for black people in America, but then he was kidnapped and enslaved for several months. Now free, he works for the Loyal League, fueled not by hope but by pure rage. Janeta Sanchez, a mixed-race Cuban-Floridian lady from a wealthy Confederate family, is also working for the Loyal League...as a double agent, because she believes that’s the only way to save her father. Paired with Daniel to gather intelligence about possible European aid, she begins to question her loyalties as she sees more of the world and gets to know the people her hypocritical white family has kept her away from. Daniel, meanwhile, begins to see a way of coping with his trauma and an uncertain future.

Why I Like It: Historical romance often shies away from the worst parts of history, or at least frames them as remaining firmly in the past. Alyssa Cole not only starkly portrays the horrors of American slavery, but also confronts head-on the terrifying realization that things do not inevitably improve over time. Yet Cole’s frankness doesn’t reduce the novel to a horror show; there is plenty of joy and kindness and hard-won hope between Daniel and Janeta. Deceived and guilted by her family into supporting an appalling cause that hurts her, Janeta is a complex heroine who develops wonderfully throughout the novel. Daniel is also one of the best-written heroes in romance. Finally, as in A Hope Divided, Cole sheds light on an aspect of the Civil War (the involvement of Europe) that doesn’t get a lot of attention in popular culture.

Favorite Scene: Janeta and Daniel talk alone for the first time.

6. Wild at Heart by Patricia Gaffney (1997)

Exact Setting: 1890s USA (Chicago, Illinois).

Premise: Lost as a child and raised by wolves in the wilds of Canada, the Lost Man has been discovered by “civilized” people and forced to “live” with a Chicago anthropologist for study. (Really, he’s being held captive.) Only Sydney Darrow, the anthropologist’s widowed daughter, has the sense/compassion to say, “Hey, maybe we should treat this man like a person and not keep him locked in a glorified cell where a disgruntled employee can taunt him.” She gently introduces the Lost Man back into human society, and the two find themselves getting along better and better. But can the Lost Man ever truly adjust to the human world? Or will he forever express his love by giving dead fish to people? Or is okay, sometimes, to express you love with dead fish?

Why I Like It: This is one of the most bizarre romances I’ve ever read. It sounds like a romance that someone made up for a sitcom. It sounds like a fever dream. It’s absolutely brilliant, too, because Gaffney commits. The Lost Man thinks of everything in animal terms; he accurately identifies Sydney’s aunt as the “dominant female” of the household, he has decided opinions about which animals are neat and which ones are pains in the ass, and he shows his love with a beautiful, freshly caught fish. There’s a real sense of loss in his arc; it’s necessary for him to transition into human society, but he’s also lost a beautiful, meaningful world. His romance with Sydney is also a great version of the Monster Boyfriend story; she’s the one who sees his humanity and recognizes many of his more “animal” traits as positive. The backdrop of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition is also charming.

Favorite Scene: Michael reflects on who’s hot (otters) and who’s not (wolverines) in the animal kingdom.

7. To Love and to Cherish by Patricia Gaffney (1995)

Exact Setting: 1850s England.

Premise: Jaded Anne Verlaine moves to the tiny village of Wyckerly after her wildly unhappy and unpleasant husband Geoffrey inherits a viscountcy. They’re greeted by Christian “Christy” Morrell, the local vicar and Geoffrey’s childhood best friend. Christy is dismayed to see the man Geoffrey has become, but he’s even more disconcerted by the attraction he feels for Anne...who returns his feelings.

Why I Like It: Although she stopped writing historical romance in the late nineties, Patricia Gaffney remains one of the most stylistically inventive and emotionally intense authors in the sub-genre. Anne, a warm and witty bohemian atheist, is a wonderfully unique heroine, while the sweet and scrupulous Christy is a similarly refreshing hero (and, really, an ideal clergyman, with high standards for himself and hardly a judgmental thought towards others). Despite the (delicious) angst involved in their relationship, they’re one of the most convincingly happy couples I’ve seen in romance; they don’t just grow close because of sexual chemistry or their shared complicated feelings about Geoffrey, but also because of their shared interests, oddly compatible senses of humor, and respect for each others’ differences. The village of Wyckerly is vividly portrayed, plus Gaffney makes great use of Anne’s writings and correspondence with Christy to shape the narrative.

Favorite Scene: Anne gets angry with Christy for being so good in the face of Geoffrey’s bullshit. 

8. Silk Is for Seduction by Loretta Chase (2011)

Exact Setting: Mid-1830s England and France.

Premise: After emigrating from Paris to London, Marcelline Noirot and her two younger sisters started a dress shop catering to newly rich and middle-class women. Thanks to Marcelline’s innovative designs and her sisters’ sales/accounting skills, they now stand a chance to be the favorite shop of the entire aristocracy...but first they need an early adopter. Help comes in the form of Lady Clara Fairfax, a beautiful but dowdily dressed girl who’s starting to have doubts about her perfect-on-paper betrothed, the Duke of Clevedon. As Marcelline devises a new wardrobe for Clara and spends more time with Clevedon, it becomes more and more clear that Clevedon is perfect...for Marcelline.

Why I Like It: I’m a simple woman; I like elaborate descriptions of over-the-top 1830s fashion. What’s more, I love Marcelline. She’s a fully realized character with interests, talents, and history that have nothing to do with Clevedon; she misses the sweet husband she lost to an epidemic, is anxious to build a future for her young daughter and her sisters, and spends a lot of the book demonstrating her talents in gorgeous detail. Just like the massive gigot sleeves on her dresses, she takes up space. Overall, the romance resembles a really good 1930s romantic comedy; Clevedon is a great straight man, the love triangle is elegantly resolved, and everything just feels beautiful. 

Favorite Scene: In one of the best sex scenes in romance, Marcelline tells Clevedon that she loves him, knows they don’t have a future, and wants him for one last night just the same.

9. The Hostage by Susan Wiggs (2000)

Exact Setting: 1870s USA (Chicago, Illinois and Isle Royale, Michigan)

Premise: Beautiful new-money heiress Deborah Sinclair has always done what’s expected of her. When her aristocratic betrothed shows his true colors, though, she works up the courage to tell her dad that she wants out. Unfortunately, Mr. Sinclair is not receptive...and the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 is literally happening around them...and this random dude just showed up to kidnap her in all the chaos! Before she knows it, she’s on a boat to remote Isle Royale with Tom Silver, a rugged frontiersman who lost many of his friends and his adopted son in a mining accident caused by Mr. Sinclair’s negligence. Because Mr. Sinclair was found not legally liable, Tom has resorted to holding Deborah for ransom. Although he has no desire to harm her, he’s prepared to hate the daughter of his greatest enemy; she’s also not too fond of him, given that he kidnapped her and all. As they wait for Mr. Sinclair’s reply on Isle Royale, however, they get to know each other better.

Why I Like It: I never thought I’d love a kidnapping romance that wasn’t Beauty and the Beast, but Susan Wiggs can sell me on pretty much anything. (It helps that Tom has excellent motives, yet isn’t validated by the narrative for choosing to kidnap Deborah.) This is one of the best adventure-romances that I’ve ever read; much of the first act is an incredibly tense, complicated chase sequence through the flaming inferno of Chicago, while the later chapters consist of their trying to survive together on Isle Royale in the depths of winter. The emotional  journeys of the characters are just as compelling as their physical ones. One of my favorite romance tropes is when one protagonist feels like they should hate the other one, but instead ends up going “wow, this person is obviously not doing okay...wait, am I worried? Should I help them? Actually, I kind of admire them now???” The Hostage has this trope in abundance.

Favorite Scene: The entire part where they’re trapped on Isle Royale together. So many survival details! So cathartic!

10. The Firebrand by Susan Wiggs (2001)

Exact Setting: 1870s USA (Chicago, Illinois)

Premise: Outspoken and awkward, Lucy Hathaway (Deborah Sinclair’s BFF) is a failure at being a lady, but she’s far too passionate about women’s suffrage and dress reform to care (much) about society’s scorn. On the night of the Great Chicago Fire, her world is upended in two ways: her family loses most of their money, and she catches a baby who got thrown out of a burning hotel window. Years later, she’s a kick-ass activist and single mom running a proto-feminist bookstore. Then she learns that her daughter’s father, banker Randall Higgins, is still alive. Once a proud, thoroughly conventional family man, Rand has been a practical recluse since the fire that scarred his face, ended his marriage, and (he thought) killed his daughter. He’s overjoyed to have his daughter back, but now he and Lucy must figure out a way to raise the child that they both love so much.

Why I Like It: I was worried when I began this novel, because Rand starts out as a smug, boring sexist who thinks that a woman’s place is in the home. I would probably hate the book if Rand didn’t end up completely changing his worldview, agreeing with Lucy’s parenting methods, and risking the wrath of his bank colleagues by joining Lucy at a protest. As it is, Rand’s character development is incredibly satisfying, particularly because it’s emotionally realistic. (Instead of being swayed entirely by romantic love or overwhelmed by Lucy’s vast superiority, he learns to see things from her perspective and recognizes that her actions make the world a better place.) Lucy, for her part, is probably one of my top ten heroines. She’s an active, thoroughly engaged progressive who listens to people more marginalized than her without making a big show of it; she’s a thoughtful mom who genuinely likes her weird kid; and she’s got massive insecurities and a stubborn streak that keep her from being too perfect. 

Favorite Scene: Rand sees Lucy’s ideals reflected in their daughter’s response to his kind-of-messed-up face.

Further Note: Is Victorianish my favorite type of historical romance? I think it is!

[wakraya]

i think a lot of the negativity around hs2 is that the villains, jane and dirk, arent rly meant to be related to. they suck in very real ways, which makes them good villains, but seeing them turn from relatable and interesting characters as teens into adults who just suck, like, seriously a lot definitely hurts. i have a lot of complicated feelings on the post-canon content that ive been thinking abt lately and i think thats probably a big part of my discomfort tbh

Oh yeah, HS^2 and the Epilogues deal with a lot of negative bullshit that feels very real. I guess that is also why I like it? It sucks to see characters you liked fall into bad habits and do bad things. Cheating. Fascist ideals. Manipulative tendencies. Suicide. Abuse. It hits close to home BOTH because you know these characters like friends already, and because there’s a lot of stuff about it that feels poignantly directed at the current climate of the world.

And people use media for escapism, so being reminded of that kind of shittiness is not bad. But, remembering that people are Human- Yes, even the awful ones, and they have just made awful choices, and that doesn’t mean they’re inherently evil, that it’s never too late to take action and fight back against bad things going on in the world, that mending relationships and being kind to others is important... That is what makes me really like the Epilogues, and what has only been strengthened by the current content.

Really, the Epilogues are a good embodiment of the concept of the Doom Aspect. Shit... Sucks sometimes. It does. It sucks and it’s bad and there’s no masking or making it seem good. But that doesn’t mean everything has to be bad. It doesn’t mean we can’t stand together and push back against these limits, to bear it together, be stronger for it and overcome adversity. It just takes time, and we’re dealing with a serially-written Webcomic that is still being updated, of course there’s going to be ups and downs.

[dahniwitchoflight]

Homesquared Chapter 1

Alright so, Im back on the homesquared, whoo

also I got the patreon, but am only now realizing that since buying it literally on the last day of the month im getting charged 25 dollars now and another 25 in a couple hours at midnight when it becomes Jan 1 for the month of January. Never had Patreon before so whoops

Probably should have waited a bit on that? But on the other hand I did intend/budgeted to have gotten patreon sooner so same difference really. 

Anyone just gonna focus on Non Patreon Content in this post for obvious reason, so away we go!

Gotta love the immediate comparison to Dirk’s “Plants are a man’s best friend” speech from Jake lol

“Plants, Jake has decided, are really the best sort of chums. They are quiet, friendly, and easy to please. All they need is a little water and fresh earth, and they are perfectly happy to lie there all day in the sun. And they don’t make increasingly inhumane arms deals and appear on talk shows expounding on the dangers of interspecies marriage. They have never, as far as Jake knows, fucked a clown.”

Not as bad as Dirk’s “I like it when people are helpess against me” but still not really a good view either with Jake’s “I like it when people are low maintenance and don’t expect much effort from me”

 I like the brackets being fully established as (Not Important) with the (==>)’s when really when you use them in text to me it always felt more like sidenote: (The Stuff in the brackets isn’t the main focus but still good to know before you continue on)

Theres a lot of Focus on Plants in general and therefore space in all of this speech and text as well, maybe a subtle nod to Calliope being in the text

“ JAKE: It appears that no matter what timeline were inhabiting i can count on you to be absolutely impenetrable! “

Dirk is a top and Jake is a bottom in their relationship, not surprising

Brain Ghost Dirk is hella mean, no idea if that’s more leaning towards that Jake hates himself or Dirk is generally an asshole but considering how BGD said he is both and the alcoholism im gonna go with both

But, the core of it is that BGD is how Jake is manifesting his Hope of something better in a hopeless situation, Hope generally meaning good times and happiness, but also delusions, so is this spy thing a good idea for Jake to do? Jake and (Dirk) certainly think so, but whats the real value in that?

also

Dirk: Your emotions don’t matter

Jake: Alright

nvm this is definitely a splinter of Dirk desperately crawling his way back to relevance through the only means available to him, so starved for attention of any kind at all that he dedicates two panels of himself sparkling and laying over a desk while pouring on about how distracting he is

“DIRK: It’s not because you’re a man. You’re a god.

JAKE: Oh right. That.

DIRK: The world comes first, even at the expense of all your relationships and personal happiness. That’s what being a hero means.

JAKE: I guess...i never really thought about it like that.“

Yeah, Dirk definitely manipulating Jake for his own ends, which is a shame, because I’d always imagined BGD to be that one sliver of Dirk representing the good in him since he was specifically a splinter created from NOT Dirk but Jake’s flattering impression of him, but a dirk is a dirk is a dirk I guess

“DIRK: Think what you want about Jane, but at least she realizes that none of you can ever be normal, and she never bothered to try. Can it really be a god-complex if you’re actually a god?

DIRK: People like us don’t get happy endings.“

So Dirk thinks because they are all actually Gods, that they would all inevitably fall into God Complexes because why wouldn’t they? And in doing so all becomes Villains because having a God Complex is the same thing as saying “My needs and wants matter and other people’s dont because I’m better than the lesser folks” Superiority train of thought, which is inherently evil way of thinking, and so naturally any act against that person to kill them would be just

But the problem is that’s how Dirk sees it, not how Jake sees it or anyone else, Jake had completely forgotten about his so called god powers and was content to drink and garden and dream for the rest of his life. 

Dirk is incorrect in that having god powers turns a Human into a God, it simply turns a Human into a Human who also has God Powers. Everything inherent to Humans but not to the ideal perfectional state of being that is “Godhood”, every human emotional imperfection and bias and state of being isn’t getting wiped away upon achieving God Hood like I suppose Dirk is believing about himself and the others.

Dirk is just so gosh damned narcissistic, that he believes that because his biases and way of thinking didn’t change when he achieved actual God powers and God Hood means that he was already correct about everything he wanted to believe and the way he is was already his ideal perfection, instead of the truth of the matter which is that nothing about his personality changed upon achieving godhood because it had nothing to do with that

Dirk just already had a God Complex from the beginning so he just didn’t notice any difference.

He thinking God in terms of Gnostic Monad god all knowing perfect personality and bias-less when really god hood in Homestuck is just like, Greek God hood, youre just a human being with fancy powers and abilities and the same ability to be kind or ruthless as it pleases you