#listening to the Wintersmith album again and remembering how much the idea of 'going to the dark' in Discworld

[scribefindegil]

addendum to my ongoing "Reigen is a Discworld witch" agenda: Mogami is very specifically a Discworld witch who went bad

[irenadel]

identity asks: 1 5 10 15 26 29

1. If someone wanted to really understand you, what would they read, watch, and listen to?

There’s a fairly unknown fantasy series called “The Time Master Trilogy” (with an extremely problematic and rapey sex scene :s) and I’ve always felt horribly identified with character of Cyllan. Alternately, an easier find would be Alice Munro’s short story “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage.” Both embody the same way I view myself and how I inhabit my body as a thing that should be ornamental and yet is not and how desperately and humiliatingly I wish it COULD be.

My terrible views on what I consider romantic (and everything I wish I could write when I’m writing a romance story) can best be viewed in the movie “The Princess and the Warrior” by Tom Tykwer. True love is when he gives you a tracheotomy. ❤️ My views on what friendship and school stories (two things I can’t stop wanting to write about) should be like are displayed in the movie “The Hairy Bird” by Sarah Kernochan.

The Cure was the first band I ever liked that wasn’t a happy, poppy, eighties band. It was and remains my one and only favorite band which I may forget from time to time but against which no others will ever compare. When I was a wee, angsty tween I decided Closedown from the album Disintegration was MY song and I’ve never had reason to regret my choice. To this day I wish I was as expansive, light, heartbreaking and generous as the beats of that song are. I still hear deep within myself “if only I could fill my heart with love.”

5. Do you think of yourself as a human being or a human doing? Do you identify yourself by the things you do?

I… actually really like this question. It pokes at a very raw part of myself. Because to a large extent I DO define myself by what I’ve managed to accomplish and in many ways that is still precious little, just the bare minimum of what I WISH I could do. And for a long time I was disgustingly and smugly proud of having set this standard for myself and others, that only what you DO matters and very little of what you SAY does.

It came about partially for good reasons, because for a long time I felt I had surrounded myself with people who were too proud of BEING smart and creative without actually DOING anything smart and creative, but also people who spoke of love very easily while not acting very loving.

I’m struggling with letting this standard go, because I feel it has made me a smaller and pettier person, with myself and with others. There’s a growing sense in the greater cultural consciousness that we have been lied to, when told that we can’t just be, and that we should always be struggling and hustling. I thought I had made a personal choice but I’m not so sure anymore…

10. Do you have a creed?

No… not really… I wasn’t raised religious and the last couple of years have been such a nonstop barrage of re-examining and reconstructing my idea of myself that I don’t think I know much about myself anymore. I’m mostly progressive, but also mostly non confrontational. I used to be a pacifist but I’m not sure anymore…

More than a creed I feel like I have a mantra: a little is better than nothing. A little activism is better than no activism. A little work on my dreams is better than no work at all. A little self-care is better than abandoning myself. A little empathy goes a long way…

15. Five most influential books over your lifetime.

I think those are the five books that taught me something I didn’t know before. So…

The Lord of the Rings trilogy, because that was my very first book. My dad used to tell it to me as a bed time story. A book of Tolkien illustrations was the first book I ever picked out by myself in a bookstore, long before I could read it on my own.

Lolita, because I didn’t know you could write like that without being a native English speaker, not just well but exquisitely. I can still quote my favorite lines by heart.

A Room of One’s Own, because I didn’t know you could write fiction to argue a point so eloquently. I never knew you could carry an argument so convolutedly and yet so masterfully across so many different fictional scenarios. I remember being obsessed with the word “incandescent” for a long time after reading it.

The Wintersmith and the Sandman series, because I didn’t know I wanted to write stories about stories before reading them.

26. How would you describe your gender / sexuality?

I am painfully average 🤦🏻‍♀️ painfully cisgender and straight…

….

When I was very young I felt sort of identified with the term pansexual. But I feel like the most honest truth is that the people I’m more likely to be attracted to are masculine presenting I guess? 🤷🏻‍♀️ I’ve only dated cisgender dudes but I don’t think that’s ALL I’m attracted to… I do still feel like my attraction is mostly targeted at personalities rather than physical appearance, at least in the real world. I like the occasional beefcake but if their brain is not sexy I don’t think I would be able to muster attraction.

In conclusion I’m way more confused about my orientation than my gender! Yay!

29. Three songs that you connect with right now.

I can’t stop listening to the reprise of Wait for Me from the musical Hadestown and feeling the deep, good chills every time I do.

I also keep drawing awesome fantasy art in my head to the tune of Constellations by the Oh Hellos.

And I got Lady Gaga’s Alejandro stuck in my brain again for some reason or another. And that one makes me weirdly emotional o_O