#my name signifies me but that doesn’t mean it’s deeply and inherently what i AM

[dearorpheus]

i just watched let the right one in and i think it's a movie you'd enjoy! have you ever seen it before?

hello!

yes, i have seen it! one of my favourites certainly, though maybe i don't deserve to use that word anymore, i have so many and am mostly indiscriminate with my love

there are a few standout aspects of this film that i adore and i'm going to write about them in point form rather than an essay-type format bc i don't want to commit to being cohesive

- we're introduced to Oskar at an influential time in his life in which it's demonstrated to us that he has no ally to rely on; his parents are mostly cold or emotionally absent and he's bullied at school. the relationship that develops between Eli and Oskar, against a backdrop of a snowed-under playground—metaphor for a childhood frozen in time—is a testament to the purity and potency of understanding someone else's desires, of empathising completely. Oskar wants to be strong, Eli can show him how; when her vampirism comes to light, Eli asks Oskar to be her for a bit and he does.

- Alfredson, the director, said that he "didn't want the grown-ups to be actively mean or evil-minded. [he] wanted them to be uninterested, floppy or ignorant, but always physically nearby the nasty events—if they'd just turned their heads a little..." and you feel this distinction. it creates a fissure between the two children and the adults in the film, and it precipitates them into their own little microcosm. the greatest example being the phys-ed teacher, who is manipulated into allowing the bullies access to the pool in the (!!!) penultimate scene, which to me, is reminiscent of the deferred and profoundly intentional violence that i had previously and primarily associated with del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth or Devil's Backbone. it's not until you see Håkan at the window that you're given access to the acid-burnt side of his face; the grotesquery of the wound is hidden until the audience needs to see it, until we need to understand the extent of what he's experienced. similarly, we're suspended in underwater silence with Oskar, made to count the passing seconds with him. that is, until we see a decapitated head drift down to the pool's floor, the disembodied arm's slowly unfurling fingers.

- speaking of, i LOVE the shot after Oskar breaches the water. the first time Oskar makes direct eye contact with another character in the film is with Eli.

we’ve seen "Oskar [hide] himself not only from the people around him, but also from the camera", as noted by the film's cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema. it's remarkable, then, that the first person he makes direct, albeit gradual eye contact with is Eli. a signifier of their bond as it develops, and as he begins to open up more to her. to conclude the film's most searing scene with pointed eye contact between the two has, for me, such a gratifying symmetry to it.

- I believe according to the book, the vampire who turned Eli—born biologically male and named Elias—castrated Eli and feasted on the wound. in the film it’s not really touched upon beyond a brief glimpse of genital scarring. for Oskar, it doesn’t matter:

“Do you like me?” “Yeah. I like you a lot.” “If I wasn’t a girl, would you like me?” “I suppose so.”

/

“Oskar, I’m not a girl.” “Oh. Well, do you want to go steady or not?”

he’s flippant towards it. the film doesn’t comment in any official capacity on it, and there’s no exposition. the sum of these aggregate parts makes it seem unremarkable, but it’s not. it’s inherently deeply complex in a way i’ve seldom grappled with in vampire canon. i admire how provocative this is (in terms of provoking thoughtful interaction with the subject), and the nuance with which Alfredson conducts this part of the narrative. 

[ziracona]

I am both kind of glad she didn't like. Spiral into thoughts or more realization of what exactly she's done to these people. But also not, because I love angst. So. Questions. Will she ever meet the other survivors? What will their interactions be like? Who do you think she gets along with most? Will she meet any other killers? (probs introduced by other survivors??) And also. A painful one but. Does the entity realize she's lying? Do you think you'll continue this story in anyway?

Haha, I feel that. Adiris certainly will hit that horror realization more completely than she did during her breakdown in the archives room. I think because of her realizations of both what she’s done and just how much danger she and they and everybody upstairs depending on her is in suddenly because of the truth, happening at the same, she had a whole lot of fear and anger in play (I was used and hurt and manipulated and lied to and made to suffer, whatever you[Not Nergal/Entity] are, you have been doing horrible stuff to innocent people for no good reason, my people have also been manipulated and lied to and forced to suffer, oh Gods what happens to us if he knows I know? What can I do to save my people and myself and these foreigners? Can I do anything?) and I think the immediacy of the parts of that she had to act on hit so hard it was her core focus, but next time she either is in a trial and has to method act through hunting down people she now knows are not murderers and infidels, or the first time she’s in a safer and more calm setting with the survivors and one of them mentions something, that will all uhhh, it’ll hit home. I’m sure. God, this poor woman.

Okay! For the questions.

“Will she ever meet the other survivors?”

Yes. Definitely, and all of them.

“What will those interactions be like?”

It’s hard to say since I haven’t written that yet, but probably exceedingly awkward. I think there’s a lot of inherent fear from them towards her, and like, how would you feel talking with someone you used to murder a lot because you thought they were the enemy? Nnnmnnnnn probably not great! TuT which is how she gon be feeling. I think she is very aware she’s coming from a place of power, and is also still super used to thinking of herself as a priestess/holy/kind of removed, so she’ll try to approach it like that. Reassuring, and thoughtful/careful to not be scary or threatening, but also in control and a little aloof. And probably after a little time with the survivors, who will all go from “Scary. D:” to “A curiosity but in a good way. Weird. Neat. Still kinda spooky.” to “I like her : )” and thinking of her the way they would any normal human (the normal version of the fkn speedrun Quentin & Dwight went through), she’ll have to adjust to being treated like a normal person, and the way 21st century humans act when they’re being casual and friendly—which honestly, not too different from being friendly throughout history, but sadly either way not something this girl is used to. I think it’ll be weird and she’ll be nervous to try shifting identities from one of the only two things she’s ever known how to be, and into normal human and friend, but that it’ll also be really welcome. Because she has literally never gotten to have a family or a normal life or a friend or any single goddamn healthy or even decent relationship with another living human being. And like, god, humans need that. On a DNA level—We die in isolation. And she hasn’t been “isolated,” but she’s been mostly isolated her whole life, and she sure as hell has never ever gotten to belong or have any kind of certainty or permanence in her relationship, even her spiritual ones. She needs that. She just needs someone to look at her, go: “There’s a human being right there, and I see who she is, and I think she’s very worthwhile. I would like to keep her in my life.” God, she needs that so, so badly. I don’t think she knows it, but she really, really, desperately does.

And she deserves it, too. None of the abandonments or alienations or failures in her life are things she did wrong. But when that kind of thing keeps happening to a person, it sure as hell makes them feel like it. So, haha, sorry, got carried away (the name of my memoir probably >.>). But I think she’d be awkward, and confused, and then nervous, because she’d be invited into something she has literally never had, doesn’t know how to do right, but also desperately wants without fully understanding, which is a terrifying combination to work with socially. But then deeply impacted and happy and moved. Also afraid—I mean, girl smiled without doing it on purpose one time and flipped out emotionally with no idea why, because every time she has felt attachment or sought belonging or thought she had it her whole life, she’s been routinely betrayed and abandoned. She’s a lot more than once burned. But after the initial fear, she would be a mixture of happy and very awkward, and then eventually hopefully just exceedingly happy and also proud of herself and confident. I listened to I’m Still Here from Treasure Planet a lot while writing Adiris. Like, a lot.

“Who do you think she gets along with most?”

Hmmm, well, Dwight and Quentin I think will always be special to her after the day in the temple. Claudette is a sweetie who will definitely try to help alleviate sickness symptoms and be maybe the single least afraid to touch her of all the survivors, and that can’t help but be meaningful. Meg & she have a lot of complimentary similar personality traits, Jeff is super kind & also a great artist so he’ll probably be group interpreter & she’ll be around him a lot, and since Tapp is 2 and 0 so far on drawing bullet barrel in friend luck Russian roulette and keeps befriending women with absentee fathers, I can only assume that means she will end up close with Tapp as well. It’s too funny for him not to be 3 & 0. The world itself demands it. Beyond that, I’d have to write interactions and see how they fall. 👈👈😎 (Also a large part of how she feels about Meg & maybe also Ace, possibly Nea too, maybe even Feng, will come down to how she feels about being flirted with shamelessly. F in the chat for my poor confused ancient Mesopotamian. 😔)

“Will she meet any other killers?”

Yes, definitely. And it will be very interesting to me to see that.

“Does the Entity’s realize she’s lying?”

No. It absolutely does not. Queen method acted hard enough to give herself trauma—the first person experience thoughts and narrative are what she lived, and luckily the Entity is an emotion sponge, not a mind reader. It may or may not have been aware Quentin & Dwight were in the room (legit just depends on if it decided to/thought to look, which I don’t know, because I didn’t need to to write the scene & it be like that sometimes, but regardless of if it did, the outcome is basically unchanged. Either it didn’t look because Adiris clearly wasn’t lying, from its POV, as she felt nothing but what she exhibited outwardly as well. Or it did look for them, saw they were under there, and thought nothing of it because it lined up with her story. She said they ran off. Wouldn’t be weird for them to go to the Archives to try to steal information, or hide, or even just get lost. And it had no reason to expose them if it did see, because if it had dragged them out, it would have had to do something Adiris would understand to them, and it’s really just easier to give itself time to figure out in what way to do its “Nergal the God” aftermath, than to do it right in the room on the spot. TLDR: No, it has no clue. She method acted the fuck out of that situation, and there was nothing weird to sense, so it didn’t. Queen out-bullshitted the Entity.

“Will you continue the story in any way?”

Harder question. Probably? Likely? Maybe? Hard to say. I would love to, but I also have four, five other stories right now? Ever since I made a dumb Fate joke about having four multipath AUs, my brain has been trying to convince me to adapt New Dawn Fades, From the Earth of No Return, and some fourth, as yet unchosen story, into full length monsters. But I might die. Like, y’all, ILM is a hunk of book. If I recall correctly from back when I saw my word count, got nervous, and looked stuff up, if I published a physical single volume copy of ILM, it would become the longest single volume book ever published in a physical single book form. Which I both kinda want to do now just for the knowledge of it, but also!!! That’s SO much, like, I don’t even know how that happened. Like I am immensely proud, but also kinda like wtf? Did I drug me?? And also mostly just because rip @ me that the longest work I have written is a fic I /can’t/ ever publish or include in a resume or reel or anything. :’-](Also, @ the speed readers who did ILM in under two weeks, HOW? And please teach me your absolutely terrifying powers). I don’t plan, even if I do full length stuff again, to make another ILM length one or something. But even then, full length is big! (Also I live in fear of saying this to myself, trying to write, and becoming:

Like u have no idea rip lol.) It takes a whole bunch of time to do books, and like, I do fic books because I love it! Like SO much. It has and does bring me great joy. But, it can get a liiiittle daunting too. It eats up most of my free time to all my free time, if I get super into it.

So yes, I would really like to adapt it further. I have the barest of bones for an outline, I even have two possible endings already envisioned and several major events more fleshed out! : D But if I do write more long-form full novels for DbD, even in more manageable sizes than their forebearer, I’d try to do them in the order I began. Which means Signifying Nothing—the prequel to ILM about Philip’s time with Vigo, Alex, & Benedict (which is a will do, not if), then New Dawn Fades (the ongoing fic I have on AO3 centered around Joey & Quentin’s relationship), then From the Earth of No Return. Which for the record, my soul very much wants to adapt. Every time I hear Brave Shine now, I see cool TV show opens for it in my head. TuT But I guess the best I can say is, “We’ll see”? Since fics aren’t like my paying job or smth, it depends largely on my personal & work life & how much time I have to devote to for-passion writing. So, I guess the short answer is I’d love to, and I hope to, I’d even say I think I intend to sometime, but I’m not completely certain I’ll be able.

[bemused-writer]

VNC Chapter 38.5 Meta

There was so much packed into this chapter! I am very excited... At any rate, here there be spoilers!

The first thing I want to go over is the demonic vampiric kiss because this is actually becoming a theme now.

In my last review I was talking about the similarity between Naenia trying to kiss Noé and Naenia trying to kiss Chloé and how this is usually associated with demons sealing a deal or with weddings where you exchange bits of your soul with a kiss.

Well, now we have another parallel only this time it’s between Naenia kissing Chloé (chapter 38.5) and Vanitas kissing Jeanne (chapter 4). The two scenes are visually very similar for starters but before each event we see the person on the receiving end lose their power:

Both Chloé and Jeanne find themselves suddenly unable to thwart someone they normally wouldn’t have any trouble with at all and my theory is that Naenia and Vanitas are using a similar power (though Vanitas’s would stem from Vanitas of the Blue Moon while Naenia’s would be inherent).

This also emphasizes, to me, that Vanitas kissing Jeanne wasn’t just ... some random inclination. We know Vanitas of the Blue Moon was obsessed with Jeanne. We know Naenia, a powerful vampire, has the ability to halt Chloé in her tracks. Could this be indicating that there really is something wrong with Vanitas outside of already acknowledged misogyny? This could be further evidence that Vanitas really is switching personalities, that we aren’t just seeing him but someone else’s imprint on him. If so, it’s got to be his mark of possession that is causing it.

It’s something to keep an eye on at the very least but Vanitas’s kiss was reminiscent of Naenia’s ability, the ability that could very likely be messing with a vampire’s name or soul. I don’t think Vanitas was quite capable of that with Jeanne (unless we start to see otherwise) but symbolically I think that was exactly what he was going for.

We should also consider when Vanitas said this: “The onset of her illness is widening the area she can influence, and she’s pulling in every living creature within reach.”

I think that illness was caused by Naenia when she kissed her. Chloé was bleeding afterwards and only lost control afterwards as well, so whatever Naenia did to her it was potent.

Another thing I wonder about is Vanitas’s word use here:

Naenia has forced the “onset” on Chloé. “Onset” either means “the beginning of something” or an “assault or attack.” Either would make sense here but I’m inclined to think it means the beginning of what comes next: the destruction of the surrounding area. I can’t quite make out the Japanese text here, so if anyone has some further insight let me know!

We also finally have Naenia’s identify 100% confirmed: she is the queen, specifically Queen Faustina. I still have to wonder who the individual lying in the bed that Loki was talking to was though. I mean, is she dead? Is Naenia a wandering spirit? But if that’s the case how was she given physical form...?

Also, so far this means Naenia is not Vanitas of the Blue Moon as I had originally guessed. Of course, we don’t know for certain if VotBM is even dead. We see Misha in a flashback screaming at Vanitas for killing her but ... how dead is she? Perhaps she has merged with our Vanitas in some way...?

Still, Naenia, and therefore Queen Faustina, is ridiculously powerful. Actually, Queen Faustina seems a lot more powerful than Naenia:

She knocked Jean-Jacques aside without even a glance at him. Meanwhile, Naenia herself has to steal names in order to do much of anything. But! Something Vanitas said makes me wonder if there’s some kind of difference: “Chloé d’Apchier’s malnomen protects her by generating a sealed space.”

This seems to suggest that malnomen can be independent from the vampire, which would explain why Chloé seemed so unaffected by being cursed. Perhaps that is what’s going on with the queen as well? Naenia is both a part and separate from her? Once she’s destablilized, Naenia doesn’t recall anything whatsoever:

She’s less powerful now but Chloé is still very much a problem: she’s inadvertently destroying everything in the area.

Moving on to Vanitas and Noé now. A lot has happened with these two this chapter and there are a lot of parallels to previous chapters once more. For example, this idea of Vanitas falling and Noé being there to catch him, one of the biggest background themes of the series:

If we compare this to chapter 1 there are a lot of similarities visually. In chapter one, Vanitas is hit by some falling rubble, he loses consciousness, falls, and Noé leaps after him so he can save him. Here, Vanitas became ... lightheaded? He wasn’t obviously hit by anything at all. There’s some indication he’s still sick though, so that might be what did it. Either way, Noé goes leaping to his rescue once again without a second thought.

But there’s another parallel between this and chapter 1: both times, as Noé is falling, he’s greeted with a portent.

In chapter 1, the blue moon signifies he’s about to become very wrapped up in these matters, to say the least. It also features Teacher, remarking on how Noé isn’t the least bit afraid of it, to which Noé responds to his eyes it’s “quite beautiful.” In other words, as he’s falling he is given a sign: this person he’s chasing after is deeply connected to the blue moon and he’s going to get attached even if it doesn’t make any sense to, just as it makes no sense for a vampire of the red moon to chase after and admire the blue.

As for this chapter it’s less symbolic and more blatant. Noé is falling and trying to grab Vanitas once more. It takes a little longer this time but he still manages it. On the way, he’s greeted by a member of Charlatan who speaks an awful lot like Louis with the whole “You can’t save anyone” business. Maybe this is Louis; he seems to have an unexpected interest in Noé and wants him to hurry up and join them already. Who knows?

But the important bit (for now) is Noé is being given another sign: he can’t save Vanitas forever. Personally, I can’t help but wonder what Mochizuki is going to do in the end. Having the message of the series be “you can’t save everyone” is a harsh one (albeit true) and it would really change who Noé is as a person. Would she really go for that...?

At any rate, we’re spared having to deal with that for the time being because Noé manages to save him once more.

I also just want to point out that Noé is in business/battle mode once more. He’s making sure Vanitas is okay but he’s not exactly gentle about it:

Definitely reminiscent of the catacombs arc once more. XD

Anyway, Vanitas definitely doesn’t seem to be doing well as we can see from Noé’s observation here:

So, his health seems iffy at best, I’d say and Naenia definitely had an effect on him. I think the sheer force of her ability, the strain of what they’re going to have to do to win, the fact he knows how hopeless the situation appears, is all starting to pile up, not to mention he was pretty ill only a few chapters ago.

Another parallel to the catacombs arc is that Vanitas doesn’t tell Noé what he knows until it’s a bit too late.  The other problem is that Vanitas is often vague and Noé dislikes that as well but I digress.

All of this leads to what I would say is hands down the most honest sentiment Vanitas has made this so far in this series.

“Just how many times do you think I’ve nearly been killed by vampires?”

I mean, the fact he’s even telling Noé any of this is a testament to how frustrated and unwell he is; these are some of Vanitas’s most personal feelings. He told Noé once he thinks humans and vampires are equally rotten but I had wondered about that. Turns out, Vanitas does have issues with vampires specifically and that makes a lot more sense. Vampires murdered his family, which led to him being stuck with Moreau, which led him to being marked by a vampire, which may have then led to him having some other issues we don’t know about since we don’t know the full extent of what the mark of possession even does. Along the way he’s been abused by vampires and it’s all left a mark. As much as he likes Noé there’s still a part of him that can’t let go of what he’s learned in life: you can’t fully trust them.

There’s probably also the more basic stigma between vampires and humans to consider as well. Judging by how vampires treat dhampirs there may be some actual truth to what Vanitas is saying. Many vampires do not view humans all that highly and probably wouldn’t listen to them. I think this is all a big part of why Vanitas tries (but fails) to maintain some kind of distance between him and Noé. I’m curious to see how that continues from here on.

Anyway, one of his examples is Ruthven and we all know that Noé completely disagrees with how flippant Vanitas can be with his life, so I wasn’t surprised to see that lead to another headbutt. XD

But once again, Noé shows Vanitas that he’s different. Noé doesn’t forcibly drink his blood, Noé doesn’t belittle his desire for revenge, and now Noé proclaims to trust what Vanitas tells him.

Is it any wonder Vanitas is having a hard time knowing what to do with this? XD Noé goes against everything he thinks he knows is true and after awhile anyone would grow tired of having to constantly reevaluate their own values and belief system. His declaration that Noé “really ticks him off” and the fact he’s kicking him (I mean, Noé started that with the headbutts, so...) is all symbolic of how hard a time he’s having with him. He doesn’t know what to make of Noé whatsoever but I am curious to see if he starts confiding his hunches to him from now on. That will let us know if any of this stuck.

After all that exertion yelling at Noé, Vanitas appears back to normal according to Noé:

It’s all very “Amok Time.”

Anyway, if there’s one thing Vanitas knows for sure it’s that Noé refuses to give up about anything, probably the one thing he knows about Noé he’s semi comfortable with.

Of course, now we have Roland and the chasseurs finally joining the fray and I’m very curious to see how all that turns out! I’m sure Roland will dish out hugs or something equally repugnant to Vanitas. At least Noé will be happy. XD I’m also looking forward to finally seeing how he gets along with Astolfo; that’s been something I’ve wondered about for a while now!

[greeeeeeenfuse]

Response to Dill

Isabella Vento LIA 10/09/2018

The first thing I thought when I thought about health and wellness has been my gym.

I go to the gym. I go to the gym at Chelsea Piers and have also spoken to Erin about the fact that it is problematic and often think it is strange that it there are no queer gyms in New York City.

The gym is a problematic space.

The urban gym is advertised as a pursuit for wellness but this sits subtly on top of a layer of realities that have to do with the objectification of the body and the perpetuation of misogyny.

I go to the gym because I am striving for a lifestyle that is more healthy. I am in search of endorphins from sources different to the ones I used to chase and indulge in.

I need dopamine.

Or maybe, actually, I need two kilos less on my waist line. I don’t- shave - and Mike who does the AMP’D class at 7pm on Tuesdays stares at my legs with - confusion? Also, he only says hello to all the men who show up to class. In this country they call these kinds of people ‘bros.’ I wish I could give more solidarity feels to the women who show up but I numb myself to this environment the minute I inhabit it and probably just look very angry, serious and not approachable at all. I only say thank you at the end///somewhat reluctantly/// and think the music Mike puts on to aid the exercises we are doing together to be fucking distasteful. I try to ignore it, and let this help my flow through the next circuit that I perform with urgency to prove to the three men who have gotten together in a group for this round that they are not the best. This guy does not even know how to do push-ups and he’s grinding like an unpleasant animal throughout.

The gym is problematic; I had a personal trainer over the summer who complained about her tinder date not paying for things on their fourth date after they had been out four times and he had always paid for everything. She’s also bitch-talked about another trainer in the gym who clearly doesn’t live up to her bodily criteria. I wish I could work out in a space that was more welcoming to my body- that was more welcoming to bodies. Amongst so many other things, this crowded my thoughts, when discussing the concept of wellness in class. Perhaps, I wish that lions existed in the spaces where I attempt to cultivate my wellness. And maybe the truth is, maybe not lions. Maybe not lions at all.  

When I thought about lions after class, I thought….this image sits strangely in my head, and it is because I have had the privilege of being on safari and observe/learn/understand this animal’s behaviour. Lion prides are the very definition of patriarchy. They operate territorially. The Lion King is wrong. The same goes for baboons which are creatures that are violent, impatient and represent human temperament in a way that I found to be head-freezing, baffling and fascinating.

To expand, I have found this description of the symbol of the lion in front of houses on a real-estate website:

“In Vietnam, they protect and empower people. In China, they act as guardians, defending homes against accidents and theft. For Buddhists, lion statues are said to bring peace and prosperity, while in Italy, they symbolize power and prestige. In Quebec, homeowners traditionally place one or two lions in front of their house once their mortgage is paid off. Whether placed in front of a door or by a staircase, the lion remains true to itself as a symbol of honour, respect, and power”

[https://viacapitaledumontroyal.com/en/the-meaning-of-real-estate-symbols-and-traditions/]

In my own country, lions in front of buildings remind me of the protection of institutions and representation of status. Protection of institutions. Not people. Frameworks & Structures, not bodies. Real-Estate. Private, not public. Do you know how many real-estate companies exist in the world that have the name lion in them?

Perhaps, I am not connecting to a deeper question that Sonia Sanchez is inherently attempting to ask with her text. Is she attempting to say that her brother never had the privilege of experiencing the protection, good fortune and peace that lions are meant to signify. How have the lions failed?

I do not believe I possess the tools of a critical theorist, but I will go ahead and connect my notions of real-estate to an essay that I have recently read about “Trans_Anarchitectures” that delves deeply into the work of Gordon Matta-Clark carried out in the seventies, specifically with the group/exhibition/project Anarchitecture. The author Jack Halberstam, relates the interventions that Matta-Clark performed on buildings and spaces to the same demolition, re-shaping and revision of queer/trans bodies. Severing and “destroying” physical structures built and fashioned in a demographic reminiscent of inherent power dynamics related to gender roles (the maternity of a household) as well as political paradigms in urban environments that perpetuate class and race inequalities;

“For both Lorde and Preciado, race, sex, gender and, by extension, class are represented in metaphors of built space. According to both theorists, change will only come through demolition. It follows that if patriarchal systems of domination are understood as architectural, then queer/trans*/feminist activist responses can be received as anarchitectural.”

[https://placesjournal.org/article/unbuilding-gender/]

In this way, I am justifying that the figure of lions in front of my house is controversial to me. Is this making sense? Do I have lions in front of my house? Well, yes, because I can afford to live in a house that is not under threat of hazard, in a neighbourhood that is substantially safe with things such as a gym, hospital and affordable supermarket considerably nearby. The pyramid scheme of the economic framework that the real-estate business operates in, has made it such that only folk like me, the one percent, do not have to question whether they have lions outside their house.

I have spoken before about public spaces as a collective living room, but do these public spaces have an infrastructure that caters to all bodies in one collective living room? Dill spoke about infrastructure at the beginning of class; her campus was clearly demarcating a hierarchy of disciplines. I dare refuse the image of a lion, that for me is a visual and semiotic representation of a privatised and institutionalised rhetoric that I care to dismantle. This, similarly to the way that Halberstam has interpreted anarchitecture to be the exposure and subsequent destruction of the hegemonies apparent in architectural space:

“Anarchitecture, in other words, requires the death of the author, the death of the building, and the end of the gendered vocabulary that continues to conflate power with masculine embodiment and to make the figure of the woman into what Teresa De Lauretis has described as “the mirror and the screen.” 2If architecture is a structural grammar for organizing space and situating bodies in it, then anarchitecture is premised on the exposure of those logics, and their destruction. As Matta-Clark writes, his cuts constitute a form of “breaking and entering,” and “completion through removal.”