#perceived to be white by a majority of people- we will never really 'get it'. we can understand- but we cant pretend we really 'get it'.

[snekdood]

worst thing is when a white person who 'grew up poor' and maybe lived in the city temporarily starts to insinuate they're from the hood or whatever shit lmao

[moonreader1010]

Pac: how people perceive you<3

Note: 1. take what resonates.

2. Take a deep breath. Ask your spirit guides to help you choose the pile and choose the one that calls out to you.

3. Pictures used are from Pinterest. All rights go to the original owner.

Pile 1:

She'll put you in a trance at first glance

Don't wanna fall in love, but I'll take a chance

straight up I got vision of this one picture that I saw on Pinterest a while back. It was a rabbit in an armour with some sort of spikey weapon and it said “soft but not available for mistreatment”. Very do not harm but take no shit vibes. I see major cancer placements. You can tame anyone. I keep getting beauty and the beast vibes. Like, you know how to tame people. People listen to you but I don’t see and boss employee kind of relationship but more like a goddess and her followers kind of relationship. I see you being hurt in the past. Was growing up difficult baby? Did someone hurt you? I wanna hug you right now. You are an inspiration. You are a warrior and you are so so strong and wise. I feel like we are getting away from the actual question of the reading but I feel like someone wanted me to tell you this hahah. So onto the question that how people perceive you, I think they can tell that you have been through something that changed you. Made you stronger and wiser. People definitely see you as someone who will nail the trope of “taming the bad boy” haha. But ofcourse remember that it’s not your job to fix anyone and I feel like you already know this. People see you as someone who dances in the rain, confident (lots of cards show me the theme of confidence actually), hopeful. They also see you as this boss lady (gender neutral). They see you as someone who is busy building empires.

Additional: student, business, garden, summer dresses, flowers.

Song: Dangerous woman by Wieland

Pile 2: You wear that cast so cool

And I'm in awe

A face like you've never seen before

Around

people see you as someone who is constantly moving(it could be traveling or you know, making moves generally) you are not a still entity. You are always doing something. People see you as someone who is very private and mysterious. It’s hard to know anything about you. Moon seems to be really significant for some reason. People also see you as someone who cuts people of very quickly. No bullshit kinda person. You can deal with absence but won’t take disrespect. You are an achiever. People see you as someone who is constantly trying to learn something. You are open to experiences. You walk away from a situation that doesn’t serve you and that’s what many people admire about you. Young hear and old soul is what I keep hearing. People feel like they can come to you for help and also see you as someone who is very sensible.

Additional: wood, earth signs, moon, 3, heart on your sleeves, white flowers, driving far away.

Songs for you: Ever (foreign sleep) by team sleep.

Pile 3: Baby, this is what you came for

Lightning strikes every time she moves

And everybody's watchin' her

But she's lookin' at you,

people see you as someone who works really hard. They see you as someone who is very responsible and completes tasks like a pro. They see you as a leader. Is acts of services you love language? People feel like they can always count on you. You are always there to help people. You honestly are a great leader you know? Some people seem to see you as a rival. A competition. You make people competitive pile 3. People see you as someone who is very faithful. You are almost untouchable to people. You seem to be on an entire different level that they cannot reach. People see you as someone who is smart and has a way with words. You seem like someone who would do great in negotiations and business exchange lol.

Additional: ships, sea, commerce, green,

Song for you: this is what you came for by Calvin Harris and Rihanna. (Very Rihanna energy lol)

[hatredmadeofgold]

Revenge with a vengeance — The tragedy of Sam and Raiden’s canon relationship dynamic

Alternate title: SamuRaiden is THAT deep, actually.

Side note by author: This essay will get an update eventually since I wrote it before playing the Japanese version of the game.

Although MGR does not have as complex or well researched character lore as the main series, Samuraiden as a relationship is a lot more complex than common fandom tropes and interpretations of their relationship suggest. I don’t mind it when people make funny/meme content about these two, since MGS/R does come with its own flair of humour, it’s very exhausting for me as well as a few others I know who enjoy this ship for it to be reduced to just that — a joke. MGR being perceived as ‘goofy’ is mainly due to how poorly some of the character lines translate from Japanese to English, as well as it being more or less evident that either budget, time or both ran out over the course of development, hence the second half of the game feels rushed and underdeveloped. In fact, the great majority of MGR fans do not understand how serious, dark, hopeless and dystopian its message really is and that is saddening.

The world isn’t black and white, neither is it in MGS/R. Sam isn’t the just the villain (never has been, by the way), Raiden isn’t the just the hero (never has been either, by the way), I’d say it’s rather “depends on who you ask”. They are on opposite sides due to the circumstances of how they meet and not because they wouldn’t get along. Quite the opposite is true, in fact, if they would have met before 2016, they might have become friends based on the fact of how much they can actually relate to each other in many different aspects of their personalities, interests and experiences.

Before we get to fight Armstrong as well as during the Sam DLC (also through very subtle hints during their first fight on the train) we learn that Sam is just like Raiden and that Desperado forced him to become a shadow of who he once was, going against his own morals and values and only Raiden reminding him of who he truly was before Armstrong defeated him 2 years prior, ultimately crushing his spirit — he had no other choice, either die there as a failure or continue to live and become Desperado’s/Armstrong’s puppet [until someone would eventually defeat Armstrong and free Sam from his never ending nightmare — Did I already mention that Sam is a really fucking tragic character?]. Sam joining Armstrong’s laughter at the end of DLC is a reaction of fear, not agreement with him or enjoyment. And if there’s one thing that both MGS and MGR are really good at, it’s the accurate and very realistic portrayal of the human psyche under stressful and traumatic situations.

On the other side we can tell from Raiden’s reaction when holding Murasama after killing Sam that he, for once in the entire damn series, questions if that was the right choice he made. We know that Raiden enjoys inflicting pain and suffering onto others, he enjoys murder — but he did not feel that way when he killed Sam. It’s quite the opposite. It’s very subtle and if you’re not very observant like me, easy to miss. But the way his voice turns a bit softer, how his eyes look listless, almost sad; he regrets it. When Blade Wolf asks Raiden if that outcome was really necessary, he does not answer him, because he knows that Wolf is right, it wasn’t. And Raiden pretty much hates himself for it. To his team he confidently says that Sam isn’t a problem anymore since he killed him, but that’s not the same Raiden that he’s that moment in the badlands (which is another implication to me that Raiden doesn’t fully trust his teammates, although they are friends; he has major trust issues and the only emotions he shares with them is either anger or amusement but nothing outside of that). The way he sheathes Murasama is a way to honour him, and as far as I remember this is a ritual to honour a samurai’s defeat or death.

I believe that there has been a silent understanding between the two swordsmen that they respect each other from the very beginning, but they do not say it out loud. This is a case of “show, don’t tell” but also something I suspect has something to do with the game being written by Japanese authors, and Japanese is a high context language, meaning, very little words are needed to get the meaning across, and I think this may also translate into the words these two exchange with each other compared to how they truly feel about the other. Besides, they probably couldn’t truly speak honestly with each other in the first place because of the unfortunate conditions of how they met and were (more or less) forced to fight each other until one of them would eventually succumb to the other’s blade. Codecs and conversations were most likely recorded by their respective employers, and I highly suspect that in Sam’s case, he was even monitored 24/7 by Desperado since he never was an official member of the Winds of Destruction in the first place, and they didn’t fully trust him either.

At the very end of the game during the fight with Armstrong, Sam’s message plays, and we can hear how Sam also speaks with a different voice to Blade Wolf compared to everyone else (and technically, indirectly to Raiden but I cannot confirm or deny that Sam was aware that Raiden would ever hear this playback), it’s a note softer; Raiden learns the truth, which confirms to him that he was right about Sam after all, that they are alike, that they respect each other, and that there was more to Sam’s story than him being a part of Desperado, he doesn’t know what exactly, but he knows now for sure that Sam was not the person he originally believed he was (and lets his team still believe he thinks that way).

Would Raiden truly say Sam’s catchphrase “Let’s dance” before fighting and ultimately killing Armstrong, if he wouldn’t have been going through a gradual process between originally hating Sam to respecting and liking him but unable to ever express that to him or anyone else?

Would he ever admit to anyone what kind of emotional impact Sam had on him, besides the anger and hatred he openly expressed towards him?

Doubt so. Highly fucking doubt so.

Because sharing his true feelings is a liability to him, and Raiden learnt as a very young child that vulnerable feelings such as sadness or guilt would be used against him, so his psyche is conditioned to discard them immediately. But Sam made him feel those things in their full extent and Raiden is fully aware of that, but he would never share with anybody that he ever felt that way about Sam.

He may or may not take those feelings to his grave.

From Sam’s side, we can only guess how he truly felt about Raiden, but we can only guess by the way he hesitated to finish him off on the train during the prologue, the way he smiled at Blade Wolf before his death (which might be likely another case of a silent understanding between Sam and Wolf that the latter would share with Raiden what he knows about Sam or the playback of their conversation itself, if not both) as well as everything he says with giving Murasama to Raiden. Of course, Sam couldn’t even say out loud to Blade Wolf or Raiden that he planned to give Raiden his sword to take down Armstrong, and he had to be as vague as possible with the information that he shared with the robot dog. Not by choice, no. Most likely because he was being watched 24/7, he knew that Desperado nor Armstrong didn’t fully trust him and if they knew about his plans, they’d make sure to finish him off before Raiden had the chance to do so. Sam knew he would die, and that it would be the only way he would ever be free from Armstrong’s grasp. So he chose suicide through Raiden’s blade, and gave him his sword to finish what he could not back then.

The game’s title is REVENGEANCE — Revenge with a vengeance.

They both translate to the same thing in my native language German, but there’s a subtle yet important difference between these two nouns.

“Revenge means when you get back at your enemy who is responsible for hurting you and vengeance is the punishment inflicted or retribution exacted for an injury or wrong.”

But it was never Armstrong who hurt or wronged Raiden in the first place, and we know he’s an essentially selfish person who does not really care all that much about politics, religion or anything like that and he only fights for himself (I wrote in my essay about Raiden’s ASPD that his motivation to save these children from becoming cyborg child soldiers is a trauma response first and his rather lose and grey morality second) and the few people he cares about, so Armstrong being the one one who ordered to get N’mani killed is not the reason Raiden went after him or was that passionate about getting revenge or retribution on him either.

It was Sam who hurt him — wounded both his body and soul during the prologue — but when Raiden got his revenge, he realised that revenge is empty, that he didn’t feel better, and that he regrets killing him, then we get to the vengeance part. From the moment Raiden held Sam’s Murasama in the badlands, he felt no more hatred towards him and the emotional impact his death had on him made Sam transition from a person he hated to one of the few people Raiden truly cares about.

Armstrong may be the villain of the story, but the person who wanted revenge on him never had been Raiden. It was Sam. Always had been Sam, because it was Sam who got hurt by Armstrong, it was Sam who wanted to get revenge on Armstrong for defeating him and crushing his spirit, it was Sam who wanted to punish Armstrong for making him into a shadow of who he once was, making Sam speak about ideals he didn’t truly believe in (like, who the FUCK even thinks that Sam truly believed a single fucking word of that, because I for sure as hell can tell he never did, he either gaslit himself into believing that for 2 years until he met Raiden or only parroted whatever the fuck Armstrong wanted him to say so he would not get killed on the spot).

Revenge and vengeance are very deep feelings and actions of hatred, feelings that are too deep and complex to be associated with morality, hence why I highly doubt that the title of the game is directed at Armstrong from Raiden’s side at all. That between Raiden and Armstrong is not nearly as personal as it has been between Sam and Armstrong. Raiden eradicating Desperado and Armstrong had been about justice [for the kids being killed and their organs sold], not revenge.

"I said my sword was a tool of justice. Not used in anger. Not used for vengeance. But now… Now I'm not so sure. And besides, this isn't my sword."

But when he says this, followed by “Let’s dance”, it became deeply personal for Raiden as well. Because he could confirm that his feelings about Sam had been right, and that Sam wanted to get revenge on Armstrong.

Raiden decides to avenge him, because Sam couldn’t get revenge himself.

Although Sam never told him directly, Raiden understood him from his actions alone, those subtle hints, reading between the lines what the other truly felt and wanted the whole time, eventually passing the “torch” — his sword — to Raiden, to finish what he could not. So while Raiden’s own reasons to finish off Armstrong were (mostly) justice for the innocent lives he destroyed and planned to continue to destroy, they also became feelings of hatred and anger — Sam’s feelings towards Armstrong.

In the end — revenge with a vengeance — is what Sam could get on Armstrong only through Raiden, after Raiden enacted his onto Sam.

Now the question is — if Raiden would’ve never killed Sam, by the chance of him recognising earlier than in canon that revenge is empty and that he won’t feel better after killing him, would Sam go by his example and abandon his revenge plans on Armstrong as well? Or would they fight Armstrong together and get justice?

We unfortunately can only speculate (or write stories about it).

What we can tell from canon though, is that Raiden’s (= Sam’s) passionate feelings of hatred towards Armstrong quickly vanish the moment he finished him off, and he looks into the camera with an empty expression, covered in blood and a crushed cybernetic heart in his hand.

And I think that is exactly what he feels — empty.

Because again, he got revenge and avenged Sam, led by what Sam felt, Sam’s feelings became Raiden’s feelings during that fight with Armstrong. But once that was gone, there’s nothing left. In the case of killing Armstrong, he doesn’t feel remorse or guilt. There’s nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Because revenge is empty.

Raiden defeated his enemies — but at what cost?

By killing Sam, he realised what he had actually lost — a potential friend (or more), someone who understood him in a way that no one else did. Perhaps he thought or felt that, if he avenges Sam, making Sam’s feelings towards Armstrong into his own, he might be able to deal with that loss better, but to no avail.

Because, and I can speak from experience as a person with the same mental health issues as Raiden, that emptiness is worse than regret.

MGR’s ending also implies that Raiden abandons his family and friends to fight his own war; essentially taking the same path that Sam once took in his past, ending up in a personal war and revenge act that knows no end, making one bad choice after the next. If Raiden hasn’t already become the villain of his own story by the end of MGR, then it’s just a matter of time until he becomes that.

And the cycle of violence continues, until the story repeats itself, over and over and over and over and over.

Did I mention already that there is a myth around Murasama being a cursed sword, that will drive its user either slowly insane or make them commit suicide if it doesn’t get a regular ‘blood sacrifice’?

—

“I really enjoy murder, but that one, that I will regret for the rest of my life.”

[olderthannetfic]

All the griping about #ownvoices claiming to represent diversity but really just forcing minority authors to write very particular ideas of what a "minority experience" is that please what publishers and "progressive" readers of majority groups want to see.... makes me feel like that movie American Fiction can't come out soon enough. I mean idk how much penetration that will have with the YA and genre publishing industries but. It floored me when I realized the novel it was based on was like 20 years old.... it just shows how while we might have a different publishing-industry label for it, black authors feeling like their books get ignored if they don't write for a particular (racist, tbh) fantasy of what the "black experience" looks like is an evergreen problem.

--

I know someone who's a tv writer, and they're always calling her up and using the word 'urban'. She's a dork. She should be writing for Gus from Psych or just any old show, not whatever it is they think she's going to be good at.

The real sticking point for a lot of white readers isn't a heavy book about issues: it's connecting with a trashy beach read about a Mary Sue who happens to be black. Or, for those of us who read trash m/m, asking us to have a black man as our single perfect tear woobie of choice.

I don't know why this is so hard for us. (I mean, racism, duh, but specifically why? It's all very well to blame the R word, but there are a million flavors, and unraveling stupidass underlying assumptions and bad behavior requires grasping what's going on more precisely.) I suppose it's a lifetime of training about otherness and who's allowed to be fragile and perceiving every single instance where the fairytale princess doesn't match our hair and eye color exactly—yes, even if she's white—as a demand that we never have personal wish fulfillment fantasies again. The atrociousness of a lot of media doesn't help, particularly for fanfic, but that's not the whole of it. A lot of people act like you ran over their cat if you ask them to identify with a sensitive, vulnerable black character in iddy trash fun.

[commander-krios]

I'm going to turn on anon for this, but the "why fanfiction" part of the commission debate and making money off of it dates back to the earlier days of fandom, 90s and early 2000s. Back then, there was a LOT of fear around cease & desist letters, and people facing legal backlash (ie: X-Files fandom having to deal with Fox breathing down their neck because of sexy Mulder/Scully or Mulder/Skinner fic), Anne Rice being particularly litigious and so on. There was a later resurgence to this in the early aughts in places like LiveJournal where a bunch of published authors kept insisting that fanfic was illegal, including the laughable take from one famous author that it was akin to "white slavery".

During all of this, a majority of fandom felt like their only legal standing was "we don't make any money off this". Keep in mind, this is before the OTW was formed and AO3 launched, so most fans didn't have a legal resource to turn to. And for some reason, I could not tell you why, even back during this 90s/00's era with a fear of legal retribution, I personally don't ever remember any brouhaha around fanart. For some reason, it was always directed at fanfic. I guess because of this perception of somehow stepping on the storytelling toes of the creators in a way fanart doesn't typically do?

Regardless.

Now, you might ask why this feeling persists when it comes to fanfic commissions? Honestly, and this is only my personal opinion, people who were in fandom during that time have a deep-seated, ingrained feeling of panic that wells up the moment anyone mentions making money off of fanfic in any way. At least, I know for myself, it's almost a stress/anxiety type feeling of "they're going to come after us". I, an adult, also recognize that this feeling is not coming from a logical place.

Do I personally hold it against anyone who offers fanfic commissions? No. That'd be stupid. Time marches on, and these old fears/anxieties related to real or perceived legal issues of the past . I just recognize that I personally won't engage with this sort of thing, because it is a deep-seated issue of mine. Unless someone gets really egregious with it (and by this I mean like, publishing on Kindle or selling it to mass market), I doubt you'll incur the legal wrath of anyone by someone giving you a little tip to write them a nice little story. But if you're wondering why it's such a divisive issue... in my opinion... it's kind of a generational divide?

If you were there when the fear of legal repercussions was a real thing, it's really hard to not have a knee-jerk reaction to it. A lot of us will never be comfortable with it, but I also feel like those of us in that camp... also maybe need to recognize where our reactions are coming from, and maybe need to chill out. We don't have to like it, but we should also... not get aggressive about it either.

The explanation is deeply helpful and while I've heard about a lot of this, I myself was not writing fanfic at this time and didn't see it myself. I understand where the fear comes from but it honestly never made sense to me why everyone praises other means of selling fandom stuff and not fic. To be honest, it's so similar to fanart and other things. And I'm sure there are fanartists that have experienced the same things, I'm just... tired of being snapped out for suggesting it when I honestly see this all the time in other fandoms.

[danlous]

omg thank you for that ask, i complained about this to another fan yesterday on here because they were already complaining about the fandom and they acted super dismissive about my concerns of the show sidelining louis and all of a sudden having the money to market the show… plus rolin basically admitting during season 2 that amc had greenlit the show with the prospect of reaching tvl, like this is all documented and yet (white) people get mad when somebody points this out (this person’s followers literally asked them to tag the asks as fandom discourse).

its really sad to see this show turn into the likes of good omens, ofmd in terms of fandom white shenanigans but also the way the creators have been acting way more enthusiastic about the next season than the season that just ended a month ago is just very disheartening and it must be even more frustrating for the leads of color given that delaney and assad were barely asked any relevant questions during interviews at sdcc. also the way fans have been treating any criticism of this as “discourse” or “drama” because now finally they have a white protag and can see themselves reflected on him, now finally the poc can leave the room and we can have fun with our white fave all we want :)

idk it’s just sad that everyone not only rolin is treating this show like now FINALLY the real show they all wanted all along is starting, we just had to put with the wokeness and drama first 🙄

Not the good omens and ofmd comparison, the two most annoying fandoms sfjdk. So true about fans dismissing any criticism as discourse or drama. Personally my main issue is with the marketing department and parts of the fanbase and i have a bit more trust in Rolin. I don't think he would've chosen to include themes of racism and abuse so heavily in the first two seasons if they didn't genuinely interest him, and we know that putting Lestat in every episode in s2 was something that the network demanded and they had to come up with dreamstat, implying that Rolin himself would've included Lestat less if it was his decision. But he does say some weird and irritating stuff sometimes that makes me go dude what are you even talking about i hope you're joking. We'll see is he worth my cautious trust

I think this season we've really suffered from the lack of black and other non-white interviewers and critics having access to the show and cast. Like Autumn's videos were fun enough but they could never replace something like Naomi's podcast in s1 which was cancelled. It's actually crazy how the themes of race and racism though maybe less explicit were just as strong this season as in s1, but almost no one outside of non-white fans on tumblr and twitter talks about it. Like everything that happened to Louis and Claudia this season, concluding to actual public lynching, is inextricable from their race (and i'm 100% sure it was intentionally written that way) but it's like it doesn't even cross all those mostly white interviewers and critics and hosts' minds to ask about it. Like as someone with South Asian heritage living in a white majority and racist as hell country if i got to interview Assad literally my first question would be how Armand's Indian backgroud influences his character and experiences and how he and other characters perceive it. I mean i don't think you need to be non-white to ask questions about stuff related to race, but unfortunately lots of white people aren't really interested in it or think about it all

[stranger-rants]

Actually, to contextualize racism in the United States for Stranger Things fans, you all should read about the Newark Riots which happened in the late 60s.

My family is white. My parents are white. They grew up in New Jersey at this time, in an ethnically diverse neighborhood where the majority of their school classmates were black. Poverty rates were high, and whites with money had already fled those areas. The riots happened due to the extreme disenfranchisement of black people in the United States. Not wanting poor whites to organize and support black people protesting their conditions, white politicians intentionally sewed discord among poor white people and poor black people. So, it became an us vs. them situation. My parents did have friends outside of their race, but they also experienced a lot of violence that negatively impacted their perception of race. That’s something growing up that I had to grapple with and I had a lot to learn and unlearn, including understanding that prejudice against a white minority in this context is not the same thing as systemic racism.

This system made it easier for affluent whites to avoid criticism for their own racist actions, where their contribution to systemic racism was in the voting booth and in the pockets of racist politicians instead of on the streets. So, they could maintain their clean appearance while being responsible for the extreme disenfranchisement of black people. This is what racism in the north looked like, and in areas perceived as more progressive like California. This context is important to understand when you think individual characters are stand ins for systemic racism when it’s quiet clear, politically, that the existence of Hawkins and its white majority are a result of decades of white flight to that area, redlining in cities preventing black people from moving, and WASP conservatism. It’s no accident that the Sinclairs are one of the few black families in Hawkins.

I don’t think The Duffers intended to represent this. I think this is a result of white men who grew up in a largely white community, recreating the nostalgia of their childhood which was… a white fantasy. It’s why they say they wanted to deal with racism by bringing Billy onto the scene, and it’s easy to get upset at Billy pushing Lucas, even going to the extreme of arguing he was going to kill him (which he wasn’t), because it’s so visible, but Billy is one person and racism is systemic. At the same time, they’re seemingly unwilling to address or maybe just ignorant to the fact that Hawkins really is a racist town. The uncritical Reagan signs in the Wheeler’s front yard are 80s nostalgia decoration, not meant to call into question the kind of political environment the Wheeler children are being raised into - because they’re the heroes, they can’t be racist! That’s bad!

The problem with decontextualizing racism in Hawkins by making Billy the scapegoat for it becomes clearer in the last season when Billy is no longer around. Whether they intended to or not, they show how racist Hawkins actually is with how easily they form a lynch mob against children. While they shift their focus onto the D&D nerds (because they just have to victimize themselves through their stand in characters), Lucas and Erica become the primary target of that lynch mob in scenes that graphically evoke racist lynch mobs in American history. The narrative doesn’t address this in any way as evidence that Hawkins in racist, even going on to sanitize Hawkins in the wake of Eddie’s death by showing everyone coming together after a tragedy - a tragedy they contributed to. The end result is that many fans with no understanding of racism in America completely miss the racist undertones within the 80s nostalgia the Duffers created.

Long story short, we can talk about the racism of individual characters but it is a systemic issue and it is present in Hawkins. It’s never a good idea to decontextualize racism or any other systemic issue to blame it on individual “bad people” while promoting the white fantasy of the respectable suburb full of good white people who turned to violence because they just didn’t understand what was happening and those kids were “acting suspicious.” Nope. They’re racist, too. It’s just packaged nicer.

[and-then-there-were-n0ne]

New research shows that Gen Z are more risk-averse than previous generations. Apparently we perceive more dangers in life, are more likely to see situations as “black and white”, and see spaces as either safe or dangerous.

Of course this isn’t surprising. I get tired of the whole snowflake trope being tacked onto everyone in Gen Z, but it’s also difficult to deny that we’re generally much more fearful than previous generations. Much of the attention on this goes to those calling for trigger warnings and safe spaces—which I’d say are an important but very vocal minority—but what’s actually endemic, something I see constantly among my generation, is a subtler form of safetyism, a reluctance to take risks in our everyday lives. Being terrified to talk on the phone. Being scared to order in a restaurant. And somewhere I think it’s really starting to affect us is being risk-averse about relationships.

Gen Z are dating less. Having less sex. Settling for situationships that are empty and meaningless. And I think a major part of this is that human connection comes with a high level of risk. Among young men, for example, I’d say this risk-aversion is most obvious in fear of rejection. A recent survey found that almost 45% of men aged 18 to 25 have never approached a woman in person. Another Pew Survey found that half of single men between 18 and 30 are voluntarily single, which some suggest is in part because of fear.

But I think young women are also risk-averse about relationships. We are naturally more risk-averse, for a start, and an even higher number of women are voluntarily single. But our risk-aversion plays out differently. Most obvious to me is the way we talk about relationships, the advice young women give each other, the therapy-speak and feminist clichés that I think often cloak a deep fear of hurt and vulnerability.

Honestly, this kind of thing is everywhere. Social media is full of young women warning each other and listing out red flags and reasons why you should dump him or dodge commitment. He compliments you a lot? Love-bombing. Says I miss you too soon? Run. Approaches you in person? Predator. It’s all so cynical. It’s all about how not to catch feelings; ways not to get attached; how “you’re not gonna get hurt if you have another man waiting”! We blunt romance and passion with this constant calculation of risk, this paranoid scanning for threats, and by holding back to avoid being hurt. We encourage each other to be emotionally absent, unfazed, uncaring. We even call it empowerment! It’s not. It’s neuroticism. I think we are a generation absolutely terrified of getting hurt and doing all we can to avoid it. [...]

Then, of course, there’s social media, dating apps—these mechanical ways we meet and find love. Fake spaces where we can avoid any form of discomfort. Where we swipe through people like products instead of approaching them with a pounding heart; where we ghost and block instead of learning how to have difficult conversations; where we start relationships without real risk, without intense chemistry, with no feeling at all. Now we get together not from passion or thrill but after analysing profiles, reviewing selfies, rehearsing DMs. It’s all so safe; it’s all so calculated.

My other suspicion is that this has to do with changing cultural and sexual mores. Family breakdown, for example. In the UK, a third of Gen Z now see their parents split by the time they are 16. Try not being risk-averse when those are your templates for love. Also, too, the sexual revolution, where the liberalising of sexual norms have made dating extremely confusing. Where casual sex has become the default, where we’ve lost the guardrails of custom and chivalry, and nobody wants to put themselves on the line. Sometimes it seems to me we’ve become so suspicious of each other’s intentions that we pathologise romance and commitment, and end up psychoanalysing to death behaviour that’s actually decent. Now we take everything that comes with real love—being affected by someone else’s emotions, putting your partner’s needs first, depending on them—and call it damage or anxious attachment or trauma. No! It’s called deep connection! And God, yes, wouldn’t it be much easier if it was a pathology, a disease, one we could diagnose and solve because it’s scary and it comes without guarantees. But it isn’t.

It’s tragic, all of this. Tragic because it’s putting us on a trajectory to miss out on what’s actually meaningful. There’s no love without vulnerability. There’s no life without fear. And you will no doubt derail romance if you are too risk-averse. I’ve written elsewhere about how I think this fear of discomfort is in part why young people are putting off major life decisions like marriage and having children. What’s interesting to me about all these #childfree TikToks everyone likes to dunk on isn’t that people don’t want kids—I don’t think everyone should—it’s that they often don’t want them out of fear. Like that TikToker who created “The List”—a crowdsourced list of reasons not to have children that’s been seen by millions—which includes every possible risk from swollen ankles to rashes to bloating to muscle cramps. Really? We’re willing to miss out on the richest and most beautiful moments of being human—what actually makes life worth living—because it comes with risk?

I could put a caveat here and say of course, be cautious of these relationships, be wary in these situations, etc, etc, but I won’t. Because that’s all we ever hear. So I’ll just say stop being so cautious. Stop overanalysing it. Don’t sit inside dwelling on what could go wrong. Don’t psychoanalyse everything to the point you deaden something real. You’ve been duped into thinking you can create a life without danger, one liberated from constraints and uncomfortable emotions, and that such a life is desirable. But you can’t, and it’s not. If you connect with someone and it comes with the risk of losing something, good. You’re alive!

Otherwise what’s the alternative? Some soulless life of safety and consumption? Purging your own life of meaning because things might possibly go wrong? Sitting safely inside staring at screens, watching simulations of strangers live their lives? And staying anxious and alone and never seeing that as the ultimate risk? Never seeing that maybe the most dangerous life is one that demands nothing of you?

Screw that! Take a chance! Trust someone! Fall in love! Feel something! Build something meaningful and scary and try your best not to blow it up. Because looking at how many of us feel anxious, depressed, hopeless, nihilistic, fragile and alone, the last thing this generation needs is to take less risks. The last thing we need is another reason to kill off connection. What we need is to create lives for ourselves that threaten us with their terrifying potential for pain and rejection and hurt. Because that’s living. It’s scary; it really is. But we should risk it.

[futchgunk]

okay if i dont talk about this somewhere im gonna explode

im so fucking cut up about finding my headphones on my neighbor on the T, and having not contacted me about them at all!! They were a present from my lover and i didnt even recognize them as lost bc i thought i could trust my neighbors to be like 'hey these wireless headphones showed up at this house, are these yours we r trying to find the owner'. This was extra damaging for me bc i get really sensitive abt losing things bc of my biomom so like i didnt want to confront me losing a gift my lover got me, esp when i didnt even know where to start looking.

This is the same group of people who i was ostracized by and the biggest reach of support to me during my ostracization was 'im so sorry this is happened/happening to you'. It feels so transphobic!! it feels.. racist??!! it feels like transmisogynoir coming from the tranny eggpunk band AND the tranny hardcore band. like i feel like never knew these people that ive been hanging around with for a year+. i feel like all the love, time, and energy i had was just me making a clown out of myself to entertain more white people. like i got so enraged and upset about this i had to ask my alter to front so i could avoid exhausting myself crying over it and feel some sense of control/stability.

im so angry and a lost rn. as a tpoc im noticing my survival (social confirmity) to bend and shape myself to accomodate white fragility and im so sick of it. like i feel like social injustice has been done to me and instead of talking about it or feel any sense of catharis, i have to swallow hot viscous, bile and choke the tears down, say i dont feel degraded, pick up my pieces and find more koolaid to drink.

like if im gonna get demonized by both majority society and non-marginalized society, i might as well be where i wanna be and do what i wanna do and look how i wanna look because it wont fucking matter what everyone else thinks im just a rock too heavy to hold on to; a demon unwelcome en masse.

it hurts so much bc im trying to be a voice for community and community praxis. like i want to be able to help anyone if someone asks. welcome newcomers and oldtimers. i want to dissipate structures in your life, if even just for a moment. if i could make you a meal just so you could use the time for meal prep for whatever you wanted. i want to do your chores for you, if youre okay with it, even if we have never talked about it. i want to help you move along your life-goals/journey/passion. if you told me an arbitrary action would bear fruit for you, i will treat the soil and sew the seeds, not caring about whether or not i would get any fruit.

theres a feeling that im trying to describe. when youre held so still and taut and exhausted. so flush with exertion that you would cut your strings/supports just to feel the cool rush of air just for a moment, unthinking about how far the fall is. but you just one some semblance of control, an iota of self-determined significant action, no matter the magnitude of (perceived) self-destruction.

idk i would start all over again and make new friends but that means that transmisogny wins again?!! in my own fucking backyard!! transgirls can be complicit in transmisogny and the black transgirl is the victim!! how rich??!! right before the whipping girl reading group how fucking ironic.

[psychic-refugee]

I was 15 once too, so I try to give grace to the antis’ ignorance. I feel like the ones who aren’t just trolls, and genuinely just don’t know any better think that “why doesn’t he just say something” or “why wouldn’t he sue if they were lying” is that simple.

I’ve gone over keeping silent as a legal strategy ad nauseum, so I won’t rehash that.

When it comes to suing, I think this line of thinking really shows that they don’t have any real world experience. I think they are looking through a very narrow lens, where their only exposure to the real world at large is through social media and procedural legal and law enforcement tv shows. At 15 or younger, a majority of them have probably barely been out of their hometown. Their world is small, and it’s all they know.

They really think, oh just sue someone, it’s as simple of making a phone call or waving a magic wand. If they’ve never had a job, then they don’t have any experience or appreciation of money. They don’t understand the struggle of having to weigh the cost and benefit of actions.

In their ignorance, they really think anyone they perceive as “wealthy” can just throw money at a problem and get on with their life.

If the only things they know of law are via tv shows or twitter, then of course they think making a dramatic and impassioned statement is the way to go. Of course they think lawsuits happen at the drop of a hat. Of course they think the legal system is in and out within a few weeks. They see on tv where the cops make an arrest mere days after they’re alerted of a crime. They see a trial in the very next scene cut. They see attorneys making grandiose, dramatic “gotcha” statements. They see where it’s super clear cut who the “bad guy” is that they saw through 3rd person omniscient POV that the defendants for sure were guilty, so the jury follows suit.

Again, @heyharoldsboo 's advice to not engage is the correct one. Not only are these antis ignorant, but they’re also too immature to see past their magical thinking. They will always have some “well, then” excuse to keep thinking what they want to think. If not, then they’ll simply convince themselves that you’re taking the situation too seriously…right after they called for PHW to be arrested.

You can’t reason with the unreasonable.

These people are psychic terrorists, and you should treat them as such.

I do think we should take a page out of their playbook and try to game the algorithm. Tag Percy Hynes White and spread his accomplishments.

Let the world know, our boy is an Award Winning actor. 

[riverofrainbows]

I get kind of really annoyed with how much some people focus on and how much they ascribe to "female socialization", as well as how universal they apply it, especially in regards to trans men and transmasc people.

I do think that there is some aspects worth discussing of this, but like i said not in the way these people do it.

"Ooh everyone who is afab has these same experiences, we all know how it feels to (be harrassed, be catcalled, have our clothes policed, be told we're not as capable, etc)"

And like yeah probably a lot of people that are perceived as women have some of these experiences. Sexism and misogyny do exist.

But not all of us? And not all experiences? And while we're at it, not all trans men/trans masc people even grew up perceived as women if they came out as a child.

And they always take it to the next step that therefore all afab people share this communal trauma of men, which is where the radical feminism and terf ideology comes in.

This also relies on the assumption that all "female socialization" and "afab experience" is shaped by misogyny perpetuated by men. A lot of misogyny is perpetuated by women (for example the rampant diet culture that is especially put onto children perceived and raised as girls). A lot of strict gender roles for girls and boys are enforced by women, since the majority of child rearing is still done by women. Sure more men are misogynistic, and it's more often men who perpetuate street harrassment, yes. But that is not the only part of daily life.

And the next part is the assertion that "female socialization" that is put onto a transmasc person is then also internalised by that person. If you hear "girls should do this" but you know you're not a girl, you will not internalise it the same way a girl will. There is a bunch of gendered messaging that people will subconsciously absorb in some way, and yes how someone is treated in daily life affects them, but trans people will always have a different experience than peers assigned the same gender at birth, and even cis kids will have, sometimes strongly, varying life experiences. The middle class christian white cis het able-bodied neurotypical female experience that terfs and radfems trout as universal doesn't exist, neither for all women nor afab people, nor at all.

And whenever they try to draw on that supposed "universal trauma of men" to spread their ideology, to shape discussions and claim certain transphobic statements, it really stands out as odd to me because the emotional manipulation through reminding people of trauma or bad experiences they had doesn't work on me, so the base for their following argument doesn't exist.

I have had very little bad gendered experiences in my life. And i know i am somewhat just statistically lucky, because i know it does happen to people I'm not denying that. But i have very little negative impact of that proposed "female socialization", nor much of such a socialisation at all. And not in a tomboy 'my father taught me how to repair cars' way, i did learn how social rules apply to me while i move through the world perceived as a woman/girl and my parents also gave me information on that. But i never had much of what is usually claimed as part of growing up as an afab person. My parents never put gendered expectations on me. Never restricted my food, or forced me on a diet. Never policed my clothing, never policed even the style of clothing. When i started to dress masculinely after i realised i am trans, they never bat an eye even before coming out. They gifted me whatever was on my wishlist, both feminine stuff and remote controlled race cars (and mostly books). I have never been told i am less capable of anything, i actually always heard, from everywhere, that girls can be whatever they want, and that you can be a girl however way you want (and i never heard similar messaging aimed at boys in the scope of gendered messaging i witnessed. I was aware of sexism and that that's why it was especially aimed at girls, but i never heard any of that supposed already plentiful messaging directly told to boys my age). Our period products are and were always out in the open, my father was never weird about it and went with me to my first gynaecologist appointment. I would walk through the apartment half dressed in underwear to ask him to close my dresses. I never had many bad experiences with boys growing up, mostly because i also didn't know any boys; I went to an all girls school, i didn't have any friends so that included boys, i mostly just read books (and my parents never policed or even commented on what books i was reading. My father also recommended me his favourite scifi books, since i always loved fantasy and scifi). Most bad experiences growing up were with girls, through bullying and the girls in school finding me weird due to my autism and because i wasn't really girly or easily connected through girl experiences (i also thought I had internalised misogyny when it was just dysphoria). Most medical bad experiences were with female doctors and medical personnel, including two female gynaecologists. I have had a gross sexual comment made to me twice in my whole life. I never had a bad experience while dating because i have never dated anyone. The closest i have come to dating i did not have any particularly bad gendered experiences, nor really bad ones at all, just awkward experiences.

What i am trying to say with this is that i never experienced "the communal afab trauma" and i know that terfs and radfems are full of shit and purposefully ignore intersectionality and nuance, as well as don't actually care about women.

I did notice and experience some negative effects of sexism and misogyny in societal messaging, like the oversexualisation of female characters, awareness of gender stereotypes and strict gender roles, also i recently noticed i always buy tight or even slightly too tight clothing due to the way womens clothes affected me (that i wore until a few years ago). I am also acutely aware of the gender disparity in healthcare and medical research that is absolutely appalling. I am a feminist and I know that sexism and misogyny exist (and affect others often more than me) and i advocate against it wherever it's possible for me to do so. But i do not share some universal female/afab experience and most definitely not some "female socialization" the way terfs and radfems and those who are sipping the radfems juice claim the world works and try fo force onto trans people (especially transmasc people) in order to perpetuate transphobia of all kinds.

(because in the same vein, some mystical "male socialisation" does not apply to trans women and transfem people in the way terfs and radfems claim, nor does it exist the way they claim it to)

[donnerpartyofone]

It has been a little more than a year since I started going to St. Mary Star of the Sea. Since I moved it hasn't been as easy to roll out of bed, get something to chew on there, and start my day, and the ladies are a little mad at me. I know it's just how they show their concern, but I'm tempted to explain that demanding my attention is a great way to make sure you don't get it! I find attention-seeking extremely unattractive and I have complicated feelings about my own exhibitionism vs. my constant need for solitude. This topic has been a central part of many relationships; insofar as a lot of human interactions are driven by the subconscious urge to play out the individual's unresolved psychodramas, people who crave validation love to start shit with me because they sense that it's not easy to get my approval. Over the course of years of friendship or even just one night at a party, I seem to become symbolic of their problems with rejection and they'll try to bait me into reenacting their personal narrative with them--and it kinda works because I will instinctively slam the door on anyone who acts entitled to my attention, or who enjoys testing my loyalty. But uuuhhh that's kind of a different story, I go to the church for reasons that are private and hard to explain and I just cannot take it personally if I seem to disappoint anyone.

On Tuesday the brilliant monsignor I'm obsessed with spoke about scandal and hypocrisy, and I thought he kind of soft-pedaled it (he usually doesn't) but it's probably still good for people to be reminded of church failings by their priest instead of their perceived enemies. He said everyone needs reconciliation including the clergy: "My priest is the Virgin Mary, that's where I go." I really liked that, I had never heard it before; Mary the priest. I like the hint of gender confusion ("priestess" would be an intense word to hear in a church I guess) and the reminder that she is an authority and not just a nurturing repository for complaints. It got me thinking about the coronation, Mary as the Queen of Heaven. What does it mean to be the Queen of Heaven? Isn't everything both perfect and eternal in Heaven? In that kind of stasis there would be no need for authority, everything would be sort of a foregone conclusion. It's strange to think of being an administrator in Heaven, to have to litigate things that go on there. But a Queen isn't always an active ruler, a Queen is maybe more often a figurehead, a sort of living template, an example.

Today the brilliant priest I'm obsessed with spoke about how you neglect your own potential when you model your whole persona on the expectations of your demographic. He talked about the role he is expected to fulfill during Black History Month as one of two Black priests in the whole diocese, and the experience of growing up with certain protocols of what Blackness is within his community, indicating that while that all is a part of him, it sort of distracts from his individuality and all the other things that he is--and then he turned this around on the pews full of old white Italian- and Irish Americans. His point was that everyone is susceptible to performing a certain fixed identity informed by their statistical profile, and that this can radically limit your potential and your understanding of yourself as a person. He then extended this to God: "God is not that guy with the big beard who always looks like he smells something bad." He said God is both a man and a woman, and also more than that. He isn't really a "He", we only personify "Him" as an unavoidable convenience so we can talk about Him.

That priest always has very cosmic, borderline psychedelic things to say that are very exciting to me, and both he and the monsignor regularly challenge their majority old, white parishioners to check their prejudices and not let their sense of religion become this dead, rote thing that they never examine. Setting aside my very esoteric reasons for being there, it's helpful to me to know that there are more provocative things going on in some churches than what I would expect if I never visited one.

I always try to listen for at least one part of the readings that I find piquant, and today it was Jeremiah 17:9:

"More tortuous than all else is the human heart, beyond remedy; who can understand it?"

In 17:10 God answers that, of course, only He can understand it, but I find it more powerful to leave this as a question.

[cursedvibes]

Besides jjk, what other media do you like?

Hm, if we're talking about completely different media (not manga, I mean), I'm a pretty big fan of the Warhammer novels, especially Warhammer 40k. I like the universe overall, but I haven't played the ttrpg yet, only watched a match when I was very young, and I still couldn't bring myself to spend loads of money on figures and painting kits....so novels it is. But there's great stuff there, so I'm not complaining in the slightest.

Warhammer has a pretty divisive reputation, in part deserved, but by having Adeptus Mechanicus (ultra-religious cyborgs) and Necrons (pseudo-ancient egyptian space robots) be my favourite sections and avoiding anything Space Marine and Horus Heresy (most popular novel series), I seemed to have dodged the most toxic parts. There are actually parts that I would say are really progressive. It's certainly the only time I've read a novel (Imperator: Wrath of the Omnissiah) with a genderless mc that uses neopronouns and where the story doesn't focus on ver gender/identity.

I just really like how versatile the universe is. Sci-fi with prominent horror elements and an abundance of species and societies, where you can tell basically every kind of story you could think of. The epic battles against Tyranids (space locusts) or Orcs are most commonly known, but you can also have stories about your average citizen in a hive city or some Mechanicus researcher on some far off planet. Stories about non-humans are thankfully also getting more numberous. Recently there was a great book series about Necrons that explored their origins and culture and likened their forceful transformation from humanoids to robots to dysphoria, which was really interesting (there are also actual trans people, a trans woman and a nonbinary person).

What I especially appreciate about Adeptus Mechanicus in particular is that I have an abundance of mad scientist stories, that not only feature the appropreate amount of horror, but also lack tedious romantic subplots (most Warhammer stories do) and also talk about neurodivergency, their negative perception and oppression by the Imperium ("regular humans") and a bunch of gender fuckery. You have vaguely humanoid shaped piles of walking metal with deep booming voices, who use she/her pronouns and everyone roles with it because who would dare to question her? Or there's one Mechanicus ambassador to the Imperium, who used technology to have the appearance of a young attractive man because that makes negotiations easier. We don't know what the ambassador used to look like and it's never considered important. Or a tech priest who gave himself the voice of his favourite opera singer. A tech priestess who made herself an armour with boobs and wide hips. While others might choose to become nothing more than a brain in a tank, she chooses to project femininity and we never find out what she looks like underneath because how she wants to be perceived is more important. I just really like that diversity.

But unfortunately, not everyone sees it that way and the most loud and notorious fans are the ones who live out their white supremacy wet dreams through the Imprium and particularly Space Marines, not realizing that worshipping and dying for a corpse is actually a bad thing. Having an inquisition, that functions as a xenophobic thought police isn't something you should strive towards. But power suits cool, so....

You actually see this big divide in the book reviews. For example, I have read pretty much all Titans (big robots you can pilot but that have their own feral consciousness, kinda like Eva) novels currently out and the majority of them have female leads, prominent female characters or just female pilots in general. It's not a big deal and I never see anyone comment on it in reviews. Then we got a Horus Heresy novel focused on Titans and the Warhammer bros went apeshit because the main characters are a squad of all-women pilots. Calling it man-hating and toxic feminism and all that. To be fair, single-gender pilot squats are pretty rare, I never encountered them before, but it's just one, kinda culty, group of a mother and her daughters (not all biological). And it's really just the pilots who are women. Those Titans, especially the bigger ones, have an entire crew inside for maintenance, assistance, mechanics etc. and those people have all kinds of genders. They also never say they hate men, it's just a tradition. One woman hates one particular man, but that's because he's her ex. Nothing dramatic. But of course those fans don't care. I'm just glad they apparently aren't reading the other novels.

So yeah, bit controversial, but I've read a lot of great Warhammer novels and trans people being Warhammer fans is by now a bit of a meme. I actually had a few dates that started out as "holy shit, another trans person that's into Warhammer!" Quite funny.

[dreadark]

disorganized rant zz

why does it feel like the entire internet has decided misogyny doesn’t exist 

this is just me complaining about random shit I’ve seen I don’t know about trends or anything just. also i don’t go outside

idk I saw a post recently saying something like, since white women can’t pretend to be oppressed anymore now they’re— okay hang on. what? im not even going to read the rest of that because.. what? what do you mean pretend… what do you mean anymore… what world do you live in…

do you actually think being white cancels out misogyny or something. like I don’t even know where to begin with this… I really feel like somehow people have taken to adding “white” before they make a blatantly misogynistic statement so they can avoid criticism lmao. ah damn we can’t object now or we’ll be racist !

obviously some of them are fucking awful and being a woman doesn’t excuse that and white women have certain privilege others don’t etc etc. no shit dude. but this is…so beyond objecting to just that... also people really love shitting on white women in particular even more than white people in general which really I Wonder Why

i remember when roe was overturned and there were a bunch of people being like wait this is bad. because it can even affect trans men, and also certain minorities will be worse off

those are relevant points yeah but… can you not just care about… women in general..??? sorry now I sound like a fucking all lives matter guy but how else can I say this, sure some rich (usually white) women might be able to get around it but it doesn’t change how this is primarily an issue of women’s bodily autonomy. also I don’t even think the ability to sidestep it means they’re not affected, that they still have to do something extra is.. bad..?

I don’t think it’s wrong to point out those caveats or anything, it’s just a weird feeling I get that a lot of people won’t care if you just mention it’s bad for women. because they don’t think misogyny is a real issue anymore

also in more minor things, being gacha-diseased as I am (sorry) watching ppl act like media is unfairly biased against male characters is… a take… (it’s not even remotely true in gacha !! what !!! Every time I remember that one stat about how ppl perceive women as talking the majority of the time when they talk more than 33% or smth *don’t remember the exact number sorry. told you this is just some rant)

yknow what it’s not just gacha, either it’s bad for female characters to exist because it’s political (lol) or it’s bad because it’s waifubait for straight men. well most people will see the first one for bullshit but the second… is something why I am so glad you’re unable to see female characters as anything other than sex objects! (you don’t need to be attracted to women to do that btw)

it’s really depressing to see this even from people who seem like they should have better views on this stuf (how do I phrase this...)

ah right recently i saw a quote from someone involved with tlou2 circulating around tumblr about how all games except tlou2 were bad or something

Obviously it was a fake quote. i mean...tlou2... i’ve never played it but we’ve all heard the complaints about it for the crime of having a muscular woman or something. and also just being bad in general because it has to be a triple A gameTM idk I didn’t look too into this honestly im not into these things

and yknow what im sure it’s not a very good game, you’re allowed to dislike things, etc. but because of the type of backlash, maybe you should have a thought that when someone posts something outlandishly bad related to it, mmmmaybe they have some kind of agenda. just a thought

(yeah if you looked in that post’s comments the op was going on to defend gamergate. and i suppose a lot of people now don’t even know what that is...)

so it’s like, why does this matter--you can see it with that post itself, you just gave that guy a platform to tell a bunch of previously unaware people about why diversity in video games is bad and women are ruining everything actually. but hey that’s fine because we fixed misogyny already don’t worry about it

....i really think a lot of this is coming from people who don’t realize, and that might be the worst part of it...

[teamdilf]

For whichever OC you'd like to talk about:

Pen, marker, tortillon, graphite, pastels, and eraser!

Gonna talk about Tullia Victus here!

Pen: what's one minor moment your character regrets? A small mistake, but something they "can't erase"?

Ooh, minor moment is an interesting one, because there is one major moment she regrets with Adrien after Tarquin’s death, but minor… I think she regrets not pushing Adrien harder on the topic of Tarquin’s military service. She knew their son was unhappy, and her and Adrien argued about it, but she never forced the issue, because she ultimately recognized that Tarquin was a grown man (albeit a young one) and that she couldn’t do anything more without Tarquin asking her to. 

Marker: what's one thing your character would never tattoo on their body, even if they were paid a million dollars for it?

Other than her colony markings, I don’t think she’d have any desire to get a tattoo, period.

Tortillon: does your OC "blend in" with the people around them? Physically? Metaphorically?

Physically, yes, but metaphorically she does not, because she’s not a quiet sort who is willing to fall into line, as expected in her culture, so she has a reputation for being difficult - though she’s far less notorious than her husband is in that respect, if only because she never does ascend as high up the Hierarchy as Adrien does. 

Graphite: what's something decently common that your character does in a unique or different way? (like how graphite is present in all pencils, but not everyone uses pure graphite)

Romantic love! She shows her love by teasing Adrien and bantering with him, and those who are unfamiliar with the two of them often perceive the two of them as being unhappy together, when that could not be further from the truth. 

Pastels: Give me three colors that best represent your OC. Now give me three colors that your OC likes best. Is there an overlap?

Emerald green, soft grey, pearl white - the colours of her eyes, colony markings and plates, respectively.  Tullia wears a lot of green, so that’s a good match, but other than that, I think she’d mostly be fond of more subtle earth tones, both in home decorating and her outfits. 

Eraser: what's one way this character has changed over time? Either over the course of their story, or over the course of designing them as an author.

When I first wrote Tullia in a chapter of “Come Back Alive”, it was only ever meant to be a one-off, but I just adored her right from the beginning, so I started writing “On Earth’s Soil” and it had me really consider what their dynamic is. The glimpse we have into their relationship in that one chapter of “Come Back Alive” is during such a hard time and there’s desperation, and fear and relief, but their true dynamic during more normal circumstances came later.  So, I think initially I saw her as a more serious woman than she can be - she has a sense of humour and loves to banter with her equally funny husband, and I decided that Adrien would be happiest with someone he can share that sort of relationship with.

[manmetaphysical]

'All the Lives We Never Lived' by Anuradha Roy: Book Review

This is quite a readable novel but that does not equate to a really satisfactory one. The writing is beautiful, if a bit too intricate and flowery where the tone and style does not change much despite the shifts in viewpoint either of character or in time. It is littered with comma splice sentences which lend a certain rhythm to the phrasing. But that can be overused.

What becomes troubling is that it suffers from poor realisation of character and confused sequencing. Much of the main action between Gayatri and her husband is told through the eyes of her son Myshkin who does not really understand what is happening. These are sidelong glances by the son, or recollections by his older self. By nature they are partial. So if this is a device- the unreliable narrator- it allows for teasing glimpses, but never the full picture.

This indirectness accumulates and the effect is we don’t reall get to sympathise with Gayatri’s situation. It’s not enough to say she is a new type of woman in Indian literature as other reviewers have said, that Gayatri breaks the mould in some way. We still need to know what motivates her, and for two thirds of it, we have no idea.

It’s not until the end when the son Myshkin reads his mother’s letters do we get Gayatri’s reasoning laid bare. The tone becomes thankfully more direct. But her insights from Bali delivered in numerous letters all seems rationalised in hindsight. We rarely get the feelings unfiltered in present tense. It’s hard to feel exactly what made her take off so impulsively.

Incidentally, if you are wondering what are my credentials for writing book reviews like this of a major novel? I used to write for the 'Village Voice' and 'Publisher’s Weekly'. So, I would not wish to spoil your enjoyment. I confess I was well prepared to like it and enjoy it, but I have to say I struggled with it on several levels.

In this review I’m going to layer in some astrological analysis too which would never have been allowed in a trade publication like PW. So it can be read on two levels.

The character Gayatri seems naïve, possibly even bipolar, she throws tantrums, and is unable to clearly perceive the impact that leaving her son and husband would have. This might be a different take than intended. She had even promised to take Myshkin with her to Bali. Yet she leaves him behind because he was held up at school? She did not go back for him. There are several other things quite odd about Gayatri.

But at least Roy allows us to see how there is a lot of ‘othering’ of other nationalities, and this goes on all the time. She shows that many Indians have a casual sort of inverse racism, where characters think all ‘white’ people are British who are posed as the 'oppressors' even when they are German in the case of Spies and Dutch in the case of Beryl de Coete. Even the Balinese are strange and opaque to Gayatri. The sea is not ‘boiling’ there, it’s just the normal temperature. And, even when Myshkin thinks someone is the prison camp is German, he says causally this man would enjoy killing, as if all Germans are psychotic sadists. This is meant to be the real life Heinrich Harrer, the mountaineer and author of ‘Seven Years in Tibet’ but he was Austrian, not German.

I can accept that Gayatri is the independent type and not suited for motherhood or being the ideal wife, and that she wants to be an artist. But it is hard to understand why she seems so blind to the fact that Walter Spies homosexual. The implications of his sexuality and its effect on repelling her husband is not explored. Yet, surely they might have suspected his tastes, even though the terminology for it was different in the 1930s?

That Spies was in India and made a point of coming to get her is where fact and fiction are woven together- and all that can make for a good novel. But it can also not ring true. The real life Spies did not go to India in this way, but he had a taste for boys, especially Balinese, but his real ‘crime’ if any, was he was German in WWII. He did not change his passport. He just happened to be on the wrong side of the fence as the world divided up its loyalties.

She does acknowledge his sexuality but in such a matter of fact way that it does not do justice to the interactions that must have occurred. India sent troops to Asia to help defend the allied forces, but Indonesia was under Dutch control until 1942 when the Japanese took over.

Spies was arrested and imprisoned, but Gayatri was not thanks to her nationality. In the story, she was allowed to live on in Spies’ house at Champuhan near Ubud. The charges against Spies may have been trumped up to create more of a vilification of him. He actually contributed a great deal to Bali as he was the curator of the first art Museum and he cultivated a love and appreciation of dance, music, art with the local painters and artisans. But that was the politics of the time.

The earlier part of the novel tells of Walter Spies’ arrival in India where he befriends the grown up Gayatri but he brings another ‘friend’ in tow. This was Beryl de Coete who was effectively his confidente. She married a man but they both arranged for it to be sexless until the man ran off with another woman and Beryl moved on. So while it is never stated, a lot can be inferred. And the writing glosses over these issues, even being coy at times via through Gaytri’s eyes. These are writer’s choices - often difficult to make.

Perhaps there are women who have no gaydar but her name is shortened to ‘Gay’ in her letters. So is that by choice or just accidental? Love between women is never broached but there’s a hint that Beryl might be fond of that in her admiration of the female body. Gayatri is okay with that. This could have been another reason why Gayatri leaves her marriage and her son, not just so she feels restricted and her vocation is to paint which her husband allowed her to do anyway.

But all this is avoided as if it is too 'real' to mention. So there could be another novel that grounds a clearer perception of shifting sexualities where Gayatri has a relationship with Beryl even if that is a romantic freindship? But that’s not the direction Roy takes. She has something else up her sleeve which is the adultery with Brijen Gayatri's neighbour. This is all kept hidden from her son and husband -and the reader- for a long time. So for some readers this can be frustrating and even feels misleading. Gayatri becomes instant friends with people she barely knows and we are expected to believe she abandons her whole life for them.

And the son, Myshkin the narrator of all this in arch, elegant prose is hard to fathom too. Who exactly is he? He is an unreliable narrator for sure as he seems to be always outside the main action that goes on. Consequently, he understands little, indulges in what appear to be controlled imagination sessions, similar to an OBE, where he imagines himself in Bali brought to life by vivid sensory detail, yet he is also capable of holding a nasty grudge.

He is more like his father who follows rigid political beliefs than his mother. If that is true, the whole underpinning of the story is unreliable, seen through shifting lenses. He never seems to come to any real insight about himself unless that is to be a mirror to his mother and become a painter himself? This is shown when he sees a photography of his mother. What does he believe in besides saving a few trees as a horticulturalist. He shows more feeling about the trees than he does about his mother. Why as a boy does he hate everyone around him, yet never blame himself for being late to meet his mother as promised? Why did he not think about it that way? Why does he never have any relationships himself? So, he is less well developed than Gayatri remaining unknowable.

Now for a bit of astrological speculation and it is only theorising until the facts are established. Anurahda Roy was born in 1967. No other birth data seems available for her, (unless someone can supply it?). Roy pushes these characters into shape in order to convey her point that women are suppressed in Indian society and that they should break free from their marriages which tie them down. The theme is that traditions are oppressive and cause a lot of needless suffering and limitation of people’s lives and this much is true in any society, hence universal.

But freedom is not absolute and still requires discipline, courage and responsibility to fully enjoy, surely? It’s not freedom at any cost. She this makes me suspect that Roy might be an Aquarian, perhaps ruled by Uranus who wishes for freedom at all costs? It is more complex, but the theme of the novel is one of breakfing free, so it could also be Sagittarius, the adventurer taking off to foreign climes. The birthdate of Gayatri is revealed in the letters to be the 13th September, year uknown. That would make her a Virgo. Virgos are not known to be flighty but to become an obsessive painter not much interested in sex except to learn its technical skills, yes, that makes more sense- at least to me.

Interesting also that this birthdate of Gayatri’s aligns to Walter Spies’ birth date which is who was 15th September. So they were both Virgos, just two days apart, just not in the same year. That they would have similar traits goes without saying as the solar traits of a sun sign are all pervasive, but I’m not sure that Roy had that this strand of thinking in mind when she wrote the novel. But it does make me think that Anhurada Roy could also be a Virgo?

The other famous ‘Bolter’ in literature is Fanny’s mother in ‘The Pursuit of Love’ by Nancy Mitford who was a Sagittarius. ‘The Bolter’ is not given any other name but takes off with a new lover and engages in serial monogamy in a series of affairs regardless of what her daughter thinks of her. But it was the real life Idina Sackville who could have been the model for Mitford’s ‘the bolter’ as she scandalised people in England by running off Kenya. She was a Piscean with Venus in Aquarius.

Back to the structure of the novel. It jumps around from viewpoint to viewpoint. Nothing wrong with that, but it does it in a way not strengthen its core message. The title also strikes me as odd ‘All the Lives We Never Lived.’ Unless, it is a warning to us all to live our lives to the full – follow your bliss as Campbell said- even if it means leaving a marriage, as Gayatri does indeed live out her ideal life. She goes off to Bali, so that is not a life spent unlived as we find it Chekhov’s short stories. She achieves her goal.

The husband also lives his life to the full by going off to be a Buddhist monk and then finding a young wife to marry with his first one gone there is no mention of anything like a divorce? He is a member of the Society for Indian Patriots and is willing to go to prison for his beliefs, just like Ghandi who is heroised. Yet, by implication he is meant to be the ‘bad’ character, way too rigid to understand Gayatri. So, whose life exactly is unlived I wonder? These are some of the thoughts that occur while reading as the psychology is puzzling.

For a much better appreciation of the life of WalterSpies at Iseh and Champuhan, Nigel Barley’s novel ‘Island of Demons’ (2010) delivers the full story much more explicitly without coyness or any veil of middle class beliefs. It may not be obvious but his coterie of friends Vicky Baum, Noel Coward, charlie Chaplin, Margaret Mead, Rudolph Bonnet could be the clues?

The only time where I felt finally it is getting somewhere is the voice of Gayatri in the letters from Bali. Gayatri is able to reflect more honestly. She talks about a lover she had back in India -not her husband- so this is the real transgression. But is it the only one? This is Brijen the lover in the local neighbourhood who she had an affair with. He is given as one of the reasons she felt she had to leave:

“I was still in love with him yet I wanted to be free of him. I did not love him, I have come to understand, I merely loved his addiction to me. I am not made for love, I need to be absolutely free. I am repelled by my indifference.”

She admits she is ‘contradictory’ and there’s a ‘civil war’ going on inside her. She wants to be lovable, a different person, yet she is not. She is sees the self love people have for themselves and is disgusted by it.

This is pure Uranus speaking so now it begins to make more sense- only through astrological understanding of this archetype the power of which intensifies at this moment as it stations retrograde in Taurus. This suggests a strong Uranus in the chart of Gayatri, the Virgo, perhaps where it is placed in Sagittarius? Or she may have a Moon in Aquarius? Or a stellium of planets in the 11th House? This feeling makes sense to those who have ever had a flashlight of alien insight into human affairs.

They most likely have experienced all the twisted ironies of human relationships- how something honorable and sacred can turn quickly into farce. Love as a tragi-comedy is only seen in this very illuminating distant and coldly objective light. Uranus photographed by Voyager II probe is an ice giant but the coldness could also be from the traditional ruler of Aquarius-Saturn. These are both literal and symbolic qualities.

So Roy’s 'All the Lives' is a very interesting read. I certainly was not bored reading it, and I daresay it fits all the specifications of the Overton window and of what Western liberals are meant to think, and Roy is the darling of all Guardian readers and perfect fodder for the BBC.

I hoped for a lot, especially with Walter Spies as a character, but it is full of unsettling questions. Perhaps others will love it, the style is charming, even lyrical in a subuded way, but these issues that I’ve mentioned make it as puzzling as a jigsaw where the pieces are scattered on the table, but don’t ever quite merge together to make the image whole.

© Kieron Devlin, September 1st, 2024, Bali

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