#storytelling was engrained into the culture

[grandapplewit]

As we’ve moved father into the post-modern era (about 1970 onwards), which is defined by the increased social emphasis on individualism, communal storytelling has become something… shunned. Past methods of communal storytelling (theatre, music, folktales) have been increasingly privatized since 1970. Because of this, we’ve seen the emergence of fanfiction (specifically slash fiction started by Star Trek fans in the 1970s) and TTRPGs (specifically Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder in the late 20th Century), which are both ostracized by the mainstream culture, but are also the only two sources of communal storytelling in the 21st century. TTRPGs are finding more footing in mainstream culture, but because they’ve found footing are becoming increasingly commodified. In this essay, I

[soul-dwelling]

Think Ohkubo will ever reflect and learn from his past mistskes or is it all too deeply ingrained for him to change at this point, considering his age and all?

Not to sound preachy, but if I'm hoping I have the capacity to change and improve, I want to have that hope for someone else.

But I also haven't seen that happen across Ohkubo's history of writing.

And not to go off on a tangent from your message, but given certain people who talk him up so much, even as they acknowledge the gross stuff he does but still stan for him, and get more people to watch their vids or reblog their posts than, say, people who correctly point out what he gets wrong and how it harms his stories or perpetuate some toxic shit in larger pop culture: I'm not optimistic he has a reason to change.

It's fair to say, let artists make what they want, let the audience judge that art, better than constraining the creativity of an artist. But it's also fair to say that, at least for me, it gets tiresome seeing him falling into the same storytelling traps (as tiresome as it probably is to read people like me making that same complaint over and over again).

So, to actually answer your question...First, I would hope that Ohkubo's longevity as a working artist means he has reflected and learned from past mistakes. But given the dull cliches and offensive content he has double-downed on, he hasn't put into practice better choices when he really should have learned them to make up for that dullness and that offensiveness. Second, I don't think anything is too engrained for him to not change. And finally, I don't think age has anything to do with this: at any age someone can improve or take off in a completely different but better direction later on in their life. But if he's not going to make another manga or help make another anime beyond character designs, I don't see that happening.

[coliearellano]

Becoming Filipino: But why horror?

Our project, Becoming Filipino, (in hindsight) is a satirical film of the national ID registration with the incorporation of recent horror pop culture, analog horror. It exposes the harsh truth of the Philippine life, emphasized through eerie themes.

When we created the concept and plot of the project, we didn't really think much about the specificities. We discussed ideas, concepts, and how we were to combine the production group's individual proposals into one. From our exchange of ideas, we ended with this very concept, the idea of a horror film deeply ingrained in this film's overall creation.

However, don't get us wrong, the aesthetics and uniqueness was the least of our thoughts when we imagined horror. Instead...

It just felt right.

So, when were asked, why couldn't the process be smooth? Why does it have to be horror?

I realized, that with all the struggles one has being a Filipino, it has become engrained and "normalized" in us to associate this with horror, that...no one could or would ever question it.

The truth that we speak of is, in itself without our theatrics, already horrific or horror.

With the use of analog horror, we only emphasize the scary reality that we have been "normally" born into.

During my discussion in class about the storytelling evolution of books or novels, I explored the different storytelling narratives, techniques, and themes people during certain period utilized. During such period, notable events (especially disasters such as wars or revolutions) as well as culture are heavily contextualized into their novels.

On purpose or not?

All we know as readers is that the narratives we read are a peek into the author's reality.

And, as "authors" of Becoming Filipino's narrative and storytelling, we contextualize our experiences, culture and struggles through this project just how producers of storytelling have since time immemorial.

Now, with technology advancing and the future coming, the world continue to evolve and expand to various, unique and experimental storytelling.

[lizzarrocks]

How to have animation popular and remember like south park?

Here are some things that contributed to South Park becoming a popular and memorable animated show:

- Timely and topical humor - The show parodied current events, controversies and pop culture in a satirical way that kept the content feeling fresh and relevant.

- Push the boundaries - The crude, offensive humor pushed censorship boundaries and generated controversy, which attracted interest and buzz. - Unique style - The low-budget, crude cut-out animation style was unlike anything else on TV at the time. It stood out visually.

- Relatable characters - Kids could identify with Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny even if their adventures were absurd. The characters carried the humor.

- Consistent and prolific - New episodes aired regularly each season without multi-year breaks, keeping the world and conversationscurrent.

- Viral clips - Short, shareable scenes spread the humor online before social media really took off. This expanded the audience.

- Satire not preaching - It poked fun at everyone equally without taking itself too seriously or trying to teach explicit lessons.

- Top talent - Trey Parker and Matt Stone's comedic skills kept the writing and humor consistently clever and entertaining.

- Stayed fresh - After 20+ seasons the show still found creative ways to evolvewhile stillfeeling familiar. Didn't become formulaic.

- Risk-taking - Wasn't afraid to go to arguably offensive places that kept audiences tuning in just to see how far it would go.

- Cultural touchpoints - The show created so many catchphrases, references and ripostes that became engrained in pop culture lexicon over time.

- Broad fanbase - While edgy, the humor had wide appeal across many demographics - it wasn't just a niche show.

- Consistent voice talent - Having Trey, Matt and the whole core cast involved in every episode ensured high quality of vocal performances.

- Skilled writing room - A team of talented comedy writers helped produce dense layers of jokes/easter eggs per episode.

- Tight production - Turning episodes around from conception to air in just 6 days allowed maximum reactivity to current events.

- Balanced commentary - While provocative, it skewered people across the political spectrum fairly without feeling like propaganda. - Ambitious premises - Story arcs tackled sprawling topics like multi-episode pandemics or entire serialized films.

- Clever meta jokes - The show was often self-aware, poking fun at its own formulas and tropes to keep viewers on their toes.

- Commitment to quality - Despite immense success, Trey and Matt refused to lower artistic standards or rush production for money.

- Diverse storytelling - While grounded in vulgar comedy, some episodes told very moving stories too through its satire.- Enduring rewatch value - Dense humor meant it retained entertainment long after initial viewing due to all the layered jokes.

[girlqueens]

Week 10

1. How would you define the Warrior Girl Icon based on the examples in the PDF series? What icons would you add?

I believe that the Warrior Girl Icon does not conform to world and roles being pushed upon her. She stands up for what she believes in even if that means having a long fight of opposition against her. She does not let fear hinder her, she looks it straight in the eye and walks past it. The Warrior Girl Icon is unrelenting and demonstrates physical and mental strength. She leads and takes pride in her female identity. One of my favorite girl warrior icons is Aibileen Clark in The Help. Despite the fear of getting fire, arrested, or killed, Aibileen speaks up about the horrid and racist experiences she has gone through as a housekeeper in white households for most of her life in a book being written by a white ally. In speaking up, she encouraged dozens of other housekeepers to speak up about their experiences as well, ultimately ending with a book filled with testimonies that exposed the racism in Mississippi during the height of the Civil Rights Movement.

2. READ Priya's Shakhti graphic novel, watch the videos and write a review (3-4 paragraphs) on your blog.

Include reference to these concepts:

"The problem of gender violence is not a legal problem, but a cultural problem."

"Culture changes faster than genes."

"Speak without shame and stand with me and bring about the change you want to see."

Priya's Shakhti is a powerful graphic novel. It was refreshing to see a story that actually reflects the troubles women around the world have to face when it comes to sexism and GBV. Often, many of the horrid acts and hardships women have to endure are watered down in storytelling because they aren't "appropriate" for children (in my opinion that is just an excuse, and really companies just care about profit and don't want to release anything that might tarnish their brand image) this is prominent in many Disney animations and other graphic novels such as Baby Mouse.

The graphic novel addresses the fact that gender violence is a cultural issue. We live in a society where men view themselves as more than women. When crimes against women are committed we are blamed and are told to get over it. The other day, while I was at work (as a wedding server) a male guest in his late 60's walked straight into me and held on to me for a second and then touched my butt before walking away. When I went to my supervisor to notify her that I was touched inappropriately by a guest, she said "that will happen to you", other female waitresses agreed saying "men will be men." It infuriated me that this was the response and was shrugged off so effortlessly. But I suppose it wasn't my supervisor or other women severs' faults, this is just the mentality that has been engrained in our culture, women are told it's "no big deal." But it is and that's why we have to work together as fellow sisters to change the narrative.

Culture can and will change faster than waiting on people's genetic make up to change and hope they are different. We as a collective have to come together and change this engrained mindset. If the masses are bringing awareness to GBV and sexism and doing everything in their power to condem it and educate people against it then eventually the societal mindset will shift. The quote "speak without shame and stand with me and bring about the change you want to see" says it all. If we want to see change we need to speak up without fearing what may happen. When ones speaks up it encourages others to do the same. If everyone is enraged and speaking out about the same thing, that is when change happens.

3. Watch the speeches by Emma Gonzales and Naomi Wadler. How do these speeches resonate four years later in the aftermath of March for Our Lives (March 2018)?

What continues to be breakthrough and change-making about these speeches? What has changed?

How has their presence on the public stage at that time and since then expanded the definition of a fearless 'Warrior Girl'?

These speeches are still extremely relevant today. Gun violence is still a major threat in everyone's lives. Mass shootings are still regularly happening. There have been almost 40,000 deaths caused by gun violence in the U.S. this year. We are still fighting for our lives. These speeches are extremely emotional because they recognize and say the names of those who lost their lives due to guns. They make it clear that lives matter, and those who lost them are not just some statistic. Emma Gonzales's speech was especially effective as she was silent for half of it equaling the exact amount of time the shooting at her school lasted for. The silence was uncomfortable, emotional, and impactful. Both these girls are Warrior Girls. They stood up in front of millions of people and spoke up on something others are afraid to do. They called out issues with gun legislation and brought awareness to something to effects so many people. They have been unrelenting in their fights against gun violence and continue to be activists today.

[aidenwaites]

Also Renfield's death in the movie adaptions I've seen are small fries to the fact that the man gets his back broken, becomes partially paralyzed, gets his face smashed into the floor, has to have a trepanation (trepany?) (He got a hole poked in his head), has a long death speech, and then I think(?) got his neck snapped when no one else is looking

[nealiios]

The Supernatural 70s: Part I - Corruption of An Innocent

"We're mutants. There's something wrong with us, something very, very wrong with us. Something seriously wrong with us - we're soldiers writers."

-- with apologies to the screenwriter of "Stripes"

Dear reader, I have the darkest of revelations to make to you, a truth when fully and wholly disclosed shall most assuredly chill you to the bone, a tale that shall make you question all that you hold to be true and good and holy about my personal history. While you may have come in search of that narrative designer best known for his works of interactive high fantasy, you should know that he is also a crafter of a darker art, a scribbler of twisted tales filled with ghosts, and ghouls, and gargoyles. I am, dear innocent, a devotee of horrors! Mwahahahaha!

[cue thunderclap, lightning, pipe organ music]

Given the genre of writing for which most of you know me, I forgive you if you think of me principally as a fantasy writer. I don't object to that classification because I do enjoy mucking about with magic and dark woods and mysterious ancient civilizations. But if you are to truly know who I am as a writer, you must realize that the image I hold of myself is principally as a creator of weird tales.

To understand how and why I came to be drawn to this sub-genre of fantastic fiction, you first must understand that I come from peculiar folks. Maybe I don't have the Ipswich look, or I didn't grow up in a castle, but my pedigree for oddity has been there from the start. My mother was declared dead at birth by her doctor, and often heard voices calling to her in the dead of night that no one else could hear. Her mother would periodically ring us up to discuss events in our lives about which she couldn't possibly have known. My father's people still share ghost stories about a family homestead that burned down mysteriously in the 1960s. Even my older brother has outré memories about events he says cannot possibly be true, and as a kid was kicked off the Tulsa city bookmobile for attempting to check out books about UFOs, bigfoot, and ESP. It's fair to say I was doomed - or destined - for weirdness from the start.

If the above listed circumstances had not been enough, I grew up in an area where neighbors whispered stories about a horrifically deformed Bulldog Man who stalked kids who "parked" on the Old North Road near my house. The state in which I was raised was rife with legends of bigfoots, deer women, and devil men. Even in my childhood household there existed a pantheon of mythological entities invented explicitly to keep me in line. If I was a good boy, The Repairman would leave me little gifts of Hot Wheels cars or candy. If I was being terrible, however, my father would dress in a skeleton costume, rise from the basement and threaten to drag me down into everlasting hellfire (evidently there was a secret portal in our basement.) There were monsters, monsters EVERYWHERE I looked in my childhood world. Given that I was told as a fledgling writer to write what I knew, how could anyone have been surprised that the first stories I wrote were filled with the supernatural?

"The Nightmare" by John Henry Fuseli (1781)

My formative years during the late sixties and early seventies took place at a strange juncture in our American cultural history. At the same time that we were loudly proclaiming the supremacy of scientific thought because we'd landed men on the moon, we were also in the midst of a counter cultural explosion of interest in astrology, witchcraft, ghosts, extra sensory perception, and flying saucers. Occult-related books were flying off the shelves as sales surged by more than 100% between 1966 and 1969. Cultural historians would come to refer to this is as the "occult boom," and its aftershocks would impact popular cultural for decades to come.

My first contact with tales of the supernatural were innocuous, largely sanitized for consumption by children. I vividly remember watching Casper the Friendly Ghost and the Disney version of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I read to shreds numerous copies of both Where the Wild Things Are and Gus the Ghost. Likely the most important exposure for me was to the original Scooby Doo, Where Are You? cartoon which attempted to inoculate us from our fears of ghosts and aliens by convincing us that ultimately the monster was always just a bad man in a mask. (It's fascinating to me that modern incarnations of Scooby Doo seem to have completely lost this point and instead make all the monsters real.)

ABOVE: Although the original cartoon Scooby Doo, Where Are You? ran only for one season from 1969 to 1970, it remained in heavy reruns and syndication for decades. It is notable for having been a program that perfectly embodied the conflict between reason and superstition in popular culture, and was originally intended to provide children with critical thinking skills so they would reject the idea of monsters, ghosts, and the like. Ironically, modern takes on Scooby Doo have almost entirely subverted this idea and usually present the culprits of their mysteries as real monsters.

During that same time, television also introduced me to my first onscreen crush in the form of the beautiful and charming Samantha Stevens, a witch who struggles to not to use her powers while married to a frequently intolerant mortal advertising executive in Bewitched. The Munsters and The Addams Family gave me my first taste for "goth" living even before it would become all the rage in the dance clubs of the 1980s. Late night movies on TV would bring all the important horror classics of the past in my living room as Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, the Invisible Man, the Phantom of the Opera, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Godzilla all became childhood friends. Over time the darkened castles, creaking doors, foggy graveyards, howling wolves, and ever present witches and vampires became so engrained in my psyche that today they remain the "comfort viewing" to which I retreat when I'm sick or in need of other distractions from modern life.

ABOVE: Elizabeth Montgomery starred in Bewitched (1964 - 1972) as Samantha Stephens, a witch who married "mortal" advertising executive Darren Stephens (played for the first five seasons by actor Dick York). Inspired by movies like I Married a Witch (1942) and Bell, Book and Candle (1958), it was a long running series that explored the complex relationship dynamics between those who possess magic and those who don't. Social commentators have referred to it as an allegory both for mixed marriages and also about the challenges faced by minorities, homosexuals, cultural deviants, or generally creative folks in a non heterogeneous community. It was also one of the first American television programs to portray witches not as worshippers of Satan, but simply as a group of people ostracized for their culture and their supernatural skills.

Even before I began elementary school, there was one piece of must-see gothic horror programming that I went out of my way to catch every day. Dark Shadows aired at 3:30 p.m. on our local ABC affiliate in Tulsa, Oklahoma which usually allowed me to catch most of it if I ran home from school (or even more if my mom or brother picked me up.) In theory it was a soap opera, but the show featured a regular parade of supernatural characters and themes. The lead was a 175 year old vampire named Barnabas Collins (played by Johnathan Frid), and the show revolved around his timeless pursuit of his lost love, Josette. It was also a program that regularly dealt with reincarnation, precognition, werewolves, time travel, witchcraft, and other occult themes. Though it regularly provoked criticism from religious groups about its content, it ran from June of 1966 until it's final cancellation in April of 1971. (I would discover it in the early 1970s as it ran in syndication.) Dark Shadows would spin off two feature-length movies based on the original, a series of tie-in novels, an excellent reboot series in 1991 (starring Ben Cross as Barnabas), and a positively embarrassingly awful movie directed by Tim Burton in 1991.

ABOVE: Johnathan Frid starred as Barnabas Collins, one of the leading characters of the original Dark Shadows television series. The influence of the series cannot be understated. In many ways Dark Shadows paved the way for the inclusion of supernatural elements in other soap operas of the 1970s and the 1980s, and was largely responsible for the explosion of romance novels featuring supernatural themes over the same time period.

While Dark Shadows was a favorite early television program for me, another show would prove not only to be a borderline obsession, but also a major influence on my career as a storyteller. Night Gallery (1969-1973) was a weekly anthology television show from Rod Serling, better known as the creator and host of the original Twilight Zone. Like Twilight Zone before it, Night Gallery was a deep and complex commentary on the human condition, but unlike its predecessor the outcomes for the characters almost always skewed towards the horrific and the truly outré. In "The Painted Mirror," an antiques dealer uses a magic painting to trap an enemy in the prehistoric past. Jack Cassidy plots to use astral projection to kill his romantic rival in "The Last Laurel" but accidentally ends up killing himself. In "Eyes" a young Stephen Spielberg directs Joan Crawford in a story about an entitled rich woman who plots to take the sight of a poor man. Week after week it delivered some of the best-written horror television of the early 1970s.

In retrospect I find it surprising that I was allowed to watch Night Gallery at all. I was very young while it was airing, and some of the content was dark and often quite shocking for its time. Nevertheless, I was so attached to the show that I'd throw a literal temper tantrum if I missed a single, solitary episode. If our family needed to go somewhere on an evening that Night Gallery was scheduled, either my parents would either have to wait until after it had aired before we left, or they'd make arrangements in advance with whomever we were visiting to make sure it was okay that I could watch Night Gallery there. I was, in a word, a fanatic.

ABOVE: Every segment of Night Gallery was introduced by series creator Rod Serling standing before a painting created explicitly for the series. Director Guillermo del Toro credits Serling's series as being the most important and influential show on his own work, even more so than the more famous Twilight Zone.

[thesociologicalcinema]

So You Want to Talk about Critical Race Theory

The Trump administration has instructed federal agencies to end racial sensitivity trainings that address topics like white privilege and critical race theory, calling them "divisive, anti-American propaganda." Let's talk.

Critical Race Theory, or CRT, is a theoretical and interpretive mode that examines the appearance of race and racism across dominant cultural modes of expression. In adopting this approach, CRT scholars attempt to understand how victims of systemic racism are affected by cultural perceptions of race and how they are able to represent themselves to coujnter prejudice. CRT originated among legal scholars such as Derrick Bell, Kimberle Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado, who arbued that racism and white supremacy are engrained in the fabric of American society.

CRT identifies that the power structures in this country are based on white privilege and white supremacy, whcih perpetuates the marginalization of people of color. There are five major components or tenets of CRT: 1. The notion that racism is ordinary and not aberrational 2. Tbe idea of an interest convergence 3. The social construction of race 4. The idea of storytelling and ounter-storytelling 5. The notion that whites have actually been recipients of civil rights legislation

"Color-blindness" & "Meritocracy" Color-blindness and meritocratic rhetoric serve two primary functions: 1. They allow white people to feel consciously irresponsible for the hardships people of color face and encounter daily 2. They also maintain white people's power & strongholds within society. "Color-blindness: legitimizes racism's need for an 'other' in order to flourish and maintain its influence within the fabric of society. 'Meritocracy' allows the empowered--the status quo--to feel 'good' and have a clear conscience." 

Interest Convergence: Interest convergence is the notion that white people will allow and support racial justice & progress to the extent that there is something positive in it for them, or a 'convergence' between the interests of whites and BIPOC. Derrick Bell wrote that the interests of Black civil rights coincided for a brief time with the interests of white elites, thus enabling a decision that benefited the interests of Black people. In Bell's (1980) words, "the interests of Blacks in achieving racial equality will be accommodated ony when it converges with the interests of whites." *Interest convergence is a theory coined by the late Derrick Bell, law professor and spiritual godfather to the field of study known as critical theory.

Race as a social construct The declaration that "race is a social construct" has been one of CRT's hallmark mantras and core issues. Instances of socially constructing race throughout modern U.S. history include: The infamous Dred Scott v. Sandford case whereby the U.S. Supreme Court declared that "Negroes," whether free or enslaved, were not citizens. The infamous "one drop rule," a relic from the Jim Crow era where one drop of black blood made an individual "black." How in 1935 minorities were denied Social Security and excluded from unions.

"Counter-storytelling" Critical race theorists argue that counter-storytelling, as a method of telling the stories of those people whose experiences are not often told may be a useful mechanism to challenge and change racial dominance. Counter-stories can help promote social justice by putting a human face to the experiences of often-marginalized groups. This promotes their sense of social, policital and cultural cohension and teaches others about their social realities.

White people have actually been recipients of civil rights legislation. White people have undeniably been the recipients of civil rights legislation and it has also been verified that affirmative action, too, best serves white people. As Sally Kohn wrote for Time: "While people of color, individually and as groups, have been helped by affirmative action in the susequent years, data and studies suggest women--white women in particular--have benefited disproportionately. According to one study, 6 million women, the majority of whom were white, had jobs they wouldn't have otherwise held but for affirmative action."

Unlike some academic disciplines, critical race theory contains an activist dimension. It not only tries to understand our social situation, but to change it; it sets out not only to ascertain how society organizes itself along racial lines and hierarchies, but to transformm it for the better. Source:  @SOYOUWANTTOTALKABOUT / Purdue.edu / UCLA School of Public Affairs / NPR.org /  eric.ed.gov /  Cuny.edu / leeds.ac.uk /  Time.com

[brucewhite]

A brief explainer on deep-water merfolk society and culture...

“For me, it’s the sound of where I live. That’s hard to explain. It’s always there, like your heartbeats. Always, for our whole lives, we have music. We have wonderful music. The sea speaks to us. And it’s our home that speaks. Can you understand?” -Rachel Ingalls, Mrs. Caliban

OVERVIEW:

Not much is known about the culture of deep-water merpeople (Atargatous aequor). Because they live so deep in the ocean, they are rarely encountered by humans, except in very rare circumstances (however, there have been more encounters in the past five hundred years due to increased exploration of the ocean and the expansion of sea trade). As a result, deep-water merpeople are not very influenced by land culture or even other mer-cultures. This has contributed to stereotypes about deep-water merpeople being brutal and cruel, however, these stereotypes are not broadly accurate. Deep-water merpeople have an equally rich and important culture maintained through thousands of years of history. 

[below the cut for length, some references to death, merm-on-merm and merm-on-human violence but nothing graphic]

MIGRATION

Migration is central to the life of the deep-water merperson. The majority of deep-water pods are nomadic, a lifestyle that originally developed out of the need to follow and hunt large sea creatures and expanded to encompass all aspects of life as time went on. There are two main seasons characterized by two main destinations to which a pod will travel: the season of hunting (October-April) takes place in the deepest waters, while the season of birth and new life (May-September) takes place in relatively more shallow waters (though this season still does not see deep-water merpeople venturing anywhere near the surface except in extreme circumstances). 

Bruce’s pod follows one popular route, traveling around the western Pacific ocean, hunting the large mammals of the Mariana Trench in the winter and then swimming out to the waters near the Hawaiian islands in the summer. Other pods follow this pattern as well, but it is rare for different pods to encounter one another (however, this has become more likely as migration patterns have changed; see more in the next section).

These migration patterns are so engrained in deep-water merpeople that, if separated from the pod, they are usually able to find their group by instinct alone. When a member of the pod is lost and does not return for an entire year, it is by that point that the pod tends to presume that merperson dead and begin the mourning process.

HUNTING

Hunting is incredibly important to deep-water merfolk, and much of their lives revolve around feeding the pod so that everyone is able to withstand the long journey from one part of the ocean to another. During the hunting season, merpeople eat more, and are able to store extra fat in the thick skin of their tails to sustain them in the leaner summer months (hunting also occurs during these months, but with relatively smaller prey). They also preserve and carry some of this meat with them, but it is a relatively small amount and mostly in case of emergency, as it is difficult to carry too much with them as they are always traveling. Deep-water merpeople are carnivorous, so their entire diet consists of meat.

It is rare, but not unheard of, for deep-water merpeople to attack shallow-water merpeople or humans. Generally, this occurs when the pod feels threatened, mistakes the victim for an animal, or is experiencing extreme hunger. Some deep-water merpeople actively hunt humans, but this mindset is rare. However, conditions created by the global sea trade have disrupted migration routes and may lead deep-water merpeople into unfamiliar territory, making the possibility of an attack more likely. 

PARTNERSHIP AND REPRODUCTION

Deep-water merpeople sometimes mate for life, but this is uncommon. During the hunting season, the safety of the pod as a unit is prioritized over individual relationships. As the season of new life approaches, however, adult pod members often find themselves pairing off, especially during the long journey to the shallower waters. This is colloquially known as “swimming together,” and these relationships may remain platonic or turn romantic in nature, and it is on these swims in the late spring and early summer when children tend to be conceived. 

Deep water merfolk have a slightly longer pregnancy than their shallow-water cousins, and so the children that result are usually born a year later, in the summer months when the pod reaches the shallower waters. This is why most deep-water merpeople are born in the months of June and July. These months can be equally as dangerous as the hunting season, especially in recent years, as the pod ventures into relatively shallow waters to care for newborns, which puts them at more risk of encountering humans. Deep-water pods have had to become more vigilant with the rise of the sea trade, and some have altered their migration patterns entirely for the protection of their young. 

Concepts of family, gender, and sexual orientation tend to be very loose among deep-water merpeople, and there is little social pressure to continue a family line. When a child is born, they become the entire pod’s responsibility, though relationships with parents and elders are often important as well. It is equally common for deep-water merpeople to have children with many partners, with one partner, or to remain childless (in a technical sense-- again, children are raised by the entire pod). 

SPIRITUAL BELIEFS

Deep-water merpeople do have spiritual beliefs, though their concept of religion is very loose, with no written texts. The main tenet of deep-water merfolk spirituality is ancestor veneration; it is common for deep-water merpeople to ask departed members of the pod for guidance or strength before a daunting hunt or when dealing with a difficult personal decision. This can vary on an individual basis; some pods are more spiritual than others, but all have some concept of the presence of the dead. 

Some deep-water pods also believe that spirits are carried by the currents. Deep below the surface, differences in density and pressure are explained by the presence of the departed. 

Spiritual rituals include: the half-year mourning period for a lost member of the pod, thanking ancestors before beginning to eat, and dressing wounds after a hunt. These are not very elaborate, but treated with more reverence with other activities. 

ENTERTAINMENT 

Deep-water merpeople do not have written records, but they do have an extensive and elaborate history of oral tradition. These include folk tales and legends that can be traced back thousands of years, but also more modern-day jokes and riddles. Some members of the pod become well-known for their storytelling abilities, and tell these tales in a unique form of Mermish only used by deep-water pods (though shallow-water merfolk usually can understand this dialect). 

CHILDREN AND THE ELDERLY

Based on migration patterns, children are born in the summer months and are considered strong enough to travel by the fall. In the first few years of their lives, children are carried by older members of the pod, as their smaller and weaker tails cannot keep up. In turn, in older age, the elderly link arms with their children in order to keep up with the stronger swimmers. Unity is very important to a deep-water pod, and ensuring everyone stays together is a priority.

The elderly tend to prioritize passing on old stories so that they will continue to be told. Respect for the elderly is important in deep-water culture, but recent tensions regarding changing migration patterns in light of the changing sea environment has caused friction in some pods. 

[novakspector]

I was banned from a particular Star Wars discussion group (presumably by a man) for being sexist against women (I’m a woman) because I said any female protagonist in Star Wars could never be as good story-wise as a male protagonist, because the writers are hamstrung by sensitivities the audience has about seeing women get hurt. The person who banned me, obviously did not look at or think critically about my reasoning, they just saw “female protagonist bad” and banned me. It’s their place and they can do what they want, and I can live without being there. I just think it’s ironic.

Female characters are not treated equally to male characters outside of R-rated films and horror movies. Audiences would find it distasteful to see Rey get seriously injured, and it’s something we’re all somewhat aware of while watching the movies. It’s not that I desperately wanted Rey to have her arm chopped off, the issue I have is, a.) it’s a double-standard based on antiquated ideas about the fragility of women (in a movie series that touted itself as being empowering), and b.) it’s an outside consideration intruding on storytelling, and as someone who cares about storytelling over what characters “mean” socially/politically to the audience, that bothers me.

It has the effect of whenever Rey is in trouble, there’s a reduced sense of danger compared to when Luke or Anakin was in trouble. You know that the giant snake in TROS is not going seriously injure Rey. Unlike Luke or Anakin or even Kylo, we knew Rey would never be in real danger of having a limb cut off or having a scar slashed across her face with a lightsaber, because although they like to pretend otherwise Hollywood is a business, and customers/audiences don’t want to see women get injured like that.

It’s the reason nobody lost a limb in the sequel trilogy while they did in previous ones, because the protagonist is a woman and it’s inherently distasteful to most people to see a pretty young woman get maimed, while it’s apparently no big deal if it happens to a man. It has been engrained in people culturally for hundreds of years to see women as delicate, childlike, in need of protection, and not fit for the battlefield, and all the talk Hollywood makes about equality and wokeness is just talk. They still conform to these sensibilities, even in their “girl power” characters like Rey.

[cafeleningrad]

@bigre-fichtre quickly moving the conversation outside the notes because of the letterlimit: 

Yes, I agree. The themes being rooted deeply in a cuture that is foreign to some viewers is no reason for hindering a good story to capture an audience. (I.e. Parasite’s loaded with commentary about South Korean society’s obsession with wealth sucess during late stage capitalism, and commentary on Korean history, the North-South conflict and take over by foreign influences yet  the core discussion of class cirtique reached and moved viewers.) Actually, the viewer can and should engage with new perspectives or views, and not taking their cultural framing for granting. One thing grating me with a lot of modern media is the idea of catering to the last idiot in the last row instead of treating the audience with respect of challenging their understading of storytelling or content. I do not mean by provocation but a possibility to treat different themes outside of the typical repartoire of themes and tropes (especially the barely subtle subversions are a break from the obvious but not really creativity). That and getting to know different cultural perspectives and stories. 

The bodyswap theme through the context of Japanese society would be be different from the US-/Western-version because of different gender politics and social expectations which did not develop or are eve discussed in the same manner. Additionally, the theme of urban and rural environment, in fact environmentalism would be told vastly different in a Western context. (This is where I have my personal beef with the story but please keep in mind it’s my opinion only. ) Both I considered not brought well within the theme of the connection between the leads except for being contrastive. Still these themes are deeply engrained within Japanese society and important to the character’s mode of living in a way which can not be taen away from the story without abandonign it in a remake. 

Last but not least, we’re talking about JJ Abrams and his less than reputable approach of story telling being more enamored with concepts than stories... :/

[sbooksbowm]

The ‘Does this make sense?’ check: Chapter 3, Part 1, intertextuality and reader recognition

This chape examines the reader function of the fandom communication circuit. What makes the reading experience of fic? How do readers acknowledge and interpret meaning, and how do they set expectations for the reading material with which they engage? Finally, how does the practice of reading (which is often considered private) actually maintain community? Let’s break it down:

Part 1 examines intertextuality, or how a fic makes reference to other works in its text, and how those references build an in-text universe for the reader

Part 2 examines paratexts, which are all the texts in a work that is not the body (i.e. the title, the tags, the chapter titles, summaries, author notes, appendices, etc. as opposed to the actual story). I look at how paratexts, particularly tags, are crucial infrastructure for signaling a fic’s content, which helps readers set expectations for what the fic will do

Part 3 puts the two together, looking at how the reading experience unfolds with these two textual features and how reading fic maintains the boundaries of a fandom

Introduction: intertextuality? paratexts? 

In this chapter, I explore the reader node of the fandom communication circuit, discussing how circulating textual meaning to readers relies on paratexts and intertextuality, which root fanfiction in the network of writing from which it was born. Rather than focus on individual selection, which I foreground in Chapter 2, Brownian motion is a useful model for considering the overall motion and interpretation of these textual means, aligning it with the community aspects of reading fanfiction. I argue how the intertextual and paratextual elements of fic are crucial to its reading. Readers expect resonances of intertextuality in a fic, and they rely on paratexts to signal a fic’s basic content for their reading selection purposes. 

I define intertextuality, to paraphrase Busse, as the explicit or implicit references in a fic to metatexts, cultural and literary contexts, and other interpretive texts (i.e. other fic) [1]. The intertextuality with other fic is most important in developing fanon and signaling the place of a fic in the larger fandom. Busse characterizes fic through fragmentation, intertextuality, performativity, and intimacy [2]. These elements, especially fragmentation and intertextuality, underscore the Brownian motion of fic production, a concept adopted by Juli Parrish to describe the aggregation of fannish textual output in constituting fanon [3]. Fic—as works-in-progress, stand-alone pieces, series—constitutes the broader fandom, and the referential intertextuality employed by fic moves the fandom in a given direction [4]. Intertextuality also signals to the reader the writer’s experience and knowledge of the boundaries of the universe, and it employs self-referential elements that, when understood, affirm the reader’s own fandom experience and knowledge. Goodman argues that fanon and rigorous classification ‘actually help police or maintain the boundaries of the official fictional universe’, by signaling to a reader what differences from canon they will encounter in a fic [5]. 

Paratexts, which signal interpretation, are an expression of those boundaries, a framework that speaks to the agreed upon or favored tropes, styles, conventions, and characterizations. Paratexts amount to ‘authorial guidance, instructions and injunctions’, and writers must choose paratexts themselves, thus these boundaries are necessarily dictated by the writers [6]. For example, AO3’s robust tagging system serves as boundary markers for readers looking for fic, who can filter for specific relationships or content. The tagging system is managed by tag wranglers, who monitor the tags of a fandom and group similar tags that express the same fannish ideas. Tag wrangling is a concrete expression of the boundaries of the fictional universe, which are ever expanding with each new interpretation.

The first section of this chapter examines how intertextuality crosses multiple zones of the community model, couching reading practices in community-generated context. I illustrate this phenomenon with a Percy Jackson meta-speculative analysis on Tumblr that was transformed into a fanfiction piece and a series of Harry Potter ‘what if?’ reimaginings built from Tumblr prompts.

As a reminder, the community model looks like this:

Part 1: Intertextuality as Reader Recognition

‘the jackson files’ by ideasofmarch exemplifies how the ‘dialogic amateur community status’ of fic ‘foregrounds collective and intertextual aspects’ of reading and writing, demonstrating how intertextual reading crosses multiple zones of the Community Model [7]. Based on a Tumblr post by couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name, ‘the jackson files’ articulates the meta-speculative analysis presented in couldnt’s Tumblr post in a mix of narrative and Twitter-style storytelling. Notably, couldnt posted her analysis on 10 July, and ‘the jackson files’ was posted on AO3 four days later, capturing the rapid reader response that ebbs and flows on Tumblr and that is usually difficult to track ex-post-facto. The fic’s reliance on that post affirms the transitional relationship between writer and reader in the fandom communication circuit, as well as reader-as-participant in a quickly-moving development of fanon (couldnt’s post has 11,727 notes as of 5 August, 2020 and 13,015 notes as of 25 Aug, 2020) [8]. ‘the jackson files’ is doubly intertextual: it is a Percy Jackson fic and Buzzfeed Unsolved crossover, and it draws from a Tumblr meta-analysis. The fic is more legible in the context of couldnt’s post, demonstrating how ‘the text’s meaning can be tied to a specific place, time, and community in ways that make it difficult to read’ outside of the context of the fandom and the circulation of the Tumblr post [9].

ideasofmarch’s interpretation demonstrates how the circulation of fic text through the reader is a multi-layered process: ‘Fan fiction becomes an exemplary instantiation of reader-response-based approaches, not only because the source text’s readers clearly and literally respond but also because any reading of these responses requires a complex reading model that cannot separate text from reader and author’ [10]. In this case, ideasofmarch’s roles as narrative and creative interpreter of couldnt’s post cross multiple zones of the community model: drawing from meta-analysis in the response zone, acting as reader and writer, in order to form the text.

Although tracking the fannish artifacts that anchor fic production can prove difficult after discourse has swept into new territory, some fic writers consistently cite the digital artifacts that service their fic production. The writing practice of both ideasofmarch and dirgewithoutmusic is predicated on reading practices that are engrained in the community context. Many of dirgewithoutmusic’s AU fics, for example, respond to reader prompts, articulating dirge’s role as an interpreter of said prompts. dirge, as a reader of Harry Potter, plays on the structure of the books, which relies on the reader’s knowledge of the series to understand the poignancy of certain moments, motifs, alterations, and flourishes. In ‘the last son’, dirge imagines the progression of the Harry Potter series with Ron Weasley as the Chosen One instead of Harry Potter. 

**(an aside: if you enjoy HP fic and have not read this piece, go read it now so I don’t spoil it for you)**

Among the many changes, including different deaths of major characters and a shift in the Weasley family dynamic, is the motif of the blue Ford Anglia owned by Ron’s now-deceased father, Arthur. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Ron and Harry fly the Ford Anglia to school because they’ve missed the train; the car later rescues them from acromantulas in the Forbidden Forest. dirge concludes the fic—after two Weasley brothers are lost to the war and the surviving siblings return home—with Ginny Weasley repairing the car, claiming, ‘I bet I can get this thing to fly’ [11]. The conclusion resonates with the reader because it points to what the car symbolizes in another strand of the Harry Potter universe while containing the promise of adventure in the current iteration. dirge’s works are bookended by community-based reading practices: a reader-submitted prompt, then a reader response contingent on understanding the intertextuality of the fic.

Kristina Busse, Framing fan fiction, p.142.

Busse, p.142.

Juli Parrish, ‘Metaphors we read by: People, process, and fan fiction’, 3.11. 

Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse, Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet, p.9. ‘The events created by the fan community in a particular fandom and repeated pervasively throughout the fantext [body of fan creations]. Fanon often creates particular details or character readings even though canon does not fully support it—or, at times, outright contradicts it’.

Lesley Goodman, ‘Disappointing Fans: Fandom, Fictional Theory, and the Death of the Author’, p.666-667. 

Martin Barker, ‘Speaking of “paratexts”: A theoretical revisitation’, p.240, 242. Paratexts ‘points of reference and relevance in relation to the work, suggest and contribute to the mode of participation in it’.

Busse, p.143.

couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name, “okay, so: Rachel is literally one of the richest people in the country…’, Tumblr, 10 Jul, 2020; Busse, p.114. ‘Fan fiction increases both the quantity and the speed of dissemination and intertextuality, however, so that fans can often see tropes get created, picked up, subverted, and dismissed within months, if not days.’

Busse, p.151.

Busse, p.155.

dirgewithoutmusic, ‘the last son’, Archive of Our Own, 29 Sept, 2016. 

[cosmicrecluse]

Pearl: 1, 21, 31. Auctoris: 49, 59, 69

Pearl:

1. why did they choose their class(es)? their subclass(es)? Pearl is currently a bardbarian! I initially made her a bard because I’d played one the summer before and really liked it, plus I wanted to play a gang intimidator type person, like the people sent to beat up people to scare them but not kill them. The bard got added because her original culture sees storytelling as a very sacred thing and while she’s a naturally good speaker she really lost all the magic around it until she met @bards-anonymous‘s character Xyia who was a bard already! So now she’s helping Pearl figure it out again!

21. do they follow their head, their heart, or their body? She tries to follow her heart but because she was engrained in the jaguar clan culture since she was 7 (she’s currently 42), she really only knows to follow orders. But since she got out and has been put in charge of more stuff she follows her own way as much as possible but gives in when her co-captains suggest something different pretty quickly

31. they’re given a blank piece of paper–what do they do with it? Fold it, play with it, generally fuck it up. She can’t read or write so she really doesn't see a point to paper in all honesty. 

Auctoris:

49. what makes them smile? His cousin, Bastard, getting more gold, figuring out a new potion or spell, and Sido, the guard for the new town he lives in who helped heal him after he dropped in from his old dimension. 

59. what is a quiet passion of theirs? He’s not quiet about a lot, but he doesn’t tend to tell people that he secretly loves playing the violin too. Bastard is the bard of the family and uses his violin as a spell focus so he never felt the need to bring up that he played since he’d never be as good as the literal magic violinist. But he thinks he's good enough and Sido likes opening her window at night so she can hear him practicing

69 (nice). how would they describe their party members? Auctoris honestly didn’t get much time with any of his party members. He can’t say he misses Billy, but feels bad that he got thrown off a tower and died. Though Soldel, a dwarf rogue who he felt he had bonded with really well, threw herself off the tower after Billy and he holds a lot of guilt and self-blame about that. He found her bones later on when they were in the valley at the bottom of the tower and broke down. Elvania he thought was sort of stuck up and didn’t like she thought his clothes were ugly but he did care about her in a sibling way! He was devastated when he found out she’d died while he was petrified. Fae he only knew after she’d been cursed to be uncaring so he never thought highly of her, but when he died, he could’ve sworn he saw a flash of the kind person she used to be. Avian he also didn’t know well, only meeting him for a few days before he was petrified, but he thought he was funny for the few days they had together, especially thought it was funny that he’d been held down and had his hand cut off. The only party member Auctoris really knew at all was a dwarf named Bastion and when Aucotris got unpetrified and heard how many party members he’d gone through dying in the few months he’d been stone, Auctoris hugged him insanely tight and cried and apologized. He thinks Bastion is the strongest person he knows and feels awful for dying on him too. 

[spindleprick]

hi! i'm doing a little research and since you always give the best answers i could really use your opinion. why do you think that people are drawn to mythology? what is so interesting about it? not in a rp sense just in general!

hey! i’m so sorry this took so long, i completely forgot about it in my drafts - which is a shame because it’s such a cool question to get.  i think, basically, if prostitution is the oldest profession in the world then i’m of the opinion that the second oldest is storytelling -- because whoever that first john was, i guarantee you he went back to his friends and told them about it - exaggerating and bluffing in the retelling. i think storytelling and the urge to be told something is just... engrained in us? and myths, folklore, etc, are realistically some of the oldest stories around, making them not only compelling as an individual tale, but as a literal glimpse into the minds and cultures of people who lived and died centuries ago. not only that, but there’s the knowledge that these things were imbued with belief too -- we’re capable of creating a lightning-god for the purpose of a story today, but they simply won’t carry the weight of the old gods. they’re an effigy, the myths are the real thing i think we’re also compelled by an explanation that deviates from the established science. it’s romantic and indulgent to imagine that thunder comes from zeus or thor or shango rather than caused by shifting air and particles. like, zeus may have been shitty but i 10/10 would’ve paid more attention in a class that detailed his affairs and scandals and how they’re effecting the weather than whatever curriculum i had science 10

[whirlybirbs]

thank u for the billy discourse and also for unintentionally validating my thirst through reblogs because ... jfc ... 😫👀

i’ve been thinking a lot about the aforementioned billy hargrove discourse and have been having a hard time grappling with writing for billy - i can’t excuse the impact his character had on the storytelling of season two. he was received as racist despite dacre’s plain-as-day attempts to remove that characterization, which plays into the piece about “intent v. impact” that i talked about in my previous post about billy’s character.

it doesn’t matter what the intent was if it has a different impact - you have to move forward and restore what was damaged. in this sense, billy’s character can be written off. he’s a monster, he’s supposed to be hated. he’s not meant to be liked.

billy hargrove was written as a one dimensional foil to combat steve’s character arch from cool asshole to even cooler babysitter.

and that sucks.

i guess what really irritates me is the plain old negative stigmatization of billy being an abuse survivor — i’ve seen posts all over the tag about how he’s scum, he’s trash, he’s violent, he’s the fucking worst, and i can’t help but pull a face and wonder what the fuck the duffer bro’s thought they were doing when they decided to try and weave in a storyline as complicated but as poorly done as billy’s.

billy is seventeen.

for seventeen years of his life he’s had narrow minded, mysognistic, racist, homophobic views shoved down his throat. the abuse that he faces is text book controlling and violent, that prevents him from even considering the different side of things in fear of retaliation.

when i was seventeen, i was in an AP US gov class that really, really demonstrated the exact thing i’m talking about right now:

kids would dive into these political diatribes based on nothing more than what their parents thought. they would vote based on their parents ideals in classroom polls. they would post up all these thoughts on foreign policy based on their parents views. it’s what they knew best.

i think, in a lot of ways, this is what billy’s character experienced. he’s still young, still learning to think for himself, but every time he does? he’s belittled and beat to shit and learns not to even try. so, he mirrors his father’s behavior and woah! no black eyes after? interesting.

if he was given a year out of that house, away from his father and given proper friends? if he walked away from the shit of season three with a new support system and new people in his life who get it?

billy could have been a great example of what learning, exposure, and breaking the cycles of socialization do to people in our country who have put the blinders up and hold the same values as he did in season two — and how those values are wrong and born out of lack of knowledge and fear of change.

as much as i applaud “cancel culture”, it doesn’t tend to let folks break that cycle of socialization. instead, it isolates them and furthers a spiral of seeking out those with the same ideals — and that’s just bad news bears. then, you get those weird accapella trump chicks singing on twitter.

i’ve decided that if i write for billy, i am re-writing his character to expand on the points i’m making. he shouldn’t be spared from the repurcussions of his impact on season two + lucas, shouldn’t be spared from his abusive demeanor towards max. however, he should be given the chance to grow and learn from past mistakes and break his engrained socialization patterns beaten into him by his dad.

(shrug) i dunno. i just wish folks could acknowledge how real billy’s character is and how social psychology can really help break a character down and see how shittily his arch was played out.

[wildstrandsblog]

Inherit the Earth

3.4.20

In a mythological time told to be the Golden Age, there was a critical point in every person’s life when an inner voice would come calling to them, to be heard or even seen. This calling from within guided a human being toward their individual purpose, how that purpose was to be enacted, and how it would support the whole of the Earth. Tens of thousands of years later, most had grown deaf to that inner call but there were still some during the Age of Heroes who were courageous enough to feel the strong desire to connect back to a lost purpose. These stories of heroic men tell of how they left their homes and families in search of it. Unknowingly, in search of the pain it took to journey into the spiritual life. These men headed into the wilderness, some of them to the forests said to hold the mysteries of the Universe. In some of the ancient stories, these places of numinous resurrection were given a name, the Forests of Confusion.

In the Forests of Confusion, men began to feel the force of their own feelings, sometimes for the first time, observing and collecting the data their body gave them through sensations. They mapped out and got to know these sensations, first wrestling with them but ultimately coming to understand they were a part of them. From there, they began to revere these feelings as untapped intelligences in parts of themselves they could not see or touch but were consciously aware existed. Lastly, these men enacted the ultimate lesson learned in the process of becoming one with the Universe again; letting go of all emotion to feel the truth found in the nothingness that followed. They sent their emotions back into the forest so others could find them in a future time while retaining more understanding about themselves.

These men were the first yogis, shamans, spiritual leaders, Empaths, and more. They learned how to accept every aspect of their feelings, embracing the dark side of its force as well as the light. They learned how the natural world was there to support this process as they trusted the ancient dance of emotion that tied them to the world outside. The thin barrier that separated their logical, individual nature from the larger, illogical Nature outside was bridged to become partners in a spiritually, engrained cosmic dance.

Last year this time completing the first chapter of my life’s story, I found myself immersed in this drawing (showcased here) to capture the vision of my feelings. Saving some of the details for the memoir, I relayed a strong feeling I had the first time traveling solo outside of the country, caught in a spiraling fear of death. At the age of twenty-seven, I thought for sure my plane was going to plunge itself into the Atlantic Ocean and I needed to get my final thoughts out—the love I had for family. At that moment, I stopped everything to call my partner then, anxious and fearful my world was ending and inadvertently missing my flight. Pleading with the gate attendant to turn the plane around, I was gutted and internally ridiculed that an adventure I was just beginning had already ended without even stepping foot into the beyond. Little did I know that was the intended mistake my life was needing to turn my whole world around.

From that moment, I made a promise to myself I’d no longer be stopped by fear, despite the odds. Sitting in the airport watching my plane fly away to Argentina, I made the conscious decision to catch the next flight out and permanently ink my body with a symbol of an idea which had been growing inside me for years—the fleur-de-lis. I write that on my last day in Argentina after getting tattooed, I could feel how this new tattoo was going to grow on me. The fleur-de-lis was the start of a symbol that would become the seed to the Tree of Life I now have covering half of my back and torso. Where did all of this knowledge come from? How did I know the exact thing that would bring balance to an intense fear of death in a split second never having been formally taught? Prior to that, I had never wanted to get anything tattooed. I didn’t want anything permanent on my body and in my family tattoos were taboo.

As an elementary student sitting under a large tree on one of the last days of school called Field Day, sweltering and fun-filled, I found myself thinking bigger than any lesson taught to me in school. My entire class had just left the shade of the tree except for me, refreshed from Coolies and orange slices. I was caught in a daze picking up moss rooted in the damp ground. With chunks of dark earth lodged beneath my fingernails, I revealed a colony of ants just below the surface breaking down the traces left from the class picnic. I silently observed this lively moving and intricate system that had a different way of life from the one known to me, synchronized with purpose for one final outcome—life. For the first time, I was personally getting to know a system I wasn’t learning from a textbook. I lived it, breathed it, touched it and immediately knew there was something out there far bigger than me although in size I appeared larger than it, and that was exciting.

Why hadn’t I been given a lesson to observe the natural world in this way before, quietly and instinctively, living in the school’s backyard? Why wasn’t I taught about what my connection was to the world outside of the classroom? Imbued with “good” habits to study hard, get good grades, play sports, graduate, go to college, be successful and more, when did the question stop being asked why these were the only habits worth value? Where did the love of learning about a life within reach of our fingertips go rather than reading it out of books and in classrooms?

Age, children, an evolving culture, and the creation of my own space has given me the opportunity to question the methodology behind the modern classroom compared to human intuition. Going back to a time with no written history, my imagination has had to make leaps to make meaning on what caused the shift in thinking, supported by my own experience, education, and intuition. In my mind, it’s as if somewhere in time the ancient, young, evolving human consciously chose to cut itself free from a great love ending the Golden Age of humans. This disconnect, told to me by my own experience, probably came from some great, unexpressed pain experienced by the mother, child, or even both becoming an archetypal wound or pain passed down. That pain would have been explained away as something bad, even sinful, no longer valued or unpacked as a force that could give each of them meaning.

The young, adolescent mind grew up disconnected and partially orphaned. It was no longer supported or protected by that great love that had the capacity to hold pain—a love that first comes from the nature of a Great Mother. Human nature, problem-solving, developed a system of logic that comforted them and left the story of pain to the imagination. Culture evolved to protect us from that evil entity called pain. It gave us rules on how to domesticate ourselves, how to sanitize our environment, and valued the achievement we made to eradicate pain. We no longer defined the individual’s boundaries or the force it took each of the individuals to get there.

Times have changed since the first men who felt cut off from their spiritually inherited purpose. It’s women, now, too. Similarly and, yet, different to men, I have been a female traveling in a motherless world without a central figure in life or mythology to guide me as a role model. I have had to travel back to the mythological Forests of Confusion alone, connecting myself back with the Universe to find my Great Mother and how she can be retrieved to live here. I have evolved enough as a human not to leave my children behind in the process, the only hope I have of becoming the figure I wish to see in the world. I travel in time by way of creating my own space to write my story down as a legacy for my children and my children’s children. Through my writing, I walk up to and through memories of significant and multiple traumas, releasing them back into the masculine-driven world that has held a lot of confusion for me. I organize and reorganize my personal story through the science and art of storytelling using the Hero’s Journey as a cipher to understand its patterns.

I journal, blog, and interpret my dreams as a way to collect the data from my journey. I create art like cave paintings at the end of each quest to express my feelings. I meditate and pray, finding balance, while practicing my own personal integration of yoga and Pilates. I contemplate my own beliefs and values while incorporating wisdom that comes from old books, new books, art, music, friends, family, and podcasts. I have consciously walked away from cultural expectations of a wife, mother, daughter, sister, and traveler to create my own defining features. I have integrated a more personal, differentiated joy and happiness which naturally desires to serve my family. I have found myself becoming a Jedi in a world that unknowingly grapples with the loss of love from their Great Mother, too. And I raise future Jedis with a consciousness of love and hope to bring a greater balance back to the world that honors the Great Father and the Great Mother as partners.

All of this to say, what I have found in these moments where I have inherited back the intelligences coming from the Earth is my place and the many roles I have been made to play. Humans are the Earth’s storytellers as I observe myself and my connection to the outside world. My purpose, aside from wife, mother, daughter, sister, and traveler, is to share my story and to offer time and space for others to share theirs—to savor the healing that comes from us sharing our stories together and to feel our own individual pain collectively. Life becomes simpler, quieter, more enjoyable, and greater than any way I was taught in school as a girl. The harder work is rewiring the habits of naivete taught to work harder and faster all by myself. The simpler work is to get down in the dirt and play around for a little while, hopefully with others, and to decide for myself the meaning it holds. I never know what I might find on any given day but it has become an endlessly mysterious place to find the next thing I’m here to do.

______________________

A big thank you to my husband who has been listening to me share my big brained ideas with him for years. At times I have felt like one of the Alaskan salmon swimming against the flow of water, beating my bloodied body against the rocks, all because of an instinct and the season of time I was feeling. I haven’t always been able to get my husband to swim upstream with me. It’s hard to make sense of the illogical when Logic says, “Why am I going to beat and torture myself again? Because I’m supposed to? Because Nature is telling me to do that? Something is seriously sadistic with Nature.” But when Logic finally says, “Okay, Illogical, you’ve been telling me this for years. I’ll try it your way…once,” Illogical gets a silly grin on her face and says, “Okay. Buckle up, buddy.” And once Illogical and Logic set out to get to the top of the stream, bloodied and near death, to experience the mythological Shangri-La waiting for them, it’s soon realized this place, flowing with magic, healing waters, was the only place where the illogical could be experienced as making sense. And instantly you know how it was all worth it. All of it was so worth it. Thank you, my dear husband, for swimming upstream with me...finally. It is worth the wait. You are worth it. All of you, my dear family, are so worth it.