#there was a moment where i would only consume cartoon content and that did extend to music i was only into digital bands for a minute and

[noisemachinedotcom]

jamie hewlitt has contributed some extremely problematic aspects to the gorillaz lore. like the music is good but damon albarn is also. questionable he was associated with free britain and thats like a staunchly islamophobic political party like i was revisiting gorillaz and was like. picking up on some stuff like del the funky homosapien’s design, murdoc and the antisemetic caricatures he resembles, noodle literally showed up in a package and was named after the first thing she said, “noodle”, like okay, and russel’s story where all his friends were killed in gang violence, and the lore between plastic beach and humanz where he’s huge and is washed up on the shores of north korea where he’s displayed as a part of a literal human zoo (they rationalize it by saying everyone thinks hes like a local cryptid) then he shrinks back down due to malnutrition, plus the way he’s posed in every piece of official art, the multiple pieces of official art with characters in ww2 garb like murdoc w the nazi costume and noodle w the rising sun flag like. the collaborators do a great job and as concept albums theyve always had a Progressive message and for the sake of the collaborators and the fact that despite shitty founders its a collaborative group, we can try to seperate the art from the artists, right? idk. go listen to deltron 3030 instead idk what to think but the fact that they had del on for phase 1, didnt invite him back for demon days, replaced russel entirely with a drum machine for plastic beach, like idk what else to interpret but bullshit british dudes subconsciously or consciously making some suspect as fuck choices. idk. studio killers is also under extreme suspicion after the jenny video. much to consider. also the way jamie hewlett drew certain characters for tank girl. oh man. bad

[hotchley]

where he's been

I did it!

I wrote the happy ending/second part, in which he makes the deliberate choice to show her and there is healing and there is joy and there is love <3

Everyone say thank you to the anon on tumblr that asked me about this when I did the WIP game, because without them we wouldn't have gotten here...

But we did! I finished a multi-chapter thing!

Trigger Warnings: scars, intrusive thoughts, trauma, references to the events of the Foyet and Doyle arcs, mild sexual content, surgery, medical things (Route 66 references mostly)

read on ao3!

previously: part one

Part Two: He Shows

The first time Aaron shows Emily his scars, she smiles.

He shows her deliberately. Because he wants to. Because he loves her, and he loves himself. Because he trusts her. He wants to be vulnerable with her in a way he could only ever be with Haley. He wants to do this, for her, and for himself. He knows they are not beautiful, that she may flinch at the sight of his humanity as everyone seems to do, but he needs her to see them. Properly. In a way that is right.

His body feels more like his with every day that passes now. He will never forget the pain his fathers emotions brought, or how he felt completely paralysed and pinned in place by George Foyet and his knife. His mind may never recover. But he's been making progress, and despite the emergency surgery, his body is recovering and he's proud of it. He's proud of himself.

And he's proud of Emily too. When she was in Paris, and he was too consumed by grief to do much more than look through the files they had on Doyle, he would feel a sense of pride in her, and all she had overcome. In all she had accomplished. In all she had survived, and continued to survive. But most of all, he was proud that she never let Doyle win.

Even when he tried to scar her body forever as a punishment for everything she had done, even though she had been right, she had always been right, she didn't let him win. She wore that scar with the same pride everyone on the team did. Because those scars made them human. They reminded him they weren't untouchable, but they were stronger than anyone gave them credit for.

It took a while for her to get there. There were still days where she would scrub the area till the skin went red, as though enough force would remove it. There were days where she would think of how far plastic surgery had come, and wonder- if she was given the chance- whether she would keep the marks. But there are other days, where she doesn't even hesitate before wearing shorts. Before wearing something with a lower neckline.

It's different for Aaron. Not for any real reason, he's just a different person. The scars that cover his torso, the scars that match the killer of his first love, of the first woman to teach him that when the poets said love hurt, they did not mean like the pain that came with smashed glass or belt marks, they meant a pleasant hurt, were almost impossible for him to accept.

The ones on his back became easier with time. Because they healed, and they faded to silver lines. He can still feel it, and can still tell when someone has touched him there. He no longer flinches, as the touches placed there are warm and gentle. Neutral. And he was a child, who deserved to be safe. A child, who shouldn't have known how to fight.

The ones left by Foyet were harder to come to terms with. He cannot feel there properly. The few times Emily has touched him- over his shirt, only ever over his shirt- he has either winced at a phantom twinge of pain or stared at her blankly because the area was numb.

He used to feel like he should've fought back. Properly. His gun was on the table, he could've grabbed it. He knows he could've because he dreams of that night more times than he doesn't. Being exhausted wasn't an excuse. Elle told him it was, but he remembers how she was- so unforgiving of herself. He wouldn't extend himself the courtesy she hadn't.

Foyet’s scars were just different. He hated having the same marks as a killer. He hated how, every time he walked into his apartment, he would remember. Vividly. The moments from his childhood still haunted him, but some of them were starting to blur together. But the feeling of the knife plunging in- he would always remember each and every single one.

The stitches tore during his thirty-four days off. He had sent everyone away, not wanting them to see just how much he needed them, because he needed to convince himself they still believed in his invincibility. The irony of his situation, especially as Derek held his hand from the bed to the wheelchair, was not lost on him. But then he regained his independence.

Then the damage done almost became irreversible. Collapsing in the conference room had been terrifying for everyone, but waking up had been the hardest thing he'd ever made himself do. During one of his brief moments of consciousness, he realised it was the damage Foyet had done when he scarred him that had led him to the abyss he'd visited once, and only once before.

When he finally gained the courage to look in the mirror, he broke. The scars were never going to heal properly, he'd realised that right before the pain became overwhelming. Foyet's hadn't. No matter how careful he may have been the second time round, the scars were never going to fade. They were still red, just less angry.

Seeing them after the surgery, in the same apartment, with the same mirror, sent him back in time. They were too red. They were too deep, too much and he couldn't look at himself, couldn't go through the pain of realising just how strong one man's hold on him was. Not for a second time.

Emily found him like that. She didn't walk in, knowing he would never recover if she did. But when he emerged thirty minutes later, wearing Haley's college hoodie that had always fit him perfectly, she took his hand. She kissed his forehead, and played with his hair as they watched one of Jack's cartoons. A part of her felt guilty for not saying something, but he felt more grateful for that than she would ever know.

They had sat on the couch until they fell asleep then. They were sitting on the couch when she touched the biggest scar, causing him to wince and run out, leading to her seeing them for the first time.

Because sometimes, the world is cyclical, they're sitting on the couch when he shows her.

This time, Jack is at a sleepover. There had been a gala, and he had looked so happy as he accepted his reward. Shocked beyond belief when Strauss announced her retirement. But so incredibly happy when she named him her successor, especially when he realised there was no reason he had to become a paper-pusher. There was no reason for him to change.

He looks so perfect, cheeks glowing and genuine smile overpowering everything else about him that she can't help but kiss him the moment they get in the car. If they seemed like love-struck teenagers to everyone that drove past then so be it. He looked handsome in his suit, but happiness suited him even more and she wouldn't let anyone dampen it.

So they're sitting on the couch, and his hands are running up and down her arms like he still can't quite believe she wants him. Her dress matches his tie- of course it does, because Aaron pouted and stared at her till she told him the colour- and she looks so beautiful that all he wants to do is watch her. She doesn't even have to do anything, so long as he can admire her.

Just like before, she touches his torso. Before he looks down, she pulls her hand away like he burnt it. A silent apology starts to pass her lips, but he kisses it away before it gets the chance to escape. Tonight, there will be no apologies. There will be no sadness.

Only them and the love they fought so hard for.

"Aaron," she says. "What's going on?"

He cannot tell her, his heart suddenly racing. He knows that he's ready to do this. He knows he wants to. He knows that there will be no shame or judgement if he suddenly stops halfway through. He knows all of that, but the traitorous, self-sabotaging part of his brain wants nothing more than to throw her out.

Before she sees his humanity. Before she gets too close and gets hurt. Before she decides that he is too damaged, and too messy, and too ruined for her to love.

But there is a piece of his brain that is stronger than that. A piece that knows she has seen his humanity every moment since she met him, all those years ago. That knows she has already gotten too close, but with her eyes wide open to all the danger that could come. She loves him. She loves him knowingly and deliberately.

He isn't ruined. He never has been. And yes, he is messy, but everyone is. She knows him. Perhaps better than he does. So she won't leave. Not this time.

He's not said anything for a while, and she's starting to worry. Then he takes her hand, as he has done a thousand times before, and the weight of it grounds her. She trusts him. Whatever he is going to do, he will do because they both want it.

"Close your eyes. Please? I'm not going to touch you, but I can't- if I say it, I'll back out," he whispers.

She realises suddenly, randomly, that the lights are still on. "Okay," she whispers, and complies. Talking feels too loud.

"You can open them now," he says, a few minutes later.

She does. And for a moment, she has no idea what's happening.

And then she sees. Properly. He's taken his shirt off, and his scars are completely visible to her. All of them. She's never loved him more. For trusting her enough to show her who he is. For loving her enough to be so vulnerable without fear. For being so brave that she no longer feels afraid of anything.

"My darling," she says, because Aaron feels too casual. But she has no words.

He takes her hand again, and presses it against his chest. She can feel his heart racing underneath it.

"This belongs to you. Whatever is left of it, however long it may beat for, it all belongs to you. Because I love you. And I trust you. So break it if you must, but carry the pieces with you because they are yours, now and forever."

Emily can't help the tears that start pooling in her eyes. She understands where this is coming from. He thought that this would be the thing that made her hesitate. One day, he will realise that this is the thing that convinced her that it was right. She had known for a while that she was going to spend whatever portion of her life that he wanted her for with him, but now she was so sure that the thought didn't fill her with dread.

There are no words in a language she speaks to tell him how much this means to her. So she settles for the ones that will do. "It won't be the pieces that I carry. It will be the whole thing. For as long as you will allow me to. I love you, Aaron Hotchner. I love you, I love you, I love you." She smiles as she says the words, not once moving away from him.

He smiles, as he always does, before he kisses her. He smiles through the kiss.

It is perfect. It is beautiful. Standing there, with him so vulnerable and her so irreversibly in love, it is hard to believe that the place they are creating their happy ending, is the same space where he was once stabbed in. The place where she set off that chain of events not so long ago.

They go to sleep, in the same bed, wrapped in each others' warmth. It feels perfect. The photo of Haley they keep on the dresser seems to glow even brighter, like she too is so proud of who they have become.

The first time Aaron shows Emily his scars, she smiles.

And Aaron does too. Because now he's shown her. Properly. And he saw her face, full of love and admiration and pride in how far he has come. She's seen them. But it was his decision. And that, more than anything, heals the final piece of his soul that Foyet destroyed.

[adobe-outdesign]

Opportunities

When opportunity knocks, you have to answer.

Warnings: Some implied violence, though nothing explicitly shown

“What would you say... if I told you that you could be Alice Angel permanently?”

Susie wiped the tears from her face, smudging a thin layer of eyeliner across her cheek. “W- What do you mean? Allison already-”

“Susie, Susie. We only switched the roles around in order to boost the character’s popularity! You’re the one and only Alice, as far as I’m concerned.”  Joey drew Susie closer to him, putting an arm around her still trembling shoulders.

“You really mean that, Joey?” Susie took a deep breath to steady herself, slightly ashamed of her little breakdown. She took a lock of hair and tucked it back into place in a weak attempt to fix her disheveled appearance.

“Of course! That’s why I’m extending this offer to you before I give it to Allison. She’d work decently, but I don’t think she has half the passion for Alice’s character that you do.”

“I- I mean, I’d love to accept immediately, but you still haven’t explained what the part is.”

Joey beamed, moving to the center of the room. “Imagine a world where Alice Angel is real. Not a cartoon, not a person in a cheap suit. The actual character herself, in the flesh and... ink, I suppose.”

Joey grabbed a book off the shelf and began to flip through it rapidly as he spoke. “I’ve always said that with enough belief, you can accomplish anything. This is no exception. Why do you think I bought that machine?”

“To produce ink...?“

“Not to produce it, to enhance it! You can’t do anything with regular old ink. But this? You can meld it into almost anything, provided you sacrifice a little something in return. That’s how we’ve been making all those Alice toys.” Joey abruptly slammed his book shut, turning back to her. “So? What do you say?”

“I mean- Well, the idea of bringing Alice to life is... amazing. I can’t imagine anything better than people being able to meet her in person. And I’m sure she’d love it too.“ Susie twirled a loose piece of hair around her finger. “But I’m confused. Why do you need me for this?”

“Simple. The machine can create inanimate objects just fine, but for something living... it needs something else. Something to give it substance, life. All people have that something by default. And if we want to make Alice real, I need to use someone close to her for it to work properly. That someone is you, obviously.”

“I don’t know, Joey. Wouldn’t that... hurt?”

“Of course not!,” he reassured her, his smile just a little too big, his enthusiasm just a bit too forced. “It’s no different than going to sleep. You drift off as normal old Susie Campbell, and wake up as an angel. Everyone will love you.”

Susie sat down on the adjacent couch, mind racing. I can be Alice Angel.

"I- Well, I mean, I’m certainly interested. But do you think I could have a few days just to, you know, think it over-?“

“Of course, of course! This is a big decision for you to make. Just consider it and let me know when you’ve made up your mind,“ Joey offered, sliding onto the couch next to her and putting his hand on hers. “But I know you’ll make the right choice. After all, opportunities like this only come once in a lifetime!”

"So, what do you say?”

Wally adjusted his position on the couch. “I don’t know, Joey. Are you sure you want me for this? I’m not exactly a voice actor or animator or anythin’-”

“Absolutely! You’d be a perfect Boris. You do feel like he’s similar to you, right?”

“Well yeah, sure I do, but-”

“Then that settles it! You’ll have your own living space right here in the studio along with all the food you can eat. The only thing you’ll have to do is greet guests that come through and record a few shorts now and then.”

“Hey, hey, hold the phone here! I didn’t say I’d do it yet. Wouldn’t that I mean I wouldn’t be a person anymore? Don’t get me wrong, I like the Bendy shorts as much as the next fellow, but I have things I still wanna do. Marry someone, maybe have some kids one day. I don’t even have my own place yet! And I wanna go to Club 21 and-”

“Relax, relax! You’re focusing far too much on the little details. Think bigger! You won’t age. You won’t get sick. You’d effectively be immortal, and any injuries you did get would be healed with just a bit of ink. You’d never have to worry about rent or living expenses again, and everyone would adore you. Doesn’t that sound better than living in a dingy little apartment for the rest of your life?”

Joey moved over to the couch, setting his hand on the other man’s back. “When opportunity comes knocking, you have to answer! That and a little belief is how I got to where I am today. So? What do you say?“

Grant rubbed his temples as he slouched over the desk, staring down at the sheets of paper in front of him. 465 + 2673. He ran his eyes down the columns, adding the numbers up mentally, trying to figure out where the error was. 3721 + 287...

A knot formed in his stomach as he went back to the first page, redoing the math for a third time. If he couldn’t account for the sudden deficit, he’d be fired. Or worse, be forced to shoulder it himself.

The thought made him feel ill. Such a massive debt with no job and a blacklisting from one of the most famous studios in the area... he’d be on the streets in no time.

Or he’d have to admit that he was a failure.

Grant gave up for the moment, leaning back over the chair and putting his hands on his face as his thoughts drifted to the conversation Joey and him had had a few days ago.

The very idea of making a physical cartoon was absurd in and of itself, really. And the angel that Joey had presented as evidence wasn’t terribly compelling, seeing as it was nothing but Susie Campbell in heavy make up.

He wouldn’t have even considered it possible if it hadn’t been for Boris. He had to admit, the idea of the wolf being a person in a costume was dubious at best, given the proportions of the thing. He had even seen it consume some bacon soup at one point without any noticeable difficulty. It really was like the character had just walked right off of the silver screen.

Grant returned to his papers, trying to shove the thoughts out of his mind, but every new string of numbers that failed to add up brought the thoughts up again. The very notion of letting Joey do God only knows what to him to make him into a cartoon spider was both ridiculous and even vaguely offensive. But Boris had looked... content. Happy, even.

And if he went through with it, the debt wouldn’t be on his shoulders anymore.

Grant shook his head and returned his gaze to his final, unwavering calculation.

$48,128 short. 

"All right, Mr. Drew, I’m here. Tell me where this leak is.” Thomas looked down the hallway with a wary expression, as if imagining what kind of issue lay at the end of it.

“Thomas! Glad to see you showed up. I was beginning to worry.“ Joey motioned for him to follow him, falling in stride with the shorter man.

“I said I’d show up, didn’t I?” Thomas gave a wary look at the pipes above them.

“Only after some strong negations.”

“I already told you. I want nothing to do with you or this damn machine of yours. You’re lucky I even accepted double for this.“

The conversation stopped as they entered the room in question, the broken ink pipe above them being nearly impossible to miss. While the flow had been shut down, there was still a sizeable amount of ink dripping down the glass and creating a huge puddle on the floor.

“Don’t you have that Franks kid here to clean this mess up? It’s going to be that much harder to fix these bolts when they’re covered in that godforsaken ink.”

“He’s... no longer with us, actually. You know how it is. Life gave him an opportunity he just couldn't pass up.”

“Mmph.” Thomas had already turned his attention away from Joey, instead setting down his toolbox and selecting a large wrench from the contents.

"And speaking of opportunity-“

“Whatever it is, I’m not interested.”

“Are you positive?” There was a degree of playful to Joey’s voice, like he expected this response and was merely going through the steps. “You should at least find out what you’re passing up before declining.“

“Don’t need to know. I came here to fix a pipe, and that’s it. I told you, I want nothing to do with this place anymore. There’s something wrong with all of this.”

“I see. Well, if you’ve made up your mind there’s not much I can do about it. Meet me in the Ink Machine room when you’re done and I’ll give you your payment.”

“Isn’t that Grant’s job?“

“Grant... also left us. There were some issues with our budget.“

Thomas narrowed his eyes, but didn’t pursue the topic further, instead focusing his attention on the pipe as Joey left the room. Two hours later, the excess ink had been cleared away and the pipe was once against securely fastened together. He threw the wrench back into the toolbox and begrudgingly made his way to the Ink Machine.

Inside the room were about fifty or so employees, all wearing Bendy masks.

“What the hell-?” Thomas turned back the door, but a few of the masked people had already moved in front of it, effectively blocking him in. Joey walked forward from the rest of the group and put a hand on his shoulder, smiling down at him.

“Why don’t we talk about that offer again, Barley?”

“You want me to be makin’.... clothes?”

“Clothes and everything else on that list. Think you can manage?“

Shawn squinted down at the piece of paper in his hand. “I’m not sure. I’ve never made anythin’ other than the dolls.”

“It’s the same basic principal. Just mold the ink into whatever you need and the rest will happen automatically.”

“I suppose I can manage. But why do you need these thingamabobs?”

“I only have one set of clothes for each cartoon. Unfortunately, belief isn’t going to do anyone’s laundry,” Joey said, chuckling.

“And the weapons?”

“I can’t say too much yet. Strictly hush-hush. But... let’s just say there are some new creations that will be very happy to have them.”

Shawn gave him a questioning look, but simply turned his attention back to the paper. “When do you be needin’ these by?”

“Two days.”

“I can’t make them that fast! Today’s almost over, and even if I pull the entire shift tomorrow I still won’t be able to produce this much that quickly-”

“Nonsense! I made all of our friends in less time than that, and they’re actually alive.” Joey snapped his fingers. “You could do it if you had some proper motivation, I bet! See what dreams are really made of. You haven’t personally met any of the characters, have you?”

The trip to the archives resulted in nothing but ink and a few curious stares from other employees. Shawn picked up a bacon soup can off of a shelf and turned it over as Joey searched the area, already loosing his patience. “How do you lose your own cartoons?”

“They’re allowed to move around,” Joey called out, voice resonating from a different section. “I just didn’t expect them to move around this much.“

Shawn looked around the room, clearly impatient. “Well if you don’t have anythin’ to be showin’ me, I’m going to head back up to the-”

Something brushed his neck.

Shawn swore loudly and fell back in shock, clutching his neck. A giant spider was dangling on a black string before him, staring at him with pie-cut eyes. Venom dripped steadily from its pure white fangs, leaving a dark spot on the floorboards. Above him was a massive spider web, black strands strung across the edges of the room.

“See? I knew they were around here!” Joey smacked the toy maker on his back and Shawn jumped again, unaware that he had returned from wherever he had disappeared to. The spider turned and climbed back up the silk strand the way a person climbing up a rope would, perching on top of the far bookshelf.

“The- the bastard just tried to bite me!” Shawn rubbed his neck, half expecting to feel puncture wounds there, but the skin was unbroken.

“Is that so?” Joey looked towards the spider and for a moment something dark flashed across his face, but it was gone just as quickly. “Well, they obviously aren’t completely perfect, but we can try to fix that later.”

“How in the seven hells did you make-?“

“Edgar! Have you seen Barley anywhere?” Joey called, ignoring the question entirely. Edgar didn’t speak, instead stretching a middle limb out to the right with a sickening cracking noise. Shawn briefly wondered if that hurt.

“This way!” Joey grabbed the toy maker and moved to the right, the Irishman twisting around to keep an eye on the spider. Edgar turned and crawled straight up the far wall, and Shawn could have sworn he caught a glimpse of a human hand at the end of one of his legs as he moved.

The room that Edgar had been pointing to turned out to be a massive storage room that had completely flooded with ink from a broken pipe. A makeshift dock had been assembled out of what appeared to be loose floorboards, and at the end of it sat a small sailor, smoking a pipe, fishing line deep in the ink. Shawn briefly wondered what exactly he was trying to catch.

“Barley!”

Barley glanced over at them, grunted, and then returned his gaze to the inky abyss before him. His eyepatch was gone, and in its place a human-like eye sat buried deep in an otherwise empty socket. Shawn felt a shudder of disgust run through his body.

“He’s not much for conversation,” Joey said apologetically, pulling Shawn away again. “But speaking of conversation...”

“What, the items again?” Shawn allowed Joey to pull him along, still trying to process what he had just seen. He had seen Alice and Boris when Joey had introduced them to the studio, but he had simply assumed that it was make up or some sort of animatron. But these things... they were definitely alive, and something about that fact made him feel uneasy.

“No, not the items.” Joey waved his hand dismissively, and Shawn got the feeling that it was never about the items to begin with. “Didn’t you notice anyone missing?“

Shawn racked his mind, trying to recall all of the Bendy shorts. “The... little leprechaun fellow?”

“Correct! It doesn’t feel right without Charley here, does it?”

“I don’t think it would be feelin’ any better with him.” Shawn glanced over at the library, half expecting to see Edgar crawling after him, but the room was still.

“Sure it would! You can’t have the Butcher Gang without all three of them. Otherwise you don’t even have a gang to begin with. And I think I’ve found the perfect candidate for him.”

“Candidate? What are you-?”

Something clicked.

“Joey? How did you make these cartoons again?” Shawn asked, moving back away from him, things slowly piecing themselves together in his mind.

“I told you. Belief!“

“And what else?” Sweat started to drip down his back as he remembered how many employees had ”quit” the company over the last few weeks.

Joey simply smiled, and Shawn ran.

Upstairs, a few dozen Bendy masks met him outside the elevator.

[aimeesuzara]

How We Learn to Hate Our Skin or, a Late Blossom into Self-Love, When Growing up Brown in a World that Makes You Want to Be White (For A History of My Body Blog Series)

 In the summer of 2016, I arrived in Santiago de Cuba with a dance group, and the first thing we attended was a performance by Danza Del Caribe. There, in a dark theater, with very few people in attendance, emerged the lithe, dynamic dancers -- the music, driving and sensual, the bodies, athletic and slim —the dance, modern, though there was something distinct about the movement that was very Cuban, its expression, the undulations of their torsos and hips.  Soon, there was another dance featuring traditional drummers and singers and all in costumes, reenacting a fiesta in the streets, and now, I could see the Afro-Cuban roots, the movement beneath the movement.  The music and the dance immediately seized us, a welcome that was neither superficial nor subtle.  Outside in the night, we piled into cars where Jacob Forever's song "Hasta Que Se Seque el Malecon" blared, and I realized I was listening to this song for the first time in Cuba.  I realized: I am IN Cuba!  That I had taken Cuban dance, from folkloric to Cuban salsa, and had become nearly addicted to dancing casino to Salsa-Timba, needing to dance at least once, if not three times, a week, faithfully attending class at my gym taught by one of the leaders of this very trip -- had always seemed strange if I were never to come here. Of course, it was a privilege to travel, a privilege that is very “American.”

As a person whose culture has not quite suffered the amount of co-opting that other cultures have (what comes to mind is yoga-fied Indian, anime-ed Japanese, kitschy or cutesy Chinese, boy-band Korean, luau'd Hawaii, cigar-and-salsa Cuba – to name just a few)-- I always wonder, "when and if this happens to us, how will I feel?" for example, how would I feel if I went to a Filipino tribal dance class from, say, Mindanao, and all of the attendees were white?  Sure, they could learn the language and the gestures, but could this be right?  And what if the consumers of such traditions had never been interested in my country nor never attempted to know and understand and have true relationship with not only the symbols of, but the actual inhabitants or descendants of my islands? I always imagined entering a class like that and basically losing my mind, giving everyone a piece of my mind.  And yet I, too, have done my fair share of being fascinated by and borrowing and romanticizing cultures other than my own -- I am guilty of it, certainly -- I do not deny that living in India in college, studying Buddhism and Hinduism and an extended stay of 9 months,  then returning here to attending yoga classes where few if any people were actually Indian -- that I was participating in the consumption of culture.  I also do not claim that my fascination with Cuban culture, spirituality, history, are entirely devoid of romanticism, idealizing.  And yet, there is something here to consider.  I do not consider myself a part of the (at least racial) dominant class.  That I have grown up with economic comfort, an excellent education, and two parents who lived together and were committed, raising me with everything I needed -- that I grew up with at least some semblance of identity connected to a homeland -- I do not deny the privileges I have inherited.

But as I've gotten older, I realize that my suspicion that we were always second-class citizens in many peoples' eyes, in the system's eyes; that we are dispensable, as labor, as intelligence, as optional colors to throw into a melting pot that somehow was and should be neutral, in other words, white; that I have never nor ever will experience whatever it is to feel I was neutral or normal or the regular, that things were made and meant for me; though I strove for, and lived at times under the illusion that I could be, a part of it.  As a child, I wanted my mom to have m & m's and pizza and popcorn around like the other kids; not soy sauce, fish sauce, hot peppers and rice.  I wanted us to sit down to an “American” Thanksgiving Dinner, since that's what everyone else did.  This became instated, at my insistence at the age of eight or nine: we had turkey, canned cranberry sauce, powdered whipped potatoes.  I was content to be like the other kids, not realizing that what was being replaced was whatever Filipino we had left. For a mother who was not that into cooking, those small symbols were what we couuld and should hold onto.  My Dad's Adobo; my mom's pancit; the ginataan that I half-loved and half-was disgusted by; the odd sweets and bottles and jars filled with sugary beans and coconut jelly for making Halo-Halo.  Instead, I opted for the can-shaped gelatinous cranberry sauce, not knowing how easy it was to make fresh sauce from scratch; the microwaved dinners like Hungry Man's potatoes and gravy and meatloaf, also not realizing that these were the easiest foods to make from scratch; popcorn and eggs, likewise, easy to to make and inferior when made in our enormous microwave oven.  I fought hard to lose our culture in order to be  part of the crowd, only realizing later that I would never the part of the crowd.  I would always be different, exotic, cute.  I would always stand out, could not really hide behind my hair like I thought I could; wearing black as a teen probably made me stand out more; I could never be "goth" -- my melanin prevented this. 

The illusion of belonging to a dominant class was broken at moments of my parents being talked down to; or my mom being called "cute" --my lunchbox food called weird, and people fascinated by my hair and eyes.  At a point in fifth grade the adoration turned to a silent segregation, and I distinctly remember sitting, as though on a faraway island, looking at my increasingly distant best friend, freckles and blue eyes, and her other newer best friends, blond and red-haired, all pale like Strawberry Shortcake and Barbie and Madonna; all perfect American little girls, as they became a click and left me with Jasmine and Keisha, whom I liked and got along with but also resented because they reminded me of my darkness; somehow being with the two black girls made me feel that all together we were just this big blotch of ink; a shadow on the playground; invisible and disappearing while the rest of the world marched on. A child of ten does not invent such a feeling, and especially not in a small town like Pasco, given that race or racism was never directly talked about by my parents nor in school, that my friends were all oblivious to the subtle ways in which racism was being perpetuated and carried on by their parents.  I remember Luis and Juan and some sense about them being just weird or less-than; I remember Pedro who broke his arm doing antics on the slide; they were Mexican and were seen as the comic relief; they were the jokesters, the pranksters, and so they were loved.  But in a sort of adorable, little-brother way, not to be taken seriously, and certainly not to be the object of a crush.  There was my Indonesian friend, also adorable and smart but never to be the object of a crush; crushes would be reserved for the classically white-cute Jeff or John. (*all names have been changed)

I probably had picked up on or heard snippets of my fathers' frustration, when he was deflated or downright angry about the dynamics at the hospital.  It seemed that the Filipinos were helping the Filipinos but not enough (and what was it they need to help each other for, I wondered?) and the Indian doctors had to leave; and the white doctors all supported one other were not supporting him. We left the Tri-cities nearly losing everything, in debt and abandoning the beautiful house on the hill; I disappeared for years from the scene and moved like a nomad across the country five times before I was a sophomore in high school.

But that is another story.  Let's begin with the body here and see where it all changed.

In Houston, Texas, I learned, as abruptly as you could at the age of 11 in sixth grade, that yes, we were second class citizens, people who should go back "home" (and what home was that?) and who smelled (this being the Indian slur applied generically).  Or it was "ching chong" which really got me because immediately the sound summoned the most slanty-eyed cartoon I could imagine, someone who couldn't even see through the slits of their eyes; and I was proud to have large, almond eyes, eyes my father and others said were due to my Spanish ancestry.  Deer eyes, round eyes, eyes that were expressive.  And I loved to sing, and talk and dance, so how could anything be Ching Chong from my lips --what a bunch of gibberish; I knew nothing about Chinese culture, but I knew no one spoke like that.

I remember, too, that in Texas, my two best friends and I clung to one other, protecting one another from the harsh slurs and taunting and just plain stupidity of the typical hormonal 6th-grader.  We created a fortress by linking arms and always walked together in the narrow halls.  I remember being conscious of Shalini, our Indian third, being made fun of for her hairiness and/or her odor.  Grace was nearly perfect, I thought, but her being Vietnamese and me Filipina, still, we were Asian and this was something, apparently, bad.  Our biggest steretotype was perhaps to be too smart (how terrible). But this also had to go hand-in-hand with, or mean, not-attractive. God forbid you could be brown, smart and pretty at the same time; that idea was only a fantasy.

There is something that extends beyond the number of incidences that I may be able to name that were "racist" -- micro-aggressions, and simply systematic and historical realities that, once you are aware of them, you could not become unaware.  It was only much later, after college, that I became aware that we live in a society built upon slavery, and exploitation, and the murder of brown-skinned people who lived here before. Then I learned that in my islands there were indigenous people before came the Spaniards, and the Dutch, and the British, and the United States, before capitalism and westernized culture infected the minds and hearts and bodies; I learned that people in my islands wished to lighten their skin and go to great lengths to be light, to appear or be white, to speak white, to be Western, and to look down upon their own even before coming to the USA-- the exact process described by Fanon and Cesaire as internalized colonialism, internalized inferiority. I inherited the internalized inferiority complex: I wanted blond hair and blue eyes; I wanted a tall nose; I wanted to lose my melanin and tried to hide my shadow in the brightness of light-skinned people for much of my childhood and teenager-hood. I bought into believing my parents were less-than with their strong accents and "foreign” ways. If I did not -- how else would I ever belong?

It had to be systemic: how could a 10-year old invent the kind of complex that I recall dawning upon me like a heavy mist, a poisonous web, that I breathed into my lungs, that permeated my body.  To be ashamed of my parents' tongue, our skin color, our bone structure, our food, our culture, to be ashamed.

To be ashamed as a woman may be something very universal, and especially under Catholicism, the gift of the conquistador to the natives of our islands and the other islands they descended upon.  But to be ashamed to also be brown, to also hail from what I learned later were islands resembling, no, are actually, Paradise?  Why and how could we feel ashamed of this?  Why and how could we feel ashamed to come from Paradise, where people are warm, loving, communally-minded, resilient, culturally rich, creative, how can you possibly hate the place you came from that was Paradise?

The shame of our own bodies as brown and Filipina is a sad and shared experience.  And now there is the irony that while in most of the world, it's more superior to be light, but there is also the fascination, the desire to be darker, to nearly consume, our golden skin.  The irony that while lightness gains privilege, those same privileged envy – no, desire -- our melanin, our eyes and hair.  To be envied yet to be looked down upon at the same time.  To feel invisible in one moment, unimportant, seen as part of the help or someone who cannot speak for herself; and then in the next, seen as extremely intelligent, eloquent, and exotic.  I never really knew how to accept the "compliment" of being exotic; was I a fruit?  Was I something to eat?  Why not be beautiful, like a fully-conscious and complete and (in my mind, neutral or standard) person could be?  Couldn't I be complex and whole, too? Could we focus on normal things like ice cream flavors and what we liked to do, rather than dwell on the uncomfortable differentness of our bodies? I would have preferred to be smart, interesting and cool than to be exotic, any day.  The journey of loving this body and this skin has been many years in the making.  People are often surprised, because they see me as very Pinay proud, embracing my heritage and loving my body and brown skin.  It’s been an evolution.  For those of us who have lived outside of the liberal or progressive Bay Area, we’ve been exposed to different messages.  Even IN the liberal Bay Area, we have to fight to drown out the noise; to make our own voices of self-love even louder.