#unspeakable trope 1

[kahran042]

You want bad trope ideas? Here's one: I won't call it by name, but it's just a thinly-veiled excuse to hate on people who have the audacity to like characters you don't. Oh, wait. It's already a trope - Unspeakable Trope #1, to be exact.

[shinelikethunder]

i don't actually think teenage Dean Winchester would be spurned-lover-style jealous of teenage Sam's girlfriends i think based on his s1 behavior that it's far more likely he went "HELL YEAH my little brother is DATING he is going to SLAY at this and i'll make sure of it," unilaterally appointed himself Sam's wingman, had to be beaten back with a stick from micromanaging his brother's love life, and probably lovingly fantasized about all the hot chicks Sam was gonna hook up with and all the things they'd get up to because let's face it, who wouldn't fall head over heels for the guy? (speculation about kissing practice, which of course Would Not Count as anything except making sure the little nerd did their family proud, is left as an exercise to readers who are so inclined.)

also probably the closest thing to a jealous shitfit he pulled involved one (1) time Sam ditched a hunt to be there for his then-girlfriend's Important Life Event, and it'd be like 40% loudly-expressed "he should be putting his FAMILY first" and 60% ferociously-suppressed "we don't get to just DO that! if i've accepted only ever being able to date super casually for a few weeks at a time before we blow town then where the fuck does he get off thinking he can just PRIORITIZE this COMMITTED RELATIONSHIP BEHAVIOR bullshit. that i tooootally don't want or care about anyway. because it's for SISSY NORMIE LOSERS, not a tight-knit clan of ULTRA-COOL SECRET MONSTER HUNTERS like us"

like i think Dean did accept much more readily, long before he could even realize the ramifications of what he was accepting, that the way they lived meant the Winchesters' only long-term relationship option was "rampant emotional incest that we don't have to acknowledge as long as we all only bang girls," but he also canonically had all kinds of festering resentment about missing out, and was aware on some level that their lives required the sacrifice of a lot of things he secretly longed for (and made a lot of noise about devaluing in favor of What's More Important)

and the toxic cocktail of that + envy of Sam's ability to just go "nah fuck expectations i want something else" + boundary-challenged investment/enabling/policing of each other's heterosexual exploits as a bulwark between their family dynamics and The Unspeakable + freakout over the early warning signs of a difference in values on family loyalty + inchoate terror of losing him to the outside world one day + unthinking idolization and projection along the lines of "well of course this girlfriend would take him away from us and wrap her entire life around his if she could, i mean, have you met him? who wouldn't want that? this is WHY we have to keep it casual and not get girls' expectations up"...

...the entire dynamic of Dean being Sam's number one hookup cheerleader but also perceiving signs of romance/commitment as a threat... s1 Dean trying to have a hand in pushing him towards actual romantic prospects anyway, because he's worried about Sam grief-spiraling and has reluctantly accepted that the rupture in the family is about things Sam genuinely wants, even as Sam's grief is already driving him to the conclusion that they aren't worth the cost and meanwhile the brothers have spent all season bonding even closer and more claustrophobically as adults...

well, i think all that is way more interesting, and in many ways even more fucked-up, than applying bog-standard jealous boyfriend tropes to the absolute mess of their upbringing

[skyeventide]

there's like, things about Dragon Age and the ancient elven empire there that I don't believe can quite be grasped unless you have a cursory understanding of either Tolkien or the Tolkien-generated trope of elves as an advanced civilisation of superior beings with magic/technology/knowledge/lore that is now lost and/or that largely influenced the remnants of the human empire, which substituted the elven one as the leading force in the continent. fantasy worlds like Dragon Age are deeply in conversation with that (and I guess like the Witcher or smth but I never read or played that, and didn't finish season 1, so my knowledge is second-hand; but either way).

the thing in Tolkien and Tolkien-generated tropes is that these elves are good. they're superior, they teach things to the second-coming races, they're narratively exalted, they're borderline divine, any kind of more or less violent colonialism (it happens) and feudalism (also happens) they instate is good, narratively obfuscated, or even justified. Tolkien has criticism of colonialism in his work, but rarely if ever goes all the way when it comes to elves. criticism of elven hierarchies based on clan and level of holiness and greatness are often narratively undermined (e.g. Eol, a character whose criticism of Turgon and the Noldor is diluted by the fact that he's awful as a person)(you can go into detail about Galadriel and Nimrodel but this post is technically a Dragon Age post lmao).

there's a Tolkien paper called "The Wretched of Middle Earth: An Orcish Manifesto" by Charles Mills, which goes into scathing detail about how the narrative sets up the elves as a superior race and consistently characterises the other groups, orcs, humans, dwarves, as racial inferiors. it's not afraid to call out "aryan" comparisons, without trying to argue that Tolkien actively believed in that ideology. the racial herarchy is there, in the text.

tl dr elves have all the rhetorical trappings of an empire... without ever being one. they're good, they're paternally helpful towards the humans they educate (who are therefore the superior humans), and they're good also and particularly in the sense that they never "fell" in a religious sense, no matter their individual actions (fastidious details and contradictions notwithstanding). they didn't abandon the true god.

what's happening in Dragon Age is that these elves, who are narratively presented as the "true" elves, the lost ideal, the immortals before modern elves turned from their ways and lost that immortality, the great advanced civilisation that probably taught humans before humans feasted on their remnants, these elves... are an empire. they conquer, enslave, pillage from the dwarves (another trope turned on its head; don't tell me the dwarves-elves peaceful companionship where the dwarves keep digging to satisfy the demand of material but they're also best friends with elves, turned to explicit war of conquest for possession of raw material in Dragon Age, doesn't elicit mithril-lyrium comparisons), have pantheon wars. this is the sole logical conclusion of those tropes. it's the subtext, the unspoken, the unspeakable, brought straight to light. it's the rhetoric of empire that's been buried in stories about elves brought to its only possible sensible end: this is an actual empire. there's no way it could have been anything else.

(this goes deeper with the numenor-gondor-tevinter comparisons, which are absolutely blatant when you know that gondor's precursors, numenor, went full empire, and that their last action before the island sank was attack the elves' blessed realm. if ar-pharazon and numenor had won, we could have gotten something very similar to Tevinter in storyline. only the Tolkien racial hierarchy simply cannot be toppled like that, it's practically divinely mandated and protected. the maker-the allfather directly and personally intervenes. but without this extremely disruptive and literal deus ex machina, that too is turned on its head in Dragon Age: it's not god who sinks the capital of the human empire to prevent their violent conquest AND traps the fighting humans underground, after the elves have fled instead of choosing to fight; it's humans who arrive, the elves flee, and then humans presumably sink the capital city into the ground. once again, when the ontological hierarchy of races and the divine decree of goodness and favour is removed, the true logical conclusion comes to the fore. one empire substitutes the other.)

[selfaware-bungou-stray-dogs]

Hello, I'm back to drop more questions regarding the BSD x SAGAU work. 1. How is the relationship between the elemental monsters (like slimes or hypotasises), the cursed Khaenri'ah (hilichurls, the Abyss Order), Celestia, the Traveller, and the Fake Creator and Reader? 2. How much knowledge does the BSD cast have of Teyvat and Reader's identity? 3. How did the Reader disappear for the first time? 4. Is Teyvat self-aware? Is these too much questions? I hope I didn't cross any boundaries. Keep up the work! I'm really looking forward to your new works! Take care <3

Hello!

Don't worry, I am fine with answering all questions you have. And all these questions were fine.

Thanks for your support ☺️

1. 1. With elemental monsters: They can feel Echoes of Creator's powers coming from Reader. They don't attack Reader, listen to them. Reader have no reason to worry about fighting with them. Moreover, they would help Reader, if someone tried to attack them. But, if Fake Creator decided to go after Reader themselves, Elemental Monsters won't do anything to help. They won't help Reader or Fake Creator. For Elemental Monsters, both Reader and Fake Creator look like True/Real Creator.

1.2. Situation with hilichurls are similar to situation with Elemental Monsters. But, they can choose sides and can be manipulated. So, there are hilichurls, that would chase after Reader.

1.2.1. Abyss Order believe in Fake Creator. They are searching for Reader, helping humans hunting Reader. Abyss Order manipulate hilichurls into choosing Fake Creator's side.

1.3. Celestia is on Reader's side. They were True Creator's (First one) familiars, they knew, how exactly Creator's reincarnations will look like. They see Fake Creator as an abomination. A crime against First Creator.

That's the reason why Fake Creator destroy Celestia. So they won't tell the truth about Fake Creator.

Celestia is weak, but Celestia gods and Sustainer will give away everything they had to protect Reader.

1.4. Traveler are really confused. Both Reader and Fake Creator have similar auras. Traveler can't tell the difference between them. On one hand, there are poor Reader, who are love in fear of being captured. On second hand, there are Fake Creator, who helped their sibling. Who reunited Aether and Lumine. And Abyss Sibling want Reader's blood. So, Traveler are hunting Reader down.

1.5. Fake Creator hate Reader. Fake are sure, that Reader came into Teyvat to overthrow them. Fake Creator want to kill Reader and absorb their powers. Fake Creator will do anything to get all Reader's powers, even, if it means to do unspeakable things to Reader and their body.

2. For BSD Cast, Teyvat was a fictional world. When they still were in their own world, they were looking through other apps Reader have on their phone, they didn't feel anything strange coming from Genshin Impact. Moreover, they played in Genshin Impact (helping Reader with exploration, chests and oculus) while Reader were doing something else.

BSD Cast weren't interested in Genshin Impact too much. Until Reader disappeared, reappeared, and Capitano followed them.

After that, BSD Cast start looking for an info about Teyvat.

Katai, Naomi, Kirako, teens and kids (Karma, Kenji, Kuyoka, Kyuusaku, Aya, Elise, Sakura, Yuu, Katsumi, Shinji and Kousuke) are searching through Wiki, YouTube, Reddit, Tumblr, TV Tropes, looking for Genshin lore.

Others are traveling to Teyvat through the portal and spying on Teyvat people, learning about Creator.

So, they became knowledgeable about Teyvat and Creator.

They still not sure about Reader's identity. BSD Cast think, that Reader can be either Creator's reincarnation, or Reader simply look the same as Creator. There is no way for them to prove it or disprove. Reader's powers only work in Teyvat, and BSD Cast won't let Reader return there.

Reader's identity doesn't matter to BSD Cast. They love/like and cherish Reader. Reader were hurt. Someone must pay for that.

3. It was an incident. Fake Creator tried to search for more things, that were left from previous reincarnations, so they used a "spell" to transport everything, that have First Creator's powers in Teyvat. And Reader are considered part of "everything, that have Creator's powers".

4. Teyvat is Self-Aware to some extent. It can "feel", what kind of powers, both Reader and Fake Creator. It even can tell, who are real and who are fake. But, its powers are limited.

First Creator add a rule into Teyvat's 'soul', while creating it.

'Humans over all. You can never hurt them on purpose'

Teyvat also can't hurt any reincarnation of First Creator.

So, Teyvat's actions are careful and limited. It can't hurt people, who are after Reader. But, Teyvat can hide Reader, made others stop chasing you because of a bad weather. It can show Reader secret save paths.

Teyvat also can play small 'pranks' on Fake Creator, making them trip, or flooding their Cathedrals and Palace, freeze their gardens.

______

Tag list: @withered-blossoms , @myluckymoon @cocodrilofeliz @c4xcocoa @vvyeislazzy @whisperingwinters

[meetinginsamarra]

My Fave Sherlock BBC tropes - Casefics

Around mid-month I’ll do a fic rec list with my fave AU genres or tropes. Summaries are taken from OP on AO3.

Okay, so there are obviously a lot of Sherlock fics where a case gets solved. Here, I only include the especially plotty ones.

*********************************

“The Case of the Green Gown” by splix

https://archiveofourown.org/works/2659472

...Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action which I can recall in our association. I was alone.  -Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier

(Please ignore this useless summary! This is hands down the most complex but still completely logical casefic I’ve ever read. Layers upon layers of stunning reveals, intriguing case and beautiful characterization of our beloved. Awesome!)

“Ten Days” (part 1 of “The Fallen” series) by Engazed @engazed​

https://archiveofourown.org/works/456761

Sherlock Holmes has been dead for forty months, and John is at last beginning to live his life again. But just when he believes he might be happy, his world crashes back down around him.

John is named a missing person. Someone is pointing DI Lestrade in the wrong direction. And as the days pass, his situation only grows more dire. It seems like the disappearance of his best friend is the only thing that can bring Sherlock Holmes back from the dead.

“The Slash Man” (part 2 of “The Fallen” series) by Engazed @engazed

https://archiveofourown.org/works/949101

After ten days of unspeakable torture at the hands of Sherlock's worst enemies, John Watson has returned to Baker Street to live with a man whose death, no matter how fake, still haunts him. But his recovery is not easy, his friendship with Sherlock is strained, and a dangerous but hidden menace continues to threaten them both.

(”Blackbird, Fly” is part 3 and currently a WIP)

“The Green Blade” by verityburns @verity-burns​

https://archiveofourown.org/works/320879

As a serial killer hits the headlines, the police are out of their depth and the next victim is out of time. With faith in Sherlock Holmes at an all time low, this is a case which will push loyalties to the limit...

“A Goose Quill Dipped in Venom” by Polyphony

https://archiveofourown.org/works/344050

Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, is called in to a very ordinary although brutal murder. Something is badly out of tune with the whole scenario and Sherlock finds himself becoming more and more obsessed with the crime - and also with the victim.

“The Iceman cometh” by Polyphony

https://archiveofourown.org/works/539555

Title from the Eugene O'Neill play of the same name. An intriguing puzzle tempts Sherlock to accept Victor Trevor's invitation to the French Riviera, but all is not what it seems. Frustrated by the case and increasingly concerned about an absent John, Sherlock uncovers far more than he was meant to and is forced to become a fugitive, pursued by those on both sides of the law, as he fights for his freedom and the lives of all those around him.

“The Edinburgh Problem” (part 1 of “Scotland series”) by snorklepie @snorklepie

https://archiveofourown.org/works/2392997

“A nice holiday, just a bit more...murdery.” John said drily. “Yes! The best kind of holiday!” Sherlock beamed. “So we won’t get bored!”

After he separates from Mary, John returns to Baker Street. Following a request for help from Sherlock's cousin Violet, the detective and his blogger take a trip to Edinburgh. John discovers more about the Holmes family and Sherlock than he bargained for, but tries not to run screaming.

“October to Hogmanay” (part 2 of “Scotland series”) by snorklepie @snorklepie

https://archiveofourown.org/works/3606486

“What are we, now?” John mused aloud, once they were in a cab heading back to Baker street. It was a cool, damp afternoon and Sherlock was studying the passers-by with detached interest. He glanced over at John with a raised eyebrow, his fingers idly worrying at one of the buttons on his coat.

“Nothing seems quite right. What would you call me, if somebody asked?” John waved a hand vaguely at the space between them. “What do we call… this?”

(”Savage Music, Sombre Light” is part 3 and currently a WIP)

“Periodic Tales -series” (18 fics) by 7PercentSolution @7-percent​

https://archiveofourown.org/series/504749

Lots of science, lots of case fic! This is Sherlock as chemist, using the periodic table of elements for many different reasons. Each story is centred around one particular element, in two parts. One focuses on aspects of Sherlock's childhood and events in his life; the other part shows how that has influenced his abilities as the world's only consulting detective, demonstrated through a case fic that shows off his deducing skills.

(most of Seven’s fics could be put onto this list btw, but I’ll add only one more)

“Devonshire Squires” (part 8 of “Fallen Angel” - series) by 7PercentSolution @7-percent

https://archiveofourown.org/works/11830755

Post THE/Pre So3, John and Sherlock try to rebuild bridges, but a demanding case challenges both of their assumptions about what happened to the other one during the hiatus. Lestrade tries to play peacemaker, but Mycroft's meddling is counter-productive. Case fic, sickfic and angst all rolled into one misery-laden ball of reading pleasure

“Midnight Blue Serenity” by BeautifulFiction @the-pen-pot​

https://archiveofourown.org/works/635897

“This was like nothing John had ever thought to associate with Sherlock: stubble, skin-tight jeans and three small silver rings gleaming at the crest of one ear. It was unbelievable, like stepping into an alternative universe, and John couldn't stop staring.”

When Sherlock infiltrates a club in order to track down a serial killer, his altered appearance is enough to make John question his assumption that Sherlock is beyond his reach. However, is he the only one who appreciates his flatmate's charms, or is Sherlock at risk of becoming the next victim?

“The Adventure of the Body Snatchers” by dioscureantwins

https://archiveofourown.org/works/5574523

“Body snatchers,” whispered a girl. “Oh, Mr Holmes. Oh, Davey…” Her eyes watered and with heaving shoulders she buried her face into her neighbour’s overcoat.

Sherlock looked perplexed. “Is this one of those pop culture things?” he asked the room at large.

John nodded and drank the last of his tea while his flatmate rolled his eyes before leaping to his feet.

“Right. I can’t think with so much stupidity in the room.” He began making shooing motions at the distraught girl and the boy who sat comforting her as well as the others. “Everybody out. John and I don’t have time for this nonsense. Out, out, all of you.”

“The Moonlight and the Frost” by CaitlinFairchild

https://archiveofourown.org/works/1998777

“And once again, you think you know what’s best for me.”

John rises from the chair, the anger and frustration and hurt overwhelming him, bursting out of every pore, and he doesn’t even know for sure that it’s Sherlock he’s angry at, really, but the only reason he tied himself to Mary in the first place is because the person he really loved left him behind, and the woman he married once sat in the shadows above a darkened swimming pool and aimed a sniper rifle at his heart and later shot his best friend in cold blood and cuckolded him and just gave birth to a child that wasn’t his and right now he just can’t do this, he just fucking can’t do this anymore.

John has to somehow rebuild his life in the wake of Mary's betrayal and Sherlock's deceptions.

“Sketchy” by serpentynka

https://archiveofourown.org/works/1090850

What (and who) will be left when nobody cares about your Work? A slow-burn fic with cases, places, mistaken identities, unfair choices, essential changes, violent feels, blatant lies, fearless portraiture, family secrets, high-risk bespoke gifts, durable friendships, bedtime stories, foreign travel and tongues, sickness (and health), and the significance of things which are slow to unfurl -- but cannot be ignored. Oh, and...porn.

“All the best and brightest creatures” by wordstrings

https://archiveofourown.org/works/582059

Sherlock sent Jim Moriarty to prison for killing Carl Powers at age ten. This is the story of the consequences.

“The adventure of the silver scars” by tangledblue

https://archiveofourown.org/works/5131763

“All this does not mean that I’m not still basically pissed off with you. I’m very pissed off, and it will come out now and then.” –His Last Vow   It’s been thirteen months since Mary shot Sherlock and John finds he’s still pissed off about it. Sherlock had thought everything was settled: John and Mary, domestic bliss. But when John turns up at Baker Street with suitcases, the world’s only consulting detective might not be prepared for the consequences. A new case. Some old scores to settle. Certain danger. Concertos, waltzes, and whisky.

“Major Pieces” by Lindentreeisle (Captainblue)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/162152

Sherlock knew that he could thoroughly rely upon John Watson's moral sense. And that's why he knew that Lestrade was wrong, wrong, wrong.

[emsuemsu]

@hprecfest day 14: favorite series

Now before we get into this, I have to get something off my chest. As much as I love a badass auror(and/or unspeakable) adventure-fic (it is my favorite trope, I love case fics, I can't get enough of them), I don't think Harry (nor Draco) would make a good auror. Especially Harry. Like I don't think that man has an ounce of auror in him. It's the most ridiculous career choice for him. Just no. And it's funny because these are my favorite types of fics to read, and still I constantly think it's just not happening. No way in hell Harry Potter is going to be an auror. Yet, I eat it up every goddamn time, no crumbs left.

Anyways, in spite of what I just said it wasn't hard to come up with a favorite series for todays prompt:

Tales from the Special Branch by @femmequixotic 🩵 4 complete works, 1 wip, 1,214,933 words in total, draco/harry

When Gawain Robards asks him to form Special Branch seven-four-alpha, Harry Potter knows they'll have to work outside the confines of the law--even though they are the law.

This series has had my heart and soul for quite a while now. It's so unbelievably good. I feel like this is the blueprint for any and every case fic on earth, it's just superior. The plotting, the pacing, the feels, the smut, the characterizations, the vibes, the smut... I'm on the floor. The world building is in a league of it’s own with this one. And I've been savoring this series. I've read the first 4 parts of it, unlike my usual style of binging but really taking it slow and reeling in what I’ve read. And trust me, it is a fuckload to take in. I remember seeing like a mindmap-kinda thingy of all the relationships in this series, and it was just pure chaos - in the best way possible. I’ve started the fifth part, but I feel like I kinda want to save it?? For a special occasion????? Whatever that may be. And I know it is unfinished at the moment, now would I be happy if the author continued it? Absolutely over the moon. Beyond excited. But tbh, I’m really content even if this were to stay in the state it is now. It’s given me so much over the last few years, so many good memories and fun times reading this it pretty much feels like a complete work for me already.

[burr-ell]

🔥🔥🔥

I am here to start a war.

1, 10, and 13 for CR and FE3H

choose violence ask game

That's a lot and I'm here 👏 for 👏 it 👏 I'm gonna split the posts for CR and FE3H so they don't get in each other's tags; this post will be for CR.

1. the character everyone gets wrong

Vex. I've talked about it elsewhere, including here on twitter for those interested, but it's really irritating to me that so many self-proclaimed fans of hers keep flattening her into a Joss Whedon woman (while simultaneously decrying those very tropes). I've seen it a lot of times among Vex/Keyleth shippers who tend to project themselves onto Keyleth and thinks Keyleth "deserves" to have the character they think is the hottest, but I've also seen it among Percy/Vex shippers who are hardcore Vex stans who also think she's being oppressed at pretty much every turn (except by Percy who worships the ground she walks on and is therefore perfect for her). It also happens among the old C1 commentariat, though they use it to bash Vex and Laura for [bleep blorp misogyny].

Vex is complicated. She's resilient, clever, resourceful, beautiful and confident about it, compassionate, pragmatic, frosty to those who haven't earned her trust, desperate for approval, and frugal to the point of obsession. She's a survivor of abuse and racism. Her most defining relationships are with three male characters. She stole a broom for no reason other than that she wanted it. She spent 15,000 gold to free two slaves. She has the most explicitly political career out of everyone in Vox Machina, including the tribal leader and the scion of a noble house. If Syldor and Syngorn hadn't been so horrible to her she'd have become a diplomat like her father, something Laura explicitly said. She and Syldor try to repair their relationship post-canon. She has no problem topping Percy. She gets flustered by Percy.

In short? She acts like a real person. If you're watering her down to "greedy bitch", "step on me queen", or "most victimized character ever", then honestly, I think your tastes are unspeakably boring.

10. worst part of fanon

There have been too many posts to count about my main frustration—that fanon is seen as sacrosanct compared to canon simply because fans came up with it, and that fans get so wrapped up in fanons and headcanons (that are, if I'm gonna get really violent, rather adolescent in scope and tone) that they're genuinely righteously outraged when canon contradicts it or other fans dislike it.

So since we're choosing violence, I'll just say glasses!Imogen. Round cute sweet little uwu baby bean glasses!Imogen. It's symptomatic of that larger problem, it largely exists purely in the context of a ship (which is symptomatic of another larger problem), and it's not an interesting enough concept to justify its existence after everyone and their mom has done it and demanded that everyone else validate it.

13. worst blorbofication

Honestly? I gotta go with Percy, and I say this as someone whose blorbo is Percy. There are two strains of this:

1. The old guard C1 fans who have spent years coming up with ways that Percy, as Vex's simp, will absolutely adore everything she says and does and do whatever she tells him to and never challenge her or consider himself in any way, and

2. The more traditional Uwu Baby Boy types who really seem to like making him as soft and romantic as possible. The character tag is uninhabitable if you don't block characterxreader blogs on sight.

Honestly though, I'll take type 2 over type 1, because I don't remember the type 2 folks throwing a hissy fit over Matt's portrayal of Percy and comparing him to Syldor. If you're genuinely trying to argue that Matt portrayed Vex's husband similarly to her abuser and that either Laura or Taliesin would be okay with that, I would cordially suggest removing your head from your colon.

[ineffable-opinions]

School Culture & Male Androphilia in Japan

[This is part of a series on Takumi-kun 6. The aim of this piece is to discuss the origins of student culture and male androphilia & how it plays out in Takumi-kun series.]

Takumi-kun series is an early BL novel by Shinobu Gotoh with an enduring legacy. It is also an on-going work as we follow Takumi-kun and others beyond their student (gakusei) days and into adult (shakaijin) life.

Takumi-kun series is mostly set in an all-males boarding school Shido Academy. As I have mentioned in my previous posts, pre-modern Japan has a long tradition of male androphilia[1], much of which was age-stratified, class-stratified or both and involved strict/normative inserter/insertee dichotomy. BL has inherited (such as in seme/uke dynamics) and bastardized (such as with younger seme/older uke pairing) traditions of male androphilia in its tropes. Let's discuss a bit of the history before diving into how Shinobu Gotoh plays around with the setup of boarding school male-male sexuality that emerged in the Meiji period.

Part 1

[ Main resource used for this part of the write-up is the chapter titled “Toward the Margins: Male-Male Sexuality in Meiji Popular Discourse” from the book Cartographies of Desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse, 1600-1950 by Gregory M. Pflugfelder. ]

What Review of Senryu From Meiji Japan Reveals

Meiji period Japan saw transformation of Japanese customary male-male sexuality ‘within the newly established framework of a centralized nation-state’.

…male-male sexuality, which had enjoyed a prominent and respectable place in Edo-period popular texts, came during Meiji times to be routinely represented as “barbarous,” “immoral,” or simply “unspeakable.”

The marginalization of male-male sexuality can be traced through its representation in senryü verse composed during that period. In post-Meiji Restoration popular humor Yoshichö districts of Edo well-known for organized sex work was no longer associated with the kagema or male sex worker. Instead, it was associated with female geisha, mirroring the 18th centuary decline of kagema teahouse and their shutdown by local authorities'. Once mainstream male-male sex work had to go underground and faded from popular memory.

Just as old customs were forgotten, new ones emerged in senryu of 1880.

Two figures […] associated with male-male sexuality were the bantö and detchi—clerk and apprentice, respectively, in a commercial house. The bantö wielded considerable authority over other employees, and had been portrayed in senryü since the Edo period indulging his lechery with young male coworkers. The detchi, on the other hand, may be seen as the merchant version of the priestly chigo or samurai page boy: male adolescents for whom the favor or disfavor of senior males might have significant consequences for their professional advancement.

Meanwhile male-male sexuality involving Buddhist priests went from being considered ‘a lesser transgression than fornication with women’ and a ‘contradiction between the priest's personal indulgence and the ascetic ideals of his religion” to an “emblem of “ancient evils” (kyühei) in dire need of reform’ and ‘a criminal offense’.

Following period saw state regulation of representation of sexuality in media (print media, theatre and paintings - artist Kawanabe Kyösai’s erotic drawing of Meiji oligarch Sanjö Sanetomi & a male foreigner landed him in jail; not much different from jailing of ero BL creators in present day[2]) and a shift in popular discourse that deemed that male-male eroticism has no place in the “civilized” environment of Meiji. Male-male sexuality was further marginalized through silence resulting from ‘state censorship, editorial discretion, authorial inclination, public taste’, etc. Meiji journalists continued reporting on male-male sexuality but adopted a tone of moralistic outrage and condemnation.

In the demarcation of civilized behavior, male-male sexuality was relegated to ‘the Japanese past, the southwestern periphery, and the world of adolescence’.

Japanese Past

‘Male-male erotic practices lay in the past’ which was seen as ‘a backward and “feudal” age, whose institutions and customs Japan must abandon in order to achieve “civilization.”’

Meiji era authors depicted male-male sexuality with historical backdrop (such as samurai society of the Sengoku and Edo eras) that would excuse their representation in the name of historical accuracy. [This is in contrast to say depiction in cinema which has largely avoided depiction of nanshoku with exception of Taboo (1999) and Kubi (2023).]

Pflugfelder gives a couple of examples:

Higeotoko (Man with a Beard; 1890–1896) by Köda Rohan – very shonen ai about the whole thing – involved light hand-holding and fade to blank.

Kagema no adauchi (Kagema's Vendetta; 1899) by Jöno Denpei –about a professional “love boy”. As a person born in 1832 Jöno was familiar with male sex workers like the protagonist from his childhood. But the practice has thoroughly disappeared from the cultural fabric by 1899 that Jöno had to introduce the protagonist whose profession was “disgraceful” “from today's perspective” and his gender identity ambiguous.

Marginalization of Male-Male Sexuality Was Japan's Southwestern Periphery

Centered around Kagoshima prefecture (the former domain of Satsuma), the region encompassed various parts of Kyushu, Shikoku, and Honshu. During the Meiji period, it was popularly believed that male-male erotic practices were more prevalent here than in the rest of Japan. Other than the obvious geographic distinction, there was a social reason too for this distinction. It was believed the region was a stronghold of old customs with lasting imprints of samurai class and the high concentration of warrior families. Satsuma had customary homosocial groups with strict sex-segregation practices such as hekogumi and gojü until the Restoration.

Male-male erotic interaction […] was reportedly common within such groups.

… the martial ethos of the samurai class slowly dissolved under the pressure of social change and “civilized morality.” Contemporary observers correlated the deterioration of shiki or “warrior morale” with a decline in male-male erotic practices.[3]

During the Meiji period, southwestern region (Kagoshima in particular) was known for its male-male sexual practices. These practices were seen as regional peculiarities, distinct from the mainstream culture centered in Tokyo. The southwestern region was viewed as a “feudal” backwater, and the association of male-male erotic practices with this area underscored their perceived “uncivilized” nature. Instead of being seen as a universal practice [the way shudo was percieved], male-male sexuality was considered a “folkway” (füzokü) surviving on the cultural margins of a newly “civilized” nation-state. In the 20th century, sexologists further marginalized these practices by diagnosing regions like Kagoshima with a hereditary condition called “regional same-sex love” (chihôteki döseiai). This effectively contained male-male sexuality within specific geographical and cultural boundaries.

Moreover, from Kagoshima men’s regional identity imperial navy and seafaring got associated with male-male eroticism in Meiji Japan.

male-male sexuality & the world of adolescence

… the sexual object in shudö had always been defined as a young male. In Meiji popular discourse, as in that of the Edo period, it was generally understood that youthfulness formed one of the conditions of male-male erotic desirability. More and more commonly, however, the desiring party too was presumed to be an adolescent, older than his partner as a rule, but neither of them yet an adult.

‘Adolescence (seishun) as an “institutionalized moratorium between childhood and adulthood” [allowed for a] social space where adult standards did not fully apply’. This also allowed male-male sexuality which had gained the status of uncivilized behavior to be excused as ‘youthful folly’.

Institutions of formal education were around since Edo period and so was male-male erotic practices in them. Not only that but also ‘violence between rivals in love’. Following the Restoration, schools mushroomed throughout Japan with an added emphasis on education as a vehicle for social mobility. Students, tasked with future nation building, were expected to be diligent in their study and to stay away from sexual diversion. Male-male sexuality in schools were not just that in discourse of the day but was inextricably linked with ‘shifting definitions of masculinity, regional and political rivalries, and the ongoing “civilization” of morality’. 

Mori Ögai - father of Mori Mari who wrote the first BL

Two terms born out of Mori Ögai's 1909 novel critiquing naturalism[4] Wita sekusuarisu (Vita Sexualis) köha and nanpa were used in discourses surrounding male-male sexuality among students. The term köha (translated as “roughnecks” by Pflugfelder and “queers” by Kazuji Ninomiya and Sanford Goldstein) referred to students who eschewed interest in male-female eroticism instead engaged in male-male sexual relations. This was in contrast to their nanpa (translated as “smoothies” by Pflugfelder and “mashers” by Kazuji Ninomiya and Sanford Goldstein) classmates.

[These are penetrator roles but not fixed categories. Students did move from one category to another even in Mori's novel. "Boy" (shonen) who were penetrated could take up penetrator role later on.]

“Smoothies” […] did not tuck up their sleeves or swagger about with menacing shoulders like their “roughneck” peers, but instead dandified themselves in silk kimonos and white socks (tabi) in order to win the favor of women.

In Mori’s school köha student were mostly from Kyushu and southwest Honshu prefecture of Yamaguchi while nanpa were from northeastern region. This regional distinction shows up in Tsubouchi Shöyö's novel Tösei shosei katagi (Spirit of Present Day Students; 1885–1886) wherein Kiriyama Benroku a quintessential köha is a native of Kyushu who wears coarse garb and is contrasted against his classmates womanizing peers not only by his leaning towards samurai ideals of masculinity but also by his interest in his companion Miyaga.

The köha-style of masculinity was modelled on engaging brute strength even in erotic dealings. Moreover ‘the strict age hierarchy that prevailed in student society constrained the very notion of consent, since junior males were in principle supposed to obey the dictates of senior schoolmates.’

In such an environment, male-male sexual practices often took a predatory form, with younger students providing fodder for older ones.

However, there were also non-forced köha-shonen sexual relations too.

Mori describes, for instance, a set of crude hand signals whereby a “boy” could consent to or refuse a senior male's overtures; subtler forms of seduction involved treats, favors, and the prospect of “special protection” (tokubetsu na hogo) by the older party.

Meiji newspapers was eager to cover köha violence wherein the older students who preyed upon “beautiful boy” in the streets of Tokyo and other Meiji cities or fought over a “beautiful boy”. They stood to gain readership especially those from middle- and upper-class who were likely to send their kids to boarding schools. It also fit well in the political context with journalistic crusade aimed at male-male sexuality & exploitation as a “Satsuma habit” in a time when ‘domination of the national government by the so-called “Satsuma clique” (Satsubatsu) faced mounting criticism’.

The portrayal of köha by journalists in post-Restoration Japan led to a strong association between male-male sexuality and adolescence. This association was so strong that any discussion of male-male sexuality would inevitably reference student societies and dormitories as common places for such relationships. Furthermore, accounts of school life often highlighted the culture of male-male eroticism as a distinctive feature. This is evident in memoirs by several notable figures such as Ösugi Sakae (himself a former köha), Iwaya Saza-nami, Ubukata Toshirô, as well as in literary works by Dazai Osamu, Hori Tatsuo, Kawabata Yasunari, Mushanoköji Saneatsu, Origuchi Shinobu, Satomi Ton, Tanizaki Jun’ichirö, and Uno Köji.

Chigo-nise ties (that is, erotic relationships between junior and senior youths) were reportedly common [in Kagoshima] as late as the 1940s, while student memoirs and other accounts describe similar attachments in schools outside the region. With the twentieth-century rise of the notion of [döseiai] “same-sex love,” however, popular representations of such relationships would come increasingly to focus on their psychological features, rather than on physical predation of the Meiji type.    

The other half of the ‘asymmetric dyad that made up a male-male erotic relationship’, the sexually penetrated partner, is referred to as ‘shonen’ (boy) in student lingo. By then a mix of inherited knowledge from various arena – Japanese past, classical Chinese, and contemporary forensic pathology – entered public discourse such as seen in Kömurö Shujin's Bishönenron (On the Beautiful Boy).

In Kömurö Shujin's work, the primary effect of this paradigm was to bring to the fore the psychology and physiology of the “beautiful boy” in a manner that would become increasingly common as the century progressed. Kömurö Shujin cited an impressive array of Western authorities on “same-sex love,” most of them doctors or scientists who believed that the “passive” partner in male-male intercourse differed from others of his sex on the basis of certain mental and physical peculiarities, both inborn and acquired. At the same time, the author's understanding of Western sexology was filtered through a set of native assumptions, emerging in a form that often differed in telling ways from the intentions of the original theorists.

Masculinity of wakashu was rarely ever problematized during Edo period. But with the medicalization of male-male sexuality led to attribution of “effemination” with “passive” partner put forth by Western sexologists as Richard von Krafft-Ebing to gain traction in Japan and persist.

[Parallels can be found in bishonen (beautiful boy) stock in BL deemed feminine by readers unfamiliar with the bishonen aesthetics. For example, misattribution bishonen Ayase even when contrasted with feminine Someya in No Money. This also extends to treatment of seme/uke dynamics as though it is a reflection of heterosexual pairing when it is in fact a pairing of two different masculine aesthetics, not to ignore the misogynistic, xenophobic and colonial conception of men who do not fit into specific masculine aesthetics being deemed unmanly/feminine.

Interestingly, Miki Koichiro the director (and screenwriter) of Pornographer, Given, Zettai BL, Bokura no Micro na Shuumatsu  etc. is well versed in the male androphilic traditions (among other queer traditions). We can see him using the term “shonen” when instructing the young actor playing Mob-san’s brother’s friend who has a crush on Mob-san. His usage was perfect, proving that he knows what he is doing.]

Part 2

Relics of traditional androphilia in Takumi-kun series

The norm or at least the expectation is that senior students (senpai) pursue pretty boy (bishonen) juniors (kouhai).

This is what outsiders expect even within the universe the novel series is set in as is seen from the conversation between Gii, his best friend Akaike Shouzou and Namiko (Shouzou’s girlfriend) in Sorera Subete Itoshiki Hibi (Those Were Precious Days), a part that never got live action adaptation.

This plays out in Takumi-kun series in various ways. There are two notable bishonen in Takumi-kun’s batch: Gii with his exotic beauty and the princess-like Takabayashi Izumi. In case of pursuit of Gii plays out in a pretty straight forward manner. He is relentlessly chased by seniors who are interested in Gii and their numerous attempts at wooing him.

Takumi-kun 4 - Gii & Sagara

Notable pursuer is Sagara Takahiro who was in the third year when Gii joins Shidou. Sagara as the school president organized many recreational events hoping Gii would participate and they would grow closer. But Gii refuses to participate except for in the final one which took place in Sagara’s absence, the Shinto Shrine Hunt event that is depicted in Takumi-kun 6. Even though the pursuit plays out straight forwardly, it come to nothing since Gii is not there to be pursued. He is there to pursue Takumi-kun.

In case of Takabayashi Izumi, he turns his most ardent pursuers into a band of followers. This obedient little group of lackeys help him to stir up trouble for his love rival Takumi. Moreover, Takabayashi is one of Gii’s pursuers. This pursuit also doesn’t yield any result as Gii doesn’t entertain any pursuit.

Thus, both bishonen of Takumi’s batch subverts expectations surrounding bishonen by being pursuers.

Takabayashi’s plot gets further complicated when he falls in love with Yoshizawa Michio. Their pairing is that of weak seme x weak uke type – both are reluctant to actively pursue each other and requires external intervention to set their ship in motion.

Meanwhile Misu Arata wishes to be the target of his senior Sagara Takahiro’s affections. He actively participates in Sagara’s events wanting to get close [and they do get close as schoolmates] but Sagara is only interested in Gii.

Takumi-kun 4 - Shingyouji & Misu

Misu’s plot further deviates from the pursued bishonen track when a junior (Shingyouji Kanemi) pursues and eventually gets together with him in a clear inversion of the norm.

Takumi is also pursued by his seniors. Aso Kei’s pursuit is depicted in Takumi-kun 6 while Nozaki Daisuke’s attempts at courtship is depicted in Takumi-kun 1.

Aso Kei is the only one Takumi is comfortable interacting with apart from Katakura Toshihisa (Takumi’s best friend). Aso’s pursuit is aided by Gii who wholeheartedly wishes for Takumi’s happiness irrespective of whom he gets together with. Gii creates opportunities for Aso and Takumi to meet by delegating library duty to Takumi when Aso is around thus getting them to interact. Aso’s courtship fails and he takes it out on Gii by showing off – he lies to him that Takumi agreed to shrine hunt with him. When Gii notices that Takumi doesn’t reciprocate Aso’s feelings, he decides to actively pursue Takumi and turns from Aso’s enabler to rival in love.

Nozaki Daisuke’s pursuit of Takumi plays out within the senior pursuing junior set up. Another classic trope is that of love rivals fighting over a bishonen with both literary and in real life precedents. This is evoked in a race between Gii and Nozaki in Takumi’s name from Takumi-kun 1. Here the love rival’s competition is complicated since Gii is a bishonen who is fought over by many others (Takumi, Takabayashi, Nogawa Masaru*, etc).

* Nogawa Masaru is not depicted in any of the movies as far as I can remember.

Even though the novel series is called Takumi-kun series, there are many parts that doesn’t involve Takumi-kun and some of them are exclusively from the point of view of other characters. All in all, Takumi-kun series is like an anthology of many many love stories involving characters who are directly or indirectly connected to Takumi-kun. There are other stories involving younger pursuer and older pursued with all sorts of seme/uke arrangements. Here are some that I can recall right away:

Even guys who are not androphilic such as Akaike Shouzou gets pursued by seniors (Shibata Shun in Shouzou’s case). But these courtships are doomed from the get go.

Younger guy pursues older – senior & junior, teacher & student, etc.

senior x junior pursuit abandoned to establish senior x senior romance (Moriyama & Shibata) or junior x junior romance.

senior x junior romance sometimes end in heartbreak. (Takumi-kun 2)

senior x senior relationships are abandoned in pursuit of senior x junior relationship.

Sometimes seniors employ their seniority to retain power imbalance. (Misu and Shingyouji)

In case it is not clear, who pursues who has got nothing to do with who is seme, uke or riba and vice versa. Since the novel series involves many pairings, we get to see all sorts of seme/uke/riba dynamics (if we are to call it that given Takumi-kun is a June novel).

-

Footnotes

[1] I prefer using male androphilia because queerness is a bit too vague and in most case in inappropriate since it was the norm. Academics usually use male-male sexuality, male-male desire, male-male eroticism, etc. Male androphilia must not be confused with the narrower term homosexuality.

[2] Danmei author Tian Yi and her companions were sentenced for 10 years for profiting from obscene content on male-male sexuality.

[3] while the courting of “beautiful boys” was a “barbaric custom” (banpü), domain authorities during the Edo period had tacitly encouraged it as a means of preventing young men from going “soft” (nyüjaku) through erotic involvement with women (joshoku).

[4] In the Company of Men: Representations of Male-Male Sexuality In Meiji Literature by Jim Reichert (199-208)

-

Takumi-kun meta series

1.Trailer plus

2.School culture and male androphilia in Japan. (you are here)

3.How does the movie compare with the source novel?

4.How does the movie compare with previous adaptations?

[carol-effing-danvers]

Good morning my loves! Let's play a game - give 10 of your favorite tropes in Fandom and then show me the character or pairing you most enjoy it with! I'll start:

1. Slow Burn

Hell yeah. Barnes and Noble. Starbucks. Rogers and Hammerstein. However you put it, these two already have the slowest of burns in canon anyway. *chef gesture* it's about the pining, y'know? And nobody can do it like these two do it. Every word that comes out of their mouths to each sound like wedding vows and it makes me wanna punch myself in the face.

2. Idiots to Lovers

Buddie. Again, this is basically just Canon? They're so dumb and I love them. Buck is a Disney Princess and Eddie is a grumpy old man in a very hot guy's body but somehow it works?

3. Fake Dating

Spideychelle. "My wife is a bitch - and I like her so much", but in actual relationship form. These two are also young enough to make the fake dating thing even more believable.

4. Time Loops/Groundhogs Day

MattFoggy especially but Daredevil generally. Matt's life is such an unutterably fucked up mess that he could frankly use about 8000 of these do-overs.

5. Flower Shop/Coffee Shop AU

Imagining this man in any customer service job fills me with unspeakable delight.

6. Gender Swap

Harringrove. I support anyone this horny on main tbh - but I love any woman who can and will murder me, too. Steve swapped, Billy swapped, both swapped, I don't care. They're hot, they're mean, they're absolute badasses and I'm here for it.

7. Arranged Marriage/Marriage of Convenience

SasuHina - I'm a sucker the quiet ones and I can't see any other way these two would end up in the same space.

8. Different First Meeting

Inject this directly into my veins. Please and thank you.

9. Fix It Fic

Hellcheer. You know why 😭 Don't touch me.

10. Case Fic/Mystery

Deckstar. Again, basically canon but I always love the ideas the fandom has for explaining angel lore and backstory because I'm a big fucking nerd 😊

Show me what you got and have fun!

[kahran042]

Another rant that isn't about TV Tropes

Having recently replayed Cliff Johnson's The Fool and His Money, I've come to realize how people feel about what Linda Woolverton did in Maleficent, except that it was somehow either better or worse, since Cliff did it to his own character - the High Priestess. She may not have been an example of Unspeakable Trope #9, but she was introduced in The Fool's Errand as a genuinely sinister and menacing villainess with just a dash of hamminess, cursing the land and sealing away the Fourteen Treasures for $#!+s and giggles, to the point where it was satisfying to see the Fool tricking her into defeating herself. Then, along comes TFaHM, and it reveals that she wasn't evil, just corrupted by an outside force into doing what she did. It's almost as if Cliff wanted to show off how much he'd learned about tarot motifs since his previous game. I'd say Egyptian mythology, too, except that he made Thoth female for no apparent reason other than Thoth being a lunar deity, never mind that I can name three other male lunar deities off the top of my head - Mani (Norse), Chandra (Hindu), and Tsukuyomi (Shinto), and there are probably many more out there. Don't get me wrong, TFaHM is a great game, if fiendishly difficult without a guide and often fiendishly tedious with one, but these two things just bugged me enough that I just had to rant about them. :P

@otnesse

[avantguardbitch]

cw drawn blood and impalement, mild sexual themes, heavy DID talk image credit: daxratchet (found on e621 lol)

Jesus, this is powerful.

Individually these panels are pretty good, but together they paint such a holistic and touching view of this character that it's too good to be real.

Panel 1 is the persecutor dynamic that's pretty common for multiple dudes, and often is recreated from dynamics that they've previously encountered. In this case the dynamic is; fighting from the war that Fliqpy was probably split off to handle so Flippy didn't have to. Expressed both externally, and in both this image and Double Whammy, internally. This is pretty accepted cannon.

The panel below veers from canon and into something beautiful- an acknowledgement from both parties of the nature of their relationship. Although it's murderous, violent, cruel, Fliqpy is a protective figure to Flippy. Flippy hugs his counterpart's chest, upset and with some discomfort (looking away), but still receiving a fundamental level of security. Fliqpy stands upright with blood on him (notice Flippy is clean) and with a hand on Flippy's shoulder. He is keeping him safe in his own war-viewed, destructive way. It's the Big Brother Instinct trope rolled into one guy! He just looks really good here too ngl. Protective figures are defo hot.

"The best defense is a good offense!"

Anyways The top right panel is fantastic because as Somerandomvoir said "I like how it implies his sane self is more freaky in bed lol" I also like how sexuality is brought up at all with multiple guys. I mean, fellas, is it gay to have another guy in your head that does unspeakable things on the reg to keep you safe? Flight Club definitely thinks so, just replace safety with authenticity maybe.

"We 👏Need 👏 More 👏 Headmate 👏 Sex!"

Meanwhile… The bottom right panel is heartbreaking. Both are at head level, looking directly at each other with some kind of beam sticking through both their chests. I think the beam represents their shared trauma. They are being hurt by the same bar, in the same chest. All the asymmetrical dynamics fade away and they now see just the un-negotiable pain and the split that came from it. It's a mirror up to whats fundamentally going on with this character.

But they aren't looking at the bar, they're looking at each other. Flippy is crying and Fliqpy is distraught too. After all they've been through, the fighting, the hurt, the sex, they are now fully confronting the fact they are splits of the same mind. Seeing the tragedy that they got hurt so bad that they ended up as this. That this other person is you, but just another part of you. Fliqpy sees a crying, naive thing in pain. Flippy sees a battle hardened soldier having something breach his shell and affect him deeply.

They see their situation and grieve in shared understanding.

They are in this together. Separate, but together.

"Dogtags come in duplicate pairs with the same information on them. One to take if your body is unable to be recovered, and the other to stay on you for identification"

[writingquestionsanswered]

Do you have any favorite and least favorite tropes

Least Favorite Tropes

If you've followed me a while, you know I love to shout that tropes aren't bad. So, when I hear this question, my brain usually defaults to least favorite clichés. I always forget that just because tropes aren't inherently bad doesn't mean there can't be tropes I don't like. So, at your request, I sat down and really thought about it, and came up with the following list:

CW/TW for r*pe CW for s*x (They're #9 and #10 if you want to skip them…)

1 - The Alpha Male - He's tough, strong, emotionless, skilled at everything, hot and built, and full of raw sexual power. Every masculine person wants to be him, and everyone attracted to men wants to be with him… you get the drift. Guys like this are just a bunch of red flags sewn into the shape of a person. Unless he's the antagonist or a dirtbag with a positive change arc, it's just not my thing.

2 - Emotionless for Edge - I've said it before and I'll say it forever: specifically writing about a character experiencing a neurological or psychological condition that numbs emotion is fine (as long as it's either your own experience or you do your research and use a sensitivity reader), BUT… when a character is emotionless for the sake of drama or to be edgy, it just doesn't work for me.

3 - Insta-Love - You know how it goes… person meets person and within twenty-minutes of meeting, they're declaring their everlasting love for one another. That's insta-love, and I want to clarify that because I'm seeing a lot of confusion about that lately. Somehow, the popular definition of insta-love became about time spent together, and it was never about time at all. It's about whether or not the love feels earned, both through the events the lovebirds jointly experience and through how their budding love is shown through their interactions. Because, you can have two people trapped in a room together for six hours, during which time they experience a lot of harrowing situations, have to learn to trust and rely on one another, and confide things in one another they've never shared with anyone else, and you can make it believable that they develop romantic feelings for one another in that amount of time. But if you just stick them in a room together for six hours and nothing much happens other than they have a couple of random conversations and an argument about sports, and then try to tell me they're in love, that's not going to feel earned to me.

4 - Unreliable Narrator - This is where the narrator, usually the POV character, gives the reader information that isn't true. For some reason. I've never been a fan of this trope because I've never really seen it used well. It never really seems to serve a purpose other than to mislead the reader, but that just feels cheap to me. I'll concede that it probably can be used well and I'm sure there are great examples, but I'm just not a big fan.

5 - Obviously Beautiful - They're gorgeous. Maybe even the hottest person wherever. Everyone thinks they're gorgeous. Everyone within a ten-mile radius is madly, deeply in love with them. But they have no idea. As far as they're concerned, they're just a Plain Jayne. Pass…

6 - Dark and Tragic Past - Something unspeakable happened in their past, and it really doesn't have that much to do with the rest of the plot or who they eventually became, but you'd better believe the memory of those events will haunt their dreams and every waking moment where it can provide drama. Unless you're specifically writing about dealing with trauma, or the terrible events are both plot relevant and plot-necessary, this is a hard no for me. There are so many more interesting ways to give your character an internal conflict and emotional wound than by giving them a dark and troubled past.

7 - Never Together, Always Apart - This is really more of a TV problem than a book problem, but I've seen it in long book series now and then. It's when two characters are in love, they're obviously meant to be together--and they are together very briefly off and on--but even though it's not really that important to the story in any way, these two characters are going to be kept apart again, and again, and again. You'll breathe a sigh of relief that they're finally, finally, finally together once and for all, then something happens to drive them apart for the six-hundredth time. Not a fan.

8 - Hobby as Personality - I see this more often in YA, but it happens in all categories. It's where the protagonist has some special skill or hobby unrelated to the plot, like they love to read, play the bagpipes, write really deep poetry, or have a beautiful singing voice, but this is the most important thing about them outside of their role in the external conflict. There's no other attempt to flesh out their personality. They don't really have an internal conflict or emotional wound. There's nothing at stake to keep them up at night. They don't have other interests or obvious likes/dislikes. Their hopes and dreams, if they exist at all, revolve entirely around the special skill or hobby. I mean, I'm all for giving protagonists a thing that makes them special, but if that's their entire personality, it's not for me.

9 - R*pe for Realism - This is when r*pe exists in the story simply because it's a gritty setting, like a Viking village, medieval fantasy, or a pirate ship. Just. No. There are many, many, maaaaaaany examples of stories set in the distant past, dystopian futures, The Republic of Pirates, or dark and gritty fantasy worlds that don't include people being r*ped for "realism." It isn't necessary. It doesn't add realism. It's just an excuse to write about someone being r*ped. So, that's a great big giant bowl of nope for me.

10 - Emotional Situation Sex - The world is falling apart around them. Things just couldn't be worse. The future looks grim. But that's not gonna stop these horn dogs from getting it onnnnnnnnn! And they're doing it while both in tears and moaning their goodbyes. Nope-ity nope noooooooope! And hey… if you like this kind of scene, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Some of my favorite people love this trope. It's just not for me.

Now, just because I don't personally like these tropes, with the exception of #9 (which is just generally no...) doesn't mean they're inherently bad. I'm just not a fan. And I know some of these probably border on clichés by now, but for some genres they're still considered tropes.

Thanks for the fun question! I'll do favorite another day or see if I have a link to a past post.

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[wordsandrobots]

IBO reference notes on . . . an act of unspeakable cruelty

Spoilers for everything, especially Season 2.

While you'll hear a lot about the Gundam franchise's 'kill 'em all' attitude towards characters, this generally tends to be overstated outside the original 1979 continuity. Gundam Wing, Gundam X, Turn A Gundam – these and other series all see the main cast come through largely unscathed. Iron-Blooded Orphans on the other hand? Good odds your favourite isn't making it to the epilogue.

This is a feature not a bug. However, there's one death deserving of closer scrutiny. I think it works, but I also believe it's necessary to dig into why that's the case, owing to who it affects and the way it is presented on screen.

Cut here because this is a major plot point and potentially triggering into the bargain. Only proceed if you are OK reading discussion of violence against women, death and violence in general, and spoilers.

Right. Still here? Good. Let's talk about Lafter's murder.

'Women in refrigerators' is a phrase coined by comics writer Gael Simone to refer to a narrative trope whereby a female character is killed off in order to provide motivation for a male character (verb: 'fridging'). The death of a wife or girlfriend is taken as justification for said male character violently hunting down the killer or simply as a means to develop them emotionally. The exact details vary. An actual fridge is not required. The underlying point is, there's a long-standing tendency in stories written by, about and for men to treat women as existing entirely in service of the protagonist, to be disposed of when it will advance his plot. It's often a cheap dramatic trick, exemplifying – consciously or otherwise – a particular view on who matters as a person.

At first glance, the abrupt murder of Lafter Frankland midway through the second season of Iron-Blooded Orphans fits the pattern to a T. Much of Lafter's character development over the series centres on her relationship with secondary protagonist Akihiro Altland. Her death serves as motivation for a brutal rampage of revenge against those responsible. This is textbook stuff.

The thing is, analysing fiction by the pure definition of tropes is like trying to judge the quality of a clock by ripping it to bits. The individual pieces don't tell you nearly so much as how the whole thing operates. So what is the wider context in which this plot beat occurs?

First off – and this frequently seems to get lost in discussions around how IBO treats various kinds of characters – Lafter's death by itself isn't extraordinary. It is not the only death of any significance; heck, it's not the only death of significance to Akihiro, who is practically defined by the loss of everyone close to him. Iron-Blooded Orphans sets its stall out in episode #1, where we see several (teenage) extras killed by the interplanetary police then witness a named tertiary character being brutally stomped to death by a giant mecha. The viewer is made very aware of the stakes.

However, the show then proceeds to play scrupulously fair with audience expectations. Most deaths are well signposted, either with specific cues or more generalised prefiguring of later events (the suicide note, the whole silent war arc, 'the decent ones die first', etc). Killing for pure shock value, while not off the table, isn't a core part of how this tragedy works. It relies more on characters making obviously bad choices for equally obvious reasons. This is why it's important to establish death as a constant risk. The main cast start out with very few options and the way a constant battle for survival shapes their ability to perceive the alternatives is the main engine of the plot.

Given this, Lafter's death does not automatically have lesser weight than those of Biscuit, Aston, Shino, and so on. Even at the level of romance, Akihiro/Lafter is afforded exactly the same level of narrative protection as any of the other significant relationships: none whatsoever.

But. The snag is that Lafter's death is not framed the same as the rest. Yes, the context provided by asking 'which characters can we expect to make it out' means we shouldn't be surprised by the fact she does die. What we can look askance at is that she is the only named character to die a passive death. That is, Lafter herself does nothing to resist or precipitate her death. We as the audience have an idea of what's up when it occurs, but for her, it comes out of nowhere in a place she should be safe. Within the fiction, it absolutely is a shock. And it's meant to be. It's an open attempt to provoke Tekkadan (our protagonists). This is an in text fridging, not just a random act of malice but a deliberate invocation of the mechanisms of the trope.

Self-awareness by itself doesn't get a writer off the hook. 'Kill the girlfriend to rile the hero' is fridging by numbers. You don't earn points merely for flagging you know what you're doing. Nevertheless, let's use this to segue into my second big point – how Lafter's death interacts with who she is as a character.

Lafter is a member of the Turbines, who are initially presented as a group hired guns consisting of Naze Turbine and his many wives. They are the most sexualised characters in the show in terms of design and dialogue, and Lafter is the epitome of this, sporting a very revealing main costume and with much of her initial characterisation resting on an intermixed love of sex and violence.

You will note the two uses of the word 'initial'. There is an important twist, which is that the Turbines are in fact a refuge for women pushed to the bottom of space-going society. They were formed when Naze Turbine and his first wife, Amida Arca, brought together a large number of all-women freighter crews. These crews are where runaways and others with no options generally end up in space-going society and they take on extremely dangerous work no one else will. On hearing about this and falling extremely in love with Amida, Naze used his connections in the Jupiter mafia to organise separate groups into a single company: the Turbines. The whole 'mercenary harem' thing is something of a distraction tactic to underplay exactly how powerful the Turbines are, coupled to a genuine polygamous relationship between Naze and the core group.

The way I've summarised that is not far off how the show itself explains the Turbines' full backstory e.g. a massive exposition dump. Season 2 has a lot going on and this bit suffers the most from the compression required to get it in. But it's also very important because it fully demonstrates something communicated through Lafter at the end of Season 1, which is that the Turbines are a successful version of what Tekkadan is trying to become.

The women who make up the Turbines were, like the child soldiers of Tekkadan, forced into risky work to avoid a worse fate. Only by banding together could they carve out a decent living and the result is an extremely tight-knit found-family. The two groups are not identical. The Turbines' line of work is less militarised, though still requiring robust defences, and they are a very different kind of family (certainly Orga never tries to build a harem, though he does sort of outsource that to Mikazuki along with all the extreme violence). Nonetheless the comparison is deliberate and the Turbines become both example and safety net, training Tekkadan, providing material backup for their endeavours, and opening up fresh options.

And because of the kind of story it is, Iron-Blooded Orphans requires that safety net be wrenched away. This is done via introducing a competitor to Naze, Jasley Donomikols, who arranges for the Turbines to be attacked by the main antagonists, resulting in Naze and Amida being killed. Lafter's death is the punctuation to this plot line, whereby Jasley tries to take down Tekkadan as well by goading them into a trap. Said trap backfires due to other circumstances and Jasley is killed, but the damage is done. Without the Turbines, Tekkadan make a series of huge mistakes leading to a final inevitable bloodbath.

What's most cruel about this situation is that by murdering Lafter to get a rise out of Tekkadan, Jasley reduces her to what she was pre-Turbines: someone disposable, used as a tool for those further up the social ladder. Since this is a story and people in stories only have the illusion of agency, what I mean by this is, the writers do that. They kill Lafter off to demonstrate that however hard the characters try to escape the position society intends for them, circumstances beyond their control can undo everything. Like squashing Danji in episode #1, this underlines how the viewer should not expect things to end well.

It's necessary. Really, this is a vital to the story Iron-Blooded Orphans tells. Exploitation on every level of the world. Outside events callously disrupting everyone's plans. No one being safe.

It's cruel. Because the things the show is exploring are cruel and you don't do them justice by softening that. People are crushed despite their best efforts, often without knowing why, every day.

It hurts. It's one hundred percent meant to. Both for itself and for the disastrous choices it engenders. Everything that comes afterwards, the total absence of good choices, hinges on this.

Does that get the writers off the hook for creating a female character who's role is ultimately to die to progress the plot (something, to be clear, that is a tired old sexist trope)? I . . . dunno. Like I said, I don't think dismantling fiction to tropes tells us much by itself. Lafter's murder is of a piece with the rest. It's framed differently to the other deaths due to being a distinct plot beat, informing us things can go wrong even when the protagonists do everything right. Lafter escapes the Turbines' destruction and sets off for a new phase in her life, grieving but moving forward. Then she's abruptly killed simply because it suits someone else that she die. A death exactly prefiguring one suffered by a primary male character in the penultimate episode. Sure, Orga gets to shoot back. But one could argue he only has a gun because he's seen this kind of thing happen before and therefore prepares. I don't know if that makes anything 'better' about this. It's still a functional, competently-told story.

I think what I'm dancing around here is, I don't believe you should never be allowed to kill a female character to advance a plot. That would be incredibly reductive. I'm not sure I'd even say it's necessarily wrong to kill a female character in a predominantly male cast.

(This is by-the-by, but Iron-Blooded Orphans is numerically less lethal in terms of how many significant women it kills off. We lose Fumitan, Carta, Amida, and Lafter, leaving Kudelia, Atra, Almiria, Azee, Merribit, and Julieta. I think that might be proportionally kinder too, especially if you stretch to including all the named female characters vs all the named male ones.)

The proof is in the quality of the clock and Iron-Blooded Orphans walks a very fine line with Lafter's death and the Turbines in general. It's having its cake and eating it by making the sexualisation of female characters a deliberate, reasoned, in-canon choice as well as overt titillation. In the same way, it balances treating them as people unto themselves, with history and motivation beyond their intersection with Tekkadan, and as a group demeaned within the fiction.

Could it have been done better? Certainly. Tekkadan's story from the Turbines' point of view or substituting them entirely for the boys would have worked incredibly well. But that's not what Iron-Blooded Orphans is and within the confines of what it is, target demographics and all, I really do think it's a good stab at walking that line. The Turbines do stuff and their deaths aren't throwaway but honestly harrowing to watch. It's not simply that our heroes care about them; we as the audience are given lots of reasons to as well.

I want to wrap up by returning to the question of who Lafter is as a character. I've described the outline but she has an arc on top of that and while it is deeply concerned with her relationship with Akihiro, it takes an interesting angle. You see, Lafter is Akihiro's counterpart within parallel three-person teams of crack pilots (I don't think I have to explain why Amida is Mika's counterpart and, yes, Azee maps to Shino – see her taskmaster-tendencies, stepping in the ocean by accident, and how she falls apart after Lafter's death). She's a very talented fighter, someone lifted from nothing via unexpected affection, and extremely dedicated to her job. She is also exaggeratedly feminine in appearance, much as Akihiro is the most 'manly' person in Tekkadan. In both cases, how they act only partially squares with this gendered design. This is nothing ground-breaking but it renders them more complex than you might guess from a glance.

Where Lafter has the advantage over Akihiro is confidence in her worth as a person. She starts from a place of valuing herself in a way he only gradually and imperfectly learns to over the course of the show. Lafter fronts sexy and loud, unashamedly enjoying being Naze's wife. Being part of the Turbines has given her a great deal of happiness and it's a life she fights for with skills that justify her cockiness in battle. She credits her family with building her into the person she is, which Akihiro explicitly acknowledges as his feelings about Tekkadan too.

What draws her to him initially is his extreme – ahem – stamina. But she falls in love properly due to qualities lying beneath his exterior. She comes to recognise him as a deeply caring man who respects and nurtures those around him, even if he's rather bad at expressing it. I genuinely don't think we're meant to believe Akihiro ever recognises this as a budding romance. Nevertheless, he values her greatly in return, saying she's the only one outside of Mikazuki he trusts completely to watch his back and, later, that he wants to live the way she does.

Ultimately, that is where they settle. Lafter picks loyalty to her own family over the chance to join his and though it's a bittersweet parting between a woman experiencing a new (to her) kind of love and a man who can't reciprocate in the way she might like, it's not painful or overdramatic. A conversation between equals, a choice that is true to their values, and one last hug. By rights, it should be the best ending to a horrible situation.

Iron-Blooded Orphans is full of opportunities for less than ideal resolutions that would nevertheless be better than what actually happens. Takaki takes one a few episodes earlier. Lafter nearly gets out too, walking away with good memories and a keepsake. Her story arc isn't cut off so much as it concludes a few hours before her life. Which is unbearably sad.

But, again, that's the point. There are no guaranteed exits from the lives these characters lead. Man or woman, adult or child, an axe hangs over everyone's head and the plot demands it falls on those whose loss would cause the worse consequences. We see this over and over again. And tempting as it is to imagine Lafter being on board with the violent retribution, Tekkadan's retaliation against Jasley is presented – like all their acts of machismo – as deeply self-destructive

So as much as it sticks out, Lafter's murder reads to me like a well-considered story decision, done with clear intention and awareness of what it's saying. In a story predominantly focused on the exploitation of men and boys, it would almost be dishonest not to include something like this. I can't clear it of all charges of playing into sexist stereotypes, if that's the kind of conclusion anyone reading this is looking for. But do I respect it more than most examples of fridging I can think of.

Other reference posts include:

IBO reference notes on … Gjallarhorn (Part 1)

IBO reference notes on … Gjallarhorn (Part 2)

IBO reference notes on … Gjallarhorn (corrigendum) [mainly covering my inability to recognise mythical wolves]

IBO reference notes on … three key Yamagi scenes

IBO reference notes on … three key Shino scenes

IBO reference notes on … three key Eugene scenes

IBO reference notes on … three key Ride scenes

IBO reference notes on … the tone of the setting

IBO reference notes on … character parallels and counterpoints

IBO reference notes on … a perfect villain

IBO reference notes on … Iron-Blooded Orphans: Gekko

IBO reference notes on … original(ish) characters [this one is mainly fanfic]

IBO reference notes on … Kudelia’s decisions

[cactusspatz]

May recs

Quite a hodgepodge this time around, since not having my computer for the first half of the month resulted in me plowing through to-read piles on my phone. Enjoy!

Standard Operating Procedures by @galateagalvanized (Star Wars, Cody/Obi-Wan)

“Sir, I need you to tell me what’s wrong,” Cody says, battlefield calm, and he can’t help his relief when Obi-Wan pulls the tattered remains of his usual dignity back over his shoulders.

“Right,” Obi-Wan says. “Of course. Commander, as far as I can tell, everyone besides you on this ship has fallen truly, madly, deeply in love with me.”

Where Cody is the exception to acting weird because of course he’s already in love with Obi-Wan. I LOVE THIS TROPE. Plays out mostly as you would expect, i.e. delightfully.

Fauna One by @avonya (Murderbot Diaries, gen)

On an otherwise tedious survey, Murderbot meets a cat.

Wonderful pre-canon fic that does that thing canon does where it’s hilarious and fun and also makes you want to scream about how fucked up its enslaved life used to be. But yes, mostly it’s about Murderbot making friends with a feral cat.

things to never give the devil by @fahye (Our Flag Means Death, Ed/Stede)

"Dark Fate?" says Stede, making sure to pronounce the capitals.

"Very effective for star-crossed lovers. And at a bargain price, if I do say so myself. A potent mixture of unspeakably rare ingredients, brewed under a new moon, which will drag you through the depths of your own soul in search of difficult truths, and leave the undeserving to drift forever in a dreamscape of torment and emotional agony!"

"What?" says Stede. "No! That sounds awful!"

Set post-S1, the path to Stede and Ed reuniting is full of obstacles. Fairytale-flavored and as delightfully bonkers/romantic as the show, with amnesia, aka my favorite trope!

The Song Remains the Same by @sholiofic (Agent Carter, Peggy/Daniel/Jack)

After a lab accident, Peggy wakes up in 1948, with no memories of anything since early 1946.

Did I mention I love amnesia? This fic is SO GOOD in that respect, and does a beautiful job with Peggy’s tendency to be kinda judgey - usually well deserved! but less good when she finds out her future self somehow ended up in a triad with Jack Thompson of all people, and starts fucking up her own life and future happiness. (don’t worry, they figure it out eventually) And all that on top of a really good casefile!

All Bets Are Off by Carmilla (Singin’ in the Rain, Don/Kathy/Cosmo)

Don will always say that he fell in love with Kathy at first sight.

It’s a good story. It doesn’t really matter that the truth is a little more complicated.

A good solid OT3 get-together, but with some good queer backstory feels for Don.

Things Floating Like the First Hundred Flakes of Snow by @beaarthurpendragon (MCU, Steve/Bucky)

In the summer of 1968, the Winter Soldier manages to break free of his HYDRA programming enough to get a message to SHIELD Deputy Director Peggy Carter that Captain America is still alive.

Or: How Bucky and Steve save one another, one more time.

Great AU with a fantastic older Peggy interacting with the Winter Soldier, and then some brutally good depiction of Bucky working through his brainwashing/trauma (guest-starring Charles Xavier) and a happy ending - or rather, a beginning.

5 Times Tim Spends the Night at Wayne Manor + 1 Time He Comes Home by @motleyfam (DCU, gen) 

Tim is good at galas.

No, scratch that—Tim is great at galas. He’s been attending them ever since the age of three, when his parents first stuffed him into his little Gymboree tuxedo and gave him a stern lecture about ‘sitting quietly’ and ‘speaking when spoken to.’ He knows all the rules: what to wear, how to stand, when to smile, what to say, what not to say. He knows how to come across as polite and intelligent and charming, and on absolutely any other day, he would be rocking this.

Or, my take on a ‘Tim Joins the Family Early’ AU, told through a series of sleepovers—most of which are unplanned.

Directly in my favorite overlap of Wayne Adoptive Family Feels, Tim thinking his life is totally normal (no parental neglect here!), and good soft h/c.

[abigailzimmer]

Favorite Reads of 2022

With how many books I loved this year (lots of poetry, speculative fiction, and writers reading other writers!), it’s interesting to see what really lingers with me. Some books, like Rebecca Lindenburg‘s are quiet but I always think of her list-poem of clouds when I look up at the sky. Fathoms wasn’t exactly a page turner and the long passages of statistics in Invisible Women made my eyes glaze over at times, yet I go on thinking about and sharing what I’ve learned from them. Olivia Cronk and m. forajter are friends and encountering their voices again on the page was the most special kind of reading experience. The first six books on this list were particularly unexpected and inventive in how they played with form. Here’s a little more of why I loved each of them:

1. I simply adored Dear Sal, a poem/play/poem/epistolary by Jeremy Radin (published by Not a Cult) about love, longing, and home. With its backdrop of war and the Jewish diaspora, theatrical feel, and love story, plus a fabulist cast of characters, Dear Sal reminds me of Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic in all the best ways. Abacus, “the letter-composing klutz,” writes to Sal, “the stubborn beloved,” a year after their brief affair, and the others chime in—in sympathy, distraction, or encouragement that he once again find “stars and the beginning of your darlingsong” (my favorite line, right up there with “the animal of my solitude.”) The letters to Sal are my favorite parts but also delightful are the distinct voices of each of the personae poems, as in this one from his pants:

“But o you bleary

and bumbling thing!

O you brimming

and bumbling marvel!

What is all this [he indicates my bumbling]

but proof

that all this [he indicates the mysteries]

is working?”

2. In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado is a tough and exquisitely told story. A memoir of a psychologically and emotionally abusive queer relationship, told at a slant, through the tropes and genres of other stories—spy thrillers, creature features, stories of wrong lessons, omens, natural disasters, and deja vu. Through her story, she also explores the general disbelief of abuse in queer relationships, the desire to “put our best foot forward” in the community, and the subsequent need for marginalized communities to be accepted in all their humanity—acknowledging the good and the bad. Again, it’s a tough read, but also incredibly moving and I loved the path she found to write about the unspeakable.

3. Interrogating the Eye by m. forajter (Schism Press) is a journey in understanding what images represent—a witness, an annunciation, a leakage, a thinking of the future, the self (“boring!”). Under the influence of Kurt Cobain, roses gifted by Bhanu Kapil, and medieval art, forajter writes with and on depression in a world that is polluted, sick, and full of passion. How do you return to making art when your relationship to yourself has changed, and where is “a steady hand … to no longer think in pieces”? Forajter looks and looks, and her looking grows into a kind of ownership and replenishing desire. It’s a heartfelt and exciting read.

“tuned towards the void/tuned towards myself // and yet, the sneakiness of vision. the sun that touches. the multiplicity of light. this is a vision made velvet.”

4. Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda, translated by Polly Barton is a special kind of ghost story collection. Inspired by Japanese folktales, Matsuda’s stories feature a woman’s lover who, fished out of a river, appears every night in need of a bath; a son grieves his mother too much and to her annoyance; two saleswomen are eerily successful in getting people to buy their lanterns; and a ghost who died counting plates counts them again in her new form. These stories feature clever and thoughtful women with expanding ambitions and selves, exercising their very special talents alongside the living. This was so unexpected in style and voice and utterly delightful!

5. In two long poems, Olivia Cronk takes us into a wild, performative space in Womonster (Tarpaulin Sky). Scenes are blocked for the stage, our characters lounge on beds paging through magazines, and the narrative is frequently interrupted by a interrogator asking the speaker if they know what they’re doing. Through a deep attention to childhood and adult desires, fashion (“I understand the game is played in costume”), and the emotions we “parade in language,” she examines the many selves we carry from one era of our lives to another and one space to another:

“everything leaks / from home / and like it’s coming right into my purse like I packed it in the morning with my lunch”

The theater of home life is re-created on the page as both a control space to practice living in the speaker’s preferred conditions (“I cannot bear / domestic re-order”) and a purely play space rejecting convention and seeing everything anew (“the impossibility of the stairs meeting us is like a play”). It’s a thrilling, soap opera of a read, one to keep you on your toes and full of possibilities that only Olivia can create.

6. In The Trees Witness Everything, Victoria Chang (Copper Canyon Press) herself two very interesting constraints: a response to a poem title by W.S. Merwin and the form of a Japanese syllabic poem. The short poems (on memory and time, how we move through the day, how we look up and the birds we see when we do, and sadness, meditations which always seem to move together) are simple and powerful, giving so much space to sit with in the hard moments and delight in the small moments. I like that Chang writes mostly from a realist perspective, slipping occasionally into the surreal. And among the moon. Poets and their moons and the birds—I’ll never tire.

“There is a bird and a stone

in your body.

Your job is not

to kill the bird with the stone.”

7. The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio is a moving picture of both the large and everyday challenges that undocumented people face. Through interviews and her personal experience, Karla raises the issues of what being undocumented means for access to health care—the networks of healers and solutions that spring up in its absence and the challenge in caring for aging parents, which particularly struck home. She writes how because of the need for work, undocumented people are often the first responders in crises and natural disasters, as in the case of 9/11 clean up efforts, but do so with a high risk of exploitation (to their health and to getting paid) and few means of advocacy. And she shares stories of people living in sanctuary, its indefinite state and challenges and its affects on families. In her introduction, she writes that she approached the interviews not with a journalistic focus but in the spirit of translation, particularly of poetry, to convey her subjects with the warmth, humor, wit, weirdness, and annoying traits they had, to make them more than workers or legal terms, to make them human. A necessary read and so much to think about what and how we can change our systems. One heartbreaking passage that has stuck with me is of the long-term effects of generations of kids being separated from their families:

“Researchers have shown that the flooding of stress hormones resulting from a traumatic separation from your parents at a young age kills off many dendrites and neurons in the brain that results in permanent psychological and physical changes. One psychiatrist I went to told me my brain looked like a tree without branches. So I just think about all of the children who have been separated from their parents, and there’s a lot of us, past and present, and some under more traumatic circumstances than others—like those who are in internment camps right now—and I just imagine us as an army of mutants. We’ve all been touched by this monster, and our brains are forever changed, and we all have trees without branches in there, and what will happen to us? Who will we become? Who will take care of us?”

8. Invisible Bias: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men is a book that is somehow both obvious and illuminating and also vindicating and incredibly frustrating for women to read. Caroline Criado Perez explores the places where we lack gender-specific data for everything from the unexpected planning of snow plow routes to creating clean-energy stoves to filing joint taxes. Some of this women just know intuitively: office spaces are too cold, seat belts are uncomfortable, iPhones rarely fit in pockets or hands, and gosh we do lots of unpaid labor. But it’s fascinating and affirming to see how these standards come about and how they might easily change once we gather the appropriate data and include people in the communities that a product/medicine/service serves to be part of the planning and feedback processes.

9. This year I read two collections by Rebecca Lindenburg, whose work is quiet and yet has loomed large in my mind. The Logan Notebooks (Center for Literary Publishing) in particular is a listy kind of book, in the spirit of Sei Shōnagon’s Pillow Book, a consideration of what makes a poetic subject. Lindenberg’s poems are gatherings on the topics of trees, mountains, insects, winds. On things that matter and things that have lost their power. Set in many kinds of wests, but mostly Utah, Lindenberg chronicles dailyness, the beautiful and impossible things that happen and also the things that are simply there. It’s an easy, meditative book to fall into, and one that grows in loveliness the longer you sit with it.

10. And finally, Rebecca Giggs' Fathoms: The World in a Whale was a dense and slow read and at times a little boring and yet these reasons are part of why it’s stuck with me for so long. The book focuses broadly on humans’ history with and impact on whales, partly in how our trash affects them (one whale was found with a whole greenhouse in its stomach), but also our noise, our tourism, our exploration and excavation of the world, our attitudes toward experiencing nature. She writes that because of her research, “my entire definition of pollution demanded revision." Griggs advocates for a philosophy of conservation that goes beyond "saving the whales" to retaining the "possible contexts in which they can continue their unique behaviors." She writes:"How to care for unmet things would seem to be a key question of this political moment."

My favorite fact: Cow farts release carbon dioxide, but whale poop helps absorb it. Because of ocean pressure, they rise to shallower levels to poop—and the current of their poop stirs up organic matter, bringing it closer to the surface so that it photosynthesizes, accelerating plankton growth and absorbing CO 2. The last 200 years of whaling has significantly depleted whale populations, altering the air and earth's atmosphere. So restoring populations would mitigate climate change—as significantly as trees. (!!!)

[florenceisfalling]

"religion, mermaids or antiaverage."? hun i can do even better. come, take my hand. we're putting it all in one.

mermaid au of antiaverage, but with a priest! twist on anti. it's a cult, obviously, and he's using it to manipulate chase. anti is the sole voice of this god (god up to your discretion bc i don't know enough about ocean gods) and will pass on "gods will" to chase, often orders that chip away at his moral integrity slowly and subtly until he's - you guessed it! - a mindless puppet to anti. it starts small, but eventually chase is being commanded to drag poor sailors down as sacrifices to anti's "god". i now release this au idea into your hands i know you'll take good care of it <3

anon this is so sweet i love that u combined them. u love me. i love u. what a wonderful world

i really like to think abt mermaid religions/cultures so this is v interesting to meeee! also murder through coercion/manipulation/force is a fave trope of mine, so chase being a little hunter for anti is a wonderfully twisted image <3

id quite like the idea of anti as an anglerfish mermaid here, not only because of the parallel of luring chase in with a false idea, but also because of the imagery of the glowing fin ray looking a lot like a fake halo over anti's head.... oh honestly i might incorporate a religious anglerfish concept into an oc. thats cool. thank u for sparking my brain there

bonus points if chase actually has siren capabilities, so anti has a tactical reason for picking him alongside the gay gay homosexual gay. chase being part siren and not wanting to hurt anyone but being easily pushed by anti into using his untapped powers for unspeakable violence really is 1.) a good image and 2.) reminds me of canon and chase's interesting supernatural sensitivity or whatever tf hes got goin on lol

especially if that part-siren-ness means he doesnt Need to consume human flesh but can still go a little feral once anti gets him to try it. like a dog getting a taste for blood and never being able to go back, not out of necessity but rather an old instinct surfacing <3 its got my vibe (cannibalism) combined with the chase vibe (addiction) so its fun :3

also bonus points if chase was more wary of hurting anyone at first until anti put him in an intentionally dangerous situation encountering humans. no iris foundation this time, just some careless fishermen who got him trapped and afraid and hurt by mistake. so anti gets to nurse chase back to health after helping him escape and saying, oh, see? aren't those wretched sailors awful? aren't you glad i was there to save you? aren't you happy to return the favor and deal with them for me, too?

thanks for sharing, anon. i like your mind a lot :)