#you have such a way w words pipo

[sambuchito]

benjamin necesita jugar ya le estan haciendo cosas en un grupo de wsp

[randomnameless]

I saw a thread that argued that you can't have translation without localization and that the latter is always going to be tied to/dependent of the culture of its target audience. What are your thoughts on that especially in relation to FE? I think with this context, 3H/3Hopes(or Nopes) was always going to be different/lolcalized to cater to the Western audience (specifically America and its zeitgiest).

Partly horseshit.

Of course a translation has bias from the person/state doing the translation, and this bias should be taken into account whenever you want to use the translation.

But think about an academic paper, it is not translated, thus localised for scientist Y from country W, it has to be accessible and understandable by every scientist who understands the language you're using.

The target audience is "scientists" but it doesn't mean the paper is modified to cater to a certain audience.

In a way, yeah, finding "equivalent" words is a form of localisation, since you won't find the perfect match, but if a perfect match exists (idk, like contract and the French contrat) I don't think it'd be localisation?

Some other notions/concepts are impossible to translate with a word from the language of the "targeted audience". A "baguette tradition" is a specific type of baguette, and can't be translated as bagel, or the mundane "bread".

So then what? If someone writes "baguette tradition", that person isn't translating, but if they define it later in a bubble or in a footnote, it is still part of a localisation process : to bring something unknown to a targeted audience.

In a way, yes, a translator and ultimately a localiser will always have their own biases, so each translation/localisation has to take it into account.

That being said...

I can understand the “difference” because of the translator/localiser’s bias, but not the “pandering to a specific audience”.

Like, I partly grew up in the 4Kids era, and here in France, we had old anime being, uh, brought to a french audience since, iirc, the 80s. French children (people?) at that time wouldn’t be able to watch a show meant for children if the character had unfrench sounding name like, uh, Ryo Saeba. So it was turned in Nicky Larson.

Joey Wheeler being the “lolcalised” form of Jonouchi Katsuya, because, I suppose, back then, some people really really think US/Western children wouldn’t watch a “cartoon” with un-occidental sounding names.

Usopp (wordplay on Uso meaning lie) became the french Pipo (pipeau means a shitty lie), okay it works as a kind of translation but, uh... no? Just no? Don’t translate names ffs?

I remember the Shaman King anime from 4Kids keeping the “un-occidental” names, and the ceiling was broken, iirc, with the anime versions of Naruto and Bleach. Of course we still had early dubs with “Fire Style” instead of “Katon”, but by the mid 2000s, the barn was open and lo, children (at least here in France, that’s what I can talk about) could listen and read japanese words without a “perfect” translation.

Where am I going?

Well, we went from a ban on anything sounding too “foreign” for a certain audience to accept those names/words for this same audience, because, well, I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it must have come with a general need and desire to bring the audience something new -

The works weren’t catered to an audience, instead, the audience was brought in that work, in that work’s world and “foreign” culture (i am ashamed but i had my first ramen after watching/reading too much Naruto)

Bleach’s Zanpakuto became common, while the translated “Soul Cutter” (iirc that’s the one?) was never used. Rukia’s deference to her older brother and superiors wasn’t toned down because here in France we never had (afair?) so much formality between siblings, and yet, the localised Bleach materials, let it be anime or manga, kept it.

More mundane, but the senpai/kouhai thingie? 

Doesn’t exist here, and yet some works depicted it in it’s complicated mess, without needing to tuned it down to “cater to an audience” who’s not familiar with the concept.

----

Now, back to Fodlan...

Suggesting, in 2019, that a certain audience cannot “deal” with a story where a religious organisation is not evil incarnate and someone who starts a conflict based on the “the ends justify the means” might not be completely full of crap is, imho, downright insulting.

We had a lot of people, when FE16 was released, who argued about IS’s POV and if the “unification boner” was a thinly veiled nod to a certain country’s rising (?) nationalism...

But what about the lolcalisation? Is it only playing with preexisting biases or, idk, their whitewashing of an imperialist who fights against “irrationality” and a  religion to push her own values on countries she invades is supposed to be a nod at... something ?

For sure, this is a bad faith reading -

And yet, is it really complicated to have a story where a religious organisation that calls itself a church but is actually led by were-dragons who escaped a genocide and just try to help people around - is not the reason why the World is bad?

Take a certain movie that will not be aired in certain parts of the world because two women are holding hands - cultural norms, no matter what you think of them, commended the, idk, publishers not to release say movie in those countries.

What kind of similar thing exists in the “West” regarding... a religious organisation led by a dragon, and an emperor in red who wants to force their “ideals” by invading other countries? Imperialism good so let’s make it better? Religion BaD so lets highlight how it sucks?

And does it justify altering a game and the meaning of its quotes?

---

Tl; Dr : Translation and localisation always comes with a bias from the translator/localiser, because they are human beings who were raised in a certain culture and even if they try to be as neutral as possible, they cannot offer a work that is 100% true and matches the original.

That being said, we’re in 2022 now - and while FE14′s dub was an artifact (”Suzukaze? No, our audience is too stupid, let’s shorten it to Kaze instead! Tsubaki? No, Subaki sounds better!”) - I still believe a work shouldn’t be translated/localised to “cater” to an audience, people managed to understand Zanpakuto and Katon, I am pretty sure an audience can also understand that a fictional church led by a dragon is not the Catholic Church, or that religion isn’t an inherently “BaD” concept.

It’s merely my opinion as a consumer and part of the audience of the localised works - but I think I am open-minded enough and ready to engage with a fictional world and its fictional organisations, without needing to fall back on some preexisting biases or concepts I am familiar with. Of course that’s not to say things can look similar to real life issues (i said similar, forget your degrees) and we can’t reflect on that, but it’s always supposed to be a reflection, and not what the audience is engaging with or seeing first.

When you go to a Korean Restaurant, you don’t order mac’n’cheese or a jambon-beurre. Even if that’s what you usually eat. If you end up ordering something that looks and tastes like mac’n’cheese? Then good for you, but it’s not mac’n’cheese. You can’t expect a Koren Restaurant to serve you a jambon-beurre.

If you go there and they only serve you mac’n’cheese or jambon-beurre, what is even the point of going in this restaurant? Why are other customers served somethign else but I still have to eat the same thing I’m used to at home?

alas who am i to talk about those things, i have no degree

[nigiyakapepper]

magic | voltron; allurance

For Allurance Week 2017 Day 1 - AU: Modern w/ Magic

Summary/Excerpt: “Hey baby, if I were an enzyme, I’d be a DNA helicase so I could unzip your genes.”

That was Lance McClain, obnoxious flirt, with unfairly pretty handwriting and meticulous notes, never without hand cream and a glass bottle of gourmet-looking tea, whose best friend made the. best. cookies in the entire world.

magic | ao3

“Have a nice day, Mrs. Reyes!”

“You too, dear!”

The door closes with a merry jingle and Allura sighs, a small bemused smile playing on her lips. She looks around the shop—at its shelves of homemade tea, candles, oils, dried herbs, jars of spices and powdered roots, crystals, glass eyes to ward off evil and hammered gold amulets to protect the wearer from various things, and thinks, This is my life now.

She supposes she remembers how this started. She was a nervous freshman in college, about to embark on the treacherous, glorious road to becoming a surgeon just like her father. A boy had waltzed into her bio class, stopped dead when he saw her, beamed like a kid on Christmas, sat beside her and delivered the most awful pick-up line in the history of pick-up lines.

“Hey baby, if I were an enzyme, I’d be a DNA helicase so I could unzip your genes.”

That was Lance McClain, obnoxious flirt, with unfairly pretty handwriting and meticulous notes, never without hand cream and a glass bottle of gourmet-looking tea, whose best friend made the. best. cookies in the entire world.

(She was also wearing a skirt that day.)

Somewhere in between the professor pairing them up for the final requirement of the semester, spending endless hours in the library, enduring the cheesiest pick-up lines with increasingly fond exasperation, and arguing over a lot of things from the cohesion of a paper to whether or not sugar scrubs were really good for your skin, Allura fell in love.

It wasn’t anything monumental, only a realization that built up in moments and made itself known in the quiet afternoons they spent together.

“Lance, you’ve already read this week’s chapter?” “I have to. I’m bad at studying. It takes a while for me to understand things.”

“Hey, Princess!” “Ugh…kill me.” “Nope. Nu-uh. Eat this turkey and cheese. Get through Wednesday’s report then ask me again, okay?”

“Hunk wants to change majors?” “Oh yeah. But he’s on scholarship so he has to stay in Engineering for at least a year.” “Why is he taking Biology with us?” “Because he’s crazy? Who takes this course for fun? Apparently him!” “He knows you need his madeleines.” “God yes, we need his madeleines.”

“Good morning, Princess! Are you today’s date? Because you’re ten outta ten!” “Aaaand it has been zero days since our last pick-up line.” That’d been Hunk. “I’m surprised you didn’t use that for tomorrow. Eleven out of ten,” she’d replied, more amused now than annoyed. “And miss the chance to tell you you’re beautiful today? I would never.” Hunk laughed as she rolled her eyes.

“'Llura, why did you decide to be a surgeon?” “Well…it’s always been something I thought I’d head towards. There aren’t a lot of women in surgery, you know?” A pause, where Lance had waited for her to go on. “I know it sounds silly, wanting to follow in my father’s footsteps, but wanting to break new ground. I won’t be surprised if my connections get me places, because I know that’s how it is in medicine. But…but I want to make it on my own too.” Lance had smiled at her, when she looked up from her hands that she couldn’t keep from fidgeting. “Nothin’ less from our Princess.”

“What about you, Lance? Why do you want to be a nurse?” “I wanna take care of my grandparents, then my parents, when they get old.” “Your grandparents are still alive, aren’t they?” “Mmhmm, both sides. After I get my license, I’m gonna go back home and take care of them.” Allura had made a noise of confusion, to which Lance followed up with, “Grandpa on my mom’s side owns a shop. I want to help him run it.” “What kind of shop?” “…a magical shop.” Allura had looked at him, and Lance made a strange face that was sheepish, defensive, and proud. “We sell magic.” A pause. “What?” “Nothing. It kind of makes sense.” “What does?” “With the tea. And your energy.” “You believe me?” “Sure.” Allura was familiar with some traditional doctors because of her father’s work. “I’ve been with you on days we get an hour of sleep and you clearly aren’t human.” Lance had waggled his eyebrows at her. “Now that might just be talent—oof!” “Your liver is going to pay in thirty years,” she said, her palm on his face.

“Going home for the weekend, Lance?” “M’thinkin’ about it. My brothers are taking the bar exam soon and I’d rather not be home.” “You’re that kind of youngest child?” “The ‘you’re our seventh offspring, go do whatever you want’ kind? Yeah. I was thinkin’ of going with Hunk but his nieces are over.” “I could stay with you.” He stared and Allura flushed. “I mean not go home either. Stay at my own dorm, but keep you company. So the long weekend won’t be too boring.” She tried to ignore the way her heart squeezed when Lance smiled like the sun.

Small gestures followed that. Lance brought her tea along with his own, and sometimes enchanted coffee. They literally burned midnight oil when they needed to—a soothing, energizing blend of eucalyptus, lavender, lemon, and rosemary while cramming for Finals Week. When she was stuck on a paper for History, he placed a gorgeous oval of Tiger’s Eye on her laptop keyboard, “For focus,” he said brightly.

“This question might offend you,” Allura told him one day over lunch. “Hmm?” Lance was in mid-bite. “Have you ever thought…well, have you ever thought of magic not working?” “Oh, loads of times.” He swallowed before continuing. “Grandpa explained it to me once, like, he’d do the rituals, brew those teas, and make all sorts of stuff not because he believed them, y’know? But because they worked. Like sometimes he’d do things to prove they wouldn’t work but they do. So he keeps doing them.” Allura smiled.

Somehow, like that, four years pass. They spend even more time together after Hunk shifts to Food Science, despite the increasing number of classes they don’t share. Lance invites her over to his house for lunch one weekend thinking nothing of it, until his mother asks, “Are you two dating?”

And before Lance could sputter out his embarrassed denial, Allura took hold of his hand, looked at him and said, “Why not?”

He sputtered anyway. “I mean…are you sure?”

“I’m sure, you silly. Even if I don’t know why myself.”

His chin had scrunched up in the most adorable way and he stared at her in some sort of weird defiance she didn’t understand until she heard his next words, “Allura, I swear I’d never ever put a love spell on you. Pipo, tell me you didn’t.”

Lance’s grandfather laughed a hearty belly laugh that warmed up the dining room. “You don’t leave matters of the heart to magic, mijo. Though I get why you think I would.”

“Hey!”

Allura herself had taken Lance to meet her own parents the weekend after that. Her father was already alright with him but pretended to be intimidating anyway, because it was fun.

She smiles at the memories. And here she is now, supposedly studying for med school, but the shop is peaceful, the air heavy with summer heat, earthy scents, and something else she’s becoming increasingly aware of since she’s met Lance—a pleasant thrum of energy that can be directed into anything from sleepy to electric.

She moves from the counter to peek into the office, where she knows Lance is working on some spell jars. She has mind to tell him to take a break, when she stops and watches.

Lance’s eyes are closed. He is surrounded by candles and his body sways to the easy beat of Wang Chung’s Dance Hall Days. He was never one for sitting still in anything. He meditates in movement, and going into a trance is no different. Allura’s breath catches when he opens his eyes. They’re unfocused yet a brighter blue in the glow of candlelight. His face is relaxed, lines smoothed out and cut in sharp shadows. His whole self is seemingly charged enough to vibrate out of his skin, body barely containing raw energy waiting to be directed. He starts singing a little, more loose and free.

It looks like a whole lot of nothing, but Allura feels drawn to him, like a stray thread of light’s hooked into her navel and tugs her forward. She smiles as her heart swells, feeling a bit like she’s too big for her body too.

“What about you?” “What about me?” “Do you believe in magic? And don’t say what I know you want to say—” she said, catching Lance’s smirk a little too late. “—If the universe has allowed me to meet you, then yes I do.” “Dear god…” “You walked right into that one, Princess.”

END

[roseonhissleeve]

Kiwi: Part Nine

A series based in Jamaica during the writing/recording of Harry’s new album.

A/N: This chapter was an absolute joy to write, so I hope you guys enjoy it. There’s only a few chapters of our story left! xx

Click here to read the previous chapters.

Catharsis.

The process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.

The freeing of tension.

The moment the hero’s suffering is let go.

*

Calliope began that day by surfing.

She’d been doing a lot more of it lately. Now that she had all this free time alone that she wasn’t used to anymore, she threw herself back into it with fervor— except ever since she had that fight with Harry a week ago, she had trouble staying on balance like never before. It took her two, maybe three tries to catch a wave, and even then she had to work five times as hard to not topple right off. It was as if Harry had become her center of gravity, and now it was all thrown off.

They hadn’t spoken since that night. He hadn’t gone to see her at the bar, nor had she gone back to the studio to speak with him. It was complete radio silence, and it felt like withdrawal— she had gotten so used to spending practically every waking moment of the day with him that she had almost forgotten how to spend time alone. At first, it made her angry. But now she just missed him.

She missed him. She missed the way he liked playing with her short hair as he fell asleep. Or the way he closed his eyes when he was singing a line that was particularly meaningful to him. She had gotten used to his warmth when he held her against his chest in the night, even if he was practically a space heater and she couldn’t sleep with a blanket anymore. She missed the way he smiled when she called him Kiwi, the dopey one that showed off his two front teeth.

She missed the way he made her feel like the calm in the storm, instead of the hurricane itself.

Hours later when she showed up for her shift at work, her hair was still drenched and she smelled like the sea. She walked into the bar and slid on her apron before proceeding to grab a rag and clean every single inch of the already-clean countertop, her mind elsewhere.

“Have you ever had your heart broken, Kiwi?”

Calliope was wound up snug in a cuddle with Harry, both of their legs intertwined like perfect puzzle pieces. His head was resting atop of her chest as if it was the comfiest pillow, and her fingertips were tangled in his hair as she massaged his scalp gently.

He hummed lowly as he thought for a moment, his fingertips brushing against her hips and sending light tickles up her sides.

“Yes,” he finally said, lifting himself up so he could rest his weight on his elbows and look up at her. “But not in the way that you’re asking. I don’t think I’ve ever really loved someone enough that way to feel heartbreak, not in the proper I-want-to-scream-at-the-moon kind of way...what about you?”

“Yes,” she said without thinking, still looking up at the ceiling as if trying to avoid his gaze. “But not in the way that you’re asking.”

He crawled up her body so that he could rest his elbows on either side of her head, leaning down so he could nuzzle the tip of his nose against hers with a soft murmur.

“Come back to me, love…” he asked, knowing that her thoughts were roaming. She lowered her gaze to look into his green eyes and finally offered him a smile, setting her hands on either side of his face.

“I’m here…” she said, but there was something different in her eyes.

“Listen to me,” he urged, and the way his smile faded let her know that he was being absolutely serious.

“Calliope, if you break m’heart some day, I’ll just be grateful that I get to hold you tonight.”

Cal’s thoughts were interrupted by Happy, Pipo’s very lovely (and very loud) wife who had just slammed the front door on her way into the establishment.

Cal turned away so her back was facing the door, wiping away the tears that were streaming down her cheeks with the palm of her hand. She hadn’t cried since that night when she lost it in front of Harry, and she wasn’t about to start now at the beginning of her shift.

But there was an ache in her chest that not even the strongest of painkillers could have fixed.

“Calliope, what’s goin’ on witya my beautiful girl?” Happy said, and Cal felt her presence behind her like a shadow.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Cal replied, turning around and putting on her best fake smile. It was too artificial, like coffee that’s had one too many sweeteners put in, and Happy saw through it right away.

“I wasn’t born yesterday, child,” Happy scolded gently. “Ya haven’t been around here for weeks an’ now you’re here every day wit’a tear in your eye. I’m not a detective, my little one, but even I can tell it has to do wit’the boy. Come, tell me everyt’ing.”

Happy patted the barstool beside her own as she took a seat, and Calliope had no choice but to obey and sit down next to this woman. She looked up to her the same way a young girl looks up to her mother, and the truth was that Happy had been more of a mother to Calliope than the one she’d grown up with.

Cal didn’t know if it was the tender resilience in Happy’s eyes or, the fact that Happy had simply cared enough to challenge her when her walls went flying up. Or maybe she was just exhausted of pushing everybody out.

But she opened up.

“I love him,” Cal whispered. Her voice was shaky and quiet, like a baby deer first learning to walk. The confession made her eyes fill with tears again as she exhaled a soft sob, her hands balling up into fists. “I love him.”

Cal was expecting there to be a weight attached to those words. Some sort of promise that everything was doomed to come crashing down, because as soon as she let herself feel that strongly it was as if she was removing her armor and exposing herself to all the pain she’d hidden from.

But hearing herself speak those simple words somehow made her feel weightless.

It was like she’d finally caught a wave again.

“I love him and I hurt him, Happy,” Cal admitted. “And I don’t know why. I don’t know why every time I feel him getting too close, I want to run away. I wish I didn’t, I really do.”

“Can I ask you a question?” Happy said, eyes filled with tenderness. Cal nodded.

“Why do ya feel like you are not worthy of bein’ loved?” Happy asked, reaching to gently touch Cal’s cheek with the palm of her hand in a maternal gesture. “What happened, what made ya see every opportunity to be loved as a chance ta get hurt?”

“I lost someone...And I think he took a piece of me with him,” Cal said after a moment of thought, her gaze attached to the countertop as she tapped her fingertips against the smooth surface. Her lower lip trembled as she closed her eyes and bowed her head, speaking through the tears. “And it w-was really unfair.”

“Oh honey…” Happy sighed, reaching to rest her hand on Cal’s back. She rubbed it gently, her voice quiet and understanding. “Honey, life is unfair. It really is...it is unfair an’ it will take and take until ya cannot give anyt’ing else. But sometimes...every once in a blue moon, life gives.”

“Life gave you this...this chance to find joy,” Happy continued. Calliope looked up at her, blinking away the tears. “You will get hurt in this world no matter what, Cal. Lockin’ yourself up in a box isn’t goin’ ta help…”

“So when life gives you a chance to find joy, my dear Calliope...you take it and you run.”

*

The bar was packed.

Pipo’s was so busy that night that Cal didn’t have the time or energy to focus on anything other than doing her job. It was a godsend in a way, because the entire afternoon she couldn’t stop thinking about everything— Happy’s words, Harry, her family, her future. Everything that she had been running away from suddenly took hold in her mind, as if maybe it was finally time to confront it.

It was easily the busiest shift that she’d ever worked, even with Happy and Pipo mingling around to keep everything relatively calm. She felt anxious, as if there was a paperweight in the pit of her stomach— if anything was to go wrong, tonight would be the night.

About three quarters of the way through her shift, there was finally a lull at the bar. She took the opportunity to get a few housekeeping things done— she switched the dishrags she’d been using out for clean ones from the back and refilled the cooler with new ice. She could feel the beat of the bass in the music send reverberations to her chest, and she decided to take the garbage out so she could get a minute of peace.

With two bags of garbage in her hands she slipped out of the bar, the door falling shut with a loud bang behind her. She could hear the breeze as it danced in the night sky, and she could smell the saltiness of the ocean air— it grounded her, and for a split second she felt relaxed.

Until she heard the door opening behind her.

She immediately recognized the man standing in front of her— he was about a foot taller than she was, and he was wearing his favorite soccer jersey (FC Barcelona) along with a pair of jeans that were incredibly too long for the Jamaican heat. His hair was shorter than she remembered, but then again, so was hers— but they had the same eyes, something that she’d heard relatives comment on all through her childhood.

“Jamie,” she breathed, her voice small.

“Hey Cal,” he replied, his voice heavier than she remembered. “I’ve missed ya.”

Calliope swallowed thickly as she looked at her older brother for the first time in several weeks. Jamie was the oldest of the five of them, and all his life he took the responsibility of caring care of them. Even though he was usually the first of his brothers to start picking on her at home, at school and everywhere else he protected her. Eventually it got to the point where it was more irritating to her than anything, but he was her older brother and she loved him— and it broke her heart that he looked like a shell of who he used to be.

She wondered if that was what she looked like to him.

“I’ve missed you too,” she said, her voice wavering as she took a slow step closer to him. They hadn’t exactly parted on good terms when she ran away from home and left for Jamaica, and the fact that he had come uninvited didn’t sit well with her— not to mention the fact that she’d never actually told her family where she was, which meant he must have hunted her down.

She watched as he staggered closer to her until he engulfed her smaller body in his embrace. She wanted so desperately to feel something— to feel at home, or to feel some sort of protection wash over her, but all she could feel was the scent of the alcohol coming from his breath.

“You’re drunk,” Calliope scowled, pressing her hands against his chest to gently shove him away from her. She grabbed his chin between her thumb and forefinger and brought his gaze down to meet hers, and he could barely look her in the eye. “You’re fucking drunk. What the hell, Jamie? You’ve never had a drink before in your li— “

“Things have changed since you left us, Cal,” he snapped, tugging away from her touch and stepping back from their embrace. “And you’re really not in any place to be talking to me about change.”

She closed her mouth at his words, feeling the resentment from them seep into her skin.

“Why are you here, Jamie?” She asked, her hands repeatedly clenching and unclenching into fists, a nervous habit that she’d had in her childhood. “Why did you come here?”

“I’m here to bring you back,” he replied, impatient. “You just fucking ran away, Calliope. You ran and didn’t bother saying where, you didn’t stay long enough to explain why, you just took off. Mom is worried all the fucking time, Dad can barely get himself to go to work, and things were bad enough with all that was going on before you decided to be such a selfiish—”

“You can say it, Jamie,” she interrupted, feeling her anger boiling up again that she’d fought so hard to keep at bay. “You can say that he died. Lenny died. Lenny is dead. You want to know why mom and dad are depressed? It’s because they lost their child, Jamie! They lost their child and we lost a brother and I left because I was tired of having to walk around eggshells in that stupid house! I was suffocating, Jamie! You were all suffocating me!”

Jamie looked as if he’d been struck across the face. Cal had never stood up to him before, not once in their entire childhood— it was frowned upon in their family to talk about any feelings at all, especially ones that would hurt each other.

“I’m not going home,” she finished, brushing away the tears stinging in her eyes as she turned around to open the door to the bar and walk back inside. Before she could hear it shut behind her, Jamie had caught up to her and was on her heels.

“I didn’t spend all that time and money figuring out where you were just to leave you here, Calliope. You’re going home,” Jamie yelled over the music, but Calliope didn’t listen. She kept her back turned to him, walking through the sea of people as she clenched her jaw with frustration.

Suddenly she felt her arm being grabbed, and her reflexes sprung into action. She turned around and tugged back, wincing slightly when her brother wouldn’t release her.

“Jamie, let go of me!” She yelled, unaware that she’d caught the attention of several other people in the bar.

A few of the regulars had seen her walk back in. Large, bulky guys who talked to her every time they came in.

“No, I’m taking you home,” Jamie replied, his jaw set and his eyes glossed over.

“No, you’re not!” She yelled, the pain of his fingertips sinking into her elbow causing her to wince.

“Hey, let go of her!”

“Let her go!”

Several regulars of hers had now surrounded them, all of them holding onto her shoulders and holding her in place as she was being tugged at. It all was beginning to happen so quickly, and her head began to spin.

Jamie started yelling at her, though she couldn’t make out his words. She saw a hand grip his shoulder. He pulled away and almost snarled— he took a few steps away from her in his drunken stupor, only to step forward and grab her hand. She heard bottles fall to the ground and shatter as people clamoured on top of one another, the adrenaline in the packed room making everyone act hectically. He was speaking to her and trying to get her attention. But all she could hear were the people yelling at him, and the ringing of the music in her ears.

She watched as a large man stepped in between her and her brother. She yelled, reaching to grab the stranger’s shoulders— she recognized him as one of her friends, but couldn’t recall his name in that moment of adrenaline. As soon as she touched him he turned to look at her. She was about to say no, stop, that’s my older brother, when she saw someone collapse to the ground and smack their head against a barstool.

“STOP!”

Pipo’s voice boomed through the crowd as the music suddenly stopped. The lights were still flashing over the dance floor as everyone took several steps away from the body that had fallen onto the ground. Calliope’s head was still spinning when she looked away from her brother to glance at the body on the ground— whoever it was was obviously in pain, groans spilling from their lips as they held their head, and it seemed like his leg was bleeding.

When her head finally stopped spinning she was able to get a good look at the man, and her heart dropped, her heart pounding in her ears.

She would recognize that stupid palm tree shirt anywhere.

“What the fuck did you do, Jamie…” she muttered as she stared at Harry laying on the ground, watching as he tried to stand himself up only to fall back down onto his elbows. He must have gone to the bar that night to speak to her. A twinge of guilt struck in her chest.

She looked at Jamie with daggers in her eyes, walking towards him only to grab onto his shoulders and shove him back, knocking him off-balance more than he already was. “What the fuck did you do?!”

“I’m sorry…” he raised his hands in the air as if to surrender, beginning to choke up as he shook his head. “I’m sorry, Cal, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry…”

“Leave, now,” she snapped. She tore her gaze away from her brother to run to where Harry was still laying on the ground— she could hear him whimpering quietly as Pipo knelt down beside him, holding a clean towel against his leg where he had been cut.

She pushed through the bystanders who were still watching, kneeling down beside Harry. She reached to touch his cheek, and as soon as she did he turned to look at her— his face was sadder than usual, and he had bags under his eyes, like he hadn’t been sleeping well. There was pain in his features and she couldn’t tell whether or not it was only from the physical injury, but the sight of it made tears well up in her own eyes again.

“You’re an idiot,” she whispered quietly, and Harry chuckled lightly, wincing.

“Was just trying to be your superhero,” he croaked, and it absolutely broke her heart.

“I’ll drive you to the hospital, let’s go,” Pipo said, slinging his arm underneath Harry so that he could help him up. “Come on, Cal.”

Within a few minutes they had loaded Harry into the back of Pipo’s car, his head resting on Cal’s shoulder as she held his hand. Pipo had firmly tied the towel around his leg to apply pressure to his cut, and even though he complained that his head was still spinning, it seemed like the initial drowsiness of the injury had worn off.

“Hey, Kiwi?”

“Yeah?”

Calliope glanced down at the man who was leaning against her, his eyes closed and lips pressed into a firm line as he tried to ignore the pain in his leg. She remembered the conversation she’d had earlier with Happy: when life gives you a chance to find joy, my dear Calliope...you take it and you run.

“Thank you,” Cal said, her voice quiet.

“For what?” Harry asked.

“For being my superhero.”

*

An hour later, Calliope was sitting in the waiting room— Harry had been taken in for a CT scan of his head to make sure that everything was okay. Pipo had reluctantly left her there, because despite his protests, Cal knew that he needed to get back to the bar and sort things out there.

She was leaning back in her chair, trying to get comfortable. Her fingertips drummed on the armrests and she couldn’t stop herself from glancing at the clock every once in a while— the weight of all of the days they’d gone without speaking was weighing heavy on her, as well as her guilt.

A few minutes went by before her brother found her in the waiting room— when he did he sad down next to her, remaining quiet. Calliope realized that it was him the second he walked in the door, but she wasn’t in the mood to argue anymore, and truthfully...she really needed someone on her side right now.

Jamie remained quiet beside her— it seemed like he’d sobered up since the fight, and like he was trying to be supportive, which was new to Calliope. But he was family, and she wasn’t one to push someone away when she needed them...not anymore.

Cal leaned sideways to rest her head against her brother’s shoulder, wrapping an arm around his bicep so that she could snuggle into his side. His brother tensed at first, but eventually relaxed— he adjusted so that he could wrap his arm around her shoulders, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

They sat together in silence, Calliope’s eyes closed. Her brother traced patterns on her arm, just like their mother used to do on their backs when they couldn’t sleep.

“Who is he?” His brother asked suddenly, his voice quiet.

She paused. She considered telling him that he was Harry Styles, international rock star, but she knew that wasn’t the answer that he was looking for.

“I love him,” she confessed.

Her brother paused, but he didn’t ever loosen his protective grip around her.

“Is he a good guy?” He asked.

She nodded her head, her lips forming a small smile. “The best.”

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, his voice breaking. “I guess...I guess we’re not really used to talking about stuff when it gets hard, are we? Never really have.”

“It’s okay,” she replied, leaning closer into his side. “We were never really taught how, were we? I’m...I’m used to pushing people away, too.”

“Still, I should’ve...I knew how close you and Lenny were. Closer than any of the rest of us…” she could hear her brother choking up as he continued to speak, and it made tears appear in her eyes for the third time that night. “I should’ve stepped up, Cal. I should’ve fought for you when Lenny wasn’t around to anymore. I shouldn’t have checked out, shouldn’t have started drinking...I should’ve been there for you.”

Cal stayed quiet as she sniffled softly, wiping away her tears.

“Do you remember when Lenny first came home from the hospital? And I was so mad...I got so jealous when mom and dad didn’t have enough time for me anymore, not like they used to. Honestly, I hated Lenny’s guts until he was old enough to talk to…”

“I remember…” Jamie chuckled, pressing his lips to the top of her head.

“I used to get so mad because mom would only have enough time to read me one bedtime story instead of two. She’d be so tired by the end of the day...and one night, you heard me crying, and you came in and asked me what was wrong. And you didn’t laugh when I told you...you sat down and you read me another bedtime story. And you did that every night for months.”

“You remember that?” Jamie whispered.

“Of course I do,” Cal replied, smiling. “Of course I do...You did the best that you could, Jamie. Growing up, you did the best that you could. And when Lenny died...you did the best that you could. We all did.”

Jamie fell silent as he processed her words, and she thought that she could hear a soft sob escape him. She simply hugged him tighter, and for the first time since she’d seen him, he felt like home.

“You gotta stay here,” he sighed, nodding his head. “You’ve gotta stay here and do what you have to do.”

“Calliope?”

Cal looked up and sat up straight as the nurse called out her name. As soon as the nurse located her Calliope stood up, and he approached her with a smile.

“Your boyfriend is fine,” he said, and Cal quite literally let out a sigh of relief. “He’s just getting his leg stitched up right now, but you can go sit with him.”

Calliope turned to look at Jamie, who was nodding his head.

“Go,” Jamie said, staying in his seat. “I’ll wait here and give you two a ride back when you’re done. Go.”

She smiled, walking leaning down to give him a peck on the cheek.

“I love you, big brother.”

*

“Ouch, fuck,” Harry winced as the nurse tried to stitch him up, but he was squirming a bit too much for her liking. She shot him a look of disapproval, and he huffed gently. “Sorry.”

Calliope was sitting beside him, holding his hand. They still hadn’t spoken about anything— their fight, his fight with her brother...there was so much looming over their heads, but the hospital hardly seemed like the proper place to talk about it.

It reminded her too much of Lenny’s hospital stay. The waiting room had been safe— nothing bad had happened to her in waiting rooms. It was a safe medium, a barrier between where people were healed and where people died. But the hospital room itself was a completely different story.

She tried to keep herself focused on Harry, who was still cursing under his breath every so often. It had been about five minutes and the nurse had only managed to get one stitch in out of the twenty that he needed.

“Tell me something,” Harry exhaled, closing his eyes tightly.

“What?” Cal asked, giving his hand a soft squeeze as he winced.

“Say something to distract me,” he pleaded, his voice like a small child’s. She nodded her head, bringing his hand up to her lips to brush them against his fingers as she closed her eyes. 

It was a long time before she finally got the courage to speak again, but she knew that it was time.

“My little brother died of cancer,” she said, her voice wavering a tad. As soon as she spoke Harry’s eyes opened again and locked on her features, his lips twitching only when the nurse proceeded to add another stitch to his leg. “He was diagnosed last year, a little while after my twenty-second birthday. Lenny...was my best friend. I loved him so much, watching him get taken away...watching him leave me was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

“He was a little shit,” Cal laughed softly, Harry’s gaze attached to her as his attention was no longer focused on the pain. “He was a little shit right to the end...he died suddenly, even for someone who had cancer. He was stable one day and then just...wasn’t. Started seizing all the time, couldn’t even go to the bathroom properly anymore...when he died, I was kinda alone. My family...we kinda were always broken up into teams. My parents, my three older brothers, and me and Lenny. And with Lenny gone, I was the outsider.”

“My mom and I fought a lot. I dropped out of university because I had no clue what I wanted to do. She was ashamed of me, I think...Lenny was the one who supported my decision. Lenny dying was really hard on her too and somehow she was suddenly even tougher on me...I had no place there anymore. Or at least that’s what it felt like. So I chopped off my hair, packed a bag, and ran away to Jamaica.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Cal admitted, her tears now falling once more as she hiccuped a soft sob. Harry had managed to lay still for the nurse, holding her hand tightly in his and watching her attentively. “That’s why I’m here, that’s why I’m such a mess...why it’s hard for me, to let this happen, to depend on you...and I think that there’s some part of me that...that feels guilty for being so happy with you, because a part of me can’t stop thinking that the reason we met is because Lenny died.”

“Oh, my love…” Harry exhaled, and for a split second she thought that she saw tears in his eyes.

“That’s why I’m so difficult to be with, and why I always have one foot out the door...but I’m tired of it, Harry. I’m so, so fucking tired of running.”

“All done, sweetheart,” the nurse said, her voice soft and sweet. Calliope looked at her and the nurse looked back at her with a sympathetic smile, nodding her head before she spoke again, looking directly at Cal. “You did wonderful, love.”

The nurse shuffled around for a minute before leaving the room, and as soon as she did Calliope looked down at Harry again. He was gazing up at her still, his hand firmly placed in hers and not planning to let go anytime soon. His chest was rising and falling gently, and if she didn’t know any better she would have said that she saw traces of love in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she admitted.

Catharsis.

The process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.

The freeing of tension.

The moment the hero’s suffering is let go.

Harry looked at her for a long moment before patting the space on the cot beside him, scooching to leave an empty spot for her. She immediately crawled onto the bed, being careful not to harm his leg as she nuzzled into his shoulders, sinking into his hold. He wound his arms around her tightly and pressed his lips against the top of her head, leaving countless kisses, as if they could heal her from all the pain she’d been through.

“It’s okay, baby,” he finally said, no longer in pain. “We’re okay.”

KIWI: PART TEN

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[lit102]

I loved this book when I first read it 3 1/2 years ago. I found it deliciously creepy, gripping, humanistic (I guess) and... baffling. How could someone who wrote a whole book about the power of empathy be homophobic? (This was just after the Ender’s Game movie came out and people were boycotting it so the subject of his homophobia was in the air.)

Upon rereading it, I’m appalled that I ever found it any of those things. This is a profoundly, nauseatingly narcissistic book; the lip service it pays to the power of empathy is actually worship of its protagonist, Ender Wiggin, and through him its author, Card himself. A quick summary: The world of Lusitania, largely Portuguese and Catholic (black Portuguese, specifically, which I bring up because he skirts around race in the weirdest way when he’s not being outright racist), is home to a small human colony and the first sentient alien species discovered since the Buggers (I cannot believe they are called the Buggers, the Buggers!) were exterminated three thousand years ago: the porquinhos, or piggies. The piggies are small bipeds with porcine faces (thus the nickname), separated from humans by a high fence that causes unbearable agony on contact (someone compares it to your fingers being filed off). This is supposed to protect them from cultural contamination, but it’s actually as much—or more—meant for humans, who fear what they don’t understand. The only humans who are allowed contact with the piggies—xenologers, or alien scholars—must try to learn as much about the piggies as they can while revealing as little of themselves as possible: they can’t even ask the questions they’re most want answered, for fear that they’ll give something of themselves away. This policy backfires tragically when the beloved xenologer Pipo is tortured to death by the piggies, and the young orphaned biologist Novinha, who loved him as a father, sends out a call for the nearest Speaker for the Dead — which happens, of course, to be none other than Ender Wiggin himself.

Ender and his kind play the role of secular priests, who investigate and then “speak” peoples’ lives, warts and all. They “[hold] as their only doctrine that good or evil exist entirely in human motive, and not at all in the act” (35), a doctrine of which I am deeply suspicious but that undergirds the whole book. Ender is the original speaker: three thousand years ago, he wrote a book called The Hive Queen and the Hegemon that spoke the Buggers’ death and taught humanity that they were worth mourning. Now, he wanders the worlds, just thirty-five years old because of the way space flight works, seeking a home for the last living Bugger hive queen and an end to the guilt that eats him up inside: guilt for the xenocide that made him the universe’s most hated man. When he hears that the piggies have tortured a human to death, he knows he must answer Novinha’s call. (He’s also attracted to her even though she’s twelve or thirteen years old, but whatever.) This is his chance to make peace between human and alien — to earn redemption for the role he played in the human/alien war that left all but one alien dead. So off he goes to Lusitania. When he arrives — two weeks later for him and like twenty years later for the colony — Novinha is grown, freshly widowed by a physically abusive man, and consumed by a secret guilt of her own; her household is tearing itself apart from the inside; and the piggies have murdered Pipo’s son and successor, Libo. It’s Ender’s job to make sense of all this in time to prevent intergalactic war and — most importantly — to redeem himself. 

Rereading this, I realized what a blatant author surrogate Ender is. Not only he is literally a writer, his book is powerful enough to literally become the piggies’ religion. His word is God. He’s also flawless. Yes, he murdered countless aliens, and he’s wracked with guilt, but his redemption feels inevitable from the start — and not only that, the one surviving Bugger forgives him, because she understands his motives in slaughtering her species. Motives, as we know, are all that matter in the moral universe Card has created, and because we know Ender’s, he’s also redeemed in the reader’s eyes; his guilt is nothing more than a narrative hoop for him to jump through. (Not only that, he makes the hoops; as Speaker for the Dead, he first acts as his own accuser, then as his own judge, ruling — unsurprisingly — his favor.) Moreover, most of the characters worship him. Some literally. The AI Jane — the most ancient, knowledgeable, and powerful being in the known universe — refers unironically to his “genius” (62): “his genius — or his curse was his ability to conceive events as someone else saw them” (65). In other words, he has... empathy. Something that most humans have (and something that women have more of than men, I might add). However, in Ender, empathy is almost supernatural; it gives him the godlike ability to know (“no, not guess, to know” [65]) people without even speaking to or spending time with them. (“It was as if he were so familiar with the human mind that he could see, right on your face, the desires so deep, the truths so well-disguised that you didn’t even know yourself that you had them in you” [234–35].) Just like the author knows his characters. He can also make them worship him — again, some of them literally. Ender’s sister Valentine refers breathlessly to her brother’s “brilliant understanding of human nature” (75). His nieces and nephews think of him as “something of a savior, or a prophet, or at least a martyr” (82). Novinha’s feral children fall in love with him — as does, of course, Novinha herself (“his eyes were seductive with understanding. Perigoso, she thought. He is dangerous, he is beautiful, I could drown in his understanding” [129]. Gag me). Jane, the AI, is bored by literally every other human in the universe (”when she tried to observe other human lives to pass the time, she became annoyed with their emptiness and lack of purpose” [175]). Take this appalling passage:

Through his eyes [Jane] no longer saw humans as scurrying ants. She took part in his effort to find order and meaning in their lives. She suspected that in fact there was no meaning, that by telling his stories when he spoke people’s lives, he was actually creating order where there had been none before. But it didn’t matter if it was fabrication; it became true when he spoke it, and in the process he ordered the universe for her as well. He taught her what it meant to be alive. (175)

And the piggies, though they reject Christian scripture, turn The Hive Queen and the Hegemon into their bible. It’s like... jaw-droppingly blatant, isn’t it? Even when characters hate him, they elevate him, like the Bishop who claims he’s “as dangerous as Satan” (298).

Card’s message in Speaker for the Dead is clear: “When you really know somebody, you can’t hate them” (370). For him, to know is to love, whether you’re knowing the alien who tortured your father to death or the husband who beat you for years or the man who slaughtered your entire species. 

[W]hen it comes to human beings, the only type of cause that matters is final cause, the purpose. What a person had in mind. Once you understand what people really want, you can’t hate them anymore. You can fear them, but you can’t hate them, because you can always find the same desires in your own heart. (370)

The problem is, he’s created a story in which this must be true. The piggies who tortured Libo to death didn’t know they were torturing him; they thought they were giving him their highest honor. Ender was a child when he slaughtered the Buggers, and he thought it was them or us, that he was dooming humanity if he didn’t. Card makes empathy easy, uncomplicated, for his characters and the reader, and in this way robs it of all its power: he makes it the simplest and most obvious choice. That’s because this book isn’t truly about empathy at all: it’s about deifying himself in fictional form. 

Stray observations:

Because Novinha blames herself for Pipo and Libo’s death, she endures her husband’s physical abuse as a form of punishment (“It’s no more than I deserve” [125]). The Bishop sanctions this as her “penance” for adultery later on. Foul.  

Most of the Lustanians are supposedly black, but none of the characters are described as black (except Bishop Peregrino, whose face had “a pinkish tinge under the deep brown of his skin” [155], which to me seems like a profound misunderstanding of how dark skin works?), and Novinha’s hair reads as a white woman’s hair to me, or at least not a black woman’s, though I guess he’s not explicit about it. Oh and also, Ender is lily-white, startlingly white, in a way that evokes unsavory white savior imagery. (When he’s speaking Novinha’s husband’s death, in front of a huge crowd, “his white skin made him look sickly compared to the thousand shades of brown of the Lusos. Ghostly” [257].) He’s also compared to Pizarro. 

The colony is very conservative, which Card actually celebrates: “If there were no powerful advocate of orthodoxy, the community would inevitably disintegrate. A powerful orthodoxy is annoying, but essential to the community” (158). Etc. Marriage and monogamy are highly valued.

The piggies are super sexist. Theirs is supposedly a matriarchal society, in which the females have all the power, but in fact they get pregnant, give birth, and are eaten by their babies in their own infancy. The matriarchs are sterile, which is why they survive to adulthood. When a character suggests helping the fertile females survive as well, Ender replies “To do what? They can’t bear more children, can they? They can’t compete with the males to become fathers, can they? What are they for?” (325). A female named Shouter supposedly rules the tribe, but a male named Human is Ender’s ambassador; he — again, a male — is the most important piggy in this story. Piggy society is a misogynistic man’s idea of matriarchy — on other words, not a matriarchy at all.