#AND it was a reactionary movement not something that came before these ideas were heard

[giritina]

People could stand to feel a little worse about being sucked into anti-sjw internet shit in 2014-2016... I don't think it reflects on who they have become and many were sucked in as young kids. But there's a narrative developing that "everyone was just like that then" "it was common to say slurs and believe this stuff then" meanwhile from my perspective there was a shitty minority of people who were invested in making my life worse. Real people were harassed bc of this stuff. Being in HS in this time as a minority fucking sucked, there was an overwhelming feeling that speaking up abt anything put you in danger. I got death threats, rape threats, I got outed to my parents. And then there's kids like Milo Stewart whose life was briefly fucking ruined because they made some videos with a flower crown and fairy lights about leftism 101.

We can all move on and grow, but why do you have to act like no one was giving you other options to listen to?? If everyone was 'like that' then who was being harassed?? Who was the fuel for your YouTube videos and Reddit threads and bullying? 🥴 It sucks to look back and remember you were a shitty person, but it sucks even more to be traumatized for life by harassment

[sabakelar]

The Birds and the Bechdel Test

I write novels that focus on female characters. Several years into my writing career, I came across the Bechdel Test. For those who have not heard of this, it is a bare-bones measure of how women are portrayed in film. Developed in 1985, it asks simply if there are two named female characters who talk to each other about something other than men. The test was developed, I believe, out of a sense of frustration regarding how women were portrayed in the majority of films of the era. Often, there was only one woman character, who was the love interest for the male protagonist. This woman was reactionary and passive, leaving the movie dependent on the male characters for action and assertive direction. Additionally, when there was more than one woman in movies from this time (1970s through 1990s) it seemed that they spoke only to men or, if speaking to other women, only spoke about men. https://youtu.be/Meq3CyuKOjM One of the theories I espouse, as a popular culture historian, is that films like this were created in response to feminism’s challenge of the patriarchy and gender roles that rose with the Women’s Liberation Movement and Women’s Rights. The timeline for Women’s Rights in the United States is long, but in the 1970s, it seemed to make real headway with the passage of Title IX regarding sex-discrimination in education, the upholding of Women's right to health care via Roe v. Wade in 1973, and 1975 being declared the "Year of the Woman." The 1980s saw the first female Supreme Court Justice, the first woman to be nominated by the Democrat Party, and a number of other "Firsts." Another “Year of the Woman” was also declared in 1992. Since its popularization, the Bechdel test has also been used to analyze other forms of media, including books and television shows. However, as has been noted by other scholars and film critics, the Bechdel test is not a measure of feminism or film quality. Some of the best movies ever made fail the test. Importantly, films that would be considered pro-female may also fail the test, simply because the badass protagonist winning hearts and minds while freeing the country is the only female character in the credits. This understanding is important as the Bechdel test is meant to show generalizations in popular culture, which in turn holds up a mirror before us and helps us to understand the human condition. The concern is that if women are usually portrayed as only interested in talking about men, for example, then women who have grander ideas or no interest in men, are silenced--either by society or through self-censorship. As a writer who creates strong female characters who happen to be surrounded by male characters, I’ve always felt that it would be hard for my novels to pass the Bechdel test. Yet, I understand now that whether a piece of media passes the test or not is less relevant than how the women are portrayed throughout the piece. The website BechdelTest.com, has a substantial list of movies dating as far back as the beginning of film that have been rated as passing or not passing by users. One film listed, The Birds, directed by Alfred Hitchcock from 1963, caught my eye as it’s been recently added to Netflix. I was interested in this film partly because I’m a huge Hitchcock fan and partly because I noticed that most of the characters listed in the credits were played by women, including Jessica Tandy and Suzanne Pleshette. Originally from a story written by Daphne Du Maurier, the movie takes place in a coastal town that is under attack by flocks of birds. While The Birds does pass the Bechdel Test, I wanted to explore the deeper themes involved and the portrayal of the characters throughout the film. As noted previously, passing the test does not necessarily denote feminism. Comments on the BechdelTest.com website, imply that the characters have some deeper conversations. However, snippets of dialogue and summaries of scenes cannot do a film justice. Therefore, I treated myself to watching the film instead of writing. #notwriting :p What I discovered were women still being objectified despite passing the test. The main female character, Melanie Daniels, played by Tippi Hedren, is inquisitive and assertive, yet many of her actions are motivated by gaining the attention of the main male character, Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor). These machinations do lead to Daniels having a variety of conversations with other female characters about birds, schools, vacation plans, and Mitch Brenner. From the beginning of the movie, Daniels' willfulness and outspoken qualities are celebrated. However, it is also important for the audience to understand that she is beautiful and available, despite these qualities. The opening scene with Daniels has a young boy wolf-whistle at her, to which she smiles, startled, but encouraging nonetheless.  Later scenes show that Daniels is confident and capable. She drives her own car, and knows how to use an outboard motor on a boat--even docking it and disembarking in high heels and fur. Later, she rescues children from bird attacks on several occasions. Yet, at the end of the movie, she is stunned into shocked silence and practically catatonic. As a strong woman, she must step aside in order for the male character to shine at the end of the film. 

Other instances of women being dismissed or frowned upon for their assertiveness can also be found in the film. For example, when an older lady, a scientist and ornithologist played by Ethel Griffies, tries to explain that birds could not be attacking, the men in the scene are dismissive of her knowledge. While she is wrong, and birds are attacking, it is difficult to imagine the same attitude being directed at a male ornithologist. Finally, Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette), the local school teacher and Daniels' potential rival for Brenner’s affection, is another strong female character who is portrayed as assertive and competent throughout the film. Yet, she also must step away, giving her life to save a child from a bird attack, in order to allow the strong male character to save the day. Overall, as with other films, the Bechdel test is merely a barometer, and although The Birds passes the test, it remains a film of the 1960s with strong men who save the day and strong women who must step aside. For creators like myself who wish to highlight strong, capable, female characters then, it isn’t whether a piece passes the Bechdel test, but how much depth and agency we give our characters and what they then do with it. If they are strong, do they remain strong? Or, do their powers dwindle in order for someone else to shine? If they can save the day at the beginning of the story, can they also save the day at the end? Read the full article

[pendragonfics]

Patch

Paring: Leonard McCoy/Reader

Tags:  no gender for reader, no name for reader, no pronouns for reader, post Star Trek Beyond, protective Leonard "Bones" McCoy, fights, missions, angst and hurt/comfort, resolution, fluff, medical, injury recovery

Summary: Reader and Leonard have an argument over Reader's attendance on an away mission. But when Reader returns injured, will all be resolved?

Word Count: 1,566

Current Date: 2021-01-19

According to the statistics, it was improbable that your return to the USS Enterprise would be on a hover stretcher. There was a truth to it, and it showed in the data. Sometimes, casual dating was a fun exercise in romantic growth with others. However, when casually dating Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, CMO of the ship and resident grump, it wasn’t easy. You were a hands-on learner! A xeno-geographer worked better in the field.

Despite your inclinations, the data showed a different story. Crew admitted to Medbay worked largely in security and on away teams. An overwhelming percentage of those wore a red uniform. The statistics reduced for casualties for sciences blue, and lesser so with gold. The statistics had abated your worries. But despite the numbers, Leonard was not having it. It had been a passing conversation over replicator coffee. Five minutes before departing for the alpha shift, he had downed his black, no sugar and no cream, and gave you a most definite no you had ever heard.

“I won’t condone it,” he said, gathering his holo-pad. “Look - I’m not calling you a bad officer! You’re damn fine at your job.”

“Is that why you’re acting my father instead of partner?” You retorted hotly. Something about his obstinance reacted unfavourably with you, “You’re not my keeper.”

He blinked, and slowly, placed his mug upon the table. “My apologies, Darlin’,” He said, in a low voice. “…that I am not.”

It was then he walked away. The rest of the morning was a whirlwind of preparations, and without a moment to think of Leonard, it quickly became pushed to the back of your mind.

The away mission was simple. The people were a previously uncontacted civilisation on the northern hemisphere of a Federation planet. The southern populace had been contacted some years ago. However, the mission was to observe and document its cultural landmarks and social evolution.

Come the arrival, however, your nerves got the better of you.

You felt like your head was getting the better of you. All the unspoken words you wished you had said to Leonard at the forefront, not your job. While the rest of the team made their way to the outskirts of the citadel, you fell behind.

Had that been your first fight as a couple? What if you never saw each other again? What if that was the last thing you ever said to him?

That was how you did not see the trap in time. Up you went, the rope snagged around your leg, hoisting yourself into the air. The crackle of your comms buzzed, but it fell out, and no communication was received. The other members of the party turned at the commotion, coming to help you.

"I said to look out for that," a security officer muttered, lowering you from the uncomfortable hoist. "Now we sprung the trap, the people are sure to know we are here."

"Are you hurt?" one of the others asked.

Before you could find the words, however, you heard it. The distinctive twang! of a string-based weapon. Despite your vast knowledge of the weaponry used in evolving alien civilisations, that alone did not save you. Because as soon as you heard the release, the projectile was coming for you. And as fast as you were, there was no way to dodge it.

You blinked.

A flash of blinding pain erupted from your shoulder as an arrow-like object embedded itself within your flesh. The words were lost in your throat, but holding them in, a reactionary gurgle of agony escaped.

The security officer shouted something into his comms. The away team scrambled. Someone pulled you from the path, but not before the twang! and release of more projectiles was heard again.

You hadn't been shot before, but now you had. The voices around you seemed to fade out of volume, though they were nearby. Your head swam with confusion and fear. All of those aside, it was the sensation of beaming on board that brought you back to lucidity.

All you could think of was not on the primitive projectile jutting from your shoulder. Not the hazy fog that filled your thoughts, like a slow poison. It was with your boyfriend.

"Get them to Medbay! We need help!" someone called for help.

Despite the lucidity, you felt a prisoner in your body as they helped you onto a stretcher. Carried toward the Medbay, you tried to parse your thoughts into a coherence, but it was no use. The faces of those around you were blurry, some doubling. Their voices faded in and out, and slowly, you felt less and less control of your limbs.

Upon arrival into the Medbay, the white light overwhelmed you. If you weren't already having trouble comprehending the world around you, the commotion in the Medbay brought vertigo-like nausea to you. Despite your understanding of your surroundings being hard to pay attention to, you knew the blurry silhouette at the end of the stretcher.  The appearance of the CMO was something that would've been comforting to some. Despite having little control over your body, you try to move from his sight, lamely shifting away to evade his gaze.

“What are you waiting for, divine intervention?" his voice cut in. "I need a bed for the patient, stat.”

You tried to roll the stretcher once more, but your already turning stomach turned some more at the movement. Your shoulder burst into another wave of pain. A gentle touch upon your collar stopped your movement. You didn't need to open your eyes to know whose hand it was. You were well versed with those hands. You knew the good and kind work those hands performed, the love and tenderness behind his touch. But you also knew what those hands had done in the seconds before you parted.

Tears pricked at your eyes, but they weren't for the pain. No. The fading rush of adrenaline somewhat helped with that. The tears were for a different pain.

"It'll be okay Darlin', you'll be okay." He says, voice low, hurridly. You felt his hand upon your cheek, cupping it. "You have to be."

Soon after that, all the noises of the Medbay blended into one. A prick of a Hypospray led to a loss of sensation in your arm. Then torso. And slowly after that, a loss of awareness. But as your eyes fluttered to a close, some part of you fighting the anaesthesia, you caught sight of him. He stood at the end of the cot, a chart in hand, speaking with a nurse.

As the world faded from view, you felt his name on your lips.

---

When you next opened your eyes, there was no denying the throbbing pain. Slowly beneath the bedsheets, you tested the muscles in your body, moving them slightly. Your fingers moved on command, toes too. As you shifted your arm, you realised that the projectile you had taken a hit with had been removed. Glancing up, everything in sight was as it should be, no doubled vision. The screen beside you that housed your vitals seemed to wake up with you. It hummed a similar tone to that of your heart; a soft ba-dum, ba-dum.

It wasn't long before a nurse arrived. But as quick as they came, another person appeared. But he was no nurse.

Leonard looked as tired as they came. His bags under the eyes were dark, his skin sallow, his dark hazel eyes somewhat vacant. You had no idea how long you had been under; it could only have been one day, right? But Leonard looked haggard. The previously sexy stubble of five o'clock shadow looked dishevelled, unkempt.

"I didn't mean what I said," you blurt, trying and failing to sit up. Silently, Leonard came to your side, helping you do so. The bed, adjusting into a seating position, whirred to life. "I was just frustrated. I love you."

"I love you too," he replied softly. "But there was truth to your words."

You watch as he takes a seat at the bedside, his hands lingering at the edge, not moving to hold yours. "You're nothing like my father, Len." You reassured him.

"I know." He says. "...but I was being your keeper. You're a free spirit; you deserve to be unfettered. Free to do what you want - free to do what your job needs."

"I'm not a pigeon that flew inside a public building, Leonard," you hum. "I'm a person."

He wipes a hand over his face. "A hell of a person, at that." He says, quietly. "In truth...you reminded me of her. My ex-wife. Elinor. She was always stubborn, that's why we got hitched, and why we fell apart. But with you..." You reach for his hand, interlacing his fingers with your own. "Darlin', you can handle yourself. You're a tough cookie. But with you – this is your life. You work as a xeno-geographer," He sighs, "Who am I to stop you?"

"Leonard..." you squeeze his hand.

"It was wrong of me to try to stop you. And even though you did get hurt, it took all I could to keep it together, treating you."

"Thanks for trusting me," you whisper, squeezing his hand once more. "I promise next time I'll be even more careful."

He smiles. "And even if you get hurt again, I'll patch you up."

[halothenthehorns]

All in the Family

Chapter 138: Excess of Phlegm

A gnome tried to bite him on the nose. James snatched the thing by its ankle right before the teeth broke skin and was already hurling it as far away from him as he could before he'd even properly gotten to his feet.

The fact that none of them suffered from their brains melting for the recurring switch between night and day was the real mystery to all this. There was a big green pond full of frogs Longbottom was sloshing his way through, the place was lined with gnarled trees and plenty of plants he'd been able to identify from Herbology class and a few he hadn't. The Burrow was just visible in the distance and his stomach snarled with hunger, they really should have taken advantage of Slughorn's food selection while they had the chance, but then he saw Regulus storming over there and decided he'd starve rather than dealing with that arrogant child right now.

His scowl intensified when he saw Peter going after him, Merlin what he wouldn't give to have just left that kid behind! Between him and Snape, who ever would have guessed these two bothersome ones would cause so much misery along this blasted trip.

Sirius was coming over to him eagerly, and he did a double take as he saw the Polyjuice Potion had completely worn off of him and glanced down at himself in surprise to confirm the same, only just realizing everything was fuzzy back around the edges again not from his head still being sore from his latest impact with the ground. The feeling of moving like they were was worse than changing bodies, who knew?

"Odd," he pulled the ripped up shirt off and passed it back, half a mind to steal more clothes from the Weasley's for both of them while here. "Doesn't feel like it's been an hour."

"That spell I put on Longbottom wore off with the jump," Sirius recalled as he passed his glasses back. "To us, it definitely wasn't long enough to have done so. Guess this mess makes even the magic we use on each other wonky, how annoying." It would have been sort of interesting to somehow find a way to gauge time before now if they'd thought about it, but James found when he slipped his pants back on he still had the Polyjuice Potion in his pocket anyways and sighed as he uneasily patted it.

He looked back to see Sirius giving him a beseeching look. His eyes flickering to where Regulus had vanished and back with a look James couldn't quite believe, was he really fixing to defend that kid?

"Listen Prongs, thanks, really, but I wish you'd let him keep going. I hadn't even realized, but he needs to get all that off his chest if he really has a problem with you and I'd rather him take that out on me even unintentionally anyways." Sirius still finished with a guilty look in place that set him bristling.

"You don't deserve that Sirius!" He snapped back at once.

"He thought I was you," Sirius quickly reminded.

"That's not the point!" James insisted. "I wouldn't have just stood there letting him yell at me! He's not your bloody parents, and I'm not going to let him start doing that shit to you if you're hoping that makes it all better! I'm not even sure why you're trying!" He regretted the words the instant they slipped out, Sirius looked so confused and he'd been trying so hard to bite his tongue against saying anything, letting Sirius make his own decisions about his little brother.

"What do you have against Regulus?" Sirius didn't quite demand it, but he sounded so surprised James chose his next words carefully, he'd already felt vaguely paranoid before this. He'd only just turned fourteen after all.

"You never talk about him Sirius, less than even your parents. I always wondered, well, how much he knows about, well, some of your punishments," he admitted, and didn't like the response when Sirius rubbed absently at his shoulder and didn't look at him. Moony wasn't the only one with scars, but some weren't so visible.

He pressed in now that Sirius didn't flat deny it, "I'll not have you feeling guilty you didn't keep that in your life if he stood by and did nothing instead of helping you in that forsaken house."

Sirius let his hand drop and looked back at him steadily. "I don't know okay, I honestly don't want to know if he knows. He's not been in the room and laughing, if that's what you mean. Mostly he just hides in the attic when I start going at it with them and doesn't come down until he's summoned and I've usually cleaned myself up by then. If he suspects anything he hides it well."

"A trait you two share," James grudgingly let some of the ire trickle out of his voice, at least Regulus had never actually hurt Sirius then to appease his parents, the nightmare he hadn't been able to shake. Hearing Voldemort do so to his Padfoot had not let the idea rest though. "I still can't say I'm all gung ho helping you out with him Padfoot, especially if he's going to turn that temper on either of us."

"Hasn't had the best role model from anyone," Sirius quietly muttered.

"You're working on it," James gave a sort of laugh in admittance. Better than having come down the stairs and the two dueling to the death he supposed. He still didn't quite like Sirius just taking this in stride though if this was the alternative, it wasn't natural to not see Sirius fight back.

He sighed when he heard Smith starting the book and decided to brave the house alone for now as he distracted Sirius, "I'm going to see if there's food, and get us both a change of clothes. Go find Moony would you, haven't seen him exiting the garden with the others. Tell him for me I don't bloody care who he snogs in the meantime, will you?"

Sirius looked so hilariously startled that James wondered if he'd gotten it wrong then, but it was probably even better he leave the two to it then. Whatever the hell they were up to, it was helping Sirius, he could tell that much as Padfoot grinned and took off.

James walked with his head held high into the kitchen and made straight for the stove. The others crowded around the table watched him when he walked in, the book still having a few leaves clinging to pages in Alice's hand as she alternately read and shook her head at whatever conversation abruptly stopped at his entrance.

Snorting in derision as if he was supposed to care about being talked about, weather it was a group this size, the whole of his house annoyed he'd lost such a huge chunk of points for his latest prank, or the whole of Hogwarts laughing both at him and with him whenever a prank or counter prank was in action, he strode over to the stove and followed the basic steps of potions class to get a fire going and setting a pot in place before pausing in confusion.

Alice disengaged herself from the table, both of them ignoring the annoyed look Evans and Longbottom gave each other as she came up to him and asked, "like some help?"

"Sure," he smiled at once. "Know how to make grits? Ever tried syrup in that, it's to die for!"

She grinned at his enthusiasm and promised, "oh I'm sure we can whip up some of everything."

He couldn't help but smile at her, there was just something about her round face that radiated kindness, it wasn't hard to see why Longbottom was so smitten even if she was a little too timid for him to get the full appeal. She was short too, barely a few inches difference to Peter, but she nudged him aside gently and he didn't even think about stepping aside for her as she began going through the motions and talking in a level voice everything she was doing, though he hadn't actually asked for a walkthrough.

He listened though. He was painfully aware because of this future his parents clearly hadn't survived to take care of Harry, and it twisted up something in him to ever wonder for long how much time they had left, had they ever shown up in his wedding photos to Evans? While he could go home now and ask his mum to teach him this, he instead likened more to the idea she might not just laugh along with her boy for once, but give her something to be proud of as he studied her wand movements and copied with wavering success.

The milk, water, and salt were all carefully blended together and at a steady boil, even if he was sure they came out a bit too lumpy when Alice quietly redirected, "I hope everything's okay with those three."

The invitation was clear. He ruffled up his hair, his wand slipping and the stirring stopped for a moment as he considered telling her yes, and he would deal with his problems, again. That hadn't exactly been working out for him so far though, and damn if she hadn't been right back in Sirius' own house. Maybe if he'd just bloody talked to Padfoot before this future slammed him in the face he wouldn't have broken his ear drums and had his feelings so viciously kicked into him.

"Not sure how to get Sirius and Peter to talk to each other," he finally admitted his problem. It may have even worked there for a second in Slughorn's house, before Regulus had so rudely interrupted he was sure. "Padfoot's trying, but ah, he's not the best at using his words." He was always more of a free spirited, gestures, and reactionary kind of bloke, and he rarely tried to hide any of it. Maybe if Padfoot hadn't been suppressing how little he'd forgiven Peter on his behalf it wouldn't have been so bad! James wouldn't change him for the world. "I know he tried back in Malfoy's room, but it doesn't seem to have done much good."

He and Remus had been worried about just that, but hadn't let themselves interfere. "I'm not their mother, I can't just make them apologize to each other, but I don't know how else to help. What the hell do I say?"

He finally tapped the pot to get it stirring again lest something burn. It still felt weird to be saying this to anyone but Remus, but he hadn't anything else to offer but an apologetic shrug and mutual agreement there was just no mending this broken bridge with magic. At least Moony had promised he'd keep the two away from each other if he wanted, but that wasn't helping anymore than the two interacting the past few times. They'd been faking it thus far for his sake, and he knew that.

Now Regulus was trying to throw his opinion in, and he'd probably just pushed Peter farther away towards that kid. It's not like Wormtail had stood up for Sirius against the brat! He still didn't appreciate the last time Peter had shouted at Sirius back in the forest!

When Alice finally spoke, her voice was quiet but gentle, she seemed to respect he still was not trying to air their business and the others talking quietly at the table over their game once more should not be able to hear. "I don't know them as well as you do, but I hope you see laughing this off just isn't helping."

He grit his teeth to stop himself snapping at her that wasn't helping either, he still didn't know what else to do!

"I'd say, first step, just make sure you're all on the same page. Then, maybe, see where they want to go from there. Sometimes, we outgrow people, and that's not always a bad thing." She frowned at Evans, and James refused his own look to confirm it even if he knew in his heart what she meant and it was very, very true. He didn't see it as the same thing at all, Peter had never done anything like old Snivilius had. Sirius had over reacted in his anger, but this future wasn't letting up on them for a second about how awful things to come could be, he was entitled to an emotional outburst! He and Remus had tried to stop him from doing Peter a real harm!

"That's not very helpful," he huffed, removing the pot from the heat and grabbing down bowls.

"Sometimes the advice we need isn't what we want to hear," she shrugged, but she still looked sadly at her friend, and then back at him. "I'm sorry."

He huffed and changed the subject to syrup, bacon, and gravy, at least her company wasn't as bad as her fortune cookie nonsense.

Remus was still leaning against the apple tree he'd landed face first on and hadn't chosen to move, instead knocking his head softly against the bark in hopes it would knock some sense into him. Anger at himself still dominated rather than Padfoot not giving him some bloody warning for their stupid prank as he kept replaying what Sirius had said.

A break? They weren't even together as far as Sirius was concerned and he was already laughing about a break. What if Remus never asked for a break, would Sirius keep hooking up with him along with how many others when they got back? Would he be able to keep himself in check and go along with that, pretending to ignore any such thing was happening? He very much doubted it, and it only confirmed in him what he should have known back in that alley way, he really should put a stop to this now.

Amongst the cawing birds in the bright morning sun and the frogs still splashing about in their water, he heard someone approaching him and looked around in mild concern when he realized no shouting had resumed. If James and Regulus were off killing each other, they were doing it quietly.

It was the real Sirius this time, of this he was very confident of as Prongs would still be looking at him like a concerned parent about to give him the sex talk.

"You told him?" Sirius confirmed in delight as he barely came over in arms reach. He even turned around like the conversation was done there and they could go off to join James like nothing had happened.

He should have expected the gleeful smile. Sirius made himself as clear as possible on Slughorn's bed, Remus quickly reminded himself, and even before that. He only sees you as a playfriend, get over it!

Remus' scowl deepened, some of his self-anger getting an easy redirection. "No you arse, he figured it out when I didn't know it was you!"

Sirius just looked confused for a few more moments before he got it, and then he laughed as he edged closer. "What did you do?"

Remus shoved him back away in disgust. "It wasn't funny! What the hell are you so happy for?"

"I wanted to tell him," Sirius reminded with an eye roll, "what are you so angry for?"

Remus bit his lip rather than answer, this was going as horrible as it was possible to! "Look, it means something, different to me, telling people, alright." He tried to plead with him to understand. He clearly didn't. "Sirius, I know you don't see it as a big deal ever to tell us of your last dalliance, but it does to me, okay!"

Sirius just cocked his head to the side and kept watching him as if waiting for further explanation, like he couldn't fathom what other meaning there was, like he really couldn't picture telling his brother who he was hooking up with for any other reason than the fun of it. Remus tried to take some comfort in that Sirius really just didn't have the capacity to even be looking for anything more with anyone, not just with him.

"Okay, fine," Sirius mercifully gave in, though it was clear he still didn't get what Remus' problem was. Remus breathed in relief. "If you don't want him to know yet, I'll push him off what happened. I'd still like to know what you did," he added with a grin.

"How the hell do you think you're going to get away with that?" Remus demanded.

"If I can get McGonagall to not give me detention for transfiguring Eckers into a rocking horse I can do anything!" Sirius declared with the greatest hurt to his pride Remus was questioning this. He still hadn't stopped grinning. "You still have to tell me so I know what I'm working with."

Remus groaned and put his face in his hands, was this not bad enough without the teasing? "I hate you so much."

"Love you too Moony," Sirius casually agreed. "Now come on, work with me!"

Remus finally dropped his hands so he could glare at the bastard, and then let his hand rest on the inside of his thigh of the real Padfoot this time, leaning forward and whispering with as much annoyed suggestiveness in his voice he could, "is that a challenge?" He quickly dropped his hand and crossed his arms with a huff.

His pissed off attempt didn't really work, Sirius' eyes still glazed over with lust for a moment and he licked his lips before he shook his head and muttered, "yeah, that's not very subtle. Any more context I should know?"

"I still never got my pineapple," he sulked, as if that was really his biggest concern.

Sirius gave him a cheeky grin as he patted his bag. "Moony, I'm insulted, you really think I'd leave you hanging?"

He could not imagine where and how Sirius had found the time to nab that in between everything else that had gone on. The thoughtfulness in the action stunned him. Damn him for still getting aroused by this asshole when he wanted to keep glaring at him.

Padfoot's eyes flickered around the garden for inspiration, they even listened to some of the chapter in mutual silence as Harry finally confessed to his friends of the Prophecy hanging over his head and the Phlegm being Fleur Delacor back in wedding bliss to Bill Weasley, but that wasn't striking much. Remus' concern grew even Sirius' silver tongue wasn't going to get out of this one.

"Look, just hang around out here if you want to, avoid Prongs and the others, I'll cover for you, just like always." Sirius finally sighed. "I promise I'll get some actual food for you for the next spot, okay?" He even sacrificed the crystalized pineapple now, tossing him the box and not even taking a single one for himself.

"Don't bother," he grumbled as he caught it, but pocketed it. Deciding to scale the tree for now in any relief to get away, and half tempted to pitch himself off head first. Sirius pouted at him the whole way up until Remus was crunching on an apple so loud he could pretend he didn't hear him walk off.

Sirius kicked and huffed and paced the whole way back to the door, taking twice as long as the trip should be. Great, yeah, even Moony was mad at him now, this just really could not be going worse. He knew he couldn't force the guy to relax about being gay, or whatever he considered getting off with another guy to be. He'd heard plenty of horror stories from other kids in school for their parents' reactions. He had no wish to envision Remus anywhere near that, but did he really think so little of Prongs? Sirius just had to find a way to get him to relax about this, it was by far the easiest problem to focus on, he knew Moony so well he was sure he could come up with a solution to this. It was too bad he couldn't turn into another animal for him to help, he'd do it in a heartbeat.

He walked in and found himself plenty distracted by Alice teaching James how to cook. She was being really nice about it too, even as Sirius watched he waved his wand a little too enthusiastically and sent a packet of bacon flopping to the ground. She corrected him and he got it right in the next go with a very pleased smile and a half glance at Evans, who was ignoring him and playing cards at the table with the others again. James turned away remarkably fast and wasn't even trying to talk to her but kept his focus on Smith. The book was left open at an empty chair, so at least nobody was reading it to try and get them out of a nightmare.

Regulus at least looked in a semi better mood. He wasn't shooting death threats at Prongs at least, but just flat ignoring him, and he didn't at all look up at Sirius' entrance as he took the deck from Evans and shuffled with quite a bit of skill. Peter at least looked around with a half smile at him before waving him towards the food.

Sirius needed no such invitation and leaned next to the stove, stuffing himself silly and still not quite sick of breakfast meals despite the fact they'd been having that in abundance lately but purposefully leaning on Alice's other side and not engaging as her and Prongs chatted casually about their mums different home spells, something he couldn't join in on anyways.

James had never had a problem making friends, Sirius thought back, it was him who'd made the four of them friends, Sirius was still half convinced sifting through memories it would never have worked without Prongs as their buffer until they were all used to each other. So it was still his fault really James was now keeping himself on the outs and not engaging with the rest, but instead sticking by Sirius and keeping himself apart, something he and Moony much preferred.

Attention was one thing he'd had all his life, whether he wanted it or not. He glorified in it at school as much as Prongs, but still far more enjoyed their private jokes alone in their dorms once the laughter had died down, a choice when to be in the spotlight for his amusement and when to leave it, something he'd never been allowed before James.

It wouldn't kill the rest of these guys to understand a good joke and curiosity could do wonders for their own moods.

Stuffing the last of his food into his mouth, he went back to the scullery for a new change of clothes rather than this ripped up shirt, maybe that would help Remus at least somewhat. It greatly irked him nobody did ask why he was outside still even with a ready excuse.

Maybe it was slightly better this way, Remus would refuse this on principle and spoil what Sirius was going for.

He snatched the bottle of Polyjuice Potion out of the back of James' pocket and snagged five cups down, slamming them on the table and pouring a dollop into each, keeping just enough left in the vile he slipped it back in for Remus later and glared at the lot.

"Don't even dare tell me you're not curious?" He accused each and every one of them.

Alice came over at once plucking a thin black strand of hair away. "When I tried in class it was too lumpy, nearly a solid it was so gross, Slughorn gave me an A and I was worried it would be the wrong color if I tried. Thanks Sirius," and she dropped it in.

It frothed and bubbled for only a moment before settling on a beautiful shade of the lightest yellow, like a soft warm light, it even looked kind of fuzzy, like a baby chick.

She grinned in delight, but none of the others exactly looked encouraged to play along.

"Frank?" She sighed.

"I already know what mine is," he tried to put off, glancing guiltily between her and Lily and needlessly rearranging his hand. Sirius had no idea what was going on there. "It's blue, love, and yours is beautiful of course."

She was still pouting at him with those large amber eyes of hers, and so he finally gave in and winced as he came away with some loose blonde hairs, dropping them into his own.

Blue indeed, a very dark royal shade that had the consistency of a squashed berry. She still smiled in delight and leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek, but neither went so far as to offer swapping cups and bodies, apparently even they weren't going to indulge them that far.

Peter glanced around but finally went next to at least show a spot of good faith, his mousy brown hair vanishing into the mud for moments before it changed. It was a speck of the light, just before the dawn sky showed a hint that was not quite black. It even had little sparkles of the stars, he'd swear it, the pinpricks desperate to still be seen as the opaque of the day began forcing its way through the peaceful night. In the crest of the velvet, just before the nocturnal animals would end, he smiled and shook his head fondly for the deep purple color.

"Come on then," Peter even reached over and gave Regulus a light prod. "They really didn't mean anything by it this time."

"I'll just wait for my own potions class when I do it," Regulus said stiffly, still only glaring at his plate as he played a card.

Alice knew better than to try and talk Lily into any such thing, she was too stubborn and probably already knew hers anyways considering her advanced potions work.

She was half right, Lily did know what color it was going to be, but with one last begrudging look at Potter to make sure he knew this wasn't for him, she gave her and Frank a friendly smile and plucked a red hair free for them to see.

It was the soft blush just under the surface, the light airy breath that flashed over and warmed the skin. Her breath caught in her throat again as she could already taste how lightly it would flit down one's throat. She brushed her hand through her hair and smiled softly to herself with pride, she'd never been fond of the color pink, it had always been Petunia's favorite, but she looked almost gleefully now at how it softly glowed in her cup, warmth seeping right through to the tips of her fingers once more.

Sighing in resignation of being left out and only for Peter's sake and not the other two, Regulus finally pulled a hair free as well.

Trapped in the forest, it would be the first hint of light. The faint sun flicking through trees, the slightly thicker grass getting just a little more springy with each step, the same shade of hazel flickering out of the corner of his eye when he was on a broom and the Forbidden Forest was just lively enough to grab his attention. The darkest shade of green, or a freckled shade of brown, he smiled softly as he tipped the cup this way and that to catch every last glimmer it would show.

Lily took all of their distraction to collect all of the cards this time and pocket them with purpose when Alice told she was going to finish the chapter.

Alice beamed at everyone smiling once more and mouthed a thank you to Sirius, who graciously acknowledged this with a competitive smirk. She made sure to catch James' eye before picking up the book to finish, and he nodded his resignation at last, their quiet whispers before Sirius had entered finally sinking in.

HPHPHPHP

And just because I don't have a better time to share this considering the location of the future chapter it shows up in I won't spoil, you got these now and this below:

Luna- light Orange/ Hermione- Dark Orange

Ron- Dark Brown/ Neville- Light Brown

Dumbledore- Gold with silver flecks

Fenrir*-

It looked more like smoke resting in the cup, the thick cloying kind that would choke your lungs and suffocate you faster than the fire could reach you. Even being nowhere near the lips, the urge to gag, plug up the nose and run was the first instinct upon seeing it. Surly such a vile color was not meant to ever be seen, let alone consumed, for it would never let go once it latched on.

Voldemort-

It's the color he feels pulsing all around him when that sense of purpose, power, rightness, and even triumph surrounded him. He could feel it now, almost burning out of the cup as the color reflected back his soul. It would darken with time just like the murky little depth of solid black color in the center was now, turning deeper and deeper shades with every new murder he granted those not worthy of this life, but always in the very edges before the liquid traced the rim of the cup, you could still see burning red.

Umbridge- pink

It sits like a heavy film over the tongue once swallowed down, leaving an almost chalky, lingering weight behind. The fluorescent, almost painfully bright color would be bitter, like the darkest tea, and would curl into a nauseating feeling the lower down your body it traveled.

Bellatrix- light green

The neon glow was enticing to look at, as if the vividest shade of a particularly tart apple were sizzling in the cup. One sip was all it would take, and you could not stop. You would keep drinking, even when you were out of breath, and the tang became painful because your mouth was burning, you would still keep swallowing happily for the phosphorescent liquid of the verdant shade. ( I can not believe the books literally glossed over what this canon color should be!)

Snape- light purple

It seemed painful to even look at, the image of drinking it would be worse. The morbid feeling of prodding this color, the heavy purple would whiten slightly and then turn back an even darker shade, to have that inside of him made him want to be sick. He wished it would mottle to the greens and yellows of a fading bruise, but feared it would never happen.

Don't worry, you'll get Remus' eventually. I think mine would be similar to a lime green, and sweet with a nice kick at the end. Let me know yours?

*You would not want to drink Remus/ Fenrir's, or any other werewolves FYI. I have a headcanon of what would happen if you tried to use polyjuice potion on a werewolf, and it's similar but more gruesome than what happened to Hermione when she tried to use it on a cat. Check out my AU, Proper Life, chapter 5 for details if you're curious, it's in the very first section so you don't have to read much if you're not invested in the whole thing.

[s1cparvism4gna]

I Like You A Lot

WARNINGS: cursing and violence

Pairings: Chloe Frazer x Nadine Ross x OC

Tags: @desertvvitch, @courtenbae

Author’s Note: this chapter kinda sucks but I swear it’ll get better 😭💕

Chapter 15

Sunny’s POV

A massive armored truck with a turret drifted by our hiding spot in the tall grass. It hadn’t seen us yet. In the corner of my eye, I spotted a bit of movement. It was Nadine creeping up behind two men to take them out with her powerful kicks. I tapped Chloe on the shoulder and pointed in her direction. “Look at this idiot.” I mumbled and she sighed, shaking her head.

“She’s really stepped in it now.” She whispered. The rain was still pouring heavily and showed no signs of easing up. Wind blew, shifting the rain a little and making it harder to see. I ran my hand down my face to rid it of excess water only for me to be soaked again. It was pointless but I kept doing it. “Alright let’s move… Keep it quiet, yeah?” She asked. I nodded and followed her out of the tall grass to take cover behind a massive boulder. That’s when I saw it. Flipped upside down with the front totaled, burning in thick black smoke and licks of flame was the cherry red 4x4. My jaw dropped as I watched it burn.

“That little…..” I knocked my head against the boulder in anger, clenching my fists.

“Not getting that deposit back.” Chloe commented, jokingly.

“Yeah no shit.” I growled, flexing my nostrils as I shook my head. “And my snacks were in there… all my guns…. Fuck….”

“I’m sorry, love.” She said placing a hand on my shoulder as she looked around the corner. Two guards were pacing the area with their Type 95s. I noticed them too. “You take right, I’ll take left?” She whispered and I nodded, pulling my knife from its holster and readying it in my hand.

It was easy. They didn’t hear us coming. Chloe jumped on her guy’s back and just put him to sleep. Me on the other hand, covered my guy’s mouth and sliced his throat. “Jesus, Sunny.” Chloe marveled. I shrugged carelessly as I pulled the gun from the man bleeding out in the grass.

“I know. I’m just angry.” I said, checking my ammo clip. “We gotta take out that truck but we’re gonna need something heavier. These guns aren’t even gonna put a dent in it.”

“If you can cover me, I’ll skim through the crates and see what explosives I can find.” She said.

“Of course, sis!” I sighed. Chloe flashed a smile and we began to move accordingly.

We snuck through any open ruins, taking out men with as much stealth as possible. The fact that it was raining and thundering so hard aided in covering our sound more and nobody ever saw us coming. We found an RPG stock and a few warheads to use. We rounded up at least six heads. In our idiotic greed, we tried to shoot for eight but just as Chloe had partially broken into the next crate, the armored truck stopped right next to us. “Ah, shit—” I exclaimed, reaching out to grab my friend and pushing her down into cover as the truck released a barrage of thick bullets.

“This should be enough!” She yelled to me over the noise. I just nodded and began to screw in a warhead.

“Wait for it!” I shouted, waiting in cover for the bullets to end. The turret had to reset eventually. We kept our heads down for a few more seconds. “Wait for it….” The bullets kept going and going, just about to break through the stone barrier until suddenly it stopped. The turret had run out of bullets. I smirked and immediately sat up to take aim at the grill. “Bitch.” I mumbled before pulling the trigger to blow it up. In the fiery explosion, the truck hopped a little, bouncing on its suspension.

“Do it again!” Chloe said hurriedly, holding out another warhead.

“Gimme a minute!” I exclaimed, preparing for the next one. But it was too late. The truck had reloaded. “We gotta find cover again. They’re gonna blow a hole through here.” She nodded as I slipped the heavy RPG over my shoulder and we ran across the field, dodging bullets swiftly.

In our moment of splitting up, I climbed to the top of a ruin and took cover there. My heart was racing and my breathing was shaky. I prepared myself to take aim again and shot off another warhead at the truck. “I HOPE THAT HURT!” I heard Chloe exclaim. When I looked down, she was fighting off a handful of men. She always was a shit talker in a fight. I smirked in pride as I changed the warhead again. I looked around to see if I could see the truck again only to instead find Ms. Ross and her crazy self. Low and behold, she was holding her own, also taking on her share of men. I could see a few more coming towards both women and I figured maybe I’d help them out. I pulled my long gun and began to take aim. ‘Gonna take a bit of ammo from this distance but I think I can get ‘em….’ I thought, biting my lip as I tried to focus. I could feel the recoil as I pulled the trigger, the power behind each shot. I took each of them out then turned to help Nadine. She actually managed to fight them all off. All but one. She didn’t see before but she missed him. And he hid behind a barrier, ready to take his shot. I watched in worry as Nadine turned, startled as she stared down the barrel of this man’s handgun. Nervously, I took aim. I used so much ammo, I was almost sure I was out of bullets. But I pulled the trigger all the same and I put a hole in his head before his finger could even ghost his. His body hit the ground and Nadine turned to see where the shot had come from. When she locked eyes with mine, I shot her a smirk and a swanky salute, tossing the gun off of my post. She stared at me with a pissed off expression before making her way towards the cow statue. On the platform was a crank to turn just like the others. That pesky armored truck followed her over and began to shoot off more bullets. But it was weak. Smoke rose from the grill, sparks flying as the bits of loose metal scraped against each other when it drove along the rocky terrain. It was on its last legs.

“Nadine! Take cover!” I shouted to her and she ran to safety behind a pillar as I readied the RPG again. With that, I squeezed the trigger and watched the final warhead fly to the truck, exploding in a great fire as it collided with the weakened vehicle. And just like that, it was over. I took my grappling hook and managed to get it around a tree branch. “Chloe, to the statue!” I called before swinging across and landing in a puddle with a splash. Nadine appeared from behind the pillar, barely able to look at me as she got ready to push the crank. “Need some assistance?” I asked her. She wasn’t very reactionary. She crinkled her brows and grabbed a bar, ready to push. I sighed and grabbed the other. With a brief count off, the two of us were turning the crank. As Chloe climbed her way up the platform, the bell in front of the cow seemed to slide open on the side like a door, displaying a deep stairwell. I opened my mouth to say something to Nadine but she’d already turned on her heel to go inside and out of the rain.

“You’re welcome!” Chloe sang to her, expecting her to be thankful that we just saved her skin. I groaned and shook my head, stepping out of the way for them as I wiped the continuous streams of rain water from my eyes pointlessly. Nadine turned to look at her with an audacious expression, her face screwed up into a snarl. Chloe chewed on her lip nervously as she approached.

“You lied to my face—” Nadine attacked.

“I didn’t lie! I just left out the part about Sam….” Chloe replied in defense as she headed towards the newly opened doorway. Nadine scoffed and forced a laugh.

“Incredible—”

“Imma need y’all to stop fightin’. Okay- Asav’s got the disc and we need to hurry up n’ catch him—”

“‘We?’” Nadine looked at us incredulously, laughing preposterously. Chloe sighed, throwing her hands up and clenching her fists in frustration as she tried to find the right words. “Spit it out!” She snapped at her.

“Okay!” Chloe cracked under her pressure. “Look, I…. Cards on the table… I need your help.”

“You should’ve thought about that before—”

“And if you want the tusk, you’re going to need mine. You’re going to need Sunny’s.” Chloe said. I crossed my arms and sighed, avoiding Nadine’s gaze as she spoke. She raised her shoulders and opened her arms. “Look, I screwed up, alright?” She said, pushing her bangs out of her face. Nadine placed her hands on her hips and raised a brow.

“This is your idea of an apology?” Nadine scoffed. Chloe just shrugged.

“If it helps keep your head in the game, then sure—”

“Chloe!” I snapped, looking at her. Jesus, this woman had a hard time saying the “S” word. She looked at me in confusion as Nadine pushed by her, annoyed. I gestured to her very obviously and gave her a look. She needed to fix this thing with Nadine. With a sigh, Chloe intercepted her path towards the stairs.

“Look, we both have something to lose here, right? All of us?” Chloe tried to reason but every word that came out of her mouth was the wrong thing. I shook my head, pinching the bridge of my nose. I couldn’t even watch. Nadine stared at her a moment before speaking up.

“Just so we’re clear: My priority is the tusk. Not Sam Drake,” she said looking at me with burning eyes then back to Chloe. “And most certainly not you.” With that, she walked by her, bumping shoulders with me roughly as she pushed by to descend the stairwell. I sighed as lightning cracked across the dark and rainy skies. Much like some pig headed guy, Chloe shrugged it off and tried to wipe some of the dirt from her face.

“What the fuck was that?” I said, raising my voice at her. Chloe shook her head.

“I said sorry—”

“No. No you didn’t, Chloe- you made excuses.” I called her on it, poking her in the chest. She got quiet, placing her hands on her hips and rocking her weight back and forth. She bit her lip to keep from exploding but her attempt failed. She groaned loudly, throwing her hands in the air.

“Well, what the bloody hell do you say to a woman that amazing?” She retorted. There it was. She shook her head at a loss. “How do I patch this up? Everything that comes out is wrong. I don’t just… do this.” I chuckled to myself, amused by the mess the three of us were. Not a single one of us were perfect by any means.

“None of us do apparently. But someone told me somethin’ recently. She said, ‘There’s no point in bein’ closed off. Especially with the life we live.’” I told her looking down the stairwell after Nadine. I locked eyes with her and gave her the most serious expression. She gasped to herself, that same frightened expression Nadine had when she realized her feelings was now on her face. She searched my face for answers I didn’t have and I just blinked at her. “You need to fix it, Chlo.” With that, she gave a deep sigh.

“Alright…. I get it.” She nodded.

“Suck it up, buttercup!” I said, slapping her ass. She gave a soft chuckle and started down the stairs with me at her tail.

As we entered the dark and wet hallway, we watched Nadine pull a crank and the door on the bell slid shut behind us. Even upset, she still didn’t want us followed. What was bad for us was bad for her. As we walked down the dim hall, a bit of smoke seemed to hang in the air. Plants were wild and overgrown, covering the walls and pillars, simply thriving off of the mist in the atmosphere. We walked down several stairways and admired a number of carvings. Then suddenly, a loud explosion echoed through, stopping us in our tracks. Little bits of debris fell from the walls and ceiling as slight pressure pushed at our tired bodies. “What the hell was that?” I asked nervously.

“Exactly what it sounded like.” Nadine answered, curtly.

“Taking shortcuts, eh?” Chloe mumbled to herself in frustration as we began a light jog down the endless flights of stairs towards the light at the end of the hall.

We found ourselves standing at a wall with beautiful stone carved work. This one of the same Nandi statue outside, a line of people in single file entering the bell just as we had. It was all so surreal. We were taking the same journey as the Hoysala to Belur. Chloe flashed her light on it, marveling at it all. “Well I’ll be damned…. The kings led their people through these tunnels… We didn’t find an entrance. This is the back door.” She smirked. I could feel my head nodding as I stared at the work before me. With that, we continued down the stepwell. It was rather quiet in the tunnels. All that could be heard were the light echoes of dripping and running water, a few birds and monkeys. One noise stood out above the rest though. It sounded like a roar. The minute we heard it, we slowed down.

“And that was...?” I asked, raising a shapely brow.

“The hell if I know but it’s close.” Nadine grunted.

“Stay vigilant, ladies.” Chloe said, pushing forward. The stairs led us to a massive room, water flooding the floors and trickling from the ceiling. We heard that roar again and found the culprit in the corner of the room. An Indian Elephant laid trapped beneath a heavy broken pillar. It was in distress and if I didn’t know any better, I thought I could see some tears falling from its eyes. Immediately, the three of us turned soft. In the mixture of coos and whines, we all felt horrible about its situation. Of course we had to save it.

Quickly, we slid down a mudslide into the room and approached it carefully as it struggled against the heavy broken stones. I rounded the side towards its head as it lifted its trunk to let out another cry. “Easy, baby… easy….” I cooed, reaching out to gently pet it’s head as Chloe and Nadine climbed around its back. It let out a soft cry and it almost brought me to tears. “I know, shug. We’re gonna get you outta there.” I sighed, it’s skin rough and patchy beneath my fingers.

“She’s trapped but I don’t think she’s wounded.” Nadine said, running her hand over its back softly.

“Those explosions we heard must’ve triggered the collapse.” Chloe said, also petting the elephant.

“Those assholes….” I hum under my breath as I watched the girls sit on its back with their feet against the pillar, trying to kick it off as I comforted the poor creature. But they struggled.

“Sunny, get up here- we need some help— we’ve almost got it.” Chloe grunted. I nodded, looking at the massive animal in its eyes sadly. I climbed the platform and sat down on the elephant’s back, leaning against the wall to kick my feet up onto the pillar. “On three….” She said. She counted us off and I used all the power left in my legs to push as hard as I could, baring my teeth as I grunted. We pushed and pushed and pushed until the pillar moved and fell on its side off of the animal. Just as I was about to let off a quick sigh of relief, the elephant suddenly stood up, a trill noise erupting from its trunk. “Wait, wait—” Chloe exclaimed as we instinctively threw our legs over its spine. It began to walk down a tunnel, carrying the three of us on its back; and it looked like we were still on the right path to wherever we were going.

“We need to get down.” Nadine suddenly huffed. I scoffed and she turned around to look at me.

“Really, Nadine? We’re literally riding an elephant and your first thought is to get off of it?” I knew she was pissed but come on. This was incredible!

“This isn’t a tourist elephant, Spurrs— this is a wild animal!”

“Will you relax, Nadine?” Chloe groaned. “It doesn’t seem to bother her, does it girl?” She picked off a low hanging branch, sprouting with yellow fruits and held it out for the elephant to eat. She chewed happily and tooted from her trunk; Chloe turned to give her a bright smile but it was to no avail. Nadine gave us both a look and just sat between us sulking. Chloe frowned and looked at me. I gestured to the woman between us and made a face.

“Fuckin’ do it!” I mouthed to her and she winced, biting her lip before turning back around. I couldn’t see her face but I knew she was racking her brain for the right words to say. I sighed as I watched her pull fruit from the branch and place them in the elephant’s grasp. When there were no more fruits left, she tossed the stick aside and the three of us rode in silence. We looked up just as a family of monkeys began to crawl across the branches above us. I looked over Nadine’s shoulder and a soft smile graced her lips as she watched them play and swing about. Chloe turned to look at her, knowing she loved them. But once again, Nadine contorted her face and looked away. Chloe gave a deep sigh and slouched her narrow shoulders.

“Look, um….. I’m not very good at the whole…. people thing….” she said rather nervously, petting the elephant for comfort as she said what she needed to say. Nadine looked at her a moment, her stone cold expression never wavering.

“You’re a selfish dickhead.” She said to her plainly and abruptly. Chloe hung her head for a moment. But she nodded, completely understanding.

“Yeah…. you’re right. I am a selfish dickhead…” She agreed.

“Ja. Long as we’re both clear on that.” She said in a matter-of-fact tone. Chloe giggled a little and a smile slowly crawled onto Nadine’s face. I smirked at how easy Nadine seemed to forgive her. Matters of the heart truly conquered all. I could only hope it’d do the same for Sam and I… Anyway, I was glad they made up. I didn’t know if I could take their fighting much longer. Then Nadine turned to look at me. I cowered under her gaze as she stared into my eyes long and hard before her features softened.

“Sorry about the check to the face…” she said. The moment she referenced it, I felt a sting and an achiness spread across my cheekbone. I shook off the pain and shrugged.

“I’m sure I had it comin’.” I mumbled, shyly. I was never sure anymore. So much bullshit flew out of my mouth, it’s a miracle I haven’t ended up dead somewhere.

“Actually, you didn’t. I panicked. I do trust you. It’s Sam I don’t trust…” She bit her lip and crinkled her brows. I just nodded.

“And I absolutely understand that. You have my full permission to beat his ass if I’m bein’ honest. Especially if I don’t get to him first.” I said, looking off at the misty waterfall in the distance. Nadine let out a pleasant chuckle and I smiled. “I don’t betray my friends, Nadine.”

“Oh, is that what we are now?” She asked with a bit of sarcasm. I giggled and punched her arm playfully.

“Lil’ shit…” I grinned. It seemed things were better between us now. And I could only hope they’d stay that way.

“So you’re an asshole, I’m a little shit, and Chloe’s a dickhead.” Nadine gathered.

“Nice!” Chloe chuckled, pulling her little trinket from her pocket to play with it between her roughed up fingers. “Hear that, dad? Guess I got something from you after all…” she mumbled. I could hear the sadness in her voice. We sat in silence before I finally spoke.

“What happened to your pops, Chloe?” I asked rather innocently, my eyes never leaving her dirt covered, sweaty back. She took a deep sigh and looked up at the scenery passing us by slowly. I always knew it was hard for her to talk about things that weren’t about work or fun. It was just how she operated. But I could understand. It was easier than talking about the things that really hurt; the things that really mattered, the struggles that make us who we are.

“He um….. He was the guy that just couldn’t walk away…” she began. “The Ministry of Culture promised to fund one more of his expeditions. Because this time, he was onto something big.” She scoffed and shook her head a little. “He was always into something big… But, um…. bandits raided his camp… Local authorities found his body two weeks later…. And this stupid thing is all I have left of him.” She said, showing us the little gold piece with a carving of Ganesh on it. My brows raised, crinkling a little as my heart broke for her. I wished she hadn’t lost her father like that.

“I’m sorry…” Nadine sighed. Chloe looked over her shoulder at us with a small smile.

“It’s fine…. He certainly made his choice…” she said, waving it off. The moment she locked eyes with Nadine, I could see hers light up. She looked helpless. I could see her mouth trying to find the right words to address it. “So… I—” Suddenly, just as she began to talk, the animal we rode on growled and let off a strong trill. I’d almost forgotten we were on an elephant for the moment. It kicked up on its hind legs a little, almost causing me to slide off. I wrapped my arms around Nadine’s waist as she grabbed Chloe’s in surprise and it began to charge forward.

“What the fuck, guys?!” I sang, not exactly sure what was about to happen next.

“Tell it to stop!” Nadine exclaimed.

“‘Cause I speak elephant!” Chloe replied sarcastically. Before we could even figure out a plan, the elephant jumped off of a short cliff, cherry bombing into a small body of cool blue waters. I squealed as I fell in, tumbling about the pressure of the ripples, watching the elephant swim away underwater, bubbles dancing about us all as we swam back up to the top. As soon as my face broke the surface, I began gasping for air, the three of us laughing as I pushed my wet curls off of my forehead. We began to swim to shore, only to find a family of elephants. The one that took us on our journey practically ran to be with them.

“Oh no wonder she was so worried to get back! They’ve got a calf with them.” Nadine said, nodding towards the smaller creature as she wiped the excess water from her arms. I watched the momma elephant caress her babies head with her trunk as I wrung out my shirt and cooed.

“Lookit…” I marveled, staring at the sight before me.

“So cute…” Chloe sighed. I watched her turn to Nadine to give a solemn expression. “Look….about the Sam thing—”

“I’ve got my own shit to sort out as well.” Nadine interrupted, waving her off. “Let’s not have that stand in the way anymore, hey? I forgive you. For now.” She smirked. I grinned and opened my arms to the two of them.

“Group hug?” I asked.

“Too much.” Nadine replied immediately and I began to pout, Chloe chuckling as she patted me on the back.

“Next time, China.” She laughed.

We admired them for a little while, each of us taking pictures with the elephants. This was going to be one of those things I’d remember. After trying to drag out the moment as long as we could, we started walking on our path again. Once more, we found ourselves walking up another flight of stairs. I was tired of stairs now. Over them completely. My thighs were beginning to burn and my calves were sore, my feet were beginning to hurt and my back and shoulders were killing me; mosquitoes hadn’t been kind to us this trip and small cuts on my face began to sting from sweat and god knows what else getting into them. To top it all off, I was starving. From the number of supply boxes that began to pop up from time to time, I could tell I was going to have to gear myself up for a fight. And that was all well and good, but really; how was I supposed to kick ass on an empty stomach?

“You think Asav’s guys keep first aid and snacks in their lil’ boxes?” I asked. These were the real questions.

“I thought we had sna— oh… sorry, China.” Nadine piped up, suddenly remembering that she kind of destroyed the car with the snacks inside.

“I’m still….. very upset about that by the way.”

“I’ll buy us all a big pizza after this. Sound good?” Chloe asked as the lid on the box she was picking popped open with a loud click.

“Sounds excellent.” I groaned as the three of us stood over the box, looking around inside. There wasn’t much but a few boxes and clips of ammo, a spare Arrowhead A3c, a Type 95, and a couple of C-4.

“Well, we might be in for a fight. Load up if you need to.” Nadine said, reaching for the 95, letting the weight settle in her small, bruised hands. I sighed and nodded, picking up the Arrowhead.

“I reckon this’ll all be over soon, yeah? I mean in a couple of hours we’ll save Sam, beat Asav— get the disc back, find the Tusk, get outta here n’ get paid, right?” I asked, cocking the gun and admiring the sleekness of it.

“That’s a rather optimistic way of looking at things, love.” Chloe cooed, pinching my cheek lightly.

“Not likely to be that easy.” Nadine said, curtly. I rolled my eyes and made a face. There was no room for The Bright Side with her. She obviously just couldn’t help but to be so brusque. But it wasn’t completely her fault. I figured it had to do with her militant upbringing.

“Way to boost morale, Ross.” I smiled with sarcasm, patting her on the bicep with a wink. With that, we started our way through the ruins again, ready to take on anything that would stand in the way between us and this Tusk.

Read more on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26555698/chapters/64735600

[hxpefulmuses]

[A little something I wrote based on a few inbox interactions between my partner @despairfound and myself. I'll go back and edit any name mistakes later. I just like writing their names this way for simplicity sake. Now enjoy a very ooc interaction done purely for self indulgence purposes of Izuru x Servant. I've got other drabbles I'm working on for Komahina and Saiouma]

The sound of a door creaking open was enough to draw the male sitting with his back to the wall out of his thoughts. He only heaved a small sigh when he saw the shadow cast on the ground of whom had come to pay him a visit.

"Kamukura!" The way her voice interrupted the silence made him turn his body in the direction someone had been speaking.

"Mn?" That was all the response that she really deserved.

"I have something for you." She approached him with her arms behind her back obviously holding something in them. Whenever Junko had anything for him he wasn't sure if he could necessarily count it as anything enjoyable, or entertaining for that matter.

"What is it?" Izuru heard the sound of his own voice, but he was never sure if he was only telegraphing or replying to his own thoughts; they were such a jumble at times. He would probably regret replying to Junko as it was.

"A surprise! It's Halloween after all." The blond with pink highlights in her long pigtails was in a "good" mood, and when Junko was in a "good" mood that meant that he or her servant had to put up with her antics.

Before Izuru got much of a chance to question anything the despair pulled out a pair of cat ears, and a tail, both black in color and presented them as if they were the most generous offering anyone had ever made before.

"What are these?" Crimson optics eyed what the fashionista had pulled from behind her back.

He didn't have to wait too long for an explanation as Junko was only too pleased to volunteer the details on her own.

"You're going to keep a certain someone company for me. How about it?" Junko placed a pout on her pink lips before giving a halfhearted wave of her hand.

Usually, Izuru would have shrugged her off or just listened as she went on about her ideas to bring despair to the world-- one of which she had succeeded in, yet for now he was interested. "Who?" He asked while only so slightly moving his head to the left. The dark curtain of hair seemed to move along with even such a small movement.

"That's a surprise for both of you." She told him in a sing song voice while moving forward to attempt to slide the ears on him. He dodged her attempts even throwing out a hand a few times, but in her perseverance she had managed to get behind him and place the ears on his head.

Izuru wanted this to be over and done with as soon as possible, and it was a break from doing nothing so he just decided to comply. Junko could be tolerable in doses after all. "Tolerable".

The pigtailed despair bounced with joy before placing on her cutesy persona. "Oh, I just knew you would go along with it!" She moved to fasten a tail to the back of his suit before taking his hand, this time a more mature voice and persona in play. "We wouldn't want to keep the puppy waiting, now would we? It's such a lonesome Halloween so far for him." As if she actually cared whether it was or not; much of this was for her own enjoyment too.

Izuru didn't answer that, and only chose to follow Junko towards a room down the hall. She opened the door and he spied a shock of white with shading of pink. The eyes belonging to the servant were currently occupied with the pages of a book.

"Nagi! Happy Halloween!" The despair called out as if she was just calling out to someone else on the playground. "I brought you a playmate!" A hand pushed into the long haired male's lower back urging him forward. Izuru just simply complied stepping into the room.

At the interruption to the silence the servant who had been enjoying a temporary escape frowned at the voice lilting in the air. Nagito knew that Junko only brought the silent and indifferent Kamukura by as way of keeping him complacent-- and probably her own twisted amusement in some ways as well. He supposed that was what he got in return for his unpredictable cycles of luck. Junko didn't necessarily fear him, but she was definitely wary of him all the same as if she calculated several ways things could go wrong with his very existence and planned ahead.

"Enoshima," Nagito was wearing his usual cordial smile while putting his book off to the side. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" His last word was hinted with irritation laced within it. Did she say Happy Halloween wondered to himself.

"I already said I brought you a playmate. For Halloween!" Junko said with her arms cross over her chest. Her baby blues landed on the suit clad male, and Nagito who was always watching Junko's each and every move took the sight of him in.

"You bring someone like this to worthless scum like me?" He was so temperamental. His moods could switch on and on off just like they had been shifted into the on or off positions. "I guess Halloween isn't a total bust after all." He said giving a series of giggling that earned a shift in his breathing getting hitched slightly. To say he was pleased to see the dark-haired male was an understatement.

Once he managed to steady his breathing he took note of the cat ears and the tail trailing behind Kamukura. Both of which didn't seem to bother him in the least as he was wearing his usual mask of indifference.

Izuru walked forward, but not before moving out of the way of Junko getting ready to touch him again. He made his way over to the servant, and sat down with his back firm against the wall.

"Have fun you two." Junko had merely wanted to drop Kamukura off while attending to plans she had in mind. She couldn't very well have Mr. Wildcard getting in the way either. This left her shutting the heavy steel door behind her, and enabled Nagito to finally speak to the figure radiating hope and talent next to him. Besides, it was a good idea to keep both of them on their toes. It would be so much easier to throw despair at them when they least expected it.

"The look is surprisingly becoming on you, Kamukura." Nagito said with a wry chuckle before reaching out and running his fingers over the soft material of one of the feline appearing ears. "I really am lucky to be gifted with this..." He trailed off as the dark haired male wasn't so much as reactionary.

"Can you tell me why you would go along with such a thing?" He found himself asking as he removed his fingers from the cosplay ears, and slid down the wall, but not before edging closer to Kamukura.

"Sometimes it is easier to just go along with her whims all in the name of evading boredom." Izuru explained while moving a hand to lay atop his knee.

What he wasn't saying was the conflicted impressions that came into his mind whenever he was able to spend time with the snowy haired male. How he didn't mind his company.

Nagito's eyes lit up with an interest in them. He might as well enjoy the time he could get with the mysterious Kamukura. "You could easily best her in anything, but I guess I could understand." He made the last remark while bringing a finger to his chin in contemplation.

Izuru interrupted his thoughts leaving a surprised expression on the pale-haired male's face as the long-haired male spoke. "That is an interesting opinion considering you yourself could easily think several steps ahead of Enoshima." Before he was finished he spoke once more in a softer, yet still monotone voice. "I don't mind going along with her antics if they include you." After all the servant wasn't boring, no in more ways than one he was unpredictable. A small semblance of interest to Izuru.

"You give me and my lucky guesswork way too much credit." Nagito tells the hopeful with a smile on his features. He reaches up to a dark faux furred ear tracing his fingers along it between two fingers once more. "Ah! I get it you really do enjoy my presence after all." He chuckled. "I feel flattered!"

"I would say that your lucky guesswork has more credit to it than you would think." Izuru explained while trying to regain composure and indifference once more.

"More simply put, I tolerate you." Izuru said as once more he had been proved correct in that the servant wasn't easy to read. He hadn't expected the touch yet again.

"I see," Nagito's eyes took on a swirling of black in the grey green before twisting into despair. "So you simply tolerate me. That's fine!" Everyone else did as well. He said with a laugh. "They do suit you though." If Izuru's words had stung than it didn't show.

"Yes, I tolerate you." Izuru reiterated before his face fell from the total stoic mask, eyes gazing downward as if searching for a way to word what he meant. "Perhaps, it is a different sort of tolerate where you are concerned." Emotions could be complex for one who had been designed with the sole purpose of thinking in many ways and talents. "You are skilled in more than just luck." He tried saying once more.

Instead of trying to explain himself or his jumbled thoughts once more, he just moved in closer to the servant while his fingers found the metal links of his chain, and began idly playing with it. While he was doing that he reached up to the crown of his head and removed the velvety black cat ears. Without much deliberation on his actions he moved to place them on the other males crown of white tresses.

The corners of Nagito's lips turned up as he simply moved in closer towards Kamukura. He had a feeling that the one they called Izuru Kamukura was actually kinder and held a bigger heart than all of the indifference let on. Yet, appearances were often deceiving. "A different sort of tolerance? I can take that as an answer." He said before noticing that the cat ears had been switched ownership to his own head.

"Those suit you much better, I think, but I'll wear them if that is what you want." His own fingers moved to ghost across the wrist of the hand holding the chain.

"Then I will wear them." Izuru promptly switched ownership of the ears once more, but at the compliment he leaned in and licked the Servant's cheek before giving a monotoned "Meow. Happy Halloween." It hadn't been entirely boring after all. Though he would never admit that. He still didn't understand a lot of the excitement about the holiday however.

Nagito actually blushed at the sudden lick to his cheek. “Ahah, Happy Halloween. I’ll make some treats just for you once the kids are all in bed,” he reached up to playfully scratch behind Kamukura’s ear.

[meta-squash]

Lipstick Traces Review/Thoughts

(I wrote this 2 years ago but didn’t have a tumblr to post it to at the time)

So I’ve just finished reading Lipstick Traces by Greil Marcus. And it’s fucking long with so much information and I’ve been having a lot of thoughts. Some just about little specific things mentioned in the book, and some more about the themes of the book written in the 80s compared to our current epoch of technology and politics and art and culture industry etc.

I mean, a lot of the stuff in the book/the thoughts the book gave me are things I’ve rambled about before on tumblr. But I guess it’s stuff that’s still in my head, that still bothers me, that I still have no solution for, or that I can find cracks in my arguments for solutions.

Mostly what I took away from this book was a giant feeling of conflict and ambivalence and uncertainty. It is, ultimately, a book of regret. It’s a book that explores these artists and movements and ideas and people that made a series of tiny but huge impacts to art and creation, who could have made a huge revolutionary change, but whose small revolutions were lost to time. It is a book about anger or frustration that incites a change, an avant garde, and how that anger fizzles out or is smothered and forgotten. It is a book about the cycles of history and how the new, the angry, the ones pushing back, are always eventually suppressed. In a 1994 quote Richey said, essentially, that you only really get remembered if you’re an Einstein or a Newton– a person who creates or discovers something that is such a massive revolutionary change that it affects the way the world is perceived and how it is believed to function. This book talks about those who aren’t Newtons and Einsteins. Those artists that made little waves that changed a few but didn’t change enough.

And it’s simultaneously fascinating and exciting and depressing, reading and thinking about this. That this book is a book of regret written in the 1980s, and 35 years later things have only gotten more extreme, and the regret can only feel heavier. The anger is still there, too, but it was more potent in the 80s and 90s, it had more potential. Now the anger is becoming impotent, or trapped. Either the meek inherited the earth and forgot what it was like to be meek, or the ones who inherited the earth were strongmen wearing the masks of the meek and the ambition of the avant garde.

Honestly, the biggest takeaway I got from this book is how drastically things have changed. How the way the book compares the Dadaists to the original punks is a fairly close, similar type of comparison, with similar movements, ideas, ideals, messages, and actions. And how the comparison to both of those with any sort of movement that might happen in the next decade or so will be massively, drastically different because of how much culture has changed, media has changed, access and accessibility has changed, government, education, class awareness, and on and on. How, honestly, I’m not sure if there could be another movement like the dadaists and like the punk scene, because to be reactionary and avant garde and revolutionary is something very different these days.

Already Greil Marcus discusses speed and the culture industry. Which makes sense, since his primary theoretical sources are Guy Debord and Theodor Adorno. But it’s fascinating to see these theories–both written and published in the 40s and 60s–being used to critique and analyse culture and art back then, much closer to the texts’ inception. Those theories were new-ish in terms of being put into words back then. The idea of the prison of capitalism, the labor that turns the proletariat into machines and then sells them back to themselves, the speed and change of media, the homogenous nature of entertainment and pop culture. All of that was relatively new, at least in terms of being stated outright.

And people were frustrated! People have always been frustrated! The Dadaists were frustrated by the war they didn’t want to participate in, and then in the monotony of the post-war expectations that everything go back to normal, when nothing was normal. They were frustrated by the Modernists, by the Expressionists, by art becoming something that gave you Status rather than something that you just did because you had the urge. Punks were frustrated with the economic and social malaise, the labor issues, the failed ideals of the hippies, art and music stagnating, the lack of platforms for them to express themselves. But they were able to use art to express that anger, that frustration, that feeling of nihilism or of glee at meaninglessness, that feeling of “fuck it, we have nothing so let’s do what we want.” Both generations did it in different styles, but both threw convention out the window, focused on what was taboo, what was weird, what was scandalous, what they wanted to say but society didn’t want them saying.

What’s interesting about the book is that it expresses admiration for this, for the daring and avant garde and original and clever and badass nature of both Dada and Punk ideals/styles/philosophies/actions/etc. But it also expresses regret. Regret that it only lasted so long. That it didn’t leave any major effect on art or politics or life or society (that is, aside from what capitalism stole or what minor underground movements admired or were inspired by). That it was stolen by capitalism. That it inevitably fell apart as time moved forward.

But for those glorious few years….

And what it made me think of, which (like I said) Marcus talks about quite a bit, is the effect that the culture industry and the speed of culture/media/news had on both movements. For the Dadaists, it was more about the speed of the news and also just blindly making, with no knowledge of a goal or ultimate desire, that resulted in the group eventually separating into other factions and the movement petering out into other artistic ideas and styles. The Dadaists were reacting to the war, to the newness of certain parts of culture, to the personal conflicts between artists. The punk movement was more affected by the ever-increasing speed of culture and media as well as news. Things were moving faster. Styles and ideas were coming into fashion and then becoming old hat more quickly. Punk started out as avant-garde, as a refusal to conform, as an excuse and/or reason to speak out and act out and express oneself. Especially in communities that weren’t being heard. It started out as a way for individuals to force society to acknowledge them. And then capitalism and the culture industry got their hands on it and began to use it as a marketing ploy, as fashion, selling punk back to the masses it was intended to belong to.

It’s pretty obvious that the world has sped up immensely since the 1970s– media, news, and culture industry included. Things that are new on Monday are old by Friday. Memes that are hilarious and circulate social media for weeks are dead by the time companies try to capitalize on them (see: Zumiez etc making Grumpy Cat shirts etc). Music or films that are popular fall out of popularity in just a few weeks, unless they’re vapid pieces of media or unless the creators/artists continue to hype themselves over and over again in different ways. It is impossible to create focused critical art because there is always so much going on in the news and in world politics or social issues; everything is so intertwined it’s impossible to pick out certain things to criticize. Artists and art movements and things of meaning and import fall by the wayside. It’s hard for me to imagine an avant garde or artistic movement within a community growing in popularity and staying strong for long enough to really make an impact or a difference. And the speed of the news is insane now. Things are only big news for a few days before vanishing under the avalanche of new stories and new events. Things stay big news within the communities that care about them (ie Black Lives Matter, Flint MI, Grenfell, DAPL, etc) but not within the eye of the media. News changes as fast as a feed can refresh.

I also have the feeling that art doesn’t have as much power. Subliminal marketing power, sure. But the last few art pieces I remember hearing even random people talking about were Shepard Fairey’s 2008 portraits for the Obama campaign, Ai Weiwei’s Han dynasty vase smash (which was from 1995 but came back into the spotlight in the mid-2000s for some reason) and Yayoi Kusama’s infinity mirrored room. It’s hard now, with the constant barrage of information and images and sounds, to figure out what is important and impactful art, and what is rubbish (or advertisement). It’s also hard to figure out what to focus on when making critical art: what moments or events in politics and current events will be remembered long enough to be used in critique; what will people remember and be affected by? Maybe hindsight is 20/20 tunnel vision or the gaze towards the past is tinged with roses, but it seems as though art had a larger significance. Barbara Kruger, for example. The Sex Pistols, The Guerilla Girls, Robert Mapplethorpe, Keith Haring, Annie Liebowitz, and (obviously) Jenny Holzer. All used their art to critique various current events, social/political/global issues. They had an effect on viewers in their time as well as after it. It seems as though, now, there’s no during-and-after. There is only during (like Shepard Fairey’s portraits).

A big reason for that, I think, is because of the disintegration of Dadaism and Situationism due to speed and capitalism. Basically, Situationism was created to force those going about their daily lives to stop for a second and think about their situation, to make a moment of “real living,” to jolt people out of the stupor of the daily grind and make them remember. Remember they’re alive, remember they shouldn’t be living a life of a drone, remember they’re consuming things they’re being told to instead of doing what they want to. And those moments were created through graffiti, through the detournement of taking normal comic strips and rewriting dialogues to critique the world, through the music and fashion of punk, which shouted out the flaws in society without caring that it was supposed to be kept hush-hush, through visual art that confronted the viewer with critiques (like Barbara Kruger or Jenny Holzer), etc etc. But now, do something like that and you’re called “edgy” and mocked. Why? Probably because of the likes of Banksy. I say this because Banksy often creates graffiti pieces that probably should or would have meaning, or should or would make you stop and think. Except that they’re pieces by Banksy, famous for being edgy, whose pieces are worth thousands or millions of dollars. Who rarely actually has a statement, except money-making. How many of us howled with laughter when he made that nightmare-Disneyland piece? Because it was edgy and unoriginal. Because we already know we’re living in a slowly growing dystopia, and being told that by a guy who benefits from said dystopia and gets so much money from criticizing it is bullshit.

It’s also because it feels like there’s nothing new under the sun. Now, Greil Marcus kind of talks about this. The punk movement expressed this too. The nihilism that nothing is new, that everything has already been said. But it did so gleefully, embracing the nihilism in order to laugh at it and point it out and roll in that glee. There is nothing new to be said, they thought, but there are new ways to say it. Because we’ve been saying things for centuries but nothing has changed, except the way it gets said. The problem now, in the 21st century, is that nothing new under the sun is now nothing new under the sun and that can no longer be used as a statement. “It’s all already been done, just say it in a new way” is no longer good enough. Ideas have to come out of a vacuum— except if they come out of a vacuum, they’re either never noticed or they’re appropriated by the media and capitalism.

Basic Adorno, basic culture industry theory. But Adorno would have a fucking aneurysm if he could see how his theory holds up in the 21st century compared to 1944. And honestly, that is a terrifying sentence to type. That Adorno and Horkheimer published Enlightenment as Mass Deception in 1944, that they were noticing this in the 1940s. And every point in their essay has only increased exponentially since then.

Greil Marcus hints at the whole “punk is dead” thing throughout the book without actually saying those words. I don’t think the phrase really existed as a buzzword type thing when the book was published. But I think the points and ideas expressed in Lipstick Traces kind of say what my thoughts have always been on that idea. Punk is dead, and punk is also not dead. Punk is dead; its looks and sound were stolen by the media and by capitalism and sold to the masses, sold back to the kids who created and popularized it. Punk was the sound and creativity and style of the kids who had nothing and wanted to be everything, so they made it all themselves. They created their own style and said what they wanted to say. High fashion stole it, television stole it, department stores stole it, ad agencies stole it, and sold it back. “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” Punk is dead, as an original movement, as an original fashion. But! But, punk thought is not. Punk as an ideal, as a philosophy, as thought, is very much alive. Punk, as the idea that you make your own, that you use your own creativity and express yourself the way you want to. That it’s passion and not necessarily talent that matters. That wearing what you want, saying what you want, confronting the issues that need confronting, being whoever you are so long as you’re not hurting or fucking over an innocent person, that’s still very much alive. The original punk fashion has been stolen. But punk fashion still exists, in people that make their own clothes or wear strange things even though they get stared at. Punk in art still exists, in people that make their art for themselves, or who make art with friends despite knowing they might go nowhere, just because they have the passion. Punk music is the same. The ideals and thought is still thrumming and alive. Its parent has been consumed by consumerism, devoured by capitalism and marketing and fashion. But the orphaned offspring is still hiding and alive.

And yet there’s another ‘but.’ The depressing one. Which is that it feels as though punk, in the early, original days, gave the youth a label, an identity. This goes for plenty  of other youth movements as well, and art movements, etc etc. But these days it seems a community identity hardly exists. And it’s hard to push a movement, create a feeling of community or solidarity, without some sort of shared identity. Perhaps the label of “Millenials” and “Gen Z” are the closest we’ve come so far. But those are so broad, and so often used in a derogatory fashion (although, I suppose, so were “punk” and “mod” and “hippie” and “teddy boy” etc etc).

And I also think that everything is so fast now, and moments are so fleeting, events are so quick to be forgotten, that it is hard to impress an idea or affect change or put an artistic statement or movement out there for long enough to make a true impact. I would say that maybe a large amount of the generation(s) banding together to make a statement would do something, would make that change. But Black Lives Matter was made up mostly of Millenials, young people, people under the age of 35. And yet it slowly petered away into almost nothingness with no changes.

But the kids of the next generation, Gen Z, do give me hope. Like that other person’s post going around says, they’re pissed, they were raised on a steady diet of dystopian literature with strong main characters, they’re highly aware of the state of politics and the job market and the economy, they’ve seen how fucked Millenials are and they know it’s not going to get much better for a while. And maybe they’re the next ones, the next to say “fuck it, we have nothing and we are nothing, let’s do whatever we want because we haven’t got anything to lose”. And maybe the millenials will join.

That’s what I hope. That’s what Greil Marcus’ book seems to be trying to say. That these sorts of movements don’t always have massive, lasting effects in the grand scheme of the world and society. But they leave cracks, and fragments, and shrapnel, and artefacts, for the next generation or the next movement to find and use. That dadaism might have faded away and punk might be dead but the dadaist yell is still echoing and punk thought is still very much alive. And it’s up to us to hear it, to use it, to find the crack in the culture industry and capitalism and society and somehow find the next avant garde, the ideas and movement that will stick and create an identity for unfettered expression, if only for a little while. That “the moment of real poetry brings all the unsettled debts of history back into play,” and it is up to us to figure out what we have to do or say to ignite all of that history and to wield its power. And how we can make our own history or try and settle the debts of the past.

(And yet…. And yet…. And yet I can’t help but doubt that the speed of the world will allow this to happen. And yet I want to believe that something can be done to create critical work that sticks. And yet how do you make critical work without it being eaten up by the culture industry and disappeared into homogeneity. And yet we have technology and creative mediums now that we didn’t in 1977. And yet punk is dead. And yet punk thought is not. And yet, and yet.)

[tanadrin]

Reordberend

(part 15 of ?; start; previous; next)

“What do you believe in?”

Leofe had asked the question in a friendly enough way, a few days later when they were sitting together for the midday meal. Now even at noon the sky was no more than twilight, a heartwrenchingly clear gradient of color from dark to light in the direction of the hidden sun, the far side studded with stars. The Antarctic air was impossibly clear, a continent-sized whorl of dry winds cut off from the rest of the world by the circumpolar current. Katherine simply could not get used to it.

What had they been talking about? The sky, the weather, hopes for tomorrow. And Katherine had mentioned her family, how far from home she was. Somehow that had segued into faith. She still wasn’t sure what, exactly, the Dry Valleys People believed in. Then Leofe had asked her the question, and she found herself getting defensive. She remembered her parents, her teachers, the people who pressed her on what she really believed as an adolescent. She remembered the alienation she felt when she realized she wasn’t the same as the people she grew up with. That her desire to grow beyond the confines of the world as they had presented it to them meant that she would have to go. And in the going there would be no returning.

“It’s complicated,” was all she said at the time. But the question nagged at her. She didn’t know if she could have answered it in English, let alone in the tongue of the Valleys. But there was an answer. A hard, bright answer she felt within her, warming her during the cold and starry nights.

What did the people of the Valleys believe in? Well, that was a tough one. When she had first found the gospel-book she thought she knew. A peculiar people, setting out for desolate shores, carrying religious artifacts and ancient tongues with them--traditionalists, of a kind. After all, wasn’t that what her people had been? Secessionists, as politely called them back in civilization. Those who decided that the great ecumenical riot of culture and technology and fashion and whatnot wasn’t for them. There were lots of different kinds of secessionists, not just traditionalists. New religious movements, utopians of all stripes, ultra-individualists and ultra-collectivists, artists with ideas that couldn’t be realized safely or legally in any existing top-level jurisdiction, trillionaires who thought the law shouldn’t apply to them. The pattern was familiar: you found a big pile of money somewhere, either from your followers or from a rich patron, you bought some land, you renounced your basic and you got almost unlimited sovereignty over it in return.

But that still left some questions. Like the age of the Valleys settlements, for one. If the local chronology was correct, they were almost a hundred and fifty years old, older than any other settlement in Antarctica. That meant they weren’t technically secessionists, because there was nothing here to secede from a century and a half ago. A century and a half ago, the Antarctic coast had been even colder and the ice-free portion of the Valleys even smaller. The timeline made sense in other ways--that was after the abrogation of the Antarctic Treaties, when most of the countries that used to fund scientific outposts along the coasts had pulled back in the wake of the Collapse. Before the big multinationals moved into the Peninsula a generation later. You could’ve gotten a couple hundred people to the Dry Valleys unnoticed, maybe.

When she could, Katherine tried to get a better look at their books again. Their script presented difficulties for her. On more than one occasion, she found herself muttering irritably at an imagined picture of Dr. Wright. He could have warned her, of course; he could have said, “the Dry Valleys People speak Anglo-Saxon English; here’s a list of books to take with you.” She still would have lost them in the shipwreck, but maybe she would have remembered enough from them to get started. Heck, maybe some enterprising nerd had created a module for the language. Unlikely--a good module took a shitload of funding and years of work--but not impossible.

She had asked Dr. Gordon about John, after the meeting at the conference. If this guy was so famous, how come she’d never heard of him? Dr. Gordon had sighed, sighed in the way that usually indicated byzantine university politics, but eventually she’d given up the story.

“This was all well before my time, you have to understand,” she said. “I’m getting this secondhand and thirdhand from people who were around then, and some of this is basically School of Humanities mythology at this point. But the way I understand it, Dr. Wright was the last holdout of the old English department.

“Two hundred years ago, the School of English was one of the jewels in the crown of this university. A hundred and fifty years ago, it was still doing pretty well for itself, but, well, as much as we hate to admit it to ourselves, academia is subject to trends and fashions just like the rest of the world. And despite trying to keep up with the times, most of the things they studied were hopelessly outdated. Even back then, nobody took nonsense like postmodernism or critical theory seriously anymore. A lot of the the really interesting work was starting to get usurped by departments with more rigorous methods. The Digital Humanities school was just taking off, and there was lots of interesting work going on on the other side of campus with 20th century novelists and AI, but the English faculty stuck to its old methods. Close reading, wading through dense tomes of theory, writing long analytical essays. Things that, for very good reason, we don’t make students do anymore. The university naturally had an aversion to producing graduates who were unemployable as anything other than English professors; it felt that was unfair to its students. But the more they tried to pressure the English department to update its methods, the more recalcitrant the faculty became.

“By the time Dr. Wright was approaching retirement age, they were back to teaching dead languages. You couldn’t understand the whole history of English literature, they argued, without a grounding in foundational stuff. And that foundational stuff, that ancient British literature, well, you couldn’t understand that without the context of, oh, I don’t know, whatever the Vikings spoke I suppose. Dr. Wright was by all accounts an extremely smart person. He’d done some groundbreaking work in Austronesian and South American languages as a younger man, a real giant in his field. But eventually, for reasons nobody quite understood, he’d pivoted away from the frontiers of his field--not a big field to begin with, mind you--and retreated to ground as well trodden as, well, basic arithmetic. He moved to the English department and was teaching students thousand-year-old poetry. He said it was a natural extension of his earlier work, and the university itself was happy enough to keep someone with his stature on its faculty, but to be honest most people saw him as nothing more than a useless eccentric. Rather like the whole department.

“Well, eventually the decision was made to axe their funding. There were maybe four undergraduates left to the whole department, so this wasn’t exactly a wrench, but Dr. Wright proved a sticking point. He had tenure--it’s a system that doesn’t exist anymore, but it made him basically unfireable. He had no students, and no scheduled classes, and no funding, and no departmental library anymore, but he had a right to an office, and, well. He wouldn’t go. He came in every day just the same. And twice a week, he would find an empty lecture hall, and, he’d just… lecture to anybody who showed up. And a few people did. Some were genuinely curious. Some thought it had novelty value. I guess some were lost freshers. But he kept on that way for two or three years. It annoyed the hell out of the administration. It annoyed them so much they delayed an update to the rules on retirement for six months, just so Dr. Wright hit the mandatory retirement age and got booted out. The next semester, they abolished fixed retirrment ages altogether. Of course, they didn’t offer him his job back. The official story was that he was a beloved senior member of the faculty, and he kept his dining privileges and still got invited to all the university functions where they trot out the honored former members of staff. But after that he basically disappeared. No one has seen him on campus--or anywhere in Dublin, for that matter--since.”

So at first Katherine wondered if this wasn’t Dr. Wright’s cruel joke, a way to get back at the people who pissed him off all those years ago. Let’s send the grad student out into the wastelands without any linguistic advantage. But the longer she thought about it, the more she wondered if she wasn’t being unfair.

Because what would she have said, if Dr. Wright had come up to her at that conference and said, “Oh, I hear you’re going to visit Antarctica. Here’s a book on Old English, and a copy of the Gospels, you’ll need both.” Would she have come here if she thought these were just secessionists with a penchant for historical reenactment? Probably not.

And the fact of the matter was, they weren’t secessionists. Well, not secessionists like Katherine had ever read about. The thing about being a secessionist, whether reactionary or utopian, was that no matter how much you pretended you were doing something Different, no matter how much you tried to Cut Yourself Off from the rest of the world, everything you did, everything you professed, everything you built, existed as a counterargument to that world. The rest of the world was a great shadow hanging over your whole existence, an argument which you were trying to refute. No secessionist movement on record had lasted in its original form more than two generations, because either you eventually got tired of making that argument, an argument your children would never understand for lack of context, and you inevitably rejoined the world (though perhaps with a higher-than-average local incidence of fringe political beliefs), or the whole thing fell apart in dramatic fashion due to infighting, and somebody appealed for the special status of the enclave to be revoked.

Neither had happened here. The culture of the Valleys appeared to be stable. They were more like an ancient uncontacted people, uncurious about the outside world and existing on their own terms, than those who scrupulously attempted to refute it. They spoke a dead language, but on closer examination, there the resemblance to historical reenactors ceased. The climate was wrong--they lived more like a circumpolar people, because, well, they were. But Katherine noticed they weren’t dogmatic about their refusal of technology. They relied on genegineered bryoculture--the mosses thrived in the summertime, provided you supplemented them with a little water, and kept them from freezing. They hoarded small pieces of technology they scavenged from the wastes, laser firestarters and sonic knife sharpeners, and they used these to augment their own cottage industry.

But they were sharply conservative in other ways. They did not trade. They did not explore, beyond their own well-trodden region of Victoria Land. Their society was full of symbolism and ritual and verbal formulas, their conversations looping back and forth in ways that made Katherine suspect every one had occurred a thousand times, and was expected to occur a thousand times again. They were, in short, static. Stasis was, Katherine believed, the ultimate illusion for any society. Nothing lasts forever; eventually, you change or you die. Perhaps the Dry Valleys People knew this. Perhaps, if the world tried to force them to change, they would simply die. The idea made Katherine rather sick, but it would not be the first time in history that that had happened.

* * *

And what did they believe in, when you tried to peel all this back, and expose their heart? Leofe was cagey when Katherine asked her. Leofric was laconic enough to make his sister look positively effusive by contrast. The question died on her lips when she tried to ask some of the older men and women; they responded to the question as a mountain might answer a soft breeze. Which is to say they ignored her completely. They carried with them the tokens of a lost Christianity, but these didn’t seem to be related to their core beliefs. On the very rare occasions when they waxed metaphysical, Katherine heard them speak of the garsecg, the spear-sea, the fearsome cold ocean that girdled their world. Yet on their lips the word had deep resonances “ocean” never did; it was for them the road of death, beyond which all their foremothers and forefathers dwelt; and it was the road of their beginning, over which they had come for their deliverance. And it was the outer darkness, the darkness of the sky and the long Antarctic night, and the blackness behind the stars; and the dreamless sleep.

And even more rarely, in voices so quiet Katherine could not be sure of what they said, they spoke of dragons, the dragons that lived high on the ice, whose voice was thunder and in whose belly lived a terrible fire.

[landofquartzandmelody]

ok i finished hiveswap act 1 lmao. i actually liked most of it a lot i think? and there’s a lot to talk about and there’s also a few things which were like.. Incredibly annoying. my overall impression was good tho! i’m going to dump my thoughts under a readmore though so no one accidentally gets spoiled

obvious warning for that !!

the setting is actually incredibly detailed and i occupied myself for a long time clicking on everything in the background? the art was really pretty and the actual gameplay itself was really smooth and not glitchy at all.

the video cutscenes didn’t play for me at all lmao. I had a few tabs of text-only websites open, and join.me, and that was it. i couldn’t easily lower the settings to make it run smoother either? which was really annoying, and i don’t see why the cutscenes were sooo much harder for my computer to get through than the actual gameplay.

the only other glitch i had was a framing glitch in jude’s treehouse i think

i liked most of the puzzles a lot and it all seemed very organic and fun. using items on other items was pretty cool, and i only got stuck like once or twice.

i really did not like the snake game mainly because i had to swap to using my keyboard for that and that alone lmao.

the monster fights were REALLY fun, i thought. they had a really classic homestuck feel.

it was kind of hard to walk up and down the stairs, actually. there wasn’t enough room to click where you needed to go and that was a bit irritating

i really really really loved the harleyclaire mansion!! everything about the first part of the game was REALLY good!!!

there’s so much to get into with jake and joey and jude and anna claire that it’s nuts tbh. but i really liked everything about that. imo it dealt with parental issues in a lot more depth than hs ever did, and surprisingly nuanced parental issues is definitely an hs thing. but joey’s problems with jake are a lot more fleshed out and realistic.

definitely one of the themes is that the adults in joey’s life have never been there for her. her mom isn’t there because she’s dead, roxy isn’t ‘there’ because she’s irresponsible and is already developing drinking problems, and jake isn’t there because he’s always been somewhere else. so there’s something interesting when xefros talks about parents there

i think i was expecting jake to be a decent father so i was definitely really sad when it became obvious that he was kind of.. not? and it’s evident that he’s really screwed joey up, but i think that it’s also very in line with how canon portrays jake. like his biggest flaw was being unwilling to put in the emotional work and commitment that his friends needed.

sometimes he was definitely scared of those, so i can easily conceive of jake taking the easy way out and heading out to trawl the pacific for a meteor baby.

the line about how ‘having a second thing which is sort of like the first thing but somewhere else is exactly the same as having the first thing’

it’s interesting that jade and joey both do the same thing by projecting on their dead guardians. jade’s thinking is a lot more magical than joey’s, but it really shines a light on how everything we assumed about grandpa harley was through the eyes of a girl who never really got to know him.

and like he died well before he could disappoint her, so.

it was REALLY really sad but i don’t think i actually have a problem with it.

part of the reason i don’t have a problem with it is bc it made joey claire’s characterization SO much more compelling

because she’s very angry at her father for doing the things he did, and is openly disparaging about him, and even chooses to use her mother’s last name instead of his? but she’s not angry or hard or bitter

i love my hard trauma girls but it’s really nice that joey just gets kinder and better in the face of a childhood full of neglect- without being pushed to forgive or minimize the damage that was done to her

the detail about joey absolutely refusing to use guns because she doesn’t want to be like her dad, and choosing to love animals and heal them was so good. and how that’s framed as an act of rebellion?

like the idea that kindness can be radical but that =/= forgiveness.

we didn’t see a lot of jude but i loved everything about him so much

like it was pretty subtle so i don’t know if y’all would consider it ‘canon’ but the bit where joey says that ‘when things got bad with my brother, our babysitter took him to see a doctor, and he was better for a while’ seems like it’s saying joey is being treated for a mental illness of some sort?

which seems completely in line with his character! he almost falls into the trap where it’s like ‘we all called this person crazy for seeing all these conspiracies but he was right all along’ but he doesn’t and that’s nice. it’s very subtle and pretty respectful imo. (also, fox mulder)

he and joey are the cutest siblings in the entire universe, and he was so sweet to her. he seems very earnest about wanting to protect her and caring about her.

the part where his birds left him made me SOOOO SAD. it was so sad. i felt so bad for him. I named dammek’s catdeer Frohike to pay my respects even though frohike was the worst gunman.

i’m really worried about him tho. i hope he’ll be okay without joey around

joey claire is such an obvious lesbian

honestly i know a lot of people were nervous because it seemed like it was setting her up to have a relationship with xefros but i absolutely don’t think that’s the case, just because she’s definitely gay.

every time she looked at a picture of a girl in the harleyclaire mansion she had one gay thought or another, and her entire room was plastered completely in images of pretty girls. not ONE guy.

there was also a lot of dialogue which implied she felt guilty or ashamed of how she felt when looking at girls, or like she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to, or if people would judge her for having pretty pictures of girls on her walls.

also her password being the name of a boy she has certainly never met or talked to, and who we never saw an image of (despite said guy being an actor? i think) or heard mentioned before

the scene where xefros mentions he is a boy who likes boys and joey is like ‘oh. huh’ seems to me like it’s very obviously from the pov of a lesbian who had absolutely no idea what a lesbian is, or that she is allowed to be one. 

i think joey is definitely going to realize she is gay at some point in the future acts

i didn’t expect to like or care about xefros as much as i did?

he was obnoxious at first but basically as soon as we figured out what was up with dammek and that xefros thought he’d been speaking to dammek he became 100% less annoying and i started liking him a lot lmao.

he and joey had a really sweet friendship, actually.

homestuck breezed over a lot of the more horrible things about troll civilization, but hiveswap did a very good job of making it patently obvious how horrible troll civilization is for xefros and other lowbloods, and i think it has a redeeming effect on the Other Stuff.

i like that they made it obvious what’s happening is horrible and needs to like, stop or whatever, and don’t like... condemn the revolutionaries.

his situation isn’t really played for laughs or mocked.

that being said a lot of the writing for dammek was really really annoying and dumb.

people like dammek definitely exist and i think hiveswap does a faaairly decent of not conflating dammek being a shithead with the rest of the movement? the joke about personal property was very very annoying lmao but the movement itself is portrayed as legitimate and necessary. it’s a dumb reactionary type of joke but it doesn’t ruin the game for me

i do think he’s going to Learn To Be A Better Person while he’s hanging out with jude. i don’t think he’s going to get a vriska type arc at all but i do think he’ll learn the error of his ways.

i wish that we’d gotten to see a bit more of his personal motivation for being so intense about revolution.

i ALSO wish they hadn’t used like actual symbols of movements in the bg that was really annoying and crass imo. and if they had to, i wish xefros had had an anarchist flag or whatever.

abuse / neglect are big themes in hs so i’m not really surprised at all that they came back? they definitely shouldn’t have advertised dammek and xefros as being cute moirails though because it’s kind of scummy to do a bait and switch like that.

i don’t think the game’s going to be hetero though. xefros and joey would be incredibly ugly and i doubt it’ll happen

i also think homestuck the original thing is actually pretty on the nose about class stuff, even if it does feel the need to like couch that in Fake Alien Racism? at the very least i’d be surprised if hiveswap tried to pull the You’re The Same As Your Oppressors thing

i’m still annoyed that there was so much promo art of xefros and dammek being cute together when the actual game condemned every interaction they had. i think that it would have been possible to say the same things as they wanted to while also not making dammek a crazy leftist stereotype and grounding him in reality like a real person.

to be fair, we are going to get a sequel game with him, so he’ll probably be fleshed out a LOT better then.

trizza is somehow so much more evil than expected? how evil she is feels a lot more real than like, the condesce, tbh. she feels like a real person

i’m SUPER curious about cridea now and i can’t wait to see what she’ll be like

[smallpressdistribution]

Feast your eyes and your shelves on October’s

SPD Recommends *Backlist*,

ten still-so-relevant titles selected by our very own Matthew Hedley!

1. Cold Genius - Aaron Kunin

Have you heard Aaron Kunin get excited about Milton yet? In love with things that are funny because he loves them, like Milton’s bible fan fiction, or Chiquita banana, or language meaning a particular thing. Is it fair to say Kunin’s quote clusters are a joke, a reflexive reassurance, a kindness that doesn’t force words down your throat, a presentation, a kindness, so that his book feels deeply kind. I appreciate the Ben Lerner blurb – “it occurs to me often to be grateful for his work.” Because I am, also, deeply grateful. Reviewers seem to delight in calling him a genius – because it’s in the title, maybe – but this book is so much more interesting than that. He’s a genius, who cares, “genius” is really a silly thing, don’t you think? It’s a brand, maybe, or something a lover says and is misunderstood and misunderstood until he figures in a Kunin poem.

2. Trances of the Blast - Mary Ruefle

This book of Ruefle poems is an odd gem. Its title is given the lie by the duration of its gaze. A stanza for the thing, a stanza for the feeling about the thing, a stanza for life after living with the thing. Remember Inception? That movie all the memes come from? This book has all the immediacy of an explosion in that movie, as time dilates wider and wider, until we’ve forgotten we were running from an explosion in the first place. What was that movie about? Or – wait, what’s this book about? It’s not exactly still, since there’s so much life ahead to get to, and it has pace, some yearning to be turned on, left on, but its movement comes from turnabout, the unwieldy and furry shift of a person looming in the midst of a poem. 

And so I have had to deal with wild intractable people all my days and have been led astray in a world of shattered moonlight and beasts and trees where no one ever curtsies anymore or has an understudy. So I have gone up to the little room in my face, I am making something out of a jar of freckles and a jar of glue 

I hated childhood. I hate adulthood. And I love being alive.

3. Monk Eats an Afro - Yolanda Wisher

This book is embodied poetry, the talked about but rarely seen kind. It’s important that the book is anachronistic in its sensitivity – Cry of Jazz came out in 1959, Monk Eats an Afro in 2014 – but Wisher loves jazz, and is good at it. The Sonia Sanchez blurb should be a giveaway of how in scene this book is to Philadelphia, to Philly jazz, to clubs where Sonia still holds court at a central table, with similar tables around, Wisher at another, someone, maybe Dawn Evans holds down a third, there aren’t that many tables but they’re mostly full, with men and women who make Philly great. Sure, I’m being overly romantic, because this is a literal memory I have, being in that room, being in my hometown, sometimes it feels like it might disappear, also – this book is romantic. Its romance poems are downright sexy, and god, when Wisher swings into a rhyme at the end of a stanza it rings out. There’s a body at risk here, recounting personal experience with a heady sense of its own cultural touchpoints. There’s something conservative about a jazz fanatic in this day and age – to go through every day hearing what the radio does while still pulling back to Monk and fam takes work, a love of the way things were – which, in context with the rest of this list, makes a deep commentary on how conservative poetry as a whole really is. Because this book feels novel and standout amidst the others of the list for how separate its references are. No other book on this list is more than one degree of separation (in terms of debt owed) from John Ashbery, and this book might be two, and that makes all the difference. It’s not that it’s “anti-academic,” because that term posits the academy as the thing, and everything else as lying in opposition. But I remember a creative writing professor ask a creative writing graduate student what she could possibly talk to a slam poet about. Monk Eats an Afro is incommunicable with that sort of thinking. Not opposition – a powerful voice, sure in her self.

4. Stories in the Worst Way - Gary Lutz

This book makes me want to write better. Lutz’ style should be ponderous -- the whole text appears at a glance almost as marginalia, like liner notes on liner notes, but nothing is frantic. Somehow it feels calm, even, impossibly, focused. Which can be a little frustrating -- the game of the title STORIES IN THE WORST WAY always cycling through my mind as I am shocked by the talent.  Because they are really well written and make you jealous and more than a little productive. Lutz makes me write. Because he really can write, and his overcrowded margin of a text feels absolutely effortless and easy for him, which is also impossible, and also untrue, and it’s – god, it’s frustrating! But if I didn’t have this book around, what other book could I use to make myself write. I admit, I throw this book around a lot. It’s a really nice weight and size to be thrown, and then picked up, mumble a bit, read the same story again, somehow write four pages, go for a walk, turn around mid-walk, come home and read the same story, write some more. It’s a book I love and picked from thousands of titles here at SPD -- and if you can’t handle being jealous and productive, I just don’t even know you.

5. Videogames for Humans: Twine Authors in Conversation - edited by merritt kopas

This book of playthroughs, essays, contexts, games and game-ified writing is unique and complex. Twine as a digital platform stands alongside all my other distant dreams of choice mediums for preventing academia and the state from incorporating language and work into their narrative. But, unfortunately, the space remains uncurated in meaningful ways to further that vision, which, as Wikipedia will tell you (by omission or deletion mill), perpetuates the same power structures as the world outside. So: CRY$TAL WARRIOR KE$HA (made pre-$ removal) is on the sample page today (looking absolutely amazing), while the most recent review is some undergraduate freshboy’s takedown of its writing structure. Which is to say that the academy is always uncomfortably present in the history and training of creators, players, readers – and even in the essays in VIDEOGAMES FOR HUMANS. The tension in the book’s movement back and forth between Kesha and undergraduate with a grudge is what makes the book so incredibly worthwhile. Beyond just a book for digital language nerds like myself, this collection feels so important for asking questions of how to create positive art spaces. Teenaged entertainment proposes an answer, negated in the misogyny of Lil Yachty, reconstituted in the queer narratives of Twine, complicated in the reactionary nature of write-ups… How will any of us make art in a time where to be an instrument of the state is such a bald-faced violence? But magic and a joy in loving self-sabotage shows a glimmer of hope: 

“There’s this assumption that if you stray from The Scientific Method into actually caring about things like lying on the floor of your room in the middle of the afternoon with black canvas hung over the curtains to keep the sun out with a single candle burning, wearing lipstick—even though you pretty much don’t wear lipstick any other time in your life—sort of meditating and sort of tripping off sensory deprivation and sort of falling asleep, that you had better take that weird stuff just as seriously and humorously as scientists are supposed to take science. Like basically magic can’t be weird or fun or fucked up or stupid on purpose. Which is wrong!”

6. Event Factory - Renee Gladman

Event Factory – There’s a setpiece of science fiction where worldbuilding, forced to include some cultural background for the book, treats us to speculative songs and poetry that are, let’s be honest, always awful. The cantina songs, the God-Whispers of Han Qing-Jao, the water songs of the Fremen – let’s be real, these are painful moments. Even Delany – sorry. But then you have Gladman, a luminary poet, writing her Ravicka novels, and suddenly, writing becomes speculative in parsing and content. There’s all the textured concentration and phrasing her talent begets, combined with a character-driven, engaging and difficult science fiction novel. So that our transportation occurs on every level – not escapism, because the density of idea and descriptor doesn’t admit such an easy movement – as we are other before it. It’s a deeply disturbing book, to be sure. The disassociative trip of finding things already happening to yourself makes the book a Ketamine nightmare in its darkest, half-sexual, half-prone. That’s a warning, I suppose, or as much of a warning as I can give for a book I’d like you to read. It’s a book of recollections, and it often recalls the worst. Go read it.

7. In the Time of the Blue Ball - Manuela Draeger, translated by Brian Evenson

This is the only book on this list I didn’t know beforehand, but god DAMN. It reminds me of Kathryn Davis, but with a different set of idiosyncrasies. Or Monica Furlong’s deeply strange cousin. Or it’s not really like another person, but an outstanding talent all to itself that speaks in an unusual voice, with a style and focus all her own. Still, it’s hard not to try to put it in context, because I hadn’t heard of Draeger previously. Shelley Jackson wrote the back cover blurb, and if you’re not down with Shelley Jackson, there’s nothing I can say to convince you to read this.

“I’m warning you, Potemkine,” said the tiger. “Now, here we are together in too small of a space. It’d be better if you didn’t wiggle in front of me. In the darkness, I could imagine that you were running.”

“I don’t look like a wharf rat,” I said.

“When someone starts running in front of me, it’s too late for distinctions between species,” said Gershwin.

Half-accessible, half-mystic fantasy that flirts with various reading levels, IN THE TIME OF THE BLUE BALL is a gorgeous book of fiction. With thanks to Brian Evenson for a stellar translation.

8. This Lamentable City - Polina Barskova, translated by Ilya Kaminsky

He lies naked on something white, She laughs above She covers him With her pearl, her body her Star, her body her snow, her body On top of the word “strange,” On top of the word “fright.”

Barskova wanders the city and chronicles, and edits, and edits, and edits what she sees. This book is beautifully refined, calm, sure.

“In our village where small animals live slowly And humans jump on them.”

I’d like to do this little feature with only quotes, quotes and gasps afterward. The above a reaction to finding the scattered remains of snails in the lane. I hope it snows where you read this, in the evening.

9. The Feel Trio - Fred Moten

Fred Moten. Glory, Fred Moten. One of the most talented writers of a generation who makes the balance of phrasing and legibility feel effortless. Not that every line is beach-read-legible, but that his word clusters are drop-dead gorgeous, and always feel intentioned and deserved. Throughout his published works, Moten remains a cheat-sheet for debut writers – “how do I get away with putting this really fabulous but loud phrase in my writing” – but THE FEEL TRIO is a monstrosity of confidence, even for him.

           “this a service on the surface for frank wilderness and carl flippant.            my absolute beauty studies feelings in an open afterlife. I hold him            and I’ve lost and I feel it in my hands and the sharp distance of his            little bother, explosive flower of I’m not ready and don’t want to.”

10. That They Were at the Beach - Leslie Scalapino

My favorite book of poetry has somehow never been on a previous SPD Recommends Backlist. The narrator of the book fascinates me – defensive in language, insecure in relative positions, honest in gaze – in her movements between mechanism and pathos. The formalization of language, centered around the em dash – pretending to be a device of clarity – reminds me of coding languages, its Turing-complete, it’s a half step from language, but in this case not towards clarity but something else, something that masquerades as clarity but is poetry. Which isn’t an opposite of clarity, but it’s not the same thing either. I find it impossible not to copy this book’s phrasing for months after I reread it, so I’m trying to be good here. It’s the book that made me love poetry.

[jayarrarr]

Red, Revisited

I wrote and posted this a few years ago, from the inspiration and with a little advice/assistance from a certain local wolf (@desayunogratis). I was thinking about it recently and decided to post it again. Enjoy. It’s really fucking long (around 3,500 words) so I’m putting the bulk of it behind a read more.

“Red! Git your lazy ass in here!”

Red rolled her eyes and shuffled towards the sound of her stepfather’s voice. Her name wasn’t Red, but if you asked her she’d tell you it was. People had been calling her that since, as a young girl, she developed an affinity for a particular hooded cloak. She wore it everywhere, with everything, the hood always covering her head and partially obscuring her face, no matter the weather. As that cloak was red, and was typically the first if not only thing you ever saw of the girl, the nickname made sense at the time.

It didn’t make much sense now, as she’d long outgrown both that red cloak and the childish predilection to wear a particular favorite item of clothing all day every day regardless of its suitability. But people still called her Red. It was a small town, and the people who lived in it were conventional, conservative people who generally disliked change--so the idea of ceasing something simply because it no longer made sense didn’t hold much appeal.

“What?” She peered around the corner and saw him sitting in his favorite recliner, his hand down his pants, watching some auto race.

“I needja git down ta town ‘n git me s’more beers. And don’t you dawdle like you do, s’almost supper time.”

When Red’s mother died in somewhat mysterious circumstances that are still talked about in town (probably owing to the fact that those circumstances were neither conventional nor conservative, but in fact quite suspicious), everyone, including Red herself, assumed the girl would go to live with her grandmother. Red’s grandmother was a bit eccentric, lived alone way out in the woods, away from town, and hadn’t left her house in many years. Rumor had it she was infirm and incapable of making the trek through the woods to town. The truth was she was addicted to reality television and the internet, and Red enabled those twin addictions by bringing food and other necessities to her grandmother because she loved the woman too much to see the truth. Still, as far as the town’s dowagers and denizens were concerned, Red and her grandmother had a close and loving relationship, and the newly-orphaned Red surely would be sent to stay with her.

But Red was not an orphan, as it turned out. Under yet more somewhat mysterious circumstances it appeared that Red’s mother had married the transient she brought under her roof just a few weeks prior to her death. Not only that, but he also had legally adopted her only child--her daughter, Red. He presented “official” court documents, and although none who worked in the courthouse could remember any such events taking place, the documents were conservative and conventional, and no one had any reason to dispute their authenticity.

And so Red remained with her stepfather, who acquired not only custody of the girl but also became the trustee of her not-unsizeable trust fund. She’d continued to take things to her grandmother, although she usually had to sneak away to do it. Her stepfather didn’t really approve of Red doing anything for anyone other than him. He told her she shouldn’t walk through the woods (which was really the only way to get to grandmother’s house) because there was a wolf living in those woods that would kill her. She knew that was complete hogwash ‘cause she’d been walking through those woods since she was a child, and no harm had ever come to her. And she also didn’t much believe her stepfather cared if she lived or died. But she made like his story scared her out of walking through the woods and continued to visit her grandmother in secret. It was better that way, for all involved--even if it did lead to her being called lazy and accused of dawdling. Red knew it was always something, and there were certainly worse things he could call her or accuse her of, so it was her way of making the best of a bad situation. For years, it had worked out just fine--if by “fine” you mean the way you’d say the word when someone asks you how your day went and the truth is it was perfectly awful but for whatever reason you don’t want to tell them that.

As she headed to town to get her stepfather’s beers and some food for supper, she couldn’t help but think about her grandmother. Just a few weeks ago, she’d gone to make her usual delivery of snacks and energy drinks, along with vitamins and protein supplements she hoped the woman was taking, only to find her grandmother dressed in actual clothing and packing a suitcase.

“I’m finally going to meet him!” her grandmother said. Her skin had taken on a twitterpated teenager’s glow.

“Who?”

“CrazyMike1942! He’s sent me a plane ticket!”

“Gran--do you really think this is--”

“Oh shush. This is right. I know it’s right. I just feel it. And I’ve seen pictures of him. Let me tell you, he’s quite a looker. There aren’t men like that around here--never have been.”

“I don’t --”

“Oh, leave me alone, you’re worse than your mother. Can’t an old woman have a little fun?” She wiggled her hips when she said “fun.” It was decidedly creepy. Red decided not to pursue the subject any further.

That had been the last she’d heard from her grandmother. She’d dutifully spread the rumor that the woman had been eaten by a wolf, riding on the coattails of her stepfather’s story. The town had been in a reactionary uproar upon first hearing the story, determined to rid the forest of this dangerous beast. The uproar died down after a bit when the townspeople realized that such actions were neither conventional nor conservative but actually, assuming a man-eating wolf was loose in the woods (which of course means there’s at least twenty given their breeding patterns), quite dangerous. And really, it wasn’t as though anyone other than Red was really close to that woman, anyway. No one even knew her name, really. They just called her Red’s grandmother ‘cause that’s who she was.

All Red could do was hope she was alright. This thinking might’ve been what gave her the impulse to head over to her grandmother’s house on her way back home from town, just to check on things. She started down the path through the woods she’d taken hundreds of times before, but things looked different in the sparse light of the setting sun. She shifted the handles of her shopping bag and pulled them over her shoulder. Her stepfather’s bottles clinked together as she walked. The branches of the tallest trees seemed to close in on each other, more ceiling than canopy. She readjusted the shopping bag handle on her shoulder and wished she’d brought a hoodie along. Whether for warmth or protection, she wasn’t sure.

The story her stepfather had told her hundreds of times before crossed her mind. “Oh grow the fuck up,” she told herself. “There’s no wolf in these woods that--” She stopped. She heard branches cracking to her left and stood still, not daring to breathe or even carry on silently chastising herself. The noises were getting closer. The noises were being made by someone, or something, that was walking at an uneven but steady pace in her direction. She glanced around, but she was in something of a clearing, a little over halfway to her grandmother’s house, and there was nowhere to hide. She kept walking, with one ear focused on the approaching noise.

When she’d reached her grandmother’s house, all the lights were on and the front door was ajar. Curious--she’d assumed her grandmother would’ve left a light on, but not all of them, and she certainly would’ve locked the door before leaving. She lowered her bag, taking care to keep the bottles from thunking as she sat it on the porch. Peering through the open door, she heard movement inside. She looked at the bag and slipped one of the beer bottles out, flipping it in her hand. The edges of the bottle cap dug into her palm as she pushed open the door.

“Hello?” She immediately regretted having uttered a word. She tightened her grip on the bottle and walked toward the kitchen. The pantry door was open and she heard noises coming from inside, but the door obscured her view. Rustling and muttering. She raised the bottle over her head and was taking a tentative step towards the door when it swung closed. She screamed.

“Now look what you’ve made me do!” the Wolf said, picking up the vegetables he’d dropped. “I’m sorry. You startled me. I wasn’t expecting company. You must be Red.”

“You’re--but you’re--you’ve--”

He glanced at the bottle in her hand. “And what, pray tell, are you planning to do with that?”

“I’m gonna--I oughta--”

“There, there,” the Wolf chuckled. Having placed the vegetables on the counter, he reached over and liberated the bottle from her hand, opened it, and took a quick swig. “Kinda cheap, don’t you think? Not that I’d expected differently.”

Red fell to the floor. Isn’t it interesting how women in stories are always fainting when confronted with an exceedingly strange situation, yet this rarely (if ever) happens in real life? The Wolf thought nothing of it. He was accustomed to women fainting at the sight of him. He lifted Red off the floor and carried her to her grandmother’s bed, then returned to the kitchen to continue cooking.

When Red came to, she was understandably confused. She didn’t remember laying down for a nap or anything of that sort, and it was dark outside. “Shit,” she thought. Her stepfather was going to be furious. She stood up in a rush, felt dizzy, collapsed on the bed again.

“Drink this,” a voice said, pressing a glass into her hand. She opened her eyes and strained to focus. The Wolf. She sat up. The Wolf was giving her a glass of water. Realizing how dry her mouth and throat were, she drank it in big gulps. Then realizing (perhaps belatedly) that she didn’t exactly trust this creature, she pulled the glass away and spat the water still in her mouth on the floor. “That’s hardly lady-like,” the Wolf said with a grin.

“But you--how do I know you didn’t drug it?”

“You don’t,” he said, sitting on the bed next to her. “But then again, why would I? You’ve been passed out here on this bed, completely defenseless, for nearly an hour. If I’d wanted to hurt you, I’d’ve had plenty of time to do so. I could’ve done whatever I wanted to--and I did. What I wanted to do was finish that soup I was making when you popped in unannounced. Luckily I still had time to add a little to the pot, so there’s enough for you if you’d like some. I’m sure you’re hungry.”

Red’s eyes narrowed as she looked the Wolf up and down. “I just--I don’t--”

“Probably best not to attempt thinking right now. Finish that water; I’ll get your soup.” Red shook her head, the way you might do when you can’t tell if you’re awake or dreaming. It didn’t help her come to a solid conclusion one way or the other, but when the Wolf returned with a steaming bowl she realized she was so hungry it didn’t matter. She took two hurried slurps, burned her tongue, and decided she was definitely not dreaming.

“What have you done with my grandmother? And how do you know my name?”

“My dear, I’ve done nothing at all with your grandmother. She’s out of town, as you already know. As for how I know your name--I don’t. Everyone in town calls Arlene’s granddaughter ‘Red,’ and since Red is the only person who ever comes here, I intuited that you must be she.”

“But how did you--”

“I have a key,” the Wolf said. “I hate to cut this thrilling conversation short, but I’m hungry, so I’m going to go eat some of this soup I spent all evening preparing.” He nodded to her bowl. “Yours is getting cold.”

Red lifted her spoon and took another, more tentative slurp of the soup. The Wolf smiled, then turned and walked back into the kitchen. “You’re welcome to come in here and eat with me, if you like,” he said over his shoulder.

Red shrugged and put her feet on the floor. She had too many questions not to follow. Her dizziness did not return as she walked to the kitchen, and when she sat at the table across from the Wolf, he smiled. “You have a lot of questions,” he said.

“Well, yeah. I mean, who are you? What are you? How do you have a key to my grandmother’s house? How do you know her name? Why did she never speak of you? Do you come here often? How long have you been here? And why?”

The Wolf swallowed a spoonful of soup. “When I said you had a lot of questions, I didn’t mean to imply you should ask them all at once,” he began. “Your grandmother and I have been friends for a very long time. She enjoys my cooking. You bring her nothing but junk. She loves you dearly, so she wanted you to continue to feel--necessary. Believing you were the only one responsible for her continued welfare instilled quite a bit of confidence in you--perhaps too much, to be frank.”

“I heard something in the woods earlier. When I was on my way here. Was that--”

The Wolf’s eyes darkened. “When was this?”

“It was--I was about halfway here, on the path. That clearing. I heard--someone, or something, was following me. I just thought it might’ve been you.”

“It couldn’t have been me, I’ve been here since noon.” The Wolf stood. “Finish your soup,” he said, leaving the room.

Red took a couple of hurried spoonfuls of the soup, then stood and crept in the direction the Wolf had gone. He was sitting on her grandmother’s couch in the living room, his back to her. “All those questions, and you never even thought to ask my name,” he said.

Red inhaled sharply. “I--I--”

“I didn’t need to see you, I sensed your presence. You have no idea how loud you are--louder still when you’re making a conscious effort to be quiet. Of course, my ears are more sensitive than yours. Which means if you heard someone approach, it had to be someone clumsy, lazy, and probably drunk.”

“I don’t know if I follow--”

“You know him as your stepfather,” the Wolf said. “He is anything but. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to discuss that.” She followed his gaze through the open front door and saw her stepfather stumbling towards the porch. The Wolf stood. “Excuse me,” he said, and walked towards the door to confront the drunken man.

“What’ve you done with my daughter?” Red’s stepfather roared. Well, he meant it to be a roar, anyway. It came out more as a desperate plea with a burp attached to the end. Drinking too many beers often has this effect.

“You don’t have a daughter,” the Wolf said. His voice had taken on the stern, even tone of a parent patiently reprimanding an errant child. This irritated Red’s stepfather, and he took a lurching step forward. “I wouldn’t come any closer if I were you,” the Wolf said.

“You dunno the firs’ thin’ about me,” Red’s stepfather said.

“I don’t need to know the first thing. I know the last,” the Wolf said. He motioned to Red to stay back--although he needn’t have bothered; she had no intention of coming any closer. Her stepfather took a swing through the air and the momentum of his arm pulled him sideways and forward. Stumbling, he caught his foot on the porch step and fell forward onto the porch. The Wolf raised his foot and placed it on the man’s throat, pressing his heel down until the man began to gurgle. “Do you have any reason I shouldn’t kill this man?” the Wolf said to Red.

“Do I--are you--”

The Wolf removed his foot from the man’s throat and kicked him off the porch. He landed on the ground with a flat thump and the Wolf stood there, staring at him. He didn’t move. “You’re beautiful,” the Wolf said, turning to Red. “I apologize in advance for what you’re about to witness.”

“What are you--”

“I’ll be happy to answer all of your many questions later, but now is not the time. This must be done.” He walked over to the man, seized him by the neck, and pulled him up until he was mostly standing on his feet. “He wouldn’t have shown you any more mercy than he did your mother,” the Wolf said to Red. She backed into the wall and slid slowly down to the ground, her mind, as you’d expect, somewhat unable to handle the shock and confusion while still standing.

“Why’re you doin’ this ta me?” Red’s stepfather sputtered.

The Wolf smacked him. “You know exactly why,” he growled.

“We shoulda done away wif you when we had the chance. Woulda too. I had the whole town wif me.”

“You had nothing. You had no chance.” The Wolf tightened his grip on the man’s throat and lifted him up. The man flailed, his mouth moving, but no sound came out. The Wolf squeezed his fingers into the man’s neck as his eyes widened. In a quick motion, the Wolf closed his fingers around the man’s larynx and pulled. The man’s lifeless body fell to the ground. The Wolf dropped the remains of the man’s throat on the ground next to the body and turned toward the house. As he did, the body began bubbling, its bones crackling like damp wood on a raging fire.

“I’m sorry about your mother,” the Wolf said to Red, extending a hand. She accepted his assistance and he pulled her into him, holding her close. “It’s over now,” he said. “I suggest you stay here for a few days, with me, until the dowagers in the town quit yapping. This house is yours. Arlene left it to you in her will.”

“My grandmother?”

“I’m sorry about that too. We tried to get her away, to safety, before anything happened to her. We were careful. It was only dumb luck that he discovered her route in time to have her intercepted.”

The Wolf led Red inside. She started to speak, but he held up a hand. “I can imagine how confused you must be. When your mother was taken, you were too young to be told everything.” He broke away from her. “Excuse me. I have to get something.”

“Wait--I still--”

“Stay there. You’re safe now,” he said from an interior room. In a moment he’d returned, holding a bundle in his arms, which he handed to Red. “This is yours,” he said.

She snapped the twine securing the bundle together and ripped off the paper, revealing the scarlet cloak she’d worn as a child. She shook it out and discovered it was larger, large enough to fit her once again.

“I had to add some material and then reattach the hood, so it would fit you again. I had to guess on the measurements, of course, but when I saw you in the kitchen I knew it would fit. Put it on!” the Wolf said, the warmth having returned to his eyes.

Red smiled as she pulled the cloak over her head, the hood covering her eyes.

“There was a reason you were so attached to this as a child, a reason you insisted on wearing it everywhere. This cloak is your protection. As long as you wear it, no harm can come to you.”

“But why--who am I? Who are you? What is all of this?”

The Wolf smiled. “Tomorrow I’ll answer all your questions,” he said. “Tonight, you should get some sleep.”

That night, Red slept more soundly than she had since she was a little girl, the hood of the cloak pulled close over her head. So soundly, in fact, that on one occasion when the Wolf poked his nose in to check on her, he knelt close to make sure she was still breathing. Feeling the humid air as it escaped her lips, he kissed her forehead. “Sweet dreams, Emily,” he whispered.

© 2014 by Jennifer R.R. Mueller

[republicstandard]

Renauld Camus: A Noble Frenchman Speaks

Recently in Charlottesville we heard the chant “The Jews Will Not Replace Us,” and this controversial provocation flew around the world. But what is rather less well known is that this was a play on the words of Frenchman Renaud Camus who has put forth an amalgam of his works under the English title You Will Not Replace Us! Mr. Camus’ concept of The Great Replacement has gained tremendous currency recently in the West though he is quick to point out that he is not the phrase’s originator. That palm goes to another:

“The phrase genocide by substitution was coined by the French black poet Aimé Césaire, the communist mayor, for fifty-six years, of Fort-de-France, on the island of Martinique, in the French Caribbean: he was referring to the exaggerated (in his view) inflow of people from mainland France into the archipelago. But the phrase applies more rigorously to what is happening nowadays to the indigenous peoples of Europe and to the white population of North-America. The Great Replacement is a genocide by substitution.”

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The Great Replacement is thus a reference to any population or racial swamping that afflicts any people submerged by hordes of migrants and/or colonizers and is the logic of the Dalai Lama’s recent cry of Europe For The Europeans, coming from man whose own people have been horribly replaced.

Mr. Camus may be seen as a strange defender of the realm, a strange defender of Western Traditionalism. He came to fame in the 1970s riding the back of what he would later term The Small Replacement which is the supplanting of traditional culture by an alien ideology of subversion and contamination. He came to America and was associated with the slack jaws of the Warhol group, he hobnobbed with various Critical Theorists who’s teaching would supplant Western Values and he inked a book called Tricks chronicling the freewheeling gay sex life of the 1970s which likely made Michel Foucault blush at its improprieties. Indeed, no less a personage than Alan Ginsberg praised the book, though one assumes that if that degenerate sod were alive today, he would greet Mr. Camus’ current reactionary incarnation with bitter howls of execration.

Mr. Camus has explained his transformation by saying that when the highest truth is at stake, he goes where the truth leads. And in this case the truth has led him to believe that since the 1970s Western countries have been on a suicide mission, and the weapon of choice has been the substitution of its indigenous people by those of the imported third world, a process by which the denationalized elites detach themselves from their compatriots and as Great Davos Men orchestrate their nation’s planned destruction, thus neatly slipping the surly bonds of their birth. This, in short, is The Great Replacement.

Mr. Camus broadens this concept of replacement to make it the reigning one of the modern world, saying that “Las Vegas displays a fake Venice in Nevada, Spain establishes a mock Las Vegas in Castilla, China has its own Paris near Peking.” He says that everything in the modern world is meant to be disposable, to be replaced, echoing the idea from the 1950s of Planned Obsolescence. Mr. Camus’ antidote to Replacement is rootedness and identity. And though he expresses tremendous sympathy to Identitarian movements of all stripes, he issues a stark warning: that once you begin talking about identity, it means you have already lost it. That is, a century ago Frenchmen were not defending the idea that they were Frenchmen, rather they had something infinitely more valuable: they merely were Frenchmen.

But this seemingly inalienable sense of self is what has been lost, has in fact been alienated by the hordes of Third World immigrants pouring into the West, supplanting the native stock.

In this sordid drama of loss and alienation Mr. Camus identifies the players:

“In Western Europe the situation could be described as having three protagonists: the replacists, who want the change of people and civilization, which they are prone to call multiculturalism, or “vivre ensemble” (living together), and which they promote or impose with all the means they master (and those are enormous because replacists are and have the power, the government, all the big political parties, the judges and, for all practical purposes, the totality of the media); the replacers, mostly from Africa, and very often Muslims; and the replacees, the indigenous population, whose very existence is frequently denied, even in retrospect (not only do they not exist, but they have also never existed). Replacees do exist, though, even if they don’t see themselves as such. But they are divided into two groups, and that would make the number of the dramatis personnae rise to four: consenting replacees, either because they refuse to admit that any such thing as replacement is taking place, or because they don’t see any objection to it, or think it is an excellent thing; and unwilling replacees, the refractory ones, who think the said replacement is an absolute monstrosity, the epitome of what their ancestors had been willing to avoid for centuries, at the cost of any sacrifice.”

Thus you have the rich super class of globalists who orchestrate and benefit from this sorry business, you have the cattle who are easily herded into the pen, you have the white liberals who think they deserve this ignoble fate, and then you have the so-called racist monsters who put up a fight, and then the migrants themselves. And it is the interaction among these that constitute the essence of politics of our day.

Some, of course, will deny the reality of Replacement, deeming it a Conspiracy Theory. Mr. Camus will have none of that:

“Immigration, which was bought in a long time ago as a decorative lizard, has become in the meantime an enormous crocodile occupying half the drawing-room, but the general convention is to pretend not to notice and to mind one’s business exactly as if the beast was not there. Once in a while, when he is in the mood, and that is more and more often the case, he tears off and devours a leg or an arm but people go on handling teacups and discussing train timetables or the advisability of changing the wallpaper over him as if he was some kind of fabulist deconstructed sofa, blood all over the chairs and the carpet notwithstanding.”

How did the European peoples come to this sorry pass? How did this once proud people, spread out over several continents, lose its nerve? Prior to the Second World War, Europeans were hard men, inheritors of grand and noble traditions and accomplishments but then, Mr. Camus says, they fell victims to Adolf Hitler’s Second Career. In pre-war America, the men who were the offshoots of Europe were of one voice in a racial ideology of Eugenics, but within a decade they were robotically spouting Franz Boas-Ashley Montagu style environmentalism and trying to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. Just as Peter Brimelow in Alien Nation says that America’s post-1965 immigration laws were the posthumous revenge of Adolf Hitler, so did Hitler’s Second Career in Europe and America begin in earnest.

Mr. Camus explains:

“That is, again, what I have called The Second Career of Adolf Hitler. It is Hitler upside down. But it is still Hitler. Racism had turned Europe into a field of ruins. Anti-racism turns it into a hyper-violent shanty town.”

That is, white guilt and the pathologizing of whiteness and the ideology of anti-racism was the Western Elites unanimous reaction to Hitler, was his second career which is still going on. Just as before the war de facto racism had been the standard among elites so now they have switched to anti-racism as a sacred ideology, anti-racism which has all to easily morphed into a genocidal mania against indigenous Europeans, against whites. The sacred totem of the new elites is:

“The dogma of the inexistence of races, proclaimed in the mid-seventies of the 20th century, is the credo quia absurdum of both antiracism (in its second phase) and global replacism. It has much in common with the Roman Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception (of the Virgin Mary), which was also proclaimed at a rather late stage by Catholicism. Both make sense only in a rather far-fetched theological order of meaning and are an obvious challenge to common sense.”

The reign of this dogma is what Mr. Camus terms Davos Man or the Davocracy come to the fore, come to total power. European elites of all stripes saw that they could use anti-racism as a weapon against their native populations, they themselves could become denationalized and detach themselves from their own people and at the same time import docile and pliable serfs from the third world as cheap labor. In this sordid way, they could reign as neo-feudal overlords as the newly installed migrants could battle it out with the people and the rich as referees could adjudicate by screaming racism at their poor white cousins. By doing they could turn their native populations into what Camus has termed “Human Nutella” and spread them thin and faceless into indistinctness and oblivion. In this way, the elites do Mr. Brecht one better: they dissolve the people, and they select another.

What this does to once proud nations is plain for all to see. As the new migrants come in the native stock undergoes what Lothrop Stoddard termed “social sterilization”, their fertility drops, their wages decline, their life expectancy grows shorter, and their control of their county wanes. Camus is explicit about this:

“Population swamping or ‘demographic invasion’ is a different matter entirely. It undermines the very identity of the nation or the people targeted by the swamping. The major threat associated with it is that it might very well be irreversible.”

We see this threat of invasion by the third world colonizers as an alarm. Steve Sailer has pointed out what is the most important graph in the world, the graph which indicates a tsunami-like surge in African populations, a vast majority of which wish to come to Europe. It is a kind of lebensraum in reverse, the revenge again of Mr. Hitler.

And, so, what is to be done? First off, grow a spine of steel, and here Mr. Camus draws the clear line. He says that what the French call “living together”, what in America is called multiculturalism, is an impossibility. He says one must choose between living together and living. His answer is a new kind of anti-colonialism, an expelling of the colonizer, ridding the homelands of the invaders. In a word: remigration.

“Without remigration there will be no liberation. Liberation (of conquered land, occupied country, colonized people) and remigration (of the conqueror, occupying forces, colonialist settlers) are one and the same thing.”

And to those who have infiltrated the sacred space of Great Europe, Old Europe he has clear message: Degage!, a word loosely translated into colloquial English as “hit the road jack!” But should our elites win out, should the invaders hunker down and stay, should the normal folk of Europe and America, the Trumpists, the National Front, the Yellow Vests, the Identitarians, the race realists, the Alt Rite not prevail then Jean Raspail’s recent assessment of our situation will hold: “we’re fucked.”

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Recently in Warsaw President Trump, in the words of the Great Patriot Stephen Miller, said that the central question of our time is whether or not the Western People will have the courage to save themselves, whether or not they still have the will to survive. In Renaud Camus, we have a noble Frenchman who asks the same thing and who reminds us of the eternal verity that a people unwilling to defend itself will always perish. And if this stalwart defense is not forthcoming, as always, it will be So Long Marianne.

Against this fate of suicidal dispossession may the European peoples speak with one united voice, may they speak in clear tones and with wild cries of execration.

from Republic Standard | Conservative Thought & Culture Magazine https://ift.tt/2UYGUMn via IFTTT

[topmixtrends]

“SOUNDS GREAT on paper.” That’s a phrase I heard a lot as a kid in the late ’70s, usually when my parents and their friends were talking about communism. Certainly an earthly paradise as depicted in the writings of Trotsky or Lenin, but — shame, isn’t it? — communism did not seem to actually work in real life.

The notion that something could sound smart in theory and not work out in practice applies just as well to another product of early 20th-century Russian thought: the individual-over-the-masses, market-worshipping libertarianism philosophy that comes from Ayn Rand. It’s been carried on, after Rand’s 1982 passing, by American acolytes including Alan Greenspan, Ron Paul, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and, probably, someone you went to high school with.

The fact that the libertarian wonderland of absolute sexual and economic freedom only ever worked in Rand’s melodramatic novels and helium-voiced Rush songs — that her philosophy of “Objectivism” has never been successfully applied to actual governance — does not seem to cross the minds of libertarian true-believers. And to many of them, it seems not to matter: a fealty to Rand, to heroic ideas of intellectual superiority and capitalism’s grandeur, is more important than what puny mortals consider political or intellectual reality. If you try arguing sense with them, you’ll quickly wish you hadn’t.

Why should we care, then, about a discredited goofball ideology from deep within the last century? Because Ayn Rand–style libertarianism has probably never been more assertive in American politics than it is today.

What once seemed like the golden age of Rand turned out only to be a warm-up. In the 1950s, you could go to Objectivist salons in New York, where sycophants like Greenspan and future self-esteem guru Nathaniel Branden would gather round the goddess to luxuriate in every word (in some cases, the connection was more than purely intellectual: Branden was one of the polyamorous Rand’s numerous younger boyfriends). In the ’60s and ’70s, you could attend vaguely countercultural conventions across the nation where men would shout conspiracy theories and women would emulate their heroine by wearing broaches shaped like dollar signs. For a while, the Christianity-and-Cold-War strand of the American right headed by William F. Buckley Jr. marginalized the libertarians for their atheism and noninterventionist stance. From the evidence of 1971’s inside-the-whale memoir, Jerome Tuccille’s It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand, this movement was hardly built on solid intellectual ground. The abundance of selfish children driving the ship, part–Veruca Salt, part–Mike Teavee, made this seem like the kind of cult sure to wither of its own ridiculousness.

But with the Reagan Revolution, libertarianism was brought indoors, and the direct-mail New Right that accompanied the movement relied heavily on anti-government dogma. In many parts of the United States — the Sun Belt, the boys’ club of billionaires who fancy themselves self-made heroes, and various enclaves in the capital — Rand’s vision established its second beachhead.

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And gradually, the discredited movement that tended to attract nerds and know-it-alls became part of the political mainstream.

“I give out Atlas Shrugged as Christmas presents,” outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan told the Weekly Standard, “and I make all my interns read it.” He only backed away from Rand when her atheism caused him image problems with God-fearing Republicans, who, if they looked closely, would see that Objectivism is almost exactly the opposite of what’s preached by the Biblical Jesus.

In fact, several of the key Republican young guns are Fountainhead-adjacent. Senator Rand Paul is not only the son of longtime libertarian crank and Texas Congressman Ron Paul (he of the racist newsletters). The younger Paul is such an Atlas Shrugged–pounder that a rumor flourished for years that his first name came from the family’s favorite author.

In Silicon Valley, billionaires are working to put the “liberal” back into libertarian — at least, the 18th-century “classical liberalism” cooked up before industrialization, widespread racial tension, and modern finance capitalism. For all their quoting of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, it makes their retro version of Objectivism about as useful for 21st-century life as an 18th-century telescope. The Randed-out Peter Thiel, whose commitment to free speech did not keep him from suing a major media company into oblivion, is perhaps the most prominent Valley libertarian. But he’s hardly alone: if you wondered why Elon Musk was selling flamethrowers, just remember he’s another guy who loves freedom.

Besides the true-believers, reactionary wackjobs often stop over at Galt’s Gulch on their way to even scarier neighborhoods. Mike Enoch — born Mike Peinovich — is a racist and anti-Semite beloved on the alt-right for his The Right Stuff blog and the popular podcast The Daily Shoah. On his journey from leftist extremism to far-right derangement, he was energized by the work of Rand, Murray Rothbard, and economist Ludwig von Mises; his libertarian blog sported posts like “Socialist is Selfish” and “Taxation is Theft.”

Similarly, the polite Midwestern Nazi profiled by The New York Times, Tony Hovater, was a vaguely leftish heavy-metal drummer until he discovered libertarianism. He was, in fact, radicalized by what he considers the Republican Party’s perfidious treatment of libertarian hero Ron Paul; today he reads numerous Rand-y academics for intellectual guidance.

Then there’s Robert Mercer, one of the invisible rich people who has more influence on world affairs than just about everyone you know put together. Mercer, who helped fund Brexit and Donald Trump’s presidential race, and, for years, Breitbart News, is also the father of Rebekah Mercer. A toxic rich girl par excellence, Rebekah is known to Politico as “the most powerful woman in GOP politics” and to others as the first lady of the alt-right. (She recently sowed a rift on the right by cutting off Steve Bannon’s paychecks following his tussle with President Trump.)

Even in this charmless crowd, Robert Mercer’s obnoxiousness stands out. The Citizens United decision has unleashed people like Mercer — secretive gazillionaires whose expenditures are often untraceable despite the way they remake our shared reality. “In my view, Trump wouldn’t be President if not for Bob,” an old colleague of Mercer’s told The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer.

Oh, and then there are Charles and David Koch. “Suddenly, a random billionaire can change politics and public policy,” election watchdog and registered Republican Trevor Potter told Mayer, “to sweep everything else off the table — even if they don’t speak publicly, and even if there’s almost no public awareness of his or her views.” And, as of this fall, the Kochs now effectively own Time magazine as well as a bunch of other publications ranging from Sports Illustrated to the retro British rock magazine Uncut.

And Charles Koch’s foundation has given something like $200 million to colleges and universities, in many cases to appoint pro-business, anti-government scholars to institutions like Chapman University.

The Kochs’ defenders talk about libertarians as some kind of oppressed minority. But unlike most other right-of-center subcultures, libertarians are woven into the nation’s intellectual and cultural mainstream. If you went to a liberal arts college, live in a big city and read The New York Times or Washington Post, follow indie-rock bands and watch trendy shows on HBO, you probably don’t know many evangelical Christians. You could very well spend your days with very little contact with war-mongering neoconservatives. The rural/working-class/NRA side of Caucasian conservatism is likely something you experience mostly through Hillbilly Elegy or reruns of the now-cancelled Roseanne. Libertarians, by contrast, are everywhere. Go on Facebook, and some former friend from childhood is lecturing you about the free market.

We are now, many decades after the germination of Rand’s cult of personality, in a world where a Library of Congress survey deems Atlas Shrugged the most influential book next to the Bible. As the GOP, Wall Street, the intellectual plutocracy of think tanks and foundations, and Silicon Valley grow in coming years, expect to see the influence of this group and its ideas grow and stretch.

Despite numerous parallels with Scientology, Objectivism is not just sitting still, getting weirder while remaining confined to a few thousand worshippers. We have not yet reached Peak Libertarian. So where do these goofy ideas come from, and what effect might they have?

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A partial answer — both rigorously told and incomplete — comes from a recent book, How Bad Writing Destroyed the World, by Wellesley College comp-lit professor Adam Weiner.

Weiner’s key insight is connecting Rand’s ideas — and the Russian literary intellectual lineage she emerged from — with the 2008 financial collapse. “By programming Alan Greenspan with objectivism and, literally, walking him into the highest circles of government, Rand had effectively chucked a ticking time bomb into the boiler room of the US economy,” he writes in the book’s introduction. “I am choosing my metaphor deliberately: as I will show, infiltration and bomb-throwing were revolutionary methods that shaped the tradition on which Rand was consciously or unconsciously drawing.”

Most historical changes have some kind of intellectual root, for better and worse; kudos to Weiner for tracing how a series of bad ideas and clumsy prose led the nation to the Great Recession. But Weiner, a scholar of Russian literature, appears to be far more interested in one of Rand’s antecedents than Rand herself. Nikolai Chernyshevsky, the revolutionary socialist best known for his 1863 novel What Is To Be Done?, written while its author was imprisoned in a St. Petersburg fortress, is his true subject. The book famously inspired Lenin’s world-shaking pamphlet of the same name.

There’s one small problem with this premise, and one large one. Weiner shrewdly anticipates the first: how could a man of the extreme left — who helped inspire the terrorists who coalesced around the Russian Revolution — simultaneously provide the intellectual foundation for the godmother of the market-worshipping right? He finds the common denominator in Chernyshevsky’s notion of “rational egoism,” which Weiner describes as the idea that “the rational pursuit of selfish gain on the part of each individual must give rise to the ideal form of society.”

Sound familiar? This chimes almost exactly with Rand’s “virtue of selfishness” — the bedrock of her pseudo-philosophy of unchecked capitalism, minimalist government, and rugged individualism pursued by übermensch heroes. “The main heirs of Chernyshevsky’s bumbling, illogical aesthetic,” Weiner writes, “were the Soviet-mandated novels of socialist realism and the ‘capitalist realism’ of Ayn Rand.”

Weiner deftly handled the contradiction here: a bad novel could not only become ideologically potent, but it could also inspire people who would not recognize each other as fellow travelers.

Yet Weiner’s book lives up to neither its title nor its subtitle, “Ayn Rand and the Literary Origins of the Financial Crisis.” Weiner’s final chapter, “In the graveyard of bad ideas,” returns to Rand’s biography — she grew up in St. Petersburg and watched as the Bolsheviks looted her family’s possessions — and intellectual roots. But it feels like an addendum, however skillfully told, to a reasonably lucid and well-researched book about an influential but not very good 19th-century Russian novelist.

In connecting Rand — and contemporary American libertarianism — to an extremist strain of pre-revolutionary Russian thought, Weiner does help clarify this bizarre lineage, its combination of heartland America Firstism with something clearly alien to our Constitution and its mostly British political origins. Ayn Rand is not just Adam Smith in a screenwriter’s bungalow — she’s coming from somewhere different from classical liberalism.

The book Weiner seemed to be delivering — offering the intellectual history of either kook libertarianism, or the 2008 crash, or both — still needs to be written. Until then, the second edition of Corey Robin’s The Reactionary Mind — released in November, this time under the subtitle “Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump” — does a skillful job connecting philosophers, historians, and economists of the past with our recent rightward turn. His chapter on Ayn Rand and libertarianism, in specific, offers much of what Weiner’s volume promises and fails to provide.

“Saint Petersburg in revolt gave us Vladimir Nabobov, Isaiah Berlin, and Ayn Rand,” Robin begins. “The first was a novelist, the second a philosopher. The third was neither but thought she was both.” Robin, a political professor at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, starts with pre-revolutionary Russia, but considers Rand’s real birthplace to be Hollywood, where she landed in 1926 and was quickly recruited by Cecil B. DeMille. “For where else but in the dream factory could Rand have learned how to make dreams — about America, capitalism, and herself?”

And Rand’s us-versus-them formulation of the stalwart genius against the “moochers” and “looters” — revived by Mitt Romney in his “makers” versus “takers” speech — is textbook vulgar Nietzscheanism. It also helps explain the appeal of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead to misunderstood adolescents who dream themselves the übermensch.

Rand’s novels heroize — in the same campy way she learned from Russian operettas and Hollywood movies — defiant, comically masculine builders like architect Howard Roark and engineer/inventor John Galt. It feels somehow inevitable that the recent libertarian, anti-government, pro-business strain on the American right would lead us to a man who seems right out of her pages: the defiant, comically masculine real estate developer Donald Trump.

The real history of Ayn Rand’s bad ideas — their roots, their trajectory, their collateral damage — can’t be contained in any book, however good or bad. It’s all unfolding around us, as her zombie devours the Republican Party and soon, the rest of us, with no sign of abating.

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Scott Timberg is the editor of The Misread City: New Literary Los Angeles and author of Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class.

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Banner image by Erik Fitzpatrick.

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