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holidaysat221b · 4 years ago

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2018′s Halloween at 221b - A Sherlolly Celebration Master List

To help get you in the Fall/Halloween spirit, here are all the submissions we received during the 2018 Halloween Fest. Please give them another look, leave a comment or a kudo (or both!), and show a little love to the creators who took the time to participate in 2018.

We’ve listed where the works are archived, mult-chapter or not, complete or not, and rating. In progress fics are marked in bold as a reminder for a mod to periodically check for updates. Tumblr accounts have been tagged where possible, some could only be linked to, and some are completely unknown to the mods. As always, the complete Master List for all years can be found here.

Alice in Wonderland/Sherlolly Mashup - Created by @simplyshelbs16xoxo And through the looking glass we see she’s painfully returned. But now off with her head I fear is everyone’s concern. (On Tumblr, Complete)

All Souls - Written by @geekmama The rain had nearly stopped by the time they reached the village of Grendon and the house where Molly had grown up, and where her mother still lived. He’d been there once before, a few months ago, not long after the Sherrinford/Musgrave debacle, and the house hadn’t changed. Still quite undistinguished from the other residences in this thoroughly middle class neighborhood. For the second time, Sherlock found himself wondering that the unique creature beside him, his beloved, could have sprung from this thoroughly mundane environment. Of course, it had taken him an unconscionably long time to realize exactly how unique Molly was. It seemed irrefutable proof that, while he was very quick in most areas of perception, he could be slow to the point of idiocy in others – and some of them rather essential. It was always possible, Sherlock reflected, as he pulled the car into the drive, that there was more to Molly’s childhood home, too, than first contact had suggested. (On Tumblr, Complete, Rated G)

By the Light of the Moon - Written by @mizjoely Annabellioncourt on tumblr said: There’s a lovely old English myth that if someone who truely loved and trusted the werewolf called it by name that it would turn back to human. Others include throwing their human clothes at it and it’d turn back but that’s a bit less romantic. This is my response to that prompt. (On Ao3, Complete, Rated G)

Corpse Bride/Sherlolly Mashup - Created by @simplyshelbs16xoxo Yet I feel my heart is aching Thought it doesn’t beat it’s breaking And the pain here that I feel Try and tell me it’s not real I know that I am dead Yet it seems that I still have some tears to shed (On Tumblr, Complete)

Crimson Peak - Created by @myqueenismollyhooper (On Tumblr, Complete)

Dead Man Walking - Written by @willsherjohnkhanAn alternate reality. Halloween-ish companion piece to The Familiar Stranger… (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Devoted - Written by @the-sapphiresky She loved Halloween. It was the one time of the year she could go all out, no holds barred on her morbidity, and no one would bat an eye. She traded her jumpers and comfy trousers for tight leggings, fake blood, bat wings, whatever struck her fancy that year. But this year, the temptation to be morbid wasn’t as alluring as usual. (On Tumblr, Complete, Rated G)

Edward Scissorhands/Sherlolly Mashup - Created by @simplyshelbs16xoxo (On Tumblr, Complete)

Happy Sherlolly Halloween - Created by @darnedchildA Sherlolly kiss pumpkin (On Tumblr, Complete)

I Had A Dream, Molly - Written by @thehiddenlawyer Sherlock and Molly, in a rough patch in their relationship, are investigating a mysterious death at infamous 50 Berkeley Square in London, when a thunderstorm rocks the house, and Molly walks away with new abilities. (On Ao3, Complete in 13 Parts, Rated M)

It’s no secret that Molly Hooper loves Halloween - Created by @simplyshelbs16xoxo It’s no secret that Molly Hooper loves Halloween, but it is something Sherlock finds endearing about her. They spend the afternoon walking through cemeteries, and the evening at her flat, watching cliché slasher films, and handing out candy to children who happen upon her doorstep. That’s when the activity begins. First it’s footsteps here and there, but then it escalates to objects being thrown, and the lights flickering. Turns out the thrift shop mirror Molly purchased for Halloween decór is a portal for spirits. And by the looks of the I.O.U. being painted on the glass, it seems Moriarty is back for revenge. (On Tumblr, Complete)

Jack the Ripper/Sherlolly Mashup - Created by @simplyshelbs16xoxo Jack the Ripper is on the loose, but Sherlock and Molly are on the case. They set out to find the identity of the ripper, unaware that they’re closer to the answer than they think…Sherlock’s cousin, H.H. Holmes. With hesitance, they attempt to acquire help from criminal mastermind, James Moriarty, who is imprisoned. He knows the identity of the ripper, but will only speak in riddles. (On Tumblr, Complete)

Life in Death - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo Molly Hooper finds an antique pocket watch in a thrift shop, resulting in her being haunted by the ghost of a Victorian Era Sherlock Holmes, who happens to have once been a tenant of her flat. Follow this annoyed-at-first-sight story full of witty banter, eventual romance, and an attempted murder most foul. (On Ao3, Complete in 8 parts, Rated T)

Little Red Riding Hood/Sherlolly Mashup - Created by @simplyshelbs16xoxo Once upon a time, a girl named Molly wandered into the woods in her red hood, only to come across the large black wolf everyone hides away from at night. The first thing she noticed was the strange, but beautiful, cerulean eyes. The wolf, she learns, is in fact a man who can shift into the large beast; a man named Sherlock. Upon finding out that the wolf who attacks her village isn’t him, but another shifter by the name of James Moriarty, Molly begins to set up a trap to catch him. This angers him, and Moriarty bites Molly before he is taken by the men of the village. Sherlock takes care of her through her transition into becoming a wolf herself; a beautiful copper coat covering her. The more time she spends with him, the more she falls in love with him… and he with her. (On Tumblr, Complete)

Nightmare Before Christmas/Sherlolly Mashup - Created by @simplyshelbs16xoxo My dearest friend, if you don’t mind, I’d like to join you by your side, where we can gaze into the stars, and sit together, now and forever. For it is plain as anyone can see. We’re simply meant to be. (On Tumblr, Complete)

The Phantom of the Opera/Sherlolly Mashup - Created by @simplyshelbs16xoxo Close your eyes, start a journey to a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before. Close your eyes and let music set you free. Only then can you belong to me. Floating, falling, sweet intoxication. Touch me, trust me, savour each sensation. Let the dream begin, let your darker side give in. To the power of the music that I write. The power of the music of the night. (On Tumblr, Complete)

Sherlolly Moodboard #1 - Created by @mel-loves-all Sherlock woke in a hotel room without any memory of how he got there. A case had led him to erotic underground clubs the night before. Flashes of hauntingly lonely brown eyes, skin soft as satin and ecstasy so pleasurably intense, it bordered on pain, bombarded him as the scent of crushed berries and sex lingered on the bed sheets. (On Tumblr, Complete)

Sherlolly Moodboard #2 - Created by @mel-loves-all Dreams. Fevered, erotic, all consuming. A woman whose beauty takes his breath away. Sherlock doesn’t ever want to wake up. (On Tumblr, Complete)

Sherlolly Moodboard #3 - Created by @mel-loves-all Mysterious murders lead Sherlock Holmes to the front door of a leading Historian of Witches and Witchcraft. He doesn’t believe in the supernatural but the beautiful professor’s smile could definitely be described as magical. (On Tumblr, Complete)

Sherlolly Moodboard #4 - Created by @mel-loves-all On Halloween night, there’s a murderer on the loose and Molly’s been kidnapped. Sherlock saves her and finally gets his head out of his arse and kisses her from relief and love.) (On Tumblr, Complete)

Sherlolly Moodboard #5 - Created by @mel-loves-all Love is kinda crazy with a spooky little girl like you (On Tumblr, Complete)

Sherlolly Moodboard #6 - Created by @mel-loves-all Who would have thought Molly and Sherlock both had a taste for the macabre on the scariest night of the year? lol, date night. (On Tumblr, Complete)

Sherlolly Moodboard #7 - Created by @mel-loves-all What started out as a fun ugly jumper purchase of Molly’s for Sherlock turned into a Halloween themed party where Mrs. Hudson took the grand prize for her “Frequent Flyer” sweater. (On Tumblr, Complete)

Sherlolly Moodboard #8 - Created by @mel-loves-allMoriarty. Even in death his presence lingers. All Sherlock can do is be there for Molly as she comes to grips with the remembered horror of the man. (On Tumblr, Complete)

Sherlolly Moodboard #9 - Created by @mel-loves-all Was she going insane? This was the urgent missive Sherlock Holmes was sent. A woman in danger. A woman who was being systematically poisoned and driven towards madness. He would not allow it. The beautiful widow, whose vulnerability, but incredible inner strength, drew forth Sherlock’s protective instincts like no one else before. (On Tumblr, Complete)

Sherlolly Moodboard #10 - Created by @mel-loves-all “They talk to me, always…whispering all the things they wished they had time to do…all the things they want me to do…for them" He looked around the morgue, and for one terrifying moment, he could hear them too…” (On Tumblr, Complete)

Sleepy Hollow/Sherlolly Mashup - Created by @simplyshelbs16xoxo The Pickety Witch, the Pickety Witch, who’s got a kiss for the Pickety Witch? (On Tumblr, Complete)

Spellbound - Created by @simplyshelbs16xoxo A trailer for both stories in my Spellbound Universe. (On Youtube, Complete)

Spellbound: All Hallow’s Eve - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo Sequel; takes place a year after the epilogue of Spellbound (I suggest reading that first). Sherlock and Molly encounter a man who’s out for revenge at the Watsons’ Victorian themed Halloween party. Meanwhile, there’s a woman roaming around London, impersonating Emelia Ricoletti. Magic, Mayhem, Mystery, and a Murder (or two) Most Foul. (On Ao3, Complete in 7 Parts, Rated T)

Spellbound: All Hallow’s Eve Edit - Created by @simplyshelbs16xoxo An edit created to accompany “Spellbound: All Hallow’s Eve”. (On Tumblr, Complete)

Universally Monstrous - Dracula - Written by @darnedchild It’s Molly’s voice. The woman he had buried just six days prior. (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Universally Monstrous - The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Written by @darnedchild “The Quasimodo Killer?” Sherlock scoffed. “Really, John. That’s the best you could do?” (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Universally Monstrous - The Phantom of the Opera - Written by @darnedchild It was a well-known secret that New Scotland Yard was haunted. (On Ao3, Complete, Rated G)

Vampire Edit - Created by @simplyshelbs16xoxo Post tfp. Sherlock has opened his eyes when it comes to matters of the heart. A passionate snog in the morgue showed Molly exactly how he felt about her. But there’s danger lurking around the corner… Moriarty never died on that rooftop. He’s a vampire with an agenda… to sire Molly Hooper. By doing so, it will make her undyingly loyal to him, and in turn, burn the heart out of Sherlock. Molly is on the run whilst Sherlock tries to track his arch nemesis down. He finds out that Moran has found Molly, and Sherlock will do anything to save her, but time’s running out. (On Tumblr, Complete)

Veils of Memory Infected With Dreams - Written by ALC_Punk (@lyssisbored) Molly was dragged into joining a search through the woods, or so she remembers… Yet the fog is growing ever deeper, and she can’t quite place what she’s supposed to be doing. (On Ao3, Complete, Rated G)

Witchy Woman - Written by @mizjoely Sometimes a witch just wants a night with a hot demon…what’s so wrong about that? (On Ao3, Complete, Rated E)

#sherlolly #sherlolly halloween at 221b #2018 sherlolly halloween master list

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dahniwitchoflight · 5 years ago

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Candy 18-21

oh, oh no

I’ve heard things about Jane x Gamzee

now I get to experience them, oh boy...

Gamzee gets, strangely serious about stuff for once, huh, who would have thunk it

yeah, It’s clear Jane’s political stuff seem to stem from some kind of fear that one day humanity won’t exist on Earth C for whatever reason

that over time, the population of trolls versus humans will eventually skew so much that there won’t be any adam and eve left to match up with each other

in her mind she really doesn’t hate trolls, cuz its not really about the trolls, not at all, but obviously her actions are equivalent to someone who does hate them and she just doesn’t get that

and like, yeah if you just left them to their own devices, maybe that would happen, but then (and I can’t believe I’m saying this) Gamzee has an extremely good point that they already did that when they plopped all the ectokids down and called it a day for a 1000 years, like, they managed to figure it out on their own just fine

and also

ectobiology will literally never stop being a thing so like, as long as some of the god kids stick around, eventually you can just make more humans it’s no big deal to restart the human gene pool since it will be identical to the first time they started it

there’s no reason to make sure this system runs smoothly the “natural way” it won’t, this situation is unnatural for both species

Jane’s just gotta realize that if she wants humans to keep sticking around, she just has to keep supporting the human population, that’s it, whatever trolls do or don’t do doesn’t matter for that goal

course it doesn’t help to compare trolls to animals when talking about their breeding rate and how it naturally evolved over time unlike the apparently non animal humans Janey

Also Alternian society is def not how troll society naturally is but like how could she know that? And how could any troll near her really explain that?

aaaand I got so up in taking this seriously I forget who was talking

Jane’s into troll blackrom though that’s interesting and unexpected

oh wow, Jake was there the whole time

Did they really name Jake and Jane’s baby Tavros??? oh jeesus

Yeah Kinda figured the Jane x Jake thing wasn’t gonna actually be happy

I’m really surprised Jane’s version of happiness apparently involves boinking a weird funny man I mean, she canonically likes clowns and jokes, so at the same time I’m not surprised, I mean, she WAS raised by the condesce, it’s just weird how that influence comes out in her sometimes versus how it doesn’t come out in her

literal Jake nightmare scenario though I think lol

really hammering home how the passions of youth don’t really translate well to happy adult relationships

Oh, so there’s the part where Jade reveals she has Bec biology, considering the fandom reaction you’d think we were gonna get some kind of gross M rated sex scene where she pegs Karkat or something

but all she does is talk about how she’d love a normal family and home life and lament that her circumstances ended up not really allowing that and giving enough hints that we can figure out why that would be

it’s not handled grossly at all, even if the subject matter is odd and it doesn’t come off as some sort of character sabotage

this whole time what we’ve known all Jade was that she was lonely and just wanted a family, not that hard to figure out why, girl’s got the same complex as Joey Claire about her family situation, but she’s more reserved about her feelings since she didn’t get to have a comparison of role models like Joey did with her babysitter and also Jade’s food and shelter needs were somewhat taken care by a planet guardian so the affect was somewhat lessened on the outside, she just didnt get the same chances as Joey to be able to articulate her emotional turmoil about it

aww Jade’s not happy either, well, that’s how it goes when you make relationship decisions based on flimsy passions that are more about fulfilling the needs of the self than about actually wanting good things for a partner

More like Jade’s sort of realized that Karkat and Dave don’t have a genuine romantic interest in her and she’s the only one keeping this ship afloat

oh shit, a dead younger jade, oh damn wait she’s the one from Meat that was trapped in the house juju and then immediately died from space razors

Yeah’s she’s a bloody symbol of meat that’s for sure, theyre making that pretty clear

“Her eyes go wide and she feels the breath go out of her for a moment. She looks directly upward. Where did this body come from?”

Again, if we take that symbolism circle of Breath = Sugar = Drugged up High = Breath

This little dash of meat falling into wonderland would break the breathy haze for a bit wouldn’t it?

So if this kind of thing can happen to others besides John, there’s hope yet for something of value to come from Candy

“ There’s a peaked skylight at the top of the foyer that splits the morning sun like a prism, spilling multicolored dots across every surface below. Amongst those dots are drips of teen-Jade’s blood. It’s so dark on the spotless tile that it looks nearly black. “

I wish I could draw things, I’d love to draw this exact scene here, it’s pretty and morbid

Yeah, the relationship theme of Candy seems to be that everyone’s jumping into Kismesis plus Matesprite threesomes, that seem to be neither of what anyone actually wants in totality

There’s some realization that their Candy filled atmosphere is actually more a drug or a poison, teen jade can’t be revived, and it’s not because of what happened to her, but more because of the environment she is in now

Ah Roxy, ever the social chameleon people pleaser, not working this time though

Jade’s is easily explained already as she has the social graces of an elephant

It is kinda sad tho to see most of the human characters actually aren’t that good at being cool about troll stuff

“CALLIOPE: pUrple roses traditionally represent love at first sight, however these roses are actUally red roses that we prepared Using a blUe dye.CALLIOPE: the blUe rose is the most elUsive and mysterioUs of all flowers.CALLIOPE: the combination of red and blUe in this context is meant to evoke the dUal natUre of death, in that there is nothing more mysterioUs and impossible to comprehend than the vast void of the afterlife, bUt also there is nothing that makes Us appreciate the life and and love that we already have than the mystery of death.CALLIOPE: while death is terrifying, there is always joy to be foUnd among the sorrow. each time we witness death, we fall in love with the important people in oUr lives all over again.“

Why do I get the feeling Calliope is talking about actual rose here somehow?

Is it because she started off with “here’s the symbolism of Purple Roses”?

a Red Rose dyed Blue

Now if Cascade taught us anything Blue and Red certainly represent a mutual destruction of opposites coming together to create a third new thing in the blaze of the aftermath, but that thing was a Green Sun, not something purple, so why bring Rose into mind for all of this?

We have been seeing the effects of what happens when people in candyland awaken from their drug haze with a smattering of blood, but in that case why not make the symbolism more clear by saying a Blue Candied Rose dyed Red as if with Bloodied Meat?

is it more to mean that the correct path lies NOT in Candy being dyed Red, but in Meat being dyed Raspberry Blue?

I Mean, Candy!Rose certainly seems shaken here, having gotten jolted out of her drugged haze at some point, but unable to See, and she’s actually starting to be concerned about that and Meat!Rose is kind of out of commission at this point, So I guess to get things back on track, Candy!Rose would have to go back to the Meat somehow, or might be the influence needed to snap Meat Rose out of her daze

Though I don’t like how this is taking place in the context of a funeral, specifically bringing to mind how Dirk did the same thing using the vessel of Death, I hope Candy Rose doesn’t try to just, off herself

with Dirk taking control of Rose’s ultimate self in Meat, Candy!Rose might be the only true Rose left to take heroic action

Aww, Callie is still head over heels for Roxy, I’m really surprised with this theme of threesomes that nothing ever came of a John x Roxy x Callie, but then again all the threesomes so far have been painted Black and Red, and unless John or Roxy was to form a Kismesis with Callie, I don’t see it happening at all

OH SHIT SPEAKING OF RED AND BLUE

Damn, Sollux and Aradia are here

“KARKAT: MAYBE FUCKING NEPETA IS ABOUT TO POUNCE FROM BEHIND THAT GROTESQUE STATUE OF THE HUMAN SUFFERER T-POSING OVER THERE.”

Karkat don’t tease me about Nepeta but also again WHY is actual Jesus here.

Is Roxy a christian in this timeline? Was she legit just praying to actual Human Jesus? That’s so, weird, especially for Roxy to do, what the fuck in Roxy’s upbringing on an apocalypse earth would make her want to worship Jesus?

Oh wait, that’s obviously what she thinks that every other human sincerely does, since she only had human media to go off of, and like, technically no human has ever said they DONT worship christian gods to her.

“GAMZEE: wHeN tHe DoOr Of ThAt FrIdGe pOpPeD oPeN iT wAs LikE i Be AlL sEeIn ThE lIgHt AnD sHiT.

SOLLUX: well yeah

SOLLUX: that’s what happens when s0me0ne 0pens a d00r t0 a t0tally dark encl0sure.“

Gamzee has had a weirdly meta understanding of what’s going on so far, for some reason, I can’t fathom what could be the Lighty influence that he’s gotten

unless...

Dirk really IS starting to subsume Ultimate Rose, and that’s bleeding over to every Ultimate self connected to Dirk

the more Gamzee knows meta shit and says oddly correct things, the more we know Dirk is “winning” over Rose

Oh, that’s why Gamzee is really here isn’t he? I mean, storywise? He’s a Dirk thermometer/gauge/thing, he’s our way of measuring how far Dirk’s influences are going in Meat

“ARADIA: its so nice that you believe all that gamzee

ARADIA: i think i can honestly say

ARADIA: im reasonably happy for you?“

lol

“blue smoke”

You don’t really tend to describe Smoke as being Blue right? At least, I don’t think that’s usual

But if we’re straight up associating Candy with Blue to complement Meat with Red now, it’s just making the whole Sugar = Breath thing that much stronger

*EDIT* DUH OF COURSE OF CANDY’S COLOR IS BLUE

BLUE GUSHERS. OBVIOUSLY. *end edit*

and I mean, what is Breath but a weird bluey smoke?

Roxy just wants to be happy with all her friends, that’s all

It is a good shake at trying to explain the nature of infinite possibility, that in reality, there isn’t really more weight put into one possibility over others, that’s how it works in real life anyway

unfortunately a storyline of canon is going to favor some version of events over others, and people make choices because they have preferences for that choice over other choices, something that seems kind of lost on Candy!Roxy who seems to just be okay with going along with anything because everything has an equal chance for having happytimes in this place

Roxy may be starting to lose her sense of self as well, and with her knowledge on things and how’s she’s been described as immutable so far, I wouldn’t be surprised at her having easily and subtly slipped into Ultimate Self hood herself and just being really okay with the idea that there is no one true Roxy, that she is just one piece of many, and not like, needing to delve into that further, not needing to connect with all her alternate selves, happy just being singular but at the same time completely malleable

Oh! Baby time.

Oh fuck, Al!Calliope in Jade time.

Why is Callie so afraid of Alt!Callie? That didn’t come across in their meetings in Homestuck as much, so why is that different here?

Is it because of Jade’s earlier comment of “there can only be one instance of a person here” and Callie doesn’t think she can win against Alltie?

Also, all these instances of Alltie appearing in Jade’s body is making me worried Alltie is doing something to both of their Ultimate Selves, like she’s subsuming Jade somehow like Dirk is subsuming Rose

I mean, they are fighting one another, so if Dirk’s doing something she has to keep pace right? In her mind, it’s probably totally justified

this is getting long enough for this post though, off we go again but I’m still reading

#Homestuck #Meat or Candy

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diarrheaworldstarhiphop · 6 years ago

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I Don't Wanna Grow Up (And Neither Can You)

You can't show women being hurt. You can't show child abuse. You can't show rape. You can't show incest. Pedophilia, self-harm, intimate partner abuse, necrophilia, violence against children; if you're going to so much as talk about any of these things you need to do so at a 5th-grade level and behind the dual firewalls of safe, pastel-colored animation and explicitly education-based presentation. The art has to show you in painstaking detail the exact way in which to behave. Even then there's no guarantee it won't provoke a public outcry, doxxing, death threats, and even campaigns to strip artists of their jobs and livelihoods.

The idea that by depicting an act an artist is endorsing that act seems baked into the minds of certain left-leaning sets of younger people, particularly teenagers and early twentysomethings. That they have such deep concern for the safety and social equality of their traumatized peers and the traumatized in their own ranks can only be admirable, but more often than not the form it takes is mass harassment and scapegoating targeting not institutions or major studios but independent creators, many of them marginalized themselves. If the whole thing sounds, with its zeal for censorship and its self-righteous hate campaigns against the disenfranchised, a little like the American Family Association with a glittery coat of paint, well, that's kind of what it is.

The usual arguments about internet anonymity and the horrible deformities it breeds in human interaction all apply here, and there's much to be said of the young age and unformed personalities of the people perpetrating the worst of it, but even older, more experienced art aficionados aren't immune to the fervor for purity in art. There seems to be a much deeper affection in these circles for corporate art -- for the Marvel cinematic universe and its bland, calculated inoffensiveness, say -- than there is for art made by artists. Movies like Wonder Woman and Captain America: Civil War are evaluated with a generosity of spirit that borders on delusion, cults of enthusiastic acclaim forming around actress Gal Gadot's onscreen thigh jiggle and the "subtle homo-eroticism" of Thor: Ragnarok.

Corporate art exists to please. It exists to reaffirm the status quo and to build affection for and loyalty to corporations. From the callous Islamophobia of the Iron Man movies to the US Air Force and CIA-approved wokeness of Captain Marvel and Black Panther, the whole enterprise is bent on saying as little as possible while looking as socially conscious as it can. Fandom's fixation on finding gay themes and subtext in these blockbuster juggernauts was more understandable when independent gay art was harder to find, but today you don't even have to brave a convention-- you can dig it up with a quick search on Etsy or Gumroad. When independent artists release material featuring actual deviant sexuality, though -- from gay content to incest -- the reaction from these same people is overwhelmingly prudish. There is little to no desire among them to interact with adult work created by adult gay and trans artists. That art -- small art, created for personal reasons -- is too dangerous to touch, too full of moral imperfections and frightening images.

But what's left in art once you scour away the things that make you uncomfortable? What's left for the people who make their living and/or maintain their sanity by approaching our own suffering from a place of skill, assurance, and safety? What's left for readers and viewers trying to grow as people, to find empathy for those they've been taught to despise, to understand their own sexual shame and fear? What's left for people struggling with the isolation of abuse who have no support and no words to help them name it? Art is the lifeblood of human connection and introspection. It is the foremost way in which we can confront our own weaknesses and failings. Sanitized and focused solely on the comfort and entertainment of its audience, it's no more meaningful than a halfhearted handjob from an indifferent lover.

The idea that depiction equates to endorsement has been pedaled in our society virtually since its inception. Its modern proponents range from anti-violent video game morality groups to the Westboro Baptist Church's unhinged campaigns to remove television with gay content from the airwaves. Imagine a world where Debbie Dreschler never made her autobiographical comic Daddy's Girl, one of the most scorching, hideous things ever committed to paper. How many people would never have seen their own experiences with parental incest reflected in her work, and thus felt able to finally break themselves open and process their deep pain? When a subject becomes taboo we lose our ability to process the pain surrounding it, to talk about it openly, to understand why it happens.

Another core pillar of this movement is the expression of outrage toward sexual kinks based around transgression. Surviving rape, abuse, and other traumatic incidents is never an easy thing, and it's never clean. You'll carry the marks of it in your sex life, in your sense of safety, in your beliefs about the world until the day you die. In Nancy Friday's My Secret Garden, a 1975 collection of women's anonymously submitted sexual fantasies, multiple Jewish women who had survived the Holocaust wrote with deep shame of their need to sexualize that experience, to relive it with their partners in a safe and loving environment. It's a relatable sentiment for anyone whose sexuality has been shaped by trauma, which can force shame and need against one another until they grow together inextricably. A close friend of mine was attacked as a "vicious anti-semite" for quoting the book.

The same friend was attacked en masse for her erotic comics featuring gay and bisexual men, comics which depict those men with complexity, heart, and loving attention to detail. The argument was that as a straight woman it was fetishistic for her to portray sex between men, a position so mind-bogglingly dense that I'm hard pressed to find a way to fire back at it other than "really?" It's difficult to parse until you realize that the targets of these little brigades of loudmouths and scolds are always, always women. For all that they're marching under the banner of social justice, the people they feel most comfortable threatening with harm and emotionally brutalizing are women. Men both in the independent art scene and in the mainstream make violent, hateful art every day, but screaming at men doesn't satisfy the misogynistic impulses beaten into us by a culture that sees women as weak, stupid, and venally evil.

What you have in the end is a movement which in practice enforces a sort of neoliberal social conservatism, demanding the sanitization of art produced by women and labeling existing art degenerate with the same verve the Nazis displayed in putting the torch to centuries of Europe's artistic history. It's a small, impoverished way to understand the purpose of art and it's fueled by deep, repressed misogyny. If we pretend everything is good, if we act like Marvel will fix racism and sexism if we just give them another four production cycles, if we make our branded dollies kiss and claim it's because the movies portray them in a symbolically homo-erotic context, OBVIOUSLY, then we don't need to look at ourselves or see what we're doing to the people around us. We can close our eyes and slip into the lukewarm water of purposeful mediocrity.

There's nothing wrong with escapism. There's nothing wrong with not wanting to or not being able to engage with art about horrific things. The problem begins when you look at the people who can, who need to, and decide that they can't either, that they're going to have to bend to your worldview or you'll call them pedophiles and nazis and incest apologists and run them out of town. And what then? When you've crushed the hopes and dreams of every woman writing dark erotica or making beautiful, sensual comics about love and loss, what's left but staring at each other in a creative wasteland and waiting for one of your own to show the tiniest sign of weakness so you can recapture the thrill of moral outrage by ripping them apart. It's a cannibalistic cultural dead end where corporations are our friends and other human beings are the enemy.

I stand with sex workers, with pornographers, with artists of all kinds struggling to make something hot, something vulnerable, something raw and sickening and terrifying. If they fuck it up, well, at least they're a person, not some faceless sea of suits trying to get their arms down my throats to pull out my organs. Enjoy your popcorn movies, your Steven Universe and your X-Men comics, but ask yourself, what are you immersing yourself in by not reaching beyond those things? What is prolonged and overgrown childhood doing to your mind and to your moral sense of the world? Growing up is painful, yes, but if you want to learn to love, to open yourself up to others, to touch the deepest, rawest parts of your psyche and your sexuality, you're going to have to suffer.

From: https://www.patreon.com/posts/25994657

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bitterbetterbun · 5 years ago

Text

Umber

[Pt.1/Day 1 of NaNoWriMo]

Klara laughed at the lighthearted response to her question. It wasn’t every night that she met someone still willing to hold fast to their sense of humor. She liked that about Jennifer. The sky began to brighten around them, the Sun calling for dawn over the hills in the distance. The wind that blew Jennifer’s hair into her face and wrapped it around her neck was lost on Klara. She wished she could feel it. Instead, she knowingly turned her attention to the train tracks behind Jennifer’s heels.

“I really enjoyed talking with you tonight.”

Jennifer smiled, the sheen of wet in her eyes showing the sincerity of her momentary happiness. Though Klara knew she was in no danger, she took a step back.

“So, Miss Lingston. How did you die?”

The roaring sound of a train horn came from behind Jennifer just as she stepped back onto the train tracks. Klara closed her eyes when the blaring lights came into sight, turning her head as she heard the all too familiar sound of metal going at 90 miles per hour obliterate flesh and bone within a millisecond.

The soft sound of an alarm came over the loud whoosh of the train. Klara opened her eyes and stared up at her ceiling. She silenced the alarm and sighed.

“Another suicide.”

The wood floor beneath her feet as she got out of bed was a comfort she welcomed. It reminded her that she was awake, and in better cases, that she was real. Klara flicked on the TV as she made her way around her small apartment, readying herself. The newscasters voice came to life.

‘-has not yet been a full 24 hours since forty-seven year old Jennifer Lingston’s tragic accident and yet, hundreds of family members and friends have gathered to make sure she will never be forgotten. City council will be meeting in an hour to discuss the addition of a train track safety class in all school districts...��

Klara started up the shower, happy to drown out the robotic voice coming from her television. She stood under the stream of water, letting in encompass the whole of her body and wash away all of the vivid memories she had from the previous night. The worst part, she thought, was that they were not even her memories to begin with.

After her shower and another fifteen minutes of scrambling around her bedroom to dig out her sweaters, Klara was out the door. The scent of fall was in the air and she was all too ready for it. The beautiful leaves, crisp and nearly weightless, reminded her of an important recurring theme in her life. Death and the beauty within it. The leaves turn, ripen and wisen on their branches until it is their time to let go. Then they float down, like snow flakes, softly kissing the gound at the end of their decent. The allegory of it all was ironic to Klara. Perhaps we all do fly at the end of our lives. But Klara knew better. Flying and falling were two very different things.

Then there were the leaves that were picked off, their lush green lives taken from them prematurely. And the accidents, as well, the leaves blown off by the wind. That was the difference between humans and leaves. Most leaves fall when they were ready and the few rest come to and end of their cycles prematurely.

Humans almost never made it to the grave organically. The gust of wind plucking a healthy leaf from a branch could be the cancerous smoke from cigarettes that entered a man’s lungs. Everything about humanity was nearly inhumane.

Klara took a deep breath of the autumn air. Fall really was the most beautiful time of year. But no matter how she looked at it -- the crunchy leaves, the warm, earthy smells -- Klara couldn’t help but think about the fact that she was surrounded by death.

The bright sound of a bell rang as Klara entered a coffee shop. With a glance, she spotted who she was looking for and moved to join him.

“Morning sunshine,” Talbot welcomced Klara, never breaking eye contact with the newspaper in one of his hands, a coffee cup in the other.

“Morning.”

Klara set her bag and coat down in the chair across from his.

“Want a refill?”

“You know it.”

Klara took Talbot’s cup, returning shortly with it and one of her own.

“Train track safety classes,” Talbot tossed the paper to the side with a humorous grunt as he lifted his freshly filled coffee cup to his lips.

“But of course, using that money to teach kids about important things like, I don’t know, sex-ed maybe? Well, that would be atrocious.”

“No one wants to think about their kids fucking, Talbot, they wanna prevent their deaths.”

“STDs?”

After staring at Talbot with concern, the two friends broke out in laughter. If there was anything they agreed on, it was everything.

“Tal, did you know doctor visits from STDs directly fund the golden toilet seats in the White House?”

“You’re wrong, Klara.”

Talbot took a sip of coffee, lowering lifting his brows.

“They fund the man that wipes the shit off of the President’s ass.”

“Jokes on you!” Klara slammed her hands on the table in victory as she leaned forward.

“His is only doing his country’s duty so he isn’t even getting paid.”

“Did you just say ‘duty’?”

The two laughed again as Klara kicked Talbot from underneath the table. Though the coffee shop was small, its environment seemed to welcome people like Klara and Talbot with its private tables and warm and cozy atmosphere. Talbot smiled at Klara, glad to see the life back in her eyes after a fit of laughter. He could only imagine what she must have gone through last night. He leaned in to speak softly.

“So?”

“Another suicide.”

“How do you know?”

“Like I know every time,” Klara propped her chin up on a fist, “she told me.”

Talbot nodded, sitting back as she assessed the information from his friend. He leaned in again.

“Klara, how long do these dreams usually last?”

“I don’t know. Time is weird in dreams. Sometimes it can feel like I’m there, living their whole life with them. Other times, it goes in a flash. All I know is they all have one thing in common.”

Talbot tapped the front page of the newspaper on the table, “That they all died the day before.”

“Ugh.”

Klara put her hands over her face, rubbing her eyes in tired, circular motions.

“This is all too weird.”

Talbot grabbed hold of one of her hands, pulling it from her face.

“Let’s be fair, klar,” he stroked it while tenderly looking her in the eyes, “you were weird before this phenomenon.”

Klara snatched her hand, giving him a sly ‘whatever’ smile. He knew just how to make her feel better. That’s why he had become the only person she could trust when it came to things she couldn’t understand.

“Think of it as like some sort of power, hm?”

Klara sipped her latte, mulling it over.

“It can’t be a power. It’s not like I can save any of these people. They come into my dreams after they’re already dead.”

“Who said everyone with powers has to be a hero?”

Damn, Klara thought. He had a point.

“Fine.”

She sat back, lifting up her chin.

“Then tell me, oh wise sir, what shall I do with this... spectacular talent?”

“God, I thought you’d never ask.”

Talbot slammed his laptop onto the table, the browser page open and ready. Klara jumped in surprise.

“Did you have that waiting under the table the whole time?”

“Read it.”

Klara rolled her eyes, fixating her gaze upon the screen. She looked from one striking word in the article to the next, pinning phrases in her mind; fortune teller, witch, speaker of the dead.

“You want me to be a wacko physic?”

“I want you to make yourself some money.”

Klara’s brows lifted in curiosity. Talbot took that as a sign to continue.

“You don’t have to tell people their futures, the exact opposite really. Connect with the families that lost a loved one and give them some clarity and closure.”

Talbot clicked to another tab full of information on the topic.

“It won’t be like you’re taking advantage of families that lost someone dear to them because it’s true, you actually do see these people. You charge for your service, that’s all. And-”

Klara gently closed the laptop, abruptly stopping Talbot in the middle of his prepared speech. As if reading her mind, he knowingly rubbed the back of her hand with his.

“I hear you, Tal. It’s a good idea. I mean, I am poor.”

“You are poor, oppressed and a POC which basically screams ‘steal from the rich’ if you ask me.”

Klara sighed out some laughter.

“True. I’m just not sure if I’m ready to let the world know about all of…” she gestured to her head, “this yet.”

“I get that.”

Talbot grabbed both of her hands, looking his friend in the eyes.

“Drinks.”

Klara smiled, “strong drinks.”

She found it silly, being able to find comfort in another person when the thing she feared the most was within them all. Her whole life was turning out to be a contradiction. But perhaps, she thought, she was looking at it wrong. A gust of wind blew a pile of pumpkin stained and maroon leaves around outside. Perhaps it wasn’t a contradiction but that one thing complimented the other. Death was not to be feared, it was a thing to be accepted. It was a thing of beauty. And as brightly as life shone throughout all of them -- the buzzing sounds of a coffee shop, the pitter-patter of people hurrying to work outside -- death was in them all. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps knowing that one day will be your last, it would help a person to live each day as just that -- their last. Or, in contrast, the pressure could make that same person end it all before something else had the chance.

Klara shook her head. She was thinking too much again. Her thoughts were not her own nowadays, and she found herself analyzing every aspect of life as it is and after its course. She was aware she was no philosopher but she sure felt like it, sometimes. But though another may have a different take on the prospect of life and death, one thing would always remain certain.

Death was inevitable.

The two gathered their things, Klara wrapping herself up in a thick knitted scarf as they headed out for their next stop.

#nanowrimo #umber #pt 1 #day 1 #writings #original work

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thisisjamaica · 6 years ago

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Welcome to Jamaica – no longer ‘the most homophobic place on Earth’

A country where violence against the LGBT community was once rife is increasingly adopting a more liberal outlook

Early one late summer morning, more than 200 people gathered under the lush canopy of Hope Gardens in Kingston, Jamaica, for a breakfast party.

The revellers ate – ackee, saltfish, fried plantain – and swayed to a soundtrack of dancehall and soca.

Same-sex couples danced together. A transgender woman strutted by in a flowing white dress adorned with a sash bearing the words: “Miss Supermodel Intl 2018”. The park was strung with rainbow banners for the fourth annual Pride JA celebrations. At about midday, the party wrapped up. A light rain eased the heat and the dancers went home to sleep.

It was all a far cry from the country that Time magazine called “the most homophobic place on Earth” in 2006. Yet that label has clung to Jamaica ever since, and with good reason. In a 2013 survey of 71 LGBT people conducted by Human Rights Watch, more than half said they had been victims of homophobic violence. Non-violent discrimination is even more pervasive, with bullying and exclusion faced in education, healthcare and within local communities.

The change has come through the dedication of activists, including the work of Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-Flag), the country’s largest LGBT rights organisation, which next month celebrates its 20th anniversary.

When the organisation launched on 10 December 1998, it caused outrage. A journalist in the Gleaner wrote at the time: “We are being prepared to accept seeing two men kissing, holding hands or sharing popcorn from the same bucket at the movies. Public reaction has, however, been hostile … for the next few years, at least, gay rights in our society, as far as road marches or public appearances are concerned, is a very dim possibility.”

Less than two decades later, J-Flag has made this “dim possibility” slightly brighter. Three years ago, the country held its first pride event when a flash mob of 15 LGBT people gathered in Kingston’s Emancipation Park, dressed in the colours of the rainbow. Since then, pride week has grown: a beach party last year attracted 1,200 people.

Pride celebrations have brought unprecedented visibility to the community. So has social media, which has allowed the organisation, and other groups campaigning for LGBT rights, to “humanise” gay people.

As a result, the former minister for justice and the mayor of Kingston have both spoken out publicly in support of the group. The policy change has not followed, however. Under the country’s colonial-era “buggery law”, anal sex is criminalised (sharing a legal clause with bestiality), as are acts of intimacy between two men.

But attitudes are changing. The first time J-Flag addressed parliament calling for changes to these laws, in 2001, they were not taken seriously or treated with respect. But the second time, in 2017, politicians listened courteously.

“That’s a huge step forward,” says Glenroy Murray, former associate director of programmes at the organisation. “People are willing to engage us, have us at the table and listen to our concerns.”

Jaevion Nelson, J-Flag’s executive director, says there has been a “public awakening” following two homophobic attacks in 2013 – one of them the murder of Dwayne Jones, who attended a party in women’s clothes. The 16-year-old’s death forced the discussion of LGBT rights into the public sphere.

The organisation itself has grown considerably since Nelson joined in 2010, aged 24 when there were just three employees. J-Flag now employs 14, with more than 200 volunteers recruited to help coordinate their growing number of events and activist programmes.

But, says Nelson, the lingering Time magazine headline is a hindrance. “It’s an unfair label,” he says, one that ignores the complex realities of discrimination and downplays the emergence of greater tolerance across the country. “It creates a lot of fear in people and paralyses the community. You think of yourself as the next victim of murder, rather than seeing yourself as an individual with an agency.”

Before Jamaica could get to that point of tolerance, however, J-Flag activists had to learn to latch on to bigger themes. Their manifesto, the Gay Agenda, was aligned with the government’s Vision 2030 development plan. The organisation works to reduce the spread of HIV across the island, and campaigns for the environment.

“We try as best as possible to interrupt our voices in those broader discussions, and not just about LGBT issues, because we exist outside of that community, too,” says Suelle Anglin, J-Flag’s associate director of marketing, communication and engagement.

Murray echoes these sentiments. “It’s not about the trajectory of decriminalisation, anti-discrimination legislation and then marriage,” he says. “It’s about looking at the ways in which LGBT people aren’t able to live their best lives.”

This means prioritising changes to anti-discrimination laws, which don’t protect Jamaicans on the basis of sexual or gender identity, over the “largely symbolic” repeal of the “buggery” laws. It means promoting the LGBT message while presenting that community as part of the wider Jamaican society, he says.

That’s why J-Flag held a breakfast party to celebrate pride in a uniquely Caribbean way. “It’s about placing queerness in Jamaican-ness,” says Murray, “and showing that the two can exist and have co-existed for years.”

#jamaica #gay #caribbean #lgbt #jflag

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sovietarchive-blog · 6 years ago

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so i need to know what are certian things you see in illya others dont? does he fear anything? does he wish to redo anything? what is his relationship with solo & teller now? does he still see himself as a monster? how do you canon his sexuality and kgb training? is more attuned to uncle or the kgb? has he seen his parents ever again? does he lile to travel, if so best place he traveled? what was the one thing he got in trouble for the most as a child? who does he look up to?

thank you so much for sending this in! I love questions like this and don’t get the opportunity to answer them very often. while I can’t say that I definitively see things in illya that other people definitely don’t – I do flatter myself that I’ve put an enormous amount of thought into his character and understand him pretty well, so I’m really excited to delve into all of these things!

does he fear anything?

illya is very, very human, despite what some might think. (see: solo’s initial comments to his superior officer after that first chase with him.) he certainly has fears, although death isn’t among them ; he’d much rather die with honor than live with shame. for the most part, he’s been desensitized to fears the way most people see them, as part of his kgb training, because ultimately the goal is for these agents to have very little for their enemies to hold over their heads / threaten them with. that said, his superiors, as exhibited in the film, actively fed illya’s single deepest fear: ending up like his father. in a way, I think that fear was partially artificially created by the institution which got its claws into him at an incredibly young age ; even before his official kgb training, he attended ‘exclusive’ schools closely monitored by the government and was fed propaganda which eventually morphed his opinion of both himself and his country, which we see later.

illya has very little concern for his own self-preservation and clearly quite a low self-image, in that he sees himself as little more than a cog in the soviet machine. shame on himself is shame on his country – and perhaps more importantly than that, shame on his family. his mother remains a deeply important part of his life and I think that he fears for her reputation as well. solo brings up his mother’s reputation in the movie – and I think illya’s rage has less to do with how his father’s friends saw her and more with the fact that these were things she had to do in order to keep herself and her young son afloat. he never wants to put her in the same position his father did, and the idea of shaming himself and compromising her in the process is also a great fear of his. all other fears, in comparison, are inconsequential.

does he wish to redo anything?

I’m not sure illya has ever felt like he has the sort of autonomy to be able to wish this. even later on in life, when he’s been given the opportunity to step back from the soviets, join u.n.c.l.e., and eventually retire, even after he comes to terms with the fact that he didn’t deserve what they did to him, he realizes that things could not have ended up any other way. he was too young to have had the opportunity to make a choice when they got their hands on him, and by the time he’s deep into the kgb, it was simply too dangerous to try to leave – and he has his mother to think about. fortunately, u.n.c.l.e. provided him some relief and eventually he gets to leave spying entirely, but when it comes to wishing he could redo things?

honestly there’s the occasional moment he wishes he could relive. he wishes he could say something else to someone he likes, instead of being his awkward self. he wishes he would have used a different move in a fight or a different interrogation tactic in a particular moment. but when it comes to overarching themes of his life? there’s not much he feels he could have done differently even if he wanted to.

what is his relationship with solo & teller now?

I can honestly say that every dynamic I’ve ever imagined or rped with others has me convinced that, despite occasional roadblocks, illya grows to deeply care for both solo and teller more than anyone he’s ever cared for in his life, except perhaps his mother. you see those relationships growing in the duration of the film, but illya … well, frankly, he’s never had anything like a functional family, nor people he feels actually care about him. his relationship with gaby obviously progresses more quickly in the film – in that he’s willing to even voice his concern about her to solo later on and he’s very soft with her particularly in their last one on one scene – but I think that solo returning his watch is a real turning point in their relationship. obviously, they’ve grown to care in some capacity about each other and they’re in a place where they won’t leave each other behind. illya definitely feels some level of camaraderie with solo even before this moment. but until then, he’s absolutely planning on killing solo for the disc. sure, illya is aware that solo was, more or less, saving his own skin in that moment – but the fact that solo a) remembered the significance of the watch, b) considered that even as they were storming that island and c) thought enough of it to both recognize and take back the watch to begin with, is more thoughtfulness by far than illya is used to, despite the motivations of the exact moment in which he returns it.

the following scene, in which they burn the disc, is by far the most egregious breach of orders illya has ever committed, but not only is he unwilling to destroy this relationship he’s built up, no matter how tenuous it remains, he’s also fully aware of the implications of either the u.s.a. or soviet union getting their hands on that disk.

I can only imagine those strange yet strong bonds deepen with each mission. regardless of any romantic connections, which largely rely on my rp partners, he would die for either of them, whether or not they feel the same. he’s never had a dynamic support system like the one they offer, and frankly, I think waverly, to some extent, is included in this as well. as far as illya is concerned, even if only on a subconscious level, this is the closest thing he’s had since childhood to a real family and he’ll do anything to protect that.

does he still see himself as a monster?

yes and no. having functional and meaningful relationships with other people, as we see him developing at the end of tmfu, certainly helps him understand his humanity outside of what the kgb expects of him. I think he will always be somewhat ashamed of some of the things he’s done – and alarmingly blasé about others – and he’s certainly, to some extent, broken for the rest of his life, but having gaby and solo in his life absolutely helps him rebuild at least some of his opinion of himself, allowing him to see more than just a monster or a machine, because they help him see more than that, too.

I haven’t written much about his relationship with waverly either … but I’m fairly convinced that the human way in which waverly treats them ( shitty sarcastic jokes and all ) helps a great deal with this recovery process as well. the way his soviet handler speaks to him is alarmingly awful, and even though waverly pokes dry fun at both the boys at almost all times, I have a hard time believing he wouldn’t be a far more empathetic boss than illya is used to – likely checking in on their well being, as he did for gaby, and just generally being … a pleasant superior in the harsh world of intelligence. specifically I headcanon that waverly learns everything he can about illya’s skills and encourages him to use all of them, particularly those that aren’t connected to his physical prowess and rather to his intellectual side, which I think is often underutilized and underestimated by others.

how do you headcanon his sexuality and kgb training?

since I don’t have time to go into his whole kgb training, I’m just going to kind of … do this as a ‘how did his training affect his sexuality’ even though I don’t know if that’s how it’s meant. it’s really quite simple: russia has never felt great about homosexuality, so although he’s always been attracted to men, it’s always something he’s vehemently ignored and tried to move past. it’s been drilled into him over and over that same sex attraction is a bad thing – and furthermore that the government won’t hesitate to hurt him over it. it’s something that makes him feel dirty and wrong for a very long time, at least until he’s a little more freed from their expectations.

illya has been aware of his attraction to both men and women since he was in his mid-teens. do I think he was ever punished for it? no, because he’s always been quiet, cautious, and watchful. I don’t think he’s ever told anybody up until ( and frankly past ) tmfu canon, because before he ever had the chance to trust anyone enough to reveal it, he saw what happened to those who did and were found out. within the ranks, it could be brutal and it put him off ever vocalizing his feelings, encouraging him instead to hold those urges back for years.

in this way, u.n.c.l.e. serves yet another healthy purpose for him. it gives him just a little more freedom to explore himself – and furthermore, an environment in which to do it. I’m a big subscriber to the napoleon / illya ship and I actually don’t think that illya had much, if any, experience with men before he and solo started their thing – which again varies depending on who I’m rping with / what situation I’m thinking of. this is something he’s repressed for a very long time, and no matter what, it takes time for him to be comfortable with his sexuality. I also can’t get on board with the initial solo / illya hate-fucking that I see a lot, even though I really wish I could, mostly because I think that illya would absolutely have to learn to trust solo long before he’d be willing to engage with him sexually -- because he’s terrified of the repercussions and what the russians would do to him, his mother, and his reputation as a result if they found out.

is he more attuned to u.n.c.l.e. or the kgb?

I think that, at first, he’d like to think it’s the kgb, but he’s always been more attuned to u.n.c.l.e. I’ve explained many of the reasons why further up in this post, but it basically comes down to the fact that u.n.c.l.e. offers him a camaraderie that the kgb never has and the people he works with in the organization actually care about him as a human being rather than just a weapon.

has he seen his parents ever again?

he never saw his father after he was shipped off to siberia when illya was a child. however, as for his mother, he did actually grow up with her still around and he maintains a pretty good relationship with her, although he doesn’t care for the man she eventually chose to remarry, who was a friend of his father’s. he talks to her somewhat regularly and spends holidays with her when he can, although often he ends up being away and simply sends her a present. he loves his mother very much and will always be available for her, no matter what.

does he like to travel? if so, what’s the best place he’s ever traveled?

this is another ‘yes and no’ question. he’s spent the majority of his career traveling and I think that he has questionable memories in the majority of the world. he equates a lot of his traveling experience with his profession and that’s not necessarily a good thing for his opinion of it. however, he’s also an academic and he does love to visit certain locations around the world when he can. he loves germany. he loves vienna. he loves egypt and scotland and croatia. he didn’t initially like paris at all but he’s grown to truly appreciate it over the years.

after his retirement, I think he finds much more peace in traveling for himself and thus will enjoy it more. however, as for his favorite place, I headcanon that he purchases land sometime during his career in the black forest of western germany, a few miles outside a small town, in a very picturesque location where he can essentially just ... disappear. the mystery and lore and beauty of that area just ... fits him wonderfully. I think he’d want a place outside of russia in addition to his moscow flat, which he visits less and less as he gets older, and the entire area is just so lovely and fairly isolated and would give him an opportunity to really live his best life. it’s not so much traveling, as he would live there, but it would certainly be his favorite place. it’s peaceful and beautiful and honestly waht he deserves.

what was the one thing he in trouble for the most as a child?

he was largely a very well behaved child, especially after his father was taken away, and I don’t think he got into pretty much any trouble after his father was taken to the gulag, because it scared him too much. he was also always a very quiet boy without too many friends and certainly not prone to being disruptive or careless or really even particularly reckless. ( even the recklessness we see in the film is typically very calculated. ) as a schoolchild, I think he used to get in trouble for a) not engaging well with other children and b) probably trying to read while the teacher taught, on occasion.

when the ‘ psychotic episodes ’ began ... that was a different story. I think that he unwittingly hurt several fellow students and was subsequently sent to reform / military schools. nobody really did much to help what was happening to him and instead the government eventually took advantage of this part of him. he has them largely under control now, but it’s still something that continues to haunt him -- and that he continues to struggle with regularly, as we see.

who does he look up to?

illya’s past is ... almost devoid of any role models, when you really think about it. his superiors were almost always fairly cruel, and while he respected them and strove to please, I don’t really think he looked up to them. he once looked up to his father, but that faded once he was sent off ; frankly, his father broke his heart and betrayed him, and while he still holds love for him in his heart, I wouldn’t say he looks up to him.

in his youth, I think that illya was guided largely by the heroes of russian literature, in the absence of anyone of flesh and blood. grigoriy pechorin of lermontov’s a hero of our time. pierre bezukhov of tolstoy’s war and peace. ( oddly ) rodion raskolnikov of dostoyevsky’s crime and punishment. university had an excellent influence on him, however, as the professors he encountered there gave him an opportunity to look up to real people, and he remains in contact particularly with his mentors from his graduate and doctorate programs, as often as he can. university was the first time when he connected with people he felt were interested in mentoring him, rather than simply controlling him, and it was a very positive experience for him.

I also believe that he eventually develops a real respect and admiration for waverly as a superior officer. waverly, who is intelligent, often kind, but also firm. waverly, who grows to understand illya’s humor more quickly than others do. waverly, the first superior in his life who genuinely ends up being kind to him. in his life as a spy, this relationship ends up providing him the most guidance and confidence, eventually.

#batterediron #he’s a walking war zone. ↠ about.#congrats if you make it through all of this.#this is long as shit but i LOVED writing it.#tysm again for sending it you're an angel!!

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redorblue · 6 years ago

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On Beauty, by Zadie Smith

This was the second book by Zadie Smith that I read, and if it wasn't official that I love her already, it definitely is now. It takes me a while to get into her books because the pacing is very deliberate and in order to appreciate her genius, you first have to get to know the characters, but once it happens it doesn't really let me go again, even when I've made an effort to put it aside for a moment. The first one I read was Swing Time, and On Beauty is very different in terms of setting and topics, so it's hard to imagine that she'd have such a good eye, so much understanding for two (three) entirely different contexts, but she does.

The main topic in On Beauty is love/attraction, mainly of the romantic and/or sexual kind, but some of the POVs also talk about belonging and identity. The story is told mostly from the perspective of one family: Kiki, an African-American nurse; Howard, her white British husband who works as an art history professor at a New England college; their elder son Jerome, who shocks his family in the beginning of the novel by becoming religious; his sister Zora, a college sophomore and workaholic; and Levi, the youngest in the family and very much at odds with his family's suburbanness. There are some other characters who get a chapter every once in a while, but it's clear that these five and their relationships and struggles with each other are the main focus of the book.

I didn't like all the characters, and especially with Howard I grew ever more disgusted the further the plot progressed, but what I appreciated a lot about this book was that I understood each character’s motivations, even though I didn't like them sometimes. In my opinion that’s a sign of a really good writer: if they're able to make sense of their characters' actions, despicable as they may be, without trying to guilt-trip you into feeling sorry for them. Explaining, but not justifying. Like in this case: before the book even starts, Howard has cheated on Kiki with one of their friends (who, incidentally, is the exact opposite of Kiki physically), and during the course of the novel, he does it again repeatedly, this time with a beautiful young student of his who is not only the daughter of his archenemy, but also obviously disturbed after the sudden death of her mother. Granted, it happens on her initiative, but he's fantasized about her before, and how hard is it to just keep it in your pants really. I personally think that Howard is a terrible human being, and I'm pretty sure that the author, personally, thinks that too, but it's still made clear why he does it because „he's a terrible human being" doesn't really cut it when you write literature.

Essentially, Howard cheats because he's unhappy with his bourgeois, stable, normal life. He's from a working class British family, a fact that he's never really made his peace with, so everything he does is, at least subconsciously, partly due to his rejection of his origins and the expectations with regard to lifestyle, profession and romantic interests that come with it. His choosing art history as his field (but then engaging with art in a very pragmatic and, one might say, unintellectual way), his moving to the US, his marrying a black non-academic woman… I'm not saying that he doesn't love his wife or his job, just that the pattern goes back a very long time. In that vein, it makes sense that he has an affair with his colleague and, even worse, with his student once he gets too comfortable in his academic bubble, once he feels trapped by what other people expect his life to be like, once it gets normal and boring. Basically he has a classic midlife crisis, and he compensates for it by having sex with the two women that remind him the least of his wife and their family. And as morally questionable as that may be, it makes sense.

But enough about Howard - I've talked so much about him and I don't even like him. I like Kiki, and I have to say that I found it very satisfying when she moved out of the house and let him deal the household and their kids for a change. In her case, too, that decision made sense for her character, but in contrast to Howard it was a point that she first had to reach. In general, Kiki is an independent-minded woman who has a very healthy sense of herself and her body (she's plus-sized) and enough self-confidence to make herself at home in circles where she's often the only black and non-academic person (and married to a white academic who's not exactly good at guessing what other people might feel like). That's why I was a bit confused that she was on her way to forgiving Howard when she first learned about his infidelity.But thinking about it, it does make sense.

First of all, she mentions several times that she basically gave up everything for this life with Howard, that her marriage and her family are her life. We don’t see her spend that much time with people outside her family circle, with the exception of Carlene, and there it’s made clear that building a friendship is an unusual experience for Kiki. So it would make sense for her to try and repair her marriage, simply because there’s not much else in her life (at least in the beginning of the book, in the epilogue things seem to have changed - yay Kiki). Secondly, and here’s where the guessing starts, I think her background has something to do with it. If I remember correctly, she never mentions her father, as opposed to her mother, so I suspect that her father wasn’t present for much of her childhood, as was probably the case for many of her childhood friends, since she’s not from a wealthy family and poverty and racism tend to screw families up. Kiki definitely turned out well, but she probably knows how hard it is to be a single mom, or a kid without a father, and she doesn’t want that for her family or for herself. So she tries to fix it, or rather just go with the flow - not pretending as if nothing ever happened, but trying to be okay with her new situation and the gap between her and her husband that his cheating has opened up. Until he cheats again (and picks the worst possible partner for it). In that instance, she doesn’t see much of a point in trying to make it okay again because in spite of her efforts, nothing has changed for the better in her marriage, and with this repeated betrayal she doesn’t think that it ever will. So she walks out - and no, I absolutely did not whoop even a little bit when I read that.

Besides the whole love/marriage/sex group of themes that Kiki’s story deals with, it also touches a bit on belonging and identity. This is also the main topic in her son Levi’s story. Levi is still in highschool and obviously confused about who he his and where he belongs. He lives in a very safe, wealthy, white suburb, but he’s also a mixed-race (read: black) young man, and especially in such an environment that is not the easiest thing to be. He has this romanticized vision of blackness - not that he thinks that being a poor young black man is awesome, but he likes the sense of belonging he gets when he hangs with some Caribbean street vendors, and he definitely romanticizes the bond between black people. He also thinks this way of life is more authentic for people like him than what his family does - being in academia, recruiting their social circle among their white neighbors and coworkers etc. He does his best to fit in with his chosen circle, but the tragedy of his story is that as much as he would like to pretend that they all basically share the same background, the same experiences, it’s just not true. He slips up in the little things - like when one of his friends tells him about some people who work in the college and Levi automatically asks which department they’re in, not thinking that they might not do academic jobs. He makes a very good ally - he’s a heartbreakingly compassionate person, to the point of naiveté (but he’s still young, so that’s okay) - but as much as he would like to pretend otherwise, he just didn’t grow up in a poor family who lives in a poor inner-city neighborhood. His desire to belong and to right some of the wrongs that his friends always tell him about even makes him commit a crime in the end - and the only thing that keeps him out of trouble is his wealthy academic family. He doesn’t get the (kind of) happy ending that Kiki gets, because Kiki’s problem has a hard, but feasible solution - walking out - while Levi’s does not, he’ll just have to learn to be okay with being neither white nor black (= what he thinks being black is about).

Generally, although the tone keeps being quite light and relaxed until the last page, On Beauty isn’t exactly an optimistic book. Some of the romantic problems are resolved, which is how Kiki, Jerome, and even Howard (maybe) get their more-or-less-happy endings. But those concerning class, race, and the intersections of the two, like Levi or Carl or also Zora, end on a much less positive note because in the end these things are out of your control as an individual person. Which is not to say that I didn’t like the ending, I do like it very much (and not just because I like sad endings). Especially Kiki’s ending as the pinnacle of her entire arc is beautiful and important because here is this fat, non-academic, black woman who is not a stereotype but instead portrayed as 1. a real person with feelings and thoughts and intelligence, and 2. beautiful and desirable. Off the top of my head I can name maybe one or two more example where something like that happens. But the ending is certainly bittersweet because it shows that while there are some things in your personal life that you can fix (or walk away from), there are also obstacles that you just can’t transcend - especially those that affect you on a societal level. And this may not be the moral that one wants to get out of a story, but it is - sadly - realistic.

#on beauty #zadie smith #book review #2018 #kiki belsey #books

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holidaysat221b · 5 years ago