#When their entire identity is built around not being a trauma survivor

[antiendovents]

Wouldn't hate endo systems as much if they stopped trying to get themselves to be accepted and treated the same way as TRAUMA SURVIVORS and invade our spaces etc when we say that we don't want non traumatized people in safe spaces for traumatized people 😭

literally. Why are you demanding that trauma survivors treat you like one of them even though you claim to have no trauma. Like dude fuck off.

[imbuedebauchery]

While I love to see everyone so excited about Isha,

especially where it concerns the potential for Jinx's healing, I'm shocked to see a lack of concern for the child and what she means to the story as a whole.

Arcane has always been about cycles of violence, about how people become doomed by violence to uphold systems of violence. It has always shown us this through children. Arcane is fundamentally built on the trauma of children and how that trauma becomes an inescapable vortex.

Vi would not be Vi if she was not extremely young when her parents died. She would not base her entire sense of self and worth around protecting others - she would not consider herself fundamentally wrong and reprehensible for failing to protect her charge, Powder - if not for the way this identity was cemented into her youth. The Enforcers took everything from her. The whole point of her story is how she negotiates (terribly) with all these moving parts - pieces that were presented to her through the vulnerable and fractured lens of being a literal child.

Same with Jinx. Let's not forget what her trauma looked like. Where Vi was forced to be an adult right from the beginning of her life, Jinx never got to grow up. She was forever trapped by her nightmares and hallucinations, unable to process her emotions like an adult. We know how this ended. (Terribly.)

The sister cities are at war. The sisters are at war. They were subjected to ruthless violence and isolating practices throughout their youth. One of the fundamental scenes from S1, E1 is the baroque-invoking montage of Vi, Mylo and Claggor fighting the other kids while Powder sat and watched, horrified. This could very well have been one of the worst, ugliest displays of close-up violence Powder was subjected to in her youth.

Why is it okay that this happens to Isha?

Maybe "okay" is the wrong word. I'm not accusing people of condoning or celebrating any kind of violence involving children, not by any means.

My question is: why are we cheering so loud for Jinx to be reverse-adopted by this child when their first encounter is after a lethal gunfight? Jinx shows her a ruthless display of unthinking, uncaring violence. She has become the undercity embodied with all her chaos and destructive tendencies. Isha was an evader - she ran from the danger. She was a survivor, not a killer. But the moment she is shown someone who cares about her in the same motion that she shows her how the undercity really works, she associated that care with that violence.

Did Isha know what it meant to put herself in Vi's way? Yes or no both bring their own problems. Yes, she understands death and what it means to kill people, and would participate in that act - would either be killed by Vi, or pull the trigger on her - to keep her new source of care safe. No, she has no idea what she's doing, and is blindly acting on love and attachment alone.

This was the question that would have followed Silco and Powder all throughout Powder's upbringing.

Yes, Jinx will be given opportunities to see herself, to see Powder in Isha, and to try and make things better for Isha and thereby address her own childhood trauma. But it's already off to a horrific start. Jinx is ultimately powerless to change how the undercity works (we'll see if she unites it! But likely won't change it), and cannot afford to show anything other than express and expert violence to those she loves. There was another post that talked about how the three girls, Isha, Jinx, and Sevika, communicate in body language and grunts and don't need words to communicate anything - yes. because their communication is based in beating the shit out of people. This makes them good fighters, not good at fixing issues or approaching trauma. They will simply continue to try and solve their problems and become a family in the only way they are familiar with: through killing others.

Another child is simply being roped into the way of things. Another child is being put at risk. Another child will grow up and show other children that violence is what keeps the world chugging along.

Whether or not Isha dies, something tragic will befall her. Something that will provide her with an irreversible fork in the road. She will either die, and Jinx will see that this is what her system, her city, does to people. That this is what she is permanently cursed to do to people. Or Isha lives, and faces something traumatic. Jinx realizes that this is what happens to children in the undercity, and is hopeless to affect any kind of change.

Or... Isha lives. She suffers the moment of extreme horror that will change her forever, and has no coping mechanisms, but saw enough lost love in Jinx that she is able to piece together a way to continue in this world without resorting to violence. She finds a way to address that trauma without unleashing it back on the world.

I'd like to think, knowing how Fortiche will be more than aware of the themes of childhood in this series, that Isha will live. Introducing a child this late in the game - a universal symbol of hope for the future in any given fiction - presents them with the opportunity to express how things can change. Maybe our wretched adult freaks are doomed, but maybe... maybe there's a chance. Maybe not everything is absolutely hopeless.

If they kill her? There is no shred of hope in the rest of this series. I'm sure of it. Literally nothing good will come out of any other plotline in S2 if Isha dies. She is the canary, and oh boy, we're going down deep into the mine with S2.

Why must a child suffer for Jinx to learn? I think this is the ultimate question that comes out of seeing the excitement for the new trio family. Why do we have to rope a literal child into a murder duet so that Jinx might be able to see her own traumas in a different lens?

There's something about the doom of children to systemic violence that just makes me weepy every time. Rewatching S1 E1 had me in tears almost every minute. Knowing that these kids, these children, were participating in practices that would doom them. Knowing that the adults we see at the end of S1 and where we are in S2 are direct and inevitable products of their youth. Kids that deserved love and safety, and were instead handed war and weapons. And we're watching it again in real time! And cheering about it????

I had to ramble about this because I just haven't seen anything on it - and maybe I'm wrong, maybe it just hasn't crossed my feed, maybe everyone is acutely aware of this as a base-level of knowledge and I just didn't get the memo. But I'll share my thoughts anyway.

[viktorgf]

—what’s at your character’s core?

HEYYYY besties 💋 tagged by @gwynbleidd to do this uquizzie uwu mwah tagging: @jackiesarch 💋 @unholymilf 💋 @corvosattano 💋 @florbelles 💋 @risingsh0t 💋 @adelaidedrubman 💋 @pinkfey 💋 @pitchmoss 💋 @cetra 💋 @bethesdas 💋 @lavampira 💋 @thedeadthree 💋 @marazhaiaezyrraesh 💋 @oh-mali 💋 @scalpelsister 💋 @ghostfvcker 💋 @kyber-infinitygems 💋 and you!!

—SPUN GOSSAMER

the easiest thing to do is stay quiet when something’s up. you’re not bothered, and you know what? you shouldn’t be! it’s none of your business, even when it’s entirely your business. it’s difficult (read: impossible) to tell if your cheery demeanor is a cover-up for something sadder, or if it’s simply your natural state of mind. you see a lot of things: people coming through town, people leaving the house and never coming back, lies and deceit of the highest degree. what happened to you? will you ever be that kid again? your presence smells like cotton candy, and your fingertips sparkle like stars. whatever white rabbit you’re chasing isn’t going to lead you to wonderland if you don’t start reaching out when you’re not feeling okay.

—FLIGHTLESS BIRD

the thought of your found family is what motivates you in your own little world. you touch the clouds, and the soil gives way under your footprints... this is utopia. if you were to erase one thing, it would be your memory. experience is important, but ignorance is bliss. identity, in heaven, should give way to happiness. you'd give anything just to sit by the swings and eat ice cream, but this isn't that kind of world. you have to get up and wash the dirt off of your scraped knees. i think you have an escapism problem.

—BEHIND THE MASK

you aren’t slick about whatever you think you’re hiding. glass shatters in your midst, blood spills, children scream. like some of your friends, your personality of choice is entirely artificial. the difference between you and them is that you can get away with it. you’re unknown, perhaps even to yourself, and your goals are complex and unknown. anyone stupid enough to fall for you is setting themselves up to be frustrated and confused, owing to your being ultimately unknowable. i hope you can find an identity that makes you comfortable.

—ACERBIC WIT

you're a mentor — an old scarred wolf, an injured soldier, a disgraced paladin. your teachings read as shamelessly pretentious, speaking in rhymes and biting down hard into anyone stupid enough to make the wrong move. this isn't your first life, nor your second, nor your sixth — you'll make the most of your time shackled to this world, no matter how many loops it takes to get it right. with every defeat, you reincarnate; a little smarter, a little quicker, crueler and nastier. will you choose to be brutal, equalizing, that final strike in the face of your enemies? will you go soft, become tender and domesticated? the choice is yours. it's not like i can stop you.

—CAUTERIZING RAGE

the house has burned around you, and you’re the only one left standing. is it gratifying to be the survivor? fear and anger are weapons in your capable hands, used only to serve your agenda of fighting back when deemed necessary. you're a powerful person, built from the ashes of your despair and your family's mistakes. with time, you'll bloom into someone softer, like the full blossoms that grow each spring and wither away with the leaves in fall. they won't disappear if you take your eyes off of them. you're enough.

—RIPPLING SUNSET

you’re the nicest person i’ll ever meet, probably. with an undying passion to protect those who can’t protect themselves, you’re energetic and bubbly to a fault. it’s cute, watching you run around trying to tie up loose ends. i feel bad for you — out of everyone you know, you probably have some of the deepest trauma, more than anyone’s aware of. this isn’t something that you want attention for at all, and you’d really just rather forget it exists at all… even then, it seems like you can never escape it. i wish you a pleasant rest of your life, full of rippling sunsets and free of prying eyes.

[germiyahu]

I would like to propose a third pillar to this ill-constructed temple they've built. It wasn't Sartre, it was that other writer who gets attributed the quote about the common man feeling both inferior to and superior to a Jew? Who was that? But yes that.

Tumblr has spent over a decade being comprised on left leaning (former) Christians who look upon Jewish bloggers with envy. Jewish bloggers openly talk with affection and pride about their religion- not just cultural aspects like festivals, family, and traditions- but the theology and philosophy undergirding it all.

Tumblr sees Jewish bloggers growing up with no religious trauma, who are not religious abuse survivors. It sees (some) queer Jews who simply can't relate to the idea of being rejected by their parents or community, sometimes because of that community's belief about equality, fairness, and compassion. These are qualities Christianity espouses but rarely embodies. It sees Jewish women push back against forced birth politique because it would violate their religious freedom, as Judaism does not think life begins at the same time as Christianity does.

And most importantly, Tumblr sees these well adjusted actively religious people be champions of (economic) Leftist ideas themselves, because a lot of Leftist ideas mesh pretty well onto Judaism's themes and messages.

So in their minds, these goyim seethe with envy that there's a group of people who follow an ancient Abrahamic religion and have no issues reconciling left leaning and even more radical politics with it. They assume that Jews are advertising their religion as Leftist, bragging about it even. A lot of them wish they could have had an upbringing like that. A lot of them find out you can convert and some of them do so. Some of them find healing and purpose.

But for the vast majority, it's always been an uncomfortable tension- watching young educated Jews have the same politics as them, and attributing those politics to their religion, not in spite of their religion, a religion the former Christians also see as archaic and backward and the source of all Christian bigotry. They very much want to see Jews get knocked down a peg.

So when these bloggers can see Jews close rank around Israeli lives... because Jews are consistent in their values and would very naturally be quite upset that other Jews were massacred... the envious former Christians can sneer and say "Oh that's so unfortunate for all of you who thought this religion was actually good, look they're all evil colonial genocidal Zionists, bet you all feel foolish for thinking Judaism was the leftist religion because they don't have as hardline a stance on abortion. You naive little cumquats. Leftism is not rainbow flags and women CEOs. What did you expect the revolution to look like?"

And subtext is that they're extra smart and a True Leftist for not Falling For It, for resisting the temptation to explore Judaism as a serious option. They can cast it off as IDENTITY POLITICS, and that Jews and their Leftism is just pandering. The former Christian's subconscious disdain and inherent mistrust of Jews and Judaism was not bigotry, they just knew better. And now they stand proud and smug and presume that gerim are all devastated that... Jews are defending other Jews from virulent antisemites. It's a cope of the highest order, and the blogger who said "Judaism is the Leftist religion," is one of those ultratankies whose entire life is one big cope. Cope and seethe is all they do. We can laugh at them.

can't stop thinking about "Judaism was supposed to be the leftist religion"

[sanctum-if]

Sanctum

It's been two months since humans found out about the supernatural world, and in those two months, crime rates all around the world have sky-rocketed.

Supernaturals are dropping like flies, and you realise that your chances of survival are declining rapidly.

News has made its way along the grapevine that there's a safe place for supernaturals. A walled city built in anticipation of this very occurrence. The only problem?

It's on an island, a few kilometres off the mainland on the other side of the country.

Your family was killed in the beginning, your friends all abandoned you out of fear when your true identity was revealed. You're all alone, and the rag tag group of supernatural survivors you've somehow found yourself a part of are… less than trustworthy.

Will you help each other get to safety, or perish along the way?

~*~

This story is intended for readers 16+

Content warnings include violence, strong language, major character death, and experiences relating to grief, loss and trauma. More will be added as needed.

~*~

Sanctum is an adventure story created with Twine and hosted on itch.io, set in a world where humans have learned of the existence of supernaturals and are far from accepting.

Choose your pronouns and the appearance of your cloak, a magic shield of sorts that has allowed you to live undetected amongst humans your entire life.

Play as one of four supernatural species (an alluring ellylldan, a mischievous lutin, a calming nix or a coraniaid with extremely heightened senses, most specifically your hearing).

You’ll encounter several obstacles along the way, including humans that would rather see the end of supernaturals altogether than allow you to get to safety.

There are four love interests, two males and two females who can be chosen by anyone, though romance is not the main focus and there will be no lock in romance routes, leaving you free to change your mind whenever you want, or not ever enter into a romantic relationship with anyone to begin with, without it hindering the storyline.

When making your choices, choose wisely, because the death of the MC at the end of the story will be possible.

~*~

Sanctum is still in development, and is being written purely for fun. I'll try my very hardest to stick to a somewhat regular schedule, but I make no guarantees that I'll be able to stick to it for every update.

Current Demo: 2nd September, chapter 1

Next demo: 27th July

Asks: Open

[mc tag] [lore] [writing prompts] [updates]

~*~

Follow this blog to stay up to date with my progress, and the ask box remains open for any questions, requests or comments you have!

~*~

Love Interests

* Michael [michael tag]

* Sadie [sadie tag]

* Amena [amena tag]

* Tanner [tanner tag]

Other Characters

* Hayden [hayden tag]

* Estelle [estelle tag]

[ravel-puzzlewell]

Jack’s loyalty mission is well done actually. it’s better than I remembered. It has, like, layers.

on the surface, it’s obviously about her getting closure with what Cerberus did to her by destroying the base they raised her in. But there’s a second narrative thread interlacing, her relationship\ perception of other kids from that base. Her whole life she was adamantly sure of two things: 

1. that she was treated worse than anyone else, because she was not only being drugged and experimented on, but also lived in a solitary cell that had a window overlooking a courtyard where other kids were alloyed to play and socialize. 

2. that the other kids hated her guts, because when she pounded on her window, screaming and crying to get their attention, they ignored her and kept playing. she had to fight them in the arena and she had to fight them while escaping.

She had to process and rationalize the trauma of being forced to fight and kill other kids, and she did so by internalizing belief that you just like can’t fucking trust anyone else because people who should ostensibly be on your side hate you for absolutely no reason, and will ignore your pleas for help in the best case and try to kill you in the worst case.

She also believes that she escaped the Cerberus base all by herself and other kids were trying to stop her, and so that staying by herself is the most effective and successful way to survive. She expresses this sentiment a lot in many personal dialogs, saying she doesn’t need anyone, that having someone close just means they need a shorter knife, etc. 

But when exploring the base during the mission, it becomes obvious that both of these statements are wrong. The kids didn’t hate or ignore her on purpose, her window was a two way mirror, they just didn’t see her while she could see them.  And they were not treated better, actually, Cerberus experimented on them first before giving drugs to Jack, and many of them died. She didn’t even start the riot, she had a chance to escape because other kids drew attention of her guards away.

Jack argues against all of this vehemently despite the evidence, because these were the axioms of her existence, she’s built her entire worldview and modus operandi around them. Her entire identity hinged on this.

And now it turned out that for some of it she didn’t have a full picture, some she misremembered bc she was a child, and some was deliberately constructed by Cerberus to make her feel hated and isolated from her peers. She was so sure that her stubbornness to always stay alone and never trust anyone was her own decision, her lesson that allowed her to survive this hell, and turns out it was actually planted in her mind by her own abusers on purpose.

and then in the end she meets another survivor of that base, who is also haunted by the memories. But his way of rationalizing them is the opposite of Jack’s “It made me tough and badass”

This is another common way children process abuse - that the adults knew what they were doing, that it was done for the greater good. It leads to not only excusing, but perpetuating the cycle of abuse

Jack’s choice of whether or not kill him is not about personal revenge, because Aresh is no one to her. She has to confront someone who like her, tried to find meaning in their trauma, and by realizing how wrong his conclusions are, she’s forced to examine her own. it’s specifically about being trapped in this cycle of abuse, about whether to follow the worldview of fighting everyone else Cerberus imprinted on her or not, it’s the symbol of her moving on.

like, it’s not the most subtle or poetic metaphor on childhood abuse, it ain’t no “Let go and begin again”, but it’s solid, internally cohesive, it builds up organically on the established characterization, but also introduces dramatic conflict with her own self-perception that challenges Jack and allows her to grow in the future. She doesn’t change right away, but when in me3 she starts teaching biotic teens, it obviously corresponds to this conflict. She not only refuses to perpetuate the cycle of abuse, but decides to make sure it’s not done to other kids and subverts the cycle by proving that you CAN, in fact, effectively train biotics without torturing them and that the abuse that was done to her was wholly unnecessary. tbh it’s one of the most solid character arcs bioware has ever done, i wish all other loyalty missions were on same level.

[serialreblogger]

So here's the thing: maybe some of our labels were created to be an alternative to the established ones. Maybe "pansexuality" as a label did originate in response to rampant biphobia and deliberate misinterpretation of the word "bisexual" the way it existed, and exists, both within and outside of the LGBTQIA+ community.

So what?

Every single fucking word we've ever had for ourselves are either outright used as slurs or are directly created to provide an alternative to said slurs--and promptly used as insults as soon as the pericishets get wind of them. Every. Single. One.

Queer is the most famous: we've reclaimed it, but that doesn't keep people from using it against us--doesn't keep some of us from having trauma around it, doesn't keep parents and siblings and friends from shouting it as an accusation and a threat. And still, before it was a slur, it was a euphemism. We used it. What other words did we have?

I can't tell you how many times "gay" was thrown around as an insult in my 2015 high school class. I can't tell you how funny people thought it was if you said the word "lesbian." All of our words are used as insults, because who we are is seen as insulting. No sooner do we name ourselves than people begin snickering at the sound.

I've said it before and I'll say it until I have no words left: our entire community is built on shared trauma. We are united by necessity, and most of us have only found ourselves in spite of the world. Half of our names are barely twice as old as we are, and the other half we're still in the process of making. All of them carry trauma in their very letters.

Someday it won't be this way. I don't know when; I hope it's only a few lifetimes from now, but that's only if we keep fighting, and another disaster doesn't strike to sweep us all away (and half our history with us). Someday our community won't be all ragged survivors in a tiny house built of bones. Someday, someday, someday, and we must remember this because we deserve so much better than to let ourselves be defined by our pain, we are not only what we lack, we are not built broken - but none of that's now. Not yet.

For now, for who knows how much longer, our community is saturated with its own blood and shattered glass, and that means our sharp edges cut each other as much as the world that breaks us. And all of us have to find our own ways to go on existing in a world that wants to grind our shards down until nothing is left but dust and empty graves.

And for some of us that means accepting the fact that, in the world as it is, we can never be anything but sharp - at least on some edges. For some of us that means taking every insult they throw at us and saying "yes, and so what?" For some of us that means becoming that which the world most abhors. Some of us don't have a choice. Some of us choose to embrace it.

And some of us are too tired for that. Some of us are not built to be shards of infinite fury, some of us look for ways to build new walls that are not bone, some look for ways to staunch the bleeding instead of accepting it as part of us. Some pick their battles and the battles they pick are not the same as others.

We're all just human. There's only so much fighting we can bear.

That's the point of being a community, even if right now it's just a community of refugees: we're meant to cover each other's backs.

And that's not to say any one label is easier to bear in this world than another, that's not to say naming yourself "pan" is easier than "bi," but the battles are slightly different - the prejudices are different, the histories behind the words and the baggage they both carry are different. Not less, not greater, but not the same, and that matters.

Regardless of why: we deserve to have a choice.

There's so much about this that we don't get to choose. We can choose our names. It doesn't have to mean we hate people who choose otherwise. It's okay to be different, even if it is by choice.

And it is not the fault of people who are different that your mutual oppressors hate you both. Other queer people are not the cause of your oppression. It's not gay men's fault trans women are oppressed or vice versa, even if queerphobes will use both as "arguments" against each other. It's the fault and the fault alone of queerphobes, for choosing to oppress them both.

The existence of a queer identity people use against you is not the reason for your oppression, any more than your childhood sibling is the reason for your parent's abuse. The only people who are ever to blame are the oppressors.

[corvidiscourse]

The people who push for boxes around systems in general, but especially disordered systems, are enacting the exact same ableism as the psychiatric system that invented the boxes they’re pushing. When people push the narrative that there is only one way to become/develop a system, that there is only one way to recover from any given disorder(s), that there is only one acceptable way to describe and experience and name plural experiences, they are not only harming the infinitely many systems who don’t fit those boxes but preventing the systems who do from having enough breathing room to explore and understand their identities in healthy ways. These are ideas that posit that, for example, systems must be forced to understand themselves as parts of one whole person rather than individual whole people in order to meet some arbitrary psychiatric standard of health and therefore cannot acceptably/respectably consider themselves whole individual people. Obviously, these kinds of narrow expectations only further marginalize already marginalized people by exploiting their vulnerability in order to categorize them in stifling and limiting ways. In this incredibly ableist system, the only way for those who have experienced severe trauma to receive validating care is by seeing their experiences the way they are expected and told to see them, and the alternative perspectives not permitted in the realm of “healthy thinking” are usually the ones that grant such individuals more autonomy than the systems forbidding them to do so in the name of care.

One of the most egregious of all these enforced “healthy” ideas being the implication that system origins can never be mixed or complicated/nuanced in any way, which is often more implied through completely lack of consideration and assumption of impossibility than outright stated. Even if you were to believe (against the word of the DSM, but common among infographics) that systems can only ever form in the context of certain specific trauma histories, maintaining militant boundaries on acceptable ways systems are allowed to describe or analyze these sorts of experiences harms systems that would be considered genuine even under this limited and inaccurate model. What if a system were, as these sorts of ableists claim, “just confused” about their experiences? What if they were (again, as these sort like to often claim) in denial about their experiences? What if it simply made them more comfortable or was a healthier choice for them to not disclose information about the origin of their system? Systems like these get pushed out of recovery spaces that are often extremely important to their health and recovery, simply because they do not conform to standards for being respected as a system.

When I see sysmeds who claim to be, quote, “staying in their lane,” I am relieved that they are not actively attacking systems as some others do, but I am still acutely aware of the harm they do to so many disordered and traumagenic systems who do not fit their narrow conceptualizations of concepts that were already inherently built to marginalize systems. Not naming names, since they’ve been in enough drama already for discussing their experiences, but we know a diagnosed DID system who is not entirely traumagenic and who has spoken to us before about the hostility they often found in survivor spaces, even general trauma survivor spaces that had nothing to do with systems specifically. The truth is that mental health recovery is, quite obviously, inextricably interwoven with mental healthcare systems built upon the inherently ableist system of psychiatry, which then ideologically dominates survivor (and other mental health recovery/support) spaces. When disabled and mentally ill people are made by ableist systems to believe ableist ideas about themselves, they believe those ableist ideas about other disabled and mentally ill people as well, essentially doing work on the behalf of aforementioned ableist systems. This makes it extremely difficult for anyone who does not fit narrow molds of the “acceptable” neurodivergent/mentally ill (note, in this case, systems who are not entirely both disordered and traumagenic, but also other groups like psychiatric abuse survivors) to access the support and general care they need.

TLDR; Sysmeds who don’t actively attack or fakeclaim systems they don’t “agree with” or understand are less ableist than systems who do, but they still fundamentally see systems who do not conform to their standards as either being unreliable narrators of their own lived experience or lying, which is inherently ableist. This ableism is still worthy of analysis and criticism, even if it’s less blatant.

[tbtntrauma2550]

Trauma Theory: A Feminist Tool

By Emmy Wagner

In the field of feminist studies, scholars analyze the ways systems of power, such as white supremacy and heteropatriarchy, work together to form unique experiences of oppression. Because these systems of power have such influence on the lives of marginalized communities like people of color, the LGBTQ community, and immigrants, they live with constant stress due to the discrimination they face for their identities. Sometimes this discrimination can be small scale. For example, a white woman commenting on the texture of a black woman's hair, however, discrimination can be far more dangerous than that. The prejudice against black people that is held by many police officers has led to the deaths of hundreds of innocent men and women. These violent tragedies have created serious trauma which affects the entire black community scared and angry. The trauma of being targeted by authority figures is so severe that words cannot adequately describe the feeling. This is where trauma theory comes into play. Trauma studies explore the impact of life-altering experiences and can be a handy tool in the feminist scholar's toolbox.

To understand how trauma studies can be useful to the feminist scholar, it is important to have a clear understanding of the foundations. Trauma is defined as "a severely disruptive experience that profoundly impacts the self's emotional organization and perception of the external world" (Mambrol). Trauma can be on an individual basis, or large enough to affect an entire community, as with the case of regular police brutality throughout America. Trauma studies analyze the psychological, rhetorical, and cultural significance of the specific example of trauma as well as how it changes the individuals' comprehension of the world around them. This area of scholarly analysis developed in the 1990s and drew upon neurologist Sigmund Freud's theory of traumatic experiences on the human person. In his early work, Freud hypothesized that "traumatic hysteria" stems from an earlier, repressed, experience of sexual assault (Mambrol). Freud emphasizes the event itself was not traumatic, but it is the remembrance of or reflection upon the experience that is traumatic. This latency period "delays the effects and meaning of the past," but once a present event brings forth the memory of the traumatic event, the painful process of remembering, also known as "pathogenic reminiscence," ascribes value to said event (Mambrol). This can cause trauma-induced symptoms such as "exhaustion, confusion, sadness, anxiety, agitation, numbness, dissociation… and blunted affect" (Center). The relational process of remembering trauma can cause a splitting of the ego or dissociation, thus creating an abnormal state of consciousness. In his later work, Freud states that the "extensive breach being made in the protective shield against stimuli" is the cause of this traumatic neurosis. (Mambrol). Freud viewed the brain as an organism with many layers, one with an outer "protective shield," but when an individual unexpectantly goes into "fight" mode of "fight or flight," there is no anxiety to act as a defense mechanism. This lack of internal defense is what leaves the brain vulnerable to attack. Thus, trauma is both "an external agent that shocks the unprepared system and an internal action of defense" (Mambrol). One marker of traumatic neurosis is the "'compulsion to repeat' the memory" as a way to overcome and master the unpleasant feelings it evokes (Mambrol). Because our brain often reproduces memories in a way that is slightly off from the actual experience, Freud believes that the narrative of the event is crucial to recovery. As such, abreaction or talking about the event, is critical to allow the individual to gain a better understanding of the past (Mambrol).

Now that the foundations of trauma theory have been laid out, one can direct her attention to what is known as "the First Wave" of trauma studies. The first wave of trauma studies flourished in the 1990s with prominent scholars such as Cathy Caruth and Geoffrey Hartman at the forefront of the research. It popularized the notion that trauma is an "unrepresentable event" that reveals the inherent contradictions between language and experience (Mambrol). Because trauma is viewed as an event that splits the ego, it prevents easy articulation. This fragmentation or dissociation is seen as the direct cause of trauma, which supports the concept of transhistorical trauma; that is to say that the universality of trauma, past, present, and future, allows for the opportunity to connect individual and collective traumatic experiences (Mambrol). In the first wave, trauma studies analysts formed a model of trauma that says trauma creates a negative, persistent pathological effect on the consciousness and memory in a way that prevents it from being incorporated properly into one's life story. As a result of this model, trauma theorists emphasize the external stimuli as an event of suffering that brings about dysfunctional internal processes (Mambrol). Because the trauma creates a fractured ego, the experience is not able to be logically vocalized. Thus, a strange dichotomy of silence and chaos is created.

As a result, professor of English and Comparative Literature at Yale University, Cathy Caruth argues that experiences of trauma are never truly known directly, but instead are pieced together from the narratives of those willing to discuss the event. Furthermore, because trauma neurosis is defined by the delayed remembrance of a repressed traumatic event, Caruth says that trauma is not easily locatable, but is identified "in the way it is precisely not known in the first instance—returns to haunt the survivor later on" (Mambrol). Because traumatic events enter the psyche in a different way than a normal experience, an abnormal memory is formed, meaning this remembrance is only a particular recall and not definite knowledge. On a greater scale, Caruth writes "history, like trauma, is never simply one's own, that history is precisely the way we were implicated in each other's traumas" (Mambrol). This implies a shared responsibility across time and illustrates how trauma can be transhistorical and intergenerational. The experience of collective trauma is not easy to escape. It sends ripples out across the generations of families, marking an important event in that group's history. As a result, certain beliefs and responses are inherited by descendants which exposes them to knowledge that fosters a unique mindset in which the individual and collective view the world around them. The inherent irrepresentability of trauma highlights how history is not always a 100% accurate source.

Like most schools of thought, trauma theory continued to develop, and the second wave of trauma studies challenged the typical model of its predecessor. The Pluralistic model as it came to be known, challenges the notion that trauma is entirely unspeakable by analyzing the cultural dimensions of trauma and the diversity in narrative expression. It suggests that traumatic experience exposes new knowledge of the "relationships between experience, language, and knowledge that detail the social significance of trauma" (Mambrol). This model emphasizes how the reorientation of consciousness due to traumatic events creates diverse memories and meaning for different people. Furthermore, the pluralistic model focuses on the discernable values of trauma and challenges the importance of the demand for a complete dissociation and an altered point of reference regarding trauma (Mambrol). By relying upon the external stimuli that caused the trauma response, one can demonstrate how it occurs in specific people, periods, and geographical locations which influence the meaning of the event to the individual and the collective. This implies that the traumatic event in question is created and recreated anytime it is reflected upon, even by the same individual. The unique experiences of each human, their identities, and their view of the world shape how they think and behave. Therefore, what the survivors of trauma articulate, and what they do not articulate, can partly be attributed to their cultural context instead of the claim that trauma is inherently unspeakable (Mambrol). Because the pluralistic model challenges the unspeakability trope of trauma, it highlights how language can illustrate various meanings of traumatic experience and how shifting values over time inform the diverse understandings of said event.

The pluralistic model of trauma provides feminist scholars a great framework to analyze systems of power that create an environment where large-scale instances of injustice are interwoven in the fabric of our history. For example, the United States of America was built off the backs of black slaves. The white European settlers that enslaved, tortured, and many times killed their slaves did so on the grounds of supremacy. White supremacists believe that they are the ideal species of man and those who are not like them (white, male, cisgender, able-bodied, and educated) have less inherent human value. Up until the 1940s, science even "supported" this assumption that black people are less intelligent humans with scientists like Frances Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin, who popularized eugenics in the United States and England. His eugenic practices aimed to create a "more suitable race" that was not plagued with human "defects." This goal was not achieved through genuine efforts to protect human life, such as regular water testing and treatment for example, but rather through the erasure of the people who embodied the characteristics heteropatriarchy and white supremacy saw as less than.

One way the endeavor to erase the presence of marginalized groups was carried out was through the unethical medical experiments that were conducted on black slaves. Black men and women were used as lab rats to test various hypotheses of curious white doctors and scientists. Women were under-went forced sterilization, oftentimes with little to no pain killers or anesthesia. This history of the forced sterilization of black women continued until the 1970's well into the evolution of medical practice and ethics. However, white supremacy is so deeply ingrained in our culture that doctors actually agreed that sterilizations should be conducted.

Despite all the efforts and lives that went into creating a more just world, prejudice within the U.S. medical system is still prevalent in 2021. Black and other women of color report negative experiences with doctors who dismiss their health concerns and, consequently, experience far greater infant and maternal mortality rates than white women. Out of every 1,000 black infants born, 11.3 will die, compared to only 4.9 white infants. For every 100,000 live births, 12.7 white women will not survive. In contrast, a grand some of 43.5 black women die after childbirth (Vox).  This early history of physical, mental, and emotional trauma, combined with modern-day prejudice and bias against the black community, within the medical field has prevented black men and women alike from receiving the medical attention they need. The history of trauma for the black community by the hands of white perpetrators has created a viewpoint that recognizes the ways the United States has institutionalized racism and continues to act with flagrant disregard for black lives.

Trauma theory is a valuable asset to the feminist scholar in that it helps create a foundation for knowledge production. The irrepresentability of trauma is complex in that both hinders and improves our understanding of how trauma affects the minds of victims. Because it is so devastatingly disruptive, people have difficulty finding the right words to describe their thoughts and emotions.

[queeranarchism]

8 Steps Toward Building Indispensability (Instead of Disposability) Culture

(Reposting this article by Kai Cheng Thom because Tumblr ate it. Sorry long post, page break hates me)

give an mc without integrity a mic

and s/he will rhyme the death of the people

—d’bi young anitafrika

When I first came into activist culture, I was a runaway queer kid searching for a home: a terrified, angry, suspicious, cynical-yet-naïve teenager whose greatest secret desire was for a family that would last forever and love me no matter what.

Yet I also knew that such a family could never exist – at least not for me.

You see, I had another secret: Underneath all of my radical queer social justice punk bravado, I knew that I was trash. I was dirty and unlovable. I had done bad things to survive, and I had hurt people. Sometimes I didn’t know why.

So when I found activist culture, with its powerful ideas about privilege and oppression and its simmering, explosive rage, I was intoxicated. I thought that I could purge my self-hatred with that fiery rhetoric and create the family I wanted so much with the bond that comes from shared trauma.

Social justice was a set of rules that could finally put the world into an order that made sense to me. If I could only use all the right language, do enough direct action, be critical enough of the systems around me, then I could finally be a good person.

All around me, it felt like my activist community was doing the same thing – throwing ourselves into “the revolution,” exhausting ourselves and burning out, watching each other for oppressive thoughts and behavior and calling each other on it vociferously.

Occasionally – rarely – folks were driven out of community for being “fucked up.” More often, though, attempts to hold people accountable through call-outs and exclusion just exploded into huge online flame wars and IRL drama that left deep rifts in community for years. Only the most vulnerable – folks without large friend groups and social stability – were excluded permanently.

Like my blood family, my activist family was re-enacting the trauma that we had experienced at the hands of an oppressive society.

Just as my father once held open the door to our house and demanded that I leave because he didn’t know how to reconcile his love for me with my gender identity, we denounced each other and burned bridges because we didn’t know how reconcile our social ideals with the fact that our loved ones don’t always live up to them.

I believe that sometimes we did this hypocritically – that we created the so-called call-out culture (a culture of toxic confrontation and shaming people for oppressive behavior that is more about the performance of righteousness than the actual pursuit of justice) in part so that we could focus on the failings of others and avoid examining the complicity with oppression, the capacity to abuse, that exists within us all.

And I believe we did it in part because sometimes it’s impossible to imagine any other way: We live in a disposability culture – a society based on consumption, fear, and destruction – where we’re taught that the only way to respond when people hurt us is to hurt them back or get rid of them.

This article comes out of that queer kid’s longing for forever-family, and from countless conversations with other members of social justice communities longing for the same. It comes out of my own fuck-ups having been generously forgiven by others, and from my effort to forgive those who have harmed me.

It comes from a desire I feel all around me for an alternative to the politics of disposability, for a politics of indispensability instead.

“Indispensability politics” isn’t a term I’ve coined personally. It has existed various communities for some time, and I learned it orally, though I cannot find a written source. But the following principles are ideas – suggestions for a foundation on which indispensability culture in leftist activism might be built. They are a work permanently in progress.

They’re not meant to be a new set of rules for activism. Nor are they a step-by-step guide for holding accountability processes or a complete answer to the questions that I’m raising around.

Still, I hope that they are helpful to you.

1. The Revolution Is a Relationship

sometimes

we want to close our eyes

jack off to pictures of radical disneyland

not watch as we gnaw our own

flesh into meat

—Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, “so what the fuck does conscious mean anyway”

Something that worries me about social justice communities is that we tend to conceptualize “revolution” as a product, as a place and time that we expend all of our energy and anger to create – often without regard to the toll this takes on individuals and our relationships.

In this way, “The Revolution” occupies a position in activist culture that actually reminds me of the role that Heaven played in the Chinese Christian community I grew up in: It is a fantasy of ideological purity against which our actions are judged, a place that we long to live in, but seems impossible to reach.

In our – often justified – anger and disappointment at the failure of ourselves and our communities to uphold the dream of revolution, we lash out.

We try to cleanse ourselves of the pain of betrayal by cutting off and driving out the betrayers – our abusive families, our conservative friends. We try not to look at the betrayer in the mirror.

What if revolution isn’t a product, some distant promised land, but the relationships that we have right now?

What if revolution is, in addition to – not instead of – direct action and community organizing, the process of rupture and repair that happens when we fuck up and hold each other accountable and forgive?

2. The Oppressor Lives Within

The most important political struggle I will ever have is against the oppressor – the racist, transmisogynist, ableist, abusive person – in myself.

I don’t mean to say this in a self-flagellating, self-blaming way. I’ve experienced oppression, violence, rape, and abuse from others, and this is not my fault.

I mean that I’ve started to believe that I can’t engage in authentic activism, I can’t create positive change without recognizing and naming my own participation in the oppressive systems that I’m trying to undo.

Coming from this position, I’m forced to have compassion for the people around me who I see also participating in oppression, even as I’m also angry at them. With compassion comes understanding, and with understanding comes belief in the possibility of change.

When we become capable of holding that contradiction in our hearts – when we can be angry and compassionate at the same time, at ourselves as well as others – entirely new possibilities for healing and transformation emerge.

3. Accountability Starts in the Heart

Too often, I’ve seen accountability processes in social justice communities devolve into vicious “your word against mine” situations and social power plays in which people accuse each other of harm and abuse.

As witnesses to these situations, we become trapped, caught in the double bind of either having to pick a side or doing nothing. Both options carry the risk of becoming complicit in the harm being done, and the “truth” becomes impossibly blurred.

I often wonder how different things would look if it were more of a cultural norm to understand accountability as a practice that comes from within the individual, instead of a consequence that must be forced onto someone externally.

What if we taught each other to honor the responsibility that comes with holding ourselves accountable, rather than seeing self-accountability as a shameful admission of guilt? What if we could have real conversations with each other about harm, in good faith?

In a culture of indispensability, I cannot ignore someone when they tell me I have harmed them – they are precious to me, and I have to try to understand and respond accordingly.

To become indispensable to one another, we must also be willing to be responsible for and accountable to one another.

4. Perpetrator/Survivor is a False Dichotomy

There is an intense moral dynamic in social justice culture that tends to separate people into binaries of “right” and “wrong.”

To be a perpetrator of oppression or violence is highly stigmatized, while survivorhood may be oddly fetishized in ways that objectify and intensify stories of trauma.

“Perpetrators” are considered evil and unforgivable, while “survivors” are good and pure, yet denied agency to define themselves.

Among the many problems of this dynamic is the fact that it obscures the complex reality that many people are both survivors and perpetrators of violence (though violence, of course, exists within a wide spectrum of behaviors).

Within a culture of disposability – whether it be the criminal justice system of the state or community practices of exiling people – the perpetrator/survivor dichotomy is useful because it appears to make things easier. It helps us make decisions about who to punish and who to pity.

But punishment and pity have very little to do with revolutionary change or relationship-building.

What punishment and pity have in common is that they’re both dehumanizing.

5. Punishment Isn’t Justice

Punishment is the foundation of the legal criminal justice system and of disposability culture. It’s the idea that wrongs can be made right by inflicting further harm against those who are deemed harmful.

Punishment is also, I believe, a traumatized response to being attacked, the intense expression of the “fight” reflex. Activist writer Sarah Schulman discusses this idea in detail in her book, Conflict Is Not Abuse.

It isn’t inherently wrong to want someone who hurt you to feel the same pain – to want retribution, or even revenge. But as Schulman also writes, punishment is rarely, if ever, actually an instrument of justice – it is most often an expression of power over those with less.

How often do we see the vastly wealthy or politically powerful punished for the enormous harms they do to marginalized communities? How often are marginalized individuals put in prison or killed for minor (or non-existent) offences?

As long as our conception of justice is based on the violent use of power, the powerful will remain unaccountable, while the powerless are scapegoated.

But even beyond this, a culture of disposability and punishment breeds fear and dishonesty.

How likely are we to hold ourselves accountable when we’re afraid that we’ll be exiled, imprisoned, or killed if we do? And how can we trust each other when we live in fear of one another?

We have to find another way to bring about justice.

6. Nuance Isn’t an Excuse for Harm

One of the most common responses I see to critiques of call-out culture and disposability is that perpetrators of violence and predators use these critiques to obscure their own wrongdoing and avoid accountability.

Furthermore, we, as communities, use the “complexity” and “nuance” of such critiques as excuses for not intervening when harm is being done.

But indispensability means that everyone – especially those have experienced harm – are precious and require justice. In other words, we cannot allow the fact that something is complicated or scary prevent us from trying to stop it.

Trapped in the perpetrator/survivor dichotomy of understanding harm, it might seem like we have only two options: to ignore harm or to punish perpetrators.

But in fact, there are often other strategies available.

They involve taking anyone’s – everyone’s – expressions of pain seriously enough to ask hard questions and have tough conversations. They involve dedicating time and resources to ensuring that anyone who has been harmed has the support they need to heal.

7. Healing Is Both Rage and Forgiveness

If the revolution is a relationship, then the revolution must include room for both rage and forgiveness: We have to be able to tolerate the inevitability that we will be angry at one another, will commit harm against one another.

When we are harmed, we must be allowed the space to rage. We need to be able to express the depth of our hurt, our hatred of those who hurt us and those who allowed it to happen – especially when those people are the ones we love.

It is up to the community to hold and contain this rage – to hear and validate and give it space, while also preventing it from creating further harm.

The expression of anger and pain is key to the transformation of violence into healing, because it allows us to understand what has happened and motivates us to change.

And it’s up to the community as well to then provide a framework for forgiveness, to help envision a future where forgiveness is possible, and how it might be achieved.

8. Community Is the Answer

There are no activist communities, only the desire for communities, or the convenient fiction of communities. A community is a material web that binds people together, for better and for worse, in interdependence…

If it is easier to kick someone out than to go through a difficult series of conversations with them, it is not a community. Among the societies that had real communities, exile was the most extreme sanction possible, tantamount to killing them. On many levels, losing the community and all the relationships it involved was the same as dying.

Let’s not kid ourselves: We don’t have communities.

—Anonymous, Broken Teapot Zine

The above quote is a revealing glance into the inner dynamics of social justice and activist culture.

It reveals the source of our incapacity to create accountability and the deep emotional and material insecurities that lie beneath it.

Perhaps the reason we tend to recreate disposability culture and trauma responses over and over is because we are all, secretly, that frightened runaway kid, constantly searching for a home, but not really believing we can find one.

Maybe we don’t create communities of true interdependence – of indispensability, of forever-family – because we are terrified of what will happen if we try.

But I believe, have to believe, that true community is possible for me and for all of us. The truth is, we can’t keep going on the way we have been. We need each other, need to find each other, in order to survive.

And I have faith that we can.

[secretlystephaniebrown]

Why Rebirth’s Stephanie Brown isn’t the Same as Preboot Stephanie Brown

Hi I’ve got opinions about how the reboot has been handling my girl. 

I’ve been enjoying Detective Comics for the most part, but I’ve been frustrated with Stephanie Brown’s role in them for a while. And I think I’ve finally put my finger on it. 

Special thanks to @renaroo for all her help finding panels and issue numbers!

Below the cut is 2k of screaming and panels. 

Stephanie Brown in the preboot era was a kid with a bad past. Her mom was a drug addict, her dad was abusive and a villain. She lived in poverty for at least chunks of her original run as Spoiler. She dated older guys, one of whom got her pregnant and ran away, and has been implied to be a sexual abuse survivor.

And as Spoiler, her life wasn’t necessarily better. She dated Tim, and they had a pretty decent relationship, but Tim didn’t tell her his secret identity, on orders from Batman. For reasons. (Bruce later told her his identity without Tim’s permission, which… doesn’t really make things better.) From day one, she was an outcast from the family; she regularly got locked out of the Batcave, wasn’t informed about major developments in the family, and Bruce denies her training and resources. She even suspects that this is because of her family life. 

(Robin (1993-2009) #100.)

@renaroo and I have talked about this, and a part of Bruce’s reaction to Steph during this time period was clearly based off Bruce’s recent trauma because of Jason’s death. Steph, Cass, and Tim’s relationships with Bruce in the preboot were all tied to that event. Tim stepped up as Robin, providing Bruce with the balance and support that he knew he needed, so Bruce couldn’t really send Tim away. Cass had no secret identity, no life to return to. Bruce looked at her and saw his own morals concentrated, a dedication to the cause that he thought makes Cass an ideal protégé and possible successor down the line. (Not that it ever happened of course because of course it didn’t.) Besides that, Cass was a better fighter than he was, and had been looking after herself for years. Firing her wasn’t very effective, although he certainly tried in the later parts of Cass’s initial Batgirl run.

But Steph?

Steph was none of those things. Bruce didn’t need her, she wasn’t trained and capable like Cass. Instead, everything that Bruce saw when he looked at her probably remindd him of Jason. A mother lost to drug abuse, a father entrenched in crime and violence, a kid from the less great parts of the city. The parallels were right there to Bruce. But Bruce was too late to save Steph from this life, unlike Jason. Instead, Steph had decided to save herself. But he looked at her, and he saw a kid with no training and no experience. And he’d just lost a partner from a background very similar to hers.

He told her to go home. He never really stopped, not until she became Batgirl. (Although they had some amazing bonding moments as well, which I’ll probably make another post about later)

As a result Steph was an outcast for the majority of her run as Spoiler. She got brief flashes of integration and family; she teams up with Cass, works with other heroes like Black Canary, Huntress, and Oracle. She worked with Tim and Bruce as well. But just as often, Bruce did things like forbid Cass to patrol with Steph and the aforementioned locking her out of the Batcave and not telling her that the family was undergoing a MAJOR crisis at the time.)

(Batman: Bruce Wayne: Murderer? Robin (1993-2009) #98 - Yes Bruce was in prison at the time, but you’d have thought that SOMEONE would have thought to tell her he was unavailable.)

The end result of this should happen when she becomes Robin. Steph becoming Robin should have been cathartic; a culmination of Steph’s hard work paying off and Bruce recognizing her place in the family. And it was for a while!!

(Detective Comics (1937-2011) #796. Making me nostalgic for what could have been. Steph with anger issues and a complicated but growing relationship with Bruce? Amazing.)

Instead, it was a cheap stunt by DC. Steph got fired, Steph screwed up by starting a gang war, Steph died. (And then came back in an outrageously OOC manner, but that’s another story.)

We got some of the catharsis of her becoming part of the family in Steph’s run as Batgirl, but it was undermined by a lot of things. To make her Batgirl, Miller began what Tynion and the Nu52 (and later Rebirth) continues to do.

They take away what makes Steph interesting.

Steph’s anger issues were integral to her early character. She canonically went to visit her father in prison to fight him. Her anger was not once touched upon in Miller’s Batgirl. Her status as a teenage mom was similarly erased. Her trauma at the hands of Black Mask was only hinted at once, after Steph was shot in the head, when she saw him in a flashback. 

(Batgirl (2009-2011) #6. Don’t worry, this will never come up again.)

And her friendship with Cass, a relationship I would say was defining and important to Steph, was washed away, with Cass not even appearing in Steph’s history of the Bat Family. Steph still had to fight for her acceptance in the family; Babs didn’t want her to be Batgirl, her first ever meeting with Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne was a disaster, and she struggled to find her place. There was still catharsis there; she built a team and support network for herself, and it was wonderful, despite my issues with that run.

Miller also started moving Steph away from her roots with her mom; Crystal in Miller’s run was clean and she and Steph seem to have achieved financial stability. But in the preboot, both of those worked, since we’d seen how far they’ve come. Arthur’s abuse wasn’t directly stated, but his attack on her specifically through Black Mercy mad it pretty clear that there were still elements of abuse present, even if the events Steph had referred to in previous stories weren’t shown.

But Tynion doesn’t have that history to build off, because the Nu52 annihilated Steph’s entire history.

Steph in Batman Eternal is from a perfectly happy middle class background, with her parents already split up and with joint custody. Her dad isn’t abusive (in fact, him being a supervillain appears to be a complete surprise to her), her mom isn’t an addict. She’s never been a teenage mom, and although she starts a relationship with Tim off page, she knows his secret identity from the beginning.

(Batman Eternal #3)

And Bruce accepts her into the fold right away in Detective Comics. As a fan of Steph, the catharsis is there on a meta level; Stephanie Brown is accepted enough by the company to allow her to be in the comic which they named themselves after! What a change from the days when Steph was brutally killed off and then banned from appearing in any medium! But in universe? That catharsis doesn’t exist.

So suddenly, Tynion is faced with a character with many of Steph’s traits; the name, the upbeat attitude, the costume, with none of her history or markings.

(Sidenote: Steph’s anger isn’t completely non-existant in the Nu52/Rebirth era: Selina notes that Steph is angry during Steph’s appearance in Catwoman #42.)

(Catwoman (2011-2016) #42. Thank you for this moment, it’s a balm to my soul.)

Steph’s inclusion by Bruce in this initial team he sets up is a fascinating choice. He’s integrating her into the family from the very beginning of her character arc. This could have been a chance to let Steph grow in new directions; she could have grown closer to Cass and Harper, have Bruce and Kate as mentor figures, and explored her relationship with Tim in new and exciting ways. She could have met Duke and Jason and bonded with them over their similarities.

But instead, Steph and Cass barely interact, Harper’s relegated to cameos and sage advice, and Steph’s character is instead defined solely by her relationship with Tim. She has a few nice moments with Bruce, like the hug I’ve been waiting for ever since I got into comics.

(Detective Comics (2016-) #940. THAT HUG)

But overwhelmingly I’ve been left wanting more, and not in the good way. It’s not satisfying. Steph has some great moments in ‘Tec and even some great lines, just like during her run as Batgirl. But there’s a kind of hollowness there for me, lacking the heart and soul of Stephanie Brown.

Tynion also makes some strange changes with Steph; she loses her snark and attitude that even Miller managed to maintain. 

(Robin (1993-2009) #56. Just hanging around, you know.)

(Detective Comics (1937-2011) #796. Poor Bruce has to hang around with snarky teens.)

She’s lacking her relationship with gravity. 

(Batgirl (2000-2006) #20.)

She also no longer loves being a hero and doing good, instead having her arc being dedicated to… saying that superheroes shouldn’t exist… while still functioning as a vigilante… (I really don’t like this kind of arc in comics, not going to lie, so I’m predisposed to not be happy here. But I still think this is a RADICAL departure from Steph’s prior characterization.) 

(Robin (1993-2009)  #100. Here we see Tim planning on retiring, and knowing that Steph is hardly about to stop being a hero.) 

It all culminates, of course, in Steph’s departure from the team after Tim’s death. She calls out Batman for his actions, raises some valid points about how he’s not really parenting Cass (which… Tynion continues to ignore, because what, letting Bruce adopt Cass and teaching her to read? Nah, she’s too busy learning Shakespeare and hanging out with Clayface.) And after that moment of awesome she… leaves.

(Detective Comics (2016-) #947)

She becomes the outcast again. But this time it’s her fault.

And it’s so frustrating to me, this idea that Steph’s isolation is her own fault in Rebirth. That Bruce offered Steph a place and a team, but that she rejected it, is so aggravating. Steph’s isolation is supposed to be Bruce Wayne’s mistake which she pays for throughout her superhero career. Steph wants this place with the family, fights for it tooth and nail in the preboot. Now, if Steph had gone through the preboot arc, fighting for this, trying to earn it, and then turning away from it out of frustration with Bruce? I’d have been willing to listen, and might have even been excited for it.

(Detective Comics (2016-) #957. This is just such a departure from preboot Steph that it boggles my mind.)

But this is a Stephanie Brown who has not been a hero for long. This is Stephanie Brown, who is about the age preboot Steph was when she became Robin, new and inexperienced (meanwhile Tim is exactly where he was in his own timeline when Steph was Batgirl, a frustrating process that’s also familiar.) Steph is younger than she was in preboot and less competent. So are Barbara Gordon and Cass. The Batboys have gotten to grow up and improve. The Batgirls were forced backwards in both age and ability, and yet were older when they started their superhero careers, making them inherently less experienced then their male counterparts.

Part of it is, of course, DC’s refusal to let the Batgirls move forward in the status quo. Babs can’t become Oracle again, Cass can’t become Batgirl, and Steph can’t be Robin or Batgirl. The Batgirls (and Harper) are all now around the same age, and their relationships have been completely and utterly decimated by the retcons and reboots. Steph and Cass aren’t best friends, Babs isn’t a mentor to either Steph or Cass. Steph’s relationship with Bruce is no longer the complicated beast that it was pre-Flashpoint, she still hasn’t met Damian and established their bond, and her first interaction with Dick was an aggravatingly airheaded “kiss me sexy Batman”.

(Batman and Robin Eternal #2. Just. Why.)

And her relationship with Tim is lacking some of the most interesting elements; the drama of Steph’s history and Bruce’s disapproval. But despite its blandness, it continues to be the front and center of Steph’s arc. It’s what drives her away from the others and causes her to isolate herself. Steph functions as a manic-pixie figure to Tim, encouraging him to live his dream, while still being the goofy and funny partner he needs, with her primary motivation being his death.

Her goofiness and mourning are both clearly about to pay off in a manner which I am terrified about. In Detective Comics, Anarchy clones Steph’s phone. A phone which, it was shown in the previous issue, to contain information which could compromise Tim (and by extension everyone’s secret identities). 

(Detective Comics (2016-) #963. Oh look and Tim even told her it would be a bad idea! Haha, how funny!) 

(Detective Comics (2016-) #964)

We could be about to witness War Games, reboot version.

But this time, there will be no one to blame but Stephanie Brown. She chose to isolate herself, she was sloppy with her phone’s security, and she was fooled by Anarchy.

If Tynion does what I’m scared he’s going to do, we’re looking at some next level bullshit.

I live in fear.

[songofproserpine]

Mass Effect, mental illness, and healing.

I’m replaying the Shepard trilogy, and this has been bouncing around my thoughts lately.

So in Mass Effect 2, Miranda says that part of The Lazarus Project was the very specific order of recreating Shepard exactly as they were, no exceptions. This includes their personality, their memories, etc. Ignoring questions like ‘how do you reconstruct someone’s mental structure, store it in a computer, and then transfer it to a mind you hope to make sentient,’ this leads me to the more interesting question of (1) does future technology and medical science in the Mass Effect universe have the ability to map brain chemistry to the point of knowing how one’s individual mind functions; and (2) what does this mean for mental illnesses?

While it’s highly unlikely that Shepard could have served if they had a serious mental illness prior to their service, it’s all but flat out said in the opening lines of Mass Effect 1 that Shepard has serious emotional scars. I.E., Shepard at the very least had a PTSD diagnosis depending on what military background you chose for them. And while PTSD is treatable through medication and therapy, it doesn’t seem to have barred Shepard from continuing their service in the Alliance. If anything, Shepard only advanced further, becoming the Normandy’s commander and eventual commanding officer once Anderson stepped down.

I will allow Bioware some dramatic license for this story, and Shepard is also constantly considered a person with “a remarkably strong will,” which means they can endure pain and hardships beyond what most would find tolerable. But just because someone has a “strong will” doesn’t mean they aren’t affected by pain and trauma--they could just keep it all inside and suffer quietly, which Shepard seems to do.

Much like a post I made about Fallout 4 and Nick Valentine’s human form (and how the pre-Institute MIT folks mapped out his brain prior to his death, and simply used that data to make synth Nick’s mind), what we have here is yet another case of someone being created (or resurrected) with a mental map that included mental illness... and that mental illness being programmed in. It wasn’t removed. It wasn’t treated as a flaw to eliminate. It was an integral part of that person’s mind and identity.

With Shepard, this is likely because of Miranda’s orders: Shepard had to be the exact same, no exceptions. But with Nick Valentine, I consider this especially brutal and unfair, because synth Nick wanted so very much to put human Nick’s memories and ghosts to rest. He wanted to build a life and live that life separate from the man he was built from. And this choice of his, while noble and fully valid, was made all the more difficult for him to do because of human Nick’s PTSD and survivor’s guilt being transferred over.

Make no mistake: I’m not saying The Lazarus Project should have eliminated any/all of Shepard’s lingering mental trauma, nor am I saying the Institute should have done something different (it’s very likely that they couldn’t, or just didn’t think it would matter). I myself have been diagnosed with PTSD--that’s why I’m so fascinated by the presence (or lack thereof) of mental illnesses in the video games I play, which are largely RPGs in scenarios where mental health and treatment are either nonexistent (Dragon Age, Elder Scrolls, Soulsborne), or very seldom remarked upon (Mass Effect, Fallout) unless it’s for a specific quest. What I am saying is that I wonder what this says to us who have mental illnesses, no matter what they are, and how we can use this narrative choice in video games as a way to change our perspective about these illnesses and the part they play in our identities?

My psychiatrist and I have weekly therapy sessions as part of my Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Very recently, we ended a session with a question that we’ll explore in later sessions: is it possible to practice acceptance and active healing at the same time? Acceptance in this scenario means acknowledging that while my situation and illnesses are not fair, that’s also what they are. I do not like that my life is so brutally sidetracked far too often by symptoms of my illnesses, or by the very existence of the illness itself. But that’s my life.

I wasted an entire decade of my life (all of my 20s) mourning and hating and being brutally ashamed that this was my lot in life, that it wasn’t fair, that I couldn’t be expected to endure all that my illnesses demanded of me on top of the normal things life asks of us all--but none of that thinking got me anywhere. It didn’t make me feel stronger, it didn’t encourage me, it didn’t offer answers or hope or anything useful in the slightest. If anything, it made me worse, to the point where my body was then literally wasting away and destroying itself because of my anxiety by the time I was 29. But I digress.

Back to the question and, eventually, Mass Effect and Commander Shepard. Acceptance of mental illnesses and living with them simply means you look your life square in the face and you accept it--you don’t judge it, you don’t question it, you don’t wonder how it could have been different. It’s not different. It’s your life--period. And it’s yours. That alone should make you want to cherish it. It might be hard, it might be frightening, it might be lonely and all other kinds of things--but it’s yours. No one else’s. And your life, and most especially your illnesses, needs your love.

We care for wounds without questioning why they dare hurt in the first place. We just tend to what hurts and wait until it heals. Why should we do any less to ourselves and our illnesses? That’s acceptance.

The second part--active healing--is trickier, and slower, and far more intricate a process than acceptance. It also requires you return to step one (acceptance) almost every single day. Or, if you’re like me, and have a mood disorder, every hour of every day, for the rest of your life--period. But all active healing really is, in the end, is looking at why acceptance was so hard for you and filling that in with love and care.

Active healing means you tend to your wounds. You get out of bed. You brush your teeth. You shower. You make food. You do chores. You go for a walk. You take your medication. You call your doctor if you feel like you need help outside of your appointments. You remove habits that no longer serve you in healthy, useful ways. You indulge in things you like to comfort yourself when you’re feeling down. You realize that you might need more time to do things, but that extra time doesn’t diminish the importance of what you do. You’re healing. You’re on the mend. You will always be recovering and repairing. This doesn’t have to be shameful or exhausting (even though it can be--but then you start back from acceptance and slowly work yourself back up). It just is.

Which, finally, returns me to Mass Effect 2, The Lazarus Project, and a resurrected Commander Shepard who has their military background include a deep emotional scar added into the mix of the very current emotional scar of having died in space. Jacob tells you that you were “just meat and tubes” the first time he saw you. You weren’t a corpse--you were pieces of a corpse. And you were remade from every atom--including your illnesses. Including your wounds, private hurts that only you ever felt or knew about.

How would this make you feel?

How would you feel about this life, this second pass through the universe, this mulligan on oblivion that pulled you back to this ol’ mortal coil? Angry, undoubtedly. It’s why renegade Shepard in Mass Effect 2 is something of a raging vicious psychopath--but I can’t quite blame them. not really.

Remember the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? When Buffy finally lets slip that she wasn’t in hell, suffering--she was in some kind of heaven? She was happy. She was at peace. And her friend dragged her soul back to its body, forcing her to dig her own way out of her grave, back to life, before she suffocated and died once again. She got her life back, but was never asked if she wanted it back.

That’s Commander Shepard in Mass Effect 2. That’s baseline commander shepard in Mass Effect 2.

Now imagine a mentally ill Shepard having to bear this burden. I’m not questioning whether or not Shepard could endure it (you’ve probably played the trilogy--you know the answer to that question). I’m simply asking you to imagine it. Imagine a marine of whom the galaxy, the entire galaxy, demanded everything. Every thankless task, every brutal mission, every hard choice, every life-altering, life-threatening, life-shortening thing possible under every sun. Imagine a marine lying in a pool of their own blood being told, “it didn’t work,” and their response is, “what do you need me to do?”

What do you need me to do? That, my friends, is the central question of acceptance and active healing. What do you need me to do? Ask your illnesses this when times are tough, or even when times are good. What do you need me to do? Maybe your brain wants to trick you every now and then. Slips in an invasive thought, or a self-destructive demand. Maybe it tries to sell you on a suspicion, building up to full-scale paranoia. These are not things you should feed into; they aren’t actions you should take. More pain will not serve you. Hurting yourself in any way is not the answer to an already existing pain.

Acceptance. Active healing. What do you need me to do? Assess your damage, know that pain will always be integral to your existence, but is by no means the only thing that defines it, and figure out how to respond to it.

Instead of looking at your traumas, your symptoms, your triggers, your anythings as flaws, as failures, as setbacks, as things to hate and be ashamed of, look at it as a part of you in need of care, and ask, What do you need me to do?

And remember this last piece of advice: be kind. Because even after destruction, Commander Shepard took just one more breath--one more small gasp of life. And sometimes that’s all you can ask of yourself: just one more breath. And then another. And another. This is probably the hardest lesson anyone with an illness will ever have to learn: you are healing. You will always be healing. You will always have to take just one more breath. Because that’s what you need to do for you. No one else.

So breathe.

[rxll-the-dxce]

WHAT IF CHAPTER 5 DIDN’T END WITH KOKICHI’S DEATH?

WHAT IF KOKICHI SURVIVED THE KILLING GAME?

I’m not joking when I say I am still writing this AU out. It has passed over 3000 words. BUT I thought that to accompany my D.I.C.E group artwork I would include at least the first part for you guys! It’s under the cut.

SPOILERS - OBVIOUSLY

After learning the supposed “Secret of the Outside World” Kokichi’s already latent obsession with the killing game and unearthing its mastermind went into overdrive. He wanted to find the true identity of the mastermind, and kill them so that the rest of them might not have to commit murder again. But he was also aware of Miu’s plan to have him murdered in the virtual world, and as such conspired with Gonta to kill her, ultimately leading to Gonta’s execution in the fourth class trial.

The trial, however, has a profound impact on Kokichi, who already has a fractured mind as a result of his troubled “past”  (as he believes his past to be real), and he decides that to rat out their mastermind he must take drastic action. Just as the trial ends, he lets his grip on sanity loosen, allowing his mind to wander into madness and despair just enough to convince the others that he is the true mastermind. Using the exisals to his advantage to further “prove” his role in the game.

But everything changed the moment Maki interrupted his plans for Kaito. Kokichi’s delirium was shattered the moment he was shot in the arm by Kaito’s crossbow, taken by surprise that he had gotten a weapon in without him noticing. It’s further broken as he takes a second arrow to the back, laced with powerful strike-9 poison, courtesy of Maki. His focus turns away from the mastermind, and to his own life and fear of death. Kokichi’s mind begins to deteriorate, partially due to the poison and also due to the overwhelming fear of his own mortality. So caught up, he almost fails to register Kaito blocking Maki from killing him by taking the arrow himself. Maki had intended to kill Kokichi for killing Kaito, but now faced the possibility of becoming the blackened for both Kokichi and Kaito’s murders.

She left to fetch the antidote, leaving Kaito and Kokichi alone. Knowing that Maki will save Kaito over himself, Kokichi confesses his plan to create an unsolvable murder to Kaito, forcing him to be compliant and showing him all of his preparations. Even if it means dying, Kokichi remains determined to end this killing game. He’s ready to accept death, already feeling the effects of the poison taking his system.

However, just as Maki returns and throws the antidote in, Kaito succumbs to the poison. Unable to take the antidote and marking Maki as the blackened. Though he doesn’t show it, Kokichi is furious his plan has been ruined, now the killing game will only continue. Determined to at least not make it a double murder, and with the hope that he might get a second chance to end the game, he snatches up the antidote and drinks it. Thankfully no longer dying, but badly wounded and internally damaged.

The event leaves him with a scar in his arm from the first crossbow bolt, a deep round hole. The one on his back is far worse thanks to the poison. A deep circular scar with a spiderweb vein pattern across his shoulder blades from where the poison began to spread through his system. Kokichi doesn’t ask for help from any of the others with his wounds, however, barely speaking to any of them until the class trial.

During the trial all fingers are pointed at him, including Maki who is  desperate to defend herself, Kokichi is overcome with survivor’s guilt. Even to the point where he begins to agree with Maki, lying cheerfully that it was he who killed Kaito, to take the blame. At that moment all he wants is to get away, even if it means he will die in the process. Throughout the trial his grip on truth and lies slips further, and by the end he dissolves into quiet giggling - the others assuming that he has actually lost his mind completely now. They’re not far off.

Shuichi, naturally, uncovers the truth of the situation and Maki is voted as the true blackened correctly. This marks the second murder that Kokichi has been complicit in and the guilt overwhelms in, especially during Maki’s execution. In a moment of genuine emotion after her death, Kokichi confesses everything to his surviving classmates - including his feelings towards Shuichi and his plans to outwit the mastermind. He’s overcome with regret that he failed and it has cost everyone so much. Crying out that he knows the others must hate him, it is the last words he gives the others before he storms out of the courtroom.

Kokichi is forced out of his purposeful solitary confinement when K1-B0 begins to destroy the school, taking cover in the main entrance it is the first time he has seen the others since the trial. Instinct keeps his optimistic, lying persona alive and he pretends to be just fine despite the ongoing destruction around them all. Kokichi agrees to assist Shuichi, Tsumugi and Himiko in finding the truth and helps with the investigation. The discovery of his Ultimate Lab actually brings him immense comfort, and he’s almost distracted until dawn looking through all of the items left for him. D.I.C.E felt real, and that brought him comfort.

Unfortunately, this changes during the sixth and final trial. As, along with the others, Kokichi learns his entire past was a fabrication by Team Danganronpa. Including D.I.C.E and, supposedly, his talent as Ultimate Supreme Leader, Kokichi’s entire existence is called into question. His already shattered sanity takes another hard hit, as Kokichi begins developing a disassociation from reality and severe anxiety and paranoia about what is real and what is a lie in terms of his existence. It is present throughout the trial, as he has to rely heavier upon lying to himself and to others in order to keep from breaking down. His anger is directed heavily at Tsumugi for her betrayal, calling her a liar and proclaiming again and again that he hates liars.

Like the others, Kokichi abstains from voting and thus is able to escape the fabricated world of Danganronpa and reach the real world. Though anxious as to what exactly awaits him outside, he agrees with the others that they must make the real world real for themselves. To Kokichi, this means he develops a strong obsession with reality, and feeling real. Fuelling his desire to possess things that make him real, be they objects or even people. He knows that he can never have Shuichi, and that Himiko won’t forgive him for what he has done, and as such he cuts himself off from his former classmates. A part of him believes there is little reason to assume that they are real to him anyways, and he feels no regrets putting them behind him as he leaves Danganronpa.

For a long while, Kokichi simply wanders about the real world trying different ways to cope with his madness and trauma. First is alcohol, one he assumes as the obvious means of escape. But one drunken experience swears him off it for good, loathing the loss of control he feels under the influence. Its for the same reason he does not consider drugs or any other means of escape through mind alteration. If there is one thing he can hold onto as being truth, is that his mind has been played with enough and he will do nothing to harm it further.

After much thinking, he arrives at his conclusion. Here in the real world he does not exist at all. There has never been a Kokichi Oma, no Ultimate Supreme Leader, and no D.I.C.E. All of it was a lie. As such, he decides that he must make himself real. Create Kokichi Oma in the real world and prove to himself and to everyone else that he has a right to exist there. That he is real and needed and wanted. This becomes his new obsession and from that moment he begins establishing himself in the real world step by step.

The first discovery, of all things, is fanta. At a little corner store he happens to see the bottles lined up in a fridge and has to hold himself back from shouting in delight. Something that was written about him exists, something he always believed himself to like could be true. With the little money he has gathered from pickpocketing (for the moment he does not see himself above such a thing, he is simply desperate to survive) he buys a bottle of grape fanta. Kokichi’s hands are shaking as he tries it for the first time, so determined that this must be something real about himself he’s excited to be able to prove it. He adores it, and the discovery gives him a much needed shred of hope and confidence that he can make himself a reality.

Thus begins his larger project. To become the Ultimate Supreme Leader and to establish D.I.C.E as a real organised group. Kokichi decides to begin with a base, so that his group has a foundation to be built upon, and a safe place for those without homes of their own. On the outskirts of the city is a large abandoned warehouse that he stumbles upon, along with the added discovery that the warehouse has several service passages under the city to key points. It’s perfect, and Kokichi immediately makes it his own. There are enough rooms for members to have their own room, for a kitchen, storage rooms, common room and more - Kokichi is filled with ideas upon finding it and feels his hope that D.I.C.E will become a reality increase. He also tries every passageway, painting the D.I.C.E logo on each entrance and directional arrows back to the base to help himself find the right ways. It begins to feel like it is his now, and that brings him immense pleasure.

Next, comes membership. Something that turns out to be very easy for Kokichi, as he convinces many of the city’s lost and forgotten that he wants to build a safer place for all of them. His personality, even if filled with lies and mystery, is appealing to those looking for security. D.I.C.E, while still a criminal syndicate, becomes a safe house for those escaping pasts that haunt them, and the members are quick to accept Kokichi as their Ultimate Supreme Leader. Even going as  far as to explain that Ultimate Talents do exist in the real world, so there is no reason to believe he doesn’t have one himself.

D.I.C.E has five rules:

No killing unless it is an extreme circumstance. D.I.C.E is to be a peaceful organisation.

No weapons inside HQ. They are to be stored along with uniforms and masks whilst inside.

Kokichi’s orders are absolute and not to be disobeyed.

Tea breaks are at 11am, 2pm and 5pm and are mandatory.

Breaking any of these rules, especially rule 1, results in immediate expulsion and punishment.

Kokichi becomes content that he has achieved his goal. Though he continues to hoard items to decorate his base and his room. He even, somehow, manages to get ahold of the waxwork of Rantaro and bring it back to hang in his office. He takes the biggest room, which the others are fine with, and works hard to fill it with the creature comforts he needs to cope. Including a personal fridge of fanta.

Though he still suffers from a long list of untreated mental health problems (Psychosis, Mania, PTSD, Depersonalisation disorder, Generalised Anxiety Disorder, OCD and NPD), building, or indeed rebuilding, D.I.C.E is an excellent coping method for Kokichi.

[soyosauce]

Living Under Glass In Implanted

The data stored in her blood can save a city on the brink… or destroy it, in this gripping cyberpunk thriller. When college student Emery Driscoll is blackmailed into being a courier for a clandestine organisation, she’s cut off from the neural implant community which binds the domed city of New Worth together. Her new masters exploit her rare condition which allows her to carry encoded data in her blood, and train her to transport secrets throughout the troubled city. New Worth is on the brink of Emergence – freedom from the dome – but not everyone wants to leave. Then a data drop goes bad, and Emery is caught between factions: those who want her blood, and those who just want her dead.

Within a techno-thriller-like framework Implanted’s author, Lauren C. Teffeau, weaves solarpunk and cyberpunk themes into a rich setting. New Worth is structurally crafted to evoke a sense of the outside world after radical climate effects have occurred. The stratification of class is literalized, with the rich living high up, enjoying the sun and the best goods the city has to offer. The poor live in all but darkness and have society geared against them in that there’s more crime and the cleaning robots don’t come around that much in the lower levels, etc.. The layout of the entire city is meant to feel like a vertical urban sprawl with only the aesthetic or veneer of a green space, a neat take on an urban jungle.

Emery comes from the terrestrial district down below, with her parents working her ass off to get her in school and land a job that’ll eventually enable them to move up. She’s short, she’s brown, and she’s completely bought into the status quo. Almost. It’s immediately clear early on that she’s a trauma survivor who goes to a virtual reality arcade to hone her skills. A particular skill set that she uses to claw back some control or agency in her life by hunting down people who prey on marginalized people, usually women; removing their implants and selling them.

In her personal life, she’s closed off and secretive, slow to trust—focusing on her coming graduation and landing a decent, but boring job to help her family move up, literally! Of course, this isn’t to be. A corporation blackmails her into joining their ranks, cut her off from everyone, even faking her death, and trains her to be a courier. Porting important information around in her blood, co-opting her very body for their own agency.

Importantly, she was close to fully synching with Rik, a person she plays the arcades with but has never actually met.

Implants are the heart of the high tech in this cyberpunk fiction. Everyone has one and it’s installed fairly early on, else they lose some of the higher functionality, apparently. It allows people to sync with one another, sharing their emotions and thoughts so long as they’re connected. All of society is built on this technology. Citizens’ identities and the way they interact is completely changed by their implants. Social structure and corporate structure is built on the idea that everyone has one. Except… not everybody does. The Disconnects are people who reject this idea, unwilling to trade their freedom and natural human interactions for a device that essentially keeps the populace under the city’s thumb. All the information that is disseminated from them is outright trusted. People no longer trust their own senses, they trust the information being fed them. Social interactions have gone “Online” even more, essentially.

Joining Aventine, the corporation that has blackmailed her, eradicated the one connection she was building toward having despite her trauma. It’s the ultimate way of letting someone into your life, as their presence would always be there with you.

Fast forward months later and a job goes wrong. The information she’s carrying turns out to be important enough that both the corps and the disconnects are after her and she has to risk finding and asking for Rik’s help, who thought her dead.

What ensues is a fairly typical technothriller structure. The slow lead up filled with infodumps and personal stakes followed by action as she has to use her knowledge of the city to navigate her way to any sense of freedom. It’s a cyclical and satisfying narrative that doesn’t feel bloated but does take a while to get going. Luckily, the whole thing is a fast read so it’s not a big deal.

There are some more interesting aspects to the story though, deviating from cyberpunk and the techno-thriller formula. The underlying feminism to the fiction was always nice, even if it made Rik kind of annoying sometimes. The agency of the story is always with Emery, which means when she screws up it’s on her; just as the bulk of the decisions are her own. Rik is a well-off white guy in the higher levels who is a fairly good blueprint for a good supporting character. He sympathizes with the disconnects and acts of as a lens to fill Emery in on the details of the New Worth she herself is unaware of. It works well. But he’s still a little wrapped up in his own privilege in the story, in my opinion. Which, I think is how it is meant to be.

The story is all from Emery’s perspective. Usually, I don’t end up liking something written in this way but it’s pulled off nicely here. Emery is likable and well fleshed out and her voice, while very casual (the only meh part of it for me), ultimately culminates in good character work. There is less prose but the themes are worked in such that there’s a decent amount of emotional payout because of the perspective.

It’s also somewhat subversive. It’s less frenetic than traditional cyberpunk, which usually has new terminology and infodumps that take place during action that doesn’t relent much. This is decidedly more low-key, making it also more accessible.

It also feels solarpunk in that it’s not entirely nihilistic regarding technology or the future, in general, despite the ecological disaster. There are explorations of being responsible and not simply ignorant when trying to understand the outside world that this society looks forward to. Not doing so having real, lasting impact that’s detrimental to humanity. The characters have low points but even when the omnipresent corporations illicit very little hope, it’s disillusioned later. Emery isn’t looking to simply save herself, she has to consider what her actions will do to others; decidedly not traditional cyberpunk where the protagonists are anti-heroes. Which, I like a lot. This feels like a more relevant cyberpunk story because of this.

The city finding a new use for things is also present but… not in the way you’d expect. It’s a living, breathing thing aesthetically because it has technology to counteract the greenhouse effect of living under glass, but also has maintenance tunnels and spaces for sub-cultures that are used by her as a courier to get her job done, even when that job eventually becomes eluding everyone. It felt like a well-realized setting with a purpose beyond the overcapacity of humanity resulting, again, in a nihilistic narrative more indicative of cyberpunk.

She needs to integrate into a corporation. Dressing like them and doing as they say. There is not the normal freedom of expression found in cyberpunk here, that’s been taken from her and, though subtle, I thought was an interesting way to turn it around later when she’s running from the corporation using the tech and the clothes they gave her. Rather than cybernetics being the thing used to subvert power structures, it’s a more literalized repurposing. Pretty cool.

Implants are both good and bad. Therefore the “good”, the “bad”, and the morally grey are put squarely on the shoulders people. Which ends up getting rid of the technophobia trope, too.

It’s also always great to read a female protagonist that isn’t sexualized. Her voice and thoughts make sense, both in just the case of being a believable character, but also in terms of being respectful of a trauma victim while not skirting the issue. She has internal things to work out as a result and the narrative is about that. It’s not only a blip of a character detail to make her sympathetic. It’s how you come to be able to empathize and understand her thoughts and decisions throughout the entire story.

Surprising, thoughtful, and good; Implanted, I hope, is the start of a distinctly feminist cyberpunk wave of literature striking out against the cyberpunk visual tropes pervasive in visual media today that people seem to be waiting for. People like me!