#Which in a vacuum it is... But that woman absolutely can NOT write to save her life... YOWZA

[marciliedonato]

Just found out c*lleen h*over has the same birthday as me.... DAY RUINED....

[spiderfreedom]

my suffering is profound and legitimate, yours is frivolous nonsense

Just reading a blogger I like but I had to laugh because she was talking about how beauty practices are bad for women's mental health, and she left a note saying "unlike gender affirming care! gender affirming care improves people's mental health and it's nothing at all like cosmetic practices."

TIL, when an older woman gets botox to remove her wrinkles and avoid facing the inevitability of decline and death, her problem is spiritual/structural and she needs to Do The Work to deprogram her ageism, unlike people with dysphoria, who of course have legitimate claims to cosmetic alteration.

And it is cosmetic - no part of the body that is altered by HRT or SRS or any of the feminization/masculinization surgeries is failing to function or functioning poorly. The problem is with the brain, which perceives the body parts as foreign or undesirable. We may sympathize with someone struggling with such a condition, but that does not change that the body parts being altered were already healthy and the alterations are cosmetic, and the relief being brought about is mental.

But plenty of trans people openly admit that separating body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria is a losing game. Contrapoints's video on "Beauty" (transcript) has the observation that she feels least dysphoric when she is meeting feminine beauty norms:

But I also think that trans people often talk like gender dysphoria is this intrinsic, personal experience that's always 100% valid and never has anything at all to do with the external pressure of beauty standards. But in fact, gender dysphoria is not sealed away in a vacuum away from the influence of societal ideals and norms.  [...] When I try to psychoanalyze myself, I find that my desires to look female, to look feminine, and to look beautiful are not exactly the same, but they're woven together so tightly that it's kind of difficult to untangle them. And the opposite is also true, that for me feeling mannish or dysphoric usually goes along with feeling ugly. I don't have a lot of days where I walk out the house thinking "well, I'm giving femme queen realness, but apart from that I look like absolute shit". 

Max Robinson's book "Detransition," from an FTM perspective, points out how the prospective trans man views his suffering as unique from and distinct from women's, even as the surgeries they seek are not especially different:

The stereotypical cosmetic surgery patient is seeking to become closer to being perfectly feminine - she wants to be beautiful. Transitional cosmetic surgery, on the other hand, is widely understood to mark the patient as ex-female and therefore unfemale; this is part of the meaning FTMs seek to create through surgery. FTM desire for cosmetic surgery is positioned as something totally different than the stereotype of a woman who 'merely' seeks beauty at her frivolous leisure. FTMs are deemed to have a rare affliction that needs urgent, life-saving treatment. Conversely, there is nothing more common than for a woman to become obsessed with her socially-deemed 'unsatisfactory' looks and desperately seek to change them, believing that such a change is the only thing that can restore her quality of life. This comparison will feel like an insult to the FTM. It will feel that way because we believe other women's suffering doesn't matter, and recognize how much ours does. Women's suffering is ordinary but ours is extraordinary. For us to matter, we must be differentiated from the silly little woman who wants to be pretty so badly she'll pay thousands of dollars (now billable to credit cards and loan programs designed to pay for elective surgeries!) to risk her life and health. These women don't need to be fixed; we do. FTMs know that we don't deserve a woman's fate but have not yet realized that no woman does.

I have more to write on the topic of the relationship between gender identity and beauty culture, but I'll end this one here. It makes sense that somebody who is identified with the opposite sex would also be affected by the standards of beauty expected of that sex. (Non-binary identification is more complicated and requires separate treatment.)

[writer59january13]

Everyone nose, especially Al R. Gee, I haint no otolaryngologist

Nonetheless this bard arse videre licet punster mocker feels gratitude courtesy Kaitlyn Gilsenan, PA-C a moost deal height full medical technician without cerumen eye zing September 27th, 2024 'ere and thank dog guardian angels, who find me continually blessed (like the beasts and the children) regarding audiological sense to hear, whereby faculty sound waves

enter outer ear and travel through

a narrow passageway

called the ear canal,

which leads to the eardrum.

The eardrum vibrates

from incoming sound waves

and sends these vibrations

to three tiny bones in the middle ear.

These bones are called

the malleus, incus, and stapes

availing yours (us) truly to hear

such phenomena quite amaze zing listening to structures of silence on wing

and prayer grateful dead ring around the collar soundwaves, which analogously ping

pong with supreme functionality

and pleasantly and gloriously bring

audible world wide web despite my senescence, though

amazingly gracefully aging.

Vacuum suction instrument extracted waxy secretion

made up of dead skin cells and hair

that combine with discharge

from two different glands in case your not ad aware

allowing me to revel detecting auditory sounds particularly evening mating call of a distant Neanderthal

cave woman dear

such simple pleasure + specialists magic touch who restore

bitta bing bitta bang receive little fanfare

for the common man

though gratitude prompts this Harris heir to wince as when Androcles pulled thorn

from out paw of lion ensconced in his lair

relief from short lived discomfort vis a vis insertion to probe with utmost care

once again restores ability to detect sounds far or near

sans glob of gelatinous goo aerates passage way to appease head of this papa bear

he roars like Tony Tiger with utmost delight, which might easily be confused as a glare

ring against blockage wrought by ear wax wad

solid and to seat self and enjoy pleasure of sitting on angelic porcelain chair

expending maximum exertion

to expel obstructed waste within uranus jabbing little sphincter sphere

induces analogous painful defecation from constipated rear once either bound orifice freed from gob lit tee gook obstruction finds

writing glorious air

no more extreme muffled nor pearl jam fluid pressure in Eustachian tube

bring little relief analogous

experiencing swollen vein or

group of veins in anus aggravating hemorrhoids

pulled to the max and practically tear

ring until every last ounce of muscular might applied via primal screams filling the air,

whence solid waste from body jettisoned on a par

which I reiterate above

with different wording

caked brown blockage making this chap feel deaf and barely able to hear

when gooey resin from skin cells lining our outer ear canals

constituting tiny glands relieved from stopper like strikers at O’Hare

finally remedied from medical practitioner an absolute save e year

allowing Matthew Scott Harris, who

once again can exalt in life without a care.

Though no medical practitioner, yours truly doth assign

value to learn tidbits, enamored how biology and evolution did codesign about body electric (mine)

being proactive to nip in figurative bud potential detriment, that usually gets diagnosed as benign,

especially biannual examination concerning ears, nose and throat relieved said organ divine

delivering sonic boom, where one mortal grovels, while fading sunlight dances and enables fading poetic moonshine

to manifest itself without rhyme

nor reason, neither sense nein

sensibility, no doubt readers pine

I desist tempting urge to combine

words together begot as prodigy progeny directly linkedin with impressive "fake" authorial scion

just back after after taking extended holiday/sabbatical within Apennine

Mountains to bolster every vital sign.

Modern medical science doth allow enable, and provide this primate

cause he feels wowed at how examinations every now and again (usually six months apart) Medicare doth pay so one doggone old sow

war puss till death doth him part, he will vow

to vet health issues, and in the end barks a final bow wow.

[drwcn]

maybe after today’s acls training i can finally write that chengqing ER oneshot. 

— “Patient male, mid-twenties, motor vehicle collision, eta 3 mins” 

— “What no vitals? No GCS? ETA 3 mins? Who’s on the paramedic team?!” 

— “No one….Dr. Lu hit someone with her car on her way out of the hospital.” 

【A Midnight Conversation in Your Local ER】- Complete

[1] 

The night hunt had gone to shits.

That much was undeniable.

Jiang Cheng heard the panicked shout of his disciples just as he saw the array that he had stepped on.

Fuck.

The ghost of an once mediocre demonic cultivator wanna-be was going to bring Jiang Cheng, Jiang Wanyin - the Sandu Shengshou - to meet his maker. The irony of the situation would be laughable, if he wasn’t so irrevocably screwed.

That was his last thought before his entire body was engulfed by a blinding light and the world he knew disappeared.

The ground beneath his feet gave away, weightlessness paralyzing his body though he did not fall. He felt…launched, his body warping and squeezing and stretching, the air sucked from his lungs into the endless black vacuum.

But just like that it was over. Jiang Cheng barely had time to make peace with his death before his feet touch solid earth again.

Or at least….he thought it was earth, this black, tarry hard thing striped with yellow and white. He stared at it dumbly, breathless and disoriented, barely able to react when a loud blare assaulted his senses and his world went blindly bright yet again.

This time there was pain.

Jiang Cheng clutched Sandu, ready to fight, but then his head hit the ground and everything went dark. When he woke up again, an indeterminate amount of time later, he was in a small tube and had a distinct feeling he was not wearing pants, socks or shoes.

How the fuck do you ‘scan’ a cat???  

[2]

Method actor. The nurse, from the other side of the curtain, mouthed silently.

“Sir, can you tell me your name.”

“Jiang Cheng, Jiang Wangyin.”

The resident paused, awkwardly contemplating how to continue. “Uh…..which is it? Jiang Cheng or Jiang Wanyin?”

“Jiang Cheng, zi Wanyin.”

“Traditional parents?” The resident tried to crack a joke, but it fell flat. The strange man stared up at him with a blank look in his eyes and a frown that was rapidly deteriorating into a scowl. The resident cleared his throat and cast his eyes back onto his clipboard. “Uh, ahem, just the name on your ID please.”

“My what?" 

"Your personal ID….like a driver’s license?”

“Cultivators of the gentry fly on swords or ride horses. We do not rely on carriage valets.”

“Eh… right. Uhm, can you tell me how old you are and what year it is.”

“I’m 39, and the year is jiachen.”

Lu Qi frowned from where she stood by the door, arms crossed, watching her resident and medical student work. 39? He looks like a college student. But he also thinks he can fly, so I guess age is the least of our worries. 

“Jiachen.…?”

The M3 fished his phone out from his scrub pocket pocket and typed it in. “Sounds like the ganji system, like an old timey way to record year used in the past.” He whispers clandestinely to the resident.

“….Right. And uh, do you where you are?”

The man scowled at him. “Am I supposed to?” 

The resident scribbled something on the chart, and then looked up with a plastered awkward smile. “Well, thank you Mr. Jiang for your patience. Wang Fei here is the medical student on our team. He’s going to stay and ask you a couple more questions if you don’t mind. Afterwards we’ll confer with our attending and the team will be back to see you shortly.”

As he turned away, the R3 grimaced and shared a look with Lu Qi, who was the youngest attending physician in their ER, but was not technically working at the moment and so was not on the case. And technically, as the perpetrator who hit Jiang Cheng with her car, she had a severe conflict of interest.

At least this Jiang Cheng dude didn’t seem keen on pressing personal charges against her for MVA or suing the hospital in general… but that being said…

Yeah, they’re going to need a psych consult. 

Unless he’s on acid. 

Well… okay, psych consult either way. 

[3]

"It’s okay, you can relax.” Jiang Cheng said, waving dismissively at the woman standing by his bedside. “I’m not going to take you to the magistrate for hitting me with your carriage - car. You didn’t mean to, and I just came out of nowhere.” 

“....Thank you.” 

“You’re not Wen Qing. I know that now. Your name is Lu Qi. You can call off those psychia - psych - psychics - head healers - or whatever, I’m not crazy. It’s not my fault, you just… look so much like someone I used to know."

"Wen Qing.” Lu Qi echoed. 

“Yeah. Wen Qing. She was a healer - a doctor - like you, but different.” 

“I see. What happened to her?"

"She died. Almost twenty years ago."

"I'm sorry... that's awful.” Lu Qi’s response rolled off her tongue so well, because she had said those word a thousand times during her residency. So much so that it no longer had much meaning to her. Tonight however, she meant what she said. “Were you two close?"

"No, well…yes, maybe. No we weren’t exactly friends if that’s what you’re asking. She...operated on me. Without my consent or knowledge. Took my brother’s golden core and put it in me and then lied with my brother to my face about it. So no we weren’t “close”, but Wen Qing saved my life - well the purpose of it anyway. Saved me from a life of ordinariness.” 

Lu Qi did allow herself to dwell too much on what the fuck a “golden core” was, because her gut response was almost instantaneous. “That’s shitty of her.”

She clamped down on her tongue. 

God, why did I have to say that? To his face?! He was obviously in love with this Wen Qing person and they were encroaching on some dangerous emotional territories, but Lu Qi swallowed down her caution and plowed on nevertheless. There were things she felt she had to say, and since she’d already hit him with her car, how much worse could this shit get? “What I mean is she shouldn’t have. Not without telling you. Besides...there’s nothing wrong with ordinary.” 

Jiang Cheng chuckled bitterly. “Maybe you’re right. Still...she didn’t deserve to die. What her clan did was not her fault.” 

Now that threw Lu Qi off. Did this guy...kill her? 

Lu Qi half wondered if she stumbled upon a Yakuza-esque member whose psyche finally snapped after years of murder and violence. And yet, he seemed perfectly coherent, no flight of ideas, no tangential thought, no hallucations. Even his delusions seemed...logical. 

I must be the one losing, damnit.  

Jiang Cheng scratched a little at his chest, as if palpating for the “golden core” that he spoke of. "She saved my life, but when she needed help, I couldn't save her. But, if I were to go back… I can't say I'll choose differently. My clan needed me, my clan who was almost cleansed by hers. No, no I wouldn’t choose differently. I don’t regret my choices, but I am sorry. Sorry to her, sorry to my brother. I'll always be sorry that she died, and that I failed her when she needed me." 

Jiang Cheng had no idea why he was telling this stranger any of this, but maybe after twenty years, he was finally ready to address this guilt that he lived with. I mean who else was he supposed to tell? Jin Ling? It was nice, to have that face as an audience, receiving his words of confession. 

"She would forgive you." 

Lu Qi had no idea why she was offering absolution as if she had authority in this matter, but when she said it, the conviction she felt was so real, it was almost as though some external force was acting through her.

Which was ridiculous of course, but... 

"How do you know? You're not her." Jiang Cheng shook his head. “I wouldn’t forgive me.” 

"No, but you said she was a physician. So she should know, more than most, that sometimes there is no choosing who gets to live or die."

Jiang Cheng fell quiet at that, and his gaze grew distant. Lu Qi thought perhaps he was no longer seeing her as she was in front of him - white coat, scrubs, stethoscope -  but someone entirely different. The tension he held in his shoulders slowly eased, and he sighed. In the silence that stretched between them, Lu Qi hoped that this strange man with his strange past could find a sliver of peace. 

[4]

— Did you love her? 

— I thought so, foolishly, but maybe I didn’t. Even if I did, it was not well enough. 

— Do you love her still? 

— No... I don’t know. It’s been too long...but sometimes, late at night when Lotus Pier is quiet, I think I do. 

...

— Are you ashamed of it? 

...

— No. No I’m not. 

[5]

The patient known as Jiang Cheng left AMA, that is, against medical advice. It was the term they used sometimes for people who just up and leave without informing the team. 

Lu Qi had gone out to check on his labs, which came back with bonker numbers (I mean really, a hemoglobin of 455, sodium of 200, and a HCO3 of like...3?), but Jiang Cheng was gone from Bay 6 when she returned. The nurse made the overhead page, a code yellow was called, but four hours later, Lu Qi was ready to admit that she was never going to see this Jiang Cheng ever again. 

Somehow, she was okay with that. She had said what needed to be said.  

Her chief had given her a call on her cell and told her to go home and sleep. The guy didn’t look like he was gonna press charges, let’s count our blessings and move on. But the night had just been too damn strange that Lu Qi was all wired up from it and couldn’t possibly fall asleep. She had handover at 10 anyway. There was a change of clothes and toiletries in her bag. She could always take a shower in the anesthesia staff’s on call room and sleep until then. 

Dr. Sun was the anesthesia staff on-call tonight and was currently stuck in trauma OR. They were buddies since medschool; she’d understand.

Sighing, Lu Qi took a seat on the bench across from the bougie cafe in the lobby of the hospital. At this hour, it was the only one still open in the entire facility. The drinks they sold cost an arm and a leg, but Lu Qi needed the pick-me-up after the night she had. 

As she nursed the last bit of her matcha latte, two bickering voices pulled her attention to the front entrance. 

“Aiyo, A-Liang I already said I’m fine! I don’t need to be here!” 

“Fuck out of here with that bullshit, Chen Zhaoxi. You fell off the fucking roof! If Wu Kun hadn’t called me, you’d have gone on -”

It was him! Lu Qi shot up. It was Jiang Cheng! 

But no...no it wasn’t him. The well-dressed man dragging the second man (dressed in red pajamas) into the hospital was not Jiang Cheng. He had the same face - chiselled, handsome, scowling - but it wasn’t him. For one, his hair was trimmed short and neat, unlike Jiang Cheng who looked like he walked straight out of a BL xianxia tv drama. Secondly, his face was softer, eyes younger, and he couldn’t have been older than Lu Qi herself in her early thirties. 

“I was just trying to get to the litter of kittens trapped -”

“Yes, yes, and it was very heroic and I’m sure it would’ve made Wu Kun very horny, and you morons probably would’ve fucked once he got home had you not made a valiant attempt at breaking your neck -” 

“Excuse me,” the security guard manning the information desk chastised sharply. “It’s 4am. This is a hospital! Lower your voices, sirs.” 

“Sorry.” The men apologized sheepishly. 

Then, A-Liang, Jiang Cheng’s doubleganger asked, “Could you please direct us to the ER? This is my brother, he fell off a roof.” 

Lu Bin had no idea what possessed her to interject. “I can take you there.” 

All eyes fell on her. She walked towards them, heart pounding. 

This can’t be happening, this kind of thing just can’t happen... 

A-Liang’s face broke into a grateful smile. “Thank you, Miss -” Then his gaze trailed to her badge, and he corrected himself, “Dr. Lu. I’m Shen Liang. This is my brother Chen Zhaoxi. I think he fractured...well multiple things, please help him.” 

“Of course, come with me. Let’s get him a wheelchair. If he fractured is leg, he probably shouldn’t be walking.” 

“I didn’t fracture -” 

“You, you shut up.” Shen Liang rolled his eyes. “Don’t listen to him. He can lose three out of four limbs and say ‘ t’s but a flesh wound’.” 

Lu Qi couldn’t help but chuckle as she put an arm under the complaining Chen Zhaoxi and helped him towards the wheelchair. 

Shen Liang’s smile widened. 

[Extra]

“Holy shit, took you long enough!” 

When Jin Ling and Lan Sizhui finally dragged Jiang Cheng to their portal site, Jiang Cheng realized that the transportation talisman had created a channel through realities between what looked like two metal garbage dumpsters in a back alley behind a food establishment marked by giant yellow bunny ears.

Standing guard there, Lan Jingyi and Ouyang Zizhen were each munching on a strange layered bread and holding tall drinks contained in...what was it called again? Right. Styrofoam. 

“What is that?” Jin Ling wrinkled is nose at it. Brat. 

“It’s a Big Mac.” Replied Lan Jingyi as if Jin Ling was stupid. “And this is a milk shake.” 

Jin Ling scowled. “I said the bag of gold I gave you was for emergencies.” 

“Yeah but we were hungry.” Ouyang Zizhen defended. He neglected to tell them that the cashier had refused to accept the gold and instead asked for “cash” or “card”, neither of which they had, so Zizhen used a liiiiil confounding talisman he learned from Wei Wuxian. They did leave more than enough gold though...and that ought to cover the restaurant’s cost for their “burger”lary . Reaching into the brown paper bag he held under one arm, Zizhen pulled out a little box that opened to show pieces of... something. “These are chicken nuggets. They’re delicious! Try one! They’re really good with this sauce....hold on...” 

Lan Sizhui sighed. “We don’t have time for this. The portal will close soon. Let’s get Jiang-zongzhu home and we can sample these exotic food later.” 

The boys agreed. 

Jiang Cheng shook his head and huffed. 

[flr-house-husband-blog]

Female Led Relationship In Real Life

FLR explained, the woman has final say on all matters. The man accepts her wishes, her wants, and her punishments. This isn’t the FLR most men dream about in real life which is sexual in nature; I can promise in real life it is much different and more rewarding long term for both parties involved.

For us, yes housework is my responsibility and it started out with her lowering the normal standard that she kept up so that I could get down a routine. Overtime I’ve gotten better and worked longer in rooms and areas that did not meet her standards. I want to say higher, but they were only higher standards to me when we were vanilla. I see now the importance of daily, weekly, and monthly deep cleaning chores and tasks. They really do make the house ready for guests at a moments notice without worry and it really lifts a level of stress off of her which reflects back into us and our time together.

I’ve been timed and my daily chores I can do in 20 mins if I hustle. Normally it takes me an hour in between making her breakfast or getting ready for or after my work. Either way my “right” to ask permission to play video games or have screentime on my phone is once my chores are complete. The weekly tasks I’ve broken down into days to accomplish them easier (for myself), to not get behind, and make sure I meet her expectation of cleanliness.

My fav part of our FLR which has led to has been more love, time, and attention towards her is a phone rule. Dinner at home or out, regardless with friends I have to ask permission to use my phone. Needless to say no one bats an eye as they think it’s great we’re not on our phones. I like to check google reviews and see photos of different food options at a restaurant and it’s almost always a yes when I ask and then I put it away or it goes in her purse. I will say getting to that level of discipline isn’t easy.

In FLR I thrived with any new rules or expectations as soon as Goddess Amy figured out the best punishments that one changed my perspective and made me do risk/reward calculations before taking an action. What worked for her and didn’t cause her too much additional time away from what she enjoyed and was highly effective for me was corner time (30+ mins sometimes) and marking down in my shared chore app her grievances, which I too could see and were addressed with the paddle when she so decided. Unlike fantasy FLR there is nothing fun about having your pants around your ankles and being met with a firm paddle. She knows once I’m over ten that each and everyone will be remembered throughly. She has taken it a step further and makes me recite while I’m being paddled. Again not sexy but to make sure i know what I did and what I should do again.

Writing lines or the same thing over and over on paper takes a lot of time and she doesn’t except sloppy work. When that comes up I know I’m metaphorically fucked. It’s the equivalent of a cold shoulder when we were vanilla and I know a conversation is coming.

FLR isn’t all chores and sex. It’s a means to have a more loving and quality filled relationship. It’s non-standard but really does the trick for us. Of note when you’ve been met with consequences for falling short on expectations it really does change you behavior and moments vanilla you might want to give constructive feedback or argue a point of view. In FLR skip it and if you don’t like the point/topic/discussion try and bring it up at the end of the day or week, and if you really want ask if she wants feedback and if she says yes then maybe; otherwise wait until the end of the day or week.

In real-life FLR I can only give my perspective and maybe some of hers. For me I’d say the most important part is the man accepting she has the authority. Leadership isn’t all about being right, it’s about inspiring follow-ship naturally and accomplishing shared goals of the individuals under you and for the organization. Goddess Amy does that wonderfully and this is where you could say she understands my kinks (motivation) and pessimistic characteristics (frictions). She has a firm grasps on all things me and has goals for me, expectations for herself, our house, and our family. FLR works well for us because I accept and want her authority and she cares about all of the above to ensure each and everyday we move forward and improve. It’s not like the kink where things are expected to be absolutely perfect. She knows what I can handle and pushes the bubble little by little until it’s “perfect”, I look back and think wow what a difference I never thought this was possible.

Have you heard the phrase “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. If daddy ain’t happy don’t nobody care. “ That phrase sums up FLR. This ties in with communication and roles of FLR. She can easily say be ready we are going out and that means get in nice clothes and get everything ready to go or she can say she’s going out, which means I have the house to myself and if I’m lucky I’ll be given permission to watch TV or play games on my laptop. This ties in with staying on top of the routine she has set for me and other rules like no screentime without the chores being done. Most times I’m fortunate enough to get sceentime when I have the house to myself and sometimes it’s an opportunity for me to address a writing assignment she would like or an addtional chore. Rarely does it include me playing and sending pictures while she is out and about, but either way I’m always responsive and accept what she chooses as I know and believe it has a purpose. I just don’t sometimes fully understand it until later on down the road.

Real-life FLR the man only does what she wants and in ours she has retained meal prep for us and weekday dinners. The weekends I get to grill out and make her meals. Dishes are easy in our house. After a meal we clear the table, some things into rubber ware, some things rinsed in the sink and then into the dishwasher. We have a sign for clean/dirty and the dishwasher gets ran at night once full every couple of days and per my checklist is emptied or check daily.

A big benefit for her is me seeking ways to earn extra privileges ultimately by going out of my way to be on my best behavior, pampering her with love, surprises, and foot rubs. Some days she surprises me with the same to include paid massages and also breakfast in bed.

In public we appear vanilla, with the exception that I may secretly ask permission to have a soda or bend our diet plan a bit with a dessert. I’ve found asking before we go out with friends is better and also she has coded eye brows and looks which convey a silent approval or disapproval as I talk through what I might want when asked.

In addition to not meal prepping every meal since she loves cooking and helping us meet our fitness goals there are a few other things she retains control of. One is laundry, not because she loves it but because only she understands our walk in closet system for her stuff. Every morning I make sure everything is in the hamper and check the dryer- going through and pulling clothes tout of the dryer and separating out her dresses, tops, panties, etc in a way that makes it faster for her to put away herself, along with hanging and putting away all of my clothes neatly. Second the baby’s room there is a fancy rug which gets cleaned a certain way that’s off limits to me. I didn’t ask why and daily just make sure everything is clean and organized. Unlike fantasy FLR you won’t see me begging to do more chores, but you will see me finding areas which I add to my daily to keep off my monthly and deep clean routine to save myself time another day but just maintaining the area better. One example for this is dusting, yes the dreaded dusting. Once despised, I now prefer to address it per room per weekday versus all at once on the weekend. For me it’s less tedious when mixed in with picking up toys, vacuuming, and wiping down surfaces versus a whole hour of it another day.

To end this long discussion one thing that I like most about our FLR is despite me, the man not having final decision is that she gets my feedback 9 times out of 10 before making the final decision. I always feel heard and understood even when I don’t get what I wanted on most big topics, this isn’t the case with little chores or screentime expectations.

[crimeronan]

Can you explain the appeal of Julian Blackthorn? This is a genuine question because I read the books and came away utterly bored by him and unconvinced of his moral greyness as opposed to like, Adam Parrish’s. He seemed so one dimensional to me but I want to know if I’m Wrong TM considering I tend to be very very biased toward my favourite characters and bored by the rest, and my favourites were Mark and Kieran. So maybe I just didn’t pay him enough attention??

it’s been a while since i wrote any earnest tsc meta but cringe culture is dead and the chance to infodump about my julian thoughts has me vibrating where i’m sitting so.  yes okay.

technical stuff

(aka: things pertaining to How The Story Is Constructed)

cassandra clare’s characterization has become much stronger just in general since she first began writing the series like twenty years ago

perhaps most importantly: the more recent stuff i’ve read from her has involved characters who actually grow, change, and learn from their past mistakes 

rather than repeating the same stupid decisions over and over again

and over and over and over some more

seriously take a shot every time someone in tmi miscommunicates or self-destructs in ways They Have Learned Not To Do for no real reason. u will die of alcohol poisoning

in tda this shines ESPECIALLY with the evolution of mark, kieran, and cristina’s relationship, but that’s a separate post

clare’s trademark is also the angsty traumatized jerkass love interest with a secret heart of gold

the woman is almost singlehandedly responsible for draco in leather pants and the proliferation of this kind of character type in fandom and teen lit. this isn’t a criticism it’s me marveling at how if you commit hard enough to a single trope you truly can change the world.  follow your dreams

sad jackass with a heart of gold isn’t an Inherently Problematic Character Type

but poorly done it can lead to relationship dynamics in which one partner is constantly being hurt by and then forgiving the other despite them making no real effort to change, because they are narratively absolved due to being sad

(there’s a lot of this with earlier jace content.  in some ways i think will was later created specifically to be a same-archetype protagonist who actually does get called on his shit and grow. that’s also another post)

also if all of your sexy male love interests are tortured jackasses with a heart of gold then people start calling you a one-trick pony

enter julian blackthorn!

from the very start everything about him is designed to be the INVERSE of the heart of gold jackass.  which immediately makes him interesting just from a meta perspective

(mark and kieran are also both alternate angles on this time-honored archetype.  mark gets the heart of gold and kieran gets the jackass and then they’re both much more deeply messy than that.  yet another post)

julian is kind, self-sacrificing, empathetic, artistic, emotionally supportive, responsible, and favored by old grannies everywhere

so a completely nonthreatening milquetoast guy, right

immediately forgettable if you’re only here for the dramatic conflicts and shithead antics of clare’s other protags

except that he is A Mess

and that he has structured his priorities very carefully, and they are as selfless as you expect from The Hero (TM) but they are also Not Heroic (TM) and they do not align with the moral framework The Hero (TM) is supposed to use

moral ambiguity in characters always exists in relation to their narratives imo. you mention adam parrish - trc’s narrative already mucks around in different ethical shades of gray, and adam falls on the canon scale about where julian does on his canon scale.  both more willing than the average pov character to do the ruthless thing or make the fucked-up choice if the ends justify the means; both with an intensely strong sense of internal priorities that they adhere to at all costs, both so unbelievably fucking down for murder; etc

i do think there are ways julian’s choices could have been pushed even further, but considering the number of readers who hate his guts already, i can see why clare opted not to go for the most controversial possible conflicts

so we’re flipping the narrative

instead of seeing this angsty bad boy and peeling back the layers of his trauma to find his heart of gold, we’re seeing the put-together selfless family man and peeling back the layers of his Responsibility Mask to expose the rotting husk underneath

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

THAT IS FUN AS FUCK

then when julian DOES lash out in hurtful, uncontrolled ways, he has significantly more narrative justification for it than most of clare’s protagonists (will elaborate in characterization thoughts)

julian is also interesting as fuck because of how his struggles allow for a more in-depth look at the failings of shadowhunter society, something that’s also sorely lacking in clare’s earlier work

his apparent amorality is simply the result of him making pragmatic and impossible choices because he has been faced with fucked-up ethical dilemmas since age 12 Because Society Has Failed Him

which opens the door for narrative exploration of how and why he’s been failed so badly & what needs to change

i also love that he has such a coldly calculated way of analyzing situations and allowing harm to occur when need be, bc a lot of clare’s early protagonists have such a bad case of Rush In And Get Myself Killed Because I’ve Got Feelings About Impulsive Heroism syndrome that i wanna push them in front of a truck

probably there’s other meta narrative stuff i could say but i’m stopping myself and moving on to character analysis

characterization stuff

(aka: reasons why i’m also attached to him in a vacuum)

i don’t read him as one-dimensional at all tbh

u may feel the narrative pushes “ruthless julian blackthorn” too much without delivering enough actual ruthless julian But i don’t think that’s the same as having only one dimension

from the get-go, the big question centered on julian is always “how far are you willing to go?” and the narrative pushes the stakes slowly higher and higher to continuously test julian’s “the price is always justified” mindset

he has a far more layered and realistic response to trauma than clare’s early protagonists - trauma affects every single aspect of his personality and how he conducts himself, and the effects vary depending on the circumstances

his conviction that he has to be the perfect parent to his siblings because they will fall apart if they see him show weakness??  rooted in how he feels like he’s fallen apart since losing the stable adult support he once relied upon

his willingness to hurt semi-innocent people, commit coldblooded murder, manipulate people using political leverage, allow harm to befall any stranger if it protects his family??  rooted in how he has already had to ask himself how much he’s willing to sacrifice, and how his family is his only source of stability when the world has never done Shit for him

his conviction that he has a darker heart than anyone else because he killed his possessed father, even though intellectually he knows he was saving his brother’s life??  rooted in having no means of processing this trauma and being unable to voice his feelings for fear of backlash from a deeply non-understanding society

the way he represses every single negative emotion he ever has, to the point where emma - his actual literal magic soulmate who can feel his emotions - is startled to find him hurting or angry??  once again all about how he has to be the perfect father or he’s failed completely

the way his anger is so totally disproportionate to different situations and the way his negative emotions can only come out in completely uncontrolled breaks??  all that repression baybey.  this kid has not processed a single bad feeling in five years.  every single real grievance and petty annoyance has been festering indefinitely inside him like a slowly spreading infection

julian’s arc involves him needing to get thru being his worst self to actually start to heal

as in, he has to actually learn to acknowledge his feelings, take care of himself, lean on his family, and let other people take some responsibility

he also has to learn that in his quest to be the perfect emotionally controlled authority figure, he has not actually learned how to control or deal with his emotions. like. At Fucking All. good god

the narrative setup is also about asking “how far are you willing to go?” until the answer is finally “not this far.  not this far”

and once he reaches that point, he has to reevaluate everything about how he weighs his priorities and morals and plans, etc

(i also like that emma has a perpendicular arc in which she’s always the one tempering julian and telling him “no we can’t go that far” until she’s willing to do something horrific that he absolutely won’t and HE has to stop HER. very sexy)

it’s also just really nice to have a character who’s learned to relate so well to literally every single member of his family while still having a very detached ruthless interior consciousness. i have similar feelings about how adam teaches himself to love people, but with julian it’s spelled out more explicitly in canon & it’s a more central character theme

i’m sure i’m also forgetting stuff here but this post is long enough so i’m gonna say good enough

and like i said in the tags on my other post, there are things i’d personally write differently if it were my story - plot points i’d shift, character contrasts i’d up, themes i’d explore differently, pacing i’d adjust, etc.  i have plenty of ways i could be nitpicky and editorial about the effectiveness of julian’s arc.  but i also don’t feel like writing them out at the moment & none of my critiques on effectiveness have an impact on the core appeal of his character 2 me.  he’s so fucking good

[p-artsypants]

Stardust - A Preview

This is a chunk of a fic I’m working on. I’m sorting through the timeline and stuff, but I just really wanted to write this scene. 

Adrien sat upon the railing, one leg dangling outside the ship. Despite the engine failure, the day was lovely. The stars glittered brightly in their galaxies, all of which were vast and unfiltered through an atmosphere. It was just pure space. 

“Prince Adrien, have you finished your lessons for the day?” Nathalie asked, dutifully. 

He hadn’t. But he needed a break. “Yes, of course Nathalie. Thank you.” 

She nodded once, and opted to leave him alone. 

Marinette surfaced from the bowels of the ship. The engine was coming along great, and her expertise was spent. Now it was up to Max and Ivan to figure the rest out. 

She wiped her grease-stained face with a cloth, and caught sight of the Prince sitting on the railing. He looked peaceful for once. Not so rigid. She tried not to stare, but her heart wanted more. 

If only she could talk to him!

Suddenly, the ship gave a violent lurch as the engine sputtered. 

Marinette nearly fell over, but pinwheeled her arms to stay on her feet. 

She did, however, hear a shriek, and when she looked up, the Prince was gone. 

“MAN OVERBOARD!” She shouted, running for the rope coil in the corner. 

As familiar as she was with the ship, she knew a few vital things about space. There were two zones outside of the ship. The habitable zone, uninhabitable zone, and then certain death. The habitable zone extended about a hundred feet on all sides of the ship. It had heat, oxygen, and gravity. The uninhabitable zone was two hundred feet after, and just contained heat. To go any farther than that required a space suit, or you would freeze or suffocate in under a minute. 

Marinette knew where the space suit was, and how to hook it up. But as she had told Caline over and over again, it would take too long to prepare, and Adrien would die before they even got off the ship. 

So in only a few heartbeats, Marinette had snatched up the rope, tied off a perfect two half hitch on the railing, and tied the other end around her waist. 

Then she leapt off the edge. 

She fell straight down first, moving with the gravity of the habitable zone. But she quickly spotted the Prince floating away, paddling his arms to slow his descent. 

Then she hit the next zone, and he looked like he was running out of air. 

She kicked and swiped, doing her best to propel forward in nothing. But he was getting closer. 

Then the zone ended for him and his body curled up as every muscle in his body began to freeze. Still, he tried to reach for her. 

Marinette reached the end of the zone. Space itself embraced her with its bony touch. Her ears hurt, her lungs pulsed hotly, and her eyes felt like they were freezing over. But she didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop. She kicked and paddled, as hard and far as she could. 

Then she had his wrist. He looked at her with half closed eyes and tried to move closer. 

But she beat him to it. She yanked him into her embrace, tucking him under her chin and wrapping her arms and legs around him. He returned the hug, hanging on with every bit of strength he could muster before freezing into place. 

If this was how she died, she didn’t mind. Trying to save a royal Prince, a good man. It was an honorable death, and at least she got to hug him once. 

And then it was warm. They were back in the second zone! They were being pulled in! But she had yet to thaw, and she couldn’t move. 

Soon, she was able to take a tiny breath, rattling her frozen, sore lungs, and she swore she heard Adrien do it too. 

Then the wooden surface of the deck was under her. 

“Oh poor Adrikins!” Chloe shrieked as she grabbed Marinette’s arm and pulled, trying to get her to let go. 

“Don’t touch them!” Caline screamed. “They’ve frozen! Move!” 

Marinette felt warm hands on her neck and face. 

“They’re both alive, but they spent too long out in the open! They need to be warmed slowly and jostled as little as possible.” 

“The Prince’s room has a fireplace,” said Tom. “I’ll carry them there.” 

Marinette felt her father’s huge arms envelope both of them before they started to move. Her vision was blurry still, but she recognized that they were moving from the bright exterior, to the low lit cabins. 

She was set upon a bed, and blankets were piled on. 

“P-Papa?” She shivered out, everything hurting. 

“Shh my little gingersnap. You did so so good. Everything is going to be alright. Just rest.” 

She didn’t know how she was supposed to do that when she was so cold. She wasn’t even shivering, which was terrifying. 

What about Adrien? Was he conscious? Was he freaking out like her?

The whole mattress slid off of the bed frame and scooted over to be closer to the fireplace, where Sabine worked to get the fire started. 

“Is he going to be alright?” Asked the Duke. 

Rose, the medic, answered. “As long as we thaw them slowly, his highness should be alright. He may have some lingering symptoms in the coming days, like chills, fever, coughing and sneezing, but with rest and warm fluids, they’ll move quickly.” 

The ship gave another lurch as the engine started up. The movement was gradual, but they were on course again. 

The Duke sighed with relief. “Well, that’s one less thing to worry about. I feared we’d lose a whole day of travel.” He laid a hand in his son’s head, almost tender. “You can rest peacefully, Prince Adrien. The journey is going on smoothly.” 

A shiver ran down Marinette’s spine, and breathing came a little easier. The warmth of the fire seemed to be seeping into their skin. 

“Now, all we can do is wait,” Rose determined. “I think they could use some privacy.” 

“We’ll be back to check on you soon, darling,” Sabine promised with a kiss to the head. 

The door closed, and all that could be heard was steady breathing, and the crackle of the fire. 

Marinette's face rested solidly on the crown of Adrien’s head. His hair smelled really nice, and it was silky soft. 

He was nice. One of her biggest fears when they were told they were escorting the crown Prince across the stars was that he was going to be stuck up and cruel, like Chloe. But Prince Adrien had gone out of his way to make sure his presence wasn’t an inconvenience. He was forgiving and constantly gave the crew second chances when they made mistakes. Much to the chagrin of the Duke. There was no doubt in her mind that he was going to be a great king. 

He would leave in a few months, and probably forget all about the Powder Monkey. Did he even know her name? 

Adrien finally felt relaxed. Falling off the side of the ship was absolutely horrifying, and his life had flashed before his eyes. 

And then she was falling after him, hand outstretched. She had leapt to save him with nothing but a rope to protect her. She risked her life in the vacuum of space, for him. 

And he didn’t even know her name. 

As he shifted, ever so slightly so as not to disturb her, he took stock of his body. Nothing hurt, he felt like he could move if he wanted to. 

But he didn’t want to. He liked being held like this. Even if she was a stranger. There was something so nice about human touch that was impossible to get any other way. And it wasn’t until now that he realized he was starving for it. 

Just to be courteous, and make her aware of the fact that he was able to move, he squeezed her tightly, inhaling on her collarbone sharply. 

Her response was to squeeze him back and offer up a sigh. Ah, so this was mutual then. They could both move, both pull away, but they didn’t want to. And they just weren’t going to acknowledge that yet. 

The whole ordeal left Adrien drained, and listening to his savior’s heartbeat was lulling him into rest. 

People came back into the room, though neither could tell how much time had passed. 

“Your Highness?” Sabine asked, “how are you feeling?” 

Adrien peered up at the woman, and spoke softly. “Much better, thank you.” 

“Honey? Can you move? Can you let His Highness up?” 

Marinette let go of him, much to his disappointment, and sat up. She stretched her arms out and immediately cried out and held her arm. “Ugh!” 

“Oh dear, that’s the arm Chloe pulled while it was still frozen. You probably have some torn muscles.” 

“I can’t have an injury! How will I do my work?!” 

“Just do what you can. I know Kim will pick up the extra slack.” 

She looked horribly forlorn, and Adrien couldn’t stand it. Quickly, he grabbed her good wrist. “Miss?” 

She looked at him, wide eyed. 

“Thank you for saving me.” 

She smiled back, curling her hand over to hold his wrist back. “It wasn’t any trouble, Your Highness.” 

“It looks like it was some trouble,” he said woefully. 

“Just enough to keep things exciting.” She grinned. 

“Come along, dear. Let’s have the medics look at that arm.” Sabine urged her daughter out of the room, and left Adrien in silence. 

Without her, the bed was colder. He was lonelier than he had been before. 

And he still didn’t know her name.

[bamfdaddio]

X-Men Abridged: 1976

The X-Men, those fiery mutants that have sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them, are a cultural juggernaut with a long, tangled history. Want to unravel this tapestry? Then read the Abridged X-Men!

(X-Men 97 - 102) - by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum

If I ever participate in Drag Race, this will be my entrance look. (“Hear me, bitches! No longer am I the woman you knew! I am fierce! I am fashion incarnate! Now and forever, the winner of season 27!” *mugs at camera* ) (X-Men 101)

It really amazes me how quickly Claremont shifts things into high gear. One year in and he absolutely does not calm down, giving us both the Shi’ar, more Sentinels and the (motherfucking) Phoenix. SO LET'S GOOOO

You’d think that, as a telepath, Charles would be used to dreaming absolutely twisted shit, surfing everybody else´s freaky dream waves, but apparently, vividly dreaming of space is so exhausting that he needs a vacation.

To be fair, I’d be exhausted too if I dreamt of schizo space bugs on detailed splash pages. Get into it, Mr. Cockrum. (X-Men 97)

Meanwhile, Alex and Lorna have absconded to the sizzling Rio Diablo to work on their doctorates. It’s unclear what they’re studying (archaeology?) and where this Rio Diablo is (Panama, Chili, Ecuador?), but considering that Rio means River, I’m unsure whether drawing a dry dry desert is the appropriate setting. But hey, this was the pre-Google era and you’re not here for topographical nitpicking, so.

Lorna is shot by an unknown assailant and continues the long, long history of Polaris being mentally overtaken by other entities. Together with the equally not-himself Havoc, they travel back to NYC and attack the plane Xavier is boarding. The X-Men battle them, until it is revealed that these former not-quite-X-Men are in league with… Eric the Red?

Scott is all: But I was Eric the Red! Also, Eric the Red does not exist!

Xavier escapes, apparently not giving a fuck that all kinds of X-Men are demolishing the JFK airport, but the still-evil Havok and Polaris also get away. The X-Men are shook!

Some time later, The X-Men celebrate X-Mas at Rockefeller Square, where Claremont skips some steps in favour of narrative expediency. Moira and Sean are apparently in a relationship, Jean and Storm are the best of friends. It’s some pretty rough telling, not showing, but we’ll allow it, but only because the Storm/Jean-friendship is one of my favourite things.

What, you think only the movies indulged in Lee/Kirby-cameos? (X-Men 98)

Anyway, Jean and Scott are attacked by the Sentinels, who continue their trend of being way too sneaky for supersized racist robots! Xavier is kidnapped on his boat trip with super-duper scientist Peter Corbeau (seriously, he has two Nobel Prizes), while they steal away Jean, Sean and Logan in NYC. When they come to, there’s some gloating from Stephen Lang.

Jean Grey being a literal pin-up while delivering nazi-burns is such a big middle finger to everything she was in the sixties and I am here for it. (X-Men 98)

When the three kidnapped X-Men make a break for it and escape the Sentinel’s clutches, they burst through a wall, only to be greeted by the cold vacuum of space! They’re not on Earth at all: they’re on a formerly SHIELD space station! GASP! (literally)

In secret, Peter Corbeau, inventor of sliced bread, helps the X-Men back on Earth board a space shuttle, where Colossus remembers his brother Mikhail (objectively the worst Rasputin), a kosmonaut who died at the launch of another spacecraft. It’s another Future Plotline Seed©.

The X-Men dodge solar storms which sounds like a made-up contrivance but aren’t, while the Sentinels try to destroy the shuttle. In what the kids these days call a pro-gamer move, the X-Men instead ram the space station and go through to these apparently sub-par Sentinels like Magma through butter. Kurt’s showmanship and Colossus’ loyalty are highlighted, while Cyclops becomes more robotic and repressed the more Jean is in danger.

Colossus’ secondary mutation is apparently BEING THE BIGGEST DORK. (X-Men 99)

Scott almost kills Stephen Lang, but then Stephen throws his ace in the hole at them: THE OLD X-MEN? This reveal throws us right in the hallmark one hundredth issue!

And, look. Stephen, this is just a terrible plan. Instead of using most of your budget on making more impressive Sentinels, you blow half of it on making janky X-Men clones to… what? Confuse the real X-Men?

It works for a hot minute, but Kurt and Ororo quickly figure out something is wrong. This Beast, for example, isn’t hairy and this Jean doesn’t remember being in Storm’s confidence. Wolverine is the first to snap: acting on instinct, he kills ‘Jean’, proving she’s an android.

Stephen Lang, foiled by the X-Men’s logical thinking skills (which, to be fair, are notoriously unreliable), spews some hatred and accidentally blows himself up. Nothing of value is lost.

Too bad the X-Men can’t return to Earth: their space shuttle is too damaged. I actually love this: going to space is kind of a big deal for most people and the fact that the X-Men have trouble because they’re stranded in space lends them a kind of vulnerability that has been lost over the recent years. Jean steps up to the plate, herds the other X-Men into the protected life cell and assumes the pilot seat of the shuttle. This is after zapping Cyclops into unconsciousness and telling the other X-Men to kindly fuck off when they try to stop her.

As the X-Men descend onto the Earth, Jean’s telekinesis isn’t enough to protect her as she’s engulfed by solar flares. OR IS SHE?

Nothing funny. All of these panels are just beautiful. Forget those robot copy X-Men, this is why this issue is worthy of being the hundredth one. (X-Men 100)

The space shuttle crashes, rolls over JFK airport before dunking in the water. The X-Men emerge, safe, sound and very lucky and then, defying all odds, Jean emerges as the Phoenix. Fire, life incarnate, etc.

After a brief but melodramatic burst of energy, Jean collapses into unconsciousness and is hospitalized. Wolverine intends to bring her flowers (aw!), before throwing them out when he realizes the gal’s taken, establishing the X-Men’s most famous love triangle. (You can fuck right off with your Scott/Jean/Warren-bullshit.)

I’m not sure what my favorite thing is here: the absolutely bonkers everybody’s-elated-panel (special mention to Kurt’s boots and his bounce) or the subtle character beat where Kurt goes all heart-of-the-team and checks on Scott, who turns out to be not so stoic. (X-Men 101)

Charles orders all the X-Men (except Scott) to go on vacation, so he can take care of Jean. Like, Charles, you’d think they could just go hang out at the X-Mansion. Instead, they go to Ireland because Sean has conveniently inherited the ancestral Cassidy Keep.

All the X-Men dress up fancy for a welcoming feast, and it seems Kurt and Ororo are flirting? But sometimes, it also seems like Ororo and Piotr are flirting? Listen, I’m not judging: I love these polycule vibes from the early X-Men. Especially because neither Kurt nor Ororo have had particularly satisfying romantic plotlines for the past 20 years.

I’m not here to insinuate nothing, but last time I said “I enjoy being with both of you”, it ended up in a spitroast. (X-Men 101)

The soiree is interrupted by… THE JUGGERNAUT, BITCH, and Black Tom, Sean Cassidy’s evil cousin. They are hired by an unknown someone to kill the X-Men! Since nobody subtle is involved, they quickly wreck the castle and everybody tumbles into the dungeons. (Local news paper reports: gay power couple harasses ill-dressed American tourists.)

This story is mostly a vehicle to tells Ororo’s backstory: Storm, one of the few who could conceivably put up a fight to Cain Marko, feels caged by the cold rocks of Cassidy Keep and is incapacitated by her claustrophobia.

Back in the USA, Charles, who’s heard Storm’s mental anguish, is furious with Scott because he doesn’t hop in a plane to save the other X-Men, even though Scott correctly points out that he’ll never get there in time if he leaves now. Meanwhile, Jean awakens, convinced she somehow brought herself back to life. Yeah, you go girl.

While the rest of the X-Men fight the evil duo in Ireland, Claremont tells Storm’s backstory in a few gorgeous spreads.

“I could write a novel about Storm’s backstory.” “You get two pages.” “Deal.” (X-Men 102)

Another classic comics trope appears here, where family members are immune to one another’s powers. I have no idea how Black Tom is immune to Banshee’s sonic scream - he has ears.

Does Black Tom just have a voice in his ears going NEENER NEENER NEENER when Sean screams? (X-Men 102)

When Storm finally pulls herself back together, it’s too late: the Juggernaut has pummeled the other X-Men into a paste and she also falls to his onslaught. IS THIS THE END OF THE X-MEN?!

Other things introduced this year:

Kurt’s image inducer, which he abuses to look like Errol Flynn. (I would abuse it to look like an amalgam of Milo Ventimiglia (ca. Gilmore Girls) and Timothée Chardonnay. OR like Emmy Raver-Lampman.)

The fastball special!

All kinds of name confusion: Lorna is Polaris, Havok is sometimes Havoc and Piotr becomes Peter.

Best new character: Phoenix. Hit me with that iconic shit.

What to read: The Stephen Lang arc is not fully necessary, just read issue 100 and 101. Don’t skip issue 102 if you want to know all about Storm’s past.

[morfinwen]

For the 10 facts ask: Christopher, Reagan, Connie, Q, Niner, and Darcy, please!

Here, have a readmore:

Ten Facts about Chris

1. His mother's ancestry is mostly Italian, with some of the nearby countries mixed in. On his father's side, his grandfather's ancestors came from England in the early 1800s, while his grandmother's parents immigrated from Russia.

2. While she's almost as insanely talented as Chris, his older sister Marie has focused more on scientific, technical pursuits in comparison to his artistic ones: he's into theater and music, she works for NASA.

3. He's actually pretty rich, relatively speaking. Both his parents came from well-off families, particularly his father's, and his mother was not too proud to accept help from her former in-laws after her ex-husband left and didn't pay his child support.

4. He's never been out of state, let alone the country. It's something he'd like to do, it just keeps getting pushed further down the list as he takes on other things.

5. Chris is generally a pretty even-keeled, if not positive person. But when he gets angry, he gets angry. It's usually pretty targeted at whatever/whomever made him angry, but it's safest to get out of the blast radius all the same.

6. It took him an unusually long time to learn trumpet -- unusually long by average standards even, not just his own. He still isn't sure he's got the hang of it.

7. His mother took them to Catholic mass a few times every year when he was growing up, always intending to make it more regularly.

8. He occasionally attends Catholic mass as an adult, but he also visits Russian Orthodox services. His grandmother took him to one as a child several times, and there are aspects of it that appeal to him more (like the music).

9. His sister is married and has two kids. Chris has met his brother-in-law a few times, his nephew once, and his niece never. It's a bit of a sore point between them.

10. Cats just love Chris, even ones that normally hate all people. He used to feed stray cats, and he visits an animal shelter regularly to say hi to all the cats that don't get enough love.

Ten Facts about Reagan

1. In every way but emotional, her aunt Jane did a decent if not good job raising her. Emotionally, it was a total failure. Reagan doesn't hate her aunt, but she doesn't miss her.

2. It bothers her a little that she doesn't miss the woman who raised her.

3. She takes after her father more than her mother -- she knows this mostly because her aunt kept complaining about how different she was.

4. She didn't get diagnosed with dyslexia until her first year of high school. She'd learned to work around it, for the most part, but the diagnosis gave her more tools.

5. Her aunt made her learn piano (because Reagan's mother played piano), but Reagan preferred the guitar. She still has some piano pieces memorized, but rarely plays.

6. She's got deft fingers. This was partially learned by sneaking money from her aunt when she refused to buy Reagan something (her aunt often refused, but Reagan only stole from her a few times), but mostly to sneak things into the pockets of kids who were bothering her at school. She rarely got caught.

7. More than once, Reagan has ended up in a "second-in-command" type of position: she doesn't like being told what to do, she doesn't like being in charge, but she doesn't mind telling people to do what someone else told them to do, and if someone proves to her they know what to do and have a good plan in place to do it, she'll go along with it.

8. She doesn't like the cold, or driving in snow, but the worst part of winter is how dark it gets in the afternoon.

9. She occasionally works on writing her own songs; instrumental, since she can't write lyrics worth a darn. She's never shared them with anyone.

10. She doesn't mind being tall in and of itself, but it makes clothes shopping hard, people are liable to comment on the fact that she's so tall for a woman, and she's hit her head on more than one low-hanging doorway.

Ten Facts about Connie

1. Plenty of people have assumed "Connie" is a girls' name. He doesn't mind. People only tend to tease him about it good-naturedly anyway.

2. Of all his many, many siblings, only his older brother Dylan ever really understood him: why Connie preferred reading indoors to rough-housing outside, why he spent more time on his science and math homework than playing sports, why he hated all those big group events. It would have been better if Dylan could be around more when he was a kid, but just having someone understand helped a lot.

3. While Connie was at college, a scandal broke out in his pack back home that ripped it down the line, and his parents were right in the middle of it. More specifically, his father was one of the causes of the scandal.

4. He hasn't talked to his father since.

5. He is more open to talking to his mother, but their conversations alternate between her trying to guilt him to come home, her being upset with him for being at college when it all happened, and her being depressed. He doesn't talk to his mother much.

6. He hates wearing pants. In professional contexts, he wears them because he has to, but otherwise he only wears shorts.

7. He hates wearing shoes, too. He's constantly having to buy new pairs, in part because he just doesn't take good care of the ones he has.

8. He can play the guitar and the cello, the former very well. Most people don't know this because he doesn't play often, and never in public.

9. He doesn't like to listen to music much, which is another reason people are surprised to know he plays. His mother made him learn.

10. Like a lot of werewolves in that part of the country, his pack had a church that was somewhat LDS, though it's questionable whether it would have been acknowledged as such by the official church. He's moved away from that, but Connie does believe in a God, he's just not sure which one.

Ten Facts about Q

1. He has a large number of contingency plans, for a large number of extreme scenarios. Some are more plausible than others. Some are considerably less plausible than others.

2. He was envious of his cousin, for having parents and for being so rich, for exactly two years. He has never envied him since.

3. His parents are not actually dead, they got involved with faeries, messed up, and are currently paying off their debt. Q has no idea.

4. He hates his aunt more than his uncle. They're both awful people, but Maitland is much more explicit in his awfulness, and if you have something to offer him, is willing to work around any dislike he may have of you. Chantal is manipulative, cunning, and always comes out on top.

5. Has the phone numbers of multiple celebrities, famous athletes, rich people, and foreign royalty saved from his days in boarding school. He doesn't reach out to these people often, but he keeps their contact info, just in case.

6. Gained a reputation in boarding school for being up for anything not stupidly dangerous or seriously illegal, as long as he was being offered money to do it.

7. Knows a ton of things about rich people, a bunch of common strategies for poor people, and absolutely nothing about the middle class.

8. Went by Dell as a kid, switched to Q when he moved to the states. Not particularly fond of either name, but they beat Quincy Odell.

9. He's never liked a girl strongly enough to feel it was worth taking the risk to ask her out. His one romantic relationship came about because she asked him out, and ended in part because he wore himself out trying to make it work by being who she wanted him to be.

10. Between a drug dealer roommate in LA and his cousin's ... friends, it's a toss-up whether he knows more professional criminals than royalty. Some days, he reflects on this, and lets out a soft, pained groan.

Ten Facts about Niner

1. After more than twenty years together, Niner's parents are still affectionate. Disgustingly, honeymoon-phase, over-the-top affectionate. None of their children can stand it.

2. She is going to master the fast part of "Hardware Store" by Weird Al. She's still struggling with the first few lines, but it will happen someday.

3. Gets along really well with Connie, despite werecats and werewolves not generally being known for getting along.

4. Gets along terribly with Aidan, though with no clear indicators as to whether him being a "bird" (phoenix) is part of that.

5. About the only people towards whom Niner will openly show affection are her younger siblings. She has a lot of them, but she adores each and every one of them.

6. Hates, hates, hates the vacuum cleaner. Just Ash bringing it out of the closet is enough to send her running, and she won't be back for at least two hours.

7. Wants to climb a mountain. Particularly Mount Everest, but she's accepted that she should start with one of the smaller ones.

8. She doesn't talk a lot about her past. Not because it was painful or anything, it's just not something she does.

9. In the latter part of her time on her own, she and another werecat split off from the group they were hanging with, as most werecats do when they form a relationship. Niner's relationship went south. Badly south. She's never spoken about it to anyone.

10. With the exception of cheese, she doesn't care about condiments on things like burgers or hot dogs. Just cheese, the works, lots of mustard, she barely even notices.

Ten Facts about Darcy

1. He comes across as the least upset about the move to Chicago, and he is. It bothers him more than he lets on, but Darcy doesn't have friends to miss like Kira, or feel half as cooped up in the city as Susanna.

2. People sometimes mistake him for the oldest, when he gets to talk on one of his special interests, or the youngest, when in social situations.

3. He has one, maybe two very vague memories of his parents. He insists he doesn't miss them, because he doesn't recognize his emotions for what they are, and because he doesn't realize that you don't need to remember someone well to miss them.

4. Darcy is unquestionably intelligent. He is a little lacking in common sense.

5. His special interests are math, science, and history. History is the most appealing to him personally, but people tend to be more impressed with his grasp of math and science, and he likes impressing people. He doesn't dislike math or science, either.

6. He was named after his mother's best friend in college, and his middle name is his father's best friend since childhood. He's met both of them, but when he was much too young to remember.

7. He's actually a decent actor, he has a great memory, and he gets terrible stage fright. There are a couple very awkward school plays in his past.

8. Darcy still has a crush on Kelsey, the pretty blonde high-schooler he had as a babysitter when he was six. In general, the existence of pretty blonde girls make him glad that a) he's naturally quiet around other people and b) he doesn't blush easily.

9. He typically spends his time in Minecraft building computers and playing very simple versions of Minesweeper and Solitaire on them. Susanna thinks he's entirely missing the point of Minecraft.

10. His ideal pet is a dragon.

Thanks for asking! 

[docholligay]

The Time Traveler’s Bullshit

@katrani comissioned me to write out my full review of The Time Traverler’s Wife, my most hated book of the year thus far, and I feel like it won’t be dethroned. nearly 3,000 words and I skipped a whole section I was going to write about, ENJOY

Three dollars and ninety nine cents will buy you a Big Mac. It will buy you four hours of downtown parking in my city. Three dollars and ninety-nine cents will buy you a latte made with burnt coffee at Starbucks. For Three dollars and ninety-nine cents, I can get a can of terrible beer and have a dollar left over for tip. All of which would have been a better choice than what I ultimately spent that three dollars and ninety-nine cents on, which was this book. 

I am careful to read hyped books out of their time, so that I’m not influenced by something that has been so lauded no book could ever hope to reach those heights. So when this first came around, and I saw many women talking about how much they had loved it, I figured I would just read it later. I buy books used, so this is generally what I do even outside of worrying about being affected. 

I finally picked this book up after a reader of mine told me it reminded them of my writing. 

After reading it, several years after all the hype, I have one question: Are women who fuck men okay? 

(“Why not just straight women, Doc?” you may rightly ask me, and I, unfortunately, am forced to answer that I know a number of bisexual women who also enjoyed this book, leading me to believe that the trouble is far worse than previously imagined.)

I found this book to be borderline insulting, and if I didn’t know any better, I would have claimed this book was written by a man. The entire way through I felt the constant assault of the idea that this reminded someone of ME. What have I been doing wrong all my life, I asked? I should probably give up writing. 

Let’s go into the book itself!

The core of the novel hinges around the idea that Henry goes through time without wanting to and with no consious conrol, and so in a sense lives his life out of order. This is a fascinating idea but for the fact that book’s main hinge is the relationship between Clare and Henry. 

Who Henry meets, as an adult out of time, when she is six. 

And proceeds to groom her to be his wife someday. 

Oh, it isn’t put that way, of course, it’s simply that they end up married and so, I suppose the author might say, it’s only natural that Henry interact with her when he comes the “the Meadow” nearby where she lives. But this sort of “things are already decided” that the author is extremely fond of does not remove this intensely squicky framework from their relationship. Henry begins with Clare when she is six years old, and it comes on VERY fast that they are supposed to get married. She is at a sleepover, still as a literal child, ELEVEN YEARS OLD, when the Ouija board spells out his name as the boy who likes her. 

The book takes pains to describe how he won;t have sex with her until she’s 18, but how difficult it is for a thirties to forties man not to have sex with her when she’s 15, 16, 17. I want to say there might be a part where he describes it when she’s 14, but I can’t find it in the book right now, so we’ll pretend it’s not there. “But they’re married in the furute!” one might say, listen if my wife had to resist having sex with sixteen year old me, and didn’t see me as a fucking child, I would think she was gross. It’s gross for a thirty-something to forty -something dde to struggle not to fuck a teenager, period, end of story. 

All of this is wrapped in the book’s idea that this is romantic, instead of the idea that Clare’s “date with destiny” is tragic. She doesn’t ever have a boyfriend, because she is “waiting for Henry”. She sleeps with one of Henry’s friends before he and Clare ever officially “meet” and bursts into tears because she feels as if she has been unfaithful. Meanwhile, Henry is out having girlfriends like no one’s business, and “Well Doc he doesn’t know” why is Clare the one who has to bear this arranged marriage? 

Clare herself even alludes to the way she’s being groomed to be the woman he wants in a way that I DO NOT THINK the author intended, as the author is desperately wrapped up in the idea that this is sexy and romantic and not deeply fucking unsettling. 

Pretentious-ass Henry is dropping German into a casual conversation with a thirteen year old so that you know he is learned and cool, and explain that it’s from Rilke, one of their (note: Not your, but OUR) favorite poets. 

Clare responds: “You’re doing it again!” 

“What?” 

“Telling me what I like.” Clare burrows into my lap with her feet. Without thinking I put my feet on her shoulders, but then that seems too sexual, somehow, and I quickly take Clare’s feet in my hands again and hold them together with one hand in the air as she lies on her back, innocent and angelic with her hair spread nimbus-like around her on the blanket. (Sidebar: I can only fucking imagine that the sort of people that are into this are the sort of people who think nothing at the idea of some Victorian gentleman marrying his attractive young ward, as apparently there’s no problem with having seen someone as a child and then having them marry you! It’s not deeply fucked up at all!)  …..

“Henry?” 

“Yes?”

“You are making me different.” 

“I know.” 

These brief asides are meant to make us feel that Henry has done enough to assuage his guilt, that we are meant to forget that what he is doing is wrong. The book goes so far as to have sixteen year old Clare be the aggressor with a 37 or so year old Henry, as a way of trying to tell us, “Oh look none of this can be Henry’s fault” and an absolutely cringeworthy section where Henry goes and beats up a kid who took Clare on a date and proceeded to assault her. (She dates him to prove she’s not a dyke wow what a great book and thank you for reminding us that Clare never wants to see anyone else for her own sake even as a teenager, very healthy)

All of which would make me a hell of a lot more mad if I managed to like Clare even a little bit. But it’s not at all surprising that I don't--Clare is hardly a character in this story so much as she’s a cardboard cutout that exists for Henry. 

Each of her desires and thoughts revolves around him, from the time she’s a child, save for minor pouting incidents when Henry either won’t tell her something, or disagrees with her. But she always caves, but for the exception of having a child, another horrible thing we’re meant to feel sorry for them in, but I, at least, never really do, as they know the problem, they know how horribly Henry’s life has been affected, and yet they persevere. I find myself asking why in the fuck they don’t use donor sperm, but I suppose that would not fulfill Clare’s real use as being Henry’s vessel. It might have been very touching to write about their experience of infertility if they were likeable at all, or the chapters were anything but flat and emotionless despite dealing with really high-emotion topics. It’s essentially Clare saying “I want a baby inside me” and having a series of miscarriages. I’ve read more compelling narratives on online message boards. 

Not to mention when Henry suggests adopting and Clare says “That would be pretending” bitch fuck ALL THE WAY OFF. I repeat: WE ARE MEANT TO LIKE THIS CHARACTER. NOTHING ABOUT HER IS SHOWN AS A NEGATIVE. 

A fair amount of time in the book is spent describing how hot Clare is, and it’s a bit cringey to read about a super hot redhead with great tits and also rich, who’s a visual artist, and then flip to the back and see a redheaded visual artist as the author. It’s not that I don’t believe that authors are ever allowed to find themselves in a character, quite the contrary, but one hopes that there would be a level of detachment or at least plausible deniability. But no, Clare is nothing but wish fulfillment for the author, but unfortunately cannot fulfill any of ours. I get the sense that these characters are far more complex and layered in Niffenegger’s head, but they fall completely flat on the page, sketches of annoying human beings. 

Clare seems to have been raised in an Austen novel, where the home is noted for its architecture and we ‘dress for dinner’ which could be intensely compelling if they ever went anywhere with it. But we don’t. Because of course Clare’s raising in a straightlaced, extremely wealthy family has no affect on her and she is a very cool girl who is laid back and likes the right music and poetry. (Sidebar: The name dropping in this novel is SO TIRESOME. Every band, artist, poet, etc has to be named and identified so your are aware of how absolutely well-read and smart and cool Niffenegger is) 

The we’re meant to feel for Henry when her family finds out that he is half-Jewish which I suppose is meant to be shocking when he doesn’t practice or isn’t different in any marked way from her family? The character has no Jewishness in him but as a side note and dare I say for shock value. Her family isn’t even written as believably against the union, as no one can resist super cool hipster protag Henry DeTamble (Even his name sounds INSUFFERABLE) 

The problem, of course, is that the very wealthy can buy their way out of many problems, meaning that an author has to have a particular deftness of hand in order to make you feel something for them. This is not that author. Any sympathy one might have for Clare goes immediately out the window when she’s complaining about having only a small room for a studio in which to create, while she’s living off the INTEREST from her trust fund, and hiring a cleaning service because neither of them is willing to vacuum. Not her trust fund. The INTEREST from her trust fund, which means there must be so much fucking money in there we all want to scream. 

Of course, Henry goes into the future and wins the lottery so they can give her a new studio, I shit you not this is a thing that happens in a novel where we are supposedly meant to identify with the characters and feel for them. They buy a nice house with a separate studio in the backyard, not even in the house, just a large brick edifice where Clare can do whatever she wants because these people don’t have consequences until Henry’s death, and by the time he dies, we’re all thanking God that at least there’s one thing they can’t weasel out of. The book has the audacity to have them, later, describe having a private box as one of their “little indulgences” friends a private box is the realm of $1,800 dollars for ONE showing of an opera, and while I am a believer in the good of occasionally saving up to do something that is an experience, there is no way I would describe that as an ‘indulgence” but these people have such wealth that they never need worry about anything at all, except the central point, which is that Henry drifts in and out of time and we would like to sentence a child to that. 

Henry himself is a collection of traits rather than a person--it is so important to the author that we know he is a real punk with great musical taste, that he knows German and poetry and Chicago--it’s all rather a laundry list of the long-haired, tall, punkish but very classically learned boyfriend Niffenegger would like to have rather than someone who has a heart or a mind.  But the luck of it all is that she clearly cares about henry far more than she does Clare, and so he gets a bit of fleshing out with a tragic anime backstory and all that, and from time to time we see bursts of real humanity in his character. 

Their love, even if it were not burdened by the exceptional trouble of CLARE BEING GROOMED AS A CHILD, has the weight of air. Henry is a womanizer with a drug problem, but then he meets Clare, hot rich redhead who proves she’s known him her whole life, and suddenly the magic swelling violins are in the background, love has found its day, and no more is ever said about it.The book refuses to get anywhere deep into how they feel about things and why, it is only glancing blows that seem to suggest an emotion rather than allowing ourselves to get into their minds.  

The bulk of the description of their love is sex. Sex sex sex. I get it, they are hot for each other, I am trying very hard to get over the fact that they are married when Clare is 22 and Henry is thirty, but you’re giving me nothing to pin their relationship on but the fact that they enjoy railing each other and Henry has been around since Clare was a child. I don’t understand the why of their relationship even once, it all seems so accidental, and I wanted there to be a lesson, or something to be said about humanity and relationships, but I found nothing save for maybe the idea that women are fully engrossed in their relationships and men basically luck into them and then drop out from time to time? But even that is far far deeper than I think the novel deserves credit for. 

The side characters are somehow worse, mainly racist stereotypes or one note characters who ALSO exist to have their lives enhanced by the protagonists. Even their friends only exist so that Gomez can have the hots for Clare for years, because Everyone Wants To Bone Clare. 

The writing itself is terrible too, written in the style of a script, almost, rapidly shifting between first person narratives in a matter of one or two paragraphs, often, helpfully telling who is talking by, I shit you not, putting “CLARE:” or “HENRY:” before the paragraphs, so we can enjoy who it is that is navel gazing and picking over the conversation without saying anything really, save for how badly Henry wants to fuck his super hot wife, who may or may not currently be a teenager, and how desperately Clare loves him, and has loved him since she was a child, for reasons that remain unclear. 

It’s padded out and ridiculous and reads like some of the drafts when I am being a complete garbage pile, and thank you to the person online who had already typed this out so I didn’t have to:

Henry:

Clare is wearing a wine-colored velvet dress and pearls. She looks like a Botticelli by way of John Graham: huge gray eyes, long nose, tiny delicate mouth like a geisha. She has long red hair that covers her shoulders and falls to the middle of her back. Clare is so pale she looks like a waxwork in the candlelight. I thrust the roses at her. "For you."

Please try to read that with a straight face and get back to me, i could not manage it, and it was early on the book, and this sort of thing goes on for pages, if you don’t like hearing about how pale Clare is, and that she has red hair, her two most dominating character traits, you are in for a very, very rough time. 

The narrative voice of the characters is identical. I mean, I suppose I should thank whatever god is responsible for this clusterfuck for the CLARE and HENRY bits because otherwise I would have no clue who was talking from moment to moment. Does NIffenegger think all people think alike? That their internal monologues are the same? It seems to me she must because I can’t figure any other way that one could write two characters and have them, even when their opinions differ, sound like the exact same person. 

I did enjoy the letter at the end of this story--and this is where I saw where my reader connected me to this book--it almost seems as if it was written for a different novel, a novel about a doomed love between two people that truly loved each other and had rich inner lives. It’s beautiful, or it would be totally removed from this novel. 

This review has, in itself, gotten to be as rambling and listing as the novel, and so I will let it rest here. I read incredibly fast. This took me something like five or six hours to read. It was a waste of every single one of those hours and I wish I had gotten a Big Mac instead. Save yourself, save six hours, save three dollars and ninety-nine cents, and read literally anything else. 

[mssapphire]

The personal is political, and the political is personal

One of the reasons why Choice Feminism (which is the bases for current Pop Feminism) is so persistent, is because it is so difficult to understand how the political and the personal coexist.

Choice Feminism will tell you that any choice a woman makes is a feminist choice, and an empowering one, just by sake of being a woman’s choice. The problem with that, as we see in today’s culture, is that it allows space for internalized misogyny to be washed clean and legitimized. Most importantly, it keeps us from actually looking at and pointing at the power structures at play - and we end up falling deeper into patriarchy’s clutch, all the while thinking we are breaking free.

But the real question we need to ask is: why do we feel the need to do that? why don’t we, when faced with arguments that point towards our own harmful behavior just stop? why do we insist in perpetuating oppression towards ourselves and others? 

Because it’s not that easy. The cliché answer is to say: because we live in a society - but that doesn’t really explain away why we fall into this dynamic.

And I think the reason why is deeply personal and emotional. It’s because facing ourselves with our own (self)harmful behavior is, simply put, painful and uncomfortable. So we immediately get defensive. We immediately try to justify it. We quickly jump to say: ‘my life, my choice!’ and leave it at that.

Because we also like to think that we’re deeply rational beings. But we’re not. We’re emotional - we just don’t want to admit our contradictions and we want to save face and find a way to make it right through our words, just so we don’t have to acknowledge to ourselves that we, in all our human imperfection, are, and will continue to be, some way or another, problematic. And we end up justifying the craziest shit.

Let me explain with a personal example.

I have studied Feminism actively for about a decade. I understand the patriarchal structures of power. I understand why the objectification of women is oppressive. I understand why the beauty industry creates and preys on women’s insecurities and operates under the patriarchal values that a woman’s job is to be beautiful - and a woman who isn’t, is somehow ‘less than’. I understand our cultural constructions of taste and how we have a rigid knowledge of what is beautiful and what isn’t, and how that is harshly applied to women.

But at the same time, I have struggled with my self-image and my self-esteem. I have struggled with weight and eating disorders, and I still battle excoriation - which coexists with having very sensitive skin which flares up over the slightest change in conditions. And I know that, beyond this compulsion, women tend to suffer from anxiety a lot more than men, and also struggle a lot more with body image because of the context we live in, which places female beauty at an impossible standard.

Understanding the power dynamics at play has been something that has helped me immensely in my healing. It has allowed me to say to myself: my body is mine, and it doesn’t belong to the Patriarchy, and I’m allowed to be and exist even if I’m not a perfect beauty and I am also worthy of love beyond how desirable I am. And I think internalizing this is profoundly important and empowering to everyone (and it’s all of us) who has to struggle with this anxiety of having to perform femininity under the threat of having our entire existence questioned.

But, at the same time, I can’t help to feel soothed, content, and even happy, when my skin is clear. When I try my clothes on and they still fit me fine. When I decide to go out and then do my hair and put some make up on, and think I look nice when I look in the mirror.

And these two are not incompatible. Understanding why we do things is the real work we have to do. I understand that putting on make up is not particularly feminist, and I know that it is playing to patriarchal standards. But beating myself up over being a ‘Bad Feminist” wouldn’t do me any good. It wouldn’t do anyone any good. But making ridiculous leaps of logic as to explain why that is empowering and not playing under Patriarchal rules would be a disservice to women everywhere too.

We don’t exist in a vacuum. The way we perpetuate or change values is through inheritance - you learn what you see and what you grow up with. You can unlearn a lot, but not everything. You can’t change your visceral feelings just because you understand things logically (ask anyone who’s gone through trauma and is having a panic attack). Internalizing that learning process is a life long process.

And yes, we will catch ourselves doing things that are not holier than thou and problem free. And that’s ok... as long as we catch ourselves doing it and require ourselves to do just a little bit better next time. Because, here’s the trap: the minute we convince ourselves that we are non-oppressive (and this includes internalized oppression), we start missing the ways that we are and we miss the opportunities to learn and grow.

This also applies to our behaviors with others. I have been thinking about writing about the use of the word ‘toxic’ (edit: here it is), and also about how we can be nice people and still be assholes. I haven’t decided if I’ll write the posts separately or together. 

Instead of having that knee jerk reaction and saying: but I’m a Feminist! but I’m not racist! I’m not transphobic! I’m not homophobic! etc, etc., we need to stop for a moment and think.

Sometimes it’s better to tell ourselves: ‘I am not, or I don’t want to be, (oppressive), but these actions/words/thoughts were. Let me go ahead and learn why that was, and how I can improve on this’. Because that is infinitely more productive than shutting down completely and failing to see why our behaviors are problematic.

I follow Your Fat Friend on Insta, an account dedicated to educating about fatphobia and celebrating fat bodies. And I remember she once posted some stories explaining how she didn’t care what people thought about her but, instead, she definitely cared about how people treated her. I hope to be paraphrasing correctly (and I’m doing all of this from memory), but she then went on to explain how she’s aware about how difficult it is to actually change people’s minds and instinctual gut reaction - but that she definitely could address how people acted and treated her because or despite those gut reactions.

And I think it’s a way more realistic approach. Oppressive behavior is something deeply ingrained in all of us. It takes up a lot of active education and engaging and messy work for us to change it - and expecting people to do a 180 the second you point out shit to them is a bit unrealistic.

This doesn’t mean we don’t have to call out people when we see them engaging in oppressive behavior, because we absolutely do. But just as we understand that our own learning journey is complex, we must understand that other people’s are too.

Speaking of which - burn out is real. We can’t expect people to be engaged activists and teachers all the time. We’re allowed not to educate others. We are allowed to take ourselves away from a situation that is exhausting us. Believe it or not, we’re allowed to say: ‘I’m not responsible for this person’s learning’. We’re allowed to do things that are not 100% for the cause (like being Feminists and wearing make up and heels). And that doesn’t make us any less politically conscious. It just makes us humans with feelings, who get tired and emotionally drained.

We need to give ourselves space to be problematic, space to learn how we’re being problematic, and space to learn how not to be problematic. And accept that we all must find a balance between our mental health and our activism because we can’t simply drop off of the face of the earth and live in a parallel, unproblematic dimension.

None of us is perfect. But the least we can do is try to be a little better tomorrow than we were today.

[queen-of-deans-booty]

Save It For a Rainy Day

Characters: Castiel x Reader, Crowley, Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Meg

Word Count: 3,087

Warnings: fluff at the end, mostly angst, Crowley being a dick

Request: Um Could you do a Castiel and reader where she doesn't know he is an angel until he saves her from Crowley or Cain or both???

Summary: Castiel is keeping something from you, but you don’t know what it is until someone from his secret life gets a hold of you in exchange for something that Castiel has.

Squared Filled: Mutual pining // Stalking // Demon tablet // Mouth stitched shut

Fandom: Supernatural

Author’s Note: This is for @castielspnbingo and @spndarkbingo and @heavenandhellbingo and @badthingshappenbingo respectively and this is unbeta’d and any and all mistakes are all on me.

Feedback the glue that holds my writing together

Tags at the bottom

“Hey, I didn’t think you were going to come,” you smiled as you held the door open for your best friend and crush, Castiel. When you met him a year ago, you didn’t think your feelings for him would develop in the way that they did. He was just a stranger passing by on the street looking for some information on books about witches or something to which you directed him to the nearest bookstore that would carry that sort of thing. He didn’t say why he was looking for that information but thanked you and went on his way. A week later, you met up with him at your work where he wanted to talk to you about another book he was looking for.

He seemed so sweet and welcoming that you had no problem with helping him in whatever he was doing. He never explained, and to this day, you didn't have any explanation on why he wanted a book on witches. After meeting him for the second time, you saw something in him that you have never seen before in a man. He was more confident, sexier, and sure about what he wanted in life. He carried himself that no one has before, and he was sort of strange.

Strange in a way that meant he didn’t know how to act around humans as if he’s never seen one. His explanation was always because he was nervous around you, and you always bought it when he looked at you with those bright blue eyes. There hasn’t been a man in your life to make you feel the way you do when you’re with him. There have been many trials and errors in your days, and you had just given up hope when you met him. There was something about him that screamed he was different, but you could never figure it out.

He was always gone for weeks at a time, and when he did come to you, he would have bruises and cuts. When you went to get the first aid kit, the cuts and bruises would be gone as if they were never there in the first place. Strange things always happen whenever he was around like one time, you caught him talking on the phone with someone which wouldn’t have been weird if the conversation wasn’t about killing demons. Still, you never pressed the issue further unless absolutely necessary.

He made you feel calm and safe despite the weird shit he seems to be getting himself into. You wanted to tell him how you feel, but you were afraid of not only rejection but allowing yourself to feel happiness after your last break up. Pining after some guy you barely know isn’t healthy, but no matter how hard you tried, he wouldn’t open up about himself that often. He rarely talked about himself as he seemed more interested in you rather than him.

He was never sure about anything when around you since you did make him so nervous, but he was sure about one thing: his feelings for you. When he met you, it was only for a book he was looking for, but the second time was completely different. He didn’t need a book, he just wanted an excuse to talk to you. When he first laid eyes on you, he saw how pure and innocent your soul was. He’s never seen anything like it before, and he knew he wanted to know you more.

The one thing he kept secret from you was the fact that he was an angel. He didn’t want you getting caught in his world because he was afraid it would tamper with your soul and purity. He didn’t want demons, angels, and other monsters up your ass because they knew he cared for you. He never told you about Sam and Dean, what he really did when he was away, and how his cuts and bruises always went away whenever you left the room. You were starting to get suspicious, he could tell, but he wanted to make things right and at least try and come up with an explanation about it all.

“I needed to see you,” he said as he walked into your house. “I have something I want to talk to you about.”

“Is everything okay?” you frowned, following him into the living room and taking a seat on the couch.

“Yes… no… well, depends. I know I always disappear without any explanations, and if you’re going to be in my life for much longer, then you deserve to know why.”

“Okay,” you nodded, staring into his eyes. He took one look at the bright color in your eyes and froze. He was going to come over here and tell you about Sam and Dean, but he knew he couldn’t when your eyes were filled with such innocence and concern.

“I work for the government,” he blurted. He remembered the FBI badge in his trench coat that Dean made him carry everywhere, and his mind immediately went to that.

“You do?”

“FBI,” he nodded as he took out his badge and handed it to you.

“Wow, I didn't know,” you stuttered as you looked at the badge, “Agent Grant.”

“Yeah, I didn't want to get you involved because of how dangerous my job is, but I knew you deserve an explanation of why I was gone all the time without so much as a phone call,” he sighed.

“Thank you for telling me the truth,” you grinned as you handed back the badge. He could only half-ass his smile because he felt guilty for lying to you, someone he truly cares about.

“Of course.”

“Oh, I want to tell you who I met up with the other day. Well, I didn't really meet up with him so much as I ran into him,” you started to ramble about the guy you met on the train the other day. Castiel wanted to listen to what you were trying to say, but the guilt resting on his shoulders plus the uncomfortable position his wings were in distracted him. His phone rang which halted your story. He looked at it to see that Sam was calling.

“This is work,” he muttered as he got up.

“Yeah, of course,” you nodded as he stepped out of the room. Your eyes swiftly passed over the window overlooking your driveway, and you briefly saw the man you met on the train. Weird, you never gave him your address. Frowning, you stood up and walked to the window, the curtain getting in your eyes as you tried to move it. However, when you could see clearly, the man who called himself Crowley was gone.

“Hey, I have to go. This is urgent,” Castiel said as he walked back into the room.

“Okay, that’s fine. I was just about to start cleaning anyway. Um, be safe, yeah?” you asked as you walked him to the door.

“Yes, I will,” he nodded.

“Okay. Call me when you can?”

“I will try,” he nodded before taking off down the driveway and onto the road. As soon as you closed the door, Castiel teleported back to the Bunker. Crowley emerged from the shadows with a smirk as he stared at the house that belonged to the woman Castiel had feelings for. If Crowley was going to get his hands on the demon tablet which was currently with the angels, then he was going to have to step up his game.

After grabbing the broom and dustpan, you began sweeping the hardwood floors downstairs before you could start mopping. Then vacuum upstairs, do the laundry, dishes, and then take out the trash. Maybe some dusting along the way. Once the dust was all swept into a pile, you were about to sweep it into the dustpan when you saw a man standing in the corner of your eyes. Gasping, you turned around only to see no one standing there. Your heart started racing at the thought of someone in your house, and you grabbed a kitchen knife before going to investigate.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” you called out. Of course, there was going to be no answer coming from a killer in the house--if there was one. A quick sweep of the downstairs told you that there was no one here to begin with. Nothing was out of place, and you had to calm your racing heart.

“Get it together, Y/N,” you sighed as you returned to the kitchen. Once the sweeping was complete, you grabbed the mop bucket and mop before filling up the bucket with the right amount of soap and water. You’ve never had this feeling before, but you felt eyes on you. Chills raced down your spine at the thought of someone watching you as if they were stalking you. The windows were all closed with the curtains shut, but that didn't stop the feeling from being there.

“Seriously, is there someone here?” you called out. Your voice echoing off the walls was the only response you got. Sighing, you shook your head before starting to mop. If it was possible, the feeling only intensified as you moved throughout the downstairs, and you looked at the stairs before freezing. You had only checked the downstairs, but you never went up. Resting the mop handle on the wall, you slowly walked to the stairs before noticing the closet door wide open. You had this weird thing with the door being opened if the room wasn’t being used. Something about jump scares or some shit, but you always kept them closed so there was no way this door would be open.

Peeking around the door, there was nothing in there except for what should be in a closet. No man, no figure, no killer, just jackets and shoes. Closing the door, you paused as you felt the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. There was someone behind you, you could feel it. Gulping silently, you turned slowly to see Crowley standing there with a wicked smile. Screaming, you punched him in the throat before running to your kitchen to grab the weapon you shouldn’t have put down. All he did was chuckle as you run, but he followed nonetheless.

“No use in running, darling, I will catch you,” he chuckled. As you turned the corner, you didn’t register that you had just mopped the floors so they were still wet. Your feet slipped, and you slid to the floor but not before you banged your head on the corner of the counter. Darkness immediately enveloped you, and Crowley stood over you with a confused look.

“I thought that was going to be harder,” he shrugged as he bent and picked you up.

“Wakey, wakey,” Crowley sang as he splashed water on your face. Your eyes fluttered open, and it took you a few moments to realize you were in a closed cage with Crowley standing outside of it. You moved your hand to press the throbbing sensation on your head to try and ease it, but it did no help. You went to open your mouth to speak, but then you came to your second realization: your mouth had been stitched shut by what felt like amateurs. Your eyes widened in fear as you began whimpering.

“No use in struggling, love. You might want to save your energy for later,” he chuckled. Grabbing two of the bars on the cage, you quickly let go as a searing sensation formed on your palms. It was as if the bars were a thousand degrees even though they looked to be room temperature.

“Now, now, don’t do anything stupid. We’re waiting on another person to show up. You know him. Dark hair, trench coat, beautiful blue eyes,” he grinned. Castiel was coming? Why was he coming? To save you? To join his side? Was this a criminal with a vendetta? Was this even FBI at all?

“Is that what he told you?” Crowley said once he read some of the racing thoughts in your mind. “He’s not FBI, darling. He’s an angel and I’m a demon. See, you live in a world where monsters are real.”

No, there was no way that was true.

“Oh, but it is,” he chuckled as he bent to your eyes level just as his eyes turned a deep red. Your muffled cries were the only thing that could be heard as you tried scooting away from him as best as you couldn’t without touching the bars of the cage. Crowley’s eyes turned back to normal as he laughed, but his laughter was cut short when one of the doors to the room busted wide open. Castiel came charging in with bright blue eyes as if they were glowing.

“Where is she?” he demanded to know. Crowley stepped aside to show the state you were in, and tears came rushing out at the sight of him. Castiel froze when he saw how much pain you were in, and despite it all, your soul still remained the same. “Let her go.”

“Now, now, giraffe, there are rules. I know you have the demon tablet. Hand it over, and she goes free,” the demon chuckled.

“I don’t have it.”

“Lying to me isn’t in your best interest,” he said as he snapped his fingers. Your femur bone snapped in half, and you arched your back in pain as you tried letting out a scream. Whatever he used as stitching tore through your skin painfully, opening the wounds and letting your blood run free.

“I don’t have it! Not on me!” Castiel yelled.

“Then go get it. Until I see it in front of me, she will belong to me. For every minute you are late, is another minute she spends in pain. You have thirty before the real fun starts. Your time starts now,” he smirked. Castiel gave one last look at you before teleporting out of here. However, right now, that wasn’t the most surprising thing.

“Looks like his time is up,” Crowley smirked when the angel didn’t return in time. He was really looking forward to torturing you in order to get what he wanted. However, before he could do anything, Castiel appeared with a murderous look in his eyes.

“Ah, you have what I asked for?”

“You’re not getting it. Let her go or face the consequences,” he threatened.

“You think you can beat me alone?” Crowley laughed.

“Who said I was alone?” he smirked as the demon’s laughter died down. The door opened to reveal two tall men with serious looks on their faces. The taller one was holding a strange-looking knife while the shorter one was with guns. Castiel came in with a blade of some sorts, but that wasn’t all. A blonde woman walked in behind them with a smirk.

“Of course, he brings you three,” Crowley scoffed.

“Let her go. Final warning,” Castiel growled.

“I don’t think so,” he said as he snapped his fingers once more. This time it wasn’t your bones that broke. This time, your insides felt like they were being scratched at from the inside. Blood started pouring out from the cracks of your stitching which caused you to flinch and shake. It got so bad that your head banged against one of the bars, but the burning sensation wasn’t the most pressing issue right now.

Castiel immediately leaped into action as he, the two tall men, and the woman began fighting the demon. All resources were used to try and get Crowley to calm down since he was acting like a child right now. The fight didn’t last very long, but that didn’t mean there weren't any battle wounds. Once Crowley knew he couldn’t beat all four of them, he took the easy way out and escaped by a big red smoke cloud. As soon as he left, the burning sensation on the bars went away, and your insides stopped shredding. Tears streamed down your eyes as Castiel ran to you. He flung the door of the cage open, and you whimpered in pain.

“It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you,” he said in a soothing voice. He reached in the cage and grabbed you pulling you out to safety. Your leg was still broken, and the more he moved you, the more your cries were muffled. Castiel’s eyes glowed a bright blue as his hand placed itself over your broken bone. Within an instant, it was healed as if it had never been broken.

“We need to get these off her,” Castiel motioned to your stitches. Dean walked to you before kneeling down with his pocket knife out.

“Hey, sweetheart, my name is Dean and that’s my brother Sam and she’s Meg. We’re not going to hurt you, I’m just going to remove your stitches, okay? This might sting, but they’ll be gone,” he soothed. Nodding, you let him cut your stitches until all of them were out. Castiel healed your mouth as well so that physically, there was nothing wrong with you. However, he couldn’t take the emotional pain away.

“Come on, let’s get out of here. We’re going to take you back to Sam and Dean’s home,” Castiel explained as he lifted you bridal style. Placing your head on his chest, you just couldn't seem to find the strength to stop the tears from leaking. In a split second, you weren't in the warehouse Crowley kept you in, but a Bunker of sorts. Castiel set you on a chair by a desk in a library. Sam, Dean, and Meg were there as well as they stared at you.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered as your voice was sore from screaming.

“There is nothing to be sorry for. You did nothing wrong. You’re going to be okay.”

“What is going on?” you asked weakly.

“I’ll explain everything later, I promise. Right now, you need to get some rest. I may have healed your wounds, but your body has been through a lot.”

“Okay,” you nodded, barely audible. Castiel helped you to your feet as Sam led the two of you to a spare room that you could use. Even after all of this, your soul was still as pure and innocent as it was from the first time he saw it. He knew then and there that you were the one for him.

But that was for another day.

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[cake-warlock]

Is it too much to ask for all of them for Sparrow/Reaver for the Extra-Dramatic OTP Asks? If so, 3, 4, 10, and 15 for them? ^^ Thanks!

1. Who would sell their soul to the devil to save the other.

Ooh hm. I imagine it would depend on the terms! I feel like if Reaver could make a second deal with the Shadow Court to bring her back or make her immortal he would in a heartbeat.

2. Who would become a stalker, in the right (wrong) situation.

I feel like if Sparrow stumbled upon Bloodstone under more normal circumstances, Reaver would be very interested in her. A pretty woman stumbling into his town who just starts...fixing things? Helping citizens? I imagine she would seem so out of place in such a debaucherous outlaw town that Reaver would have to know who she was. I imagine she would both be fascinating and completely vexing how such a bright light could exist in such a dark city.

3. Who would pine away in silence their entire lives without confessing their love.

God both of them. Reaver is so caught up with convincing himself he doesn’t care about anyone but himself. Meanwhile, Sparrow is convinced Reaver would never want to give up his freedom for monogamy. Not to mention, Sparrow gets so caught up in being the ruler all of Albion wanted her to be, she couldn’t possibly be with him. They’re both so good at bottling up and repressing their emotions, Reaver to protect himself and Sparrow because she’s so damn self sacrificing.

4. Who would leave their friends, family, and life to move overseas to be with the other one.

This one is tough because neither of them particularly have family (prior to Logan and Lisbeth being born). I imagine Sparrow would be far more likely to go along with some over the top spur of the moment traveling Reaver had thought up than vice versa. Sparrow was so downtrodden after killing Lucien when everyone left that she would have said yes in a heartbeat if Reaver had invited her to go to Samarkand with him.

5. Who would be the most worried the other might cheat on them.

I don’t think cheating is exactly what would be the worry as much as Sparrow would worry that Reaver wasn’t as serious about a relationship as her. She thought for a long time that while Reaver may have been very fond of her, he did not love her. Reaver doesn’t exactly have a reputation of making actual real emotional connections with people and he certainly wouldn’t admit it if he did, so Sparrow just chooses to keep her feelings to herself.

6. Who would run into a burning building to save a stranger while the other calls 911.

Sparrow 100% would go try to save people while Reaver yells at her that she’s crazy and they should look out for themselves.

7. Who would haunt the other after death and chase away other suitors.

Oh Reaver would DEFINITELY be a jealous specter hell bent on keeping away Sparrow’s suitors, though he wouldn’t admit those were his intentions of course.

8. Who would stand up at the other’s wedding and say they object.

Neither because god they are both just absolute dogshit at expressing their feelings oops

9. Who would write long, beautiful poems for the other.

I feel like long winding poetry is more up Reaver’s alley. Sparrow is more likely to write very sincere sweet little love notes.

10. Who would love the other no matter how evil the other became.

Likely Sparrow. Once she sees the good in someone, even a flicker, she wants so desperately to believe that that’s who they are deep down. Sparrow would be there always, waiting for him to turn and repent with open arms. Even if he was “without a glimmer of light” she would still hold out hope for him.

11. Who would be the most likely to become an addict (gambling/drugs/etc.).

REAVER. I imagine there was quite a lot of this after Sparrow passed. While FII Reaver seemed pretty deep in his vices, FIII Reaver (aka after Sparrow died) seems to have really doubled down on them. Quite a lot of it is coping I imagine, especially when he still had to see so many reminders of her on the daily what with her son and daughter running the country.

12. Who would propose in a grand gesture of some kind.

Reaver would propose to her in a garden of marigolds with fireworks and fairy lights then be wed on a pirate ship specially built in Bower Lake in front of the manor. Opulence is sort of his middle name after all ;)

13. Who would go berserk at harm or death befalling the other.

Okay so I’m going to go on a tangent. Just keep in mind that the following is my own personal interpretation specifically for my story and my Sparrow (so not like Reaver’s character in a vacuum).

First of all Reaver would definitely be the one to go on a bloodthirsty rampage to end anyone involved in Sparrow’s murder, and I think that’s why Sparrow dying of illness hurt so very much. It wasn’t something he could get direct revenge on. It wasn’t some singular culprit he could focus all he rage and pain on. Instead he blamed the people of Albion as a whole for pressuring her into taking the throne.

Sparrow has a very martyr-like way of thinking. Because she was raised by Theresa with the sole purpose of saving Albion, she feels more like a tool than a person. As the archon hero she feels like it’s her job to keep the people of Albion happy, even if it means forfeiting her own wants or happiness. She didn’t want to be queen and she didn’t want to be married. The one aspect of it all she did want was children, and even then she didn’t get to spend nearly the time she wanted to with them because of royal duties.

When she died, Reaver blamed the common folk which is why his demeanor between FII and FIII shifted. While he certainly didn’t mind killing people who got in his way in FII, he became straight up sadistic in FIII. His brutal treatment of his workers and the people of Bowerstone is, in part, his way of punishing them for destroying Sparrow. And in no way am I trying to suggest Reaver wasn’t a bad person in FII, more that he became notably worse in FIII.

14. Who would spend too much money on expensive gifts for the other.

Oh Reaver obviously. I feel like the gifts Sparrow would give would be very thoughtful even if not at big or lavish. Reaver, though, would be incredibly over the top with his gifts.

15. Who would fight an impossible battle to give the other time to escape.

Sparrow. Sparrow would do anything to protect the people she loved and would be more than willing to sacrifice herself. I can’t imagine Reaver would be happy about it though or take it lying down. Without a doubt he’d try to stop her, the question is could he.

16. Who would be able to spend centuries in misery waiting for the other to be reborn.

Well Reaver is the prince of pining eh? I can see him waiting miserably for Sparrow to be reincarnated or some such thing if that existed in this world. He would probably bitterly numb himself with various indecencies...sort of like now lol

[goodticklebrain]

Q&A August: Kate Pitt, Pocket Dramaturg

I’m so very excited about today’s installment of Q&A August, because it means I get to formally introduce you to Kate Pitt, my pocket dramaturg and Shakespearean soulmate! I first met Kate when she saved my life by letting me crash on the couch in her hotel room before the closing banquet of the 2016 Shakespeare Theatre Association conference. It was my first conference and, by the last day, I was so sleep deprived that I could hardly function. Despite meeting me in such a ragged and incoherent condition, Kate, who was then working in Public Programs at the Folger Shakespeare Library, decided to invite me to the Folger for a public interview/talk event.

You can read up on my visit to the Folger here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. But, long story short, in Kate I found an absolutely kindred spirit. Within half an hour we were completing each others’ sentences, most because we were conversing almost entirely in Shakespeare quotes. Since then we have gone on several Shakespeare adventures together, including a long-overdue joint pilgrimage to Stratford-upon-Avon earlier this year. Despite having spent extended periods of time in close proximity, we have remained friends, which is something of a minor miracle.

Apart from being a delightful human being, Kate is also a genuine Shakespearean powerhouse, with a vast amount of both scholarly and practical Shakespeare knowledge and experience. You might have noticed that many of my recent comics have included the note “Thanks to my pocket dramaturg, Kate Pitt, for consulting with me on this comic.” This is because I quickly fell into the habit of texting Kate with random Shakespeare-related questions, like “IN HOW MANY SHAKESPEARE PLAYS DO SHEEP REGULARLY APPEAR ON STAGE?” Kate, in her infinite patience and bottomless depth of knowledge, would always promptly text me back with answers, including sources. It was like having my own personal dramaturg in my pocket.

Since then I have often brainstormed comic ideas with her, run drafts past for her approval, and asked for her help when wrestling with particularly troublesome punchlines. (Among other things, she helped me finalize the list of questions I’ve been asking everybody this month!) Creating Good Tickle Brain is a very solitary occupation, and for most of the past five and a half years I’ve been essentially operating in a vacuum. It’s been fun, but it’s also been lonely and isolating at times. Being able to bounce ideas off of Kate, and occasionally commiserate with her on the challenges of being self-employed businesswomen in the Shakespeare world, has made both my job and my life immeasurably more enjoyable.

And so, it gives me GREAT pleasure to turn things over to my pocket dramatrug!

1. Who are you? Why Shakespeare?

I’m Kate Pitt. I’m a dramaturg, writer, producer, and director. I grew up watching Shakespeare films with my parents and saw an outdoor Midsummer at the Edith Wharton house in Lenox when I was about seven. The Mechanicals drove up in a real Jeep, the fairies crept out of the actual woods (I was a city kid – trees were a big deal!), and I was hooked. I’ve also had many wonderful teachers.

2. What moment(s) in Shakespeare always make you laugh?

Orlando forlornly waving his arm and saying “It is my arm”? I’M THERE. A really good (bad) Viola-Sir Andrew fight? SIGN ME UP. Benedict being terrible at hiding? THE BEST. Pyramus’ never-ending death? I LOVE IT. The physical comedy in the plays always makes me laugh. There are lines of text that I almost always laugh at, but I’ve been more delighted when those bits are reinterpreted in ways that sacrifice the laugh, but gain something more interesting in its place. Olivia’s wide-eyed “most wonderful!” is a war-horse, but I once heard it delivered with quiet awe rather than schtick and it was shockingly beautiful. “The dead can live again” rather than “another one!”

Mya interjects: Ok, yes, I also love “It is my arm.”

3. What's a favorite Shakespearean performance anecdote?

A Winter’s Tale where the bear was a puppet, and entered down the aisle sniffing at the audience as it slowly stalked Antigonus. The bear nosed at the handbag of an old lady in the front row and growled at her. She growled right back.

Mya interjects: Don’t mess with old ladies’ handbags.

4. What's one of the more unusual Shakespearean interpretations you've either seen or would like to see?

The opening speech of Richard III done as Bunraku puppet theater, but with a person as the puppet. It showed the pain of being “unfinished” so beautifully while also being horrifying and incredibly funny. This Richard was so close to being a person (“a real boy!”) but knew that he lacked some essential, animating humanity and made a conscious decision to hurt people because of it.

5. What's one of your favorite Shakespearean "hidden gems"?

I love watching the characters on the sidelines – the ones who aren’t the center of attention but are telling incredibly rich stories with their silence. Margaret in Much Ado is a great example and I always watch her when the Prince explains why he thinks Hero is disloyal. Margaret knows in that moment that the ruined wedding is her fault but she says and does…nothing. Aufidius and Isabella also have whole histories in stillness.

6. What passages from Shakespeare have stayed with you?

I’ve had Henry V’s “upon the king” and the Scrivener from Richard III on my mind – the responsibility of leadership and the realization of its corruption – but my favorites are the ones I think as my own thoughts and it takes a minute to figure out where they came from. i.e. on a hiking trip in the pouring rain, carrying a heavy pack, and staring up at switchback #492, I thought, “Blow, wind! come, wrack! At least we'll die with harness on our back!” It took until the top of the mountain to figure that one out.

Mya interjects: If you’re not familiar with the Scrivener from Richard III (and there’s no reason why you should be,  since his scene is almost always cut), his one speech goes as follows:

SCRIVENER Here is the indictment of the good Lord Hastings, Which in a set hand fairly is engrossed, That it may be today read o’er in Paul’s. And mark how well the sequel hangs together: Eleven hours I have spent to write it over, For yesternight by Catesby was it sent me; The precedent was full as long a-doing, And yet within these five hours Hastings lived, Untainted, unexamined, free, at liberty. Here’s a good world the while! Who is so gross That cannot see this palpable device? Yet who so bold but says he sees it not? Bad is the world, and all will come to naught When such ill dealing must be seen in thought.

I’ve never gotten over the beauty of this line from Pericles – silence may be the perfectest herald of joy, but if you must use words, these ones are pretty great:  

“Give me a gash, put me to present pain, lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me o’erbear the shores of my mortality and drown me with their sweetness.”

7. What Shakespeare plays have changed for you?

All of the plays have changed as I’ve gotten older, but the ones that deal with grief have altered the most. A friend died suddenly when we were eighteen and I reached out for Cleopatra and Constance without consciously knowing why. My father died five years later, and by then I knew that I would find some kind of recognition in the plays and I deliberately went to them. The words were always beautiful, but now I knew what they meant. I must have heard Claudius’ “that father lost, lost his” speech a hundred times but never understood the obscenity of telling someone “the right way” to grieve until someone did it to me. Cordelia comforting the confused and frightened Lear sits close to my heart now, and Ophelia’s madness has method in’t. Hamlet’s “mirror up to nature” didn’t tell me what I’d see or how to respond, but it allowed me look at myself and observe both the shadow of my sorrow and the thing itself when I needed it most.

8. What Shakespearean character or characters do you identify the most with?

Beatrice. I love her wit, her walls and her willingness to climb over them, her delight in her friends’ happiness and her white-hot fury at their pain.

Mya interjects:  Can confirm, Kate is totally Beatrice.

9. Where can we find out more about you? Are there any projects/events you would like us to check out?

You can follow me on Twitter @katepitt and keep up with me on my website www.katepitt.com.

(Back to Mya)  Thanks so much to Kate not only for answering the questions she helped me come up with, but also for being an unfailingly helpful creative and emotional outlet. Get thee a Kate.

COMING NEXT WEEK: A wonderful woman who is training small children to become the next generation of Shakespeare geeks, and two Shakespeare geeks who regularly act like small children! 

[mothermaidenclone-blog]

Ad Astra or This Movie Was the Brad Pitts

Ad Astra was the worst movie I have paid to see since 2015’s Kill Your Friends, which is my least favourite cinema experience of all time. It was a dry and dreary story about emotionally stunted white men in a bleak and boring capitalist version of space, with jarring and superfluous Christian undertones. The plot and everyone’s motives were so non-existent that Brad Pitt had to narrate the whole thing in a monotone so flat and dead I literally screamed all the way from the cinema to the bus stop when it was over, partly out of a frustration so deep it was non-verbal, but also just to finally hear some pitch variation.

*Ad Astra spoilers follow*

There technically were women in this movie. Lots of women, particularly women of colour, occupied high ranking positions and were addressed by their titles, a touch I think is important and that usually tips the scales in favour of a good review for me. We were graced with Adjutant General Vogel (LisaGay Hamilton), Captain Lu (Freda Foh Shen), Sergeant Romano (Kimmy Shields), Tanya Pincus (Natasha Lyonne) and Lorraine Deavers (Kimberly Elise), as well as several unnamed female personnel (Kayla Adams, Elisa Perry, Sasha Compère and Mallory Low). I would like to particularly highlight Natasha Lyonne’s performance as apparently she was the only actor employed to play a human being and not a replicant. She was on screen for maybe twenty seconds, as is sadly the case with most of these women, but was a glorious breath of fresh air as the only character to simultaneously emote expressively and speak with inflection and enthusiasm. The only one! In a two hour movie!

All of these women appear to be respected and capable members of various illustrious teams, but are always outnumbered by men. There are two male generals alongside Vogel and Deavers is initially outnumbered 4:1 on her space craft by men. Tragically, whenever a team is being picked off, it is always the people of colour who die first. Not only is this obviously racist, it is just a disgusting cliché that we just don’t need to see anymore in movies. Deavers dies first when Roy (Brad Pitt) forcibly invades their vehicle, followed by Franklin Yoshida (Bobby Nish), an Asian man, and Donald Stanford (Loren Dean), a white guy, is the last to go. Roy cradles him in his arms and attempts to save his life. I hope it’s not just me that sees something wrong with the order of events there.

A similar scenario takes place in the lunar chase, which absurdly seems to occur in the same crapy looking buggies as the original moon landing, a confusing visual choice considering we’ve just seen a vast and impressive modern concrete moon base. The film takes the time to introduce us to Willie Levant (Sean Blakemore), a black officer who will be escorting Ray across the moon. As soon as we see he has a photo of his wife and child taped to his tablet screen I knew he was going to die - in the year 2019 I should not be able to predict that a black character is going to die because we saw a family photo. Can we just not anymore? Again, aside from the racism, that’s just shitty writing. I like to think that as a species, if we can conceptualise something as vast and seemingly impossible as solar travel, we can also move beyond basic and derogatory cinematic tropes.

I was most excited by the appearance of Helen Lantos (Ruth Negga), a woman of colour who occupies a position of power on Mars and introduces herself assertively using her full name. Also, her whole look was excellent. However, this brief release of serotonin was very short lived as she literally walks Roy down a corridor then is immediately cut off and superseded by a white guy with a man bun. Lantos does return later, but alas, as an exposition machine to give Roy some plot news about his dad. Even as she explains that her parents were murdered by his, Lantos falls victim to the dire, emotionless monotone that I can only assume was forced on the entire cast of this film. Then, she is an actual chauffeur and drives Ray to a manhole so he can continue his dad quest. A character brimming with original potential is presented as nothing more than a device.

The final woman to mention is the first one we see, Roy’s ex-wife Eve (Liv Tyler). We see the blurry, out of focus back of her head in the background of a shot before we see her face, and this is incredibly telling, because that’s all Eve is, the simulacrum of a woman. She could be anybody - so why she is Liv Tyler defies belief, I can only assume they held her loved ones hostage - her story is untold and entirely irrelevant. Again, she is only a device, although this time not for Roy’s forward momentum, but this time seemingly to emphasise that Roy is a total sociopath with no emotions whatsoever. We don’t learn Eve’s name for another twenty minutes, and it is an hour and twenty minutes before we hear her speak. Even then, it’s not a live conversation, because god forbid this film have too many of those, but a voice recording explaining that their relationship is over. I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty sure that’s what it was, but everything she said was so generic I have no memory of it whatsoever. She is presented as a ghost, a blurry image on a screen, a memory fixed in time, not a real person with agency and personality. At the end of the movie we finally see her in real time, and that is when she has made the unfathomable decision to meet Roy for coffee. Even her face in that moment gives no emotion away, perhaps because Tyler had no idea how to act this entirely nonsensical decision. To our knowledge, she would not have seen any change in Roy, only received news that he survived a dangerous space mission, which is apparently enough of a reason to get back with this emotionless egg of a man?

I almost didn’t want to devote words to them, but I think it’s important to address just how dire Roy and his dad H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones) are. This is their film, they are the reason that all of these women’s stories are passed over. It is made clear over and over again that both Roy and Clifford believe they are the only people capable of completing their various missions. Roy hijacks a ship and inadvertently kills everyone on board because he thinks that it’s his destiny or whatever to get his dad back, never mind that they were all highly trained space personnel who were arguably better suited to the mission precisely because it wasn’t their dad. Clifford straight up murders his whole crew because they are too “small minded” to fly off further and further into space forever on a mission that has yet yielded absolutely no evidence of their goals. A variety of talented human beings are destroyed because of the entitlement of white men, their delusional and unshakable conviction that they are at the centre of the universe and that no one else could possibly accomplish the lofty goals that kismet apparently calls them to.

The way they speak about themselves and to each other is absolutely psychotic. Roy’s solo musings include, “The flight recorder will tell the story, but history will have to decide,” and “In the end, the son suffers the sins of the father.” Clifford imparts his son with the delightful greeting of, “There was never anything there for me, I never cared for you or your mother or your small ideas.” In addition, they both physically flinch from human contact at various points in the move. Now, I totally understand that we live in a neurodiverse world and that many people experience emotions and social interactions in any number of ways, and that is a beautiful thing that makes our world so interesting to live in. However, that these men both abjectly state that they have no empathy is presented within the context of their megalomaniacal ideals that they must accomplish their god-given quests irregardless of how many people they have to kill along the way. It is a facet of their strangely two-dimensional, arrogant and narcissistic personalities, not one part of many complex features that make a complete and relatable human being.

Roy has to literally say out loud that he is a human being at the end of the movie; “I will rely on those closest to me…I will live and love,” which makes him sound more like a learning AI trying to pass a Turing test than anything else. The music swells as Clifford throws himself towards the surface of Neptune in an orchestral deluge that is unsubtly significant in this very quiet film, as though I’m supposed to start crying and think anything other than, “well thank fuck, it’s about time this murderer dies in the cold vacuum of space, I hope Roy stays spinning and screaming here forever too.” We are supposed to feel sympathy for them as the heroes of this movie, despite the fact that they show no care for anyone else throughout the whole thing and act entirely in their own self interests.

Overall, the women in this film are given about five seconds of potential as they introduce themselves variously as decorated soldiers and otherwise capable personnel, before being shoved to the side, or murdered, for Roy. This is obviously objectionable, but is made so much worse by the fact that Roy is an emotionless, entitled, empathy-less white man who doesn’t care if other people have to die for him to get what he wants. That is what these women are being passed up in favour of. I felt like I was watching a two hour long Voight-Kampff test. Space movies like this should be about what we can achieve if we work together as a species, not about how white men will still be the kings of dreary capitalism, even on the moon. We can do better than this.

And now for some asides:

What the actual fuck was the font at the beginning? I guess a red serif all caps should have alerted me to the fact that I was about to watch a horror movie.

As a lover of space horror, I was absolutely gutted that it was a bad CG angry baboon and not a cool gross alien. Also, what was that scene? “Hmm, we need to get rid of this loser because Brad Pitt is the best at space ships and he needs to be the captain. Uhh…what about…space monkeys? Yeah! Space monkeys on a deserted Norwegian ship. That makes sense.”

Can I just have a film bout those moon pirates fighting space capitalism please? I was more invested in them that anyone else in this garbage movie.

Credit for the Bradd Pitts joke goes to the talented and lovely Ed Cheverton

[mandaloriangf]

the reylo batb au debacle

long post ahead. tw: racism

i. preface

i dont make call out posts. i think a lot of people abuse call outs, like that one reylo who made a post about me that just consisted of screenshots of me venting on my own blog in the proper tags. i dont know if i would call this a call out, per se. most people (antis, reylos, and bystanders) probably already know the gist of this situation. my reason for making this post is primarily because the original post of mine has gotten rather long with me reblogging it and adding on (you can see the most recent version here) and i would like to have more of a masterpost of sorts, since im a petty bitch who can’t let things go. 

ii. the story

i was alerted by an anon to a fic, which is an a/b/o beauty and the beast retelling with rey as belle and kylo as the beast. in gaston’s place is finn. i haven’t read the fic word for word nor do i want to, but i searched finn’s name in the fic and this is what came up.

(note: most of these screenshots are from my original post, but i’ve added on with chapters that have been published since then)

“Myself if necessary; somewhere out there is my mate, and I will wait for them.” She said resolutely, holding her breath against the smell of pine and charcoal rolling off him. She had never found Finn’s scent a pleasant one.

“I believe Rey is missing,” Finn said with a scowl. “and I don’t like it when my things go missing.”

“Rey has never been yours.” Obi snapped. “She’s not a piece of property.”

“Details.” Finn smirked. “Now, are you going to tell me where she’s really run off to? Or are you holding fast to your ridiculous story of monsters and secret castles?”

Obi narrowed his eyes, refusing to entertain the brute anymore than he had to. “I think it’s time you were on your way, Finn. Please feel free to head in the opposite direction should you feel the urge to call upon me again.”

Finn shook his head, rolling his eyes heavily. “I’ll be back, Obi. I will find out where Rey is hiding.”

Obi shut the door in his face quickly, eager to be rid of the boorish oaf. He leaned against the wood, pinching the bridge of his nose and rubbing gently to ease his frustration. He should have been more open to Finn’s help, he could take all of it that he could get. Still, seeking aid in Finn felt like escaping the hounds to land in the fire. Hardly an improvement.  

“She’s the only one who’s rejected me. Me. The nerve of her. No. This won’t stand. I’ll track her down if it’s the last thing I do.” Finn snarled.

Finn took a long swig from his freshly filled tankard the server had just finished capping off, a small smile playing at his mouth as his plan gained more and more merit in his mind. Rey would not allude him for much longer. He would find her, and show her exactly who she belonged to.

Charles frowned. “I don’t want Finn anywhere near Rey. I don’t trust him. He’d sooner force her into mating with him as rescue her.”

They crept deeper into the forest, making sure to maintain vigilance as they scanned the forest for anything strange. Finn wondered idly how Rey would have even made it through this woods, a mere woman. When he brought her back home, he would be sure to have a talk with her about what is and isn’t acceptable.

She scrambled backwards then, her back meeting Artoo’s haunches as he pranced away. She felt distress coursing through her, wanting no part of Finn or his strange obsession with her. “You’ll not touch me.”

“Shh.” He whispered. “You’re only confused. All will be well.”

“Leave, Finn. Go back to Jakku. No one wants you here, least of all me.” She spat.

He growled low, yanking her up by her hair. “You’ll learn your place, Rey. Once I bring you back to Jakku. First though, I will take care of the bastard who dared to touch what was mine.”

“I. Am. Not. Yours.” She ground out, her scalp smarting from the grip he still kept on her hair.

“You will be.” He assured darkly.

He didn’t realize he had lost until it was too late. He glanced down, the iron bolt plunged deep into his chest. For a moment he merely stared at it, his breath coming out in heavy pants as he tried to process what he was seeing. A gurgle sounded in his chest, coughing up a spray of blood. His mouth fell open in disbelief, taking a step backwards as his hand went to the bolt.

He gripped it in his fist, tugging it outwards and throwing it to the ground. His hands pawed at the hole in his chest, blood pouring over his fingers as he swayed slightly. His knees trembled, falling to be ground and kneeling. He gave a final shuddering breath, falling forward in a slump and going still. Rey dropped the bow as if it burned her, leaning her back against the tree she’d used to steady herself and gasping for breath. She felt relief and remorse in that moment, the knowledge that she’d taken a life outweighed only by the knowledge that she’d saved one.

(context: the above is rey murdering finn to save kylo)

as you can see, finn, star wars’ first ever black lead, is portrayed as a violent, aggressive, rapey misogynist who threatens rey psychically and sexually. he believes rey, a white woman, is his property and rey must kill him to save her lover, a white man. i mean, this whole thing should be very obvious. i dont care that its fiction, i dont care that its fanfiction. fiction does not exist in a vacuum and if you believe so, biases like this WILL go unchecked. 

i was infuriated after reading this and found a note where the author addresses previous accusations of racism

I was more or less labeled as a racist today for my characterization of Finn, and I felt the need to briefly address that. It was never my intention to lead anyone to believe that my dislike of Finn has anything to do with his race. I dislike his character canonically purely for reasons that have nothing to do with the color of his skin. I obviously realize he’s not a villain, and that he’s out of character. I will not apologize for the way that I’ve written him, as I know in my heart I meant no malicious intent, but I will apologize to anyone who has thought even in the slightest that I was being oppressive or insensitive. I know myself and that’s not who I am, and that was never my intention. I want to go ahead and post this because I don’t know when my next will be and I wanted to leave it on a good note. I don’t foresee a long gap, don’t worry, but at this moment I don’t feel good about the story and I need a few days to reassess where it is going.

iii. the comments

while i easily could’ve just moved on since there are a number of reylo fics out there much like this one, knowing that this one had such popularity and such a tone deaf author, i decided to venture into the comments and lo and behold, the amount of hate for finn was blinding. 

there are plenty more, but i hope this can give you a taste of what the comments section looks like. 

the author’s hate for finn basically boils down to this: he’s indecisive and he lied to rey. that’s it. that’s what the author uses to justify writing finn in a vicious, anti-black stereotype. 

at some point, an anonymous commenter called out the racism.

a concerned citizen: So are you ever gonna address how racist your characterization of Finn is or what.

ktf: Oh lord. No because it’s blatantly not true. He is characterized heavily in concordance with the classic Gaston character. Possessive, arrogant, pig headed… Your complaint is reaching and you can take it elsewhere. Jeez Louise. So silly. Have you even seen Beauty and the Beast? I don’t like Finn as a a character in canon for reasons that have nothing to do with his race (because I admittedly love John Boyega irl as well as in Pacific Rim, the only other film I’ve seen him in) and as such I characterize him as an asshole for my own self satisfaction.

a concerned citizen: Look I love Reylo as much as the next guy but if you need explaining why it’s racist to make the black character who is, in canon, nothing but a kind and supportive friend, into a sexually aggressive misogynist then I don’t know what to tell you. It costs zero dollars not to demonize black characters for your own “self satisfaction.”

ktf: So, to be clear, if I had used ANY other character from the film who had been kind and supportive, Poe, Han, Holdo, Leia, Snap, Kaydel, Luke… as long as they hadn’t been a POC it would totally fine? Do you see my confusion? It’s an alternate universe.

a concerned citizen: A: Demonizing black men as sexual aggressors bent on possessing/raping white women is a long-standing trope used by white supremacists. It’s done to dehumanize black men and drum up fear in white folk so that they feel threatened enough to commit acts of violence. This is one of the most basic tactics of antiblack racism.

B: Gaston was never a part of the original fairy tale. He was made up for the Disney adaptation to add tension and to counterbalance the Beast to make the message crystal clear for the little ones watching– don’t fear The Other. Gaston represents the cultural hegemony of masculine behavior in Belle’s culture; the Beast, on the other hand, is The Other, the outsider, the marginalized force. Black people have practically been The Other in Western media for centuries. Now I’m not telling you that you have to make Finn the Beast or else it’s bunk, just that you have to be aware of the characters’ roles and what they fulfill in the narrative. Making Finn the Gaston character was a conscious decision you made– you took a black character and plopped him into a role that was specifically made to be the representation of toxic masculinity, that decision isn’t made in a vacuum.

C: Absolutely no one is holding your feet to the fire to make sure that you follow the plotline of the source material verbatim. Certainly you took liberties with what form of beastliness Kylo had, so you could have similarly chose to alter Gaston’s characterization in some way or you could have made Finn a different character entirely. Like I mentioned before, Gaston was not in the original fairy tale and so the narrative works fine without him. Finn exhibits none of Gaston’s character traits in canon so you chose willingly to sand him down so you could fit a square peg in a round hole– an action that, as mentioned previously, reflects the rhetoric of white supremacy for the past few centuries.

ktf: Okay. You know what? You obviously woke up this morning itching for a soapbox. So, may the force be with you and may your crusade keep you warm at night. This is a fan fiction, not a doctoral thesis, so if you don’t mind I’m just going to continue living my life. I can assure you no thoughts of “demonizing” a race ever crossed my mind while writing this. It’s not who I am. This doesn’t deserve my time because you, A. Know nothing about me. B. Obviously have way too much time on your hands. C. Aren’t worth the stress you’re causing. Have a blessed day!

iv. the aftermath

since my original post, i have been silently blocked by the author. antis who are poc have gotten anon hate, which has often been radicalized while i, a white anti, have not received anything wrt this fic. the author has gotten cocky about the whole situation, she has a bunch of adoring readers who coddle her, and she refuses to listen to any form of criticism.

now that i’m at the end of this post, i’m not really sure what i want to come out of it. i wanted to include more, but there’s so much shit to wade through in the comments and that doesn’t even account for what’s on the author’s tumblr. reylos, this shit has to fucking stop. you need to hold each other accountable, you need to call each other out bc this is exhausting.