#and emotional support gender ambiguous child

[minothtime]

Chants of Sennaar MC and little friend are literally family. To me personally.

[moomatahiko]

Diagnostic Criteria for Allism Spectrum Disorder

also known as, Neurotypical Disorder

(Parody)

To meet diagnostic criteria for Allism Spectrum Disorder according to DSM-5, a child must have persistent deficits in each of three areas of social communication and interaction (see A.1. through A.3. below) plus at least two of four types of restricted, repetitive behaviors (see B.1. through B.4. below).

A. Persistent deficits in direct, honest, and compassionate social interaction and patterns of using deception and manipulation of others perception. Deficits persist across multiple contexts, as manifested by the following, currently or by history (examples are illustrative, not exhaustive; see text):

Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity. For example, a. Indirect, ambiguous, or deceptive communication style, b. Over dependence on social norms and generalizations, c. Frequently superimposes subtext or places unfounded meaning on concrete, literal, or factual communication, d. Struggles with comprehending consent and personal boundaries in social interaction.

Deficits in verbal and nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction. For example, a. Ritualized use of unusual or menial conversation topics (e.g. comments on weather), b. Pervasive passive aggressive communication style (saying “that’s different” when really meaning “I don’t like that”), c. An excessive use of eye contact, abnormalities in body language, and deficits in understanding and use of gestures.

Deficits in theory of mind and developing, maintaining, and understanding autistic relationships. For example, a. Difficulties adjusting behavior to suit various social contexts, b. Inappropriate or undesired responses in conversation (e.g. using repeated passive/apathetic responses to end a conversation, visible discomfort when your interests or opinions vary from theirs), c. Absorption in perceived social status “ranking”, d. Deficit in comprehending bodily autonomy and personal space, e. Restrictive fixation with and dependence on gender social constructs, f. Repeatedly engages in tribalistic behaviors, such as compulsive attempts to control reputation in groups, and exploiting, marginalizing, or punishing groups deemed unworthy or inferior.

Severity is based on social communication impairments and impairment in organized, specialized behavior. For either criterion, severity is described in 3 levels: Level 3 – requires very substantial support, Level 2 – Requires substantial support, and Level 1 – requires support.

B. Patterns of over-dependence on heuristics, social norms, and generalizations in behavior, interests, or activities, as manifested by at least two of the following, currently or by history (examples are illustrative, not exhaustive; see text):

Stereotyped or repetitive verbalization, use of objects, or speech. e.g., a. Simple motor stereotypes, b. Repetitive vocal stimming via verbalizing unfiltered thoughts or patterns of erroneous intonation c. Recreating social scenarios with toys or objects as children, d. Repetitive use of involuntary scripted phrases (e.g. “Lets hang out soon”, “How are you”, “Long time no see”, or “It’s nice to meet you”).

Insistence on sameness, extreme adherence to pre-existing social norms, or ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior. e.g., a. Ritualized use of indirect communication, b. Strong attachment to group identity, rigid thinking patterns, greeting rituals, c. Need to conform, d. Difficulty in challenging pre-existing constructs in the world, e. Gullible to group biases such as bandwagon effect, groupthink, or status quo bias.

Lack of specialization or pattern-recognition that is abnormal in apathy or disorderliness. e.g., a. numerous superficial, shallow hobbies and interests with deficit in or complete lack of deeper exploration of interests, b. selecting interests based on social group or social influence, c. utilizing interests as social currency without genuine passion, d. ignoring small details because they do not align with expectations, context, or pre-existing beliefs, e. overly concerned with social perception instead of concrete objects or information.

Dulled or hyporeactive to sensory input or information that does align with pre-existing knowledge, beliefs, or self-interest. e.g., a. ”tuning out” sounds in environment deemed unimportant, b. easily influenced to interpret information based on how information is presented, c. overly gullible to confirmation bias, halo effect, and attentional bias, d. restrictively applyies existing social constructs as rules/expectations for all interaction and modelling of instead of generating beliefs based on sensory input and pattern recognition.

Specify current severity:

Severity is based on social communication impairments and restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior. (See table below.)

C. Symptoms must be present in the early developmental period (but may not become fully manifest until their behavior becomes intolerable to autistics).

D. Symptoms cause clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of current functioning.

E. These disturbances are not better explained by intellectual disability (intellectual developmental disorder) or global developmental delay. Intellectual disability and allism spectrum disorder frequently co-occur; to make comorbid diagnoses of allism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability, communication should be below that expected for general developmental level.

Note: Individuals with a well-established DSM-IV diagnosis of allism disorder, neurotypical disorder, or pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified should be given the diagnosis of allism spectrum disorder. Individuals who have marked deficits in social communication, but whose symptoms do not otherwise meet criteria for allism spectrum disorder, should be evaluated for social (pragmatic) communication disorder.

[aalt-ctrl-del]

since its Pride Month I have to make the obligatory point that I didn't see a 'homosexual' rainbow until I was in highschool.

and my lore is as follows - I was a fruity lil rebel from dawn till dusk. I didn't know about asexual or homos or any of the spectrum of the flags until my early 20s. I wasn't blessed by a drag queen with the powers of queer. I didn't have a traumatic experience with some lesbian. Freudian theory doesn't have my number and we don't have long conversation in the study about desire or childhood insecurities or longing.

I'm queer and the only people that have a problem with this are the ones that have to look my way but have a bundle of insecurities they can't address internally. They are also uptight about having conversations with their children because they didn't develop past high school emotional mentality.

I don't have a problem with straight couples hauling their crouch goblins around - everyone knows you probably banged to fill your clown van with your brood. So don't have an issue with a complicated gender of ambiguity buying eggs at the store - we are capable of coexisting. Its just pastels and primary colors in a sequence trigger some people, and if that's the case you should probably reevaluate your priorities.

Pride month exists because the people who existed to make it happen, have been beaten, scorned, restricted from jobs, and had otherwise difficult and dangerous lives to make it happen. When someone gets hella angry at a straight person for existing, it's usually a personal issue or conflict.

When a person wearing a rainbow is targeted for hate and assault, its typically a surface level resentment dealing with something so shallow as their existence. And hate for colors and pastels and primaries persists to this day, driven by nothing but discomfort and the myth that "rainbows will turn my precious chosen first born main character baby into a gay".

No karen. Your kids gonna be gay regardless if rainbows and love existed. You either cope and love your child, or you turn into a praying mantis and eat your offspring due to stress. Dont be a praying mantis, be a functional adult who is now a parent. Civilization will appreciate your love, support, and guiding your kids through the struggles they face because people are going to hate them. Hate shouldn't fester in their home life too.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

Fantasies, dreams and desires, ideas of normalcy and fears of difference. A slightly queer reading of 15x14

Mrs Butters is a delightful character who is built to parallel so many things in the show. She occupies perfectly the semantic sphere that the narrative has crafted around Dean’s desires; also, you know, cake.

We could talk for days about the significance of food and drink in Supernatural. One of the biggest themes that run through the entire show is hunger (or thirst) and food is very often a symbol for an emotional need of sorts. Supernatural draws a lot folklore, and human stories have always used symbologies that put together food, desire, love, sex, family, goodness and darkness and all those human experiences.

We have discussed the shit out of every instance of food in the show, analyzed parallels to other stories and fairytales, scrutinized queer-codings and subtexts, got called nasty names by impolite people accusing us of saying that a slice of baked good means Dean likes sitting on dicks. So, yeah, I’m not gonna start explaining everything from the beginning. Let’s jump to the parallels.

- The comfort food. Motherhood, hugs, and the past that can never return: the ideal of childhood and the 50s fantasy

We’ve already talked about how Mrs Butters functions as a parallel to Mary and a symbol of the ideal motherhood that both Mary and Dean struggled with. In Dark Side Of The Moon, we see a memory from Dean’s childhood, where we learn that Mary would cut off the crusts off his sandwiches. Mrs Butters also says that she cut the crusts off, establishing a direct parallel to Dean’s ideal of childhood and child-parent relationship. Or, we should say, as both Mary’s and Dean’s ideals of a child-parent relationship, because we know that Mary set up her life with John and the kids as an elaborate “scene” according to her idea-slash-fantasy of the perfect safe life.

She strugged with that, because her ideal life could never match with reality - she had loose ends from hunting to deal with, she at some level liked having those loose ends to deal with because as much as she hated the hunting life and craved for safety and “normalcy” that was still something she was in her element doing, probably more than the perfect housewife role. Of course when she came back she attempted to recreate the scene but quickly discovered that it was impossible and dropped all attempts to do so, embracing the opposite, or at least what she perceived as the opposite (having a pretty dualistic view of hunting life-domestic life where they cannot be reconciled).

Dean, on the other hand, started out with a similar dualistic view, figuring that he’d always belong to the hunting world and could never have the domestic, “normal” thing at all, embracing his “freakness” as opposed to the concept of normalcy represented by civilians, by the middle class, by the suburbs, by the apple pie, white fence life (insert heavy queer subtext here). And yet there was always an ambiguity with him (again, he’s never one-or-the-other, he’s always both), because, while on the surface he embraces this rebellious, devil-may-care persona, that’s not quite what he is as a full individual. He grew up essentially a housewife from a very early age, has a very caregiving personality, and thrives in taking care of others.

Dean is both Mrs Butters and Mary, where the difference between him and Mary is that Mary couldn’t (didn’t have the time, support, resources?) reconcile parts of her that Dean instead was able to (and in fact recently helped her with: before dying, she’d reached a pretty healthy balance of living her own life as a hunter and having a warm relationship with her sons, at least as healthy as it can get in that kind of circumstances).

Another important parallel to Dark Side Of The Moon, borrowed by Scoobynatural, is the nightgown that feels like being wrapped in hugs: we are reminded of Dean’s “I wuv hugz” from when he was a kid, a symbol for his early life of affection and safety that he lost with his mother. Childhood hugs, comfort food, loving gestures like cutting off the crusts are all symbols of a past that cannot return.

On a level, from a “coming-of-age story” perspective, childhood, with its innocence and perception that adults will always keep us safe, is obviously something that everyone needs to accept as something that belongs to the past and cannot return, to embrace instead the responsibilities and risks of adulthood in a healthy way. In a sense, Dean needs to go through all these steps - acknowledging that his mother was a flawed person, that in fact both of his parents were flawed people who made mistakes but he can forgive them for his own sake in order to be able to let go of trauma and carry on... - to become a healthy adult able to be a good parent to his own child.

(There’s also the cholesterol thing - Mrs Butters chastizes Dean for his diet, but we know that there’s a depth to Dean’s diet, not only his extreme appreciation of food due to experiencing food scarcity and insecurity as a child, but also the memory of his mother’s comfort food, such as the “Winchester surprise”, a monstrosity of meat and cheese. While the “meat man” persona would appear on the surface as a sterotypical masculinity thing, it has layers, in a typical Dean fashion... not coincidentally, in the latest episode he calls himself the meat man while wearing an apron that we’re told he’s very fond of, painting him, again, in a mixture of different meanings, masculinity and femininity, fatherhood and motherhood, devil-may-care attitude and caregiver attitude.)

On another level, a more political level, there’s the 50s fantasy element. We all know the significance of the idealization of the post-war period as the “good ol’ times” in American culture, and it’s an ideal that Mary definitely drew from when she built her perfect life with her family. Mrs Butters represents this in a very literal way, being literally from 1958 when she “froze” herself, and acts as a very stereotyped governess for a bunch of men that feel like they are above housework, what is considered women’s work. Dean initially comments “how progressive”, knowing exactly how bullshit these conversative ideals are, but then appreciates the comforts of the perfect caretaker.

In fact, Dean’s “giving in” to the comforts of a governess makes me think of that famous feminist manifesto “I want a wife” by Judy Syfers... because housework is very much Dean’s work in the bunker. It’s interesting that Mrs Butters immediately comments negatively on the cleanness of the bunker and their clothes: we know that Dean cleans and washes, and, while it’s likely that he cannot keep everything super perfect like a governess would because he’s busy doing many other things, it’s a way Mrs Butters uses to establish roles that she knows and is comfortable with. She is used to being the one who does “feminine” work while the Men of Letters have absolutely zero skills in that regard, and doesn’t really even stop to question if that’s the case with the men in front of her.

Anyway, let’s go back to the 50s fantasy. The show has repeatedly made commentaries on the vacuity of it. Peace Of Mind is the most obvious instance, but there’s plenty of subtext in the show that deals with that typically American aspect. Just like the childhood aspect, the narrative tells us that the “good ol’ times” are also an idealized thing that cannot return (if it ever existed, because Dean’s childhood was built on a fantasy, and the “good ol’ times” are also a fantasy, because the real 50s were horrible for anyone who didn’t swim in privilege). Mrs Butters cannot stay, the 50s fantasy-slash-childhood fantasy cannot last, and Dean embraces his role as an adult-slash-modern housemaker. Blah blah gender, blah blah cake. (Yeah, sorry, but you can fill in the blanks.)

- The contaminated drink. Poison and weakness from the forbidden sexual desire to the forbidden family domesticity

Aaaand now the second branch of parallels that Mrs Butters pinged on my radar, which sends us in an even more queer-subtext-heavy territory. We’re going to talk about the smoothies and the tomato juice. Yes, I know, the smoothies are given to Jack, not Dean, but symbolically Dean and Jack share the same semantic area; both are given a magically conjured drink, and both end up locked away waiting to be killed. For this analysis, they basically overlap.

Let’s start with the tomato juice. I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that Dean is given something that visually reminds of the blood the vampires drink. The tomato juice is a stand-in for blood, and blood in relation to vampirism has a long history of subtext in the show that connects to sexuality, sex, sexual fears and contamination. While vampires are not necessarily always invested of those meanings every single time they appear in the three-hundred-whatever episodes of the show, their main symbology is connected to sex and sexual fears, as vampires do in modern western literature, after all.

You’re probably going to think, wait, what? What has Mrs Butters got to do with sexual fears? Yeah, I know, it sounds weird, but hear me out.

The tomato juice - a stand-in for blood, with a vampire reference - parallels Mrs Butters (who represents trauma, remember) to 6x05 Live Free Or TwiHard. Sexual assault, blood, contamination via the poisoning liquid.

Next to the tomato juice there’s the smoothie. It’s a poison in disguise, a contaminated drink that makes Jack weak. We have, in fact, a pattern of Dean being given contaminated drinks that place him under another’s power. Not just the vampire’s blood, but also Jeremy from 3x10 Dream A Little Dream Of Me, who offers Dean a beer through which he connects him to his dreams. There’s Nick the siren from 4x14 Sex And Violence, who contaminates Dean through the flask. The venom in the siren’s saliva parallels straight to the gorgon Noah in 14x14 Ouroboros, and I don’t have to start explaining what all those things represent, right? (I have written posts about these things, it would be nice if tumblr didn’t suck and showed them to me when I go look for them.)

(Oh, there’s also Crowley’s human blood addiction, which is not, as one might expect, a parallel to Sam’s demon blood addition, but Dean’s First Blade/Mark Of Cain issue, and the First Blade/Mark Of Cain arc is all imbued by the queer subtext of the Dean-Crowley-Castiel triangle.)

Basically, Mrs Butters is inserted in a history of queer subtext, although it appears as obvious that Mrs Butters hardly represents homosexual desire, unless we go a pretty stretchy route of her occupying Cas’ space in the Dean-Sam-Cas-Jack family (I mean, that’s true, but it’s not simply that). It is also true that Mrs Butters represents Cuthbert Sinclair, and here the radar pings, because Cuthbert Sinclair is totally inside the pattern! He wanted to make Dean part of his collection just like the vampire in 6x05 wanted to make Dean part of his pack, with supernatural means of exorting control over Dean and heavy heavy rapey tones. (I know we don’t like to talk about this, but the show does play with incest subtext, John mirrors are often rapey.)

So, we have all this semantic area of poison, weakness and submission to external control painted in overtones of sexual assault and sexual fears especially in relation to homosexual desire. (I am NOT linking homosexual desire to sexual assult, nor the show is, it’s a wide and volatile semantic area where the common denominator is fear, fear of being hurt FOR being different sexually, it’s about vulnerability because of being different. It’s a horror narrative, guys, remember, queer fear is a recurrent theme in the genre. Dracula was about the horror of what happened to Oscar Wilde, we’re running in circles.)

Now, what kind of fear is explored in 15x14? Well, the episode is about the fear of losing family. The plot is about Dean’s feelings towards Jack after he killed Mary. Dean doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going to lose Cas soon also because of Jack. Mary and Cas are both very noisy absences in the episode, and we know that Dean is going to suffer something horrific again that will shatter his family again. This goes past the fears regarding forbidden sexual desire: we’re in the territory of forbidden familial desire, so to speak, Dean’s craving for a domestic peace with his family.

Jack is both the culmination of Dean’s process of family-building, as the son figure of the family, and the element of destruction of that family-building. Not a coincidence Jack’s birthday was referenced, as Jack’s birth coincided with Cas’ death and Mary’s supposed death or at least separation. Now Jack has supposedly killed Mary (or is it a inter-universe separation again? @drsilverfish​’s theory always pops up, and we keep getting reminded of other universes - the telescope is broken...) and we know that Cas’ ultimate death hangs above us.

We’re always running in a spiral, Dean’s relationship with Mary, Dean’s relationship with Cas, Dean’s relationship with motherhood and gender roles, Dean’s relationship with sexuality. There’s a big picture of mirrors in the semantic area of fantasies, idealizations, desires and dreams. I hope I managed to make this post make sense, but I’m always open to requests of clarification or elaboration. Thanks for reading!

[june-the-botanist]

The Botanist Reborn

NAME: Juniper Rose Blower

(FC image below = manip by me for accurate reference)

FACE CLAIM:  Elizabeth Olsen NICKNAME:  June, Rose AGE:  24 HEIGHT:  5′6″ SPECIES:  Human GENDER:  Female BIRTHDAY:  March 17 SUN SIGN:  Pisces RESIDENCE:  unknown SKILLS:  botanist, shapeshifter, medic DRINK:  Gilnean Ambrosia FOOD:  Meat Pie (usually beef or venison) DAY OR NIGHT:  Day SNACKS:  Honeycrisp Apples SONGS: Assassin’s Theme composed by Lorne Balfe [click links to listen]; Invincible composed by Russell Brower PET:  none COLOR:  earthy tones (brown / green); Gilnean colors (faded blue & gold) FLOWER: Gilnean roses EYE COLOR:  hazel-green (left), ocean blue (right) HAIR COLOR:  Sun-rich Blonde BODY TYPE:  slender, swimmer’s build, modest curves

MORAL ALIGNMENT: Neutral Good

A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. She is devoted to helping others. She works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order. However, neutral good can be a dangerous alignment because sometimes it advances mediocrity by limiting the actions of the truly capable.

PREDOMINANT ARCHETYPES:

PERSONALITY:   ISFP-T -- The Adventurer

Adventurer personalities are true artists, but not necessarily in the typical sense where they’re out painting happy little trees. Often enough though, they are perfectly capable of this. Rather, it’s that they use aesthetics, design and even their choices and actions to push the limits of social convention. Adventurers enjoy upsetting traditional expectations with experiments in beauty and behavior – chances are, they’ve expressed more than once the phrase “Don’t box me in!”

Adventurers live in a colorful, sensual world, inspired by connections with people and ideas. These personalities take joy in reinterpreting these connections, reinventing and experimenting with both themselves and new perspectives. No other type explores and experiments in this way more. This creates a sense of spontaneity, making Adventurers seem unpredictable, even to their close friends and loved ones.

Despite all this, Adventurers are definitely Introverts, surprising their friends further when they step out of the spotlight to be by themselves to recharge. Just because they are alone though, doesn’t mean people with the Adventurer personality type sit idle – they take this time for introspection, assessing their principles. Rather than dwelling on the past or the future, Adventurers think about who they are. They return from their cloister, transformed.

Adventurers live to find ways to push their passions. Riskier behaviors like gambling and extreme sports are more common with this personality type than with others. Fortunately their attunement to the moment and their environment allows them to do better than most. Adventurers also enjoy connecting with others, and have a certain irresistible charm.

However, if a criticism does get through, it can end poorly. Some Adventurers can handle kindly phrased commentary, valuing it as another perspective to help push their passions in new directions. But if the comments are more biting and less mature, Adventurer personalities can lose their tempers in spectacular fashion.

Adventurers are sensitive to others’ feelings and value harmony. When faced with criticism, it can be a challenge for people with this type to step away from the moment long enough to not get caught up in the heat of the moment. But living in the moment goes both ways, and once the heightened emotions of an argument cool, Adventurers can usually call the past the past and move on as though it never occurred.

[ SOCIETY ]

$ Financial : wealthy / moderate / poor / in poverty. ✚ Medical : fit / moderate / sickly / disabled / disadvantaged. ✪ Class or Caste : upper / middle / working / slave / unsure. ✔ Education : qualified / unqualified / studying✖ Criminal Record : yes, for major crimes / yes, for minor crimes / no / has committed crimes, but not caught yet.

[ FAMILY ]

◐ Marital status : married - happily / unhappily / engaged or betrothed / partnered / single / divorced / separated / widowed ◒ Children : has a child of sorts or children / has no children / wants children. ◑ Relationship with Family : close with sibling(s) / not close with sibling(s) / has no siblings / sibling(s) is deceased / Has cousins and is close to them ◔ Filtration : orphaned / adopted / disowned / raised by birth parents mother

[ TRAITS + TENDENCIES ]

♦ extroverted / introverted / in between. ♦ disorganized / organized / in between. ♦ close minded / open-minded / in between. ♦ calm / anxious / in between. ♦ disagreeable / agreeable / in between. ♦ cautious / reckless / in between. ♦ patient / impatient / in between. ♦ outspoken / reserved / in between. ♦ leader / follower / in between. ♦ empathetic / unemphatic / in between. ♦ optimistic / pessimistic / in between realistic. ♦ traditional / modern / in between. ♦ hard-working / lazy / in between. ♦ cultured / uncultured / in between / unknown. ♦ loyal / disloyal / unknown. ♦ faithful / unfaithful / unknown.

[ BELIEFS ]

★ Faith : monotheist / polytheist / atheist / agnostic. ☆ Belief in Ghosts or Spirits : yes / no / don’t know / don’t care. ✮ Belief in an Afterlife : yes / no / don’t know / don’t care. ✯ Belief in Reincarnation : yes / no / don’t know / don’t care. ❃ Belief in Aliens : yes / no / don’t know / don’t care. ✧ Religious : orthodox / liberal / in between / not religious. ❀ Philosophical : yes / no. / in between

[ SEXUALITY & ROMANTIC INCLINATION ]

❤ Sexuality : heterosexual / homosexual / bisexual / asexual / pansexual. ❥ Sex : sex repulsed / sex neutral / sex favorable. ♥ Romance : romance repulsed / romance neutral / romance favorable. ❣ Sexually : adventurous / experienced / naïve / inexperienced / curious. ⚧ Potential Sexual Partners : male / female / agender / other / none / all. ⚧ Potential Romantic Partners : male / female / agender / other / none / all.

[ ABILITIES ]

☠ Combat Skills : excellent / good / moderate / poor / none. ≡ Literacy Skills : excellent / good / moderate / poor / none. ✍ Artistic Skills : excellent / good / moderate / poor / none. ✂ Technical Skills : excellent / good / moderate / poor / none.

[ HABITS ]

☕ Drinking Alcohol : never / sometimes / frequently / to excess. ☁ Smoking : trying to quit / never / sometimes / frequently / to excess. ✿ Other Narcotics : never / sometimes / frequently / to excess. ✌ Medicinal Drugs : never / sometimes / frequently / to excess. ☻ Indulgent Food : never / sometimes / frequently / to excess. $ Splurge Spending : never / sometimes / frequently / to excess. ♣ Gambling : never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

[ MOST NOTABLE PERSONALITY TRAITS ]

TENDERNESS

You are not afraid of the sufferings and sorrows of other people, even when they are acted out in unappealing ways. Beneath even defensiveness and self-righteous behavior, you know that deep down people need nurturing and consolation. One danger is being naïve about people’s dark sides. But at your best you know you can be mean yourself, which helps you to sympathize. You bring strength and forgiveness where other people might panic.

RATIONALITY

You like clarity and intelligent simplicity and you get frustrated at messy thinking. This can make you seem unreasonably pushy to some, but it is actually a virtue: you are motivated by a horror at pointless effort and a longing for precision and insight into how things and people work. Your ability to synthesize and bring order is essential in producing thinking which is truly helpful.

INDEPENDENCE

You don’t set out to be different for its own sake; you are more easily guided by what interests and moves you. You are more concerned about what is right for you than about the pressure to fit in. In sex you are more aware than others of impulses which are not entirely conventional. You know the value of selective irresponsibility, of forgetting occasionally about being ‘good’.

Your archetype is the doppelganger.

Traits: manipulative, self deprecating, intelligent, knowledgeable, ambiguous, caring

The doppelganger is most commonly used to symbolize the divide between two egos, or the grey line between good and bad. Doppelgangers are extremely intelligent, and are able to manipulate a persons thoughts and feelings for their own benefit. While they are seen as a darker character, they are closer to being morally ambiguous, if not someone who has been forced into a position they never agreed upon. Doppelgangers wish they could do better, and often find themselves regretting not doing something. While they are capable of manipulating others, they are vulnerable, making themselves susceptible to being manipulated as well. Although many of their traits are negative, they crave attention, validation, and wish they could be a better version of themselves. If you can get under their hard exterior, you’ll find a true friend, and a loyalist.

FLOWER PERSONALITY Juniper is:

Fennel

You Are: You’re quiet, sometimes shy, with a tendency to be reserved. You have a humble, kind nature and often find yourself taking care of others. You can be known to hold things in, and you don’t always speak up for yourself. This tendency to hold things in can lead to disturbances.

Fennel is soothing and supportive, helping to ease digestive upset. For feelings of fullness and bloating, fennel is the friend to call on to help.

Sweet and mildly bitter, with a distinct licorice-like taste, fennel was revered by the ancients for its charming properties. Attributed with the power to bestow long life, courage, strength and even to ward off evil spirits, we modern plant people highly regard fennel for its capacity to ease uncomfortable feelings of fullness, bloating or gassiness, or as an all-around promoter of healthy digestion.

Nettle

You Are: Truly a nurturing and supportive friend, you’re the kind of person that just isn’t for everyone. But those who take the time are rewarded with your gentle disposition, and the kind of friendship that does a person good no matter the difficulty they’re facing. When out of balance, you can become more prickly than supportive or nurturing, though—a sign that you need to shower yourself with the same kind of nurturing you so freely give to others.

Nettle is a deeply supportive herb that has been used for centuries as a tonic to support your body’s well-being. A traditional springtime tonic whose alluring “green” taste is a reflection of the rising green of spring, nettle gently nourishes the whole body.

Nettle’s genus name, Urtica, comes from the Latin urere, meaning “to burn”, an obvious reference to nettle’s nasty sting. Nettle is widespread around the world, and evidence of this very old plant was even found in Neolithic stilt dwellings in Switzerland dating back to the third millennium B.C. It has long been enjoyed for its gentle support for the whole body, as well as for its refreshing, green taste.

Peppermint

You Are: Unflappable. You are cool in the crisis, calm in the storm, collected amidst the chaos. You’re a breath of fresh air, a waft of inspiration to the down-and-out, a refreshing, inspiring, uplifting person to be around. Of course, even a cool cucumber like yourself can run into trouble. You may try to take on too much, which can leave you feeling weighed down and not quite yourself.

With its comforting breath of fresh air and the peppery, sweet familiar scent that tingles your nose, peppermint is a classic candy flavor. But there’s herbal wisdom hiding in those after dinner mints—peppermint oil also has the power to relieve occasional indigestion and soothe your stomach when your digestion needs a little help.

Long before mint became the go-to flavor of everything from gum to candy to toothpaste, the Greeks, Romans and ancient Egyptians were using mint leaves as a digestive aid. Peppermint’s characteristic minty-ness comes from menthol, an important part of its essential oil that, when present in high enough quantities, will be felt in a tingle in your nose and a strong minty scent that carries across a room.

[the-real-slim-shady]

Transgender and Non-Binary People: The Facts and Science Behind Them

I wrote this essay a while ago, after I had an argument with my mom about transgender people, and I figured I'd share it, it’s really long, so feel free to just skim it and find the important parts lol.

    In recent years, gender issues have become much more prevalent in our society. People who are transgender and non-binary finally feel comfortable being who they are, but there are still people who think transgender and non-binary people don’t exist. Some believe that they’re just seeking attention, or that all of their problems could be solved with therapy. This is a tricky topic because it is hard to scientifically prove how a person feels in their body.

    People usually think of the words “sex” and “gender” as interchangable, but this is in fact incorrect. In general terms, the word “sex” refers to the biological differences between men and women, such as the genitalia and genetic differences. “Gender” is more ambiguous, and harder to define. Gender usually refers to the role of a man and woman in society or an individual’s concept of themselves. To put it simply, sex is in the body, gender is in the mind. Sometimes a person’s genetically assigned sex does not line up with their gender. These individuals usually refer to themselves as transgender, non-binary, or genderfluid.

    We all learn in middle school that the last pair of chromosomes we have determines our sex. XX for a woman and XY for a man. Sex, however, is not that simple. The male/female split is often seen as a man-or-woman binary, but this is not entirely true. Some men are born with two or three X chromosomes as well as a Y, and some women are born with a Y chromosome. In some cases, a child is born with a mix between male and female genitalia. This is sometimes deemed intersex, and parents can decide which gender to assign to the child, but sometimes the child feels neither male nor female or disagrees with their parents’ decision. A person can be female if they have an X and Y chromosome but they are insensitive to androgens, so they have a female body. A person can have an X and Y chromosome and have a female body because their Y is missing the SRY gene. A person can have two X chromosomes and have a male body because one of their X’s has a SRY gene. A person can be female because they only have one X chromosome. A person can be male because they have two X chromosomes and one Y. A person can be male because you have two X chromosomes but your heart and brain are male and a person can be female with an X and a Y because their heart and mind feel stuck inside the wrong body.

    Most people’s sex and gender line up. The expectation that if you’re assigned a male at birth, you’re a man, and you’re assigned female at birth you’re a woman, lines up for people who are cisgender. But for people who are transgender or non-binary, the sex they’re assigned at birth may not align with the gender they know themselves to be. The concepts of gender and sex are socially constructed. We as a society assign gender and sex based on socially agreed upon characteristics. Dresses, the color pink, makeup, long hair, painted nails, and high heels belong to women, but we have seen in the past that this wasn’t always true, and as time goes on, the gendering of the aforementioned products is fading. This doesn’t mean that body parts and functions are “made up”, it just means that we categorize and define things in ways that could actually be different.

    The transgender and non-binary identity has long been associated with poor mental health and trauma that can be “cured” by therapy. Science however, says otherwise. Transgender women tend to have brain structures that resemble cisgender women rather than cisgender men. The bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTc) in transgender women is more similar to cisgender women than cisgender men, and the BSTc in transgender men more closely resembles that of a cisgender man. Science tells us that gender is not binary, it may even be a linear spectrum. Like other facets of identity, it can operate on a large range of levels and operate outside of many definitions. Transgender and non binary individuals are not suffering from a mental illness or carefully “choosing” a different identity. The transgender and non-binary identity is multi dimensional, but it deserves no less respect or recognition than any other facet of humankind.

    It is essential to understand the difference between transgender people and non binary people. Transgender people feel like their assigned sex is wrong, and therefore change their gender and sometimes undergo surgery. Non-binary and genderqueer people identify themselves with neither an exclusively male or female gender, their gender identity is beyond the gender binary, sometimes fluctuates between genders, or rejects the gender binary. People who are genderqueer or genderfluid alternate between genders. Kind of like a craving for food, one day they will feel like one gender and wish to be addressed as such, and maybe in a day or a week they’ll feel like another gender and some days they will feel like no gender at all. This may seem to some people like they should just make up their minds, but trust me, if they could they would. Non binary people, however, feel like no gender, and will always feel like they belong outside the gender binary. Science has yet to provide an insight into the non-binary identity and whether there’s any scientific basis to them.

    Some people say that transgender and non binary individuals are just feeling gender dysphoria, and they can overcome it. Gender dysphoria is actually just a name for how transgender and onbinary people feel before they come out: feeling that your emotional or psychological identiy as male or female to be opposite to your biological sex. Gender dysphoria is a strong desire to be rid of your sex characteristics because you feel like they don’t belong to you. It is a strong desire for the sex characteristics of the other gender, or no sex charecteristics at all. It is a strong desire to be treated as another gender. It is a strong conviction that you are not the gender you were born as.

    Some people believe that gender dysphoria for transgender and non-binary people can be solved by therapy. However, researchers analyzed survey responses from more than 27,000 transgender adults accross the US with a roughly even mix of transgender women and transgender men. People who had undergone conversion therapy at some point in their lives were twice as likely to have attempted suicide than someone who had not. About 70% said they had talked to a professional at some point about their gender identity and of those 70%, 20% had undergone conversion therapy. All of the aforementioned people are still transgender.

    In addition, many medical associations and academies have spoken out against conversion therapy. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry “finds no evidence to support the application of any “therapeutic intervention” operating under the premise that a specific sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression is pathological. Furthermore, based on the scientific evidence, the AACAP asserts that such ‘conversion therapies’ lack scientific credibility and clinical utility. Additionally, there is evidence that such interventions are harmful. As a result, ‘conversion therapies’ should not be part of any behavioral health treatment of children and adolescents."

    The American Academy of Pediatrics says “"Confusion about sexual orientation is not unusual during adolescence. Counseling may be helpful for young people who are uncertain about their sexual orientation or for those who are uncertain about how to express their sexuality and might profit from an attempt at clarification through a counseling or psychotherapeutic initiative. Therapy directed specifically at changing sexual orientation is contraindicated, since it can provoke guilt and anxiety while having little or no potential for achieving changes in orientation."

    Since the beginnning of the non-binary movement, it has gathered skepticism, critisism, derision, and even violence. Many non-binary people (and transgender people too) are accused of being “special snowflakes” or “drama queens” and “attention whores”. However, this criticism ignores the fact that gender identity is largely personal. In addition, something as simple as the way you wish to be identified tends to cause hatred to be sent your way. There is little critisim towards non-binary people that can be directed towards them in a constructive matter. If a non-binary person is in fact “just doing it for attention” the name calling and hatred would just be feeding into their desire for attention and giving them exactly what they want!

    Finally, if exploring your gender identity is a “trend” as some have called it, then isn’t it better than the previous trend of feeling isolated and alone and having absolutely no way to be who you are and say what you feel? In light of the current lack of any scientific evidence as to the biological nature of non-binary transsexuality, it is best to act in the same way as any situation where there is a phenomenon yet to be proven by science: doubt, skepticism, and open-mindedness, which accepts the potential for truth, but does not assume it.

    Some people are against the idea of calling a transgender or non-binary person their chosen pronouns because they disagree with the way that said person identifies themselves, and they reserve the right to their freedom of speech. Dr. Jordan Peterson is one of these people.

    Dr. Peterson is a psychology professor at the University of Toronto. He released a video lecture series taking aim at political correctness. He was frustrated with being asked to use alternative pronouns requested by trans and non-binary students and staff. “I’ve studied authoritarianism for a very long time, for forty years,” Dr Peterson told the BBC. “It starts by people’s attempts to control the ideological and linguistic territory. There’s no chance I’m going to use words made up by people who are doing that, not a chance.” Dr Peterson is concerned proposed federal human rights legislation will elevate his refusal to use alternative pronouns into hate speech. There is currently a bill in Canada that prohibits discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act on the basis of gender identity and expression. Under this bill, Dr. Peterson is not guilty of hate speech, but he could face sanction under Ontario’s human rights code which extended protection to trans people in 2012.

    Conservatives like Dr. Peterson have conjured up images of good people being dragged off to jail for not calling a person by their chosen pronouns. To the contrary, as legal scholars like Brenda Cossman and Kyle Kirkup have patiently explained, the bill in Canada cannot lead to anything remotely like this. But the milk has been spilled, and rants have been recorded, and the subtext is that there is a segment of society accustomed to others accommodating their freedom but not the other way around.

    Some people are confused as to why calling someone by their chosen pronouns constitutes as human rights, but I am confused about something else: In what kind of society does the question of whether we should respect people provoke a major debate? In what kind of society does the sentiment “you can’t make me” constitute a compelling argument?

    In conclusion, there’s no reason to discriminate against non-binary people or transgender people because contrary to the popular belief, you’re not being morally or intellectually superior, you’re just being rude. Use their prefered name and pronouns. I promise it won’t kill you.

[harryglom]

UNORTHODOX- The Price of Freedom

(Spoilers for the entire mini series Unorthodox)

Unorthodox is a very conventional story and also an unprecedented one.

It is at its core a coming of age story, a fish out of water story, a marriage story and a drama about finding a meaningful life. However it is also the first high-budget mainstream exploration of the lives of members of the ultra-orthodox Jewish community. It gives voice to a woman, and in-turn many women like her, who have never been seen or heard from in mainstream media. We are party to the self discovery of a woman who has had too much expected of her from God, her community and herself. She escapes to Berlin from New York, running away from a life without freedom to a liberal metropolis resting atop a historic centre of Jewish hatred, the regime her own grandparents had escaped from. The show refuses to give easy answers, happy endings or tragic melodrama: we are witness to a single part of Esty's story and in it we see her begin to assert power in her life or, at the very least, recognise she has more power over it than she had previously thought.

Esty's journey is shown in two timelines: her time in Williamsburg transitioning into a marriage with the well-meaning Yankee whilst under the watchful eye of the community and her time in Berlin, having befriended a group of liberal musicians who help her to adjust to the outside world. The scenes themselves are often matter of fact but the depth of the performances, the pacing, cinematography and music create an atmosphere that allows its naturalism to transcend into more than a slice of life drama. Berlin is distilled into its most outlandish: bars spill out onto the streets, clubs are loud and full of smoke, coffee shops are alien and austere, concert halls are modern and bright, fashion is extraneous, flesh is bared and squares are packed full of men and women from all walks of life. We can sympathise with Esty if her curiosity blooms or she gets overwhelmed by this modern world due to the sheer vividness of the city the show brings to life.

Between these frames, for most of the run-time, stands our protagonist: Esty Shapiro. Her world view is communicated quietly, often silently, in the way her eyes interact with the world around her. The subtlety of her characterisation is married with the movement of the camera: when Esty is stressed or determined we follow her closely, the outside world blurred into insignificance whilst when she chooses to observe the world, time is taken to pick up the sort of details she would also be acknowledging. From the smaller moments, like noting the strangeness of night club wrist stamps and the initial starkness of seeing queer intimacy shown in front of her without shame, or grander changes, like naked bodies at the beach or the beauty of an orchestra operating as a single organism-- the camera and Esty are unified. This makes us intimately aware of who she is, how much this experience means to her and, thanks to the flashbacks, how much she fights to be the person we see in front of us.

The behaviour of the Ultra-Orthodox community is realised with unflinching realism. Where lesser dramas would have made moralistic tales about any number of the themes touched upon-- post-Holocaust guilt, cultural trauma, matchmaking and arranged marriages, gossip and pride, gender roles, alcoholism and gambling addiction within the community, the relationship of the community to other Jewish streams and Israel, the tactics deployed to control the community and alienate those who do successfully escape-- they are explored as they would be experienced. These are all just parts of people's lives: they're presented anecdotally, matter-of-factly and, because of the pressures of the community to appear perfect, suppressed from being discussed explicitly. The most frank exploration of a single issue is in the third episode, arguably the show's best, where the story uses both timelines to interrogate and reclaim female sexuality. This may sound like hyperbole, but the rigidity and oppression of sexual norms, the objectification of Esty's body that is enforced by both men and women alike, recalls The Handmaid's Tale at its worse and it is abominable that any woman should live as deprived of information, emotional support or the right to consent. Even when Esty quotes the Talmud, that textually demands of men the pleasuring of women, Yankee simply says that women shouldn't read the Talmud. The frustration, ignorance and pain is expressed viscerally and uncomfortably.

Yet, in another way that recalls The Handmaid's Tale, the Berlin timeline adopts a very tactile filming style and direction that allows us to empathise with a point of view that has become more appreciative for what they've been denied: where desire cannot be stated frankly, where the language to invite affection is alien and bodies are beautiful and mysterious. This episode shows this reclamation of sexuality juxtaposed with the reveal of the moment Esty decides to pursue her freedom at all. With very few words at all, having withheld her thoughts from the blinded Yanky, she stands alone in a corridor and we know exactly what she is thinking. The catalyst for Esty running away is not the sexual imprisonment, the absolute lack of connection or personability with anyone around her nor the restrictions put upon her pursuing her passions but Yanky's demand for a divorce. It symbolises a multifaceted betrayal of her faith, her body, her dignity and, ultimately, every sacrifice she made for them. This triggers a single disillusionment that makes Esty's story possible: that this is no place for her child to grow up. This profound moment rests upon an incredibly moving performance and a script brimming full of understated depth.

The show should also be praised for some of its peripheral characters. Yanky is not a typical brute but a devout, vulnerable and lost little boy. Esty's aunt is as much an Orthodox woman as she is a fighter for her family's dignity. Moshe is no two dimensional villain but a man who played his hand at life beyond the walls of the community and lost. However the character most deserved of praise is that of Yael, an Israeli born music student at the conservatory Esty auditions for. She, as an Israeli-born Jew, takes Esty's experiences for granted, diminishes her community's felt Holocaust guilt, laments to her non-Jewish friends with uncaring abandon the terrifying reality of Esty's own life and calls her a baby machine. She represents a subtle nuance never before explored on television: that the wider Jewish community, for thinking they know about people like Esty and for wanting to distance themselves from being identified with that kind of Judaism, can actually be their most harsh and inconsiderate critics.

One character that could have done with more development is that of Esty's mother. Though portrayed to perfection, balancing a calm earnestness with a hidden maternal strength, there is not enough time to open her life up in the way it could have been. Queerness is visible in the show. There are two out gay couples, including one that Esty's mother is a part of. It feels strange that there is no articulation in either timeline of the homophobia that must have driven Esty's mother from the community but also the opinions that would be residual in Esty, having never been exposed to gay people in her life. Whilst the deftness with which some issues are taken as they are is admirable, this seems like a topic that would have invited a conversation between mother and daughter or, at the very least, Esty and anyone in her group of friends.

Regardless of any shortcomings, Unorthodox is a series that will stick with you for a long time. It offers a unique perspective of the modern world from the point of view of someone who has been locked away from it. Partly a modern-day fairy tale where modern life becomes a wonderland and partly the harrowing struggle of an outsider to find freedom. The series cements the success of its story with the ambiguity of its ending. We don't know how Esty will deal with motherhood, whether she will get her scholarship, how she will react to her grandmother's death, how she will fight against the community's attempts to intimidate her out of her child's life. The viewer and Esty have discovered the world together. She has friends and her mother on her side. We've seen her grow into a fighter and recognise, alone in a cafe with a quiet smile, that no price is too high for her freedom.

[enterprisetrampstamp]

The Martinstown WIP Part 3

Part 1 Part 2

This is Part 3 of what is likely to be a nice, long t’pura fic once I’ve banged it out. It’s a bizarre length and actual amount of plot by my standards, so I’m in want of comments and breaking my usual rules to post sections of it before it’s fully complete. Please, holler at your ambiguously gendered author with any #thoughts you have!

This one goes out in particular to the one lovely anon who cares about this fic as much as I do.

***

Vulcans do not dream. But- on occasion- a lack of focus during their nightly meditation can lead a Vulcan to ruminate so deeply upon past events that they relive them, in a strange and filtered way. "Through the looking glass," a human may describe it.

T'Pring does not know why her mind lingers this night on a day long past--one where the heat of Vulcan's sun beats heavily on her shoulders, and her robes are filled with fruit they have foraged. She is accompanied by Spock. They sit huddled on a rock, deep in the craggy valleys of the desolate mountains, with only I'Chaya as supervision.

They speak of everything and nothing, in the way of children. They become sticky as they eat, and their skin grows hot and flushed with the sallow yellow-green of sunburn, for they have not heeded the words of their mothers.

"No," she insists, as he demonstrates a hand gesture, a tiny furrow of focus between his slanted brows. "That is too close to the regular word."

"We should not wish to forget our symbols," Spock argues, "or we will lose our ability to communicate in secret."

"I will not forget." She peels the skin from her fruit, sniffing. "Are you saying you would?"

He bristles immediately. "I would not."

"Then why would I? I am smarter than you."

"You are not!"

"This argument is illogical."

"You are illogical."

It is her turn to bristle. "I am not!"

"You are always angry. Anger is illogical. Therefore, you are illogical!"

T'Pring remembers how this is meant to go--she should consider her fruit for a long second, the colors red and orange and juicy in her palm. "If you wish to see angry," she should scoff, and then reach over to shove the fruit in his face.

But this time she is older, in her thirties and sitting next to a Spock so small she could easily hold him aloft with one hand. Her fingers are still sticky; she can still feel the heat of her planet's sun against her shoulders--now bare, in the modern style of the rebellious Vulcan woman. A flyaway of hair is caught in the breeze. She stares at the fruit in her palms, feels the roughness of the rocks against her ankles, and something inside of her is screaming. It has been for a very long time now.

"Yes," she says. "I am often angry. I think perhaps that is why our minds were found compatible. You have always struggled to maintain a Vulcan lifestyle, and I have always struggled to accept one. That has not--gotten easier.” She breathes out into the air of a dead planet. “Since this.”

"I do not understand," Spock says.

He is so small. It is illogical to doubt her own memories and more illogical still to question the realities of biological aging processes, and yet still she finds herself questioning how it is possible that either of them were ever so small as he is sitting next to her.

"You would not," she says. "We had not lost this, yet. The innocence of childhood. Our people and our planet. Each other." T'Pring does not look at him in pity, because he does not need it--not as a child, trying to find a place on a world which could not accept him, and not as an adult who has found his place on a starship far away. "There is nothing so illogical as grief, Spock; not even anger, for all that they so often go hand in hand. You have not learned that yet. I regret that one day you must."

"You should not say such things," he tells her, looking worried. In time, he will grow better at hiding these feelings, but she will only grow angrier. "T'Pring, you are being emotional."

"Yes," she says. "But no one is around to know. You do not exist outside of my mind, tiny Spockling." She reaches out to ruffle his hair, and he squawks much the way he had once upon a Vulcan afternoon, with his face covered in fruit.

"I find your behavior illogical and unsatisfactory," he says, all harsh and small. It is adorable. "This will be the first thing I say to you when we complete our private code."

"That is exactly so," she tells him, fond. "Although I think you have secretly always enjoyed seeing another Vulcan behave in this way, no matter how you raise your little eyebrows."

She grows quiet, pensive, and then says quietly, "I miss you, illogically. I was the one who ended this easy camaraderie, fearful that the scrutiny our classmates placed on you for being half-human would reflect back on me to reveal my own struggles. It was the logical move to protect myself, I believed. Now I must wonder if I did not hurt us both instead; we were never on the path to romance, but there was a time when I regarded you as a friend."

There is no one here but yourself, she chides. You need not twist your words to obscure the truth.

"That time continues now," she admits, begrudgingly. "I maintain sentiment towards you, despite our divorce. After all, though it was I who initially suggested our severance, you held nothing but support for my decision despite the future peril in which it places you, should you enter pon farr without our bond to fall back on."

(It had not been her motivation behind the divorce, but she is grateful in a desperate and primitive way that she has been spared from the decision to either kill him by inaction or be forced to cure his fever herself--she is grateful because she knows what she would have chosen, and his agreement to divorce her has denied her conscience the weight of his death.)

"Is this what your meditation seeks to have you acknowledge?" Spock asks in that young voice, but with all the perception of his older self. Or her own, perhaps, since there is no one in her mind but her. "That your path of solitude is a choice you have made on your own?"

T'Pring peels the rest of her fruit, and feels the heat of a sun that she will never again encounter outside of memory. "If that is the case," she says, "I struggle to see the logic in regretting what has already come to pass. My family has perished in the genocide of our people, my friendship with you has long since wilted, and I cannot bear to set foot on our supposed new homeworld. I am alone, but for the humans among whom I live."

"You like these humans," the Spocklet says. He has a handful of freckles along the bridge of his nose. “But you find it difficult to trust them.”

T’Pring does not see a point in answering, even within the meditative construct of a conversation.

The crew of the Martinstown is a self-described family, and that T’Pring finds difficulty with such a concept should be self-evident. They are also of a largely psi null race; to obtain mental intimacy with them would require a deliberate conscious undertaking, and to trust without knowing the inside of another's mind… The very concept is unnerving.

There is a role she plays for her crew, much as there was a role she played for her family on the lost sands Vulcan. Unlike the silence and stoicism of the past, she enjoys the teasing and bluntness of her new persona--but it is a persona nonetheless. 

"You like me," her diminutive companion says, thoughtfully. "Do you trust me?"

She slants a sharp, sideways look at him. "I might," she says begrudgingly. "Though I do not prefer to say so, even within the privacy of my meditation. Must you force me to admit these things?"

"The only one here is you," he reminds her. "You are, as you always are, alone."

"I prefer it that way," she says. "Isn't that what we decided a moment ago?"

"No." Spock stares up at her, his thin arms wrapped about his knobbled knees, and his too-human eyes are small, and dark, and troubled. "We decided that it is what you have chosen; not that it is what you prefer."

T'Pring's heartbeat is quick and loud in her ears. "I see," she says. "I shall need to meditate on this properly at a later date. And there is no logic in telling you goodbye, as you do not exist."

"Very well," he agrees.

She opens her eyes.

The smoky haze of incense fills the air of her quarters- barely large enough for her to stretch her arms to either side and not brush the wall with both fingertips- and her ankles chafe not on Vulcanic rock but on the fibrous fabric of her meditative mat. That this particular hour is classified as “morning” is, of course, arbitrary, but she can smell coffee percolating and hear the distant sounds of movement as the Martinstown’s other habitants likewise stir.

Upon waking after a poker game, the crew is often quiet by their usual standards; Cristobal and Elina will sit in the kitchen among the detritus of the festivities, sharing their dark, bitter coffee as they skim their PADDs for the news, and Pinga and the Captain (whose camaraderie stretches back the longest) can often be found sharing a peaceful silence- and occasionally a stiff drink- on the ship's modest bridge.

(No matter the circumstances, the Leiman siblings independently and uniquely refuse to arise before the theoretical sun. "Artists," Pinga says, as if this word explains everything.)

T’Pring rises from her meditation, first dousing the last smouldering heat of her incense before bending loosely at the waist to roll the mat into a neat cylinder and tuck it beneath the austere desk which takes up nearly a third of the room.

(She uses the surface and the wall behind it to meticulously track not only the Martinstown crew's path through the stars, but also their adventures within them. T'Pring had been hired on, originally, as a record keeper; it has proven a difficult habit to break, even now that her position aboard this ship has little to do with a need for employment.)

T'Pring moves about her routine without haste, but neither does she linger in reflection as she brushes her teeth and hair and sheds the simple robe- of a silken, Terran style- which she had chosen for her meditation.

The revelations of the hallucinatory Spock-child are undoubtedly worth considering--but at a later date, in the darkness and stillness of her quarters, among the smoky haze of the alien scents she has adopted as a meditative focus. (Not only have many Vulcanic spices been lost among the rubble of her planet, but those that remain are difficult to obtain this far away from major Federation outposts.)

She thinks of other things, instead, such as how the braid of her hair is not entirely unlike the elaborate hairstyles of her youth--though less cumbersome, not being piled high atop her head. It is left hanging loosely down between her shoulder blades, tracing the straight slope of her spine.

So too does her manner of dress evoke a reminder of Vulcan without mimicking it; there is the freedom of movement of a traditional robe, combined with the metallic sheen of formal dress. T'Pring typically clothes herself in a simple, lightweight, sleeveless jumpsuit which cinches at her ankles but flows loose about her legs, as well as a stiff, tight vest in a heavy fabric which cuts a sharp line at her shoulders and reaches high up her throat. Both are a deep purple in color- matching her gloves- though the vest is slightly darker and shimmers with the play of light across its surface.

T'Pring has found this combination of garments to be comfortable, casual, and in keeping with the common fashion trends across the galaxy, thereby rendering it inconspicuous.

For economy of space aboard their small ship, the crew have few items of clothing and opt instead to clean them frequently; their choices in attire must therefore be well-suited to a variety of tasks. The combination of sleevelessness and drapery allows her a wide range of motion, while the stiff vest provides additional protection to her torso--a flawlessly logical combination, given the life she leads.

Flawlessly logical. She would roll her eyes if she were human. As if logic is something more than a tool--as if it is the beginning and end of the argument, when incomplete or incorrect data can result in a perfectly logical decision which is nonetheless wrong.

Such scandalous thoughts. T'Pring wishes she could blame the humans for them.

[storywriting]

[ Bc yall have foolishly greenlit my Nirvash Headcanon production, here is a general discussion of who I think Nirvash is and I’ll thank you to give me excuses to be more specific. ]

First things first. The Nirvash is the first creature Eureka ever had a conversation with or considered her friend. While Eureka had to learn to speak to people, the ability to communicate with her own kind is one of the few things she was born knowing, so she took to Nirvash right away. The Nirvash is unfortunately one of the main factors that ended up landing her as an emotionally stunted military dog instead of having a normal life where she is nurtured and fully educated by humans. I honestly think if the folks in the lab hadn’t realized her piloting potential, Eureka would have been raised as a completely different person. Since science had never been able to crack the Nirvash typeZERO, she was very valuable to have. They didn’t waste their budget on anything else once they knew that.

I also think the Nirvash had never been called Nirvash by people prior to the discovery of Eureka. Nirvash was exclusively called the typeZERO until Eureka was able to communicate enough to tell humans the name.

Vaguely related, Eureka’s name is also not human given because she is named after an event experienced by the scub coral and it doesn’t make sense to me that humans in 11005 or whatever would think to name her after something that happened in like 2005.  Eureka’s name comes from the very first time Scub Coral entered Earth’s atmosphere, where it crashed into a satellite and was forced to make a home in the Earth’s oceans. Based on what Sakuya says, it’s likely that the whole of the coralian system became aware when it was decided Eureka would be born. Nirvash likely told Eureka her own name if she didn’t already know it herself.

Archetypes are sexless, so as one might expect, Nirvash doesn’t have a particular concept or interest in gender identity. Eureka calls Nirvash “he” in the original series dub and “she” in all future adaptations. I suspect that using “he” might have originally been a mistake by the localization team since Nirvash isn’t voiced until the very end and the Japanese language doesn't really ever require a speaker to designate a gendered pronoun. Whether it was a mistake or on purpose, I tend to explain this by just saying that Eureka copied the words other people used whenever she would personify the Nirvash to them. That would be in line with her character.

Eureka also speaks about Nirvash like a child quite often even though Nirvash is most certainly an older life form than she is. I suspect this is to do with a difference in experience and the higher barriers of understanding for a creature like Nirvash. Put simply, Nirvash is a less developed creature than Eureka is.

In the AU movie archetypes arent the same type of creature as in the main series--they were made or evolved differently.  In the film, the Larval Nirvash is somewhat intelligent. Larval Nirvash pays attention to people and tries to participate in conversations despite being unable speak. 10/10 very tiny and cute and runs around, always doing their best.

I honestly believe that main series Nirvash has a similar temperament and level of intelligence to this AU iteration.  Also, the way Eureka speaks about Nirvash, like a child, in my mind supports the idea that the Nirvash is capable only of very simple thoughts and ideas early on. Nirvash isn't enlightened, per se. At least not at the beginning. Nirvash is a failed attempt at making a person. It makes sense that Nirvash would be less advanced.  If we could hear Nirvash's early conversations with Eureka, I suspect Nirvash's interests and concerns would sound pretty simplistic. I hesitate to compare Nirvash to any stage of human development tbh, mostly because it seems like Nirvash is very intelligent about certain things (like in battle, Nirvash makes very strategic choices), but probably couldn't even match a toddler on other things. Emotional intelligence, for example, is probably something that takes a while for Nirvash to pick up even the tiniest shred of.  Still, Nirvash's wants and feelings do seem to become slightly less simplistic over time. Still simple compared to a person, but the feedback Eureka gives originally is like "nirvash is happy" and by the end it's more like "nirvash feels x complex way because of what they did when x happened and how it turned out". Put simply, Nirvash knows what Nirvash knows, but not much else. Nirvash is maybe like Eureka in that regard. They're in their own weird stage of development where some of their stats are maxed and some of them are like...what are you even doing.  I also pretty strongly headcanon that, like Eureka, Nirvash's understanding of the world and of humans is growing as the series progresses, which I think is fairly substantiated but rarely addressed directly.

As the audience we don't get to see the way Nirvash communicates very often, especially not in any direct easy-to-be-understood-by-people fashion. If you want to learn anything about Nirvash as a viewer you have to speculate based on the few times Nirvash displays some will of her own, or go by the very little information Eureka gives about what Nirvash is thinking. Eureka is somewhat private about her relationship with Nirvash at times, which I find interesting, but that’s a topic for another post.

I pretty strongly headcanon that Nirvash sort of dislikes people, or at the very least, mistrusts the ones she doesn’t know.  I believe this because Nirvash outright refuses to be piloted, even by people with compac drives.  Compac drives are the "keys" humans use to communicate with LFOs, but LFOs cant really communicate back. We know that Nirvash for whatever reason really didnt want to be piloted, but then Nirvash met Eureka and felt willing to activate for her because they could converse and agree on things. No compac drive required for that.  Nirvash will fly for Eureka because they can have a relationship that is a two way street.  It doesn’t require the kind of faith Nirvash would need to let a human do whatever they wanted.

I suspect when Eureka is piloting there is a lot of give and take. They're discussing what they should do.  They compromise on a course of action by combining their understanding.  The trouble any time there is something going on between the Nirvash and Eureka is that it's not a conversation the audience gets to hear. We just have to watch and do our best to interpret

I think that over time Nirvash comes to appreciate and even like some humans and seeks methods of communication with ones she vibes with.  Ultimately the Nirvash does become more able to understand and commune with people because Eureka acts as a cultural bridge between them.   I really like the idea that Nirvash becomes interested in communicating with humans in the limited ways available to her, but only after spending a lot of time with Eureka and taking a shine to Renton. I also know the show gives Nirvash a clear human sounding voice that makes understandable words but I honestly hc that Nirvash sounds more abstract than that in most situation. Like idk, machine noises, Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites™ or something like that.  I think if a human was able to hear Nirvash in any passive sort of way, it probably wouldn’t really sound like language. Eureka can always understand Nirvash but if you're Renton or maybe Ao just hanging around and are somehow catching bits and pieces of that consciousness floating in the air it's gonna feel weird and garbled in your brain unless you're able to make that more direct connection with the Nirvash somehow. It's just not natural to humans, it's not their first language.

On the subject of Nirvash getting on with humans, there is eventually a situation where Renton has to pilot the Nirvash himself. This is on the tail end of Eureka being really down and not really explaining why.  Sometimes when she touches the Nirvash she starts to bleed and it becomes clear that The Girls Are Fighting™️. When Eureka sees Renton piloting she is taken aback by the fact that Nirvash would allow somebody other than her to pilot alone. Also, she comments on how that's 'not Nirvash's style'. It's left ambiguous what exactly her meaning is there, but she becomes pretty upset. There are a few ways I've interpreted it, though it's hard to pin down exactly. One possibility is that she’s upset because Renton and Nirvash Did A Violence. Alternatively it could be because the fighting Eureka saw from them was obviously more of Renton's own will than the give and take she prefers with the Nirvash. Another option is that Renton is not imposing his will, but rather bringing out something in Nirvash Eureka doesn't recognize and isn't comfortable with being a stranger to. Eureka is at this point very stressed that the Nirvash wont talk to her. She seems to go from very excited that Renton makes the Nirvash happy to very distressed that Renton is changing her relationship with the Nirvash. Nirvash is probably one of the only relationships Eureka has where she is comfortable and feels she is on the same page nearly all the time, so it's jarring for that to be challenged or changed. 

A lot of the conflict with nirvash is never clarified in stone, but we know for sure that Renton causes Eureka to change and that's a big deal for everybody involved. Nirvash and Eureka don't really know change before this.  In terms of Nirvash’s opinion, we know mostly about the parts Eureka reacts to, but if you think about it we dont really find out why Nirvash likes Renton in the first place or what initially caused Nirvash to becomes less open with Eureka. It's hard to place exactly what the conflict is. Just that it involves Renton and it involves this change. Despite Eureka being the best creature humanty has for communicating with Archetypes there are still certain barriers between them. They are the same creature, but theyre vastly different versions of the same creature with vastly different capabilities and experiences. Nirvash and Eureka will inevitably end up in situations where they don’t see eye to eye if for no other reason than their mental and sensory experience is vastly different from one another. I suspect that Nirvash is at times jealous of Eureka going off and having experiences and relationships with others, in the same way Eureka gets jealous when Nirvash seems to prefer Renton over her.

That all said, I do think Nirvash does have some sense of right and wrong even without Eureka’s guidance, but Eureka shows evidence of chiding or suggesting morality to the Nirvash throughout. Things like compassion and a moral compass seem to be way more pronounced for Nirvash later on in the series, after like 40 episodes of bonding and getting into and out of trouble together.  Again, we can’t know all the details because the audience doesn’t get any unfiltered version of Nirvash’s perspective, but we know for sure that Eureka (and eventually Renton) is very very important to her even when the they are in conflict. In turn, Eureka regularly demonstrates that she trusts Nirvash implicitly and seems to respect Nirvash's judgement in many kinds of situations. The Nirvash is a member of the family through and through. She’s always down to help the cause, and she appreciates the great privilege involved in having a front row seat to Eureka’s experience. The Nivash has had an unprecedented opportunity to become enlightened about other creatures in ways the rest of the Scub Coral could not. In another life Nirvash could have had any number of destinies, possibly even safer ones with less strife and less change. She was never essential to the plan of putting yet another humanoid coralian into the world and could have moved for anybody else and had a completely different life. Maybe in times of conflict Nirvash thinks about that, but if there’s one thing that’s canon as hell I know that Nirvash would never trade away being loved by the Storywriter.

We stan a queen.

[nanigma]

Was the Sylvain and Felix ending toned down too?

… Actually. It’s very weird. 

I just recently found the original endings on pegasusknight.com and they just throw up more question marks for me.

“Both Felix, who had become Duke Fraldarius after suceeding his late father, and Sylvain, who took up the title of Margrave Gautier after his father’s passing, dedicated themselves to the kingdom’s reconstruction and prosperity. 

However, even among all those busy days their friendship never lessened. Felix would unexpectedly show up at the Gautier castle to berate Sylvain, while the other would frequently visit the Fradalrius seat simply to tease him. As is told to us by tales passed down, these two, whose unparalled friendship lasted their whole lifes, coincidentally died on the same day.”

(亡父ロドリグの跡を継ぎ、フラルダリウス公爵となったフェリクスと、父の没後ゴーティエ辺境伯の位を継いだシルヴァンは、王国の復興と繁栄のため、それぞれに力を尽くす。

しかし多忙な日々の中にあっても二人の友情が絶えることはなかったようだ。フェリクスはふらりとゴーティエ家の居城に姿を現してはシルヴァンに悪態をつき、シルヴァンはそんなフェリクスをからかうためだけに、度々フラルダリウス家を訪れていたという。生涯無二の友であり続けた彼らには、偶然にも同じ日に没したという逸話さえ残っている.)   

*crickets chirping*

So, the answer is: no. They actually made it more ambiguous from what was an overtly “NO HOMO! NOTHING TO SEE HERE GUYS! JUST TWO DUDE BEING LIFELONG BROS AND THEN RANDOMLY FALLING OVER ON THE SAME DAY!” sort of ending to a much more “wink wink nudge” sort of affair. I do actually like having more of an idea of what their interactions actually entailed, but a canon gay ending this is not.

And I am honestly rather angry. At Intsys this time. Do I still ship them? Hell yeah, of fucking course, it’s blindingly obvious there is something worth talking about between them and I am not letting go of it. But I am now honestly giving zero credit to Intsys for “giving us canon gay couples” on this count. 

(warning: incoming rant)

Sorry for seeming so agitated, but I am just tired of all these close emotional bonds between characters of the same gender being perpetually stuck as “just friends” while their hetero counterparts receive so much more on weaker foundations. I constantly see threads listing paired endings that only count those that end in marriage as romantic. Because it’s ~too vague~ otherwise. Guess which ones are left in the dust on this count.

I mean, I was always very wary of giving Intsys too much credit for how they handled same gender supports in this game, considering the mess that are M!Byleth’s supports. (by the way, the Gilbert ending isn’t on the page yet, but the Alois one still places heavy emphasize on a parent-child relationship) But I was willing to tacitly approve of how they gave us these really close relationships between same-gender characters that actually resulted in a future together, even if the M-word was never uttered. 

But it feels so cruel to actually give us as much as they did only to make it clear at the last minute that, no, this isn’t serious. Any same-gender pairing is never going to be as valid in the eyes of Intsys as the straight ones. I was actually extremely pissed off at Ingrid and Dorothea’s paralogue. They layed on the flirting so thick, even the most conservative players must have noted it, but then you realize it’s all a big joke. Ingrid has her firm denial of anything romantic between be the last thing in the room. There is no follow-up, their supports stop at B, they don’t get any kind of paired ending. It’s all just a cute we are meant to take in, appreciate, chuckle at and move on. 

To be clear, I am not calling this queerbaiting, because we all know Intsys doesn’t seem to be aware they even have a sizable LGBT fanbase. This was pandering to the shipping community, one that at least to my knowledge (please correct me if I am wrong), isn’t in general too concerned about their couples coming true at all or even expects them to yet.

And of course, some people are probably coming at me now with “you are just mad your ships aren’t canon”. But that’s not even the point. Of course people are going to see my shipping Sylvain and Felix as 100% objectification looking for self-gratification, but you know what, I don’t even care if they always work out, I actually do enjoy their non-Blue Lion ending in a morbid way. What I care about is these pairing given the same respect as their straight counterparts. I want some goddam pathos in here and not have to argue constantly with people who call me delusional for believing there could ever be any.

When you lay the groundwork with supports and conversations that increasingly read as romantic to your audience (and yes, the Japanese twitter comments largely see Sylvain and Felix’s A+ support having romantic undertones), then you shouldn’t be surprised when things like Ingrid/Dorothea landing like a wet fart or Sylvain and Felix’s ending having “NO HOMO” in neon letters written all over it ends up frustrating people. I am just tired of it.

Anyway, I am someone who actually teared up when Mercedes asked FByleth to marry her, like it was the most natural thing (and who was happy about Zero and Shara’s gay S-support in Fates), but so long as Intsys still feels like they can pull of wink-wink nudge shit and generally still act like a child being forced to clean up their room when it comes to treating gay supports equally to straight ones, I am not going to heap praise on them.    

[sanderssidesfanfiction]

We’ll Carry On - Chapter Fourteen

We’ll Carry On Tag

General Content Warnings: Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, Substance Abuse, Abandonment, Minor Character Death, Transphobia, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Dissociation, Bullying, Homophobia

April 16th, 2018

He tried his hardest to not cry, honest to goodness, he did. But Logan couldn’t help letting a few tears slip down his cheeks. It stung to have everyone sing Happy Birthday using Jessica, not Logan. It stung to have girly presents and dresses instead of wearing suits and ties. Jack knew what was going on, and he tried to keep Logan’s spirits up, but there was only so much even Jack could do.

So here Logan was, trying to muffle his crying. He was fifteen years old, dammit! He wasn’t supposed to cry over people using the wrong name when they didn’t even know any better.

As he finally, mercifully, fell asleep, he remembered with a happy smile how Jack had sung Happy Birthday using Logan, rather than Jessica, and his tears trailed off just enough for his breathing to even out as he finally slipped into the blissful nothing of unconsciousness.

February 15th, 2019

Logan thought he might pass out. He was sitting in the recently-acquired minivan that Mister Emile and Mister Remy had purchased since Patton and Virgil had turned up. They were heading to court, because today was the day that Mister Emile and Mister Remy were adopting him. There was no going back from this. If he did this now, his parents would never get him back...not that he wanted to be back there. Still, there was something inside him that made him feel weak at the knees because he thought about what would happen were his parents to change their minds. And this meant they couldn’t.

They pulled up to the courthouse and Logan held his breath. He was both elated and filled with dread because of this moment. He forced himself to keep moving, no matter what. If he stopped, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to move again.

Mister Emile and Mister Remy were talking quietly behind him, and Logan couldn’t focus on their conversation, too nervous about this new development. Well, maybe new development was the wrong term. He had known this was coming for a while, he had consented to it. But all of it seemed to become real today.

They went inside and walked down a series of corridors until they stopped outside a judge’s office. Logan was standing perfectly still, and Mister Remy put a hand on his shoulder as Mister Emile knocked on the door. On the other side, when the door was opened, were Sarah McGee the social worker, and a judge who was smiling kindly at the three of them. “Right on time,” the judge said. She laughed. “Are you three ready?”

Logan was nudged forward and Mister Remy and Mister Emile walked up to the desk with him. When Logan saw the documents, his eyes widened. “But that’s...” he couldn’t finish his sentence.

“We figured since we were changing your last name we may as well change your first one too while we were at it,” Mister Emile said softly. “Is that okay?”

Tears pricked Logan’s eyes and he nodded frantically. “Yes. Yes, please, yes.”

“Okay,” Mister Emile said with a smile. Sarah was beaming off to the side, and Mister Remy was looking very satisfied with himself. “Should we sign the papers?”

Logan nodded again and the judge, Mister Emile, and Mister Remy signed all the documents, Sarah signing as a witness. Logan watched everything with tears in his eyes. His sex was still female on the documents, but that was okay, that would allow him the possibility of insurance covering some of his transition for now. And besides, his name...his name wasn’t Jessica. As everything was signed, the judge smiled at him. “Congratulations, Logan.”

That was all it took for him to start breaking down and crying. Mister Emile and Mister Remy laughed as they asked if he was okay, and he nodded. He was far, far better than okay. No longer would he be known as Jessica Gaines. No, from this day forward he would be Logan Picani. That’s what it would say on his bank account. His passport. His license, when he got one. His deadname was well and truly dead. To the outside world, he could be Logan. And that was the best feeling in the world. He beamed, smile a little watery, but elated all the same.

“That didn’t take too long, did it?” Mister Emile asked, laughing. “Here I was worried it would take a while with the name change!”

Logan was still in shock, but he managed to choke out, “Did you plan that from the start?”

“Yeah,” Mister Remy said. “Emile suggested it. If we’re changing your last name, it’s easier to change your first name now rather than later. It was my idea to keep it as a surprise, though. As a little gift to you for joining our family.”

Logan cried some more, holding the back of his hand to his mouth as he smiled. “Thank you,” he choked out. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“The pleasure is all ours, Logan,” Mister Emile said with a smile. “Now all we have to do is send copies of your new birth certificate to the school, the bank you use, and maybe one or two other places, and you’ll be all set!”

Logan continued to smile and cry. “My report card. My report card is gonna have my actual name on it. I can’t believe it.”

Mister Remy laughed. “Of all the things for you to fixate on, that was not on my list of expected ones.”

Mister Emile nudged Mister Remy playfully. “Let the boy live a little, Rem,” Mister Emile said with a grin of his own.

“I never said it was a bad thing,” Mister Remy defended. “Just that it was unexpected.”

Logan laughed. “You’re good. Both of you. I’m not offended or any less happy.”

“Well, good,” Mister Emile said. “Are you ready to head into school a little later than usual?”

Logan nodded. He couldn't wait to tell Jack about this great news! He was adopted, and his legal name was Logan! This day couldn't get any better!

Well, yeah, it could. Because he could get a hug and a clap on the back from Jack, both of them beaming and laughing at the fact that transphobes were going to have to acknowledge his name now. That...that would be fun.

So he went to school, smiling all the way. It was lunchtime when he arrived, and he nearly ran head-first into Jack as he walked in the front door. “Logan! Man, where were you?! You haven’t been in school all morning, and you never miss a day of school!”

Logan just laughed, grinning so hard his face hurt. “I was in court,” he said.

Jack frowned. “Why would you be in court?”

“I’m adopted!” Logan exclaimed, throwing his hands up. “And my name changed! You’re not looking at Jessica Jordan Gaines, but Logan Avery Picani!”

Jack stared at him a moment, before he whispered, “Seriously?!”

“Seriously!” Logan exclaimed. “They changed my name, Jack! As a surprise gift for being adopted!”

Jack whooped and wrapped Logan in a crushing hug, which Logan eagerly returned. As predicted, when they broke apart Jack clapped him on the back, saying, “Congrats, man! I knew you’d get to have this day eventually!”

Logan grinned and sniffled a little, saying, “I wasn’t so sure,” his voice thick with emotion.

Jack rolled his eyes playfully and turned to the students eating lunch in the hallways. “Hey everyone, listen up!” Jack shouted.

“Jack!” Logan hissed, a startled laugh flying from his mouth.

“You’re looking at one Mister Logan Picani, everyone! If anyone calls him Jessica, they can answer not only to me, but Logan’s legal documents!”

“Jack, no,” Logan laughed, as a few students clapped and cheered, while others scrunched up their faces or sneered their way. Most of the students just looked very confused.

“Jack yes!” Jack retorted with a laugh. “Suck it up, Buttercup, you’re stuck with me!”

“Why are you still calling me Buttercup? I haven’t watched Powerpuff Girls in years!” Logan exclaimed.

“Because we both headcanon Buttercup as trans, and anyway, Buttercup rhymes with suck it up, so it works,” Jack explained smugly as they started to walk to their normal group of friends.

Logan shook his head. “That really shouldn’t be how you logic things out, Jack, but okay.”

“You logic one way, and I logic another,” Jack shrugged.

“But...but logic is universal! You can’t just ‘logic one way’ and then change how you do the same thing the next day! That’s...that’s illogical!”

Jack laughed and Logan frowned. “I love when you get passionate about stuff,” Jack said with a small grin. “Even if you’re trying to prove me wrong.”

“You are wrong,” Logan said.

“That’s the spirit!” Jack laughed.

Logan rolled his eyes but he couldn’t resist the small smile breaking on his face.

Their friends were sitting in front of the auditorium, as always, and one of the theater nerds in their group named Preston asked, “Jack, was that you yelling?”

“Yep!” Jack said proudly. “Did you hear what I said or just the shouting?”

“Just the shouting,” one of the girls, Leslie, piped up. “What’s going on?”

Jack grinned. “Logan got adopted, and they changed his name, legally, to Logan. His deadname isn’t connected to him anymore, at all!”

Logan turned red as all of his friends congratulated him and cheered and were generally excited about everything this entailed. When Jack and Logan sat down and started eating, Preston and Leslie started arguing over whether Dear Evan Hansen or Heathers was better, and Tristen, their person of ambiguous gender, suggested that Hamilton trumped them both, sparking a heated and yet playful debate over the merits of all three musicals.

Jack nudged Logan lightly. “Don’t you just love our friends?” he asked with a wide grin.

“Yeah,” Logan said softly, musing as he took a bite of his sandwich. “They never had to be as supportive as they have been, and yet here we are.”

“Some people are just decent human beings, man. Not everyone is looking for something in return for their kindness,” Jack replied.

Logan let out a shuddery breath. “That’s a scary thought, honestly,” he whispered. “Because that means my parents were wrong about so many different things they taught me.”

Jack wrapped an arm around Logan’s shoulders in a sideways hug. “We can tackle that another day, sound good?”

“Yeah,” Logan agreed. “Sounds good.”

And it did. He didn’t want to have to focus on the fact that his parents were wrong right now. He just wanted to be happy about his legal name, and his friends supporting him. He grinned as Tristen made a particularly good point about Hamilton and the story surrounding it, and Logan pointed out a few factual tidbits that most people didn’t know about the musical, and immediately he was getting interrogated about what else he knew about the musicals they were talking about.

Eventually, lunch ended, Logan went to his afternoon classes, and then he was getting a ride from Mister Emile back home. His leg bounced nervously as he sat in the passenger seat and stared out the window. He blew out a breath. “So much is going on recently,” he said softly. “It’s a lot to take in.”

Mister Emile sent him a glance. “It is,” he agreed. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Fine,” Logan agreed. “I’m just...nervous, I guess.”

“What about?” Mister Emile asked.

“Everything just became...real. That seems to be happening a lot lately. Abstract concepts like abandonment, and adulthood, and growing up are all becoming terrifyingly real, and I don’t know how to handle it.”

Mister Emile put a hand on Logan’s shoulder and Logan turned to look at him. “You have a point, Logan. Those things can be terrifying. But just know that you don’t have to do it alone, all right? Mister Remy, myself, your friends, even your brothers are all ready and willing to help you with whatever you need.”

Jack’s words from earlier came back to him: Not everyone is looking for something in return for their kindness. He supposed that applied to his new family. Which was terrifying, in a comforting way. He smiled and looked back out the window. “Yeah, I know. Thank you.”

“Of course,” Mister Emile said. “Let’s go tell your brothers the good news.”

When they got to the middle school and picked Roman up, he hopped in the back and grinned at Logan. “How’d the adoption go?” he asked.

“It went well,” Logan said with a smile. “Mister Emile and Mister Remy were kind enough to let me change my name.”

“What, to Picani? Yeah, that’s how adoption works,” Roman said.

Logan shook his head with a grin. “No, not to Picani. Well, yeah, they changed my last name, but they changed my first one, too. And my middle one, for that matter.”

Roman stared at him in shock before he laughed. “Hey, congrats, Lo! That’s gotta be a great feeling!”

“It is,” Logan agreed.

“Do the twins know yet?” Roman asked.

“Not yet,” Mister Emile said. “It was a surprise gift. So Logan gets to tell them the good news.”

“They’ll be ecstatic,” Roman said. “Be prepared for a lot of shrieking and yelling.”

Logan just laughed.

[anhed-nia]

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

When my concerned parents faced the early and unpleasant realization that they were raising a ravenous little horror hound, it meant that they had to somehow split the difference between their strict curbing of my potentially mid-warping viewing habits, and their principled encouragement of unfettered reading. That must be how I came into possession of a copy of Thomas Harris' harrowing police procedural The Silence of the Lambs at the tender age of 10, even as the film adaptation was being touted by many viewers as The Scariest Movie of All Time. I carried that book around like the Bible well into my teenage years, reading and re-reading it with even greater fervor after my parents finally decided that the film was sophisticated enough for me to watch without it turning me into some kind of animal-torturing arsonist. (Said screening was chaperoned and accompanied by an academic post-viewing family discussion, of course) The decision seemed to make sense; after all, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS had swept the Oscars the year it was released, scooping up wins for Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Picture. This is not to say that my intellectual and art-appreciating family regarded the Academy as the ultimate arbiters of taste and achievement. I mention these accolades more to point out that, as my parents had surely noticed, the film holds a certain power over viewers on both sides of the high-low cultural divide, a spell that has hardly weakened in its twenty-seven years of life.

As a child, I certainly responded to the same things that piqued the general public: Anthony Hopkins' iconic performance as Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter, his ambiguous romance with purehearted FBI trainee Clarice Starling, and the controversial perversity of serial killer Buffalo Bill. Though the story shares the influence of real-life ghoul Ed Gein with classic shockers like PSYCHO and THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, the impact of SILENCE is more akin to that of DRACULA. Much of the enduring discussion about the film revolves around the tantalizing chemistry between the preternaturally elegant Dr. Lecter and the virginal Starling; the rest is somewhat unfortunately focused on Ted Levine's eccentric performance as the (pseudo-) transsexual murderer at large, which has come under some understandable scrutiny. However, it would be unjust to reduce Jonathan Demme's movie to a gothic romance, or a gory shocker, or a campy cult item with ironic eroticism and a great soundtrack. There simply have to be better reasons for a movie to stick around this long, lingering in the minds of stuffy critics and the hoi polloi alike.

In preparing my statements about what makes THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS stand out, I learned something very shocking: It began its life as the directorial project of Gene Hackman. Hackman eventually dropped out when the script produced by (Oscar-winner) Ted Tally turned out to be too violent. Prospective Starlings like Michelle Pfeiffer and Meg Ryan were similarly disgusted, so Demme got stuck with a less likely candidate in (Oscar-winner) Jodie Foster. Personally, I find (Oscar-winner) Demme himself to be an unlikely candidate. The director cut his teeth on exploitation movies under Roger Corman, and by the time of SILENCE, had distinguished himself as a hipster extraordinaire, directing classic performance videos for the Talking Heads and Spaulding Gray, as well as chic comedies speckled with cameos from the likes of John Waters, and underground music firebrands from New York's new wave scene. Time would prove that Demme and his frequent collaborator, cinematographer Tak Fujimoto, were perfect choices for this grim project, which only supports the idea that there is something more happening with SILENCE OF THE LAMBS than its gruesome violence and epic sexual tension.

In light of these more famous elements, one might expect an adaptation of Thomas Harris' grim and seductive novel to be grandiose, expressionistic, swathed in a dense physical and emotional mist, rumbling with its own pomp and circumstance. An orphan from the hills of West Virginia, Clarice Starling is a tragic hero from the start, guarding her broken heart against a world of condescending and hostile men. Her mentor Jack Crawford seems to distinguish himself from the herd by assigning her the ambitious task of interviewing notorious serial killer Hannibal Lecter for the FBI's files--but in fact, Crawford is counting on Starling's feminine charms and naivety, secretly using her to manipulate Lecter into profiling a killer at large, Buffalo Bill. In spite of this nasty revelation, Starling sticks with it, suffering Lecter's high-minded insults and penetrative analysis of her character, and eventually earning his admiration. She proves herself not only brave and determined, but a detective of unparalleled wit and instinct, single-handedly taking down the polymorphously perverse Buffalo Bill in his moth-filled subterranean lair, rescuing a high-profile victim where the entire rest of the Federal Bureau of Investigation have failed.

This all seems to portend a bigger, louder movie than what has been committed to film. However, the book has a certain organic grit to it, something honest, downbeat and tragically real, which Demme and Fujimoto grasp instinctively. The film provides a dry, frank view of the life of Clarice Starling: the toil of academia, the drudgery of physical conditioning, the undermining attitudes of her mostly-male peers. Shot in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, Starling's world is bleak and desolate, but earnestly so, without the pageantry of the film noir and Universal horror movies with which it is so easily compared. Demme's education under B-movie king Corman shows here, and makes for a much more compelling iteration of the story than we might have from someone less accustomed to economy. While SILENCE has developed a reputation for its brutality, the film is not remotely so gore-drenched as many traumatized viewers would have you believe. That said, it may be the film's generally stark and desicated look, its workaday-ness, and its endless (wonderful) dialogic exchanges that throw into relief its comparatively minimal violence, which usually appears not in scenes of assault, but in crime scene photos or autopsy scenes.

The blanched, dreary look of the film also offsets the emotional plight of Clarice Starling. She is afforded no real romance, external or internal. The petite and clear-eyed orphan is visibly used to, and exhausted by, the constant need to look out for herself, and SILENCE will see her shuffled from one humiliating personal trial to the next. She is led into a perilous situation by a mentor who pretends to respect her abilities, but who really counts on her to fall short of discovering his scam; She is trapped in roomfuls of macho cops who scarcely acknowledge her; She has to negotiate the sexual attention of evidence technicians and bureaucrats; She even has semen flung at her by a particularly rambunctious neighbor of Lecter's. (And how often do you see that in any movie? As gross as it is, it has a way of reinforcing the extreme adult-ness of Demme's often dry, methodical movie) And then of course, there is Lecter himself, who turns Starling's personal vulnerability into a form of currency with which she can buy the scant clues that lead her to her quarry. Instead of eroticizing the anomalous femininity that Starling brings to the traditionally masculine world of law enforcement, Demme constantly reminds you of her fear, her embarrassment, her alienation. One can also imagine the temptation to Ripley-fy the character, presenting her as a fully-formed badass not to be fucked with. Instead, by eschewing both these femme and fatale modes, Demme describes Clarice Starling as three-dimensional human being whose heroism is extremely hard-won. While the character is undeniably one of the great Strong Female Protagonists, Jodie Foster's performance somehow defies the cinematic semiotics of gender altogether, giving us a person whose most important qualities are purely psychological. Tak Fujimoto drives the point home by frequently filling the screen with closeups of her face, focusing us on what she thinks and says, taking the proverbial heat off her body. Even as Lecter probes her for painful biographical information, Starling's sexuality remains entirely private--still a rare thing in any movie with a lady lead.

I don't mean to suggest that THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is principally successful because of its plucky girl detective--that contributes to its greatness, but not in the feminist fashion that I seem to be angling for. I am reviewing this movie presently because I recently found myself looking back on my own history with it, comparing my feelings with those of popular audiences, and thinking, "What is The Silence of the Lambs really about?" It can't be so beloved *only* due to the sexy slow burn between Anthony Hopkins' Count Dracula and Jodie Foster's Mina Harker. It can't be *just* a matter of the exotic insanity of the gender-bending madman sewing together the flesh of his victims and dancing provocatively to "Goodbye Horses" by Q Lazzarus (a sadly mysterious musician who Demme certainly knew from his involvement in the New York underground). All of these characters, and their respective dynamics, contribute to the important thrill of this movie, but not in the way that most people seem to think.

Rather like the director's earlier work with iconoclastic punk icons and indie auteurs, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is about authenticity. Hannibal Lecter, the unparalleled genius whose culinary expertise is part of his murderous MO, is a serial killer because he has such refined taste and decorum that he cannot live peaceably among other people. He favors victims whom he perceives as tacky, pretentious and impertinent--Starling knows that he would never harm her because, as she famously remarks, "He would consider it rude." Lecter is fascinated, not by her youthful beauty as Crawford had hoped, but by her sincerity. Starling is brilliantly intelligent in her own right, as she proves through her police work, but she doesn't have an ironic bone in her body. She is the most unpretentious individual alive, and nothing could be more interesting to Lecter, who preys upon people who are untrue to others and to themselves. Meanwhile, we have Buffalo Bill, who is attempting to change his sex by crafting a full-body "woman suit"--but, as Lecter insists, the killer is not a "true transsexual" whose legitimate identity is that of the opposite sex. Buffalo Bill is someone who was reared by his abusive parents to hate himself so much, that he is compelled to escape his natural identity; becoming a woman is less important as a matter of self-actualization, than as a means of becoming an entirely different person, *any* different person. He has been so radically alienated from his own essence by this self-loathing, that he is incapable of authenticity of any kind.

That, I really think, is the secret power of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS: the at-once satanic and profoundly innocent declaration, "to thine own self be true". I would really love to get into a deeper dive on this movie at some point, to discuss what I think must have been the very best and very last time that Anthony Hopkins gave us a fearless and unpredictable (and in this case, somewhat hilarious) performance; to insist that Ted Levine as Buffalo Bill and Brooke Smith as his would-be victim actually give the best performances in the whole movie; to talk about the problem of the Ubiquitous Daddy Figure (of whom there are no fewer than THREE in this movie) in so many narratives about powerful women; to simply analyze the movie's sly psychological techniques, like fully humanizing Brooke Smith *just* by showing her singing a few bars of a beloved pop song in closeup, immediately before her fate takes a disastrous turn. (I would probably not take such an opportunity to investigate accusations of homophobia and transphobia, which requires a smarter and more directly experienced voice than my own) There is really a lot to say about why SILENCE is so powerful, without even threatening to address its most famous features. Unfortunately, I don't have the gumption or the madness to commit all that to Letterboxd at the moment, so I'll have to be satisfied with my primary conclusion: That the film's simplicity and gritty naturalism mirror its commitment to spiritual purity, honesty, and self-knowledge at all costs. Even at the high cost of wearing a muzzle, any time they let you out of your cage.

[iztarshi]

The Boy Princess

An analysis of Saionji that Saionji himself would hate. Collected into one post at the request of an anon.

Once upon a time all the girls of the world were princesses. But what does that mean?

Princesses are saved by princes. Princesses are cherished, not for any particular qualities they have, but by their nature1. A princess’ suffering is never met with indifference and they’re allowed to want someone else to solve their problems. They’re allowed to be passive and dependent, but not allowed to stop being those things. And they are devoted to their prince.

Once upon a time Saionji had a friend he thought the world of. Touga was stronger, smarter, braver, always ahead of him in some indefineable way, and none of this was a reason to feel anything but glad that Touga had singled him out for attention. Then, one stormy night, he was suddenly faced with the awareness of fear and despair, with things people might need saving from, things that could make a child younger than him want to die. Also, with the awareness that Touga had already known, that he could face these things without fear2.

Saionji’s distress, though, doesn’t matter. Touga declares himself an ally to all girls, but his best friend calling out for him to stop doesn’t affect him. It’s with the logic of a child in the throes of hero worship that Saionji concludes that Touga had something eternal to show and showed it to a strange girl rather than him. He’s not wrong, though, to think that Touga wants to save, specifically, girls.

Before that Saionji trusted Touga enough that Touga being stronger and more driven didn’t matter. If Touga accidentally hurt him he would bandage him too. Touga might keep them out late, but he’d be the one to get them home3.

Afterwards, he loses that trust. Whatever Touga gains by being stronger will not be shared with Saionji. Saionji cannot be weak and still be worth something.

As a boy, if he wants to matter to Touga, he has to be his equal.

Saionji’s career as a duelist is ignominious from start to finish. He’s trying to be a stoic warrior type4, which – since he’s a very emotional person – results in vaccillating between anger and vicious glee.

Being equal to Touga is now necessary to even be safe around him. Saionji isn’t, so he isn’t, and even his scrambling to gain equality has become something for Touga to use against him. The first time we see them alone together Saionji whips a sword at Touga’s face and Touga doesn’t even flinch. No matter how often Saionji takes his frustration with Touga out on others, Touga’s the one person he would never willingly hurt, and Touga knows it.

The person Saionji mostly hurts is Anthy, who he’s convinced himself that he loves. She’s everything he thinks he ought to want, and Touga wants her enough to duel for her which makes her irresistible. He tries to convince himself she loves him, too, but never quite manages to forget she’s only with him because he owns her.

Saionji’s duels are “friendship” and “choice” in opposition to Touga’s duels of “self” and “conviction”. The qualities he’s trying to act on, though, are Touga’s not his own. The result is that he doesn’t successfully show any. He craves emotional connection but is, for good reason, widely disliked. Yet his sense of who he is alone is muddled at best. He stubbornly sticks to the duels but has no plan for how to accomplish things within them and winds up manipulated by anyone who offers him an opportunity – whether it’s dubious letters or Mikage bargaining for Wakaba’s hairclip.

Saionji’s final duel isn’t the conclusion of his character arc, but his lowest point. In an arc where the duels are based around relationships he enters the arena alone and “his” duel is really Utena and Anthy’s5.

Touga talks him into the duel, a role which will later be the bride’s, but leaves him to fight it alone6. As the only one who doesn’t have his sword, Saionji’s heart is quite literally not in the duel.

Saionji enters the last duel as a lone warrior who lets nothing stand in his way, especially such petty considerations as decency or feelings, and is promptly flattened by the developing relationship between Utena and Anthy.

Finally Saionji has failed hard enough for it to stick. He accepts that he’s done. He won’t be Touga’s equal, he won’t win Anthy, he won’t gain eternity. But what will he do?

The woods in a fairy tale are always a liminal place. Even more so woods where an unwanted "child" has been abandoned. So it's fitting that Nanami stumbles across Saionji in a state of transition from duelist to outsider.

In a series where clothing and gender presentation are important, Saionji has decided to do some cooking in a frilly apron7. There's even a lacey table cloth under his hot plate. A lot of anger seems to have been shed with the role of duelist and, even though Nanami hits him, he seems mostly confused and worried about her. He even offers to cook her an egg.

While he keeps the slightly ambiguous presentation for camping out where he doesn't expect to be seen, Saionji does start taking on a role similar to Utena's early one as Touga draws him back into the duels. Utena never cared about the power to revolutionise the world. While it's not entirely that straightforward, she's been fighting for Anthy. As a result she's often been snarky as hell about it, able to see through some of the bullshit but not avoid it completely. A female prince, and therefore anomalous to Ohtori's systems, but still a prince, and therefore part of them.

Touga and Saionji also can't move outside Ohtori's systems. They meet on the student council balcony to discuss Touga's upcoming duel and letters from Ends of the World. Touga provides an ersatz car ride with his motorbike, following the pattern of the other duels deliberately. But, like Utena, Saionji now has enough distance to question the system even as he participates, and he's here solely for Touga's sake.

Like the other brides, Saionji is there to delve into his duelist's feelings and motivations, but he's not doing it to tempt or manipulate8. Touga needs to understand his own motivation if he's going to be effective -- it's the less metaphorical counterpart to pulling his sword. And they manage to leave Akio out of the process.

Touga takes Saionji more seriously in this role than he ever did as a rival. Feelings, especially his own feelings, are not Touga's area of expertise. He needs a bride by the nature of the duels and he needs a friend because he's in over his head. Saionji, for his part, seems content with being needed rather than being equal. In a way it's what he's always wanted.

Saionji drawing Touga's sword is animated with a real tenderness that both echoes Anthy drawing Utena's and contrasts Saionji drawing Anthy's, where his expression was angry and his focus on his opponent. It's fitting, in a way, that the pair that comes closest to what Utena and Anthy have is the other same sex couple9.

Saionji makes a good princess in the same way Utena makes a good prince -- although, unlike her, he'd certainly object if you told him that's what the role was. He's comfortable in it and it brings out mostly good things in him, letting him be insightful and supportive. It's a bad role in itself, though. Saionji doesn't need to fight for power over others, but he shouldn't let himself be completely passive and dependant, or rely on other people's goals to give him purpose.

Later, between Utena's victory over them and her final duel, we see Touga riding a bike across the balcony with Saionji on the back. Saionji seems more content with this than Touga, totally relaxed while Touga struggles to move forward providing motive force for them both. There's not much Saionji can do, though, even if he wanted to. Touga's bike has never been a tandem.

Maybe they should get one.

1I just pictured Dios on tumblr telling all the girls of the world they’re valid.

2Touga’s abuse backstory does a lot to explain his unchildlike reaction here. But even without that, Touga canonically shows less emotion when distressed until he dissociates altogether. He’s almost certainly more affected than Saionji thinks.

3Who drives is very important in Utena, and it’s Touga’s bike. Nanami has a picture of herself perched on the back, too.

4Only Utena and Touga frame themselves as aspiring princes. Saionji’s gender essentialism has a more Japanese flavour.

5Which is why Virtual Star Embryology becomes the new ending theme.

6And then complains about everything he did to be Saionji’s friend while in bed with Akio. Jerk.

7He's still wearing his student council uniform underneath, though, so he hasn't totally moved on yet.

8Although he probably gets some satisfaction out of brutal honesty.

9I wonder if this explains Ruka, since Juri and Shiori would have been another same sex couple either less effective or too early in the sequence.

[brucesterling]

*You want cyborgs?  We got ‘em!

https://danyaglabau.com/2018/09/07/cyborgs-cybernetics-syllabus/ by Danya Glabau In the fall 2018 semester, I am teaching a semester-long class on Cyborgs and Cybernetics at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. Due to popular demand, I’m sharing the reading list.   The course is taught as a 3000-level, writing intensive seminar. It meets twice a week for about 2 hours per session. Class sessions are discussion based, with short readings and videos often presented during class to supplement the readings and provoke conversation. Please feel free to treat it as a reference and as inspiration for developing your own courses. I do ask that you let me know if you use it in this way via email. Course description Feminist science studies scholar Donna Haraway writes: “By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are all cyborgs.” But what does it mean to say that we are all cyborgs? This class will explore the history and theory of cyborgs and cyborgs in the many domains in which they have been influential to offer some answers to that question. The class will begin with a dive into the history of cybernetics, a engineering and philosophical paradigm emerged as a way to solve critical engineering challenges during World War II. Cybernetics went on to have an outsized impact in the sciences, engineering, and the social sciences with the acceleration of the space race and the professionalization of scholarly life, influencing fields as varied as information science, management, bionics, anthropology, and biology. Cybernetics has had an equally lively afterlife in popular culture, where cyborgs have proliferated and anchored a variety of dystopian, utopian, and liberatory thinking. Throughout the later parts of the class, we will explore how cyborgs and cybernetics have been taken up as cultural resources by practitioners, artists, philosophers, and writers as aids for understanding, critiquing, and changing modern society. This is a writing intensive class. In addition to mastering content concerning cyborgs and cybernetics, students will be expected to carry out an independent research project on a topic of their choosing about cyborgs and/or cybernetics. Assignments and in-class activities will support students in conceptualizing, researching, writing, and revising this project, culminating in a final in-class presentation and final paper. Course readings and materials Week 1: Where are the Cyborgs in Cybernetics? Ronald Kline – Where are the Cyborgs in Cybernetics? N. Katherine Hayles – Toward Embodied Virtuality, from How We Became Posthuman British Institute of Posthuman Studies – PostHuman: An Introduction to Transhumanism [https://youtu.be/bTMS9y8OVuY] IN CLASS: Neil Harbisson – I Listen to Color IN CLASS: Moon Ribas – Earthbeat IN CLASS: Ursula K. Le Guin – A Rant About “Technology” [http://www.ursulakleguin.com/Note-Technology.html] IN CLASS: Transhumanism FAQ [https://whatistranshumanism.org/] IN CLASS: Jason Silva – Are We Decommissioning Evolution? [https://youtu.be/pUB4vPPpoqM] Week 2: The Human Use of Human Beings Norbert Wiener – The Human Use of Human Beings IN CLASS: Voder videos IN CLASS: Adam Curtis – “The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts,” from All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace [https://vimeo.com/groups/96331/videos/80799352 or https://youtu.be/I6vMt1_B2rk] Week 3: Cybernetics’ Beginnings Norbert Wiener – The Human Use of Human Beings Claude Shannon – Introduction, from The Mathematical Theory of Communication Warren Weaver – Some Recent Contributions to the Mathematical Theory of Communication W. Ross Ashby – Introduction, from An Introduction to Cybernetics IN CLASS: Charles and Ray Eames – A Communications Primer [https://youtu.be/byyQtGb3dvA] Week 4: Thinking (with) Machines Jessica Riskin – The Defecating Duck, or, the Ambiguous Origins of Artificial Life Alan Turing – Computing Machinery and Intelligence IN CLASS: Peter Bowes – Meet the Mechanical Turk, an 18th Century chess machine [https://www.bbc.com/news/av/magazine-21882456/meet-the-mechanical-turk-an-18th-century-chess-machine] IN CLASS: Bassam Tariq – Turking for a Living [https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/video-turking-for-respect]   IN CLASS: Battlestar Galactica (selections) IN CLASS: Star Trek Voyager (selections) Week 5: The Cybernetic Society Gregory Bateson – Steps Toward an Ecology of Mind Marilyn Strathern – Writing Anthropology, from Partial Connections Margaret Mead/Heinz von Foerster – Cybernetics of Cybernetics Week 6: Robocop Philip K. Dick – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Week 7: Gender Trouble Philip K. Dick – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Charles Hables Gray – MAN PLUS: Enhanced Cyborgs and the Construction of the Future Masculine Aaron Bady – You’ll Never See the Northern Lights[https://thenewinquiry.com/blog/youll-never-see-the-northern-lights/] IN CLASS: Blade Runner (selections) IN CLASS: Blade Runner 2046 (selections) Week 8: Cyborg Feminism (includes guest artists’ lecture) Donna Haraway – A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century Chela Sandoval – New Sciences: Cyborg Feminism and the Methodology of the Oppressed Week 9: Afrofuturism Rayvon Fouché – The Wretched of the Gulf: Racism, Technological Dramas, and Black Politics of Technology Octavia Butler – Blood Child Robin James – “Robo-Diva R&B”: Aesthetics, Politics, and Black Female Robots in Contemporary Popular Music IN CLASS: Black Panther (selections) IN CLASS: Janelle Monae – Dirty Computer (Emotion Picture) [https://youtu.be/jdH2Sy-BlNE] IN CLASS: Beyonce – Formation [https://youtu.be/WDZJPJV__bQ] IN CLASS: Childish Gambino – This Is America [https://youtu.be/VYOjWnS4cMY] Week 10: The Information Society Fred Turner – Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy: The WELL and the Origins of Virtual Community Benjamin Peters – The Soviet InterNyet – [https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-soviets-invented-the-internet-and-why-it-didn-t-work] Eden Medina – Designing Freedom, Regulating a Nation: Socialist Cybernetics in Allende’s Chile Slava Gerovitch – How the Computer Got Its Revenge on the Soviet Union [http://nautil.us/issue/23/dominoes/how-the-computer-got-its-revenge-on-the-soviet-union] IN CLASS: John Perry Barlow – A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace [https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence] IN CLASS: Hackers (film – selections) IN CLASS: AutoFac, from Electric Dreams Week 11: Cripborgs Mara Mills – On Disability and Cybernetics: Helen Keller, Norbert Wiener, and the Hearing Glove Norbert Wiener – Sound Communication with the Deaf Nelly Oudshoorn – Sustaining Cyborgs: Sensing and Tuning Agencies of Pacemakers and Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators IN CLASS: David Hill – Smart Gloves Turn Sign Language Gestures Into Vocalized Speech [https://www.forbes.com/sites/singularity/2012/09/20/smart-gloves-turn-sign-language-gestures-into-vocalized-speech/#29250de93c12] Week 12: Tryborgs Jillian Weise – The Dawn of the “Tryborg” [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/opinion/the-dawn-of-the-tryborg.html] IN CLASS: Neil Harbisson – I Listen to Color IN CLASS: Moon Ribas – Earthbeat Week 13: New Romance William Gibson – Neuromancer Week 14: Lift Off William Gibson – Neuromancer Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline – Cyborgs and Space NPR All Things Considered – In ‘Light Of The Stars,’ Adam Frank Studies Alien Worlds To Find Earth’s Fate [https://www.npr.org/2018/07/05/626300318/in-light-of-the-stars-adam-frank-studies-alien-worlds-to-find-earths-fate] Kent Bye/Voices of VR – #654: Indigenous Futurism & Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace with Jason Edward Lewis [http://voicesofvr.com/654-indigenous-futurism-aboriginal-territories-in-cyberspace-with-jason-edward-lewis/] Week 15: New Worlds

[sher-soc-the-famder]

YOOOOO MY FELLOW GAYS it me :p I’m baaaack with another set of conspiracy theories for @altruistic-skittles’ In Our DNA Because I love driving myself insane by thinking in circles XD

That and I’m determined to figure out the Macy Mystery(tm) before it’s revealed, it’s practically a matter of pride at this point XD I mean, I probably won’t but I’m having a blast piecing different hints and details together. Like Game theory, with about the same track record too!

ANYWAYS SPOILERS AND POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW :P

First to recap! From my last theory post

- Patton having emotional power (CONFIRMED!)

- Roman being Subject 89 (CONFIRMED!)

- Patton, Logan, and Macy (Still in the air, probably Jossed XD)

- Virgil’s history with Logan (Still in the air)

- The whole thing being a test (JOSSED)

...which is not to bad actually, huh. ANYWAYS I’m gonna be focusing on the biggest mystery at the moment: Macy so buckle up it’s about to get weird

To start off with we need to narrow down the list of suspects which goes thus:

Roman, Virgil, Logan, Patton, Damion, Ms. Spencer, Emile Picani, Remy, Hobo (yes I’m including the cat, I did say that it was going to get weird), and finally Macy herself!

Pleeeeease let me know if I missed any important characters! I’m not including the parents or Flora because the ages just don’t match up at all, and if I start trying to add them to this equation I really will go mad. 

ROMAN

I’m crossing Logan off this list off of one thing alone: the ships listed for this fic. XD Logince. Need I say more? No? No. Go get your man, Ro

PICANI AND REMY

I mean, they’re in the tags. They’re gonna show up at some point. However, I’m doubting the existence of a third sibling. Neither Patton nor Logan has mentioned the existence of one. Plus I’m inclined to think that Skittles has already introduced us to Macy, and is just making us all suffer at this point

MS. SPENCER

...ok I don’t actually think that Ms. Spencer could be Macy but I really, really wanted to point out that Damion disguises himself as her at least once. How else would a supposed elementary school teacher know that people would be after not only Patton but Roman as well? Why would she time her running into Virgil so suspiciously well that Virgil doesn’t meet Patton at the theater? She’s surprisingly gentle with Roman, whom Damion would know

Hence at least in the theater scene Ms. Spencer = Damion 

aaaaanyways moving on

HOBO

I mean at this point, the cat could be a person and I would not be surprised. Virgil even points this out himself, that the cat could be a mutant and following him around for some reason. The two year timeline is rather suspicious as well. I’m leaning Hobo = Remy at the moment but WHO KNOWS Hobo could be Macy XD (and believe me, the moment that cat makes a return I’m starting a whole new theory board for them)

DAMION

(First off, gdi, Damion adds a whole new layer to the Unreliable Narrator tag, Skittles I’m going to go mad XD)

Damion is not Macy but he’s definitely involved somehow. My current theory? He’s the kid that broke his arm and led to Logan being taken. Chapter 7 opens with a flashback of someone who’s broken their arm, and is met with icy blue eyes. Logan. They leave and then they return to reassure him that everything will be alright.

But

They do it softly, in a way that helps him catch his breath. Which sounds an awful lot like Patton to me. “It’s going to be okay”

So

Damion breaks his arm, Logan sees it and tells Patton, Patton heals Damion’s arm and leads to Logan being taken. Which is why Damion is looking out for them. They helped him out and in return, one got his mind twisted and the other got taken to a facility and experimented on for years.

(Also note the ambiguous pronouns I’m going to bring those back up)

Also Chapter 9, with Damion being disguised as a scientist and helping Roman and his mother escape, leads me to believe that all the files about subject 89 were corrupted and/or deleted by him

PATTON

Ah, the story that Skittles wants us all to believe, the most likely to be true shhhhh I’m in tin hat denial land right now, the red herring, the bright spotlight that Skittles wants us to pay attention to so that she can pull of her magic trick in the shadows

WELL I WILL NOT BE FOOLED

Patton may look just like Logan, Patton may be trans, Patton and Macy may both have hints at having healing powers, Patton’s mothers may have locked him up in order to keep him from being taken as well, Patton may have memory problems that point to Logan messing with his head, but look

...

...

The story of Patton being Macy goes as thus:

Patton/Macy (from here on known as Patcy) heals Damion’s broken arm and gets noticed by Dr. William. After a period of time, Logan notices that people are trying to take their sibling and alters people’s memories into thinking that it was him who healed the broken arm. They alter Patcy’s memories for...some reason, and Logan lets themself get taken to the facility in Patcy’s stead. Patcy’s mothers, lock them up to keep from losing another child. A few years later Pacty realizes their gender, Patton chooses his name, Roman saves him from his mothers and we hit the present day. Makes sense no?

W R O N G XD

There are a few details that stand out that this doesn’t answer: Patton’s bracelet and his habit of messing with it. Why Damion- disguised as Ms. Spencer- kept Patton and Virgil from meeting. Why did Logan need to erase Patton’s memories of him in the first place?

Patton as Macy makes the most sense and yet, when I think about it, it doesn’t feel right. I can’t shake the doubt and conviction that he’s not Macy

Which leaves us with Virgil or Logan

VIRGIL

I doubt Macy is Virgil.

There are a few things that could mean his is Macy: the fact that he’s gender fluid, the normal life he got to lead (s u p p o s e d l y there’s still the question of how he meet Logan, which means he isn’t all normal), Virgil’s family being connected to the facility somehow, the way that the two just click, that strange moment where Patton notes about two of his students looking alike but not being related, and Virgil insistence that Logan gets to live their life

And one other vague hint that Skittles has told me that I’m not sure I’m allowed to share that could swing as support or something to disprove Virgil = Macy I haven’t decided yet

But I don’t think he’s Macy. For a couple of reason. Logan claims that Macy would look like them, and it’s one of the few things that I trust. Virgil has an entire documented family history. Virgil has time based powers when Macy is connected to healing powers in some form. And then well

Moxiety is listed as one of the ships XD With the build up of Logan and Patton’s connection they have to be connected in some way which could make Moxiety a little,,, squicky depending on what that connection is. :p 

Which just leaves:

LOGAN

Yeah, you heard me. I think Logan is Macy. I know it’s probably not right but GDI I’m attached to the idea now that I have to lay my clones theory to rest, at least for now

Do I want it to be a complex conspiracy? Why yes, yes I do, I know it’s not likely but it’s fun to think about and I hope it amuses Skittles. Look I watch Game Theory for fun, I love MatPat but I doubt 90% of his theories are right XD They’re fun anyways. *coughs* I’m rambling back to my thoughts

I already established in my first theory post that I don’t think we can trust Logan completely about their own past. They erased something from it. The question is what? They remember Macy obviously, and taking her place.

And that’s what interests me the most. They took Macy’s place. The fist couple of files we see about them is a search for healing powers. Why? Why would they expect healing? I said family lines before but they clearly don’t show any knowledge of Logan having siblings until they slip up about Macy.

And then there’s the fact they couldn’t erase memories until they were about eleven. Which means that everything they did before that was alteration and not erasures. Whoever Patton was to Logan, they couldn’t have erased things completely, only changed them. And you know what’s interesting about that?

Patton’s comment about Damion

“He was almost like a brother to me”

That on top of Damion trying to keep Royality separate from Analogical, it makes me think that things are going on. Things(tm)

So the Logan as Macy story goes as thus:

There was a pair of twins, both of them female. One heals people with the touch of her hands, and the other can dip into their memories like a pool. One day they meet a boy who’s broken his arm. The one who can heal gets caught healing him.

They’re young, they don’t know what to do. Her sister panics, and refusing to let her sister get taken, swaps both of them. She writes away her existence from her sister’s mind, filling in the gaps with the boy they had helped or just plain emptiness. And then, to make sure that they cannot find her sister, she changes her own mind, putting herself in the place of her sister.

Macy guarantees her sister’s freedom by making sure that they’ll never learn the proper name and information about her. But she keeps the idea of her sister close, to take with her. And leaves her sister a bracelet, maybe not to remember her by, but as a hope that maybe one day they’ll meet again

The only thing I can’t figure out is the whole gender issue, which I figured Damion would help Logan hide but IDk about the rest BUT COME ON The rest of it makes sense!! 

So I stand by Logan is Macy XD

Though it still leaves

MACY

There are two options with this. Macy is simply herself, and Patton is himself, a coincidence that everyone built up. Or Macy doesn’t exist. And was simply someone Logan imagined in order to help him cope. Neither of which are likely at all 

BUT STILL POSSIBILITIES

ANYWAYS thanks for joining me in tin foil hat land again XD I hope y’all are enjoying this fic as much as I am and SKITTLES I’m excite for where you take it no matter where it goes!!

Keep up the good work and have an awesome day! <3

[fictional-redheads]

Tropes of Toxic Masculinity in the Male “Heroes” of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

“It's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true. The bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day.” Rupert Giles says this faciously to his charge, Buffy Summers, at her request for him to lie to her about how easy her life as a slayer will one day come to be, in the seventh episode of the second season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fittingly titled “Lie to Me.” The term “guys” in this context, by the time the episode was written and premiered in 1997, was meant and understood to be gender neutral, but put into the larger context of the series as a whole could easily be limited to “guys” in the traditional, masculine sense. In Buffy, it is men’s actions that are most often morally ambiguous, with few exceptions. Even more, it is the men who fight beside Buffy in the battle against evil whose actions hurt her the worst, Giles included. Each of the male “heroes” in Buffy the Vampire Slayer illustrate the different shades and extremes of toxic masculinity by exemplifying an inherently flawed trope. Each of them, in accordance with their corresponding trope, take choices away from Buffy and cause lasting psychological damage with ranging degrees of acknowledgement from both her and/or the narrative. In this paper, I am going to scrutinize the three who were introduced early on and stayed through to fight the final battle alongside Buffy: Giles, Spike, and Xander.

Let’s start with the character that has been previously mentioned, Rupert Giles, typically referred to by both characters and fans alike simply as “Giles.” Giles is introduced in the pilot episode, titled “Welcome to the Hellmouth,” as a “Watcher” for Buffy (see figure 1). He has been assigned to her by the Watcher’s Council, an age-old organization dedicated to the elimination of vampires and demons from the Earth, to prepare and assist her in the fight against evil-essentially being the brains to her brawn. As the series goes on, however, Giles’ role in Buffy’s life transitions from that of detached supervisor and is built up to fulfill that of the Father Figure trope. Buffy’s own father is divorced from her mother and is never seen again in a non-dream sequence after his second-time appearance in the premiere episode of the second season. The creator of the series, Joss Whedon, admitted in an interview with the New York Times that this phase out had a relevant purpose: “It’s true that Buffy’s father started out as just a divorced dad and then turned into this sort of "evil pariah" figure of not even bothering to show up, and that was simply because we had a father figure in Giles…”

Giles’ attachment to Buffy as a surrogate child rather than simply as his trainee arguably first gets shown to the viewer in the season 1 finale entitled “Prophecy Girl.” Giles has come across a prophecy that predicts her death at the hands of the current Big Bad, the Master, and Buffy overhears him telling her love interest Angel about it so that they may form a plan without her. “Read me the signs! Tell me my fortune!” she yells, throwing his books at him (see figure 2). Buffy’s knowledge of her destiny since the pilot has been filtered through Giles, who struggles to serve his dual roles of both Watcher and father figure. In his role as the latter, he withholds information from her that he learned in his service to her as the former, and acts on his own instead in order to protect her. This will be the crux of their relationship throughout the series, and feminist scholar Gwyneth Bodger feels it is emblematic of a larger issue,

Indeed, he acts as a substitute father for Buffy, and it is here I would argue that the series departs from a feminist ideology. As a powerful figure in the series, Buffy has the potential to become the figure of the unruly or disorderly woman. In order to prevent this, she must be "owned"; her power must be channeled and controlled by a man, in this case, a father figure..

Fast forward to season three, and Giles’ role as father figure becomes explicitly textual in two episodes in particular: episode six, “Band Candy,” and episode twelve, “Helpless.” In “Band Candy”, Buffy returns home from visiting Angel to find Giles and her mother, Joyce, angry that she lied to them both that she would be with the other, rather than Angel. The mise-en-scené clearly indicates that Giles and Joyce are a united front in the way any functioning pair of parents would be (see figure 3). Later, in the same episode, having been placed under the influence of magical chocolate bars that revert them back to their teenage personalities, the two sleep together. In doing so, Giles-if only temporarily; this is the only time that he and Joyce sleep together-officially takes over all “fatherly” duties in the Summers household. Buffy is disgusted when she finds out they had sex, but only to the extent any teenager would be to discover their parents’ sex life.

In “Helpless,” just as Buffy’s birth father betrays her by missing her birthday, Giles betrays her by removing her powers for a Watcher’s Council ordered test that has historically been conducted if a slayer reaches her eighteenth birthday. Even more devastatingly, he does so right after Buffy asks him if he would like to take her father’s place in their now broken birthday tradition. He soon comes to his senses when Buffy is nearly killed by the vampire who escaped the Council’s control, but it’s far from enough to immediately salvage their relationship. “You poisoned me!” she cries, wrenching her arm from his pleading grasp, “I don’t even know you.” It is only when he arrives to help Buffy save her mother from the same vampire as earlier, and the head Watcher points out what makes Buffy and Giles’ relationship unique - “Your affection for your charge has rendered you incapable of clear and impartial judgment. You have a father's love for the child, and that is useless to the cause.” - that fences are mended, symbolically shown by Buffy allowing Giles to help clean her wounds (see figure 4). His role as father figure has been reinstated, as well as reinforced. In the same swoop, Giles is kicked out of the patriarchal Watcher’s Council, which as Buffy scholar Ian Martin puts forth in his video guide for the episode, “is symbolic of him no longer being a contributing member of the patriarchy. He disobeyed a direct order. He broke with tradition.” However, it is Martin’s next words that are haunting: “While they have appeared to have reconciled by the end of the episode, Giles’ betrayal represents a sobering loss of innocence here for Buffy, tied to her actual father ditching her at the beginning of the episode.”

The next two seasons primarily serves to build their relationship further, but are not without their caveats. In the ninth episode of season four, while Buffy is under a spell that compels her to be engaged with her tenuous ally Spike, she asks Giles if he would walk her down the aisle. Initially Giles is touched by her request, but after a moment snaps back into the reality of the situation and dismisses it, hurting Buffy in the process. In the sixteenth episode of season five, when Joyce dies from an aneurysm, it’s Giles that Buffy leans on for support. In the eighteenth episode, Buffy tells Giles “I love you,” for the first time. However, by the next episode, Giles becomes concerned that Buffy is coming to depend on him too much, to her own detriment, and begins to withdraw. Yet, if Giles were to listen to and respect what Buffy was saying, he would realize that’s not what she needed. Joyce’s passing heaped even more responsibility on her shoulders-raising her little sister Dawn and maintaining a house-so what she needed was someone to share the responsibility she was drowning under with someone she trusted and looked up to. Someone like a father figure.

This dilemma would be picked up mid-season six, after Buffy’s friends had wrenched her out of heaven and back to a “loud and violent” life. In an episode filled with stylistic exhibitionism, “Once More with Feeling,” Giles sings a song that betrays his feelings on the matter: “I wish I could say the right words to lead you through this land, Wish I could play the father and take you by the hand, Wish I could stay, But now I understand, I'm standing in the way.” At the end of the following episode, he departs to England for the rest of the season, leaving Buffy to fight her growing depression and duties alone.

Giles returns at the end of season six and mostly remains for the rest of the series, but enacts one last, glaring betrayal. In the seventeenth episode of season seven, appropriately entitled “Lies My Parents Told Me,” he distracts Buffy while elsewhere one of their new allies attempts to kill Spike, who since “Something Blue” Buffy has grown to trust and have complicated feelings for. It’s the equivalent of a shotgun-toting father facing off against their daughter’s new boyfriend, only Giles would have gone through with it. Giles also has a rather misogynistic outlook on Buffy’s motivations, believing that Buffy’s protection of Spike must be driven by her emotions despite her logical insistence that after her Spike is the best warrior they have on their side. Buffy realizes what Giles is doing, the assassination attempt fails, and Buffy literally shuts the door on Giles in her life as a father figure as she says, “I think you’ve taught me everything I need to know” (see figure 5). Buffy no longer wants or needs Giles to lie to her, regardless of the place of fatherly love those lies stem from.

Spike, of course, is far from innocent either. For the sake of brevity-Spike has more academia written about him than any other character in the series minus Buffy herself- I will be focusing on Spike’s place in the fifth and sixth seasons in which he fulfills the trope of “The Suitor.” The fifth season is when Spike really becomes a part of Buffy’s team and starts to get close enough to her that he can hurt her emotionally, when previously all they were presented as feeling for each other was animosity. He realizes that he’s in love with her at the end of the fourth episode of that season, and so his role as The Suitor begins.

Spike, formerly known to human society as William Pratt, was turned into a vampire in Victorian England in 1880 at 27 years old. The ways in which Spike goes about trying to earn Buffy’s affections throughout season five parallel a twisted version of the courtly love sensibilities that would have been popular when he was turned, even if the term itself had not yet been coined. In her scholarly article, “‘Ain’t Love Grand?’ Spike and Courtly Love,” Victoria Spah outlines and describes exactly what this means:

The term "Courtly Love" is used to describe a certain kind of relationship common in romantic medieval literature. The knight/lover finds himself desperately and piteously enamored of a divinely beautiful but unobtainable [sic] woman. After a period of distressed introspection, he offers himself as her faithful servant and goes forth to perform brave deeds in her honor. His desire to impress her and to be found worthy of her gradually transforms and ennobles him; his sufferings—inner turmoil, doubts as to the lady's care of him, as well as physical travails—ultimately lends him wisdom, patience, and virtue and his acts themselves worldly renown… Like any intricate allusion, references to the various pertinent aspects of the mythos (which itself has no definitive version) are woven subtly throughout without heavy-handed complete correspondence. Spike and Buffy are after all modern characters and as such must retain the psychological depth lacking in medieval stock characters, and thus their story is not informed solely by the Courtly Love tradition. The correspondence, ironic and teasing at times, straight-forward at others, is however quite fascinating and worth further examination.

The first stage of courtly love is, “Attraction to the lady, usually via eyes/glance.” The actor who played Spike, James Marsters, has stated in multiple interviews over the years that, “As an actor, I right away played an attraction to Buffy.” In his first episode, “School Hard,” Spike stalks Buffy, watching her dance at the Bronze and then having her fights secretly videotaped so that he can study her moves (see figure 6). Even these early scenes have, as Marsters himself admits, “a heavy sexual undercurrent.” The watching of the videotapes in particular is inherently voyeuristic, and presents a modern take on how “glance” and gaze has changed since the middle ages.

Getting back to the focus on season five, the second stage is, “Worship of the lady from afar.” After Spike realizes he’s in love with Buffy, it quickly turns into an obsession. He lingers outside Buffy’s house, chain smoking cigarettes and watching at her bedroom window. He sniffs her sweaters when she isn't home. He rehearses conversations with her on a look-a-like mannequin that rapidly turn violent when he anticipates her rejections. He even has a “Buffy shrine” dedicated to her, filled with pictures and sketches of her, her sweater that he stole after he sniffed it, a bloody gauze that was used to bandage a severe stab wound she recently got, and multiple of her stakes. Buffy is disgusted and horrified by this when she comes across it in the episode “Crush.” Her keen sense of violation is made clear when she punches Spike across the room and into the shrine, destroying it (see figure 7). It’s a beat that summarizes the worst of their relationship in these two seasons in a single snapshot: Spike sees Buffy as an object of worship that with enough prodding he can bring down to his level, but Buffy destroys that dream every time.

The episode “Crush” is a major one for their relationship, as it is when Spike reveals his feelings to her for the first time in accordance with the third stage, “Declaration of passionate devotion,” as well as the fourth stage, “Virtuous rejection by the lady.” Spike makes these declarations twice in this episode, but after Buffy rejects him the first time he makes the second one bigger, grander. He chains her up while she’s unconscious and makes an oath to either stake his sire/ex to prove his love for her, or let his ex kill her if she doesn’t admit to feeling something in return. He’s performing, putting on a show in anticipation of completion of the fourth stage. Even he knows that doing this is not the way to get Buffy to change her mind from her previous refusal. He’s taken it upon himself to move her from passive object of desire to active participant in the courtly ritual. It’s another example of him violating her agency and sense of self.

After this episode, Spike takes a turn for the better for the rest of the season. He does one last disgusting, literally objectifying thing-having a likeness of Buffy made in the form of a sex robot-but before the end of that same episode is willing to be tortured and killed before he would give up information that would lead to Dawn’s death. Spike proves with word and action multiple times before the season ends that he would be willing to die for Buffy, thus completing the fifth stage, “Renewed wooing with oaths of virtue and eternal featy.” For his trouble, Spike earns the knightly favor of exactly one kiss from Buffy before she dies in the season finale, arguably completing the sixth stage, “Heroic deeds of valor which win the lady’s heart.” However, it is worth noting that with that kiss, Spike’s redemption, or lack thereof, officially becomes yet another of Buffy’s responsibilities.

Spike’s role as “The Suitor” shifts in season six, after Buffy comes back from the dead. Courtly love has been completed, but not to any great satisfaction for him: Buffy still doesn’t love him. Per her depression, she doesn’t feel like she can love anyone, let alone a vampire without a soul regardless of his recent good deeds. Every sexual advancement that occurs between them stems from Buffy’s pain-of being torn out of heaven, of depression, of Giles leaving. Their sexual relationship for her is a form of self-harm. On Spike’s side, the first time they have sex is after they realize that Spike can hit her again, despite the government chip in his head that prevents him from hurting people. Courtly love is inherently aspirational, about being devoted to a woman who is unquestionably above you. When Spike’s ability to hit Buffy returns, Spike sees them returned to the equal playing field they had before he fell in love with her, and so turns into an abusive boyfriend kind of suitor rather than the virtuous knight he strived to be previously. Not only does he abuse her physically, but he also equips the classic abuse tactic of attempting to separate the victim from their loved ones, telling her that she belongs in the dark with him instead of dancing in the light with her friends (see figure 8). This all culminates in the nineteenth episode of season six, “Seeing Red,” in which Spike attempts the ultimate betrayal and taking away of a woman’s choice: trying to rape Buffy.

Spike goes to Buffy’s house after she’s put an end to their sexual relationship to try to get her back, while Buffy has been put through an ordeal that significantly weakens her. He forces himself on her despite her protests in the hopes of “getting her to feel it [love for him],” and then snaps out of it, disgusted with himself, when she manages to kick him off. As Buffy scholar Lani Diane Rich puts it in her video about the episode, “Spike is horrified by his own behavior and that’s good, he should be, but it doesn’t do anything to mitigate Buffy’s experience here...the shock and horror of that experience is something you carry with you always.”

Spike’s self-disgust leads him to a cave in Africa, where he endures a series of trials to earn, the viewer is led to believe, his greatest wish: the chip out of his head. In a moment of narrative spectacle in the season finale, however, the viewer is shocked to learn that it’s not the ability to hunt humans again that is Spike’s greatest wish (see figure 9). It’s getting his soul back, so he can, as he puts it, “give Buffy what she deserves.” In the established mythology of the series, the souled and unsouled versions of an individual are in many ways separate entities, with individual desires. Spike fighting for and earning his soul is akin to committing suicide so that a better version of him, a version more genuinely selfless and caring of Buffy’s needs, may rise from the ashes. The Suitor, both knightlike and abusive, is dead.

There’s a male character left in Buffy’s life who doesn’t face the consequences of his toxic actions the way Giles and Spike do: Xander Harris, the Best Friend. To be more specific, the “friendzoned” best friend, particularly in the first two seasons. When the viewer is introduced to Xander in the first episode in the series, it is immediately made apparent that he has a crush on Buffy, and equally made apparent she doesn’t reciprocate through her budding attraction to Angel. Yet, Xander continues to go forward with his feelings anyway. In S. Renee Dechert’s essay, “‘My Boyfriend’s in the Band!’ Buffy and the Rhetoric of Music,” Dechert describes a fantasy Xander has in the fourth episode,

As Xander dusts a troublesome vamp at the Bronze, an enraptured Buffy watches. After the fight, she exclaims, “You hurt your hand! Will you still be able to…?” “Finish my solo, and kiss you like you’ve never been kissed before?”... Then he jumps onstage and whips out a Hendrixesque guitar solo while an awed Buffy looks up at him. (The camera angle further empowers Xander here, shooting up at him as he stands above the crowd, the light outlining his phallic guitar and empowered-and fashionably dressed-body.) (see figure 10)

To Xander, the perfect fantasy is him being the empowered in their relationship in all masculine senses of the word-most relevantly, being the only man in Buffy’s eyes.

In the sixth episode, when he is possessed by the spirit of a hyena, his feelings are twisted into an animalistic form that prompts him to sexually assault Buffy. After the spirit has been removed from him, he pretends that he doesn’t remember his experiences while he was possessed, and Buffy never finds out he’s lying. In the first season finale, when he works up the courage to finally ask her out and she gently rebuffs him, he lashes out, “I guess a guy’s gotta be undead to make time with you,” but the narrative makes clear we are supposed to empathize and pity him for it, not resent him. In season two, in the episode “Surprise,” Xander details a whole revenge fantasy in which Buffy gets her heart broken by Angel, only to be saved by Xander. Again, it’s played off as a joke. Three episodes later, Xander uses magic to make his ex infatuated with him so he can reject and humiliate her, but it backfires by having all the women of Sunnydale, including Buffy, be infatuated with him instead. The narrative actually has Buffy earnestly thank Xander for having the “strength” and “self-control” not to rape her. Finally, in the season two finale, Xander is sent by the rest of the Scoobies to tell Buffy on her way to fight a now soulless Angel that Willow has discovered a way to restore Angel’s soul. Yet, he takes it upon himself to instead tell Buffy to “kick his ass,” giving Buffy no hope of any alternative to killing the man she loved. In the scholarly article, “‘Jimmy Olsen jokes are pretty much lost on you’: The Importance of Xander in Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” the author presents a perspective I’ve never before considered, “Xander doesn’t deliver the message in favor of disseminating more violence… Angelus was very powerful, but Xander decided that Angel’s death was more important than Buffy’s safety.” It’s the peak of male entitlement-the death of the competitor is more important than the physical and emotional wellbeing of the woman sworn to be the beloved.

Willow does restore Angel’s soul, just a moment too late, and Buffy is traumatized by having to kill the man she loves while he is the man she loves. If Xander had told her the truth, that information could have spared her from that. His role in Buffy’s trauma only gets brought up one time, five seasons later, and even then goes barely acknowledged (see figure 11). So why does Xander get to go scot-free from consequences? Cast and fans alike have posited that it’s because he’s a self insert for Joss Whedon himself.

For years, Buffy creator Joss Whedon was hailed by nerd culture as one of the leading male feminists in Hollywood. Then it was confirmed that he seemed to fire one of the actresses on the Buffy spinoff, Angel, for getting pregnant. Then Avengers: Age of Ultron got released, which featured an unfortunate scene in which Black Widow refers to herself as a “monster” because she is infertile. Then his misogynistic, stereotypical Wonder Woman script got leaked. Then his ex-wife published a letter condemning his years of infidelity and emotional abuse. And then, and then, and then. Just like Buffy experienced, oftentimes it is those who fight besides us, the ones who we feel we can trust, that hurt us the most. Perhaps our believing this time would be different was just our desire to be lied to.

@andieb4650