#and it's... very easy to lose that and just become straightforwardly bad

[tyrannuspitch]

hmm okay. thoughts.

i enjoyed it! but they’re trying to do a lot at once and it’s not entirely... coherent? lots of pieces that don’t quite fit. i mean to be fair (gestures to the state of the world) but still... slightly unsatisfactory. and just a bit too wacky all round. like they’re trying to compensate? ://

(the time jump might be part of the problem, i know they like to keep up with real time but. hm.)

everything abt jerry felt insensitive. i know the entire premise of the show is insensitive but... :/

similarly... hi writers yes hello i like your drama with about ten caveats but i do not want to hear your Actual Opinion on the police system. no one does. it’s not going to be good. that one scene in fear response was embarrassing enough

also wish we’d had more ainsley but i guess they might be keeping us waiting deliberately... i like the idea that she doesn’t know she did it, i rlly hope that’s what’s happening

otherwise! i like how dani can tell Something’s up and i like how ainsley seems like she doesn’t even care what’s happened. like, she’s either chill with murdering people, or with malcolm murdering people, or just... completely out of it on unprecedented levels. any of those could become v interesting character-wise

the conversation at the end was good. martin still doesn’t see ainsley as an equal and that will come back to haunt him. and whatever malcolm’s done... okay. so i’m not convinced by the thrill thing - we know malcolm is reckless but we also know he’s constantly walking the line, bc he’s obsessed with not crossing it but he regularly gets close, and i don’t think he’s going to just start ignoring it now - but the more basic idea of knowing something indescribable that most people don’t, of your perspective changing from having been through that, and of feeling like you’re now undeniably One Of Them (not that i think us/them is even a good mindset for this)... that’s interesting. i hope they go deeper with that

and malcolm’s definitely still grappling with that. like... trying it on, almost. testing his sense of identity? kind of embarrassing like he rlly sees any serial killer or witness and goes “is this a therapist” BUT seeing him go “i could be a killer” and trying to work out if he believes himself... interesting. but again, i hope we get to see that go deeper

oh also. pretty sure that the handshake at the end is the first time malcolm and martin have touched... god idek. maybe since the arrest??? (not counting the stabbing of course) (and they weren’t touching during the arrest itself, so it could be as long ago as the camping trip... could even literally be martin trying to get malcolm to stab someone... no i’m not letting this go)

[problematicfavesareproblematic]

The Inherent Risks of Loving a Wild Man

Bill Guarnere x Reader

Summary: Word about Bill Guarnere and the NCOs going to Sink reaches you, but by the time you hear it’s been so muddled with misinformation that you think he’s dead. After hearing another person saying that he’s alive, you are let with the awful task of waiting....

Warnings: no-no words (it’s hbo/war, kids. people gonna curse), allusions to sexy times, some vv lite sexy times™, angst (kinda)

~

William Guarnere was a dead man- that much you knew for sure.

The only thing you weren't sure of? 

If he was going to die by Sink’s hand or yours.

Sink, you thought ruefully to yourself, throat feeling tight again as you had an intrusive mental image of Bill crumpling to the ground after the crack of a gun. Sink has no other choice, his hands are tied.

For probably the fiftieth time that evening, you walked over to the window in the in-law unit attached to the side of the house you’d been assigned to in England. You knew better than to expect any of the NCOs to go out of their way to tell you, not with the strict curfew Sobel has imposed on them after the idiot himself led Easy astray during a training exercise.

The grandfather of the family you were staying with had told you about it in passing after coming across Dick and some others after his morning bike ride. You’d tried not to openly criticize Sobel, but when the old man mentioned a flustered soldier yelling “high-oh silver!” as he arrived late (and from the wrong direction), you hadn’t been able to hide your scowl.

“He’s going to get us killed.” Bill had grumbled to you a few days ago, after telling you about yet another catastrophic day of training. “I swear to god, Y/n, that cow-eyed bastard couldn’t find his own dick in a well-lit room—”

“I get the picture, Bill. Please don’t ever make me think about Sobel’s dick ever again.”

He’d chuckled at that, pinning your arms above your head and looking down at you with a smug grin.

“I’m awful sorry about that, Miss Y/L/N. Let me make it up to you?”

He’d kissed the air from your lungs then, and any thoughts of Sobel or death were put on the back burner….

It just seemed horribly ironic now- Sobel really was going to be the thing that gets him killed, it just hadn’t happened as straightforwardly as youd anticipated.

Headlights suddenly blind you, and your blood runs cold as you recognize it as one of the airborne’s Jeeps.

It must be Nixon, he’d tell me. Whether i want to actually hear it or not.

Your throat feels tight as the truck pulls to a stop by the front garden, and you don’t realize you’ve been holding your breath until the figure that exits the car forgoes the direct footpath through the family’s garden, instead walking straight towards your window.

There’s only one person who does that, did that….

Throwing your window open, you stand on the desk beneath it and crawl out gracelessly, your limbs feeling disconnected from your body as you try to squash the painful hope trying to bubble in your chest.

The man stalks up to you, the light coming from your room illuminating the handsome, sharp, and perfectly alive face of Bill fucking Guarnere.

“Cara mia.”

He’s raised his hands to hold your face in his typical greeting kiss, that stupid grin bright on his face- as if he hadn’t been dead in your mind up until a few milliseconds ago. 

So, it was to be you to kill him. Okay then.

You clapped him across the face, palm stinging as you watched his head snap to the side. In the low light, you could see a pink handprint on his cheek and feel a little bad for hitting him so hard.

Then you remember why you’d hit him in the first place, and you get over it.

“What in the actual fuck were you thinking, pulling that shit?” 

Your voice is as sharp as your slap, slightly wavering as tears began to cloud your eyes.

“How could you even think about doing something so stupid, and not even bother to let me know…..and you don’t even say ‘goodbye’?” 

He said nothing, his face still turned away and his jaw working as you tried your very best not to yell and wake everyone in the main house up.

You then surprise the both of you by bursting into tears, throwing your arms around his neck and sobbing so hard you forget to breathe.

His arms are quick to wrap around you, pulling you impossibly close and nosing affectionately by your ear.

“Hey, don’t cry….oh darlin’, please don’t cry,” the rumble of his voice only makes you cry harder, the sound so comforting and warm and essential, and for four horrible hours you’d tried to wrap your head around the fact that the man you loved was dead and you’d never get to hear that perfect voice again.

“I’m sorry, Y/n. I didn’t mean to make you cry—”

You pull away, glaring at him tearfully. “No? What part of you either leaving the airborne- and not telling me, or getting executed for mutiny- without bothering to say anything…..What part of either of those things breaking my fucking heart are you not getting, you stupid fucking idiot?”

You shake your head, only stopping when he unwraps his arms from around you and takes your face in his hands (as he’d intended to before you smacked him).

“Did you even think about what that would do to your mother? Or your father, for that matter—?”

“I’m sorry.” he interrupts you, and when you frown at him he sighs anxiously. “Fuck, baby….”

Seeing that you weren’t going to easily forgive him, Bill wipes at your tears with his thumbs and looks at you sadly.

After standing in tense silence for a few moments, Bill pulls you into another embrace- hands hot through the material of your thermal pajama top.

“I love you.” he mumbles.

A mournful scoff escapes your throat, and he squeezes you tighter.

“Hey, listen to me...” he turns his head so he can look you in the face. Your eyes showed your doubt, and you watched as he seemed to understand just how deeply he’d hurt you.

It was uncommon for either of you to voice your affection for the other and not get an immediate echoing response, the both of you having abandoned any sort of stoicism for the other during your time in one of the Carolinas.

His dark eyes are swirling with deep regret, and you don’t think you’ve ever actually seen him remorseful before. It was heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time, seeing one of the cockiest men you knew looking at you as if you held the key to his happiness. His heart.

“I. Love. You.”

You close your eyes as he repeats the sentiment, unable to bear his intense look without wanting to start crying all over again.

“I didn’t think….well,” he cuts himself off, and when you peek at him you see that he’s nodding to himself. “Nah, that’s it. I just didn’t think. I just did because—”

“I’m not mad that you refused to follow an absolute moron into war...” you interrupt, watching as his brows furrow in confusion. You bring a hand up to wipe at the sticky tears drying on your cheeks. “Bill….losing you will kill me.”

He’s shaking his head now, whispering your name harshly. “Don’t say that—”

“I have to say it because it’s the truth. And if you love me a fraction as much as i love you, you probably already know that.”

With a tired sigh you bring your hands up to rub at his chilled ears, the cold air making your breath fog between you as you speak.

“But, I also know the reality of what’s about to happen- and I’ve made my peace with it as much as I can—” “Cara mia—”

“—because i know that i’ll at least get to see you once before we drop, before all the shit hits the fan, and I’ll get to tell you I love you..... and that if by some miracle we do both make it I’m going to marry you and then we’ll never have to do anything like this again.

“But you almost took that from me.” You swallow your sadness and rest your forehead against his. “Jesus, William….”

He kisses you sweetly, and you know he can also taste the salt of your tears as he does so. Bill’s hands are running up and down your back, following paths and trails he’d first mapped with his fingers the morning after the two of you had slept together the first time.

“Say it back,” he whispers between kisses. “I need to hear you say it back—”

“I love you.”

His hands suddenly stop, and he pulls back to look you over with a furrowed brow.

“Oh shit, darlin’, you’re barely wearing anything!” With commanding hands he turns you around and starts to march you back to your window. You had forgotten that you were just in your pajamas, feet still bare on the chilled ground.

When you climbed in he followed with silent movements, barely getting the window latched before he shirks off his outer few layers and is embracing you again, torso warm and inviting when you held him again.

“I’m gonna be pissed if you get sick, you know that right?”

He’s teasing you again, but his voice still is soft from emotion.

You smile and press a kiss to his cheek. “Yeah, Bill. I know….”

He turns his head before your next kiss lands on his cheek, resuming the sweet kiss from outside.

When you nibble at his bottom lip he groans softly, one hand knotting in your hair while the other one slid down to your backside and kneaded the supple flesh of your bottom with a hungry grip.

“You want some more, baby?” Bill’s voice has taken on a rough quality that never failed to make your heart beat faster and your stomach to curl sweetly. “Want me to show you how sorry I am?”

You shut him up with a kiss, knowing from experience that once Bill got talking like this there was only so much you could take before becoming a flustered and needy mess.

Bill takes the hint, only breaking away from you to quickly pull your shirt over your head before ducking right back in. the material of his button up is rough against your bare nipples, the peaks harder than stone ever since you’d first stepped out into the chilly night air.

His hands drew goosebumps across your back as he brushed his fingers up and down your spine, worshipping you in such a way that made all your teenage years of self-consciousness seem preposterous in hindsight.

“Fucking goddess,” he’d proclaimed once between hot open mouth kisses across your collarbones after you’d both come down from your third orgasm of the night. “If I had my way, you’d never have to cover a single goddamned inch of your body from me. Could fucking taste you whenever i wanted…”

When your hand cups him through his pants he hisses, laughing headily into your mouth.

“I’m still mad at you.” you say, pulling back so you can watch his face scrunch up attractively as you massage his stiffness.

He nods, eyes closed  as his jaw goes slack. You can’t help but feel somewhat smug at being able to elicit such a reaction from such a fiery man.

“Thought I was ‘sposed ta be taking care of you, darlin’....”

You hum, walking him backwards so the back of his knees hit your mattress. 

“Maybe I want you to suffer a little bit,” you offer as you press on his shoulder to make him sit down before you. He looks up at you, eyes heavy and breathing rough.

There’s now a clear handprint on his cheek from where you slapped him, and some flicker of sadness must show in your eyes because one of the hands that had begun tugging your pajama bottoms down your legs comes up to take the hand you’d hit him with and he kisses at your fingers sweetly.

“I’m okay with some sufferin’, ‘s long as you’re the one dealin’ it.”

You fist his hair and duck down to kiss him urgently, letting him help you step from the clothes around your ankles so you can straddle his lap. 

“C’mon, baby….I can take it.”

You respond by craning his head back and placing biting kisses down his throat.

Because as wild as Bill Guarnere was, you were still the one who’d tamed him.

And he wouldn’t just do that for anyone.

You were going to be sure he remembered that.

Even if it took all night.

(Hey kids, wrote this while trying to get through writers block a little bittle ago, and there is a part 2, so holler at ya girl if yall’er (: interested ok thank your bye)

(ALSO! I saw someone else describe Sobel as ‘cow-eyed’ in a different fic. I’m trying to find it so I can give the author credit (bc it’s a perfect description!), but if any of you guys know which one i’m talking about just dm me and i’ll link it!)

(ALSO PART TWO: let me know if you’re interested in being tagged on any future garbage I write!)

[light-of-being]

a very fkin long and incomplete exposition of my flaws as a human being

I've not really spoken about the probably most consequential event in my recent life (the ending of a long term relationship), and that's because I haven't really thought about it very much. At least, not in a clear-headed space not entirely filled with rage, fear, or initially, longing. So, I've mostly just been waiting for the intensity of those responses to wear out before I can go back and make sense of things in a sorta 'safe' way.

(These days it's mostly anger and/or hurt. Sometimes twinges of hatred, but those fizzle quickly. I know that attitude isn't 'true'. I tried to hate him, I really did. Things would be so much simpler that way — an obvious villain of pure evil, a mistake worthy of contempt. Put him behind me as someone I regret meeting and consider everything only as a flashing warning sign of what to avoid next time. But real life never is that easy, is it.)

Regardless, reading about miscellaneous psychological ~stuff, I realised that I know for sure now that there are sides of me that only come out in a close relationship, as they postulate. It's unfortunate that my exposure to this was only in such a toxic environment, and I'm not sure if or when closeness has any chance of happening again.

I suspect, based on what I have/haven't felt with him vs others, that I can (at least at this stage of my development) only really feel 'seen' by an antisocial/narcissist/schizoid (or something in that general direction), just hope to god it's a mature one next time. I might want to interrogate and possibly change that fact, I'm not sure it's at all a healthily arrived preference. But...

there is a degree of normalcy and social belonging in others that becomes a wall

I can relate superficially, cognitively and even 'deeply personally' (tho is all y'all's deeply personal shit necessarily relational?), have a good time and even feel 'connection' but there are parts that seem simply insurmountable.

The lack of relating to many things is the unifying factor between me and the specified groups: the shared experience of not having shared experiences

But yet, a more acute awareness of superficiality, and the drives and mechanics of human interactions, attitudes, identity and constructs, not taken for granted as default but built from the ground up (Most often out of either necessity or a desire to manipulate them, but still).

Actually, most straightforwardly, the shared experience of experiencing oneself as an outsider to society — whether people personally, accepted norms or expected attitudes towards self and other.*

Anyway, that was a whole semi-tangent I went off on (useful and relevant to the initial thought but not the point I was planning on).

Important point was...ah yes, insights!

...into how I behave under genuine relational circumstances. Due to aforementioned toxicity, I'm not sure how generalisable they are to relationships overall, but they should generalise to feeling-states.

1.

(a) Fear. Defensiveness.

Switches off my brain. Obvious? No. I have been actively strategic while having a gun pointed at me. I thought I had that down. Turns out, I cannot dissociate myself out of an argument most of the time.

Turns out, just the fact or even prospect of arguing activates panic and brain goes out the window. Which is really fucking stupid as an occurrence because how many of these could be prevented with a bit of mindfulness and thoughtful responding. But getting emotions to chill out for long enough to do that is tough.

(b) I am a stubborn dumbass. Kid me argued until they were attacked so harshly that they absolutely could not continue. The alternative presented was to just keep silent, one I did not then and do not now accept. Discussion where both parties partake in good faith have generally been fruitful, only neither of these situations were that. Both involved one person trying to dominate at all costs. To which I suppose keeping silent for the moment and then running tf away is an appropriate response. Idk. I'm not sure if this is a 'normal situation' to which I respond unhealthily, or an 'abnormal situation' in which you just do your best to survive. Arguments are normal. Idk if other people have a less aggressive approach that is less outright terrifying, in which I can modulate, but it does seem like people want to prove you wrong and get angry, which I perceive as aggression.

2. 

Which brings me to boundaries. Can I shut things down when I'm overwhelmed. In the present case, the answer was no. They both didn't stop and the fact that I asked for this was interpreted as admission of defeat.Oftentimes, getting out of the situation was more of an ordeal than dealing with it. [We stayed at a hotel the one time and he did things that made me very uncomfortable (in like a “things that I shudder at thinking about even now” kind of way; not sexual btw which this has made it sound). I thought I was as clear as I could’ve been by saying, “I’m going to legit have a breakdown if you keep doing that” but apparently it came across as a joke (gotta improve on communication as well). He stopped and apologised when he realised I was crying, but later blamed me for not being more assertive and laughed at my ‘exaggerated’ response and “meltdown”. At this point I wanted to leave and go home, but he withheld [my copy of] the key. He insisted and manipulated and coerced for discussion, said I could have the key if I “really wanted it, but do I actually want that”, until it was just easier to give in. The helplessness and feeling trapped of that evening haunts me to this day, and I want to be very sure to never be in any situation where that is even a possibility again no matter what.]

I need to get better at knowing what is and isn't okay and being strong enough to enforce that.

3.

(a) Attachment is a bitch. Utterly unfamiliar sensation, one I don't know my way around at all. The rarity of relation makes it seem so fucking precious, so fucking necessary to protect even to my detriment and his. Dare I tip the boat or will it sink. Should I be the dancing monkey to keep it from sinking. Should he.

(b) The feeling of giving a damn what someone thinks of me is also foreign and difficult. It also seems hella intensified by virtue of not existing elsewhere. Disapproval feels devastating. Criticism becomes attack. Everything feels like a continuous effort to establish worth. I'd imagined acceptance could be taken for granted, but I questioned it the whole way (obviously doesn't help when he demands changes).

(c) I have trouble distinguishing between personal issues and insecurities and legitimate reason to be upset. I think this is typical. But with trial and error, one can probably pick up on what you carry with you across differing people and circumstances. I don't have that data. I have nothing to compare against. I also suspect some parts of this is him treating legitimate reasons as being my distorted perceptions, which I'm pretty sure did happen for a few things that I believe are 'objectively' shitty.

5. 

I trust. Too. Fucking. Much. I take shit at face value. This is very often dumb and...bad in literally every sense, but I don’t yet know how to identify preemptively when that's the case. I also fail to be adequately 'suspicious' I guess to be alert to minor inconsistencies later on. Lies are especially devastating. I built my reality around you using that fundamental premise. Now you tell me it was false all along. Where does that leave me? I go back to substitute and nothing makes sense. I don't know if the initial statement was a lie or the claim that it's false was. I don't know if everything I remember is just distorted somehow. I don't know what to do. (aside: gaslighting? I’m inclined to say “effectively, yes”. The best explanation I have is that for many things he rewrote the narrative in his own mind and does not remember the things that blatantly contradict it. For other things, I cannot see that being possible and am forced to think it’s just pure lies). All of this could have been prevented if I accounted for people being dishonest.

6. 

(a) I lose sympathy. Genuinely did not ever expect this to happen. Enough hurt, enough deception and I stop trying to understand why. I assume malice. I expect malice in future interactions and misread situations as a result. In the beginning I made fucktons of effort to be understanding of things far from my typical range (hello, admissions of past violence and present homicidal ideation. Hello, talking someone out of real intention of ruining a person's life over a minor slight). Honestly, I think I overreached. Some of these things were not things I should have tolerated, accepted even. When I started walking on eggshells to not have him ruin my life, too, that was probably when I should've gotten out. He claimed that the people he cares about are exceptions. That's probably true, otherwise I would currently be in a ton of shit. But at some point I did stop believing it.

(b) I don't really think that most of the things that happened were malicious. Some, he admits, were. But mostly he wasn't out with the intention to hurt me, but he also didn't make the effort...not to. Even with me repeatedly complaining about things, he was defensive or dismissive, considering me talking about an issue to be me creating issues in his life. This is super shitty, his damage is caused by a stubborn ego fixation and sheer passivity, thoughtlessness (he has agreed to all of this in our final conversation), but it isn't exactly intentionally malicious. If he genuinely didn't believe there was a problem, that is an issue, and the fact that he utterly failed until the end to even consider the possibility of a valid complaint, is a very real flaw. He is bad insofar as "he is lazy and incompetent at being good". Which I can understand but nevertheless protect myself from. Ideally, sooner. At the point where I start feeling like someone is being shitty more often than not, something needs to happen. A discussion, a reconsideration, a run-as-fast-as-you-can... Something.

Idk. This isn't everything. But yeah.

.

.

.

* These 3 PDs are often used in illustrating the idea of pathologising difference: few of the criteria are about subjective distress and many about extrinsic value judgements of what a person should be like (lol, my clinical psych final had an essay question on this). I don't necessarily agree but it does speak to a shared thread of...something. That said, this characterisation is tbh still too broad for my liking. Importantly, it is definitively applicable to autistic people but I do not in general relate to that in the same way. Some specific manifestations of it, yes, but I have seen far too many excessively... 'human' autistic people to include the whole category. There are probably folks in the PD categories who are also like that but I think much less common.

[garywonghc]

Compassion

by Akong Rinpoche

Compassion and loving-kindness are essential to our happiness and spiritual development. The problems facing our friends and families as well as those affecting our environment and the world at large can all be helped by these qualities.

The wider and deeper our compassion, the greater and more effective its scope. Thus, if it is truly universal, we are able to care for everyone and everything in the right way. Our family lives become more meaningful and useful and, as our own happiness increases, so more and more others become happier also. Continued growth and expansion of compassion will gradually transform the world for the better, leading to less desire and hatred on a personal level; whilst between nations and groups of people there will be less conflict and fewer wars.

At present a measure of compassion exists in everyone. No matter how selfish people are, they are often still able to care for their parents, children, lovers or friends. Even creatures habituated to killing, such as snakes and crocodiles, maintain affection for their own young. However, when compassion is restricted solely to an individual's immediate family or species, it excludes many more beings than it embraces and is very narrow compared with the limitless compassion which we are all capable of generating. Whereas some compassion is better than none, limitless compassion is the best of all.

In the beginning, it is helpful to realise how we all share the awakened state of mind as potential. However, it has become obscured by ignorance and the accumulation of negativity. Misunderstanding and unskillful actions similarly prevent us from seeing and realising that potential. Removing these obscurations and defilements, however, will enable us to go beyond the illusion of separate existence and realise the interdependence of all things. It will become evident that when we harm others we are harming ourselves; and when we take care of others, we are taking care of ourselves. When we are able to see the awakened state of mind as potential in friend and enemy alike we will have equal compassion for everyone.

Essentially everyone wants happiness and the causes of happiness, just as we do. Even those who create suffering for themselves do so out of ignorance for no-one sincerely wants to be unhappy. They just do not realise that it is virtue that creates happiness and a happy state of mind which inspires us to practise virtue.

First, then, it is necessary to distinguish between wholesome and unwholesome activity. Once we have learned what is right and what is wrong we can begin to apply this knowledge skilfully in our daily lives. The chapter on right conduct provides simple guidelines as to wholesome activity, whilst cautioning against the unwholesome kind, and may be summarised thus: doing good things creates happiness and its causes; unwholesome activities only create further suffering. Unless we can understand this distinction as a foundation for the growth of compassion, we will create unhappiness for ourselves and others whether or not we intend to do so.

Although some people apparently enjoy making themselves and others miserable, they are still in suffering. Often, because of ignorance or habit, or both, they cannot help themselves. A snake may not wish to poison a baby who is playing in the grass but nonetheless does so out of fear and ignorance, even though it's neither hungry nor in danger. For a snake, poison is part of its way of life; for human beings this need not be so. If someone annoys us or does something we deplore, we may grow angry, yet to blame or wish to punish them is not being compassionate at all. We have to learn to avoid reacting harmfully or negatively to others and to guard carefully against striking out at them as might an animal or a snake. In this kind of situation compassion, not anger, is the appropriate response.

To be unkind or selfish is easy for most of us; whilst to be considerate and mindful of others is very difficult. In order to increase our compassion and loving-kindness we try to put ourselves in the place of others and see things from their point of view. So we neither harm others nor do things to them that we would not like to have done to us. Instead we should always try to give others the happiness that we wish to have ourselves. Ultimately there will be no difference between the wish for their happiness and our own. In the social context we can come to fit together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. Clearly, to accomplish this we must have considerable awareness of how other people feel.

Compassion and loving-kindness can be developed quite straightforwardly, stage by stage, but this will not occur without a great deal of patient effort on our part. The mind has to be thoroughly trained before compassion can become deep and strong enough to remain intact even when things are going against us. Limitless loving-kindness is our aim.

Although it may be possible to imagine such a wholesome state of mind, we are not there yet. At the moment simply to look after ourselves and not cause harm or be a burden to others may require considerable effort; but if we can accomplish this much we have achieved something very worthwhile. Then we have the right foundation for future growth - for unless we have compassion for ourselves it's very difficult to engender it for others.

To begin with, we must realise how all of us, without exception, are suffering in some way. Rich or poor, gifted or otherwise, we all have to endure the sufferings of birth, old-age, sickness and death. Without liberation we are like prisoners awaiting execution in a dungeon; there is nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide from the inevitability of impermanence and death. No-one wants to suffer and yet we all do so in our various ways, equally unable to escape from that suffering, no matter how hard we try.

Rich people still suffer despite their good fortune: they may live in fear of losing their wealth, or be corrupted by it, or it may lead to the destruction of friendship and trust amongst those they care for. The poor may go hungry, lack shelter, or worry constantly about providing for their loved ones. Intelligent people suffer despite their abilities or even because of them; whereas those less able find simple problems beyond them.

Since all beings are in suffering, whether aware of it and able to admit it or not, our aim is to exclude none of them from the range of our compassion. Having fully realised this, the next stage is to cultivate the strong wish that they be freed from the causes of that suffering.

Limitless compassion is difficult to define but it may be compared to the strength and depth of feeling that exists between a mother and her child, being extended equally to all beings everywhere.

When there are lots of children in a family, in the mother's eyes it may tend to diminish the value of each; but if there is only one child, she cares for it and protects it so that it is happy and comes to no harm. Although there are billions of suffering beings in the world, the ultimate aim is to regard each one as our only child.

In Western society, the parent-child relationship is more distant than in the East. The Western ideal is to give children freedom and independence as soon as possible. Babies are often bottle-fed. Young children sleep apart from their mothers and are often given responsibility before they're ready. They may be left alone while the parents go out to work. Sometimes teenagers go out into the world too early and have bad experiences. This searching for freedom too soon is like house-martins jumping out of their nest too early and then crashing to the ground. Such situations are commonplace and are generally accepted as normal, but in many cases children can even end up in institutions simply because they have too much freedom too soon.

In many places in the East, however, families still follow the tradition of working together and sleeping together. Mothers share their milk as well as their food and happiness with their children, and there is a great deal of closeness, of security between them. Although less common in the West, this kind of loving relationship does represent a good example of deep compassion in action. In this context, another way of developing compassion is to consider how we would feel if our own mother were being tortured or harmed in some way. We might feel, "If only she could be liberated from that suffering." The aim is to engender the same depth of feeling in regard to all beings, to wish fervently that they all could be freed from their suffering. So at the beginning, one practises loving-kindness towards those close to one, such as one's mother, lover or close friend, and then the feeling is expanded and extended to include all beings without distinction.

This is not to say that human beings should be the sole objects of our compassion. Animals also endure great suffering. Many are slaughtered unnecessarily, often without even the justification that they are needed to provide food. Blood sports are practised all over the world; everywhere animals are cruelly exploited by humans, hunted by other animals, and yet still they have to find food and shelter for themselves and their young. It is hard to imagine how a fish feels when it's hooked and dragged from the water, or a fox which is hunted to death, but we can be sure that we wouldn't enjoy such experiences. When a single hair is pulled from our head, we complain or cry out, yet sheep are roughly shorn even during very cold weather. Although we cannot greatly influence the way of the world in these respects, we can strive always to be as kind, gentle and caring as possible towards all forms of sentient life.

Reminding ourselves of how others suffer and mentally putting ourselves in their place, will help awaken our compassion and considerably extend its scope.

The next stage in the development of compassion is to work to liberate all beings from their suffering. The starting-point here is our own suffering, for unless we can confront and deal with those situations which give pain and discomfort to ourselves, we can acquire neither the confidence nor skill necessary to be of much use to others.

In this respect it is important to realise that when we perceive the world and our situation within it in terms of violence or discomfort, then this is our creation - a projection of our own inner negativity. Clearly it would be useless to try to run away, with the intention of finding a better world or some kind of heaven elsewhere. With correct understanding, on the other hand, we can achieve a wholesome, positive relationship with the phenomenal world, here and now.

When our mind is pure, that purity illuminates whatever we perceive, just as someone with good eyesight sees everything clearly, as it is. Defective vision, however, makes everything appear vague and imprecise, giving rise to confusion and misunderstanding. It is useless to try and change the object that is seen - it is the eyesight that has to be improved. If we see negativity in other people, we must try to develop compassion for them and, as our compassion and insight increase, we will stop finding fault in them. Correspondingly, their regard for us will improve, mutual respect will develop and enmity will decrease greatly.

At the moment we try to escape from painful situations, but this achieves nothing. Instead of trying to abandon suffering or pass it on to others, we must recognise its usefulness as a means of developing our fellow-feeling and inner strength.

It is important, however, to remind ourselves that we are not looking for trouble. Quite often people say that suffering is good and that in order to accomplish something worthwhile we should punish ourselves, but this is a mistaken attitude. If our experience presents us with misery or pain then we accept it and use it as a means to develop, but we don't go around actively looking for suffering. The aim is to be flexible and to accept whatever comes our way. Neither should we analyse or dwell too much on the causes of our suffering, for this only magnifies and increases the pain. Simple acceptance is the first step; then we can work with the negative aspects of our experience and transform them into positive ones.

At the same time we have to guard against the notion that because we are practising compassion others must practise it also. We simply get on with the work of developing ourselves and, as our inner happiness and compassion grow, many others will quite naturally become aware of the benefits of what we're trying to achieve, and be inspired, in their own good time, to follow our example.

The aim in developing loving-kindness and compassion is for it to become impartial. We must come to understand that being kind to our friends in preference to our enemies is not the right way. Since a friend of one day can be an enemy the next, and vice versa, we shouldn't take this idea in too solid a way. As far as we can, we treat our enemies as amicably as our friends and see everyone as someone to be kind to.

Of course compassion that is really pure is never a cause of suffering to anyone - like gold, it is immutable and unalloyed. Until we have refined and perfected the practice of compassion, however, we may unintentionally cause a little suffering. Nevertheless we should still go on trying at all times to be helpful.

No matter how many useful things we have learned and taken to heart, the seed of compassion will not grow and become fruitful unless it is exposed to the light of our everyday experience. To study ways of relaxing and to have a broad-minded, caring attitude is of little benefit so long as we're tense and unkind in our daily lives. Were we to buy and feed a 'riding-horse' without ever riding it, the horse could become wild, unhappy and no use to anyone. A horse must be ridden if it is ever to take us where we want to go. Similarly compassion and loving-kindness have to become part of our experience.

Further, the practice of compassion should not be accompanied by any expectation of receiving something in return. To regard one's practice of loving-kindness as some kind of business transaction only reinforces the sense of ego and separate self. Unselfish compassion, however, will expand our horizon beyond the scope afforded by such an isolated, impoverished view of reality and our place in it, so putting us in touch with the essential unity which pervades everything. The right attitude is neither to hope for success nor to fear personal failure but simply, and humbly, to proceed with the liberating effort to care for everyone.

Throughout human history there have been many great saints and masters whose lives were devoted to working hard for the benefit of others. Their achievements were not based on study, the ability to wage war, or on the accumulation of material possessions but on their kindness to all beings. By following their example we too can fulfil the promise of our precious human birth and awaken that limitless compassion in ourselves.

The compassion of the people around us now can also inspire our efforts. There are many honest, sincere and thoughtful people who, for example, send money, food and clothing to families and children in need. When we concern ourselves with the welfare of those less fortunate than ourselves, without pride or desire for fame and recognition, we too will have found the right way. Gradually, as we gain in confidence and strength of purpose, our benevolence can come to include everyone who is suffering - not least those for whom no-one cares and who therefore are most in need of aid and comfort.

This is particularly important in regard to those old and sick people who, in Western society, are so often neglected or put away in homes or institutions. It is quite wrong that the elderly and infirm should be brushed aside like this simply because they are 'in the way' or because they require more care and attention than we feel we can afford. Instead, wherever possible, we should provide that care and support, that security and familiarity which can help them to regard the approach of death as part of the continuity of life - not as something separate, or alien to it.

Of course caring for the old, sick and unlikable can be very difficult. They often suffer from confusion and irrationality as well as from physical pain and weakness, or they may try to manipulate others in the matter of bequests and legacies. Having enjoyed a greater degree of power and control over their lives than in their old age, it is understandable that they should still wish to influence others by whatever means remain to them.

Although this kind of manipulation is undignified, we should not think ill of those who practise it. In this, as in all things regarding others, we try to put ourselves in their place, to imagine how they must feel, neither condemning nor passing any other kind of judgement. All the time we strive to bring our own minds to maturity, learning from others' mistakes as well as our own, always guided by that limitless compassion which is not only the aim but also the path and the goal.

Unless we understand the right motivation, the practice of kindness and generosity to others could create obstacles. The important thing to remember here is that whatever we are able to give should be given freely, however much or little we have. Reluctance to share one's happiness or possessions is to misunderstand the meaning of compassion. A baby or young child clings to a toy, fearful of losing it. We are like that when we can only think about how to protect a possession and keep it to ourselves. With this attitude, we devalue the possession and no longer find it a source of joy. What we do need to protect at all times is our compassionate motivation. The more we give of ourselves, the stronger and more dependable this will become.

The practice of compassion requires a great deal of skill. For example, to give strong drink to an alcoholic, even if they ask for it, is not being kind at all. Nor should we try to force our help on others or interfere in situations where we can do no good. If we see two people quarrelling, we may think it compassionate to step between them and try to stop the fight. But if this would make them angry with us and we become angry too, then the confusion would only spread and increase. Unless our compassion is deep enough so that we remain in control of our own emotions, even in the midst of anger and conflict, it would be better not to get involved at all.

Therefore whilst always striving to be as helpful as possible, we must guard against going beyond our stage of development. It is no use giving away too much too soon and having regrets and attachments afterwards; instead we are mindful only to give as and when we're ready. Thus the growth of compassion should be steady and gradual. Employing patience, discretion, discrimination and common sense we are able to relate carefully to each situation as it arises, making sure that whatever we do, say or think will cause no harm to anyone and will always be beneficial.

So far we have considered the benefits of loving-kindness and compassion, the way to develop them and how best to practise them. It must be stressed, however, that although the stages of development and practice require patience and careful application, it is never wise to delay the actual awakening of one's compassion and the taming of one's mind.

Generally people wish to enjoy life and be happy, preferring never to think about dying. If we could find worldly enjoyment that would last until the time of our death, there would seem little cause to reconsider this attitude. However, that kind of enjoyment more often lasts only for a short time - a matter of years at the most. Money we accumulate or invest can melt away like ice cream in the sun; pleasure derived from food or clothing, or from other people's ways of talking or acting, all of these things we cherish are subject to change, so that today's joy and happiness so easily become tomorrow's sorrow and sense of loss. Even during the passage of a single day, a source of pleasure can turn to one of unhappiness.

While there is nothing wrong with enjoying our lives, we should never forget that everything is impermanent, including ourselves, and that our time is far too precious to waste. Although we can be sure that death will come, the time and place of its occurrence is very uncertain. Since we can be sure that at the time of death we would certainly give everything we own for just one more day of life, we should not put off for one moment the awakening of compassion. For when we have to leave all else behind, it is the good we have done that will give us the greatest peace and comfort.

So wherever and whenever we can, we should develop compassion at once. If we leave it until tomorrow then we'll no longer be able to relate so directly to the situation which has inspired that compassion. We don't neglect our hunger and thirst for twenty-four hours, we act immediately to satisfy them. The practice of loving-kindness should be treated with similar urgency, as a natural, spontaneous part of our lives.

Remembering that we are going to die does not suggest that we should live in fear and terror of death, for to become hopeless and afraid would be of no use, and would prevent us from enjoying life. Rather we should be inspired by the inevitability of death to make the most of each precious moment in order to cultivate our inner strength, loving-kindness and compassion. Then, no matter when we are to die, we will have done our best to make of our lives something valuable and useful both for ourselves and for others.

There is no way that we can give up death, but with sufficient effort and the right motivation we can certainly give up suffering. As long as our determination is strong enough and our confidence does not fail, we have the means and the power to neutralise the causes of suffering, to cut them off at source. And if ever we doubt the value of our efforts, we have only to look at our own experience and that of those around us to realise just how worthwhile it is for everyone that compassion should develop and flourish in the world.

[neuxue]

Wheel of Time liveblogging: The Gathering Storm ch 12

In which no one expects Egwene to be made of awesome. Their loss. Or gain, depending how you look at it...

Chapter 12: Unexpected Encounters

I’m glad we’re seeing more of Egwene this book.

The poor Red sisters assigned to babysit her know all too well what they’re getting themselves into and they don’t like it.

It had been well over a month since Siuan had conveyed her disturbing news in Tel’aran’rhiod

Wait, really? A month? The frequent POV-switching is definitely giving this book a faster pace, but it’s wreaking havoc on my ability to keep the timelines straight. That’s never been a strong suit for me in the first place, frustratingly. The Cleansing was a nice catch-up point, but after that…even last book I felt like I was losing track a bit. Ah well. It’ll all converge eventually, right?

The events were a reminder that the world was coming apart. This was a time when the White Tower should have been a source of stability. Instead, it divided against itself while Rand al’Thor’s men bonded sisters. How could Rand have allowed such a thing?

Well…he didn’t. Except he sort of did, by basically ignoring the Black Tower and more or less everything that was going on there. But then, he also didn’t have anything to do with this directly. Except, that’s part of the problem. So in conclusion, it’s complicated.

I do think she sees the bonding as a bigger problem than it actually is, but it’s not hard to see why she reacts this way. Even in context, to a reader with far more information than Egwene herself has, the bonding of the Aes Sedai is a moral and ethical mess of a minefield. It’s a perfect example of how two wrongs don’t make a right, but the do make a right clusterfuck of things.

That’s with context. Egwene has a fair bit of the information connected with it, but she doesn’t have everything. Nor is she getting it from an unbiased source – and she herself is far from an unbiased observer. And at this point, she really doesn’t have a way of knowing what Rand is thinking, or how exactly he reacted to this or what he would and wouldn’t do. I also am fairly sure she doesn’t know that Rand was bonded unwillingly. It’s been a very long time since they’ve seen each other, especially in terms of how much has happened in that time. So it’s frustrating to see her thinking this, but it’s also not at all unrealistic. So much depends on perspective, and what information is available. And Egwene is Aes Sedai, and her entire focus right now is on the White Tower. So anything that interferes with that is going to get a strong response, and perhaps sometimes a disproportionate one.

There was obviously little left of the youth with whom she’d grown up. Of course, there was little of the youthful Egwene left either.

I like the balance in this, and the sense of acknowledgment that the blame doesn’t necessarily lie with one of them alone.

I’ve no doubt said before that one of the things I enjoy most is watching characters move along the friends/enemies ‘axis’. Rand and Egwene are a rather fascinating example, because they’re certainly not enemies, but they’re very nearly antagonists at this point. Yet there is still an underlying fondness, and an underlying familiarity. They think about how they don’t know each other anymore, but they did once, and that still comes through. Neither wants to hurt the other; the antagonism comes more from a difference of position and perspective and perception. They’ve essentially inherited opposing roles, and the more they come to embody those roles, the more strained their previous relationship becomes.

But that previous relationship is what makes this so interesting; it would play very differently if a random young Amyrlin were chosen, who had never met Rand al’Thor. Then there’d maybe be a sense of tension in watching them both, and wondering what would happen when they finally met or confronted one another. But the fact that Rand and Egwene do know each other – whether or not the Amyrlin and the Dragon Reborn do – and Egwene once tried to help Rand learn to channel and Rand once stayed to fight in a town full of Seanchan because he could not live with himself if he didn’t try to help free Egwene, and they once loved each other and in some way probably still do, and they’ve each had parallel but distinct and entirely excellent arcs in the interim, makes it all so much better.

Plus, I just like watching characters become enemies or friends or allies or antagonists out of circumstance, when it’s not what their original inclinations were. It’s one of my favourite things. (It’s why I just about died when Moridin saved Rand’s life in Shadar Logoth and then they reflexively fought Mashadar together while holding hands). All variations. Give them to me.

That, oddly, led her to thinking of Gawyn.

This is more disappointing to me than any of her thoughts about Rand, by a very long margin. You could do SO MUCH BETTER, Egwene. Like not having a romance subplot at all! Sigh.

Gawyn could look after himself; he’d done a competent job of that in the past. Too competent, in some cases.

Er. I mean, I don’t even hate Gawyn, but I think you’re giving him a bit too much credit there. The guy is a mess.

Siuan and the others would deal with the Asha’man matter. The other news was far more disturbing.

Okay, so maybe she’s not putting as much emphasis on it as it seemed. I am also rather amused at how both she and Rand have had their moments of outrage related to this whole deal, and then both delegated it to other people to sort out.

All in all, it’s probably best that they do delegate. The Asha’man and Aes Sedai are going to have to eventually learn to work together, and being able to carry out civil negotiations is not a terrible first step. At least in theory. In practice, given how the last book ended, it might be a bit more of…a mess.

But if it’s Dragon and Amyrlin calling all the shots there, it could end up being more complicated later, especially if one or both of them…isn’t around anymore. If there’s a way to establish actual working relationships between the two Towers (heh), that’d be ideal.

Egwene’s more disturbed by the fact that Halima was one of the Forsaken. Which, yeah, fair.

Egwene’s backside hurt, but the pain was growing increasingly irrelevant to her. Sometimes she laughed when beaten, sometimes not. The greater pain – what had been done to Tar Valon – was far more demanding.

A greater and more important focus, that makes other pain irrelevant and easy to…well, in her case, not ignore so much as accept without issue. I will spare you yet another rambling essay on how Egwene and Rand cope with pain, but suffice it to say the various similarities and especially differences of method and circumstance continue to fascinate me.

It wsa going to be a full day, with her appointments with sisters, her scheduled beatings, and her regular novice load of scrubbing floors or other chores.

And I thought my schedule was bad.

Bennae has asked for a repeat lesson with Egwene, which is apparently unusual. Eventually the Tower is going to run out of sisters to teach her, if they’re all only willing to do it once.

Egwene cleared off a stool, placing the dusty skeleton of a rat on the floor bewteen two stacks of books about the reign of Artur Hawkwing.

I was going to say this seems like an unrealistic caricature of an academic – those are very different fields of study, after all – but then I glanced over at my own bookshelf. Considering that I’m not even in acadaemia, nor am I nearly as old as Bennae…yeah, fine, I’ll concede this one.

“Let’s see…” Bennae mused. “Suppose that you were in a situation where you were in conflict with some members of your own Ajah. You have happened upon information you weren’t supposed to know, and your Ajah’s leaders are quite upset with you. Suddenly, you find yourself beign sentenced to some most unpleasant duties, as if they are trying to sweep you under the rug and forget about you. Tell me, in this situation, how would you react?”

Subtle as a brick, Bennae.

Egwene seems to share that sentiment, but does an admirable job of playing along and offering decent advice, rather than laughing or getting up to hit her head repeatedly against the nearest wall.

I suppose her time with the rebel Hall did give her rather a lot of practice in maintaining a front of polite patience. It’s a useful skill to have.

“Likely, she’s being ‘punished’ to keep her out of the way while the Ajah leaders search for a traitor. When they know there isn’t one, they’ll be more likely to look at the fallen sister’s situation with empathy – particularly after she’s offered them a solution.”

“Solution?” Bennae asked. Her teacup sat in her fingers, as if forgotten. “And which solution would you offer?”

“The best one: competence. Obviously some people among the Ajah know these secrets. Well, if this sister were to prove her trustworthiness and her capability, perhaps the leaders of her Ajah would realise the best place for her is as one of the caretakers of the secrets. An easy solution, if you consider it.”

So this is clearly the ‘next step’ in showing how the perception of Egwene within the Tower is shifting – her story last book ended with her having solidly won over the novices and with some of the Aes Sedai looking at her a bit differently. Now, she has a sister actually asking her for advice, in a manner that could only generously be called indirect. She is winning this part of her battle, winning the Tower over to her from within.

Still, I can’t help but find this particular conversation a bit…I don’t know. Too easy?

It’s not that it doesn’t reflect well on Egwene, because it does. The solution she proposes is very neat, and she presents it straightforwardly, without any veiled threats or demands. It’s not a ‘I will solve your problems but only if you make me Amyrlin’. She’s simply demonstrating her own competence, much as she is telling Bennae to do. Proving her trustworthiness and her capability, and offering a solution to the problems that plague the Tower, by showing that she is willing and able to help an individual sister.

No, the part that makes me sort of raise an eyebrow is that Bennae has to ask for help in the first place. Bennae is well over a hundred years old, and as an Aes Sedai she should be no stranger to manipulation. Or to thinking her way through things.

That said, Bennae does seem to be presented as not the brightest of the bunch, and I think part of the issue overall is that while Aes Sedai are very good at manipulating people and circumstances, many of them seem less good at dealing with change and uncertainty. The Tower is in crisis, and for the most part they’re not equipped to deal with that. And then along comes this girl who doesn’t fit anywhere – doesn’t fit into the rigid power structures and heirarchies and complicated webs of authority and position that the Aes Sedai put so much store by – to throw everything further into chaos. Except that instead of acting like a wild card, she walks calmly through the halls and gives advice to novices and refuses to break or even be visibly shaken by what is being done to her, and what is happening in the Tower and the entire world around her.

So she’s become something of a beacon of stability in a time of uncertainty. Not to mention, oddly enough, a point of unity in an increasingly divided Tower, wherein Ajahs and even individual sisters are more and more isolated. So from that angle I can definitely see how she’s drawing this kind of attention from not just novices and Accepted, now, but a sister who doesn’t know how to deal with a sudden change in circumstances, when so much is not how it used to be. When the old ways aren’t working and the rules aren’t as solid as the once seemed, and those unable to adapt or to push against the prevailing currents of chaos are struggling.

“Unjust punishments sometimes cannot be avoided, but it is best never to let others forget that it is unjust. If she simply accepts the way people treat her, then it won’t be long before they assume she deserves the position they’ve placed her in.”

Egwene’s turn to be about as subtle as Perrin’s hammer to the face.

But it’s a truth that perhaps needs to be hammered in, a bit.

And actually, this helps further explain why a sister with far more experience might be looking to someone like Egwene for advice. Aes Sedai carry their air of calm superiority easily when around ordinary people, be they commoners or kings. But amongst Aes Sedai, it’s rather more complicated. There is a strict heirarchy, and the various points of etiquette and authority and submission are thoroughly drilled into them, and so no matter how confident a sister might be outside the Tower, put her in a group of other Aes Sedai and she may find herself struggling to assert any kind of position whatsoever. So to even think of fighting against what’s happening in the Tower, or of standing up for herself to Ajah leaders, is probably close to unthinkable for your average Aes Sedai.

Egwene, though, was never even raised to Aes Sedai by the ordinary methods. She was brought in and raised for the sole purpose of being a puppet. She was supposed to fit neatly into her incredibly limited place. From the beginning, she was supposed to accept the way people treated her.

And from the beginning, she refused to. She defied those unspoken rules and manipulations, at first by outmanoeuvring them or appearing to submit to them, and eventually by showing them all too clearly that no, she would not be the puppet they wanted her to be. She refused to accept the way they treated her, and in the end she showed them that she did deserve the position they placed her in…but not at all in the way they expected.

She has never been an Aes Sedai in the Tower, subject to all the pressures and complexities of the heirarchy. It never had time to work its way into the core of who she is, making her unable to fight against it where necessary. Instead, she jumped in right at the point where everything was thrown into chaos, and she fought for her place from the word go.

To most other Aes Sedai, especially those who have spent a long time in the Tower, in this ingrained system, that’s something of an alien concept. And not one readily adopted. So to then see this girl not just fight the status quo but instead regard it calmly and then proceed as if it didn’t exist…perhaps it’s not so surprising at all that an Aes Sedai suddenly ‘demoted’ in some way would look at Egwene and wonder how she does it. Wonder if maybe she could help. Because she’s been demoted farther than anyone, and she appears to give exactly no fucks.

“I am always willing to help, Bennae,” Egwene said in a softer voice, turning back to her tea. “In, of course, hypothetical situations.”

It’s such a stark difference to Elaida – and a crucial one, especially in terms of appearances. Elaida is largely isolated, and takes a domineering position with regards to Sitters, much less individual Aes Sedai. She rules by edict and fear at this point. Whereas Egwene does not threaten, does not demand, does not even campaign, here. She just responds to a question, and offers her advice willingly – and makes it very clear that she is willing to give advice. She makes it clear that she still believes herself Amyrlin, but she also doesn’t set herself so untouchably far above the rest as to alienate them completely. She is Amyrlin, and the duty of the Amyrlin is to serve.

She could so easily fall into an image of desperate overconfidence or deluded arrogance, in her insistence that she is the Amyrlin Seat. Instead, she projects calm confidence, and combines it with a form of humility that only serves to highlight that confidence.

Turns out Bennae isn’t the only sister summoning her for advice, now. Things are changing. It’s time for the next step, whatever that is.

So a Brown praises her reasoning, a White praises her logic…

And now Suana is trying to recruit her to the Yellow. I see what you’re doing, there. Of all Ajahs and of none…

“Being of the Yellow isn’t about skill, child,” Suana said. “It’s about passion. If you love to make things well, to fix that which is broken, there would be a purpose for you here.”

And that, Egwene does have. She may not be a healer in the traditional sense, but she has taken on the task of healing the White Tower. In order to heal what the oncoming end of the world may bring. And she also has sought to find ways to unite all women who can channel, to close rifts there.

Nynaeve said of Egwene, early on, that “Egwene has the desire to heal, the need to.” And…she wasn’t entirely wrong, as it turns out. Just…Towers and maybe worlds, rather than people.

“My thanks,” Egwene said. “But the Amyrlin has no Ajah.”

This really is one of my favourite aspects about the exact manner in which Egwene was raised. There’s an echo of the ‘chosen one’ idea, almost, as ‘of all Ajahs and of none’ takes on a hint of prophecy.  Except it isn’t prophecy, it’s just Egwene and choices. So it’s a nice interplay.

And I’m liking this hinting of how Egwene fits or can be perceived to fit aspects of each Ajah. Especially as they are increasingly divided and set against each other, she stands as someone who can unite and embody all of them.

It was a shocking conversation. Suana obviously didn’t consider Egwene the Amyrlin, but the mere fact that she was recruiting Egwene to her Ajah said something. It meant she accepted Egwene’s legitimacy, at last to some degree, as a sister.

I’m getting the nagging feeling, now, that things are going too well. In the ‘something disastrous is about to happen’ kind of way. Things are going her way, she’s winning over sisters rather than just novices, the perception of her is shifting…when an arc hits this point of everything smoothing out, that’s when things tend to catch on fire.

“have the Sitters spoken of what to do about the tensions between the Ajahs?” “I don’t see what can be done,” Suana replied.

Well challenge fucking accepted, said Egwene.

Once she left the Yellow sector of the Tower and collected her Red Ajah attendants, she realised something. She’d gone through all three meetings without being assigned a single punishment!

Yep, definitely time for something to explode.

There is the looming threat of the Seanchan attack Egwene dreamed, hanging over their heads…also there’s Mesaana still in the Tower, and Aran’gar off somewhere…and the ominous way Tarna’s delegation to the Black Tower ended last book…and of course there’s always Elaida. So really, no shortage of places from which total disaster could strike. Excellent.

They were coming to accept her. Unfortunately, that was only a small part of the battle. The larger part was making certain the White Tower survived the strains Elaida was placing upon it.

But even in getting them to accept her, she’s working towards that. She’s providing them with a rallying point, and now with hints and pieces of encouragement dropped to reach out to one another across the walls that have gone up. And she’s giving them a point of stability around which to gather, when the Tower’s foundations shake. The more they accept her, and the more they listen to her, the stronger that position will be.

Now time to pay a visit to Meidani, who has quite an impressive collection of souvenirs. Cool.

“Besides, I’m still not certain how I regard you.”

“I don’t care how you regard me,” Egwene said evenly, seating herself on an oversized oak chair, bearing a plaque that identified it as a gift from a moneylender in Tear. “And Amyrlin needs not the regard of those who follow her, so long as she is obeyed.”

“You’ve been captured and overthrown.”

Egwene raised an eyebrow, meeting Meidani’s gaze. “Captured, true.”

*whistles softly* damn.

“The Hall among the rebels will have chosen a new Amyrlin by now.” “I happen to know that they have not.”

Man, Egwene is on a roll here. It’s been a while since she got to drop a solid one-liner on the Hall; she must have been getting bored.

Poor Meidani never even saw her take on the Hall, and thus is entirely unprepared.

“Even if that is true, you must know that they picked you to be a figurehead. A puppet to be manipulated.”

Egwene held the woman’s gaze.

“You have no real authority,” Meidani said, voice wavering slightly.

Egwene did not look away. Meidani studied her, brow wrinkling slowly,s tep by step, furrows appearing across her smooth, ageless Aes Sedai face. She searched Egwene’s eyes, like a mason searching a piece of stone for flaws before setting it in place. What she found seemed to confuse her further. “Now,” Egwene said, as if she had not just been questioned, “you will tell me precisely why you have not fled the Tower.”

Beautiful.

Never underestimate the power of silence and unwavering eye contact.

Also never underestimate Egwene al’Vere. Really. People have tried. Now they have regrets.

“Why not leave?”

“I…cannot say,” Meidani said, glancing away.

“I’m commanding you as your Amyrlin.”

“I still cannot say.” Meidani looked down at the floor, as if ashamed.

Curious, Egwene thought, hiding her frustration.

OH. IS SHE…if she can follow this, or put the pieces together, and figure out that there are Aes Sedai in the Tower working together to track down the Black Ajah…if she can join them and make it actually work…talk about healing the Tower.

So Egwene can get other information out of Meidani – that she’s not a traitor, that she’s trying to renew a relationship with Elaida on the orders of ‘the others’, etc. Which is enough to indicate that there is a stronger reason for her to not be able to speak of her reasons for not leaving. Come on, Egwene, find a way to get the answer to this one. That would be a major step forward, potentially.

“We will mend the damage that Elaida has done, and I will sit in my rightful place as Amyrlin. But we have work to do.”

“I can’t—”

“Yes,” Egwene said. “You can’t tell me what is wrong. I suspect that the Three Oaths are involved, though Light knows how.”

Not three, Egwene. But she’s getting there, and I also like how she stopped herself from just pushing Meidani the way Elaida would have done. She’s firm, but she’s presenting this instead as a problem for them both to approach. And also giving Meidani some indication of why, rather than just trying to force information out of her.

“You can’t tell me why you’ve remained in the Tower. But can you show me?”

YES. HELL YES. LET’S DO THIS.

Meidani’s not certain but Egwene’s already on to the next issue, which is how to get out of Meidani’s rooms without running into spies from other Ajahs. Because the Tower is fucked.

Oh. Okay. That’s one way to do it.

“What is that?” Meidani asked.

“It’s called a gateway,” Egwene said. “Used for Travelling.”

“Travelling is impossible!” Meidani said immediately. “The ability has been lost for…” She trailed off, eyes opening more widely.

Meidani is getting in about ten minutes what the rebel Hall got over the course of weeks. I almost pity her.

I like how the first person in the Tower Egwene has shown Travelling to is the woman who clearly has a lifelong love of travelling. It’s a nice touch.

“Yes, Mother,” Meidani said

Well that didn’t take very long. Just some well-placed silences, a steady glare or two, and a demonstration of trust in the form of a weave that, to Meidani, would be a true gift. Not to mention solid evidence of Egwene’s ability to casually do the impossible.

“I must warn you, however, that you may be surprised at what you are stepping into. It could be dangerous.”

Meidani. Please. Have you met Egwene? I can barely remember the last time she did something that wasn’t dangerous. Her introduction to the story was basically ‘I’m going to join you as you flee the Two Rivers in the middle of the night’ and she hasn’t slowed down since.

And HERE WE ARE. Four Sitters in a room, all of different Ajahs, not at all expecting to have Egwene al’Vere unleashed upon them.

“The al’Vere girl.” Ah. Right, well. This will be interesting.

So they’re berating Meidani for what they see as a breach of her Oath, and completely ignoring Egwene. We’ll see how long they can keep that up. I’m betting a page.

Oaths Egwene didn’t know about, meetings away from the upper corridors, a Warder guarding the door…were these women of four Ajahs, or of one?

Ha. So close, and yet so very, very far.

And just like that, Egwene’s figured it out. Part of it, anyway.

“You gave her a fourth oath, didn’t you?” Egwene interrupted. “What under the Light were you thinking?”

Yukiri glanced at her, and Egwene felt another swish of Air. “You were not given leave to speak.”

“The Amyrlin needs no leave to speak,” Egwene said, staring the women down.

Not even a full page. And so the fun begins.

“Has this entire Tower gone as insane as Elaida?”

Well someone needed to say it.

“It was only done out of necessity. This one couldn’t be trusted, not after siding with the rebels.”

Already explaining themselves, even if it is with a tone of dismissive authority. Still, that’s a far cry from just ignoring Egwene. And if they’re trying to justify their actions to her, she’s already won half the battle, as far as this conversation goes.

“Do not think we’re unwaware of your own involvement with that group, Egwene al’Vere,” Yukiri said. […] “If we have our way, you will not be treated with such coddling as Elaida has shown you.”

Egwene gestured indifferently. “Still me, execute me or beat me, Yukiri, and the Tower will yet be in shambles.”

She has somehow turned a situation in which everything is at stake into one where she has nothing to lose. She has made herself untouchable; there is absolutely nothing they can do to her, short of destroying the Tower itself. Because she has made herself into a symbol of a higher cause, and has dedicated herself to that cause: healing the Tower, and uniting the Aes Sedai to face Tarmon Gai’don.

So she can say things like this with absolute conviction, because she believes them now. She can sit here with these women and ignore their threats and stare them down, because what can they do to her? Nothing has worked so far, after all. And it throws them completely off-balance, because they have no idea how to deal with her. She’s outside their ‘system’, and refuses to be pulled into it. Yet she’s not working against them, either. She’s on their side, and she’s working for the Tower itself, and so long as they are doing the same, there is absolutely nothing they can do to her.

“Sometimes, difficult decisions must be made. We cannot have Darkfriends among the Aes Sedai, and measures have been taken to search them out.”

Little do they know that Egwene was one of the very first ones assigned to search out the Black Ajah, long before these Sitters even acknowledged its existence. It’s a nice way to weave that thread back in, after so long.

And the fact that Seaine has even told her this much shows that their attempts at ignoring her – and ignoring her authority – are already falling apart. You don’t waste your time justifying your actions to someone who doesn’t matter. You especially don’t do so if it involves divulging highly sensitive information.

So these women were using the Oath Rod to search out Black sisters. If you took each sister, removed her oaths and made her reswear them, you could ask her if she were Black. A desperate method, but –Egwene decided – a legitimate one, considering the times.

The question then becomes, how do they make it a widespread requirement? Not the fourth oath, of course, but the unswearing and re-swearing? Because if there were a way to do that, to implement it throughout the Tower…then perhaps we could end up with something like what Egwene ‘remembered’ in her Accepted test. Something that destroyed the Black Ajah.

“But swearing this woman to a new oath is unnecessary!” “And if the woman is known to have other loyalties?” Saerin demanded.

Oh, it’s well and truly over for them, now. The argument, I mean. It was as soon as they acknowledged her enough to start explaining, but now that they’re trying to argue back? I’m going to go ahead and call this one for Egwene.

Though she’s willing to put aside the issue of the fourth oath for now, perhaps because she knows she’s gained something of an upper hand. Or at least a position of equality, even if they don’t see it yet. So she’s going to press them for as much as she can get, because this is a rare opportunity: four Sitters, each of different Ajahs, who are also involved in something that could greatly benefit the Tower.

“What of Elaida herself? Have you determined if she is of the Black? Who gave you this charge, and how did your cabal form?”

“Bah! Why are we speaking with her?” Yukiri demanded, standing up and putting her hands on her hips. “We should be deciding what to do with her, not answering her questions!”

It’s a bit late for that, Yukiri.

“If I am to help in your work,” Egwene said, “then I need to be aware of the facts.”

Framing it as a given that she is going to help – she’s not asking their permission, she’s moving directly on to step two. It’s a very useful trick.

They’re still trying to shut her down. That’s cute.

“One more word, and I shall see you taking penance until you run out of tears to weep.”

“I doubt you can order me to any more of it than I already have, Yukiri,” Egwene said calmly. “Unless I am to be in the Mistress of Novices’ study all day each day. Besides, if you sent me to her, what would I tell her? That you personally gave me penance? She’d know that I wasn’t scheduled to see you today. That might start raising questions.”

“We could just have Meidani order you to penance,” said Seaine the White.

“She won’t do such a thing,” Egwene said. “She accepts my authority as Amyrlin.”

Every part of this scene is beautiful and I love it.

“That’s meaningless. “We’ll just order her to send you to penance.” “Will you?” Egwene said. “I thought that you told me that the fourth oath was meant to restore unity, to keep her from fleeing to Elaida with your secrets. Now you would use that oath like a cudgel, forcing her to become your tool?”

They handed her that one on a silver platter. But then, of course they did. They’re still thinking of her as a novice, or as a rebel, as someone they don’t need to take seriously. They’re still underestimating her, and she’s had far too much practice with using that against those who try.

Besides, they’re Sitters. They’re not used to having to justify themselves or explain themselves, especially to a girl in novice white. So they are stepping right into these traps without realising that Egwene can and will make full use of every misstep.

“No woman should have this much power over another. What you have done to these others is only one step shy of Compulsion. I’m still trying to decide if this abomination is in any way justified; the way you treat Meidani and the others will likely sway that decision.”

It’s not really shy of Compulsion at all. And yeah, okay, there is a reason for it. Whether or not that reason is acceptable, though, depends on where you’re standing. Much like the way in which the Asha’man bonded sisters – because that’s actually not far short of Compulsion either, and is justified from one angle but less so from another. It all gets messy fast.

Yukiri’s still trying to get the others to ignore Egwene, but that train has long since left the station. Meanwhile Saerin still thinks they can treat her like a child.

“You cannot continue this charade of being the Amyrlin Seat. We all know how often you take penance, and we all know what little good it is doing. So let me try something that I assume nobody else has tried with you: reason.”

“You may speak your mind,” Egwene said.

I LOVE IT. I also actually like that Saerin is taking this approach here, because she’s not that far wrong, really. Few have tried anything resembling reason with Egwene. They’ve just tried to force her back into what they think her place should be, despite that failing spectacularly at every turn.

But the very fact that Saerin is taking this approach means Egwene has taken control of the situation. They haven’t recognised it yet, but she has turned the focus of the room onto her, rather than letting them proceed with ignoring her. They’re addressing her now, and very much on her terms.

“All right. For one thing, you can’t be Amyrlin. With that forkroot, you can barely channel!”

Oh come on, you call that reason? That’s such a weak argument it actually starts slightly detracting from the scene. Not in a major way, but…she can’t possibly have thought opening with such an easily countered statement would work.

“You’ve been demoted to novice.”

“Only Elaida is foolish enough to assume one can remove an Aes Sedai’s rank.” Egwene said. “She should never have been allowed to assume she had that power in the first place.”

“If she didn’t assume it,” Saerin said, “then you would be dead, girl.”

Now that’s a far better point, because as Saerin sees it, Egwene’s caught by that one. Except…what she’s failed to understand is that Egwene actually has accepted that.

Egwene met Saerin’s eyes again. “Sometimes, I feel it would be better to be dead than to see what Elaida has done to the women of this Tower.”

Egwene isn’t fighting for herself, or for her position. She’s doing both as a way of fighting for the Tower itself.

And if I weren’t already convinced she was going to die, the honesty with which she embraces this would probably have done the trick.

“I must say,” Seaine said quietly, “your claims are completely irrational. Elaida is the Amyrlin because she was raised properly by the Hall. Therefore, you can’t be Amyrlin.”

Egwene shook her head. “She was ‘raised’ after a shameful and unorthodox removal of Siuan Sanche from the seat. How can you call Elaida’s position ‘proper’ in the face of that?” Something occurred to her, a gamble, but it felt right. “Tell me this. Have you interrogated any women who are currently Sitters? Have you found any Blacks among them?”

OH.

“Now tell me this. Were any of these Black Sitters among those who raised Elaida? Did any of them stand to depose Siuan?”

HERE IT IS.

There was silence.

“Answer me,” Egwene said.

“We found a Black among the Sitters,” Doesine finally said.

‘Answer me,’ Egwene commands, and one of them obeys. Full round to Egwene.

But more importantly…Egwene has now managed to create a moment not unlike some of those she’s pulled on the rebel Hall.

“Siuan was deposed by the bare minimum number of Sitters required,” Egwene said. “One of them was Black, making her vote invalid. You stilled and deposed your Amyrlin, murdering her Warder, and you did it unlawfully.”

“By the Light,” Seaine whispered. “She’s right.”

Boom.

I love these moments, and Egwene is so wonderfully good at delivering them.

And okay, by that same logic, I suppose you could say Egwene’s entire war vote was also unlawful, as it was decided by the minimum number and if I remember correctly, Delana was among them, and potentially other Black sisters as well. But Egwene was raised by a full Hall, and the declaration of war and seizing of the war powers was more a way of making them acknowledge the authority they elected to give her but then tried to withhold.

Besides, the technicalities don’t actually matter here. They only matter in the sense that Egwene needs to find something that will make them see her as Amyrlin. This, it turns out, is such a thing. Seaine chose to argue with her on the basis of legality, Egwene countered with truth, and Seaine at least has acknowledged it as legitimate grounds for her claim.

Now it’s time to cement it.

She had to remain in control. She had to.

Part of the reason she’s so good at landing these moments is because she sees them through. Not only that, but she knows how to pick her battles. She knows when to push, and when not to. And she knows that when she does press for advantage, she has to follow through.

“You call us false, Yukiri? Which Amyrlin would you rather follow? The one who has been amking novices and Accepted out of Aes Sedai, banishing an entire Ajah, and causing divisions in the Tower more dangerous than any army that ever assaulted it? A woman who was raised partially through the help of the Black Ajah? Or would you rather serve the Amyrlin who is trying to undo all of that?”

Well when you put it like that…

And she’s finally in a place where she can put it to them that directly. She isn’t dropping hints here, or giving advice. She is facing four Sitters, and she has just shaken their view of Elaida’s legitimacy, and so she is making them face the choice: her, or Elaida. Making them see that it is a choice, and that it’s one they can’t just ignore.

“Surely you’re not saying that you think we served the Black in raising Elaida,” Doesine said.

“I think we all are serving the interests of the Shadow,” Egwene said sharply, “so long as we allow ourselves to remain divided.”

Yes.

There’s really not much to even say to that, except that it is true even beyond the Tower. So long as the Light remains divided, chaos reigns and the Shadow triumphs.

And it’s such a great statement, because it does reframe the whole thing as so much bigger than a power struggle or a petty argument. The ‘we’ also frames it not as an accusation but as something they must all combat.

“As admirable as I find your work to discover the Black Ajah, I am far more encouraged by your willingness to work together to do it. In the current Tower, cooperation between Ajahs is rare. I challenge you to take that as your main goal, bringing unity to the White Tower.”

An interesting place to take the conversation, but actually a very good one. Because they really are pretty much the only multi-Ajah group functioning at the moment, and therefore they are a starting point. It also further emphasises that Egwene is not fighting them. She is working with them; they are all on the same side, here. The side of the Tower itself.

She stood up, and she half-expected a sister to rebuke her, but they almost seemed to have forgotten that they were speaking with a ‘novice’ and a rebel.

Funny, that. It’s okay, you get used to her. Sort of.

“Do you have the Oath Rod here?”

“No,” Yukiri said. “It’s difficult to sneak away. We can only take it on occasion.”

And now even Yukiri, who argued the longest against even engaging with Egwene, is answering her questions with full explanations.

“A pity,” Egwene said. “I’d have liked to take the Oaths.”

Huh. I would have thought saying that would just highlight the fact that she isn’t exactly Aes Sedai by the normal ‘rules’, but I suppose the statement itself also emphasises her commitment, and her complete confidence that she is Aes Sedai.

But I don’t think that, if Egwene swears the Three Oaths, it’ll be done in a hidden-away room in the basement of the Tower, with only five sisters as witnesses.

“Regardless, you will promptly take it and release Meidani from the fourth oath.”

“We’ll consider it,” Saerin said.

It’s not a full statement of obedience, but all things considered it’s really not that far off. That Saerin is even saying they’ll consider her order is more about saving face than anything else, at this point.

“Know that once the White Tower is whole again, the Hall will learn of this action you have taken. I would like to be able to inform them that you were being careful, rather than seeking unwarranted power. If you need me in the next few days, you may send for me – but kindly find a way to deal with the two Red sisters who are watching me. I’d rather not use Travelling within the Tower again, lest I unwittingly reveal too much to those who would be better left ignorant.”

She left that statement hanging before walking to the door.

Beautiful. I just love the chance to watch a character come in and own a room like that.

They were not expecting her, and what they got was not what they would have expected if they were. And, like the Hall after the war vote, they’re going to be seeing her very differently now.

Meidani is stunned, but Meidani hasn’t seen Egwene work before.

“You really are the Amyrlin,” she finally said.

Indeed.

Next (TGS ch 13) Previous (TGS ch 11)

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Three Utterly Unconnected Books With Gay Protagonists

by Wardog

Thursday, 13 January 2011

Wardog fails at themes.

By accident, rather than design, I just read three young adult books with gay protagonists. They're not really thematically related at all, nor do they have anything in common, but I found the coincidence harmonious enough that I've decided to review them in a bunch regardless.

Boy Meets Boy

I picked this up from a discount bookshop, remembering absolutely nothing about it except that someone might have told me it was good once, well, either this or a different completely book, which is the sort of thought process you find yourself having when you're unleashed in a space where everything is £2. Things you pick up in discount bookshops because there's no reason not to, rather than because you had a set reason for wanting to read them, can be surprisingly delightful. They can also be unbearably dreadful but I'm glad to say that Boy Meets Boy fell into the former category.

It's basically a coming-of-age tale, and a love story, so simply and straightforwardly told that it's almost banal – the message here seems to be that the experience of being a teenager is universal, and that sexuality shouldn't be something that marks difference between people who might otherwise find points of connection. Because of this, and setting elements I'll address later, it subtly addresses issues of acceptance and tolerance. The book itself is a vehicle for them, but mainly it tells a story about a recognisable teenager undergoing recognisable teenage experiences who just happens to be gay. Its very existence, in a way, emphasises the normality of gay experience, while leaving the book at liberty to simply a story in an entertaining way. To be honest, though, the story of Boy Meets Boy didn't interest me all that much, although I did care enough about the protagonist (Paul) to want a happy ending for him. But then it's self-unconsciously unremarkable – as the title itself suggests it will be – and charming enough to carry its own deliberate ordinariness. One of the things I did very much like about Boy Meets Boy is that it successfully creates a transitory space (being a teenager at school) that both owns its own transitiveness and yet doesn't undermine the importance of events and experiences within that space. So, for example, we are never expected to believe that Paul's love for Noah is Forever, but we still recognise its value, and even savour it because there is something uniquely delicate, perfect and intense about that kind of teenage romance.

Boy Meets Boy inhabits its adolescence almost to a fault – it's told in the first person, by Paul, so we are rather trapped in his often rather limited and flawed perspective. It struck me as being so realistically teenage that I found it rather stifling sometimes – his arty whimsicality strays perilously close to pretension. But as close as I came to rolling my eyes on occasion, self-irony is something adults impose on the excesses of adolescence and Paul's earnestness is genuinely endearing. Part of the problem with the book being so grounded in Paul was the less flamboyant characters don't really come through as clearly as they need to – Paul has an interesting circle of friends, including his bisexual ex, Kyle, who is working through his own confusion, and Tony, also gay, who is struggling with the restrictions of his parent's religion. Noah, Paul's love interest, never really develops his own identity – yes he is charming, like Paul, and whimsical, like Paul, and arty, like Paul, and somewhat vulnerable from a relationship gone wrong, like Paul, but although I believed in Paul's attraction to him, I found it rather difficult to believe in Noah as a person in his own right. But, then, I think Boy Meets Boy is more interested in love in general, than the specifics what makes a particular relationship work, so there's an extent to which it doesn't really matter.

The thing I loved most about Boy Meets Boy, however, was the setting. Because I didn't quite realise what I was reading, the fact that it is essentially set in a utopia of complete equality, where all sexualities are accepted, came at me completely unexpectedly. Basically the text presents you – in a very delightful way – with an increasing level of tolerance, up to the point at which it becomes absurdly unrealistic and then you feel deeply sad that what should surely be a basic level of human decency comes across as ludicrous idealism. It's never really “explained” in the text why this small town in America has embraced so wholeheartedly the tolerance it should not be unreasonable to expect from society as a whole but equally that shouldn't require explanation. This setting comes absolutely shining out the book, and some of my favourite passages are when it allows for things like this:

It was with Joni's help that I became the first openly gay class president in the history of Ms Farquar's third grade class. Joni was my campaign manager. She was the person who came up with my campaign slogan: VOTE FOR ME... I'M GAY! […] My biggest opponent was (I'm sorry to say) Ted Halpern. His first slogan was VOTE FOR ME … I'M NOT GAY, which only made him seem dull. Then he tried DON'T FOR HIM... HE'S GAY, which was pretty stupid, because nobody likes to be told who they can (or can't) vote for. Finally, in the days leading up to the election he resorted to DON'T VOTE FOR THE FAG. Hello? Joni threatened to beat him up but I knew he'd play right into our hands. When the election was held he was left with the rather tiny lint-head vote while I carried the girl vote, the open-minded guy vote, the third-grade closet case vote and the Ted-hater vote. It was a total blowout and when it was all over Toni beat Ted up anyway. The next day at lunch, Cody O'Brien traded me two Twinkies for a box of raisins – clearly an equal trade. The next day I gave him three Yodels for a Fig Newton. This was my first flirtation.

Or when the universal tolerance of the setting is playfully juxtaposed against the general intolerance of high school society:

Infinite Darlene doesn't have it easy. Being both star quarterback and homecoming queen has its conflicts. And sometimes it's hard for her to fit in. The other drag queens in our school rarely sit with her at lunch; they say she doesn't take good enough care of her nails and that she looks a little too buff in a tank top. The football players are a little more accepting, although there was a spot of trouble last year when Chuck, the second-string quarterback fell in love with her and got depressed when she said he wasn't her type.

It seems to be telling us we have enough to worry about it without also stressing about other people's sexualities. I'm also just glad there's a bisexual, and a real bisexual, in the book. And although his confusion ends up causes a bit of conflict, it is sympathetically presented.

There were a few aspects of Boy Meets Boy that fell a little flat for me – Noah, as I have said, and I was a bit sad that the story of the straight best friend is essentially one of loss. Joni gets into a relationship with an apparently rather controlling guy but we never really get any into her side of things (because Paul doesn't have any) and Paul is never quite able to reconcile with her. For a book about love, in all its forms, this is fair enough, since love and loss travel hand in hand, but it does mean that the one straight person in the entire book abandons her friends the moment she gets into a relationship. This is even more problematic because Boy Meets Boy is dependent on archetypes, rather than characters – what Boy Meets Boy, hopefully unintentionally, seems to be saying through arc is that gay-straight friendships are impossible to sustain, especially since the friendships he maintains, and the new ones he forms over the course of the book are all with gay people. The other thing that made me a little uncomfortable was the fact that Gay Tony's parents, who are unable to accept his sexuality, are highly religious. Of course lots of people who are religious have trouble with teh gay but it always seems to end up being a short-cut for blind homophobia. To Levithan's credit they are not obviously evil, and genuinely love their son, but just as there are problems in your only straight person fucking off into an unhealthy relationship there are problems in having your only homophobes be people of religious conviction.

Minor issues aside, Boy Meets Boy is basically an adorable piece of fluff. It is a hug in a book and I really enjoyed it.

Hero

I feel really bad about Hero because I honestly expected to love it, but as it turned out I just didn't get on with it. Thom Creed's father used to be a super hero but following a National Disaster (the collapse of the Wilton Towers while fighting off an alien, apparently) he's an outcast, a single father trying to raise his son. Thom is gay, and starting to manifest a superpower, two things he knows his father can't stand, and both of which are aspects of himself he feels he has to hide from his father for lose his love and respect. Unexpectedly, Thomas receives an invitation to try out for the League, the official syndicate superheroes, and finds himself on probation with a bunch of other aspiring superheroes.

One of the first books I reviewed for Ferretbrain back in the day was

Soon I Will Become Invincible

, the first superhero “novel” I'd ever read, which I ended up rather enjoying and is told from the perspective of a supervillain. I remember that Jamie and I had a rather tangled discussion – enacted from a perspective of mutual confusion – about the very concept of a superhero NOVEL.Soon I Will Become Invincible was clever and stylish enough that the inherent problems of the form Jamie articulated in his comments didn't become more than a minor issue. Unfortunately, they bugged the crap out of me in Hero. I felt that the narrative was constantly straining against itself – it wanted, and needed, to be a comic. Or about something else. Equally, the tropes of the genre, which are a vital part of any superhero story, are primarily visual, and largely present to bridge the gap between the images and the words. When there are only words these tropes come across as clumsy and lacking in subtlety – instead of bold, dramatic and exciting.

There is a lot to find likeable about Hero, really. The being-gay arc is nicely paralleled by the being-a-superhero arc; in fact as far as metaphors go it works pretty well, feeding into similar feelings of difference, and a pressure to conceal aspects of your identity. I also thought Thom was very well portrayed, in all his confusion, his foolishness and his charm. The scene in which he first meets Goran is particularly effective. Thom works for a mentoring programme for encouraging literacy:

I turned round and saw one of my new students, about my age, standing behind me. “You scared me.” I shut the file cabinet. “What are you doing in there?” He had a thick accent, so his family must have only moved here recently. One of the many English-as-a-second students who came to the centre to learn English … I always felt bad for the ESL students. I couldn't imagine what I'd do if I had to take chemistry in Bratislava... “Oh,” I was just looking for something for us to read tonight,” I said, slowly enunciating each word. “Do you like books?” He stared at me. He didn't blink. “See, that's the great thing about learning English. You get to read some cool books and stuff, so it's not all about boring homework.” He still didn't blink. “Books and stuff?” He repeated the words like he was spitting out poison. “Yeah,” I said. “It's pretty fun when you get into it. Reading and all.” Phyllis hurried back in the room... “I see you've met Goran,” she said. “Yes.” I smiled. “I have the feeling he's going to pick up English in no time.” Phyllis looked at Goran to see if I was serious and then looked back at me. “Thom, Goran founded the literacy programme for the older kids here two years ago. I asked him to show you the ropes tonight.” […] Goran, arms folded, stared at me with contempt. Sometimes I am the world's biggest loser.

I did, in fact, really like Thom. He's unflinchingly presented with all his flaws and vulnerabilities, right up to and including his mushy fantasies about Uberman, the most famous superhero in the league. He's nicely complex too, so he's always a very real person, not a stereotype. I liked the fact his fantasies about Uberman are as romantic as well as sexual (heh, being gay is not ONLY about sex), that Thom is quite athletic and his with Goran friendship develops over the course of basketball games, and that his first kiss is something he shares with a stranger because he's basically gone out to pull, and that it's okay that he does this. He doesn't come to any harm as a consequence, he doesn't have a horrible time, and it isn't presented as anything other than the act of a hurt and bewildered teenager.

What didn't work for me at all were the superhero aspects of the text. Although they function well enough on a metaphorical level, in practice I found them banal, overwrought and unsatisfying. It's possible I just missed the point. There are plenty of comic-related in-jokes and references – Uberman is clearly Captain Planet, Justice is Superman by way of Dr Manhatten, and his alienness and loneliness is rather affecting in the few scenes he dominates – and it's amusing enough, I suppose, but the dark-man-dark aspects don't sit very well with the more comedic ones. For example, Thom has a team-mate called Typhoid Larry and I think we are expected to care about him as a person, but Moore doesn't put in the effort necessary to make him anything more than a one-dimensional joke about hilariously unpleasant superpowers. Miss Scarlet, equally, is an angry bitch because her superpowers have horrendous side-effects but she's also incredibly boring. It's a shame because the style and complexity with which Moore depicts Thom, his father and, strangely enough, Justice is completely lacking in the supporting cast. They little more than dull, sub-Watchman stereotypes who obligingly die when it is time for us to feel sadness.

I initially liked the fact that Thom's superpower (healing) is a second-order power – it is far from traditionally glamorous and it is also not the sort of power we might instinctively associate with a man. It also ties in nicely to Thom's development from a self-conscious, self-absorbed teenager to an empathetic adult who cares about the people around him. Unfortunately it soon turns out that super-healing also comes bundled with aspects of super-blowing shit up – so something that could have been genuinely interesting and a little bit subversive basically becomes standard superhero fare. Blah.

The other inherent problem with the superhero format is that it's embedded in short-term, dramatic gestures. Thom's father is another example from the “excellent” spectrum of Moore's characterisation – as a disgraced superhero, the guy clearly has issues, and I thought the complicated, messy and frustrating relationship he has with his son was depicted with sympathy and subtlety. He manages to be an admirable man, a good father and a terrible father all at once; he is also, of course, homophobic but he never becomes a strawman bigot. Thom's father eventually comes to accept Thom's homosexuality but only directly before plot requires him to make the traditional superhero self-sacrifice. This was all very moving but I actually thought it was a cop-out. It is probably pretty easy to come to terms with your own internalised homophobia if you're about to die. Acceptance and tolerance are long-term prospects. They are not about short-term gestures. I would have been much happier if Thom's father had shown his commitment to these values through living with his son, not making an "i wuv you" speech and conveniently dying. I know this probably sounds perilously close to counter-factual criticism but since these issues are a major theme of the novel, it is frankly cheap to offer resolve them via trope.

There's a lot of really good stuff in Hero, and I did enjoy it when I wasn't being frustrated with it. But it really is its own worst enemy and the superhero trappings interfere with the story I was interested in reading.

Ash

This book is so utterly different to the preceding books that makes even more of a mockery of this review collection than it is already. Oh well. Ash is basically a Cinderella-retelling. It's charming but I found it rather insubstantial, but then there's also an extent to which fairy-tales are supposed to be insubstantial. The writing is elegant but in many ways it's a very suppressed book – Ash, is after all, subsumed in grief and despair, following the death of her father, and spends most of the book essentially trying to escape her own life. Left at the mercy of her stepmother she is not horrifically abused, but she is reduced to servant status and her wants and needs become completely irrelevant to those around. As a consequence of this, she is a rather difficult character to find in the text – she is, essentially, suicidal for most of the book - and the overall effect makes reading Ash is somewhat alienating. I did, however, appreciate how anti-dramatic is is. With such a depressing take on the material, it would have been easy to turn it hysterical - but, bleak though it is at times, Ash is very controlled, almost too controlled, since we come so close to losing hold on our central character.

It was not quite what I was expecting in a fairytale retelling but it did grow on me. And though it may be subdued, it is thankfully not self-consciously dark-man-dark about it. There's quite a sophisticated world underpinning this simple story, although it's incredibly lightly sketched, it's less world-building than world-suggesting, which I actually rather enjoyed. The magical elements of the story become entwined with Ash's desire to escape, rendering them both sources of solace and threat. Ash yearns to become part of the fairy world, a world not meant for humans, because the human world offers her nothing, and she sees the annihilation of herself as being a release from pain and grief and loneliness. Her fairy godmother is actually a rather sinister fairy called Sidhean and although her attraction to him, and his world, is understandable, and he is certainly fascinating, it is also never portrayed as anything but unhealthy.

Ash's “handsome prince” is not, however, a prince; it is actually the King's huntress, Kaisa. There is a handsome prince in the story, and Ash does end up dancing with him, but he's delightfully incidental. The romance between Ash and Kaisa unfolds beautifully – the fact they are both women is neither here nor there. Ash is very much framed as a love story, not a coming out out story. Being gay is very deliberately Not An Issue. I liked Kaisa very much, she is strong and sensitive, and clever and, quite frankly, she could have me any day. Unlike Sidhean, and, initially, Ash she is very much a part of the natural, human world. As her friendship with Ash develops, it is significant that one of her first acts is to teach Ash to ride, drawing her back towards the world she wants to leave. For all Kaisa's strength and love though, Ash must ultimately choose to rescue herself.

As I said above, Ash was not quite what I was expecting – a fairytale about a depressed girl who must choose whether to reject fairytales and live in the real world. I appreciated it more, in retrospect, since it is rather a slow and quiet read. On the other hand, the relationship between Ash and Kaisa is awfully romantic. And yay for lesbians.Themes:

Books

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Sci-fi / Fantasy

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Young Adult / Children

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Frank

at 04:09 on 2011-01-14

Hero

is likable. It was easy to escape into without thinking too hard on any possible reveals though the main villain was obvious from the get go. Moore's Aquaman family is sickly funny, and his Superman's (Justice's) superolfactory is a cool twist. What was way unlikable and absolutely did not work in the story was the writing because suddenly I found myself counting how many times Moore used 'suddenly' in the text and was suddenly struck plum dumb after reading it twice in the same paragraph.

I couldn't read it again. But I would see the movie or mini-series if it ever came about.

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Robinson L

at 03:02 on 2011-02-19Oh dear,

Perry Moore, author of Hero has died

, and at a ridiculously young age, too. That's sad.

I might read his book sometime, or one of the others. They all sound moderately-interesting-but-not-essential-reading. (I might read

Boy Meets Boy

just for the writing style, if it's all like that.)

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Wardog

at 11:20 on 2011-02-19Oh no - I feel kind of low key guilty now, for not liking his book.

I'm kind of with Frank actually - I didn't really fixate on it but the writing style was incredibly pedestrian.

Yeah, they were all likeable books - not amazing and essential but definitely a pleasant way to pass an afternoon. In order of liking for me it would be: Boy Meets Boy (I believe he's written a

book for adults

recently, I'm curious), Ash, Hero.

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valse de la lune

at 07:17 on 2011-05-02I'm plodding through

Ash

slowly. The writing style's actually easy to read, but I'm having trouble with how anvilicious the author is; your review does suggest it gets better, or at least subtler.

Lol at a fairy named "Sidhean," though.

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valse de la lune

at 11:56 on 2011-05-02Okay I speed-read through it like a thing that is speedy, but what exactly did Ash do to get out of the bargain with Sidhean? "I'll be yours for one night and the curse will be broken because if you REALLY love me you'll set me freeeee" makes sense... how?

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Wardog

at 19:21 on 2011-05-03I guess I just saw that as typical fairy-tale logic, and didn't really worry about it. Although truthfully I wasn't paying much attention by then, just hoping the Huntress was okay :).

Ash was one of those books I liked more retrospect than while I was reading it - Ash's frozen despair doesn't exactly make it easy or lively to get through.

I think there's a second book out now (Huntress?) and I'm almost tempted. I didn't feel massively passionate about Ash, but I'm starved enough for decent fiction with non-straight female characters in it that I'm happy to go along for the ride.

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valse de la lune

at 19:53 on 2011-05-03

Huntress

is certainly on my to-read list, but before I get to it I'll probably read a bunch of others first. For what it's worth, here are books I've read or which I'll soon read that include gay female characters:

Disturbed By Her Song

, Tanith Lee (nominated for the LAMBDA award, even, though I'm still surprised because Lee's straight and I thought their rule was "author must be LGBT")

Daughters of a Coral Dawn

, Katherine V Forrest

The Female Man

, Joanna Russ

Child Garden

, Geoff Ryman (author is a gay man)

Fire Logic

and

Water Logic

, Laurie J. Marks

And obviously, some of Catherynne M. Valente's stuff (author being herself bi, I believe) particularly

Palimpsest

and

The Orphan's Tales

if you haven't read those already.

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Wardog

at 21:42 on 2011-05-03I find Lee pretty variable, to be honest, although I haven't read that one (adds to list). Some of her stuff I really really love and some of it, well, not so much. Valente is one of those authors I've been meaning to get round to for ages, but I've read (and liked) quite a bit of her critical stuff so I'm terrified I won't like her fiction.

The only examples I can remember off the top of my head are Kushner's The Privilege of the Sword in which the heroine is maybe a lesbian if you squint a bit and cross your fingers, the dreaded oh god no Green, and, well shit, that's it.

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valse de la lune

at 06:54 on 2011-05-04I am... not fond of Kushner; couldn't finish

Swordpoint

and what I know of her collab with Sarah Monette (whose books I'm not fond of either)--

A Companion to Wolves--is that it involves gay people and an awful lot of rape. Can't we have fantasy featuring gay people that's not so rapey all the time? But I agree with you on Lee; she has written things I loved, and things that made me go "she... she can't write." Valente is one of those authors I've been meaning to get round to for ages, but I've read (and liked) quite a bit of her critical stuff so I'm terrified I won't like her fiction. Palimpsest isn't her best, IMO, though a lot of people may disagree--it's got iffy sexual politics (i.e. consent issues)--but the Orphan's Tales duology is almost universally liked. The Female Man opens beautifully, with the female narrator introducing herself and talking about her mother, her other mother, and how she loves her wife Vittoria. Aw hell yeah.

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Wardog

at 18:18 on 2011-05-04I actually quite liked Swordspoint, and to a lesser extent Priviledge. But then I think it was the first of that "type" of book I read. I might be less forgiving nowadays. I thought A Companion to Wolves was Monette and Bear (or are Kushner and Bear the same person, I really have no clue about incestuous author cults), and I read halfway through it, slightly bewildered by both the rapey and, even more objectionable (not really), the *boring*. Also I thought what was going to be an interesting examination of the mythic and the construction of masculinity seemed to just boil into who goes on the bottom ... so... yeah.

I've been trying to control my book buying habits, in that I need to read (and review) what I've already got ... but ... but ... temptation...

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valse de la lune

at 18:31 on 2011-05-04Oh shit, my bad. You're right, it is Monette and Bear.

These writers are all the same to me okay.

Not coincidentally I also don't have much patience for Bear, and that's not just because of her part in Racefail 09: I read

Ink and Steel

and kept going wryyyyyy.

(Oscar Wilde said the only way to deal with temptation is to give in to it. :))

[thaiconsent-blog]

My wounds.

**This story contains traumatic content and sexual harassment which could be sensitive to some. Kindly avoid this article as it might trigger mental wounds or unpleasant feelings.**

This article is dedicated to #MeToo and all the fighters out there. You are not alone.

I’ve been hesitating for a long time whether I should tell the truth or not, whether it is worth it to take this risk, whether I’d be seen as a liar… Many times I decided to keep this to myself, but the truth kept burning inside of me, as if it was a time bomb counting down in my heart. I truly longed for an end to this feeling, but I still couldn’t find a way to move on with my life without suffering. Even though there were times I was feeling better, eventually I ended up encountering triggers that took me back to my state of agony every time.

.

.

From time to time I ask myself what is the point of existing. Many times I think of escaping this reality through death, but I couldn’t. Until today… the day I decided that I couldn’t stand keeping this to myself anymore, and that I must share this story. The story that happened many years ago (that I mislead it as ‘sexual harassment’ when it was clearly more than just that.)

.

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It happened when I was 18. I had known this person since I was around 14-15. He was always giving me small tasks to do, and was my guidance in certain times (especially regarding family issues that I couldn’t tell anyone). I respected and trusted him more than anyone else. To me, he was a benefactor, as he had helped me out through thick and thin, from office equipment to lunch money in times I had nothing at all. I used to think that without him, there wouldn’t have been me. Unfortunately, nothing in this world comes for free, and this is how I had learned it the hard way. I had learned of the darkest side of humans. I have learned of the escape of my own reality. And I have learned of the capability one can protect their own mentality, including mine.

.

.

When I was 18 turning 19 years old, he and I decided to go out together. I thought of myself as the luckiest woman on earth. Rather than choosing one of the pretty, rich or clever girls around him, he instead chose me who had nothing. I wasn’t attractive nor wealthy, not to mention my intelligence. At least we had one thing in common, which is the desire to help out fellow humans. He was nice-hearted, a good leader, smart and was a guidance to many of those in need. I was happy, elated that I would be able to walk that path together with him.

.

.

Until one day, out of nowhere he told me that he would come to visit me in the upcountry, and he straightforwardly asked to have sex with me, in which I rejected directly. I considered myself a little conservative and I was only 18-19 during the time, which I felt it was too fast, and if it was really about time, I’d rather it happen according to the norms (after marriage, for instance). I can’t remember if he was kept on asking or not, but it ended by him agreeing that he ‘promised’ not to do anything, and appointed me to meet at a hotel.

.

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I totally understand if people are going to judge me, that ‘there aren’t any good women who would meet a man at a hotel’. I must say it right here that meeting another man privately, or being alone with him in a room doesn’t mean that I am ‘asking for it’ or ‘okay’ with everything. Every time he asked for sex, my answer was still always ‘no’. And with my trust for him, I still believed he would keep his promise. Until I realized I was wrong. I was wrong that I trusted him.

.

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You can say I’m stupid, but it wasn’t as easy as you think it is.

.

‘If it happens, you just resist.’ The world doesn’t just offer you simple solutions like that.

It could have been that way, hadn’t he been a total stranger, I would have fought my best.

But in this case, it wasn’t. Let me remind you again, he was the person I trusted the most.

.

In that situation, my head went blank, I couldn’t gather any train of thought. And the moment I realized, it was too late. All was left was a hole in my heart, grown to become a black hole, gradually expanding and consuming my existence, leaving an empty shell with no sense of my own identity. I felt like I was someone else completely. Although I have no knowledge of psychology, judging from living through this memory for years, I assume that it happened due to my attempt to run away from reality; I refused to believe that the person I loved and trusted to most would do anything as horrendous to me. And with the fact that he is like my only anchor, ‘I was so afraid I’d lose him’, although I wasn’t okay with what happened. It was as if I created a new identity, or as if I just pretended I was okay with it, just so I wouldn’t lose anything, while in fact I felt lost at the same time.

.

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I went home with a sense of emptiness, vacant, obscure and perplexed. Situations like this happened more and more severe. During the year and a half we were together, he started purchasing clothes he’d like to see me wear, including lingerie, or even asked for my own underwear for him to keep. He tended to place cameras in certain corners of the room, something that also started to become another reality I refuse to believe it happened (and it got worse when he would place 2 cameras, one in the corner and another in his hand). He started to ask/force me to take suggestive photos of myself, in our room or even in the car. Perhaps the worst of all was in public, in a park in Bangkok.

.

Many times I refused, but he didn’t seem to submit, and every time (that I recall) it ended up with me ‘agreeing’ just to be over with it.

.

Who would have known that someone you walk past normally might be a victim under a force such as me (because at the end I learned that this darkness doesn’t hide in the corners, but in the open air of the society.)

.

And here is the problem, the point where I clearly realized his distortion, his darkest side.

.

The problem persisted from the very first day it happened, my body didn’t respond to the stimulations. This resulted in him having to use lubricant every time we did it. I always lied every time he asked if I felt anything, I never did. Each time it happened, I only wished it would be done as quickly as possible, but it seemed that he isn’t satisfied since the body can’t lie. He began to have me watch porn, in which was useless. He also scolded at me, saying that it wouldn’t be fun if I didn’t enjoy it as well. And he started reinforcing restrictions on me, forcing me to lose weight, sending me pictures of young actresses, wanting me to be like them ‘petite and lean legs’, (which wasn’t my body type at all). Even forced me to cut my hair the way he wanted, threatening with reasons I can’t recall.

.

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I lived in fear, increasing every day, fear that if I couldn’t satisfy him, I might lose him (looking back I also don’t understand why I have to be so afraid considering what he had done to me). My humanity was destroyed into pieces, including my confidence… that he’d shame me, my body, that it would never be as how he wanted, and it became deeply rooted into my head.

.

A year and half of hell happened.

.

It sounds like consent, right? It isn’t… From the bottom of my heart, everything that happened was all influenced by my fear, and fear does not equate to consent. Fear isn’t saying ‘yes’. Fear is emptiness. Fear is hesitance. Fear is juggling between one and another. Therefore it is not, nor will ever be consent. Fear occurred because at the time, he was in control of me. Having said all that, the real ‘hell’ happened after the end of that relationship.

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.

Apart from loss, I also had to face disgust, strong disgust of my own body. My confidence went on negative to the point that I tended to lock myself up in my own room. Even if I have to leave the room, I’d wear long sleeves no matter how hot the weather was. Many times I felt like scraping my skin off my body due to how filthy I thought it was. It was so disgusting that I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t wash the filth away. Eventually I was disgusted with myself, that I was flawed, imperfect, bizarre and ugly. I didn’t even want to see myself in the mirror.

.

.

And it worsened when the symptoms of PTSD intensified. I went through months of nightmares. I feel anxious around others. I feel unsafe, uncomfortable. Sometimes I feel the impulse to harm others, especially men, just any man. I wanted them to feel at least a speck of the suffer I had to go through. And with that thought, I felt anxious around my own existence, drowning into guilt, dehumanized.

.

Once or twice, I was so cautious that I couldn’t leave my own room

.

Many times I think of escaping, by committing suicide.

.

But a part of me wants to live on, to forget everything. It was just that the symptoms wouldn’t let me.

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During the beginning of my anxiety and continuous nightmares, all of my awful memories were brought back in rewind, as it just happened recently. It was nauseous, plain white. I even recalled the details of the room where it all happened; how was the room, where were certain pieces of furniture were located, even the pain. It felt like I was in hell, unable to reach out my hand to anyone.

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Sometimes I chose to let it all out, sometimes within those times others would tell me that I was dark, that it was my choice to run into those thorns.

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I didn’t blame them at all. I’m even happy that they would never understand.

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I couldn’t choose that today I am going to be happy, bad dreams were always ready to pull me back into them.

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I couldn’t choose…

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Sometimes when I feel lonely, when I look at other families, I wanted to have my own family, too. I wanted to have children, but I thought it would be impossible. Who would accept this body? Who would accept someone with this kind of past? There is no one who wouldn’t give importance to sex. Even though I have been treated, the symptoms aren’t completely gone. Sleeping pills couldn’t entirely help with the nightmares since they occasionally come back. But as long as they aren’t related to what happened, I am more relieved.

.

.

And this was what happened to me… What I had to endure throughout all of the years. Many times I was accused of making this story up, to the point that I was too afraid to publish my story anywhere (which only made it worse). I only hope that my story would be a disclaimer for others, that even the ones they trust the most, you’d never know what would they choose, between respecting your decision, or satisfying their desires.

.

Not only with women, even men can experience this as well.

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I’d like to thank everyone who has been a motivation throughout and has made me feel I’m not alone, including other guidances and articles which demonstrate the issue of consent by Thaiconsent. Including toxic relationships and toxic partners, I’d like to recommend Free From Fear.

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Lastly, I’d like to thank my own courage, that made my finally brave enough to publish my story, including my favorite series and quote from my favorite character Derek Morgan from Criminal Minds, Season 8, Episode 18.

[ It can cause a lot of isolation And there can be anger and rage.

It can cause pain and suffering But you can get through it.

It can make you stronger.

It does not have to destroy your life.

It can make you fight back.

And it can make you want to spend the rest of your life protecting others. ]

Story by Anonymous Illustration by Nanaaa First published in Thaiconsent Facebook Page

[garywonghc]

What To Do When The Anger Gets Hot

by Gelek Rimpoche

What makes me angry? That’s an interesting question. I don’t get angry. If you ask the monks and teachers who were with me in Tibet or India, I’m sort of known for not getting angry. I do get irritated sometimes. Especially being diabetic. If I explain something and people don’t understand and then I try my best to talk to them and they still don’t get it, then I get a nervousness within me, and I’m thinking, “What is the use of talking? I better shut up.” Or physically, I start sweating. Is it a diabetic effect — when the sugar is low — or is this really irritation?

Honestly, I don’t recall having hatred toward anybody. Anybody — including the people who have taken advantage of Tibet and have been mean to my mother. Somehow I could not develop hatred for them. When my brother came to visit me in the United States, he told me about people who did bad things to our mother. Then last year he came again and mentioned those people, and I said, “Who’s that?” And he said, “Oh, you’re so terrible — I told you what they did to Mother.” “Oh,” I said, “Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, I remember,” but truly, I forgot. It’s not that I have great patience or great compassion, but I just don’t get angry. Whether it’s good or bad, who knows, but it’s true.

If I hear a terrible story, I feel sad. I feel sour. It’s almost like having an ulcer when you get a bitter taste. I’m never even upset with the Chinese. They took everything that I had in Tibet. They took the country and tortured people. I was not one of the poor people in Tibet. I’m one of those — what do you say — “born with a silver spoon”? I can say that I was born with a gold spoon in my mouth. When I hear about the children tortured and killed and the women being raped and even men getting raped, I get a bitter taste inside me, and I do get a stomachache. But even this irritation doesn’t last very long. Maybe I’m stupid. Maybe I’m what you call a very wimpy and weak person who gets scared and doesn’t know how to get angry with anybody. Maybe I’m that. I don’t know.

Some people are short-tempered. They yell and they scream. There’s a person who lives in my house — a huge, big guy — and he was so upset one day. I don’t know the reason. It was no big reason. He picked up a big bundle of clothes and threw it on the floor and shouted at the top of his voice, “Fuck you!” [laughs.] So I got pretty scared, because if he gets wild, he could beat me. I just sat there, and I pretended nothing happened. I thought, “Oh, my God, poor guy, I’m sorry he’s so upset.”

Many students come to me who are very angry at someone. I ask, “How do you benefit from being angry? Can you undo things by getting angry? What are you going to gain?” And they all reply, “Nothing.” And then I say, “What do you lose by having anger?” And many of them say, “Nothing.” And then I say, “No. You lose your peace of mind and you lose your positive karma. You’re creating negative karma. You’re training your mind to develop hatred. You’re opening the door for the ego to hate people.” And I keep on listing. Sometimes they get upset and straightaway change the conversation. But if they’re willing to listen, I keep listing the countless faults of anger and hatred.

Hatred is worse than anger. Anger, irritation, is not that bad. But it will definitely become hatred if you don’t take care of it. Irritation is okay. Everybody has it, you know; even those people who you might call enlightened beings, as human beings they may have some irritation.

Americans think it is beneficial to “get in touch with” their anger. That’s just the first step — recognising your anger. The second step is analysing and meditating on your anger. The tradition to which I belong [Gelugpa] teaches that analytical meditation must be combined with concentration meditation. So, analysing your thoughts, your ideas, your emotions, is absolutely important. With this you recognise what is really hatred, what is really anger. You’re going deeper and recognising that “I am angry, I am hating.”

This approach also depends on the mind. When the mind is at the bursting level, you don’t do anything. Just let it be. For the time being, watch a movie, see a nice view, be on the beach or the bank of a river. Try to divert the attention, because when the anger is really strong you cannot challenge it. If you try, you may get defeated, and that’s when people say, “That’s it! I cannot take it anymore!” And they hit the ceiling. What you’re really doing then is giving the okay to anger. My suggestion is never to give the okay to anger, and divert your attention when it’s really hot. Divert. When the anger’s not that hot, but still there, at that moment you can recognize it and the feelings that you get before and after. Then analyse. You’ll see all the disadvantages — personally see them; I’m not talking about believing in religious principles, but about simply seeing the disadvantages. Your peace of mind is lost. You can’t do anything you want to do. You can’t concentrate. You can’t do your job. You can’t talk to people straightforwardly. Or you have to cry. You have to do all these things and you see all the consequences of that. You really see it. Then ask: Do I still want that? Then you make a decision: “I do not want it.” It will come back. But that doesn’t matter. Keep on repeating the process. That’s how you train your mind not to get angry.

Sometimes friends will try to arouse your anger to make you aware of a bad situation. They’ll point to how someone is treating you unfairly. I don’t buy that. I would say, “You cannot take that abuse anymore. Have compassion for yourself.” I would use compassion, not anger, to motivate you to protect yourself, and compassion toward the person who’s giving you the trouble. Compassion rather than hate is what helps. That’s not easy, because of our established patterns. But true dharma practice is to try to change that habit, change a pattern. It’s not easy, but if you constantly keep on doing it, one day you will do it without any difficulty. Compassion is much stronger than anger.

When I was working in India in radio, the director general of Indian Radio was once so furious with me, he was yelling and screaming. And I looked at his face, and it looked like the backside of a monkey. I couldn’t help but laugh. He was so upset, he kept screaming. And I couldn’t stop laughing. He finally shouted, “Get out of here!” Then he fired me.