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vegetarian-macan · 4 years ago

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Macan’s Birthday 2021

As a lot of you know from following me or just watching me go completely off the rails, you’ll know that I’m very fond of Macan as a character. Unfortunately, he’s one of many characters that Lifewonders has introduced with an intriguing characterization that is shelved for the same joke over an over again. You know the one.

This post is going to be exploring that concept, and the ramifications it has on his character and how these beliefs affect him in his Date Quest. All information presented will be from his appearances that are lore-heavy, as well as some of my own inferences. Everything will be under the cut because this is going to be a little long.

And fair warning, I will be getting mentioning topics such as suicide and human trafficking as it is a part of his character, keep this in mind as you read.

First, let’s start with the lore that appears in his character quest (the first one, hoping for a second at some point), as that came first. The beginning starts with Macan speaking about how he woke up one day in a jungle with no memory besides the knowledge to find water, food and shelter, and the belief that if one consumes another, they will live on within you. He soon saw that he was a weretiger, with no recollection of how this transformation happened in the first place. In the scene in Chapter 3 where Macan and the MC are discussing himself, he brings up a theory of how this happened, saying that a tiger may have become human, or a human became a tiger. Either way, two beings were killed, and one was reborn from them.

He was unique in the world of Shangri-La, no one else was like him, as strong as him. He was unlike anything there, which made him truly and utterly alone. He hated what little time he spent as a weretiger in Shangri-La, being unable to speak to others as they were afraid of him, and with no one to talk to, he soon began to go mad. When the past Macan appears in his character quest, and the protagonist and the Macan from Tokyo have to fight him, he has a few lines of dialogue about how there’s no one around to answer his calls anymore, no one to listen to him. How he hates being alone.

After he is defeated, this past Macan cries about how he’s going to die alone, that he isn’t just another beast, he’s Someone. It is implied subtly in this scene that had he not been Summoned to Tokyo Macan would have either gone completely mad or committed suicide. Thankfully, this was avoided, although the result to being Summoned was less than ideal, which I will talk about later.

There is a scene in his character quest, right before Past Macan appears, that is explored in his date quest. While bathing in a lake together in the jungle, Macan brings up that with the protagonist there, being in Shangri-La is different. He’s more comfortable, he has someone to talk with now. He mentions that if he could, he’d want to go back to Shangri-La and live there forever with the MC, before stating that if he dies first, he’d want you to eat him.

As for his date quest, let’s set the scene with some lore provided in-game. It opens up with this:

A world where the horizon is lost. This is the homeworld of Macan, Shangri-La. It is said that it is at the end of the mountain called Hourai "the end of Kunlun" and "behind Deva Loka". That is, it is "on the opposite side of the never-ending road" where people believe in "Reverse Reincarnation". In a world dominated by this faith, death does not mean the end of existence. They believed that even if the physical body was destroyed, the astral body and the spirit would continue living on in a separate state. They could continue living as long as the body, astral body and spirit were not all destroyed at the same time, which is the eternity that Shangri-La promised.

Macan brings this fact up when he is introduced; those that he consume live on within him, and whoever shall consume him he will live on in them. This is the faith by which he lives his life. No living being is exempt from this rule in Shangri-La, which is most likely part of the reason that Macan has hangups over consuming animals like fish and livestock. They have no choice in how they die, and he cannot be comfortable eating them like that.

As you may remember, Macan states, or rather implies, that he has eaten people that have lost in a duel against him before. He is completely comfortable with this aspect, seeing it as a natural result to things because, in his homeworld, it is. This is not shared by the residents of Tokyo and other worlds, however, with characters such as Suzuka and Nomad being put off by this. But there is a reason for why he fights the way he does.

Within Shangri-La there was a cycle that persisted up until the creation of the Macan we know, one that was completely broken by the actions of a single human. This cycle was the creation of the Weretiger King, and is explained in his Date Quest as follows:

The weretiger known as Macan Gadungan is also a believer of this faith [see above]. When a creature like him is created, a human is consumed by a beast. The human's spirit is then reborn in the body of this beast. The name of the magangadungan is known throughout Shangri-La as the king of the jungle where many monsters are said to roam. However, it is the opposite that is true. It is not the strongest magan becomes king, it is that the strongest king becomes a magan. Even the toughest bodies will eventually decay, and so even the strongest man will rise from his chair. But there was still a way in this world to make one's faith eternal. The way to accomplish this is to be eaten by a King and to become their flesh and blood. Even if one's body is consumed, as long as the rest lives on, so too will you. Therefore, it is the former king's fate to be eaten by a new king, and live on.* They will be reborn into a new body. The king of the jungle must then remain the best as well as fascinating target that everyone will want to eat. Until the day they too are consumed, no one can defeat them.

*(I’m aware of the contradiction here, but I will not know the correct translation of this section until it is translated officially)

Macan, or the human he once was, managed to stop this cycle, this loop, in its tracks by turning it on it’s head. The challenger is never supposed to defeat the King, and yet, he did. And so, every past King, every instance of this Weretiger King and the human Macan used to be were fused together, and became a new Weretiger King. One that hadn’t been seen before in that world.

Soon after, he was Summoned to Tokyo, and sold on the black market run by Daikoku. His date quest explores as well, stating that his time as a prisoner was spent in a cage, shuffled between owners and trying to take pieces of him to use for medicine, leather, meat, anything they could take from him. And yet, he continued to live on, his immortality coming from the jungle of Shangri-La, and the former kings that now made up his existence.

He escaped by mauling one of his captors, and presumably picked up by Claude while he was on the run. Those captors of his wanted his flesh and blood, and it was something he would never give them willingly.

The same cannot be said for the protagonist, or whoever he is paired with in his Date Quest.

During this quest, Macan’s beliefs are tested when he goes to finally consume the protagonist while they lay on the private beach, and he can’t go through with it. Even with his jaws around their throat, he cannot make the final push. Why?

You see, up until this point, Macan had lived by, essentially, the law of equivalent exchange. Give and take, in equal amounts. The bare minimum was given to him whenever someone interacted with him, and Macan gave the same back. So what happens when someone gives him more than that? What happens when he wants more than just the bare minimum? This part addresses that; his beliefs crumble under him.

Macan believes that he can’t ask for more than the bare minimum from others, their flesh and blood, because it would be going against the nature of the weretiger kings, to want nothing from others and also embracing your own personal desires to the fullest. This was what he learned in Shangri-La, the way to prove that he was alive and existed. It was simple, it was an easy world to live in with this belief. But it wasn’t enough for him, not when it came to the person he loved.

Macan wanted more from them; their flesh, blood, soul, everything. He wanted their time, their friendship, their love and adoration. But something deep in his being told him he didn’t deserve it, that they won’t reciprocate this need. The parts of himself, the human, the tiger, and the one that is neither and both, all want different things, and it confused him. Startled him. Scared him.

In the end, he realizes that if he were to kill and eat them, he would lose them. They would be apart of his existence from there on, but they wouldn’t be there. He would no longer be able to see them smile, sit with them on the beach, fight together with them. Which is a loss he couldn’t take, and was prepared to throw away his entire way of life to preserve that bliss. Were they to ask the same of him, he would give them everything he was without hesitation.

His date quest ends ambiguously, which is fitting. The player gets to decide how Macan and the one he has fallen for continue with their life. To follow one’s beliefs, or stop and reconsider when the price to pay is the one you love.

#macan #macan housamo #tokyo afterschool summoners #housamo #i love character analysis but this one wrings me out

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riddleredcoats · 5 years ago

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Prompt: Voldemort returns to his body after 13 years and finds out that Bellatrix died in Azkaban.

So, I didn’t write the scene where he finds her, because it always came out too melodramatic, but I did write the scene where he finds out. So here, have Voldemort full of feels. (Side appearances of Black Sisters, except Bella cause she’s dead. And a special guest.)

Hope you like it, @knightessofwalpurgis

A phantom pain

The darkened room that had served as his hideout for the past… Only the Gods know how many months… was dirty, filthy and in utter disarray. The blinds which hadn’t been opened since he had moved in, the desk had long since run out of space for his papers, the sofa had the light imprint of his body – less for his actual weight but more for his continued use – for when he slept, and the pile of clothes that were intermittently changed were all lying on the floor resting alongside the books and papers that had made the bulk of his research months ago; the only part of the room that wasn’t grimy was the sheets. He hadn’t used the bed for anything but put more papers and books when the desk ran out of space.

With a hushed rage the book in his hands takes a perfect arch of a flight as another dead end is all he has to content himself with.

It is the same as every other day.

His days are spent in research. Books upon books, papers upon papers, rumour upon rumour are checked, verified, rejected and annotated, and the cycle repeats. So engrossed in study that rare are the days he remembers to eat, much less sleep.

The cause of his research doesn’t help matters. Overcoming death? That is easy a task compared to overturning death. Once a deed is done, undoing it is a arduous task of near heroic exercise. And he had searched for such deeds, of people who had overturned death, no matter how fanciful the tale was.

He still remembers the day when the news of her death – he could never truly say her name anymore, thinking it even could be likened to craving his fangs on the neck of a unicorn; life-giving, yes, if only because the pain and revolt made it known that no hell could compare to the agony of living moment – had capitulated this whole, dull exercise his life seemed to revolve around.

He remembers the confusion of not seeing her with the rescued soldiers, the surprise in his face must have been evident but it hadn’t been Lucius – cowardly as he may be, he fancied himself useful – who had given him the news.

Her sister, tears in cloudy blue eyes had gently – why, why, why was she being so with him? – led him from the hall, and had apparated with him to a familiar site – he remembers her, quietly sobbing in her sister’s arms, as her father’s coffin went to ground, the image of her set against the background he found himself seeing again – and he must have stumbled because her sister, now alone with tears unabashedly running down her eyes, had grabbed his arm to steady him and lead him to a grandiose tomb – how, how how had this happened?

He had knelt before it and heard his companion gasp at the venerable act but paid it no mind, reading, instead, the inscription on the black marbled stone lined with golden veins. He traced the carved epitaph and date with a long, white finger. Arrived too late by a year. A mere year.

“She got the kiss,” broken-sobbed sister interrupted quietly, “Some guard tried to grab her, she fought back and killed him. There was nothing I could-…” he was sure that sobs racked her body, if the sound was anything to go by.

He remembers saying nothing, remembers watching it with muted eyes. He thought himself being able to rarely truly feel anymore but there was a dull pang in his chest that penetrated through his often-desensitized senses that seemed to reverberate through every part of his being.

He also remembers kneeling there for a long time; even after her sister was long gone, he remembers staying. He remembers coming back to Malfoy Manor and being surprised to see the pitying looks, the knowing looks, the sympathetic looks. As if everyone had known how he would react except himself.

If there had been rumours before, after that – after spending what turned out to be three days at her tomb stone –, it became inevitable to avoid them.

He had always known the rumours about them, would have to be blind, deaf and a squib to have never heard them, but that was all that there was to them… Rumours. A fact that would surprise enough people to make it a noteworthy gossip.

Of course that every rumour has a sliver of truth and this time was no different, while there was no interaction between them that hadn’t passed in front of the eyes of someone – anyone would do, at some point they had wordlessly decided – else, a precaution for both of them and a way to keep up the appearances… While that was an ignorable truth, it didn’t mean that sentiment wasn’t there. That need, lust, care, devotion, admiration, respect, loyalty, friendship, love… didn’t penetrate the air between them, infusing tension into every single of their interactions even with a bloody chaperone.

After learning of her death, first the pain had been dull, rarely striking at him even as he prepared his comeback. Then, as if his wall slowly crumbled, the pain began to harass at the back of his mind interrupting meetings, strategies, and sleep. The image of her, a thought that she might have, her voice…Oh, those were always breathtakingly painful when her voice echoed in his cold, unfeeling mind, and yet, it was only in those moments that he stopped feeling half-way real, when he heard her voice.

And then, as was his wont, as was his nature and character… He became fixated with the idea of her, possessed by the idea of truly listening to her voice one last time.

He knows, bitterly and with unbridled – yet still muted, as everything is these days – anger, that had they acted, had they indulged, and succumbed and allowed themselves to partake in adulterous and desired act – the consequences be thrice damned to hell – had they allowed themselves that reprieve from their stations, then he would not be so obsessed, so infatuated, so crippled by his need to listen to her again. To have her say the words they both knew to be true but had never put to lips, to hear her berate him, even, for having neglected his – their – cause in search of her, anything to hear her voice, her sentiment, her fondness and love for him in her quiet, even gentle if she so wished to make it so, voice.

And he had.

Neglected his cause, he meant. Almost bitter, but not entirely. A part of him glad to be rid of the of the conflict he had initiated when he had been too young to truly understand how tiring it was to be at the forefront of war faction, how war could tear at his brain until nothing remained but the ignorable need to survive. A war that he had never truly believed, not when the traditions the war had meant to preserve only resulted in leaving him and her utterly devastated and alone with their desires.

As his search for her became more and more time consuming, the war that had weighted on him for more years than he was comfortable with admitting, fell to the back burner to be abandoned to whoever wanted to take the mantle from him. Although, unsurprisingly, no one did. War, prison, and loss had ravaged the whole country, no one wanted to be at the vanguard of a war anymore.

And so, along the way, the many meetings became few and then scarce, and finally, no one dared to enter his room; all having deserted him, most having left the continent all together to avoid capture, he knew from meetings with Lucius who had eventually also stopped coming into the wing of his own manor he had reserved for him. And he had, eventually, lost track of time, unknowing how many months – years, perhaps – had passed since his focus shifted from blood conflict to bloody sentimental search.

And so the days repeated, books upon books, papers upon papers, rumour upon rumour. Again and again. Round and round it goes.

Cycle as his life might have become, there are days, though, that his brain – bursting with information, brimming with immoral and immortal reasonings – begs for different setting, of which, in his current near-completely-shut-in state left the gardens where the sun’s bright light affected his eyes, or the solarium which presents the same problem only with no solace to the heat from the outside wind, or finally, the library with dark, dusty tomes that would help in his research.

To act as if there is a decision to be made is always a moot point, really for that is where he always finds himself, at any rate, the library of the house of one of his – former – subordinates. Always with a hungry eye on the prize, the Malfoy ancestry would not allow Lucius to squander the possibility that he might return to his former glory. To say to the man that he might be hoping for an impossible result was hopeless and counterproductive, he is not that far gone to unrecognize the advantage of the luxury he finds himself at.

This day is no different as he leaves his bedroom and walks with scarcely used legs the few paces to the library, immersing himself in the smells of old books. Combing through severely lacking old spines of tomes older than the very building, and passing a section he rarely seeks, and something calls his eyes to it.

Out the corner of his eye, he sees it. A faded picture hidden between rarely called upon tomes of three young women, heads thrown back in laughter in the setting of a seedy bar that they must have ran off to in spite of cherished parents advise.

Three Sisters Black.

The oldest, strong, powerful, and warrior-like, none like her was he ever likely to find; having drawn her last breath, she was the one he was searching for despite wasteful death. The middle-one, princess, boulder-bound, saved from terrible fate by a boy’s clumsy hands; the one he always forgot no matter how much pain she wrought. The youngest, delicate, golden, prideful, family’s path did she follow; the one who shared his need and urged him to succeed.

The Three Black Sisters.

Sisters three.

Lightning, painful and mottled, courses through veins as idea materialized in brain.

Sisters three.

Brothers three.

The Deathly Hallows. Master of Death, the one to hold them all would be. Still, for a quick talk, the stone would do, all he had to do was find the one who had it. Plan cocked and ready to execute, he makes to leave the room when sound strikes him still, he had thought himself alone in the library.

Fate is a curious thing, or perhaps, it merely enjoys making a mockery of him, for the sound he hears is intricately linked to the wonderous epiphany reached.

He hears a snort, the rotten sister, he knows the voice well, so like hers, “Who would have thought… When we heard he came back everyone sprint to a frenzy, after ousting Fudge, naturally. But then… Nothing. For three-years. We thought that the Potter boy had lost his mind.”

“If only.” The golden sister, now. He knows that voice too, much less like hers but still known to him. Though, barely, anymore.

“Yeah, I know. And then Draco, last year, spills the beans and says he’s here. We call Lucius in to the Ministry and then he says the words…” a laugh now, loud and like hers too, but less vivid, less enticing, just less, “’He’s looking for a way to bring Bellatrix back’, all snide and everything as Lucius inclines to do. We thought to bring him in but decided against it when we realized that he was better off in his own desperate search of her. Gods, the shock that rippled through the Wizardry World.”

“I know. I have the newspaper articles,” the other argues coldly, out of patience, now too sounding like her a bit, “Why are you telling me this? Did you come to mock? Did you come to tarnish the memory of our sister just that little bit more?”

“Did you know,” the traitor continues as if she hadn’t been interrupted, but indeed ridiculing, “The Ministry almost wanted to give our sister a medal. For ending a war before it started. Only our illustrious sister could do that, long after she’s dead, too. And all that with her cunt. Incredible, really.”

Before he can move, before he can even decipher the words, his addled brain too used to written texts and less to human interaction, before he can react to the obscene, immoral, lewd insult, before he can do any of that… It is the youngest’s voice, harsh and cold and insulted beyond measure, that rises in the room.

“How dare you?!”

“How dare I, what?” Bound Princess Andromeda may be, but of wit sharp as the family and stone she was born and bound to, “We all know that this desperation could only come from one place. That this particular devotion that not even her husband shared is from some rotten place inside of him. That he wants her back, is indication enough that they-…”

Before another foul insult can make its way past Black raised mouth, he speaks, finally loud enough to attract their attention.

“We didn’t.”

Tea-filled porcelain shatters on the floor, the sisters startled by his utterance. Startled gasps fill the silence of his wake and arrogance feigned he walks to them with the intent of walking by altogether.

But when the Princess-named sister looks at him, the urge to advert his eyes almost overwhelms him; family-bound she and her sister were, but it is unfairly unkind for her to look so much like the one he seeks, and although the colouring is all wrong – all far too dull, not vibrant black hair or grey iris – it hurt to look at the look-a-like. No, the golden-haired, blue-eyed sister was much safer bet.

“Come, sit.”

Fear as taken place to gentleness in the youngest of the sisters, either by shared misery or by nature of motherhood. He should care about lost station, but she does not pass any imaginary boundaries that may have existed what feels like centuries ago. He obeys, more out of need to organize his thoughts on his new idea than real obedience or want of small talk.

“So you never…”

Whatever plans he had to remain quiet are quickly broken by noisy-look-a-like-sister looking at him, suspiciously. As if he would lie. He might, to be frank, but not about this – not about her – and certainly not now, now that she’s… not here.

“No.” He admits, unsure as to why he is compelled to do so, “We never. She was married, and even if it did not matter, which it did… She didn’t-…” the phrase hangs in the air, and he cannot unstick the words from his throat.

“She didn’t…?” Prods the look-a-like, glutton for information. Either as gossip or as genuine care for her estranged sister, he does not know.

“The risk for her was high, no denying that. But the risk for me,” He says still unbelieving that it is true, that the pain they bore was born out of mutual feeling and not one-sided apathy, “the risk was too high. It would make me seem even more hypocritical than my lineage already did. She did not want to risk it.”

“Are you even sure she wanted..?” Meddling in the wound she had opened up. The cruelty of her sister would make Bell- her – proud.

“Yes!” Word he breathes forcefully. Too forcefully, perhaps, as the bookcase behind him trembles in tune with his magic, “She did want.”

“How do you know?” Prodding further, Black brutality rearing its head again.

“He knows.” Golden sister answers the question, iron in her voice, shield against brittle princess, unbending with the same certainty he feels, “He knows because she couldn’t hide it. Because looking at her as she looked at him was a masterclass in pain, deep and true and undoubtful. She loved him madly. Fervently. Gloriously … As was our sister’s wont.”

“What a load of bullshit.” Mumbles in response of poetry invoked, but suspicious mist in eyes couldn’t hide the truth of affected sentiment, “Bellatrix would let everyone, and everything, go to hell if it suited her. She doesn’t… I mean, she never…”

“She loves you.” Again comforting for some alien reason that he cannot bear – and does not want – to identify, “I saw her mind, over and over again. Letting you leave was unthinkable, unbearable, even. Not going after you… That was a kindness she seldom affords anyone.”

The blood-bound duo quietens, and he with nothing more to say retreats to his space, his sanctuary, leaving behind two opposing sisters instead of the three harmonious ones it should have always been.

////////////////////////

It takes him longer still to come by the stone he so feverishly searched. This time, he counted. Almost five-years to the day since he found her, dead and broken as she should never have been. He takes a moment, for he must, his heart beating far too fast to be trustworthy at the sight of her.

Taking a deep breath, a complicated sigh of both anticipation and nerve, he grasps the cold black stone in his elegant, white hand. He closes his eyes, thinks of her, and for a second does not understand how some people’s image of their loved ones blur with time when he can see her so clearly, so quickly and so vividly that it must mean love; her black hair shiny and wavy swaying mid-battle, eyes grey and wide lusting after the next breathless moment, nose high strung and proud, neck long and elegant, and lips red and luscious and, deplorably, unkissed by him.

He sees her in his mind’s eyes. And calls to her. And he opens his eyes, heart thundering at the image he expects. Yet when eyelids lift and eyes acclimate to light, the image he expects is not the one he encounters.

Black hair does appear before him, not shiny or wavy but messy and dishevelled of bed-ridden quality as if of never brushed it spoke of. Eyes, not of a faded grey he had come to know better than his own, but of matte black that made a simile of his before blood-red iris replaced it. Nose brash and crooked spoke of no noble quality although known was that most pure ancestry ran in this person’s veins; same could be said of short and stocky neck burdened by inbreed defect. And lips, not red or luscious, but that had never shown him affection either.

A most undesirable picture does the woman in front of him paint.

He speaks first. Not because he must, the ritual says nothing of the sort, but because the other seems to be enthralled by his every image, as if he was the dead one and not she. When he speaks, he does not address her, does not care to address her. He only wishes for the one he called.

“You are not who I called.”

“Hello, Tom.”

The voice he had imagined a thousand times before as being gentle and quiet, sounded nothing like his imaginary folly. Coarse and broken, far too high and enough to grate on his brain. Another thing about this absent figure of his life that fell well below his standards.

“Hello, Mother.”

Title addressed not out of respect or affection, but of needling quality; poking at the wound that he could see in her black eyes.

“My boy-…”

Her sentiment does not interest him. She, does not interest him. The one he wants, the one he was certain he had been about to meet. That is what – who – interest him. So, manners out of the window and mother or not, he asks the question he hungers the answer for, all others having been lost in the wake of his search for her.

“Where is she?” He says, interrupting wounded party, “Where is…Bellatrix?” If his mouth stammers out her name, the name he hadn’t spoken or heard in years it was merely out of rare habit, a lie he would tell anyone but himself. He knows now that the pain he feels precludes strong sentiment – love, even – no matter how wrapped it may be.

The figure he had dreamed of in his childhood resigns to his demands, hurt and longing in her gaze. But mother, as loosely as the term can be applied, hungers to rid child of questions she knows the answers to. He listens, intently, son to her for the first time since their world began.

“The soul sucking monsters, they took her soul. There is nothing to call over.” Gently, she illuminates the dark implications of her presence, “Tom, she is gone. There is no way for you to talk to her.”

No.

He refuses to believe so.

When he was fifteen, he refused to let time expire on him. He found a way around death itself and had done it seven times. He lifted himself out of hellish existence, out of poverty, out of banality. He fought and struggled until his very name became so synonymous with power that eventually fear demanded no one utter it. This stumbling block of meandering quality was the challenge he had been working towards his whole life, he forged himself anew for this. He died and came back. He fought the inevitable and won.

He would do so again.

“Then the beast, who sucked the soul of her… It should have the answers.”

“Child,” Mother, as mothers’ wont, ignores child’s angry scowl at never used term, “do not travel this road. You cannot find what you seek, you are bound to be disappointed.”

“I must try,” Explanations fall on flat ears he knows, “She must be there, in the stomach of a monster who sucked the life of her, who used and abused of her, who does not know the precious cargo it carries. I must relieve her of it. I must end it. She would have done so for me.”

Silence is the answer to his harangue, but not solitude, no. The image of his mother – hideous, broken, black of hair – was still there, looking at him longingly. Expectantly. He ignored her. What he was about to do would require time, it was fresh and impossible – things he excelled at – and he needed to start now. He turns to black board of his room, his ever-faithful companion until he can succeed in findingher,

But when ignored form coughs loudly, he turns from black board to look at her.

“You have nothing more to say to me?” Asks the ghostly figure of his mother, deathly pale and transparent in her image and need.

“No. I have everything I’ve ever needed from you.” He says realizing it to be so, the phantom pain of his mother’s abandonment had simply dissipated somewhere along the way as another took its place, “You can go. I have work to do.”

“She does not deserve you.”

“You don’t know that. Don’t know her.” Quiet rage fills the soul, of which he has an indisputable lack, yet not enough to refrain from his need, “And even if it was true, I merely wish to speak.”

“Have you not spoken all you need? Is there no other act that you should perform?”

Motherly ghost or not, she should not know of the details of his need of her.

“Begone.” He says but this close to throwing the stone away from his grasp, “I have work to be done.”

“And after you’ve spoken,” sly nature runs in blood, and he chafes at the purest part of him chastising him now, “What will you do?”

Quiet permeates the sounds in the room, making the desolate space even more so. The stillness accentuates the icy walls and chaos ridden room, muted sounds barely seep in from the rich fauna and warm sun outside, silence dominates the room and the space in his head.

He knows not. He knows not what he would do.

“I do not know.” He admits, unabashed, confusion settling in his brow, “But it matters not. I have a need, and a way to seize it. After…” he frowns, “When it comes, I will know.”

“Very well, boy.” Motherly figure starts to fade, as she always has, but not before parting goodbyes, “Immortal you may be, but the task you have you will not succeed. So, be shrewd, or you will never be free. And there will be no one at the end for you to greet.”

Prophecy bound he seems to be, as his mother spun words with the knowledge from the beyond. He cares not, as he should not have before with the boy with thrice-defying parents that he could trace back as having put to motion this desolate exercise. There is work to be done and pain to correct, a lifetime meant nothing to him, not when he has tons to spare.

END

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Note; Not to be a self-promoting whore looking for views, but if you want a slightly better ending I have another fanfic in which he does end up talking to Bellatrix…(x)

#Bellamort #fanfic #mine #sad noises #The Black Sisters

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irinapaleolog · 5 years ago

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DISCLAIMER: This article is intended for educational and research purposes only. It has been published to shed light and correct understanding on the escalating issue of hatred of women online. By extension, this article also aims to inform readers on right-leaning and left-leaning internet hive minds and their negative influence on culture, politics, and society.

T/W: This article contains mentions of sexual assault, violence against women, suicide, incest, racism, anti-semitism, sexism

If you’re a woman who is active in an online, women-dominated fandom space, then you’re well aware of everything this article is about to tell you.

You’ve read every death threat.

You’ve gone through the sometimes graphic — but always malicious — anonymous message or tweet explaining every way in which some person you’ll never know would like to harm you.

You may have been banned from a fan forum or had your messages wiped from a Discord channel by a bot or mod who decided that your thoughts and your words as a woman were not allowed around here.

You’ll probably remember all the times your sexual identity, your race, or your religious affiliation was questioned and erased.

You have read every time the latest hive mind online has labeled you a sexist. A racist. An abuse apologist. A school shooter. An inbred. A Nazi. A mental case. Inhuman.

You probably know somebody whose had their information put up on Reddit threads or 4chan forums or alt-right YouTube channels for everybody to see. The aim? To determine if maybe they could find ways to hurt that individual in person or — at the very least — make their life a little harder.

And of course, you know all too well that all the threats, lies, bullying, defamation, doxxing, and dehumanization is driven by the internet’s systemic fear over women enjoying media made for them, on their own terms, and on their own time.

We’ve experienced countless cycles of this outrage, ranging from comic book heroes to k-pop. One of the most recent iterations, however, is driven by a desire to see two fictional space wizards kiss in a galaxy far, far away.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with what it’s like to be a fan of “Reylo” in the Star Wars fandom, well, it looks a bit like this:

All of the screenshots, located above, catalog a small sample of the four years of hate sent to “Reylos:” fans who are interested in the canon romantic dynamic between Rey and Kylo Ren in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. These fans are predominately women.

And, no, let’s get this out of the way: These hate posts, while directed towards fans of a fictional pairing, have nothing to do with fictional characters. This hate has everything to do with policing and punishing women for collectively enjoying fiction in a way deemed incorrect by various political and social agendas. The end goal is always the same — bully these women until they become silent.

Defining a “Bullying Hive Mind:” The “Alt-Right” vs “Antis”

The ways in which bullying hive minds reach this end goal are dependent on the political alignment of the cyberbully. Either they are pursuing an agenda dictated by alt-right circles or one dictated by factions of the progressive left, both of which gained internet popularity in the early to mid 2010s.

Most people — whether it’s because you’ve kept up with the aftereffects of the 2016 election or because you’ve spent anytime on YouTube as of late — are familiar with the alt-right. This group leans male and is driven mostly by insecurity, overt misogyny, and a sense of ownership over what they think are “male-dominated spaces” being overrun by women. It’s another example of extreme conservative thinking: what was mine should stay mine and anybody who thinks differently than me needs to get out of my way.

Arguably the biggest example of alt-right hate and harassment online is Gamergate, an anti-women bullying campaign that first arose on 4chan. The movement’s aim was to push women out of gaming journalism, game design, and gaming fandom by sending death threats, rape threats, stalking women, and dehumanizing women to their peers.

The event bolstered the anger, insecurity, and sexism of young men into an online hive mind that continues today, most notably in Gamergate’s successor “Comicsgate,” which orchestrated the attempted sabotage of Captain Marvel’s release.

These people are not hard to find. They parade their ideas on Reddit or, increasingly likely, on monetized YouTube channels. Their tactics often include spreading misinformation using false “evidence;” discrediting women’s interests by reducing them to “mental cases;” dogpiling; and doxxing.

In Star Wars fandom, this right-leaning group refers to themselves as “The Fandom Menace.” The group was created by former Comicsgate supporter Ethan Van Sciver, who goes by ComicArtistPro Secrets on YouTube. He frequently uploads videos — clickbait title and all — with common alt-right buzz words like “SJW.”

The Fandom Menace was formed in response to The Last Jedi — a more inclusive, forward-thinking addition to the Star Wars franchise that was inspired by the writings of Robert Bly, a leader in the mythopoetic men’s movement. The focus on feminine power and multiple women with complex character development and speaking roles within the film — in addition to the death of Luke Skywalker — powered this hate group to see Star Wars under Disney as “feminist propaganda.” They were driven by the belief that Disney was attempting to erase men from the Star Wars fan community. This led to several targeted hate campaigns including one that ran actress Kelly Marie Tran off of social media.

Where the alt-right works to monetize their hate through public YouTube channels, left-leaning circles are less well known to the general public. Reactionary left-leaning circles that operate within fandom spaces tend to skew younger (mostly generation-z and late millennial) and are predominantly women. They rose in 2015 with the onset of Tumblr and in response to the changing dynamics within “shipping” fandoms. For the uninitiated, “shippers” are groups of people within fandoms who center their attention around a specific relationship within that fandom (e.g. Rey and Kylo Ren).

In online spaces, this reactionary, left-leaning group is better known as “antis.” This name was given to this group after they became known for demonizing, demoralizing, and/or dehumanizing any individual in a shipping fandom who they deemed to be promoting “problematic” content through the fiction they consumed.

Anti harassment campaigns follow a consistent pattern where genuine concerns about real-world injustice are misinterpreted and applied to fictional properties in an attempt to create a 1:1 comparison and exert power over another (often marginalized) group. They start by leveraging performative accusations around real world issues such as sexism, racism, homophobia, sexual assault, and gendered violence against fictional characters deemed by the group to be representative of these problems. The guilt-by-association of these characters is then applied to the people who like these characters, and a general warning is issued: “stop supporting them, or else.”

When this accusation is ignored, it is then weaponized into bullying campaigns that aim to belittle and discredit women through dangerously shallow and irrational pearl clutching. The motivations and levels of participation in these harassment campaigns vary, but they tend to move from one large fandom to the next, focusing on whatever pop culture character will award them the most clout.

As one of the biggest current pop culture “ships,” Reylos have drawn the antis’ ire on both Twitter and Tumblr since the ship’s inception in 2015. The following accusations have been leveled against fans of these characters since 2015. These accusations include:

That Reylos support real life abuse by wanting a romantic pairing between two characters who begin as enemies in an epic myth.

That Reylos are racists because they support a romantic pairing between two white characters.

That Reylos are sexist because Reylos write sexually explicit fanfiction between the “pure” heroine and the “bad guy.”

The importance of these causes and people’s ability to engage with them in good faith is recklessly diminished by blaming valid, real life concerns on women who are enjoying a fictional pair of characters from a film series. It disregards the fact that the women shipping these characters are not a homogeneous group in either their identity or their background. It erases the abuse that some shippers have experienced first-hand — -abuse they should not be forced to out on the internet in order for their shipping to be seen as socially acceptable.

When the Left Leans Right

Launching targeted harassment at any group of women celebrating an enemies-to-lovers ship won’t gain antis clout among their peers. As mentioned previously, Reylo is specifically targeted because it’s arguably the biggest ship in one of the biggest franchises in the world. This means that while Emma Watson said that the enemies-to-lovers dynamic in Beauty and the Beast is about “inclusion and love,” that classic Disney film is old and it’s been done. There is no longer a large, activated community around it, and, as such, there is little incentive to bully the women who enjoy it.

Once antis do decide to bully a ship, however, one of the main accusations leveled at followers of enemies-to-lovers ships is that what they are supporting is “dangerous” to society. To antis, symbolism and subtext in fiction are bypassed in favor of literal and often severe interpretations of a story’s greater meaning. This means that, theoretical little girls and grown women who are unable to separate fiction from reality are put at risk of harming themselves and others because of what they see in fiction.

The irony of this is that a group of mainly women confidently trying to convince other women that they must be protected from complicated romantic dynamics in fairytales is taken from a page in the American conservative playbook that is still used today. For decades, American conservatives have used popular media to scapegoat real issues in society that are easier to pass off as a consequence of the media our society consumes rather than what our society actually teaches and perpetuates.

For example: In 1948, psychiatrist Frederic Wertham began to publish magazine articles and books that claimed that comic books led to juvenile delinquency. While he had no scientific evidence, his writings caused a societal outcry that led to an investigative Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. Here, conservative politicians demonized comic book writers and the comic book industry, declaring that “this country cannot afford the calculated risk involved in feeding its children, through comic books, a concentrated diet of crime, horror, and violence.”

The subcommittee eventually lead to the Comic Codes Authority — a comics industry created code that put restrictions on the art their creators could produce. The code stifled the industry for almost a decade.

Around the time the subcommittee’s investigation was coming to a close in 1955, the pearl clutching continued on television in a special news report entitled “Confidential File: Horror Comic Books!”

More propaganda video than actual news report, the narrator speaks over several young boys alone in the woods reading comic books. The narrator states:

“When I was a boy and hung with the gang we did a lot of things, we roasted potatoes, we went on expeditions, we tipped over garbage cans now and then, we wrote nasty remarks about the teacher on the sidewalk, but we never spent an afternoon sitting around like this, reading.

What a wonderful thing this would be if they were reading something worth while, something that would stimulate their desires to build and to grow. But they’re not reading anything constructive…they’re reading stories devoted to adultery, to sexual perversion, to horror, to the most despicable of crimes…

One of the wonderfully appealing things about children is that they haven’t yet come to the age where reality and unreality are divorced. The emotional impact of something they read in a comic book may be much the same as a real life situation they would witness.”

The news report goes on to show young boys stabbing trees with a knife and almost killing their friend with a rock after reading horror comic books.

This same outlandish, conservative mindset is what we see today in left-leaning anti culture. The difference now, however, is that these ideals are being regurgitated and repackaged for young girls as each generation of women gains more power within a patriarchal society.

For girls, the preoccupation is not around whether or not they will commit violence, but rather, who they will have sex with and how they will be treated as they grow within a historically male-dominated culture. The idea that women will get themselves into toxic, abusive relationships because they consume hyperbolic myths and fairytales instead of the real consequences of imposter syndrome, insecurity, and the restriction of women to explore their worth in society is no different than what conservatives said about boys in 1950s America. They asserted that boys would become violent psychopaths because they consumed multi-colored panels depicting fictional, exaggerated violence instead of the real life wars our countries waged, fear mongering on the news, or the pro-gun culture surrounding them daily. Both thought processes are damaging to the growth of our societal beliefs.

In fact, the fear and discomfort of women exploring sex within their own spaces is something that is threatening to groups on both the left and the right.

John Boyega’s New Years Eve Tweet: What Caused It and Why Did it Blow Up?

All of the screenshots above were taken within 4 days following a blow up on Twitter involving Star Wars actor John Boyega, a few sock puppets, and whole load of serial anti and alt-right accounts.

If you’ve been on Twitter this year, chances are you have noticed John Boyega trending. The 27-year old actor (best known for his portrayal as Resistance hero Finn in the Star Wars sequel trilogy) gained traction on Twitter New Year’s Eve when he posted a tweet of characters Rey and Kylo Ren fighting (as they do in a movie entitled, well, Star Wars) with the caption “Star Wars Romance.”

To anybody who had never touched fandom Twitter, the tweet appears harmless enough. However, the tweet was successful in doing exactly what it intended and exactly what lurking hate accounts who successfully orchestrated the bullying barrage wanted the tweet to do. It galvanized a hoard of antis and alt-right trolls and their following to — by their own admission — bully Reylos.

This particular incident began with Twitter user @crogman, a sock puppetnow going by the name of @solo_sebes. The sock puppet account appeared on Twitter in mid December 2019 and quickly entrenched itself in a community of Reylos by retweeting and posting Reylo-positive tweets and joining in on post The Rise of Skywalker discourse. The account was also quick to energize antis of the Rey/Kylo dynamic.

Now that the sock puppet is embedded deeply enough into the Reylo community that somebody within that community would see controversy on their timeline between @crogman and Boyega, @crogman tweeted at the Star Wars actor, “bro you’re extremely disgusting and gross also fucking disrespectful…you cannot be this jealous of adam driver dude as a black woman im fucking ashamed that someone like you represented us in star wars.”

The comment was included with a screenshot of John Boyega on Instagram writing “@heyfabrice it’s not about who she kisses but who eventually lays the pipe. You are a genius.”

Boyega’s Instagram comment was in response to a fan suggesting that Rey (played by Daisy Ridley in The Rise of Skywalker) was now available after her canon romantic partner, Ben Solo (played by Adam Driver) died saving her life.

Boyega’s comments upset some fans on Instagram who found that his comments suggested that a woman’s worth in romantic relationships — fictional or not — was a prize to be won by the man who gets to have sex with her first.

The sock puppet account inflamed a situation that would likely have stayed on Instagram. While antis correctly identified that the account was fake and was indeed blackfishing, antis incorrectly claimed that the account was created by Reylos to justify a group of white women attacking Boyega on social media. Instead, the account was clearly a plant meant to goad the actor into directing hate at Reylos.

This is proven by the fact that the account under its new username attempted to instigate hate towards Boyega’s co-star Daisy Ridley in the comments of Reylos’ posts shortly after New Year’s Eve.

Additionally, @crogman was not the only account never associated with the Reylo community that was used to inflame the situation with Boyega. User @FaberLima1 tweeted at Boyega under @crogman’s tweet writing “you are paying mico and only worsening your image. Better stop (and erase while you have time).”

Boyega responded to this tweet with several laugh emojis.

The account @FaberLima1 at the time of this screenshot has 6 followers and no tweets past December 25th. Like @crogman, the account posts Reylo-positive posts utilizing popular hashtags within the fandom including #BenSoloDeservesBetter, a hashtag created by fans of Ben Solo to express their dissatisfaction with his character’s ending.

Also like @crogman, the account was created in July 2019 yet has tweets only traceable in December, signifying that the account has been nuked perhaps multiple times.

Shortly after @crogman’s tweet to Boyega, antis began to push common anti-Reylo accusations. This included accounts who had never actively bullied Reylos. For example, user @sxidey posted several tweets accusing Reylos of “sexualizing Rey,” “harassing John”, and giving “money to the military.”

The latter accusation is a common left-leaning talking point against Reylos who support Adam Driver (a former marine). This particular comment was a reference to a Gofundme started by Ben Solo fans on Reddit. The Gofundme is raising money for Driver’s charity, Arts in the Armed Forces.

The account, however, had only had one recent mention of Reylo two days earlier on December 28th. The account itself is also new, joining in October 2019.

It’s possible that the account is simply a new anti account on Twitter. Regardless, the listing of anti accusations against Reylos almost at the exact time of @crogman’s post reveals the motive of inciting hatred against members of the Reylo community.

Another account, @itsjoey56138220, was also inflaming the situation early on underneath @crogman’s tweet with accusations that Reylos were racist.

Unlike @sxidey, this account has a history of inciting hate against Reylos with outlandish conspiracy theories including one theory that Reylos were created by the alt right who caused “ex Twilight bitches” to make the ship popular. The account has also claimed that Reylos are racist because Reylo shippers want a “whites only romance.”

Boyega, in response to users including two sock puppet accounts with no association to Reylo — and encouraged by anti accounts sewing seeds of hatred across Twitter — finally took to his own Twitter account to tweet:

The tweet, which currently sits at over 190k likes, caused tens of thousands of hateful, targeted tweets towards a group of fans made up predominantly of women and girls. It also resulted in several hate videos by alt-right YouTubers totaling hundreds of thousands of views, several hacked accounts, and the suicide baiting of a teenage girl.

The New Years Incident By The Numbers: How Boyega’s Tweet Set Off The Left and Alt-Right

Following Boyega’s tweet, reactionary users on both left and alt-right Twitter felt further emboldened to hate on a group of women they had been discrediting, dehumanizing, and sending death threats to for years. For myself, the event presented an opportunity, albeit an unfortunate one, to track these groups’ behaviors and quantify them. Ultimately, I had the goal to break down how these incidents are organized to hate on women, whether for purposes of clout or their desire to purge women from fandom spaces.

For this analysis, I took a sample of tweets that contained the word “Reylo” (the search pull also included its plural form “Reylos”) from December 31, 2019 (the day of Boyega’s tweet) to January 3, 2020. After cleaning the accounts to the best of my ability of “pro-Reylo” tweets, I was left with 25,012 tweets that contained negative and neutral comments about Reylos and the Reylo dynamic. I sifted manually through about 7k of these tweets to find key themes, which I verified utilizing a text mining analysis of the tweets.

I emerged being able to quantify the following key themes:

Hate, Trolling, Cyberbullying

Abuse, Toxicity

Racism

Sex, Sexualized, Objectification

Mental, Psychotic, Unhinged

“Hate” received the most individual tweets at ~2.2k tweets and received ~31.4 likes per tweet on average. Tweets containing themes “abuse” and “racism” received a slightly higher avg like count at 38.7 avg likes and 35.4 avg likes, respectively. These themes, along with tweets dealing with “sex” were all mentioned over 1k times.

What this suggests is that a smaller number of accounts with a wider reach were posting more substantive tweets with a focused agenda, while tweets containing “hate’ keywords were more likely to be lobbed out by anyone, including accounts with very little reach.

Tweets mentioning the theme of Reylo fans being “mental” cases had less tweets at 602 total tweets. This theme was pushed strongly by the alt-right circles involved as opposed to leftist circles, which dominated the conversation on Twitter. While this analysis does not focus on the alt-right’s reaction on YouTube, Twitter was used as a place to spread YouTube reactions created by notable Fandom Menace members.

Keyword Group: Hate

The “hate” keyword group quantified tweets containing any mention of trolling, cyberbullying, or hate towards Reylos. The fact that “hate” reveals itself as a top keyword provides further evidence that this event was viewed as implicit approval to bully a group of fans consisting predominantly of women. Anybody involved in sending Reylos hate were, by their own admission, the bullies and were cheering John on for “trolling” women and “putting [women] in their place.”

“Reading Reylo hate to cheer myself up”

“I don’t like Finn’s character either, but I love how John is putting Reylos in their place.”

“Seeing John Boyega troll the Reylos is the greatest way to end 2019”

The clear agenda to send hate towards a group of women and teenage girls was further validated by the fact that the incident was received positively by all sides of the political spectrum, from “progressive” antis to members of the alt-right. The members included the Fandom Menace and alt-right leader and Pizzagate supporter Jack Posobiec.

Both groups took advantage of the situation utilizing the same tactics they typically employ. The alt-right took to YouTube and Twitter to discredit women among their followers by using buzz-words such as “SJW” and “Twilight.” “Twilight” — which was mentioned 103 times in association with “Reylo” between 12/31/2019 and 1/3/2020 — is often used to describe any piece of media enjoyed predominantly by women.

The goal is to degrade women’s interests among their peers by pushing the narrative that Reylos are silly girls consistently preoccupied with the same trivial, valueless media.

Examples of tweets from the alt right include the following:

“John Boyega ripped the Reylo’s a new asshole. You haven’t seen this many acne riddled fatty Tumblr Girls lose their shit since Twilight ended.”

“My thesis: Reylos and most of these Neo Star Wars fans are just ex Twilight fans and self hating beta male cucks who attached themselves to the franchise like parasites. Next they will glom onto whatever film series is hot and continue their rot.”

“StarWars was so great before Disney. Now its plagued by psychotic Reylo fans, Tumblr freaks, representation-screeching SJWs, radical feminism activists, ex-Twilight fans, &wine-guzzling Disney-fan mothers caked Karen. &these are the people they’re now targeting for their fandom.”

On the other side of the spectrum, long-time anti accounts spearheaded the harassment of Reylo shippers, leveraging Boyega’s tweet to bombard Reylo shippers with hate messages. This included viral tweets from accounts with a history of anti behavior across multiple fandoms, along with multiple tweets from accounts with history of targeting Reylos.

For example, Twitter user @Iovestour tweeted, “oscar isaac going off about disney’s blatant homophobia & john boyega telling reylos to fuck themselves all within two weeks i love men men are my friends.” This tweet has more than 48k likes. You’ll be hard pressed, however, to find any tweets by the account past November 2019, even though the account has been active since March 2018.

All tweets made under the account’s former name “blinkapologist” have been deleted — a trait uncharacteristic of your normal Twitter user just looking to share their opinions and maybe curate the news. Past tweets (to which blinksapologists’ tweets and replies have been deleted) reveal a pattern of anti behavior including a history of going after individuals supporting fictional characters the anti finds problematic, utilizing extremist parallels to real-life events.

A reply to @Iovestour in June 2019 reveals the user had allegedly called victims of the Holocaust Nazi supporters. The accusation appears to have been said to supporters of Marvel character Wanda Maximoff.

Along with antis with history across multiple fandoms inciting hatred against Reylos, this event also revealed itself as a targeted harassment campaign due to the frequency in which some accounts tweeted at or about Reylos.

Boyega’s tweet caused some anti accounts within this sample to tweet over 50 times about Reylos in the span of 4 days including sadgeorgelucas1, who tweeted about Reylos ~100 times, drhorotiwtzfine, who tweeted about Reylos ~75 times, and saltandrockets, who tweeted about Reylos ~65 times.

This is not abnormal. Several of these top accounts were also consistently bullying Reylos. The accounts highlighted in red in the chart below are anti-Reylo accounts that were also included as mentioning Reylo frequently between December 31, 2019 to January 3, 2020. This includes once again drhorowitzfine, who has mentioned Reylo negatively ~1,150 times between 2017 to 2019. Other top anti accounts include winniethepoe1, who tweeted about Reylo ~320 times from 2018 to 2019 and ~25 times during Boyega’s New Year’s Eve incident.

Of course no harassment campaign can be waged without finding ways to make the people being bullied look like they were worth being bullied. One of the two main “arguments” thrown against Reylos included the predictable anti accusation of Rey and Kylo’s “abusive” relationship poisoning the mind’s of women and girls. Since Reylo shippers had made the decision to create transformative works and discuss a fictional romance found to be impure by the antis, Reylos could now be cyberbullied in real life for their morally reprehensible decisions.

Reylo is also referred to as “abusive” because some still try to stretch the narrative that Rey and Kylo’s relationship is incestual, and therefore Reylo’s are promoting incest.

The idea that the relationship is incestual goes back to a 2016 fan clash over who Rey’s parents were. Many fans wanted Rey to be a Skywalker or a Solo, which would make her related to Kylo Ren, the son of Leia Organa and Han Solo. The event involved Reylos being frequently lobbed with accusations of incest, and they were at one point banned from discussing Rey and Kylo’s dynamic on a popular Star Wars forum, Jedi Council Forums.

Another common theme was that Reylos were “toxic.” This theme was mostly fed by alt-right circles and originated with a post by Fandom Menace supporter Dataracer117, who has a history of harassing Reylos.

Dataracer117 has a history of voicing his contempt for Disney and their “radical feminist propaganda.” This is most notably seen in his involvement in Comicgate’s attack on Captain Marvel. This included digging up screenshots by fans of Captain Marvel who spoke out against the sexism being aimed against the film, accusing all the accounts of being “Captain Marvel bots.”

Like the Captain Marvel incident, Dataracer117 posted a tweet with screencaps that Reylos were allegedly sending death threats to JJ around the time of Boyega’s tweet. Despite Dataracer117’s history attempting to devalue women in fandom communities and despite the screencaps being debunked by the Reylo community, the screencaps gained traction around Twitter, YouTube, and in media publications including Buzzfeed. They were further used to create the narrative that Reylos are “unhinged.”

This narrative inflamed alt-right accounts, and they began to frequently frame Reylos as mental cases. Discrediting women is nothing new (in fact you can easily read about it in this essay on Western puritanical conditioning against women in the 17th century), and is to be expected from a community who dedicates their time to driving women away from their online spaces.

The second accusation that was used to fuel harassment against Reylos was the claim that Reylos were racist against Boyega. They claimed that Reylos’ harassment of the actor led women to be upset with Boyega over his Instagram comment. This led to harassment on his Twitter — which remember, was started by a sock puppet account not associated with the Reylo community.

While racism is a prevalent concern that needs to be addressed within all fandom communities-and questions over inherent privilege due to one’s community are something to be examined-no support was given to back up these particular claims about the Reylo community during this incident.

This is not to say, however, that isolated incidents have not occurred outside of this specific accusation within the Reylo fandom, as they would within any large and global group of people. However, these incidents are statistically insignificant to the population of people who discuss Reylo positively on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis (which, according to the sample number of accounts who have discussed Reylo between 2015 to 2019, can be quantified at over 40k individuals. The true number is dependent on how many accounts — currently almost 70k — discuss Reylo negatively within the sample).

This particular accusation of racism has several layers to it and I would like to break them down separately.

“But Reylos Read Explicit Fanfiction”

The first part of this is that the nature of Boyega’s Instagram comments allowed antis and alt-right circles to attack Reylos on NSFW fanfiction and fanart written and drawn for and by women. It also allowed antis to draw more criticism around the ways in which Reylos analyzed The Last Jedi, a film with many allusions to the writings of psychoanalytics including Sigmund Freud.

After the release of The Last Jedi, the Reylo community, who had written long form meta analysis on the Star Wars saga since 2015, wrote lengthy metas about the symbolism in the film. Much of this symbolism was reflective of Rey’s sexual awakening throughout her journey in the movie.

Antis took issue with this and saw this as “sexualizing” Rey’s character. They asserted that women exploring sexuality through the lens of a fem-gaze narrative written for women was appalling, degrading, and out of line.

For anti and alt-right circles, the Reylo community’s openness to discussing sex in Star Wars through meta, fanfiction, and fanart by women (and generally for women) meant that Reylos could not take offense to Boyega’s questionable comment that suggested to some of his fans that Rey was a sexual prize to be won. The narrative antis spun was wholly unable — and unwilling — to separate women discussing sex in their own communities as different from men offering their sexual ��jokes.”

This justification for bullying Reylos felt eerily similar to “she was wearing that, she asked for it.” It’s a highly socialized sexist line of reasoning women deal with daily and one that was readily accepted in this incident.

2. “But Reylos Ship Rey With The White Character”

Since 2015, Reylos have been accused of racism on the grounds that Reylos did not prefer Rey to be in a romantic relationship with the black male protagonist. This claim is presented without any evidence to back up the accusation.

Furthermore, the people who ship Rey and Finn (known as “Finnrey”) have done little to celebrate this pairing and act as a fan community. In fact, they have consistently acted more like a group that seeks to find ways to activate hate against Reylos instead of create content for their ship.

The two data visualizations below show every user in my sample who has tweeted the word “Reylo” between 2015 to 2019 vs every user in my sample who has tweeted the word “Finnrey” between 2015 to 2019. The gray in these charts represent the number of accounts who have only ever tweeted about their own ship. The purple represents the overlap — that is the accounts who have tweeted at least once about the other ship.

The first observation is that the number of users discussing “Finnrey” is small in comparison to the number of accounts discussing “Reylo.” Finnrey was mentioned by 7,780 accounts while Reylo was mentioned by 69,484 accounts.

As mentioned, gray = accounts who have only ever tweeted about their own ship. Purple = accounts who have tweeted about at least one other ship. So, in this case, out of the ~7.8k accounts that tweeted about Finnrey, ~60% of accounts mentioned “Reylo” at least once (4,665 accounts total). This number represents only ~7% of accounts who have ever talked about Reylo.

This data is supported by other statistics comparing the two ships. For example, on fanfiction website Archive of Our Own, the fic tag for Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren has ~16k fics. There are another 12k fics in the tag for Rey/Kylo Ren. The fic tag for Finn/Rey has under 2k fics.

3. “Reylos Have Bullied John Since 2015”

The most damaging false claim to come out New Year’s Eve was that Reylos had been attacking Boyega (and other Star Wars actors) with racist tweets since 2015.

It is very true that the actor has received heinous racist attacks. Most notably, the actor was attacked on social media following a #BoycottEpisodeVII hashtag that was started by two 4chan trolls in an attempt to get racist Star Wars fans to take the bait. It is well known that this hashtag was the work of racist alt-right accounts.

Since the hashtag, other attacks have been levied on Boyega. One of these attacks included a surge of outcries against him by The Fandom Menace, after a tweet posted in June 2018 stated: “If you don’t like Star Wars or the characters understand that there are decisions makers and harassing the actors/actresses will do nothing. You’re not entitled to politeness when your approach is rude. Even if you paid for a ticket!”

The Fandom Menace took the opportunity to bring their anger over Boyega’s comments to Twitter and YouTube, much like Comicsgate did when Brie Larson spoke in favor of diversity.

Reylos, however, are now being blamed for these attacks without any supporting evidence. They are also being blamed for the harassment of Kelly Marie Tran. The actress was bullied off of social media by alt-right trolls on her Instagram page, along with antis who saw her character kissing Finn as “sexual assault.”

You will not find any evidence linking the Reylos back to the targeted harassment of any Star Wars actors over the years. Predictably, however, you will find that the people who used this accusation to their advantage admitted that their own motive was bullying.

For example, Twitter user @notlipglosse tweeted “the way this man waited until he got his last star wars check so he could freely make fun of the racist stans who have bene harassing him since 2015 %@&@*!?!?!?” This tweet (at the time of the screencap) gained ~92.2k likes. A tweet posted on December 19th, however, reads “the way we’ve been bullying Reylo stans and calling them delusional and they won…,” further supports the data that this incident was about inciting hatred towards a group of fans predominately made up of women.

Another example is from user @irisckp. Shortly after Boyega’s tweet, the user tweeted “NOT THIS REYLO AND HER MUTUALS ACTING LIKE JOHN BOYEGA HAS BROUGHT SOME TYPE OF OPPRESSION WHEN HE WAS RACIALLY ABUSED BY REYLO’S FOR YEARS. HE HAD EVERY RIGHT.” Again this tweet was presented without evidence that Reylos had “racially abused” Boyega.

The tweet is referring to a livestream from a young woman in the Reylo community who candidly expressed discomfort over the false accusations and bullying. The livestream was taken by antis and used to further bully the young woman.

This bullying eventually descended into suicide baiting that resulted in the woman’s account being deleted. However, this did not stop antis from pushing the woman to kill herself. It also did not stop them from telling the teenager’s father, who had gotten involved in combating the harassment, to “live tweet your reaction when you find your daughters lifeless body dangling from her rooms ceiling fan.”

After @iriscpk’s initial tweet, the user admitted that they had “never seen Star Wars” (like a portion of antis bullying Reylos that night) and that “Reylo” is used as an umbrella term for their unsupported accusations of racism against Boyega.

The tweets again reveal that viral tweets making accusations against Reylos had no merit, and were not based in any evidence they had seen with their own eyes. These users were looking to be involved in the latest conversation despite the lack of evidence or knowledge and despite the real harm being done to the community the tweet targeted.

This supports the hive mind behavior behind this cyberbullying attack. There was no concern for any person hurt. There was no concern for the misinformation that was being spread. And there was no concern for the very real issue of racism in online spaces.

This was only ever about a group of women getting hurt and, hopefully, getting off the internet altogether.

Why This Matters and What This Means for Art and Society in The Digital Age

If you have gotten this far and you find this article absurd, you should. This much vitriolic hatred, ugliness, and anger over women analyzing and creating media for a romantic pairing in a Hollywood blockbuster is, to put it mildly, overblown. Unfortunately, it’s the reality. And it’s a reality that has even deeper repercussions if not addressed.

I wrote this article not only in a hope to correct the misinformation against a group of women in the Star Wars fandom, but also to address a larger issue of what it means when these hate campaigns are so readily accepted by the general public, by journalists, and by other fans.

The internet will continue to evolve as it already has. It will evolve into an ecosystem that will touch every single moment of our lives. It is a future that will be as brilliant as it will be terrifying and when we are so willing to demonize a group of women with no evidence but a tweet with a lot of likes, it shows that we are not prepared.

We are living in an age where art is being dictated to what a few executives read online, or what a data analyst may write up in a report. We have seen how Disney has made a movie based off of fan service easily found in Reddit threads. We have seen Paramount shift the schedule of an entire film to redesign a character after apparent outrage. We have seen Disney remove James Gunn from a major movie project following a targeted alt-right campaign to get him removed. And we have seen this with Warner Brothers choosing to green light their films using AI.

This pattern is concerning in part because we are willing to create art via algorithm. But, it’s also concerning because, unless these algorithms are properly coded and taught overtime to understand hive mind mentality, the machines that churn social listening data will be regurgitating intelligence corrupted by organized and hateful groups. These groups aim to restrict freedom of speech, diversity, and meaning in our art for the sake of political agendas laking any evidence, any substance, or any valuable goal.

I also wrote this article because it is not only our art that is at risk, but the ways in which we communicate as human beings online. The ability to see individuals — namely women — as inhuman or as less than with no second thought is something we should all understand is a problem. We have a deep inability to question what we see on our Facebook feeds, our Twitter timelines, or in our Instagram photos . We also live in an age where entire governments are being overturned by algorithms and social media ads. We are quick to blame Facebook and Cambridge Analytica and YouTube for this, and yes, while, those platforms have a responsibility of their own, we need to realize that it is our responsibility as well to always question what we see and search for evidence if it is not provided to us.

This example of bullying women in an online community is not necessarily synonymous with political elections, but it still presents yet another moment where people are failing to believe hard evidence over buzz words, sensationalized headlines, and clear, often spelled out agendas.

Until we learn not to react to everything we see, and listen to the people around us who come with facts, this type of behavior will continue, this type of behavior will get worse, and this type of behavior will impact us politically, socially, and culturally as we become more and more integrated as a digital society.

On January 10th, John Boyega posted a video to his Instagram account showing himself mocking tweets by women in the Reylo community. He did not blur out the names. These women were specifically targeted. The event created ~50k tweets continuing to bully women. Media outlets including Forbes, IGN, Cinemablend, Esquire, and The Wrap picked up the story. They all applauded the video.

In response, Reylos trended #reylolove — stories about how women in the community had positively impacted their lives.

They also created a charity event for anti-cyberbullying charity Cybersmile, which you can donate to here.

#star wars #the rise of skywalker #harassing #John Boyega #reylo

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tgreythorne · 7 years ago

Text

Legend, Myth, and Memory

{A roleplay scene between the Ala Mhigan shamans Caithe Faulkner and Breda Rimesong. Posted with permission from @carved-spirit}

The slow draw of evening brought the soft chirping of insects the orange glow of the falling sun, and Tristram's camp beyond Ala Ghanna had just fallen into the shade of the western ridge of red stone that followed the nearby river. Missing was the spear against the stone face, nor was his often worn shoulder bag or dark colored bearskin. The fire, however was lit and dancing flames worked to consume the fuel given in offering. The outline of a hunched form sitting before the fire could be found, shoulders slooped under the weight of age and toil. A dry, rasping voice chanted softly to join the evening insects, words indistinguishable and unintelligible. A ragged gown covered the frame, painted with markings of old in the form of animals or symbols to the various elements painted in tones between red and brown. Roughly trimmed hair, as white as snow capping the mountains in the distance was in disarray, while thin arms with knobbed hands came together in loop to slowly stir in a slow circle as the unintelligible muttering continued. The firelight glinted brightly from honed steel held between the wizened limbs, point of the blade pointing skyward. Odder still, any that would seek Tristram via means of the wind or other sight would feel him here, and present nowhere else. The wind whispered his feet fell here, smoke sought him to this place, and the earth sung softly the same of wind and smoke. Here is where Tristram should be found, in the place where a crone held vigil over flame with a knife.

Caithe was a child once more. A small, red headed thing with a too-quick tongue and easily swayed by the stories of Grab. She was a child, stood before a black and empty forest with not but two eyes staring back at her. She was a child, wrapped in the piercing talon of some void creature to be eaten and pulled apart by teeth that were far too sharp. The maiden eater, the soul stealer, the witch, the hag, the crone.

Breda.

Caithe stood again just years away from forty, on the edge of a camp that had betrayed her for the first time. The curses she spoke to the wind were wordless and silent and personal. Run, her feet insisted. Away from here. She could be gone soon enough, surely. But to what end? The wind was no longer an ally, and she knew not what to trust. Her tongue failed her in this moment, and it fell to her eyes to try and glean the smallest details in some strangled last effort to find the man she had sought.

“Breda.” She heard herself say, lips forgetting their place. The name was a test, a desire to stir from a dream. It was no greeting nor was it a curse. It just was, just as this woman of old just was.

To the name Caithe uttered, there was no reply. The crickets still chirped, interrupted once by the sound of a frog somewhere near the bank of the river, hidden away in the tall grass. The old crone continued her indiscernible rambling with pause as the frail frame swayed with each motion of the clasped arms with Caithe lingered unnoticed or unregarded. And then the sound of the evening wildlife stopped and was no more. Silence in a thick blanket. Even the evening breeze gently pushing the tall rivergrass ceased, ending the subtle whisper of each blade stroking the other. The silence would have become a crushing weight if not for the elder's chants, though the words somehow felt thinner to the ear, as is spoken in the high mountains where the air to thin and it took too much effort to draw the needed breath. Either by some play of fear or perhaps just the drawing shadows of the evening, a chill and faint prickle to the nostril with the draw of breath, not unlike that given in the dry air at the heart of winter. Then the silence shattered, broken by the sharp contralto of a voice not from the old crone before Caithe, but from another source mere paces behind her. "Be a disappointment, Crowsong. I be expecting more of Marta's blood."

“And yet my mother would have had less, and my father none at all.” It was ice that trailed down an exposed spine but Caithe’s words were kept remarkably even despite every desire she had to choke on them. “If you seek my Gran in me, you will find only a poor imitation of her. One whose childhood was left to whim and whimsy because most assumed there would always be more time.” She didn’t hunt for the voice behind her, but rose her own to be heard in the darkness at her back. Her eyes remained trained forward, her tongue running along the roof of her mouth in a vain attempt to keep her mouth from becoming desert dry. “Is Urs aware of this meeting?”

The query was met with not with words, but the sound of motion. The rustle of fabrics punctuated by the soft clatter of bone, metal, and antler as the owner's voice drew closer. Passing Caithe to her right and taking several steps forward into the younger shaman's sight. Heavy robes adorned the frame of the figure that came into view, crafted of dark fabrics and supple hides while mantled with dark fur of some unknown animal. Charms and wards covered herr skirt and hung freely from her belt in quantity rivaling Caithe's own, wrought of materials both animal, natural and unknown. A trail of braided and spun hair fell along the woman's back past her waist, silvered with no hint of its former coloring. Her movements and pace betrayed her rumored time on the land: each barefooted step smooth, shoulders squared, and posture unbent and nearly half a hand taller than Caithe. Breda turned, coming to face Caithe from mere paces away. Amber eyes set to Caithe's, masked with dark tattoos curling and branching around her features. Their regard was weighted with piercing intensity and the predatory challenge of dominance. Nearly as striking was the intricate scarring tracing the mask of her face, leaving no part of her exposed flesh untouched with rising of a turning line across cheek and brow. Yet still in spite of all the ritual decoration of her flesh, there might have been a handsome beauty to the woman that somehow belied her actual age. Between the evening light and a passing look would likely hold this woman merely ten cycles older than Caithe was.

Here was every legend of secret forbidden knowledge, every whispered rumor of ill fortune and darkness, every tale told to make children behave given flesh.

Breda Rimesong. "You be having her tongue proper." Breda remarked flatly, revealing the pointed teeth behind her lips in old Highlander fashion. "Don't be making yourself small, child, to be suiting me. I can be doing that on my own." Those wolves eyes in the body of a woman flicked sharply over Caithe.

She had not answered her question, but Caithe would not ask it again. She trained her features impartial, even as her teeth sucked in the inside of her cheek just slightly, a threat of blood to come. Still, it was better than the alternative, the bile and burn in her throat. She tried to recall in that moment the last time she’d known such a terror and though she knew she must have before, the memory could not be summoned now. Even as Breda made her circle, predator to prey, she did not yet look up to the woman. Instead her eyes found those charms, saw those bare feet, felt the very weight of the earth seem to shift with the old crone’s every movement. It was only in the air after Breda spoke a second time that her eyes lifted up. At her side, her fingers gave a small twitch; a feel for fire that would not be used here, but remained held at in her corner, an ally. Her lips parted, the words coming after a breath of delay. “You know my grandmother’s tongue,” it was a statement though it was a fact that seemed to dawn on her only after the shaman had spoken it. “But she did not speak of your own. “And who was she to you?” It unsettled Caithe how much she wanted to know. Osric would rarely speak of Gran, Aoife never knew her. Marta was a memory that Caithe held dear and personal, and she had not expected another to remember her. That it was Breda did little to ease the growing stone in her belly. Still, she did not tremble or quiver, but held her ground almost too stiffly, almost too still. The rabbit, hoping to go unseen by the waiting talons of a hawk.

The flesh above Breda's eye rose, clean of any brow that was once there. The soft clatter and jingle of the woman's charms rose with each step she took to Caithe. Breda's eyes remain set on the younger shaman in the approach, halting to leave a hand's gap of room between them. "And who was she to you?" The silver haired shaman echoed sharply in return. Breda's head tilted slowly to one side, eyes flitting back and forth in open scrutiny of Caithe's features. This carried on for a moment before her head swayed towards the other shoulder in continued examination of Caithe. "What be painted on you, Crowsong, to be trembling so before me. Do old words and rumors of jealousy and malice still be turned of me? Do they be true ..." Her chin lifted an ilm as she trailed off into a whisper, each coming word dragged slowly through sharp teeth. "Voidsent ... demon ... witch ... hag ... eater of children ... stealer of seed ..."

It was sneer that grew with each whispered word, ending in a low hiss of breath between pointed teeth that ended with the turn and steady glide towards the fire and the other elderly woman who was still fervently chanting. "You be joining me at my fire, Crowsong. Bleed your fear or swallow it, but we be talking."

“Name your story, and I have heard it thricefold. Yours was a story favoured around the fires of my childhood,” Caithe said of each word that dripped from the old woman’s lips as she continued her inspection. The woman had come for Tristram and modesty left behind in that small stone apartment back in the city. It left her midriff bare, the swell of her hips exposed; it meant banded tops and beads and charms and golds and silver. It did not mean meeting mothers. Especially ones such as Breda. But she remained still and kept her breathing even despite the dull thudding in her chest. She imagined a time after the talk, where she said she had faced the witch with not an ounce of ice running through her blood. It would be a good lie, for those that would believe it. She felt her feet move, though had not remembered giving them permission to. Her jaw worked faintly as the chanting got louder by proximity. She did not so much swallow her fear as she simply kept it down as best she could and could only thank the Twelve that it kept out of her tone. Instead when she spoke, it was with the same rolled husk that married Temple education with a storyteller’s drawl. But it did not carry the arrogance, confidence and superiority that she so often poised her words with; it was softer, tempered. “What would you hear of me, Breda Rimesong?”

Breda slowed to a halt at the chanting woman, stroking a hand slowly through wispy white hair. The back of the hand was adorned in the familiar disc set with colored stone, though where Urs wore one of bronze and amber Breda's was of a silver, hammered metal set in moonstone. She leaned over to the old woman's ear, uttering low words. The uttering stopped while the old, white haired woman listened before her head moved in a slow nod. The woman clutched the blade in hand flat to her chest now, humming low as she gently rocked back and forth in her seat. Breda righted herself to navigate to other side of the dancing campfire opposite the woman. Her seat was taken with one leg bent while the other remained tucked beneath herself, showing the top of one foot to be scarred in the same manner as her face and hands. "So your flame do be ready enough to forge steel." Came a remark towards Caithe over the tongues of flame while the gesture of a hand to a place at Breda's right told where to sit. "And perhaps a hint of one of Marta's own gifts." There was a drumbeat of a pause before she continued still holding her imperious tone. "I will be trading words and knowledge with a shaman proper. You, Crowsong. Of Urs and your elder be yours. Of Urs and your elder be mine, and a long task set to by your elder."

The silencing of the old woman proved to Caithe what she had been so uncertain of; this woman, aged ancient as she was, was yet a living being and not some figment of imagination. It did little to ease her, the slow rock of the hunched body having metal catch fire light, reflecting in a pattern along the camp’s floor. An elder, but almost too old; it sat uncomfortably with the younger shaman. Still, Caithe moved to the fire, taking place in the easternmost side between Breda and shade. Her eyes lingered on the flames, until the Rimesong shaman spoke Tris’ name. Dark green eyes lifted in night, reflecting her most favoured of elements. She felt herself nod, the motion slow and stiff. The wooden crow that sat between her chest felt heavy and hot, though she knew the trickery of the mind well enough to know it was just nerves. “Then answers you will have, Breda Rimesong, to the best of my capabilities.” Her mouth felt dry, tongue running along dust. There was something that tugged beneath her fear, one that burned every time Breda spoke Crowsong. It was an old name and a treasured one, despite the mantle of Faulkner that had long since been placed on her. And Marta, Gran. Not helped by Breda, Caithe felt young, small and foolish. But here, surely, there was opportunity.

"Urs" Breda simply said as an elbow came to rest on her risen knee, letting her forearm and long fingered hand hand freely in the air while the other braced herself. "He be refusing to speak of you, and yet your wind be lingering on him. Your protection be hanging from his waist." Slowly her eyes narrowed at Caithe, their sharpness not dulled by the firelight and slowly dragged down to the woman's chest, where the carving of the crow rested. "And his be on you. Did you be knowing it be hiding you from me as if you be wearing a cloak of earth and wind? Urs be clever, but be still a fool man." Breda's eyes drew up to Caithe's again in the span of a blink. "You be coming here for him. Tell me why you be seeking the fool that be my son. I be knowing lies, Crowsong, spin them and you be seeing how I can draw wind from lungs and water from body."

And she did have lies. Plenty of them. All finely crafted, ready to trade to Aoife or Osric or Blade member. A quick grin, an easy word, and a pivot. Dismissive, sweet, and short. She, who would voice little to the man himself, owed nothing to those around them. She owed nothing to Breda. Yet when Caithe spoke, the words came slow and stunted; truths were harder than lies and her attention had dipped fire long, red brows knit some ways. Fingers, lined with rings, had traced up to the pendant absently, thumb nail now catching the groves of one of the wings. "I have sought him for a time now, your son. A bond, I think or perhaps in part imagined, formed by shared paths and knowings. There is a selfishness to this, a desire to cling to the ways that often seem forgotten now. He is..." and she trailed off, the words fading from her as countless answers hit her all at once. Her fingers twitched and dropped away from the pendant. Her eyes had lifted back to Breda. "He is many things to me," the answer came, the truth yet only the bare surface of it.

Amusement or fondness is not an emotion to be read on Breda's features as the firelight played over them while Caithe had answered. If there was anything to be found in the cool expression it may have been seen as disapproval. Or exasperation. "Fire be selfish, but you be knowing that. It be the turn that you be woven from. Fire be dancing as it consumes, and be leaving nothing but ash behind and then be starving until the next spark be struck. Is that what you be, I wonder. A flash of flame that be left with dry ash or ..."

As she spoke, the arm resting on upbent knee slid away and reached into the campfire, submerging hand and sleeve unflinchingly into the flames. Slowly again the limb withdrew, flesh and sleeve unscorched by the flames of the campfire. Between three of her long fingers a glowing coal was held to her scrutiny. "... be the ember. Fire who be holding herself in earth." The silver haired woman lifted her gaze back to Caithe as the ember was drawn into a closed fist and crushed with a small crunch and short show of sparks. "Urs do be many things." She added in agreement as she brushed ash her hand with the other. "But he do not be aware that I be speaking with you. This be a time for us, not him."

Caithe’s lashes dipped downward, and despite herself, the woman felt a breath of a laugh escape her lips. It wasn’t much more than a brief chuckle, strangled and unintentional in sound. “You are the one who spoke his name, Breda Rimesong. You asked me why I sought him, and poor answer or not, I did not tell a lie.” Her head shook. There was meaning behind Breda’s actions; actions, Caithe was aware, that she herself could not do so cleanly. She could do some bastardization of it, some parlour trick to awe and astound. But the poignant act of so easily cracking coal to ash – that she could not do. “I will tell him, when we are done. He cannot do a thing about it in this future in which he knows we spoke. But I will tell him. He, who would so guard me from you. You’ve asked your question, and I will take mine. Why would he keep me from this meeting?” She was watching Breda once again, voice a softened and dulled roll in the evening. The nausea had left her throat, but despite the fire she felt cold and bare before this woman. It was a sensation unaided by the other woman, and the incessant rocking of her body.

"Your question be the first, not mine: Do Urs be aware of this meeting? A question that be passing from the wind of your lips before you even be taking your place at my fire. I be many cycles on this land, but I don't be addled in my mind." A steady gaze was held on Caithe before Breda took a breath to teeth. Her gaze broke as her hand that had crushed the ember lifted and splayed fingers slowly. "But your count be even, and the question do be proper one, even if you be asking the wrong person of it." Breda brought the hand towards her mouth and ran her tongue from palm to tip of her index and middle finger, scoring her tongue black with ash. "I can only be guessing of my son's motives. Perhaps he fears what I may be doing to you. I do be recalling a legend where I made charms of the bones of a whore who refused a proper offering for my efforts in her favor. I do so be liking that one." Breda actually grinned, a fearsome display of filed teeth as she returned to resting her arm on her raised knee. "I do be knowing when my son be having an eye for another. At this time it don't be some elezen whore offering half-bred bloodlines or some screeching, broken priestess of Rhalgr. That one didn't even be having the courage to be sitting at my fire. At least the first one made the try to kill me. Poorly." There was a subdued line of a amusement that wax and then waned on the corner of her mouth. "Perhaps he be fearing a mother's proper place in having that curiosity, and fears what I may be saying of him. What he be wishing to be keep in sight of the past. A place you be holding soon, I be sorting."

“You have said nothing of him that I did not already know from you. I am not yet dead from this encounter, my bones still my own, my flesh not rendered.” Caithe replied, knowing well enough the stories of those before her, true or untrue as they may be. Curiosity pooled in her, but it was not Breda’s place to tell her that which Tristram had not told her. Not in so much detail, at least. It also, the shaman was very aware, not yet her turn again for a question. There was a rhythm to this, and she would not see the drumbeat fail on her misstep. “Perhaps his fear is unfounded,” she heard herself say next. Her breath had caught with the grin of her teeth and black ash, a smile so almost familiar. Gran had filed her teeth as such, but never asked her to do the same. She’d asked once if it had hurt, and Marta had fixed her with a wink and said it did like the whole seven Hells. She’d never wanted to go through it after that. Pulled back to the present, she stared at Breda. Her head bowed to the woman, passing the turn of questions onto her. But there was something about Breda’s final sentence that resonated strangely within her. It turned a bitter taste in her mouth. The woman held no ease about her in this moment, but the formal stiffness, and that, certainly, had not helped.

"Perhaps." Breda echoed of Caithe. "But the night still holds no certain future for your flesh and bones yet, Crowsong." Slowly, the woman's head turned to their venerable companion at the fire who was still absorbed in her rocking and humming. Again Breda's features shifted, though this the amusement melted into a quiet reverence. The fire popped once, breaking the silence in the pause while Breda's eyes tilted back to Caithe.

"Her name be Meiv, and she be walking this land for near ninety-four cycles now by her counting. She survived Priest slaying heretics in the fields, a Mad King of a fool people, and their fall to their betters from the north. A true highlander, she endured. But now ... now she be taken by an illness that slowly wastes her body. No healer can be tending it, and no magic can be touching it. She wishes to be returning to the land, in the old ways she saw as a child. In our ways. Be by the sun's rising that her blood will soak the earth, and her aether be returned to the Land. I be her guide to be seeing her to her rest, and to be assuring she moves on in peace." Breda's eyes dropped from the old woman to the flames as her next question, in demand was given. "You be telling me of you, Crowsong. Be telling me how you be showing these people the will of the land and the ways they had forgotten before they be blindly clinging to the skirts of Twelve who left them so long ago."

Caithe looked to Meiv, and it was with new eyes that she was able to see the elderly woman. Not some old, crazed hag she first mistook as Breda. Not some apparition of her mind, at least not yet. In silence, she studied the woman, so close to a century in age. The knot in her stomach grew for a moment and it was belatedly that she seemed to hear Breda's words. Her eyes moved from Meiv and the smile on her lips was sardonic in nature. "They are words that will not fall pleasingly on your ears, if anything of the stories rings true for you." Still, she took in a breath and began to form her tale. "I was born in one of the northernmost Temples and fated to walk the path of the Fist, at least if my parents were to be heeded. But Gran... she saw something else. I took to flame, to wood, to knife, and dance and song. I could not sit still for the preachings, I erred on the side of distance in combat. A wilderness, not a stone temple. I found fondness in the sparse trees that grew in my childhood. I took to the blades that would carve them into charms and wards. I cast the fires that would burn them when they tainted. But if you imagine me a leader for those of the old ways, then I am your disappointment. I walked this path with Marta, and when she left me, I took it alone. And in truth, when the Resistance grew, the mantle was dropped. I became Firedancer, my knife set aside for flame and country." The wry twist of her lips continued, and her bare shoulders rolled stiffly. "I have long since been told that the old ways are dying," her eyes had returned to Meiv as she spoke, voice softening. "And I do believe it. Some claim shaman, but I do not see it in them. So I remain on my walk. And I do not sing sweet whispers to the masses, turning them back to the earth and the old ways. Hells, but I know many of the old ways are long lost on me."

Through the course of Caithe's reply Breda had drawn her attention back back piercingly to the speaker. Where Caithe's words ended, Breda replied first with an grunt and click of her tongue. "An echo you be of Marta without doubt. She be giving wind to the same words of our ways and what she be knowing. There be no lie in those words. We be guides, and the people don't be coming to us anymore. They seek others who be serving twisted memories of twelve souls: Fists and Archons and Scions and Elementals that be pieces of one. Pah!" Breda waved her hand dismissively as her lips curled in disgust.

The woman took a slow, audible inhale of breath through her nostrils and then pushed it forcefully out. "If it be the lands wills we be to fade from Her, then it be that. Even I do not be fool enough to be thinking that I as strong as Him. Even if I be having all the stones that be holding our knowing. All is born, and all ends. That be they way of the land." Breda's eyes looked to Meiv again, lingering with some unspoken thought before smoothly returning to Caithe. "At least you don't be one of those soft ones, sorted only to herbs and healing and gentle winds. At least Marta carved and sung something properly on you." The hand draping over her knee had grasped at one of the charms that was woven into her skirt, a think of what looked to be glass and etched bone. "You next question, Crowsong. Be it the other you asked or be the another for your turn of our wheel. Speak it."

“I’ve no skill in things medicinal. I took to it poorly, despite the midwifery that took Gran of a number of years in her life. It was not meant for me, to be a comforter and soothsayer.” Her eyes fell to the charm in Breda’s skirt and a softness touched her gaze. It was familiar, if vaguely, and it helped lead her to her next question. “I would hear how you know Gran,” her eyes had lifted, paying heed to Meiv before finding Breda. A habit that was developed during the duration of time before this fire. Every turn of gaze seemed to rest a moment on the most aged of the three; respect, perhaps, but also curiosity, questions that burned yet she would not voice them to a woman who had no stake in this conversation. Caithe continued. “You speak of her with familiarity, yet I will not hesitate to say that when she spoke of you, it was with the lilt of a storyteller and she took part in passing on of a great number of your legends. I would know why, if you had any insight on that.” Her lips curved up in a brief flutter of a smile that seemed to coincide with her breathing. “Though I fear I am making a habit of having you guess the motives of others. It is not my intent.”

"Marta Crowsong was an ally one turn, and be a rival another. Such be the way among the powerful of us. We be turning with and against the other as the wind be curling about mountains." Breda head tilted to the side a moment in pause as eyes darted from Caithe to the fire, as if taking turn to listen to some unheard speaker. Then a blink to set her eyes back to Caithe. "In the days before Mad King, there be more of use. Be few still, and many be the chewer of plants and healing magics most that be calling themselves shaman now. All of us be meeting from time to time. A gathering to share what we be hearing of the land, and trading of knowledge. Most then be fool minds, your grandmother in that count. But she be one lesser fools. Her gifts be well known, her sight. She could speak with the dead that be lingering as plain as you and I be. And she be having the sight to be looking forward, turns of suns or many cycles. My sight be to the past, of things forgotten and roads that be walked. Blessings of the lands, if you be knowing of them. Like Urs and his."(edited)

Breda released the charm from her grip while making her own check on Meiv who continued her rites, seemingly unknowing of the conversations the other two woman were holding. A curt nod of approval was given by Breda before looking to Caithe. "Your grandmother and I were brought together more than once before your be an itch on in your father's cock. She and I sorted the Black Salt, leaving that knowing back to the past where it best be left. And we worked with others to be halting the doings of men and woman who defy the land and death, stealing flesh and slipping from from Her call. Marta be skilled in battle, but not a true lands-wrath as my traditions hold. More clever with wind that any woman be having a right to, and a swiving prattling fool before any fire. But she was a proper shaman, and even when she though she be a rival ... she be respected by many." "And I embrace the tales of me, child. A few even be of my own crafting. They do not be worth my time to give halt to, and I be having enough wisdom to be knowing they could not be stopped. Marta be having this wisdom as well." The ridge of flesh about her eyes rose, a loft of her brows if they had still been there. "And she be drawn to tales like moth to flame. They came easy to her tongue, as you be saying." "Tell me of her last days and how she lived in them. I would know of it."

Caithe listened. She stared at Breda and she listened. Her heart ached, her breath was stolen, and she listened. Her lips curved up, a chuckle escaped her and she listened. She nodded at the parts she knew, but it was clear as day that it was only a small fraction of what Breda told her in her short tale of her Gran. And, for at least a moment, she did forget to fear this old hag of her childhood. When Breda quieted, a breath was expelled from the youngest of the shamans gathered. A smile lingered, tight and sad and grateful. “Thank you,” she heard herself say with every meaning of the words. Breda had opened a floodgate, and for a time it seemed that Caithe was lost to her word of questions, trying to sort each on her own. And then she was back with the blinking of eyes, a focus returning if only slightly to the woman. She stared at this shaman of old, and it was a peculiar sadness that clouded her features then. Caithe was good at controlling her expression and few bested her at lies; but for eyes that had seen as much as Breda, she was an open book. “Would that I could tell you every moment of it, for I have told myself countless versions. But I can speak of only what I know for certain.” She took in a breath and seemed to visibly push aside whatever wraith of remembrance had grasped onto her. “Shaman as she may be, for all the wilds we took to, I believe for my sake she made the Temple of my childhood her home. We were secluded, yes, but not unknown. When the time of the Fists fell, when the Temples were burned and pillaged, we fled. The Temple fled, and scattered. My father knew the path, knew where to take us. But Gran did not come. Oh she smiled, unafraid and unheeding my mother’s shouts and my pleas. She laughed, waved off our worries. She had no interest in running; she had friends to tend to. To this day I cannot tell you if they were living, or dead, or just the trees themselves. But she did not come with us.”

Caithe paused a moment, wetting her lips with the tip of her tongue. “She is dead,” she said after the beat had passed. “I know that. She was old before I was born, so by nature or by blade, she parted from her body. I like to imagine I felt it, but I can count at least tenfold the times I thought she had passed. It… took me a very long time to begin to understand her actions. I was angry for a number of years; not always at her, but sometimes. It is easy to blame the dead.”

"The land be well to be having her back. And she do be with the land now, Crowsong" Breda's tone was in absolutes, spoken as if it was an immutable truth and punctuated with a curt nod. "When her turn be coming again to hold flesh, perhaps she be talking less and saving the ears of those who be nearby." She added wit the faint shake of her head, a brief flash of remembered annoyance beneath the cool mask of etched flesh. Breda's near yellow eyes drew once again towards Meiv, who had fallen silent now though she still tightly clutched the polished knife to her chest. The old woman's lips were tightly pursed, and sweat was beading her brow, neck, and starting to show on her crude, painted garment. "She be near the time where I be needed, Crowsong. But not before I be ending my task with you." The final sentence brought penetrating cast of her gaze back to Caithe as her hand moved to her hip wrap her long fingers around the antlered handle of a knife. She slid it smoothly from its home, showing not a blade of steel but of chipped stone nearly the length of a hand, milky and irredescent in the firelight. The arm and blade extended towards Caithe and her seat, and would have nearly been a threatening motion if not fluid turn of the blade in Breda's hand to bring curved grip of antler to Caithe.

Caithe’s lips pressed in stifled amusement. She hadn’t meant to show such in front of Breda, but she couldn’t help it. Gran, no matter the body she took, would almost certainly have a manner of talking that had others listening. Whether they wanted to or not. It was an appreciation that touched her in full, and she would have shared it with the old boogeyman had her attention not been drawing to Miev. Caithe knew enough about death to understand when one was at the very door of it. But when the blade, and then the blade’s handle, was turned to her, there was an ignorance about her. “I am not versed,” came an even tone, “in the steps that remain when the spirit clings only faintly to the body.” Marta had known, of course, though she had never claimed that path for herself fully. Caithe had not been called upon to take part, so tenuous was her relationship with the those who had long since left their bodies. “Teach me,” came the request next, and it took the place of her next question for the woman. It was her turn after all. Green eyes were levelled upon Breda, and she still reached out to take the blade from her, fingers wrapping antler.

"No." Was the answer returned with the half lidding of Breda's eyes. "The place be mine, and don't be for your shaking hands. One don't be teacking fire to ash before it be knowing the spark." Her hand slid from the opaline blade and then waved dismissively before returning to her side. "It be plain you don't understand what you be holding child, so you be taught that instead. Your hand be holding something older than ten of mine own lifetimes. Be made before the flood be bringing our people to this land." "Some be seeing a knife, but those that be having wisdom can feel the weight of it." Her long finger gestured towards the blade now in Caithe's hand. "They know there be more to what be in your hand than a pretty blade. It can be cutting flesh rightly, don't be doubting that, but it be a tool, ward, focus ... not even Marta knew all of what it be. And she be holding a long time before she be placing it in my keeping for this night. Her blood before held it. Many of them, since the Flood if you be taking her tale of it to be truth." "It be an old thing. An ancient thing. Marta knew it should not be lost. She be knowing her paths, many of them of what could and would be turning. She be seeing them all ending with that blade chipped and shattered should it be there with her at her end, or lost in the journey there should she be keeping it. Long before you be born, Caithe of the Crowsong line, Marta knew and claimed you the heir to that piece of ancient legacy. The granddaughter. So it be put to my keeping with an accord to return it to Marta's line after she be passing. You holding that now be finishing my agreement with her made too long ago."

“What?” For someone so verbose as Caithe, that single word fell dully and breathlessly from her lips. She looked down to the knife, turning it slightly in the light that was cast by the fire. Its near iridescent blade caught the flame warping it in its opaline length. She blinked, having never have heard of such a blade before. Gran had said nothing, not even some legend, not that the woman could recall in that moment. Her stories had had daggers before, certainly, but none with such beauty. None that felt so heavy in her hand. She drew it in closer, its weight falling onto her open lap as she looked down, transfixed by the dagger. It was a foreign thing to her and she had no name for it, but it felt right. She did not believe Breda to be the sort to make up such fanciful stories, but she also found herself believing every word that came from the woman’s lips. “Thank you,” the words came next, and she lingered on them a moment before continuing, “for keeping it safe. For seeing to your side of the agreement.” There was a distance to her words, Caithe wandering memories and stories past to try to glean some hint of this from Marta. Her tongue felt thick with questions and she ran it against the roof of her mouth to try and ease them. But it fell heavily on her now, a shroud that had taken her away from this fireside, away from Breda and Miev.

"I don't be needing your thanks, Crowsong. So don't be offering. Of all the tales that be spun in your head of me, none be telling of Breda-who-breaks-her-word." The shaman's head shook slowly with a small frown painted on her features as the woman smoothly came to rise in defiance of her age. "My accord with Marta and her line be done. There be no tasks of hers left here, Crowsong."

Amber eyes locked on the younger woman lost in her reverie, stepping forward slowly until the hem of her skirt was mere ilms from Caithe's leg. "There be nothing left here for you shaman. Our wind be shared, fire burned, and ash remembered. Be leaving this place, there only be death for those who be staying, and he be my companion." From the tone and weight to the words, death might have been her husband and Breda a jealous, protective wife. "Go and be finding yours, and tell him that his mother still be calling him a fool."

Caithe realised Breda’s proximity almost too late, and it caused a jolt through her body as her attention was forcibly snapped from the dagger. She jerked her hand back, blinking rapidly as she worked through Breda’s words beats after they had happened. Then she was on her feet, having hardly felt the air it took to stand again, creating some distance between her and the woman. The dagger was clutched tight and held against Caithe’s chest, flat and blade down. She bowed her head to Breda’s bidding. “Aye,” the word slipped from her; the breathless word of someone quite uncertain if she had survived a trial. It was a dragon she backed away from, slow steps drawing her away from the fire. Her lips did not form gratitude a second time, but whether Breda wanted it or not, it formed on the younger shaman’s features one more, and sang loud in the bow of her head to the woman.

Caithe moved to the treeline, the heat from the fire leaving her body as she stepped further into the dark and cold night. Only with some bravery, when she felt full alone once more and the earth was still, did she dare to close her eyes, mouth forming a name too familiar to her lips. “Urs.” She spoke to the wind. This time, not Breda.

Breda's eyes held on the retreating shaman until the most faded edge of the firelight was found, expression unchanging until lost in the slow turn to her first companion of the fire. Slow steps brought the shaman behind Miev, blocking the venerable woman from sight. Faintly, for a moment, a slowly drawn song was heard in a tongue unknown. A sad lullaby perhaps, or an elegy but it faded too quickly to be turned on one's mind. As to the wind, it spoke of a place to the east, towards Ala Mhigo. The earth agreed and then slumbered. Whatever of Breda's work had been to done was now unwrought, and the land spoke truly again of Urs Greythorne, son of Breda Rimesong.

@carved-spirit ((Who is always an awesome RP partner on any of her characters and wonderfully brilliant writer. You’re a best goat. :D ))

#roleplay #ic #caithe faulkner #breda rimesong #writing

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dreamsofgaia · 8 years ago

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There are people who believe that time is a human construct, and to an extent, I agree. The Gregorian calendar, indeed ANY calendar, is a human invention. But the tides, the seasons, and planetary cycles are not, and their passage can be quantified and measured. Time is a measurement that we humans use to illustrate how ordered and structured the universe is. Yes, there is chaos, but there is also structure and order at its core. Everything has a place, a reason for being, a purpose, and life span.

Time itself is infinite, but also limited and constrained by the cycle of birth and death. Billions of days have passed since this planet came to be, and hopefully, billions of days will pass before she ceases to be. But she WILL eventually cease to be. This planet will live, and it will die. Gaia is not infinite, nor forever.

Some things within our universe might appear to be eternal, but nothing lasts forever. Even the universe itself, will eventually meet an end.

I don't have a lifespan that will encompass billions of days. I don't have a lifespan that will encompass millions of days. My lifespan will be incredibly short by comparison, and I want what remains of it to be a life I can look back upon without regret.

I have goals I wish to accomplish within my lifetime. We all have goals or work to meet an objective or our lives lose their meaning. Some people want to travel and see the world, others want a high-powered career and financial freedom. Others, like me, want something a little less 'thrilling' but just as fulfilling and rewarding.

It often shocks people when I tell them that I have no desire to travel. I see pictures of far off places, and I imagine what it would be like to be there, but I have no real compulsion or desire to do what needs to be done in order to make it happen. If I don't travel before my time on this planet comes to an end, will I feel regret?

No.

Do I believe as some do that I would be more aware, more compassionate, more grateful, more knowledgeable- a better person in general - if I were to travel and meet the people of different lands? Yes and no. I believe that exposure to different cultures does change us. It does have the capacity to make us better people, but is becoming a better person in a manner others feel is important of greater import than achieving a personal goal that may also better me?

No.

From 2011 to 2013 I had several experiences that forced me to take stock of my life. I looked at my life, and the years ahead of me, and determined what was most important to me.

In 2013, the most important things in my life was my relationship with my partner, my family, and the tarot. I knew then that I am happiest when I am creating. I am happiest when I am painting. I have to create. I have to paint. I have to write. It's so fundamentally a part of me and who I am, that I can say that it is not just what I do, but also who I am. My purpose, now that my kids are grown, is to create.

When my relationship ended, I dedicated my life to creating. I vowed that it would be my sole focus above all others. As harsh as this may sound, I love what I do more than I ever loved my partner. The only thing I love more than what I do are my other two creations - my children.

With this said, can you understand just how important what I do is to me? In many ways, I was presented with an opportunity to save my relationship many years ago if I created less and gave more of my time to my ex. I was not asked to do so, but if I had been asked, I would not have been willing to do so.

I adore my children. There is no person on this planet that I love more than them. But if either of them were to ask me to give up what I do, for whatever reason, I would say no.

Even faced with poverty and financial struggle, I will NEVER give up what I do.

My goals are very simple - to paint and write, and to own my own home. To paint, and to create a secure, shrine to creativity. These are my goals. These are the two things I invest my time in.

We all invest time into our goals and passions. But what I do is more than a goal or passion. Painting and writing are an extension of me. Without them, my mind becomes ill and does not function properly. With them, my mind is healthy and functions well.

So what does this have to do with time?

I came to my creative path later in life. I did not begin my career as an artist until I was in my early thirties. I am now in my late forties, and still have so much I want to both learn and accomplish creatively and artistically. But as I grow older, I become more aware of just how little time I have left. Even if I were to live for another thirty to fifty years, I am now entering the latter half of my life and while I hope I will be able to continue to paint and create right up until I pass, I also know that in the latter part of my life, I may, due to age and infirmity, lose my ability to paint and write

So, again, my time is limited.

I am not sure if it is vanity or feeling that I have a higher purpose to fulfill, but I want to leave a legacy. I want to create something that continues after I am gone. I want to know that when I go, I have touched people's lives in a good way and helped them to better understand themselves. I want to leave here knowing that I fulfilled my purpose.

Do you want to know what frustrates me the most? It's being aware of how my time is limited, and experiencing situations and circumstances that use that precious commodity. It's having a 'creative bucket list' that encompasses at least fifteen different projects, and knowing that I won't be able to complete them all in my life time.

Precious - that is exactly how I see time ... it is a precious commodity. I don't have a lot to offer, so giving my time to something or someone, is one of the most valuable gifts I can bestow. If there is something that makes me want to cry, it's being forced to do all of the things that I don't enjoy doing at the expense of spending time on the things that I love.

It's having large chunks of time eroded by fear-inspired procrastination and non-productivity and, worse still, third parties who want me to perform a task for them, but then who want what I do to add beauty to their world but won't pay me for what I create and believe that they are entitled to it anyway ... or those who devalue the years of time I have invested in learning my craft. The former is the product of my inherent anxiety, while the latter represents many external sources of stress that add to my personal fears and worries.

Fear is a demon who consumes time. Fear has us doing everything we can to alleviate it, and yet even as we fight to dispel our fears, it is winning, because we are forced to do the things we have to do, at the expense of the things we want to do.

Just recently, I had not one, but several people respond to a post about how we artists are often treated by the population in general. The uneducated and ignorant, believe that what I do is ... easy. Worse still, others believe that what I do is unnecessary. Art serves no worthy purpose. It does not save lives. It does not fix the plumbing or wiring. It serves no practical purpose. A painting sits upon a wall and people look at it. It sits on the wall and collects dust.

Now, I do understand and accept that art is subjective. We each take from a painting something that is both personal and unique to the individual. It does not save lives like a doctor can save lives, but I do know that it has and does save lives in more subtle ways. Artists like me, work to create beauty. We strive to add beauty to the world. Sometimes, the paintings we create give those who are struggling to cope with the ugliness within the world, something to hold on to. I know, from what others have told me about there experiences with my work, that my paintings have changed lives, and have opened people to emotional and spiritual healing.

In the year since the tarot was released, I have received many emails and messages from people who are grateful that I created the tarot, because it has and is helping them to heal and change their lives.

I have had people message me to tell me that my poems and stories, my words here on Facebook, have made them feel less isolated, and less alone. My story has given them hope, and courage, and strength to go on, and by "go on" I mean LIVE.

For all of the letters, emails, and messages I have received, I am certain that other artists, especially those who work as I do, have also received their fair share of thanks.

So please, do not waste my time, or your own, in trying to tell me that art serves no purpose, or tell me that it does not change or save lives. Do not tell me that what I do is a waste of time or unimportant.

It is not. Art plays a crucial role in human civilisation. A key role.

I measure worth by the time invested. I know others do not, but I do. If I love something, I give it, whatever it is, my time. If I have one source or cause for regret, it is that there are some things, for example people ... friendships ... which I wish I could give more time. I love my friends. Deeply. I would give them the world if I could. I would give them every spare moment if it were not for the fact that these days, every spare moment I have must go toward creating, because my fear of not being able to pay my bills and save for a home of my own, has the bulk of my time now spent on the business side of my craft.

While those who would usually buy are not spending money on art because of the global fears that now grip us.

What frustrates me is the current imbalance. There was a time when I could and would happily invest my time equally in creating and selling. These days, it feels like I have to spend more and more and yet more time looking after the business side, and doing what I can to make customers happy - giving THEM my time.

Over the last year, I have implemented a few 'rules' and changes to restore some balance, like printing and packing and doing the mail run once a week Wednesday and Thursday, and devoting the rest of the week to 'creating'. But even then, that time devoted to creating does not translate to painting time. It is often devoted to product development; ways and means to generate the much needed income required to pay for the time I am painting artworks for the next deck.

At this moment in time, I feel that for every minute I can dedicate toward working on the next deck, I have to give ten to other things in order to have that one minute of painting time.

But is this imbalance enough to make me give up ... to quit ... to find an easier, more reliable source of income? No. It's not. It never will be either, because I remember how dead inside I was in the time when I was not painting. I had other things, many things, to fill my time with, but I was living half a life ... an empty life.

I may struggle at times. I may worry and fret. I may wonder how I am going to survive financially from week to week, but I have no real choice except to keep going, and to have faith that my time is best invested doing what I love, and doing what I can in order to continue to do what I love.

It is the only way I know I will leave this life with no regrets when my time is done. What I do IS not just a choice ... a career ... it is ME. It is me, doing what I can, in every way I can to be true to myself in the time that I have left.

I would much rather value and honour the time I have remaining by doing everything necessary in order to fulfill my reason and purpose for being.

So please, read this and remember that I give my time to others where and when I must, and sometimes I give my time to those who pay the bills more than to those I love and whom I would share space and time with.

I have often felt guilt when I read little memes that say if you love someone you will give them your time. That is true, but sometimes we find ourselves unable to give the time we want to.

It's like Patreon ... I have limited time and funds. Right now, I would love to pledge not $100 a month, but one hour a month to each and every one of my friends. Unfortunately, if I did this, I would have only a few days per week to devote to either painting or running my business. So, at present, and because so much of my time is now invested in 'survival', I can only devote a couple of minutes here and there on some, but not all, of my friends ... or upon interests that take me away from creating or business.

I am lucky to have friends who understand this, and know that if I could be more present in their lives, that I would be.

But in this moment, I have been shaped into the person I am by time, and time has revealed that there are things I need to do in order to be happy and healthy. I need to create. I need to paint. I cannot go and get a 'paying job' because it would kill me. I am not exaggerating. It would kill me as surely a bullet to the head. It might take a little longer for me to die, but die, I would.

I would rather devote ten minutes to pushing and promoting and selling in order to get that one minute for painting, than give it up and 'get a real job'.

I would rather use what time I have left creating beauty and doing whatever I need to do in order to make it happen. It is what I will give my time to, and if it means giving ALL of my time, then that is what I will do, because my willingness to sacrifice in order to create is equal to my love and need to do so.

And I will do so without a single regret, because I know what it is that is important to me.

#artist angst #healing #mentalhealth #love #time #personalgoals #ravynnephelan

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ladystylestores · 4 years ago

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How Black-Owned Beauty Retailers Are Shaking Up the Beauty Industry – WWD

https://ift.tt/2ITXrdc

As consumers become increasingly conscious of their purchasing power, some are placing greater emphasis on buying from Black-owned businesses.

In June, social media users began circulating lists of dozens — and in some cases, hundreds — of Black-owned beauty brands in the wake of the George Floyd protests. The lists signified a desire from supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement to align their spending habits with their core values. Less common, though, than the widely shared lists of Black-owned beauty brands were posts raising awareness of Black-owned beauty retailers.

The past few years have given rise to a number of beauty retailers nationwide that are self-funded and owned by Black women. WWD Beauty Inc spoke to six Black-owned beauty retailers — five of which have not yet taken on investment — about their business models and causes for launch. Despite each unique story, all shared a common thread: Each of the founders launched their businesses because of one of a variety of failures by the beauty industry to properly cater to Black and brown consumers.

The Brown Beauty Co-op is one such Black-owned beauty retailer that currently carries 50 Black-owned brands online and in its physical store, based in the nation’s capital. Cofounded by Kimberly Smith and Amaya Smith, who are not related, the cooperative aims to offer a more tailored alternative to beauty supply stores, many of which are not Black-owned.

“We are looking for people of color-owned brands that are independently owned,” Kimberly Smith said. “Our mission is making sure that the products are suitable for people of color to use.”

In June, Kimberly Smith and Amaya Smith penned an open letter to Sephora prior to the retailer’s adoption of Brother Vellies founder Aurora James’ 15 Percent Pledge. In the letter, The Brown Beauty Co-op cofounders called out Sephora for its lack of Black leadership, which is 6 percent in the U.S., according to numbers Sephora revealed as part of Sharon Chuter’s Pull Up for Change campaign. They also called into question Sephora’s diversity and inclusion efforts, which the retailer launched after the singer SZA tweeted that she had been racially profiled at a Sephora store in Calabasas, Calif.

In-store mistreatment of Black and brown customers is not an occurrence exclusive to Sephora, but a widespread issue at many retailers, including beauty supply stores. Racially charged misconduct perpetrated toward Aisha Griffin is what led the former automotive manufacturer consultant to launch her direct-to-consumer business, Coil Beauty.

“I became frustrated with beauty supply stores in general, [and] more mainstream stores didn’t have products that catered to my needs as an African-American woman,” Griffin said. “I wanted to create a space where women of color could come and find things that are made for their needs, but also a space where they could feel comfortable shopping and not feel rushed or not treated fairly.”

Maryland-based Dr. Kristian Edwards said she was compelled to launch online marketplace BLK + GRN, which features all-natural products made by Black artisans, after reading a study on the toxicity of products typically marketed to Black men and women. Edwards also read Maggie Anderson’s book, “Our Black Year: One Family’s Quest to Buy Black in America’s Racially Divided Economy,” and understood “the importance of Black people supporting other small, Black brands,” she said.

In her search for all-natural products that were Black-owned, Edwards found herself ordering from “15 to 20 web sites,” indicating a lack of a cohesive online shopping experience.

“I thought, wouldn’t it be easier if there was a marketplace where everything can be bought together?” she said.

BLK + GRN’s four-person team run the ingredients of each product available on the company’s web site through the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep database. In 2016, the EWG added more than 1,100 personal-care products marketed to Black women to its database. The organization found that less than 25 percent of those products rated well on its scoring system for hazardous ingredients.

Renewed conversations about skin-lightening products — which are prominent across Africa, Asia and the Middle East — have drawn attention to the category’s history of health hazards. In 2019, the World Health Organization published a paper on the dangers of mercury in skin-lightening products.

“The toxic trade of often illegal mercury-added skin-lightening products is a global crisis expected to only worsen with skyrocketing demand,” the paper read. It went on to list the health risks posed by inorganic mercury in skin-lightening creams and soaps, such as kidney damage, skin rashes, reduction in the skin’s resistance to bacterial and fungal infections, anxiety, depression, psychosis and peripheral neuropathy.

In its product analysis, the EWG found that bleaching products and hair relaxers were the “worst-scoring products marketed to Black women,” according to an article on its web site. Breaking the consumption cycle of these kinds of hazardous products is part of Brittney Ogike’s mission with BeautyBeez, an online beauty retailer with a physical presence in Los Angeles’ North Hollywood neighborhood.

“A lot of our customers are loyal to certain brands or products that they grew up on because, for decades, it was the only option at the traditional beauty supply [store] — relaxers to make our hair straight are products with toxic ingredients, tools that are damaging to our hair,” Ogike said. “When our customers come into our store asking for these products, we try to educate them on why we don’t carry that specific brand or that particular product. We try to offer them the better alternative.”

BeautyBeez is self-funded by Ogike, who works in sports management. Her brother, NBA player Khris Middleton, is an investor in the business.

BeautyBeez’s e-commerce platform carries nearly 2,000 products by 200 brands. The brick-and-mortar store, which reopened in May after closing due to COVID-19, has a section called “Classics” that offers some of the brands Ogike intuited her customers may have been taught to use at an early age. When the store first opened nearly a year ago, the Classics section was its best-selling. Now, the best-selling products are the “better products for us,” Ogike said.

Jazmin Alvarez, an alum of Calvin Klein and Condé Nast who also worked on the production and casting for Fenty Beauty’s digital launch in 2017, is the founder and chief curator of Pretty Well Beauty, a clean beauty curation web site. She launched Pretty Well Beauty last year after multiple experiences with clean beauty retailers that she perceived to be “elitist and exclusive,” she said. Pretty Well Beauty now carries about 30 brands.

“I like to consider myself the anti-Goop, if you will,” Alvarez said, referring to Goop’s exclusionary marketing that tends to leave out customers with a more modest shopping budget, as well as consumers of color. “There’s very little representation of women of color in the clean beauty space, so I wanted to be that voice and set a really high standard. Almost every other beauty retailer makes concessions in one way or another. That’s just not something I’m willing to do, and it’s how I’m hoping to set my brand apart from them — not just with clean but with sustainability.”

Wendy Imbisi, founder of Sacramento-based Nala Essentials, said she left her corporate banking job to start her online beauty business after difficulty finding a “one-stop shop” for Black-owned brands.

“I wanted to know I was providing the best value for the people,” Imbisi said. Nala Essentials’ e-commerce platform carries about 10 brands created by people of color.

“Nala Essentials is here to make Black women and people of color know that they’re seen,” Imbisi said. “Growing up, I did not see myself in the cool, healthy-looking brands. I’m glad to say that is now changing. People of color and Black people are now going to be taught about the importance of taking care of ourselves and spending a little bit more money on products that are much better and healthier for us. I’m excited to see where the health and wellness industry goes for Black people and people of color.”

While some of the Black-owned beauty retailers interviewed by Beauty Inc were negatively impacted by COVID-19, nearly all expressed that the surge in conscious consumption of Black-owned beauty has translated to a bump in sales for them.

Imbisi said Nala Essentials’ overall sales have gone up, as has the average order value. “Weirdly enough, the men’s products are flying off the shelves,” she said.

Ogike said that in June, BeautyBeez’s sales were up as much as 300 percent. In-store foot traffic grew, as well.

“June has, by far, been our biggest month yet in regards to sales and social engagement,” Ogike said. “I attribute that to the protests and the Black Lives Matter movement. Our world is waking up and our community is being more conscious of where we’re spending our dollars.”

After experiencing a dip in sales due to the coronavirus, BLK + GRN has since seen an increase, Edwards said.

“One of the big things I’m trying to get across is I hope people make this a habit,” she said. “It doesn’t help for you to [buy from a Black-owned business] one time. We want it to be something you understand the underlying reasons of why it’s important, something you continue to do.”

The Brown Beauty Co-op saw a 75 percent decrease in revenue in March and April, when it was forced to close its brick-and-mortar store. The business has seen “steady growth” since June, said Kimberly Smith, and is currently allowing customers to shop in-store by appointment.

“We’ve been getting an influx of new customers based on a lot of the campaigns we’re seeing online around ‘buy Black’ and ‘support Black-owned businesses,’” Smith said. “This is a crucial time for a lot of small businesses. We’ll take the support, we’ll take the tags because we are trying to survive COVID-19. Put your money where the message is.”

The Brown Beauty Co-op has been called “The Black Sephora.” Similarly, BeautyBeez’s Ogike said she aims for her store to be “the Sephora for Black women.” That comparison is telling of Sephora’s aspirational value for many beauty consumers and simultaneous failure to cater to a diverse-enough consumer base.

“When customers come in and see our space — especially a space curated for women of color, ethnic beauty — they’re not used to it,” Ogike said. “Beauty supply stores for women of color, there’s no intention in the retail space. There’s just products. So when customers come into our store and they see that it’s a store for them but it looks like a Sephora, they start questioning. They’re like, ‘Is this Black-owned?’

“We have team members who look like you, who understand your unique needs,” Ogike continued. “Our customers come in for one thing and they leave with 10 because they trust our associates in giving them what they actually need that’s effective. We get a lot of ‘thank you’s,’ a lot of ‘I’m gonna tell my friends’ or ‘I’m going to church on Sunday, I’m telling my whole church.’ And they actually bring them. The enthusiasm they have for the brand, the store, it shows.”

Black-Owned Beauty Retailers

BeautyBeez, beautybeez.com

Founded by: Brittney Ogike

Location: Los Angeles

# of brands: 200

BLK + GRN, blkgrn.com

Founded by: Dr. Kristian Edwards

Location: Maryland

# of brands: 70

The Brown Beauty Co-op, brownbeautyco-op.com

Founded by: Kimberly Smith and Amaya Smith

Location: Washington, D.C.

# of brands: 67

Coil Beauty, coilbeauty.com

Founded by: Aisha Griffin

Location: Chicago

# of brands: 14

Nala Essentials, nalaessentials.com

Founded by: Wendy Imbisi

Location: Sacramento, Calif.

# of brands: 10

Pretty Well Beauty, prettywellbeauty.com

Founded by: Jazmin Alvarez

Location: New York City

# of brands: 30

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