#because the metaphorical version of the void that exists in my head stopped taking my calls

[bigskydreaming]

So this is...its a thing. Let’s go with that. I’ve been calling around LA for pretty much all of last week, going through every oral surgeon I can find to see if they do the surgery I need and what their schedules are like, how soon I could get into surgery, etc, and also I’ve been asking literally everyone I know if they know of anyone, have a referral, etc. Even reached out to this old client of mine from back when I was doing sex work, years and years ago, to see if he knew anyone in LA with connections at Cedars Sinai or another hospital, like, to see if they could even just check with their hospital to see what visiting doctors specialize in that kinda thing. Keeping in touch with people from my sex work days, lol, is not something I normally did, or do. He’s literally the only one, and that’s because it just....kinda happened? *Shrugs* He's not a regular presence in my life or anything like that, just the only one from those days that for various reasons, I kinda kept in casual contact with - which for me pretty much meant that I called him or he called me like, a couple times a year to just be like hey how you been. And it’d been a couple years to be honest, cuz like....*gestures at the last two years* 

LOLOL. I guess I just have very low standards for people keeping in contact with me. Who knows why. One of those inexplicable mysteries I guess.

But point is, he got back to me like, the same day, and acted as a go between for me with this old friend of his, who works at Cedars Sinai as a chaplain, their non-denominational one...last week, at the time, I was only focused on the advice part of the email he sent after he asked around the hospital for recommendations, and it kinda didn’t even register that this guy wasn’t just....had connections at Cedars Sinai, but was actually working there himself (for some reason, I thought he was in a different state when first put in contact with him, whatever). Let alone what his title there was. So he gave a recommendation that I’m following up on today, and I just called the old client of mine who put me in touch with him to clarify a few things he’d say, and it only then hit me where this friend of his worked, and so I asked how long he’d worked there and turns out it was two years.

Which was...when my aunt killed herself. And that was where she worked.

So. Like. This random guy who I’ve never met before, doing a favor for me as a favor for this guy who used to pay me for sex and kinda almost accidentally ended up as like...a casual but distant friend, is literally the guy who was hired to replace my aunt as the non-denominational chaplain at Cedars Sinai when she died two years ago.

And I don’t have the first fucking clue what to do with that?

Like....I’ve always considered myself ‘comfortably agnostic,’ like I’m more than willing to believe a higher power exists, I’m just not all that concerned with forming a definitive idea of what that might be or look like or want. I hate organized religion with a passion because lol, repressive Catholic upbringing, and I’ve just never felt a particular need to go out and look for faith in anything other than myself and like....the things in life I actually value, y’know? I’m of the mindset that like, I figure if I do things cuz they’re the right things to do and try and live a good life where I’m helpful to people and empathetic and compassionate, whatever that Higher Power’s specific deal is, they’re either gonna decide that’s good enough for them when I die, or if its not good enough on its own merits, like...idk why I would even want anything from them or anything to do with them anyway? Like sure God, send me to hell because the only thing that really matters in the end is I didn’t sign up for your official email mailing list or whatever the fuck. Nope. 

So religion and faith and spirituality have never been a big...thing for me, or part of my life, its not something I really feel like, a void for not having or whatever. I don’t have an issue with what anyone else believes or why, up until the point where their personal faith apparently requires them to like....impinge upon my actual life and ability to live it the way I choose to....but I’m not like that dude who goes around trying to poke holes in peoples’ faith, just like...respect that I’m not interested in a sales pitch and we’re cool, y’know? Like my aunt was a chaplain, literally the only person in my family who ever kept in regular contact and like, made a point to check on how I was doing and shit and like...idk, loved me, is I guess the word to use? LMFAO. But like....yeah, she was the only relative I actually felt valued by, and thus the only one I really had anything like a regular or ongoing relationship with....*shrugs* So like yeah, whatever. She believed things that I don’t necessarily NOT believe, but more just have never felt a need to explore or try and decide just WHAT exactly I believe or put a name or a description to it.

And I’ve never been someone who sees signs in stuff that happens, nooooooot a fan of fate or destiny as a general concept and like....I’ve got no problem believing that things like ghosts or demons or anything like that could exist, y’know, things that just can’t be explained by science or anything near to our current understanding of reality at least....I’ve just never had anything remotely close to something I would describe as an encounter with the supernatural, or demonic or divine or anything really...spiritual, I guess?

So.....I don’t know what to feel about this, lol. Like, I’m trying not to read anything into it, like y’know....a sign, haha, not because I wouldn’t like to think that my aunt is still looking out for me in some way, I guess, maybe? Like, of course I’d like to think that, I miss her. A lot. And actually have been randomly thinking about her a bunch lately, like at weird times like, I don’t know what it is that made me stop and think of her, my thoughts go there? So I mean....I’m just saying....it wouldn’t break my brain or upend my entire worldview to accept that could actually happen or be a thing, its more just that I’ve gotten my hopes up so many damn times this past year in specific, that I’m just like....I cant afford to pin my hopes on THIS, like that this is ‘a sign’ that this time, its going to work out? But at the same time, its SO FUCKING SPECIFIC a connection like, and in such a WEIRD fucking round about way, that its pretty much impossible NOT to try and read something into it? Like, the guy who replaced her never even MET her, she’s literally just the woman who had his office before him and well. Is probably just remembered as a depressing story around the hospital, to be totally honest, cuz like, there’s not a lot of follow up that tends to happen when you ask so what happened to her and the answer is well, she killed herself, y’know?

So its like, how do you not get your hopes up even just a little bit, from thinking about that......which I figure means, oops, further to fall and crash and burn if this lead fizzles out too and I got my hopes up for nothing, but if it does pan out, like....I guess that’s kinda the point of faith in a higher power in the first place, lol, to hope for better or believe that there’s a point to all this or a place this all is headed, idk.

But then also now I just fucking miss her too, like, even more than usual, and thinking the shit I’ve tried really really really goddamn hard not to think about for the past two years, like how I know she had her own mental health struggles and even physical health issues, and I know better than to fucking blame her and yet there’s that part of me that wants to fucking throw a tantrum about how i need her and how could she leave me alone with just the rest of my useless fucking joke of a family, but then there’s the other part of me that’s like well I obviously wasn’t the help she needed either, so its not like I’ve got any right to think I was owed her presence or help or anything like that, its just. Idk. I miss her. I need her. I love her, like there’s so many things I want to tell her that I never got the chance to because I didn’t just fucking take the chances I had when they were actually available and there are so many more things I wish she’d told me, and just. I knew she cared, at least. No matter how detached I felt from the rest of my family or just like...fuck family in general, lol, she was the one person there who I never doubted like...just cared. About me. Gave a shit, showed up, wanted me to actually be happy and wanted that to look like whatever I wanted it to look like, didn’t give a fuck what other people thought my happiness should look like or require.

And its just like, maybe this is just a really weird, strange, major coincidence or maybe its a sign of something or proof of something and maybe it doesn’t even matter, bc like...I was just gonna say that its not like I even NEED the answers or to know, but like lol, dumbass, the fact that I’m actually asking the questions or getting worked up over whether or not I actually believe this means something or I just WANT to believe it means something, like, would tend to suggest I’m shitting myself and I DO actually want the answers which suggests maybe I’m not actually as agnostic or at least not comfortable with being agnostic as I’ve told myself, which....oh fucking hell. Am I having an existential crisis? Is that what this is? Jfc I better not be having a fucking spiritual awakening or whatever the fuck, like that is not what I need, this is NOT the time for that, literally nobody asked and I should know, Ive been here the whole time and nope nope nope this guy is not your ‘but the real salvation came from finding strength and purpose in something greater than myself in my most dire time of need’ narrative or whatever like I FUCKING REFUSE, my belief system can go to the BACK OF THE LINE until I’m good and ready to deal with it on MY time, I didn’t sign on to do a rewrite of some modernized Book of Job shit, literally any other thought in my brain is invited to step the fuck right up because THANK YOU, NEXT, I just willingly made an Ariana Grande reference because I can think of nothing more suitably over the top dramatic short of tossing my hair which is much too short to toss but again I insist nooooooooooooooope.

Like, love you and miss you Aunt Diane, and if that is you looking out for me plz know I’m very grateful even tho it totally doesn’t sound like it, but like, you know me well enough to know that I like....object to this timing and context on principle, WHICH YES HELLO I AM AWARE SOUNDS FUCKING STUPID NOW THAT IM TYPING IT OUT YET IT PERSISTS SO LIKE WHATEVER AND STUFF....just. I am me, and thus I shall super gratefully take like....just a smidgen of hope and optimism or whatever from this offering so like, I don’t want to be RUDE, but then Im gonna put the rest of it back in its box and shove it alllll the way to the back of my Pressing Priorities and unpack all that at a very fucking much later date, thank you ever so much, because like....I gotta be me, and I have been partners in crime with my Cynicism for way too long to just bail on him now, like, what kind of person would I be if I just cut and run on the anthropomorphized negative outlook that has helped see me through life oh so jadedly until now? 

Ugh wtf, why am I like this, is it free will or is it God or is God even real or did Cthulu eat god or is God’s actual name Sonya and like I have no clue where I’m going with any of this, look the answer is obviously that a faithless blasphemous heretical fucker has phone calls to make today, and nobody’s finding the light here, nope, nope, NOOOOOPE, my motel’s one shitty lightbulb works GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME.

[variousqueerthings]

Daniel LaRusso: A Queer Feminine Fairytale Analysis Part Two of Three

Part 1

Part 3

6. Sexual Awakenings part 1: Love, Obsession, & Size Differences

[Insert that post talking about the creators making sure that Daniel’s antagonists were much bigger than him so that the audience would sympathise, spawning 10000 size kink fics]

I’m sure this won’t awaken anything in Daniel

Corporate wants you to find the difference between these two pictures

The hallmark of feminine fairytales tends to be growing into womanhood, with all those symbolic sexual under/overtones, searching for a prince, encountering monsters (or evil stepmothers), on the surface tending to be quite passive/reactive, but actually being about young girls and women getting out of their environment and choosing to tussle with those deep, dark desires – monsters. They’ve got to function within the limitations of power that they have – escaping an abusive situation through marriage, chasing forbidden desires under the guise of duress, asking questions about sexuality through things like symbolic plucking (flowers) or consumption (fruit) or pricking (needles), etc.

Daniel isn’t striking out to find his fortune or win a girl or a kingdom Like A Man, he’s not a threat to Silver, who – like Jareth in Labyrinth – is in control for almost the whole of the narrative, he’s not actually able to do much more than react until he makes the decision to stop training, and even then he’s immediately ganged up on and assaulted, needing to be saved by Miyagi while he stands and watches, bloodied and bruised. 

Daniel’s journey in the third movie is to be forced into an impossible situation, seduced by Silver, and then prove that whatever violence Silver did to him isn’t enough to destroy him. It is incredibly similar to Sarah’s in Labyrinth, who by the end declares: “you have no power over me,” and that’s her winning moment. Not strength, not wits, not a direct fight, (although Daniel does fight Barnes and gets beat up again – only winning in in the end by taking him by surprise, unlike in TKK1 or TKK2 where you could argue that he proves himself to be a capable physical opponent to Johnny and Chozen), but by declaring that whatever power was held over her is now void.

Daniel’s narrative isn’t satisfying in the same way, because the dynamic of Silver and Daniel only accidentally emulates this - it’s not an intention on the side of the film-makers.

When Miyagi tells Daniel that he has strong roots, when he tells him not to lose to fear and Daniel wins over Barnes (in an almost fairytale-esque set of events), on paper he’s defeated whatever hold Terry Silver has over him. In the film itself though, Daniel never defeats Silver (which will likely be confirmed once he returns in Season Four). Daniel cannot simply say “you have no power over me,” and see Silver shattered into glass shards. 

The film is a contradiction: It wants to be a masculine sports film, but it exists in the same realm as Goblin Kings seducing young girls with the promise of: “Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave.” Unlike Sarah, Daniel doesn’t claim the power that’s been promised to him on his own terms. His subtextually sexual awakening is so corrupted that all he can do is pretend it never happened.

Still, Daniel proves in the film that his strength is not in his fists. It’s in his praying to the bonsai tree that’s healed despite a violent boy brutally tearing it in two.

These looks on Daniel and Silver though?

So why does Silver become obsessed with him? What’s up with all those red outfits (that he doesn’t wear in Cobra Kai)? What does the temptation reveal about Daniel? How does it recontextualise TKK1 and TKK2? Is Daniel bisexual? (yes).

Ah, beach-Daniel, in your red hoodie and your cut-off jorts. Iconic hot-girl summer vibes. 

If you didn’t want me over-analysing this, you shouldn’t have put him in so many red outfits and then have this man leering at him like he wants to eat him alive.

Surface-level it’s not hard to read into a Dude Story: Masculine power fantasies are about strength in a very direct way. Fighting, control, suaveness – and if you’re not the most traditionally masculine of guys, asserting dominance through being a good lover or intelligent or overcoming that unmanliness in some way through beating the bully or convincing the hot girl to go out with you, levelling up in coolness. Being A Man. It’s not too dissimilar from Daniel’s arc in the first movie, if you watch it without taking later events into account, although Daniel is never interested in proving himself as a man, and more in making Miyagi proud. Still, he does win and gain respect, and arguably “get the girl,” although Ali’s interest in him was never dependent on the fight.

7. Sexual Awakenings Part 2: Sexual Assault, Liberation, and Queerness

Feminine power fantasies are often about sex. Metaphorically. More accurately it’s “owning sexuality.” Even more accurately: “Freedom.” They also inhabit a fluid space in which empowerment through monstrous desires and non-consent can happen at the same time. And on top of that, many of these “fantasies” are actually being written by men, so whose fantasy is it really? A lot of them are based in oral traditions so presumably they were originally from the mouths of women, even if modern iterations (starting with Grimm’s collections) are filtered through cis men’s perspectives.

All of that being acknowledged: In Angela Carter’s “The Company Of Wolves,” Red Riding Hood unambiguously sleeps with the wolf. Belle discovers her freedom from expectations and unsuitable suitors (and in some versions, evil stepsisters) by falling in love with a Beast (the original novel was written by a woman, the 18th century Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve). Jareth informs Sarah of his obsessive devotion to her in Labyrinth. To lean into horror for a moment – Buffy is stalked and eventually has relationships with both Angel and Spike, Lucy in Coppola’s Dracula (which I have mixed feelings about) is raped by the werewolf and Mina is stalked by Dracula, The Creature Of The Black Lagoon kidnaps Kay (the lead’s girlfriend) – subverted in both The Shape Of Water in which Eliza forms a consensual relationship with the amphibious sea-god and in the short-lived horror series Swamp Thing, in which the connection is purposefully framed as seductive…

and in The Karate Kid Part Three Daniel LaRusso punches a board until his hands bleed because an attractive, older man tells him to and in this moment he gives in to what he (thinks he) wants.

Not all of those examples are equal. Some are consensual, some are hinted as abusive and/or stalkery, all of them have large age gaps, and a few are outright non-consensual.

But they’re all fantasies.

They’re all power-fantasies.

Except for Daniel, because he’s a man and the idea that being obsessed (lusted) over by an older man who keeps you in his thrall, specifically because you tickle his fancy for whatever reason, because you’re beautiful, breakable, different – could in any way be considered empowering is a difficult concept to wrap your head around. It doesn’t contain that “but I’m a good girl, I’d never go off the path and pluck flowers if a bad wolf told me to, honest,” societal context or the social context of rape culture. It’s closest comparison is closeted (perhaps even unknown until that point) queer identity.

There have recently been some comparisons of Daniel LaRusso to Bruce Bechdel in Funhome (and everyone who says that Ralph Macchio ought to play him in the upcoming movie: you’re right and I’m just not going to enjoy it as much without him). I’ve written a post about Sam being the heir to his legacy and trauma, specifically as a queercoded man. It’s not dissimilar to the plot of Funhome in a lot of ways.

The other interesting source that’s been going around in connection with Daniel is the essay “The Rape of James Bond,” which discusses the use of sexual assault as a plot device for women and not for men: “About one in every 33 men [in the US] is raped. … [your statistically average, real life man] … doesn’t have a horde of enemies explicitly dedicated to destroying him. He doesn’t routinely get abducted, and tied up. Facing a megalomaniac psychopath gloating over causing him pain […] is not the average man’s average day at the office.” That last bit is just a descriptor of Terry Silver, (although I take issue at the blasé use of psychopath).

The two part youtube essay  Sexual Assault of Men Played for Laughs posits that there is nothing more de-masculinising than the threat of sexual assault and therefore any narrative that features this “rightfully” must mock any man who has been a victim or who fears being a victim of sexual assault. It is feminising. There is nothing more humiliating – and therefore unheroic – than a man dealing with sexual assault.

So what do we feel when we see an attractive young man being put into a vulnerable position by an older man? A trope associated with female characters, a trope that is considered unpalatable for men (see reactions that happened when the hint of sexual assault was introduced in Skyfall).

Was it the fact that he was being threatened, or the fact that James’ next line is: “what makes you think this is my first time?”

Some thoughts added by @mimsyaf​ are around the idea of safety in how a lot of cis women might relate to this narrative through Daniel’s eyes. He’s not a woman, he has – societally – more power than a girl or woman would have, which makes this a different watch to, say, if Danielle were to go through the same narrative. Daniel doesn’t carry that baggage of rape culture, or of the male gaze that you might find in a similar scenario of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Christine in Phantom of the Opera (and once more the age differences between these characters and the men who love/lust over them are substantial), which makes the narrative “safer” to engage with.

I agree with that, although as a transmasc person I also come at it differently. I specifically like to headcanon Daniel as a trans guy and find his fraught interactions with masculinity through his own non-toxic lens relatable, as well as the way other boys and men react to it – also I think Terry Silver is hot. I know there are people who write Terry Silver with female OCs, which is also a form of empowerment.

On the flipside putting Daniel in this space runs a risk of fetishising him as a queer youth who is either Innocent and Pure, or a bisexual stereotype that deserves to be assaulted for not being a real man. After all, Real Straight Men don’t run the risk of sexual assault.

 Alas, the road to empowerment never did run smooth. 

The comparisons between the way Daniel is treated by the text and how female characters are often treated in texts are undoubtedly there. Through Ralph Macchio and TIG’s casting and the direction and acting, but also within the text itself. 

It might not be with the same purpose as Neo’s symbolically trans journey, but it puts the whole narrative that Daniel’s going through from TKK1 under a different light than if there had only been one movie that ended on a triumphant sports win and a girlfriend.

Johnny’s masculinity and the use of tears as liberation, now that’s a whole other analysis….

[ramblefang]

The End

When I watched the ending of Homestuck for the first time a couple of months ago, I was surprised that the fight with Lord English was left unresolved. My thoughts had quickly went to wondering how people would have felt about it back when the ending was released. I imagined that some people may have been a bit annoyed by it. I didn’t put too much thought into how I felt about it since I had the epilogues to jump right into (which are their whole can of worms that I’ve written a bit about before). I’ve since had the past couple of months to really digest the ending, thinking about why Lord English was left undefeated, what meaning that could have.

Spite

What I first thought of was something that could explain the ending in-universe. (Relatively speaking, considering how meta Homestuck gets.) Hussie could have left that fight unresolved out of spite towards Caliborn/Lord English. And by “Hussie” I mean the in-universe author-insert. Lord English killed him after all.

How does that work as revenge against Lord English? Well, to me, it always felt like Caliborn was trying to force himself into relevance in the story. His little Act Act Acts that hijacked the narrative only ever had the barest connections and relevance to everything else. He really wanted to be the center of attention. Having the fight with Lord English as the climactic final battle of the story is pretty much what Caliborn wanted. So of course Hussie would deny him that honor.

Irrelevance

From noticing how it felt like Caliborn was forcing himself into the story, it occurred to me how irrelevant he felt in the grand scheme of things. He didn’t really fit into any of the kids’ journeys. Dave even expresses that feeling himself to Grimbark!Jade: there’s that prophecy about how he would be the one to land the killing blow to Lord English, but it just doesn’t feel personally important to him.

Caliborn does attempt to retroactively show how the story had been influenced the whole time with the whole Lil’ Cal juju business, but even that felt cheap to me. Everything that Caliborn supposedly influenced through Lil’ Cal had perfectly plausible explanations already. Gamzee stopped eating the sopor slime that was chilling him out, and we had been given enough information about Highbloods and the subjugglators to understand that this sort of thing is what was expected of him. Lil’ Cal’s influence supposedly explained Bro being an abusive guardian, but Bro’s behavior wasn’t too far off from Dirk’s, and, if I understand things correctly, Lil’ Cal was an “empty” juju when Dirk had it, free from Caliborn’s influence.

Moving away from Caliborn a bit, it would be simpler to just think about what really did matter in the story. To me, the main goal was always to complete the game and create a new universe. All of the villains that were properly defeated in [S] Collide stood against that goal. Lord English never cared about that new universe: only destroying the ones that already existed. He was intent on destroying the Medium. And that really didn’t matter when everyone would just be safe from him by making that new universe. It’s why the game’s completion was the main focus of Act 7: it’s what really mattered. Lord English being left undefeated was, in a way, an expression of how he never really mattered.

Symbols

Now I want to get a bit more metaphorical and talk about what Lord English represented.

First, I suppose we can start with Caliborn being the “Lord of Time.” What does that mean? Well, as I had put in a list before, I understand the aspect of “Time” to mean the aspect of “Death,” in much the same way Heart means Soul or Light means Fortune. One of Dave’s major struggles is with his own mortality (especially when Terezi tests him with a coin flip). Aradia is dead for much of the time we know her, and she’s also able to control the spirits of the dead. The Handmaid is a servant to Lord English as a sort of grim reaper. And while we know little about Damara, one of the main things we learn about her is that she killed some of the members of their group.

And the Lord of Time threatens the death of everything, of all universes. The Medium itself. But have you ever thought about what the “Medium” really is? It’s the storytelling medium. It’s the very means through which the story is told. For the world of Homestuck, it is the metaphysical paradox space that everything can happen in. Without the Medium, nothing can happen. The story cannot be told. The story ends. Lord English represents The End of the story.

So if Lord English represents The End, what does it mean to defeat him? It means the Medium is saved and the story can continue. And without an end, the story would continue indefinitely. But end the story must, so it simply ends partially, leaving that particular part of The End unresolved and not quite finished.

Glitch

On multiple occasions it is mentioned that Lord English is an indestructible demon. On one such occasion, Aranea explains that it would take a “glitch” to defeat him, a bending of the rules.

We’re also introduced to the “weapon,” which sports the appearance of the Sburb logo. We know that it gave John his retcon powers, the power to change the story itself. From that, we can imagine how it could cause some sort of “glitch.”

But the “weapon” doesn’t only take the form of the Sburb logo. The Sburb logo represents Homestuck as a whole: not only the original story, but everything that comes out of it, from semi-canon stuff that extends the franchise to—most significantly to my point—the fan community, the fandom. This isn’t too crazy to think because of how closely tied the fans of Homestuck are to the story, down to the way the story is presented: things move forward through “commands” that supposedly come from the audience. Also, if I understand correctly, readers literally suggested those commands at some point. (or maybe that was just for earlier MSPA stories.)

Essentially, the “weapon” is a portal to everything that exists outside of “canon”. It’s a portal to fanfiction. This is the nature of the “glitch” that can defeat Lord English. The rules of the canon story say that he cannot be defeated, that he’s indestructible. But fan authors need not abide by the rules of canon. A fan can defeat Lord English however they please.

And what a playground fans were given to finish the fight! The ghosts of AU versions of all the characters, and even the ghosts of OCs. You can have anyone you want become part of the final battle to defeat Lord English. At the head of it all is Vriska: someone that any fan is bound to have some sort of opinion on. She’s someone perfect to springboard the action from. Then there’s the Beta kids who were supposedly sealed in the “weapon,” including Dave, the one prophesied to defeat Lord English.

Lord English being undefeated in canon did strike me as a challenge to fans to complete the story themselves, but this may have been the intent from the very beginning. He was never going to be defeated in the story because there isn’t really any way to “glitch” things and bend the rules. Anything that happens in the story just become part of the rules.

Lastly, I suppose I’ll address his defeat in the epilogues. It’s technically still outside of “canon;” despite the assertions of the Meat epilogue being “more canon”, the epilogues are still only sort-of canon at best. But I think this semi-canon nature is part of why Lord English’s defeat in the epilogues was so dreary. Really, the epilogues as a whole were dark and dreary, and maybe one could say that that was how they “changed the rules” to be able to defeat Lord English. But it was also a declaration that if you wanted a happy ending, you’d have to write it yourself. I like to think that the inside of the “weapon” in the epilogues was an empty void because it was disconnected from the influence of the larger community of fans: meek and empty compared to what fans would have done with it.

[moontheoretist]

Justice for Koth

You know, I wish there was more to Koth's arc in KOTFE and KOTET than him only being mad at you (rightfully so) for killing his people or him appreciating that you didn't kill his fellow Zakuulans, as there is more to him laid out there in the story than we all think and most of it is never addressed or challenged. One of those things is his faith in Valkorion. We can cry before our screens all we want, when he says "He was always good to Zakuul". We can yell to our hearts content that "Yeah, he was good to Zakuul, but murdered anybody else!" and we can even tell it to him in the game, sort of, but his faith is never clearly challenged in a way, which actually would make him think more about what Valkorion is and what worshiping him did to the citizens of Zakuul. 

If writers really cared about Koth they would make him challenge his beliefs, instead of just letting us say to him several times that Valkorion is a monster and always get the same answer to our words. Koth isn't the type of person who easily trusts people, and he also isn't a type of person who just will take opinion of another over his own without any significant proof. Writers could provide this proof as the truth about what Valkorion did was already there, lied in the foundations of the storyline, subtly hinting all this time, that despite what Valkorion says he means and does, he in truth doesn't care about anybody else than himself, and therefore it's easy to actually draw a conclusion, that he never cared for Zakuul in the end. He built this grant society, not because he was bored, or because he wanted to achieve perfection, no. He build this grant society, which worships him as if he was god and listens to everything he says and believes his every word, because he needed some brainwashed pigs for the future slaughter. Pigs which would gladly die for him if he so wished. 

It didn't work as it was supposed to in the end, but did you ever question why Heralds of Zildrog even existed? Especially after Nathema Conspiracy showed that their reincarnation (Order of Zildrog) had access to the planet, which served as the hideout for many of his secrets? (Though they probably know about that, because Vaylin revealed the location to her Guards, including Vin Athrius, but still their very existence means they somehow knew about Zildrog’s power without knowing how it looks and how it works, so seeing it once long time ago would only work if Zakuulans were so primitive at the time that they couldn’t even see a warship on the sky shooting death at them, and instead were only able to see the ray of powerful energy shooting at them straight from the sky, which upon reaching the surface seemed to twist like a serpent or something). Heralds of Zildrog were created, because they were supposed to make Zakuulans complicit to the death and make them accept this as their fate. That's why they are the only ones in the whole society who knew what will eventually happen to Zakuul, and it was also the reason why they were taught to be happy about that sacrifice for the sake of Great Serpent, or Great Dragon - Zildrog.

"Fear the snake who believes himself a dragon" Valkorion once says when referring to Arcann, but ironically those words apply much better to him than to anybody else in the whole KOTFE and KOTET storyline, as he is a liar, backstabber, a snake who believes himself a dragon, but is ultimately doomed to fail. It also refers to the unique connection between him and Zildrog, as after Nathema Conspiracy it's very easy to draw a conclusion that Zildrog was the thing which Valkorion (at the time Tenebrae) used to wipe all life on Nathema (at the time Medriaas) and then performed a ritual which allowed him to consume all those lives to become immortal. We can also assume that he was the one who traveled in Gravestone (Zildrog's body) to Zakuul, fought the Eternal Fleet, pacified it and eventually landed the ship on Zakuul's surface. The rest is probably a history. How he found a champion of the people of Zakuul (probably the original Valkorion, whose name was stolen) and eventually managed to take his body to gain control over population and then started building his pig farm.

Heralds of Zildrog were never told that Zildrog is Gravestone and therefore Heralds couldn't assume that Gravestone in the hands of Outlander means that the death they await can be easily obtained as long as they take over the Gravestone. But they knew what Zildrog was (at least metaphorically) and that it can eat lives, even though its main computer was on Medriaas and therefore its powers shouldn't be known to anybody, who didn't have access to this power or whose history doesn't stretch all the way back to Iokath. There is no indication that there were any survivors of the war on Iokath, but there are indications that Machine Gods and Eternal Fleet were used to attack planets in Wild Space. (Yes I know that Wookiepedia states Zildrog was actually used on Zakuul at least once, but I have my doubts, because if it was, there is no reason for Zakuulan’s to think that Heralds of Zildrog are heretical cult, as Zildrog supposedly predates the beliefs about Machine Gods). It's logical that people who lived on those planets knew about Machine Gods and build whole mythology around them. The only one who seems detached from this mythology is Zildrog which means that Heralds of Zildrog shouldn't be able to know so much about Zildrog's powers to actually be able to found a religion around its whole existence unless they witnessed it’s power on a stage in civilisation development when they didn’t have technology good enough to actually give them insight that “there is some alien warship on the orbit of our planet and it shoots at us”. (Though if it really happened and indeed Zildrog was used once on Zakuul, then it would probably go like this: some life on the planet would be lost to the blast, but not all, and then planet would recover from the blast, as there was no Valkorion at the time to consume the life essence of those killed and create the Void, but even then the idea that whole life on the planet would be consumed when Great Serpent Zildrog appears again could only steam from either exagerration or someone putting that idea into their heads). That's why it's logical to assume that their info comes from a third party, which actually shed some light onto them.

I cannot stress how much suspicious it is, considering that if it was once used to attack planets like the rest of Iokath weaponry there should be visible signs on Zakuul that its life was wiped out at least once before (as Heralds belief Zildrog appeared once long time ago and he is supposed to come back). The most logical conclusion is that Zildrog was never used to attack any planets by Iokath creators and along with other weapons was used to kill only its creators and then was sent to Medriaas, where then it was discovered by Tenebrae and brought to Zakuul by him, and with him the whole new mythology of Great Serpent Zildrog which will one day kill them all (this conclusion would assume that Zakuul never got any direct hit from Zildrog and that the “first appearance” of Zildrog which Heralds proclaim happened was about Medriaas). It’s hard to say though if Zakuul was ever attacked by Zildrog in the past as the only proof we have is Heralds word that it happened. With Medriaas though we have two giant craters on the surface to actually prove that it was hit by something at least twice. Of course, no matter which version is true it's all very convenient for Valkorion, who is used to wiping out whole planets to stay immortal and that convenience cannot be overlooked as even if he didn’t push Zakuulans to create the cult around Zildrog, he still probably planned to use it for his own gain. 

If this knowledge was ever used in the storyline to actually challenge Koth's beliefs by making him discover that shit, he would have definitely easier time to accept that what people around him were saying all this time was true, as the only thing he cares about are people, especially his fellow Zakuulans. As long as Valkorion meant prosperity and safety, he would have no reason to stop believing in him. But the moment he learned that it was all illusion, that they were bred like pigs, kept in comfortable shape and were catered to by the bunch of droids in order to not develop any resistance to the power which rules over them, his whole worldview would be put upside down. Especially with Heralds of Zildrog at the hem, as even if their beliefs didn't actually make Zakuulans all high on dying for the sake of the Great Serpent, not the Emperor himself, it was still something which they would not directly oppose as long as they would not know it's not "just a game" and when they realized it was for real, it would be too late to actually run. Considering that Koth feels grateful to Heralds for keeping relative order in the Old World and that he also feels grateful to Valkorion for making Zakuul safe and prosperous, his whole belief system would shatter at the revelation like this. And even though he believes in Valkorion a lot, he cares about his people far more than about Emperor himself. 

He would not accept this truth at first of course, but eventually he would have no other choice. He would have to challenge his beliefs and break the shackles of Valkorion's inscripted worship and notice the flaws of Zakuulan's "perfect society", which ironically would put him on the same page as Kaliyo, who noticed that long before him (thanks to not being a local) and tried to fight it, bring it down, shatter the illusion of perfectness which Valkorion created. (And even though Valkorion doesn't seem bothered by Kaliyo's actions and even states that she doesn't have enough power to destroy his perfect society as if he cared, he still sees the fall of this society as a direct threat to him, even if he never states that outwardly and instead makes us, the players, believe he cares about Zakuul and do something with Arcann and Vaylin who fuck up his ideal pig farm, so then we would become his puppet to continue growing this pig farm till the time for consumption comes). Instead of that challenge of beliefs though, the only thing which we got was Koth either staying with us, or leaving us forever if we decided to not care about his people at all. Slaughtering innocent people in general is the only thing which makes Koth react violently to presented reality and it was great opportunity to use the very same tactic of exposing Valkorion's lies to challenge his belief system, but also to challenge whole structure of Zakuulan society by someone who isn't considered a known psycho (sorry Kaliyo, but the fact that you challenged the system diminishes the importance of what you had done due to your bad reputation and the fact that audience remembers you mostly as a crazy psycho with “zero depth” which is bullshit) in order to understand what Valkorion was really trying to achieve there. The conclusion is that Koth deserved better than being reduced to someone who has no impact on the storyline in any way and then gets labelled as "someone who throws a tantrum over nothing" by people who do not understand that taking Gravestone from Outlander who indiscriminately kills civilians as if it was something cool and good is actually a logical choice on Koth's part and should be respected.

[bladekindeyewear]

Reading Homestuck^2 as of Page 28.  I’m glad we’re resolving the lack of conversations between these two, it’s really working well so far.  > ==>

So we’re calling this a “prattle”, huh?

I’m not sure how to describe everything that’s going on here, this playful skip of depicting actions by narrating them intentionally, but I like it somehow.

Some stuff about ABBA, too, not that I’d get it as I don’t really music.

Hm, interesting discussion about these capsules.

DIRK: But beyond that, they're a convenient and effective means of subtle psychic suggestion at a distance. TEREZI: 1T DO3SNT S33M 4LL TH4T SUBTL3 TO M3 DIRK: Well no, it's not. DIRK: At least, not for us right now. DIRK: But that's because your presence as a guiding influence has been revealed. DIRK: Earlier, when I hadn't realized you were there, it was more difficult to discern.

Yep, setting up mechanics for us to play with later.  This is nice.

DIRK: That's what you get for nosing around in our secret storeroom. DIRK: I'd ask you not to contaminate the ectobiological equipment with your own genetic material, but, TEREZI: Y34H TOO L4T3, SORRY >:|

Dammit, that’s right.  You’re seeding a whole damn planet and time-traveling forward somehow so you can hijack a session, right?  I can’t see the game treating you kindly for that sort of indiscretion.

Eugh, creepy.  Terezi can still be controlled directly, and she knows it.  And there’s shit he wants to hide from her.  Euugh.

(Is it John’s corpse or something?)

> Dirk: Get this show on the road.

A “N31GH” code, huh?  Good taste, Terezi.  Very character-appropriate.

Rose is feeling ominous about getting this started, huh?  She should.

ROSEBOT: But if I had to describe it, I'd say that misgivings, hunches, doubts and so on are supported on a foundation of un-knowing. ROSEBOT: And along with that absence of knowledge comes a commensurate feeling of dread or worry. Fear about the potential calamity yet to come.

Hmm.  (Trying to parse anything meaningful besides the obvious, and Rose going for a Homestucky start-of-adventure paragraph.)

ROSEBOT: As though in this moment, luck isn't either strictly real or not real, or somewhere inbetween, but absent of meaning completely. ROSEBOT: Luck took one look at our itinerary from here on out and said you'll just have to go on without me. DIRK: Luck rolled over the other side of the dictionary and said not tonight sweetheart, I've got a wicked fuckin' headache. ROSEBOT: Exactly. ROSEBOT: Except now I'm the one with the migraine.

Mhmm.  Because what you’re trying to accomplish isn’t gonna work out the way you think it is, but that fact’s actually quite possibly a good thing for you and everyone else.  Hard to put that in a cut-and-dry good or bad, isn’t it?

> ==>

DIRK: We scanned for Sburban technology, so we know for sure this is the right planet. Wheels are already in motion and all that.

Huh.  I guess if you found the right planet to use, it WOULD already have the tech paradoxically seeded on it, wouldn’t it?

ROSEBOT: It's like the notion I was trying to describe was so conceptually insubstantial, so resistant to concrete definition within any meaningful frame of reference, that even thinking about it as an idea made *me* somehow existentially unsound. ROSEBOT: And not in the way I used to always feel, back before John made the choice to validate our canonical existences axiomatically. ROSEBOT: Foreboding I can deal with. I'm a Seer. Sooths are mine to say. ROSEBOT: But this is different.

Perhaps “Void”, but in the less “misfortune” sense?

Hm.

(Did the heroes bring Roxy on the other ship? I fucking hope I don’t have to go a whole adventure without any more Roxy.  Or fun Void heroes, anyway.  ...Crap.  We’re going to get new characters. That’s right.)

Despite what she thinks, little by little Rose begins to feel her head clear of concern, semantically dubious or otherwise. Her understanding of my ascended existence doesn't include this degree of metanarrative potency, so her doubts as to my words' healing powers are understandable.

Fuck you. Fuck you. FUCK. YOU.

You’re taking this otherwise smart, wonderful character and systematically BEATING OUT OF HER the ability to question her circumstances or doubt her path with a narrative stick.  You’re killing everything that is her, robbing her completely of her will as your title implies.  I don’t like seeing Rose vividly, constantly KILLED at the will level.  I wonder if it’s going to STOP anytime before even the halfway point of this story.

...Heh. “Chaotic-lawful”.  Hehehe. (Or H3h3h3, rather.)

As you know, I have many splinters. So many, I used to find it overwhelming to contemplate them all. Depressing, actually. It was a feeling I could never escape from. The feeling that my sense of self was limitless. That I was forced to exist as a small facet of my own potential, while drowning in an ocean of my greater persona, and all the terrible things I was fully capable of. I was trapped as a limited version of myself who was still burdened by the concern for what it meant to be good, struggling to keep himself from drowning in an overwhelming body of potential which had no concern for human morality whatsoever.

Hmmmmmm.

But that struggle finally ended a few years ago. My head isn't fighting to stay above the water anymore. There isn't even a metaphorical head to speak of. I'm only the water now.

Right, the Ultimate Self.  Essentially encompassing and accessing your whole Heart at once, every disparate definition of yourself pulled together.

(Which makes it even more throw-up disgusting that Rose is currently achieving this same state and STILL being enslaved by Dirk.  He’s not just enslaving Rose, he’s enslaving ALL of Rose, the entire concept she represents.  And deluding her utterly in the process.)

> ==>

DIRK: What's that noise I'm hearing. DIRK: It sounds a little bit like a cat being caught in a ventilation fan. A sort of... DIRK: Inhuman screeching, combined with the grinding of metal. DIRK: Are we even going to make it to the ground? ROSEBOT: Oh, no, ROSEBOT: The ship's fine as far as I can tell. ROSEBOT: That's just Terezi laughing. DIRK: Oh. DIRK: She's... enjoying this, isn't she.

Pfffffff.  :)

> ==>

Nothing familiar about this planetary body, far as I can tell.

Ah, that “to be continued...” was pretty hard to see.  Guess that’s it for now!

This is definitely going to be fun, if still at least 30% soul-crushing.  It really is really, really hard to see Rose like this, at his mental-manipulating mercy.  Luckily -- if we can even call it luck -- we probably will see very little comparatively of Dirk’s party, and more onscreen of the others in the Hero party or whichever new... humans? (Hybrids even, maybe, if Dirk’s especially ambitious?) ..make up this session’s players.

And I’ll be blogging the whole way through, I suppose.  See you then!

[ptw30]

New Content ≠ New Information

- or why you might have been underwhelmed by the recent Voltron: Legendary Defender trailer. 

A few people dropped into my messages yesterday and said the exact same thing, “But Dev, we got new content in the Season 8 trailer. How did we not learn anything new?”

I’m paraphrasing a bit here, but the intent was all the same - we got new content, so we know more about Season 8, right?

Not really, no. 

Below the cut - what trailers should tell us, how Season 2′s trailer rocked, what we didn’t learn from the Season 8 trailer, and - okay, I give. There are two new things we learned about Season 8 from yesterday’s meatless burger. 

(I can do food metaphors, too.)

A trailer is supposed to do a few things, but its main purpose to explain what plot is coming up and give relevance to the new content. 

Let me put this in a food metaphor for you. Let’s say the Voltron Twitter handle promises you food. You assume a burger. Now a good trailer is just about half the burger because a season has two main obstacles - the first problem the heroes must overcome and then a second, harder issue at the season’s end. 

So a trailer should explain the initial problem and foreshadow to the final problem. That means you’re still hungry at the end of the trailer, and that’s a good thing. You now need to eat the rest of the burger - or see the season.

Do me a favor - rewatch the Season 2 trailer on Netflix. I’ll wait. 

...

You didn’t, did you? *mock glare*

Within the first 31 seconds, you know the “lions of lore” have returned. You know Zarkon, the villain, can only be defeated by these lions, and you know that Zarkon is actively hunting Voltron PLUS to raise the stakes, Zarkon can find Voltron anywhere. 

...that’s pretty much, in 30 seconds, is a recap of Season 1 and the entire plot of Season 2.  

Then we get -  New Worlds, New Allies, New Villains - which rounds out the new places we visit, the Blades, and the Robeasts. The trailer ends with the defacto showdown you’ve been waiting for since the end of the previous scene. 

Now, we don’t know if Shiro will win this battle verse Zarkon, so we’re not hungry but ravenous for the rest of this burger. And double points to the creator of this trailer because the scene above in “Space Mall” also foreshadows the second showdown between Zarkon and Shiro in “Blackout,” the second problem of the season. 

You essentially have S2 wrapped up in a 1:45 trailer. 

Then, when we watched Season 2 - not only did Voltron deliver the rest of the burger, they also threw in some fries and a milkshake. 

Good job, VLD Season 2.

Season 8 Trailer - where’s the beef? 

The issue with the Season 8 trailer is that it gave us a salad, not even the burger, and I’m not hungry after eating the salad. But I’m also not satiated. In fact, I think the tomatoes weren’t good, and I’m just...not...feeling right. 

The trailer starts with a longer version of the teaser trailer from October. I wasn’t thrilled with the original teaser trailer, but I understood it. The paladins have changed over the last two years. Now, we’ve arrived at the final season. 

No need to redo that in the first 30 seconds of the new trailer and certainly no need to just take random quotes that don’t really reflect where we are now. But - I’ll give. Okay. You want to set the scene, Voltron. Got it. 

But then once the new stuff is supposed to show, you cut to a scene from “The White Lion,” an episode from Season 6.

And okay - the paladins are heading back into Oriande, but...we knew that from the NYCC trailer. Show us something we don’t know. 

Then we see Hunk firing his bayard - 

- which was great in the Season 7 trailer, too. How about something new? ...sure, okay. He’s in a forest. That... doesn’t thrill me - unless I know the forest is the Forest of Life or something. ...more on that in a moment. 

Next, the trailer cuts to Lance who is going into the Void - an old scene from “Postmorteum,” Season 5.

Then we see Allura making a tree glow. 

So? Allura can make Voltron glow. She did it in Season 4 - “A New Defender,” so why is this tree important? I have no attachment to this tree - or Hunk’s forest adventure. You gotta give me a reason to care about this forest, Voltron. 

Then we see Hunk and Lance flying through the forest, so...again, we’re in the forest. Good. We know Pidge is also in this forest from the NYCC trailer, so...I’m glad the paladins decided to go for a picnic. 

Then we see an explosion with the lions - which we’ve seen explosions with the lions before. Why should I care about this particular explosion? (I have a point! I’m getting there...)

Then we see Matt from the NYCC trailer. Not new. Green comes for Pidge. That happened in the first season, “Return of the Gladiator.” 

And here - 49 seconds in - is when we get our first new information of the trailer!

We didn’t know that Haggar fired on the original paladins, possibly killing them. Yes! FINALLY. After all, we knew the original paladins were going to show up from the Voltron Tumblr Questions after SDCC. So good. Now we have context. (More on to that in one moment. I have to put Keef in cuz it’s Keef.)

Then Keith uses his Blade of Marmora blade - 

- which he’s been wielding since Season 2. 

My point is - none of these things mean ANYTHING without context, which the trailer does not give us. 

Who is Keith attacking? Why is he using his BoM blade and not his bayard? Without the context, as far as I know is - he decided he likes to use his BoM blade, which he did in “The Black Paladins.”

The forest! Why is that forest important? Give me a reason to care about this forest - that it holds the Tree of Life and the universe grew from that tree. Something! Anything! 

Even Allura’s end remarks - 

- are a lie because there was an episode called, “Defenders of All Universes” in Season 6.

Voltron, DreamWorks, been there, done that. Move on.

The trailer needed to explain what is actually happening in Season 8 and what makes it special, the final dark night, what are we facing? Haggar? And what? What is she really trying to do and how is it different from what Lotor did in Season 6?

That’s the beef. 

Instead of having Shiro promise the team is going to come home triumphant - it’s Voltron. Of course they are going to win. If you actually have them lose and the universe be destroyed, then at least that’d be a true plot twist. Ultimately - the Defenders of the Universe fail to defend the universe. - 

- tell us Haggar’s plan. Have Allura say, “Haggar wants to go back in time and change what happened to Altea and Daibazaal. She wants to rewrite history using the Tree of Life.”

What’s the hook here? The reality that we know might never exist. The Voltron Paladins may never have existed, and more over - should the paladins try to stop her - or help her? Is it wrong for them to wipe out the last 10k years of Galra conquering, and if so - why?

And then the lions are also in the middle of this - because they are the reason Altea and Daibazaal ultimately destroyed each other. 

Then, show us context or delete context and show us new aspects of the show. Don’t show me Lance and Keith plugging in their bayards to create the big thrusters on Voltron again. 

We watched Season 7. We know!

And explosions don’t thrill us anymore without the context. So either show that this is Earth being destroyed - OR better yet - show me the Blue Bayard being plugged into its slot by Allura or Lance. Show me the Blue Bayard and the Red Bayard. Show me the Yellow Bayard and the Green Bayard. Show me the Black Bayard and Yellow Bayard. Show me Black and Green, Red and Yellow, Black and Blue - these are all combinations that have never been done! 

Give me something to look forward to finding out, not things we have already seen. 

...Okay, there are two places where the trailer achieves this. The first place was above with Haggar and the original paladins, and the second was here - 

Sincline or Haggar attacking Atlas, which arguably isn’t new content because we just saw them on different sides of the battlefield in the NYCC trailer - but I’m making an exception because we didn’t know that Sincline and Atlas would actually meet up. 

TL;DR - Where’s my burger, Voltron? You’re dropping thirteen episodes two weeks from today, and yet - we’ve only seen 53 seconds of new content. What gives?

I’m not asking you to feed me like YJ, with the entire Dollar Menu. They gave me a five-minute trailer six months before the drop, then a scene three months before the drop, and then a full trailer a month and change out.

I’m just asking you for a solid two-minute trailer. That’s it. 

[doodleimprovement]

Antonia’s Fan Fiction Masterlist

~~~THE AO3 ADDITION~~~

All of the Fics I've written and posted on AO3 as of 1/12/2019

Undertale 

Tuffet Tales: (Abandoned Series) 

Home From Grillbyz (2015)

Sans gets Drunk, OC gets them home? Being drunk kind of sucks but it gets the weight off your chest 

 Afternoon Coffee (2015)

A thank you trip to a coffee shop backfires on Pap, but talking helps 

No Suplexing on the Premises (2015) 

Working out with Undyne is almost always a good time, but the aftermath is nice

GB Skelefrisk (Abandoned Series)

You’ll Be Fine, Babybones (2016)

A Requested Fic, Enjoy! 

We’re Here, and I’m So Sorry (2016)

It had been such a good day, but bad things happen when Gaster is bored in the void

Along Came A Spider (Complete Multi-Chapter Fic - 2016)

Tuffet the spider - having recently been kicked out of her home because Spider Tradition- just started living on her own, and takes in two seemingly lost shape shifting skeletons after she comes home to them crashing on her couch. She knows they're keeping secrets, and they know the same about her, but when you only have each other, some trust has to build, right? 

Along Came A Spider (Rewrite - In Progress - Multi Chapter - Updated 2019)

When 12 year old Tuffet is thrown out of her house due to some ridiculous Spider Tradition, she takes to living on her own without much fuss. But how will she handle her new, independent life when two shape shifters just kinda... take up her couch? She lets them in with open arms, but they seem hesitant. They're clearly hiding things, but living under one roof, some trust has to build... right?

Please, Don’t Forget (2016)

Revenge... it felt like such a good idea at the time... But now.... 

Returning (Home) (2019)

The aftermath of the neutral pacifist run.... Or is it? 

Coco

Watchful Eyes (2018)

or "I have to watch my ex husband be a good dad and it kind of gets under my metaphorical skin" 

One Good Try (2018)

Miguel is loosing sleep and gaining anxiety in the wake of his day in the land of the dead, with one question always at the edge of his thoughts

         "What if he didn't make it?"

          He had to find out. He had to try

Marvel

Nell and the Company She Keeps (Incomplete Series) 

Annabella Gracia Buonacci is a queer nurse living in Queens who gets embroiled in the cacophony of drama and ridiculousness that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

A series of One-shots, Ficlets and Regular ol' fics surrounding my shameless Self-insert OC in the MCU, starting around Homecoming and up to Avengers: Infinity War. Can and will be out of order.

All That’s Left (2018)

Thor is left to take stock of all that’s left of his people, his friends, his pride and his guilt.Nell is unfortunately a keen observer

Aftermath of Prayer (2018)

[...] in those final days in Wakanda, where she waiting with bated breath for the end of the world, she prayed. She practically begged whatever god existed to please, please, bring them back. Bring them all back. And well… it had been close enough.

Hard To Describe (2019)

Original title: "Nell's Super Weird Relationship With Tony Stark" Or "Nina writes an extremely self indulgent fanfic where Tony Stark befriends her and validates her life choices". I am expecting no one to read this, honestly.

The Dragon of the MCU (Incomplete Series)

A series of one shots, Plot Summaries and ficlets having to do with my OC Insert into the MCU.

Abandoned (2019)

Jose hadn’t known what to expect when two of the most important adults in his life were fighting in an abandoned Siberian bunker. He just knew the fighting had to stop. He didn’t want to take sides. He never meant to pick a side. But he did. When he quite literally turned his back on Captain America, that was seen as his choice. By the time he heard the clattering of the shield and turned his head, Steve was gone with his friend, and they were alone... Abandoned

Still Here (2019)

Jose is back from Asgard, but whether or not he's ready to engage with actually being a teenage on earth is another story... or "Tony has no idea how to parent but he'll give it a shot"

And You Got Us Feeling Alright (2019)

Jose didn't mean for his piano playing to become something so few people knew.. Didn't mean for it to become precious to him.. To become his outlet. But things just happen like that, sometimes

Just Another Wednesday (Complete Multi-Chapter Fic - 2018)

When a bizarre being wants Stephen's cloak, it decides to use Peter to get to him - what no one is expecting is for this cuckoo bird to do.... whatever the hell it is he did. Now Stephen has to both rescue Peter, and reverse a spell. . . What a wednesday

More Than a Little Secret (Incomplete - Multi Chapter - Updated 2019)

Howard did a lot more than shame Tony for not being as good as Captain America. In fact, he was so obsessed with the idea that he developed a (rather problematic) version of the super serum and injected Tony with it. Tony hates it. So he’s become almost perfect at hiding its effects… Almost being the key word there. Prompt taken from the excellent Tumblr Blog: @tonystarkismyprompt

Fracture (Incomplete - Multi Chapter - Updated 2019)

Just as things come together, they fall apart - that's just how Peter Parker's life has always been. The ever famous "Parker Luck". He didn't think fate would decide to test it like this ((Winter Solider Tony AU, Beta-Read by Tumblr User @littlescarletstar ))

So, That’s What it Looks Like (2018)

Nebula and Tony Stark are alone on Titan. Tony is trying to process the loss. Nebula is trying to understand why the last one had to go the way he did.

Asking For Help, If You Need It (2018)

Happy had told him that the number was life or death. To never call unless the situation was dire. He called

Making A Show Of It (2018)

All Peter wanted was proof of his internship to shut up some rumors at school. Tony Stark has ... plans

101.9 (2018)

A Prompt from Ironmanstan on Tumblr where they recommended that Tony would use Bucky's cool metal arm to chill himself from a fever.... WinterIron with a smattering of Irondad and Spiderson

Hey, You’re Fine Kid (2019)

A fight with the Rhino leaves Peter with a nasty scar he can't really stand, but maybe all he needed was a chat with everyone's favorite wizard

Only Just Realized (2019)

Stephen has made fast friends with everyone's favorite web-slinger. Maybe a little more than that..-- Mostly a stream of thought fic with Stephen realizing how much he cares about Peter

Detroit: Become Human

Like Mother, Like Son, In a Way (Incomplete Series)

Familial Visit...? (2018)

Hank is both intrigued and confused when Connor mentions that he has to visit his "Mother". The visit garners more questions than answers, however

Those Portuguese Curls (2018)

Hank gets to see those curls Genoviva mentioned

T r a u m a t i z e d (2018)

Hank knows that when a kid freaks out, the best person for him is his mother. . . That and maybe he can learn a little more.... He learns more than he could have wanted, honestly

Hubris (2018)

Genoviva thinks she can keep Connor safe... But it's her care that may be putting him in danger

Alternate Deviancy (2018)

Hank should have been there when Connor went Deviant.. so I wrote that

[dimples-of-discontent]

13x16 thoughts (from Paleyfest)

(I may need to go back and refine later but these are my post-Paleyfest notes on 13x16.)

I loved this episode!! It was a ton of fun. It was slapstick and silly but did some heavy lifting too. Honestly, it worked the way a lot of our favorite crack episodes did and alluded to at least one of them explicitly (”Changing Channels,” obvs, and I think there may have been more subtle references to others).

I’m too tired to do a full meta analysis but here’s a kind of bullet recap, first of the most plot-based elements:

The plot turns on the fact that the Scooby Doo world, suddenly, ends up functioning like the world Sam and Dean inhabit. The boys enter the cartoon assuming all usual cartoon rules would apply (and Dean’s ready to have a rollicking good time with them) only to discover that the first murder in the haunted house is real. Ghosts are real. Death is real. Sam wants to tell the Scooby gang about it from the get-go but Dean wants to protect them and preserve their innocence.

It’s already obviously about childhood, and losing it, but Dean makes it explicit by talking about how much he loved Scooby Doo because no matter where their dad had dragged them it would always be on. They were his friends and constant companions. He is really being thrown into the best part of his childhood….and you can see why it would be the best because it’s probably his fantasy and deepest wish that the ghosts, demons, etc. of the world he inhabits would turn out just to be bad guys in masks, death wouldn’t be real, etc. It’s Dean safe place in childhood because it takes his actual life (ghost hunting) and makes it safe and even fun. Dean wants to keep his safe place safe and is shocked and horrified when the rules of his universe invade.

It’s Sam who wants to tell them the truth about monsters from the word “go” even before it’s been revealed that death can come to Scooby Doo. (Dean laments, heartbreakingly, that it doesn’t matter if he dies…what’s important is that they make sure Scooby doesn’t die because clearly he’s such an innocent creature.) Sam, who did not have his childhood cut as abruptly short as Dean and who did not have to seek solace in a cartoon world because Dean helped him make a safe space in the real world, doesn’t see the point of lying about ghosts being real. Dean, who worked to keep Sam safe from this knowledge for YEARS of his own stunted childhood by acting as a parent, does want to keep the gang in the dark because he wants them to retain their innocence. It’s a huge lampshade to the different experiences Sam and Dean had as children and as sons.

They do eventually have to tell the Scooby gang and, wonderfully, it induces an existential crisis in them. Watching Daphne question the existence of God based on what she has inferred about the afterlife is amazing. It is not what I expected. Dean brings them back from the brink by reminding them of all the good work they had done before.

I’m going to tell the ending now and then double back to some other observations: the phantom they are chasing is the ghost of a small boy who is being manipulated, through a cursed object (a pocket knife given to him by his beloved father before he died), by an unscrupulous man (the real estate agent who we met in the beginning) who unleashes the boy’s anger on whoever he chooses for his own purpose…to scare people off of property he wants to buy. This way, the villain of a typical Scooby episode actually becomes the villain of this SPN episode…the evil real estate developer.

Before heading back to their world, where they burn the pocket knife and free the ghost, Dean convinces Sam and Cas to lie to the Scooby gang and tell them that they were right initially–ghosts aren’t real. He goes so far as to stage the unmasking of the cartoon villain (the one from the original Scooby episode) and helps them to explanations involving wires, cornstarch blood, etc. Sam is grumpy about it but does it anyway. It’s crucial to Dean that they leave the Scooby gang as they found them and not saddle them with the world the Winchesters live in.

Let me just reiterate…the ghost that has been terrorizing them is frightened little boy. Who kept a pocket knife (much like the one we see being used to carve the Winchester’s initials into the Impala) as a token of his dead father. His father is symbolized and memorialized by a weapon. The weapon is the object the little boy is tied to and that another man–a bad man–can use to manipulate him into hurting others because “I just get so angry sometimes.” To be free, the knife (weapon, father’s legacy) has to be burned. There are closeups on a very sad Dean while this happens (some sad Sam and Cas too).

It is blindingly obvious that the little boy, who is wreaking havoc on the cartoon safe space of his childhood, represents Dean. To stop the destruction Dean has to let something go (he starts the episode referencing Elsa and EXPLICITLY SAYING THIS LINE I CAN’T EVEN). Something that is keeping him angry. Something that is tied to his father. Something that can be used to manipulate him, employed as a weapon to hurt other innocent people (Mark of Cain/Demon Dean plot lines). Dean is full of anger and of self-loathing and it’s coming from the same source. That source is toxic masculinity. Let it go, Dean. Let it go.

Is it also tied to issues of sexuality? I think so. I’ll reflect a little bit below, but I wanted to do the whole plot-based analysis first.

And now the less plot-based stuff:

Ok, so can the ghost represent repressed sexuality/a different form of masculinity? SO MUCH YES. Point one: Cas is the only one who stops to take a look at the ghost and is thisclose to seeing through it’s big ol’scary disguise and finding a vulnerable child. He stops and squints at it, Cas-style, and says “I’ve never seen a ghost wear such a ridiculous costume. Unless…” and then he reaches out to it, starting to push aside the veil only to be pulled away. Now if that isn’t metaphorically precisely what Cas did, and does, for Dean and his performing facade I will buy a hat so that I can eat it.

Point two, there is a scene where the ghost is chasing everyone through a series of doors on either side of a hallway (you know the scene…they run across the hallway, doors open and shut on either side, feet flying everywhere). They successfully shut the ghost in a closet with iron chains, though it’s close to breaking out. Daphne presses her body up against the door to hold it. Dean checks her out very obviously in a way that is both superfluous to and inconsistent with the plot. This means that the silhouette of a conventionally sexy woman is QUITE LITERALLY holding the closet door closed on the ghost. Metaphorically, it shows how Dean is able to use his attraction to conventionally sexy women to hold back what’s haunting him…attraction to men, ideas about a certain type of masculinity. Does it work? BIG FAT NO. The ghost breaks out anyway. (<Puts on professor cap> Have you guys read “The Beast in the Closet”? It’s by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and is about “intense male homosocial desire as at once the most compulsory and the most prohibited of social bonds.” It’s about Henry James’s work but I think you would all dig it. <Takes off professor cap.>)

I wanted to start with that because I can tell that people are going to be very upset about Dean’s excessive flirtation with/pursuit of Daphne. And, yeah, I almost injured my eyes by rolling them so hard at some of the things he says. BUT THAT’S THE POINT. What he’s saying is a child’s idea of how a grown man would act with a woman he likes. And it bears a great deal of similarity to how Dean does act sometimes. We call it performing!Dean and wonder to what extent Dean is conscious of his performing. Given this episode I’d say..maybe .not that conscious? I feel like the overstated heterosexual dudebroness was done specifically to give us an over-exaggerated literal cartoon version of heterosexual Dean to compare to regular Dean so that anyone who doesn’t know Dean performs in his own life will have a lens through which to see it.

Also, Daphne is his childhood crush. OF COURSE he’s going to act like a moron around her. If I encountered [insert childhood TV crush here…for me it was Kevin from “The Wonder Years” for whatever reason] I’d act dumb as fuck! But you have to remember that she represents innocence for him…it’s established that all the Scoobies do (heh - puns!). Even if he’s kissing her hand or putting an arm around her or whatever there is no danger there, just like there’s no danger in the ghosts. Sexuality to Dean isn’t scary in Scooby Doo because it’s simple: it’s just a girl he likes. Except, just like how the ghosts are also dangerous, the love plot isn’t going to be that simple or that straightforward (heh - straight). You see where I’m going. Dean would rather be in a universe ghosts weren’t real because it’s safer and easier and kind of a fantasy land but they ARE real and he will have to deal with them; Dean would also rather be in a world where he was a suave, irresistible ladies’ man because it’s safer and easier and a kind of fantasy….but he’s not. Jensen even said so in his interview. Granted, Jensen’s comment may have just meant that Dean’s not suave like he thinks. But the actual episode draws a parallel that’s pretty damn clear.

Another reason to not worry: Daphne is zero interest in Dean at all. She has negative interest in Dean. Her lack of interest in Dean has created a void that is sucking all the air out of the room. She may not even know that Dean is hitting on her. She is so focused on Fred that no one else exists for her as a romantic interest. They are so obviously a pair, even though they are never shown to be together as a couple explicitly.<Stares directly into the camera like I’m on The Office.> Can Dean not see that? Is he blind? Well, he does see it, but he thinks Daphne is “settling” for Fred who represents a kind of masculinity that makes him uncomfortable (more in a sec). In point of fact, no one is romantically interested in Dean in this episode…unlike Sam who gets a lot of appreciation (and an eventual kiss) from Velma.

As for Fred, Dean begins by really hating him (so much that Sam remarks on it) and when pressed about why he attributes it to Fred’s self-confidence despite things like his “stupid ascot.” Dean comes to like and admire Fred and, ultimately, have the confidence to wear an ascot himself BECAUSE HE LIKES IT. It didn’t make Fred less of a man. It doesn’t make Dean less of a man to wear it with his plaid shirt. Fred helps Dean along the way to some self-acceptance. It’s nice. Fred is there to serve as a contrast to Dean’s overblown notions of what is “masculine” and offer another form of masculinity that is, manifestly, still appealing to the ladies.

Now, remember the Scooby Doo universe doesn’t have sex in it. It’s a cartoon. And they bend those rules only the tiniest bit here. All of Dean’s advances and even his jokes are PG. That innocence on the part of the Scoobies is played for laughs, Daphne remarking that Dean is silly for not knowing that “boys and girls don’t sleep in the same room” for example, but it’s also integral to the plot. (There are some other jokes too and, for a glorious second, I thought that they were legitimately going to reveal that Daphne and Velma were a thing but sadly not.) No one would want to ruin the Scooby universe by telling them about sex…not even Dean. Again, it contains a child’s conception of relationships.

I’m imagining some people will also be upset about how the episode treats Cas. I was especially stung that, right at the outset, Dean says flat-out that “Cas is basically a talking dog.” I made a noise of indignation that made people look at me. BUT let’s also remember how much Dean loves that talking dog. He’d die for him. He wants to protect him at any cost. He doesn’t want to spoil his innocence. So, yeah, that’s not a nice thing to say but it’s also not the whole story. Cas is grouped with Scooby and Shaggy the whole time and he bonds with them, SMILING (ALERT ALERT CARTOON CASTIEL KNOWS HOW TO SMILE) AND LAUGHING when he has to leave. He thanks them for showing him the importance of humor even in dangerous times. I think it’s a good lesson for Cas and his real affection for them reminds me of what a soft character he is inside, wanting to get a cat or save monkeys or keep bees. That’s been missing from Cas lately (even though I do LOVE bamf!Cas) so maybe this will help him recall it.

I want to say again that Cas is the one who can see through the ghost and its “ridiculous costume.”

Interestingly, both his entrances (his first appearance after Fred and Dean take off to drag race; when he reunites with the boys in the haunted house) frame him as a scary villain. The first is from behind and you just see the coat billowing out (though this did remind me of the girl running the drag race in “Grease” which…lol); the second he’s silhouetted in a window, approaching it in the rain, and is then covered with a sheet before he’s “unmasked” by Dean and discovered to be a friend. This is…pretty much Castiel’s character progression always. Looks like a threat but is discovered not to be.

Once they get back to their regular world Dean makes a remark about how that was the most fun he’s ever had “including that time with the Cartwright twins.” Cas studies him and asks “What did you do with the Cartwright twins?”. There’s a long beat in which Dean looks shifty and grins and shakes his head and turns away. Sam says “I don’t think I want to know.” Cas says nothing. Cas does want to know. This is new and part of a general progression that @amwritingmeta wrote a great analysis of where Cas is becoming able to think something like Forget that sacred oath…I must know what Dean did with those twins.

There was probably more, you guys, but it’s super late for my poor body clock. Please feel free to pass this on to anyone you think would like it but bear in mind that a) there are MASSIVE SPOILERS, b) this is just my interpretation of the episode, and c) I only saw it live once so my details may be wrong.

I thought this as a fantastic episode the more I think about it and I’m SO EXCITED to hear your thoughts!! <3

[buzzdixonwriter]

“Fire & Forget” Theology

About a month ago I posted the following link on a Facebook page administrated by mi amigo Art Greenhaw.  Art liked this clip of Ron Austin, a retired screenwriter and TV director, speaking to a Dominican gathering earlier this summer and asked my opinion on it in the context of his Facebook page’s theme, Methodist Renewal: Reversing the Decline.

Well, I tried. 

Really.

I put a lot of serious thought into it, and since I couldn’t see how to fix current problems without addressing some systemic issues going waaaaaaaaay back, I decided to include a brief overview of how we got to where we are today, and by that point I was at the 1,400+ word mark and I still hadn’t addressed the main issue that Art wanted to me address.

But in the meantime, reality happened.

Reality in the form of Roy Moore and far too many evangelicals normalizing his behavior and in celebrities and politicians on both sides of the aisle being revealed as amoral sexual predators and other politicians being willing to lie and various religious leaders overlooking the sins of their own and pundits defending the indefensible bad behavior of those who benefited their ideological POV, and I realized my previous lengthy response was now rendered null and void by a rapidly changing cultural environment so I’m going to cut through all the BS and get straight to the core issue of what Christian churches and denominations should do right now, today, this instant:

Shut it down.

Mind you, this is a far more optimistic and restrained improvement over my original version:  Burn it down.

But the frank, ugly, brutal yet irrefutable truth is this:  American Christianity as a movement is over, and whatever Christian movement replaces it, it’s not going to be church as usual.

Period.

Full stop.

Now, I know this will dismay a lot of people who love their local churches and their denominations, but I am not the sort of person to offer a criticism without offering a solution as well.

So bear with me, we’ll get to the religious / spiritual / theological issues in a moment, right now let’s discuss what to do with the organizations that exist today under the Christian banner.

Turn them into chautauquas.

No, seriously -- bear me out!

Chautauquas would satisfy almost all the needs and functions offered by churches today. 

For those unfamiliar with the term “chautauqua”, they were old fashioned tent shows that traveled the US, offering cultural / educational / inspirational lectures and entertainment to folks in the hinterlands.  Elvis made a movie about them -- The Trouble With Girls (And How To Get Into It) -- and while it isn’t very good movie even for Elvis, it does paint a vivid and mostly accurate picture of what the chautauqua experience was like.  (And how many Elvis movies have Vincent Price and John Carradine in them, hmm?)

By turning churches into chautauquas, the local / neighborhood congregation would become a social magnet for the community, offering inspirational lectures and classes and scouting and public service events, but stripped of all specific American Christian content.  The larger denominations would turn into networks of speakers and performers to supply programing for the local meeting halls, providing administrative and logistical support.

Denominational institutions such as hospitals, orphanages, soup kitchens, etc., would continue as tax exempt secular charities.

The local chautauqua would operate seven days a week, with numerous classes and lectures for all ages and interests, some supplied by local staff, some by local volunteers, some by the various former denominational networks, some by itinerant freelancers.

All lectures and performances and presentations and events would be dedicated to uplifting their audiences, encouraging integrity, tolerance, compassion, honesty, and charity. 

Jesus would not be banned from the chautauquas -- a lecture on the Beatitudes would be a fine thing for all audiences, believers or not -- but other philosophical and spiritual leaders would be taught as well.

There could even be Bible classes…for adults only.

Because you see, the way in which American Christianity has presented the Bible is a YUGE hunk of the problem we’re having today, and arguably the number one contributing factor into the implosion of American Christianity.

I do not believe we should be teaching the Bible to little children, certainly not to anyone under the age of 12, and we should only teach the Bible to those who want to understand it fully.

We cram little kids into a Sunday school class, tell them fairy tales -- and that’s how they’re processing the dumbed down Bible stories we’re feeding them -- and end up creating false impressions in their minds of what those stories mean in proper context.

We give them crayons to color in a big bright rainbow over the ark, let them glue cotton bolls over the sheep gamboling down the plank, put glitter on Noah standing there with a big smile plastered over his face that God spared him and his family…

And we never really take them past that point, do we?

Our entire approach to the Bible is kept at that dumbed-down-and-not-at-all-accurate first depiction.  When they become adults, the lesson plans and sermons don’t deviate much from that initial image that completely belies the meaning of the flood story, that completely ignores the complexity and the contradictions of Noah and his behavior.

We argue we do that out of deference to visitors who may not be familiar with the Bible, or to keep from confusing young kids in church with a more thorough study, but a story told badly should not be told at all, and the messages we should derive from Bible study have to first fight their way past a morass of misconceptions that have been carefully hammered down on us for years.

So, no, no Bible stories for anybody under the age of 12.  Teach ‘em Christ’s parables, those are okay:  Little bite size tales that vividly illustrate and illuminate a specific moral or spiritual point, but please stop trying to hammer the Bible into their heads.

It only warps and distorts them.

(The Bible stories, that is; not their heads.)

I recognize that due to varying methods of organization it will be more difficult for some churches and denominations to reorganize into chautauquas -- the process will be more than simply changing letterheads and signage -- but it can be done.

Because the alternative is that they go out of business.

I want to focus on that word:  Business. 

Let’s not mince words:  American Christianity is a business.  It provides a living for tens of thousands of people.  It has income, it has expenses.  It has a house nut to meet.  There are gas and electric and water bills to pay, insurance to cover, salaries to be met, etc., etc., and of course, etc.

Whatever the ostensible purpose of this business, it’s a business.

Americans like business, and while it’s absolutely true that the business model of Christianity originated thousands of years ago in Europe (and to be fair, all the major religions are run like businesses, going back to the paganism of ancient Greece and the polytheism of ancient Egypt), this business model has distorted, diminished, then discarded the gospel of Christ.

Christ’s message was not how to make a buck.  (Yeah, prosperity gospel shills are quick to point to the parable of the talents, etc., but tap dance around the far more numerous admonitions that rich people will go to hell.)

Christ’s message was not about how to achieve and maintain power.  (Christ did not care about specific institutions and governments; he wanted his followers to live and act justly no matter what system they were in or under.)

Christ’s message was about how to live righteously in an unrighteous world.

There’s an old Jewish legend of the Tzadikim Nistarim, the 36 righteous people who stave off the day of judgment simply by being in the world.

The legend is emphatic that these righteous people need not be Jews, or for that matter even particularly devout or religious.

They just have to be righteous, and by their mere presence in the world, the world is saved.

Metaphorically, that is what Christ was teaching us to be.

Yeah, he had a lot of teachings on heaven and hell, but he crafted his message for his audience so that they would grasp his teachings at their level of understanding.

They were anxious about their future; Christ taught, “Don’t be anxious.  Your Father in heaven loves you.  Love one another as He loves you.”

American Christianity teaches:  “Be anxious.  God doesn’t love you unless you do what we say.  Obey our rules and you’ll go to heaven.”

That’s the business of American Christianity speaking.  A business that needs repeat customers to keep the coffers filled.

You cannot serve God and Mammon.

Becoming a Christian is like learning to ride a bicycle.

Once you learn, you just ride the bicycle.

You don’t keep coming back to take the same lessons over and over and over and over again.

Christ taught a “fire & forget” theology. 

“Fire & forget” is a military term for self-guided weapons that, once locked in on a target, can be fired and trusted to find and destroy the target on their own, without direct control from the person who launched it.

The lone wolf terrorists of various ideologies operate on the same principle.  The ideologies radicalize them, encourage them, spur them on, but don’t actually provide logistical or tell them what to attack.

Having absorbed the message, they go and act on their own.

Followers of Christ should operate on the same principle -- though obviously for the sake of righteousness, not hate and terror.

Once we have the gospel of Christ -- the good news -- we don’t need any organization to guide us.

We will not act unrighteously.

We will not willfully harm others.

We will not let others suffer if we can help.

We will not worry about the day, but have faith.

We will be the light of the world, the salt of the earth.

[thegreenwolf]

Last weekend I presented my Nature Spirituality From the Ground Up workshop at FaerieWorlds. It’s one of my favorite topics, because I’m helping workshop participants connect with their bioregion through the animal, plant, fungus and other totems there. It’s also frustrating as there’s so much material to cover and we’re limited to 90 minutes, plus that particular crowd is especially enthusiastic.

But for the time I have I’m able to watch how other people get their roots into the ground and interact with the nonhuman world around them. Oftentimes it’s the first chance any of us have during a busy festival weekend to stop and notice our surroundings in detail. I’m there as the workshop leader, but I’m always humbled and delighted by the many ways in which the people who join me work–and play–toward that goal of connection.

What I’ve found over the years, both in teaching this particular workshop and others, is that pagans and other spiritual folks most often ally themselves with animals. It’s not surprising; we ourselves are the last remaining species of human ape, and it is easier for us to empathize with our own kingdom, particularly the vertebrate phylum, and especially the classes Mammalia(mammals) and Aves (birds). So we most often allow the animals into our circles and shrines first, and hear their voices over the others.

What I then ask of my participants (and readers) is to go beyond that initial connection. Animal totems do not exist in some void, floating over our heads like helium balloons. Rather they inhabit ecosystems that parallel our own (whether you see these as literal spirit realms, or metaphorical structures.) To travel into these spaces is to brush against the totems of plants and fungi in one’s path, and to tread across the realm of those of soil and stone, and breathe in those of the air. And as here, they all need each other in intricate webs of connection and mutual reliance, though we often typify that as competition.

If you’re at all familiar with my work, you’ll know that I abhor totem dictionaries as anything other than “this is this author’s personal experience with these beings, and your mileage may vary.” When all you do is read the entry in a dictionary and say “Well, that must be what this totem means and what I should learn from it, not only are you being disrespectful to a complex being, but you are also cutting yourself off from a wealth of knowledge and connection, as well as the opportunity to learn what you can give back to that totem. Moreover, you are denying yourself the possibility of working with other totems (animal and otherwise) associated with it and thereby deepening your practice.

A good example is Brown Bear. In more remote areas of the Pacific Northwest, brown bears rely on the salmon runs up the rivers each year for a large portion of the calories they need to get fat enough for hibernation. But the forests also need the salmon, for the bears often eat only the best parts and discard the rest among the trees to decay. This provides the forest with sea-sourced nitrogen and other nutrients that it otherwise wouldn’t have access to. There’s much to be learned just from this one seasonal cycle: brown bears feeding to prepare for winter, salmon swimming to spawn the next generation, river carrying fish to and fro, spruce and fir and cedar taking in the nutrients the salmon gathered from smaller fish in the wide open ocean for years, fungi in the soil breaking the rotting carcasses down so trees may more easily feed, insects and bacteria and other tiny beings feasting as well, both on the salmon remains and the bear dung.

What’s to be learned from that? Well, you could just go with the common totem dictionary keywords associated with Bear, like “strength” and “healing” and try to shoehorn these cycles into that shorthand. Or you could meditate upon the cycles yourself and see what observations you make, and what the relevant totems have to say. For example, Brown Bear and I have had conversations about the gratitude owed to salmon for the vital nutrients they provide, and the fragility of river ecosystems in an age of pollution and dams. We’ve talked about the desperation of bad salmon years, and how in those years every single calorie is needed, and so the trees may go hungry. These are conversations that cannot be pigeonholed into a few keywords.

If there are totems or other nature spirits in your life, have you ever tried asking them who they are most reliant on in their ecosystems? Have you asked them to introduce you to others? How much do you really know about both the physical and spiritual ecosystems they inhabit? It’s less about the individual totems, and more about their relationships and connections, and what physical behaviors and natural history are embodied in their archetypal selves. In the face of that, simple “meanings” seem trite, stereotyped, and limiting.

And it’s an excellent way to make your path both broader and deeper. I have been practicing a neopagan version of totemism for over two decades now, and in that time I have worked with hundreds of totems, from brief encounters to deep, many years-long spiritual relationships. Through them I have been inspired to understand my physical bioregion more deeply, and to visit others that I may delve into their depths. Moreover, I have been compelled to find more ways to give back to the totems and their kin, a necessary reciprocity at a time when even nature based spirituality is all too often human-centered and based on what we can gain. Most importantly, it has gotten me past an animal-centered path, and opened me up to the vibrant variety of beings that have evolved alongside us for millions of years, and the geological, hydrological and other natural phenomena that we all rely on. I’m looking forward to many more years of this practice.

If you’d care to join me and you do not yet have a preferred method of working with these beings, may I recommend trying guided meditation? It’s less intense than journeying, but I’ve used it successfully for many years to visit the totemic ecosystem. You can use the version I have at this old blog post of mine; you don’t always have to go in with a particular totem in mind, and sometimes it’s valuable just to explore this place and see who shows up. But it’s also a good place for totems you already work with to introduce you to others, and show you some of the natural cycles they engage in. You’re welcome to start with an animal or other totem you’re already comfortable with as your initial guide, but be willing to listen to others, even those you may not have initially considered like totems of slime molds or liverworts or archaea.

In addition to that, I strongly suggest studying up on your local bioregion, from the geology to biology to climate and more, all the way from the soil to the sky. Rua Lupa has created a wonderful bioregional quiz on her Ehoah site if you want to get an idea of some of the things you should be trying to find out more about. Nature spirituality needs to be grounded in physical nature itself, and there’s no better way to understand the above than by familiarizing yourself with the below.

Finally, be on the lookout for ways you can give back to the totems and their physical counterparts. Too often we make our nature spirituality about us, and to my mind one of the signs of an advanced practitioner is a deep desire for reciprocity. If you aren’t sure, ask the totems themselves, as their biggest priority is caring for their kin. You also can’t go wrong with improving the habitat around your area by removing litter and pollutants, planting native species, and educating others on the need for health, integral ecosystems.

And feel free to let me know how your work goes; I’m always excited when people start finding their own paths deeper into the totemic ecosystem!

If you liked this post, consider buying a copy of Nature Spirituality From the Ground Up. It includes extensive exercises and supporting material for doing the sort of work that I talk about here. And you’ll make this self-employed author very happy