#but these two concepts are inextricably linked in my mind

[idolatrybarbie]

the world tipped on its side

epilogue - a sip or a spoonful

series masterlist | read on ao3

pairing: francisco "frankie" morales x f!reader

word count: 1.9k

rating & summary: mature | he wants all of your love.

warnings: hospitals, angst, hurt/comfort, fluff and feels, discussion of surgery and anesthesia.

notes: we have reached the end of this months-long delve into emotions, disability and family! omg - it's really insane to think that this lil' fic brought me some amazing new friends and introduced me to a great new writing community. twtois is my baby, and i love these two. i hate to say goodbye, but all good stories must come to an end. thank you to everyone who has followed me because of this fic, and/or showed this fic any love. it was a gamble writing about disability - as in, no one coulda read this fic and we would not be here - but like frankie i am a gambling man. and it paid off! so thank you again, and i hope you enjoy.

You’re stuck in the waiting room. Doctors won’t let you past the threshold of the medical floor, so here you are. Family only. Try as you might, the assertion still stings. He’s going to be okay. He has to be. It’s the only thing keeping you from losing your mind.

This ultimate curve ball you’ve been thrown has you reflecting, the flimsy chair you’ve chosen threatening to create a human spill of you at any second. Things with Frankie are easy. You have no clue why you ever wished for anything to come along and complicate that. Except that’s not entirely true—another lie, but you’re getting better at catching yourself.

When you’ve spent so much time acquainted with pain and uncertainty, the lack of it becomes a foreign concept. Existence without struggle is like pulling teeth. Feeling that free-flowing ease that Frankie somehow provides in droves still sometimes makes your skin crawl. It's a learning process. But nothing could possibly be scarier than the thought of losing him. You learned that today. Every other fear, all discomfort you hold fades to the background. He and you are inextricably linked.

A man bursts through the doors of the E.R., a whirlwind for your mind to grasp onto amid the sea of sterile white pain. He’s a bit shorter than Frankie, skin beige and brow creased as he strides through the waiting area like he’s on a mission. His walk makes him impossibly familiar: the way he wears his shoulders like earrings, toddling in the slightest with every right step. When he reaches the front desk and speaks to the attending nurse, his spine only relaxes slightly.

Of course you eavesdrop on their conversation.

“Here to see Francisco Morales,” the man says, speaking precisely.

“I’m afraid he’s not accepting any visitors right now,” the nurse replies.

“You’re looking at his emergency contact. Santiago Garcia…you look it up, you’ll see me.” His words are forceful; a slap across the face with an order to stand at attention.

You mumble an, “Excuse me,” and join Santiago at the attendant's desk. “How is he?”

“Ma’am, I already told you—”

“Please. I’m his…girlfriend,” you say. The word tastes weird in your mouth.

Speaking to Santiago, the nurse says, “I can speak to you. I can’t speak to her.”

Rolling your eyes, you push yourself away from the desk and walk back to your seat. Rubbing fingers into your temples brings no relief to the steadily growing tension headache at your forehead. Your brain is working overtime, thoughts echoing as you try and take deep breaths.

He’s going to be okay.

“Ma’am?”

You’re expecting the nurse again, ready to ask you to vacate the waiting room to make space for the family of someone else—someone more important than him. You fix your mouth to tell her to get bent before you see who it is. Santiago.

“Oh, um—hi,” is all you manage.

He takes the seat next to you, keeping his back straight against the bendy top rail of the chair. “Frankie didn’t tell me he was seeing anybody,” are the first real words to you from this virtual stranger.

“It’s new.”

“I’m glad someone else is here,” he says, presenting you with a hand to shake. You take it, grasp firm around the bones of his knuckles before you let go.

He’s got palms like Frankie’s. Scarred and worn with use, from carrying a gun. From killing people, the back of your mind whispers. You ignore it. What was it that Frankie had said about this Santiago?

“He’s the only one still doing military shit these days…a bit of an asshole. You two probably wouldn’t get along.”

And then there was that other thing—the medical death wish. Perhaps an urge not entirely reserved at the hands of a doctor if he’s out there pretending to be G.I. Joe while all his friends have retired. Suddenly, unfortunately, you understand this Santiago Garcia better than most people you’ll ever meet. The pang of jealousy that hit your stomach at his materialization dissolves as you finally make proper eye contact. You introduce yourself. He does the same, telling you to call him Santi.

“Did they say anything about his condition?”

“He’s fine,” Santi shakes his head. “Just giving him a few to recoup, taking a couple tests.” Silence lingers a while before he broaches the topic of your relationship: when, where, how long. He asks nicely enough that you find yourself answering.

“We met on this stupid fucking movie,” you say. “I needed a helicopter and a pilot to fly it. And I’m sure you know he’s the best.”

“Oh, for sure,” Santi agrees. “You made the right decision.”

“Wasn’t me actually,” you say. Despite yourself, a smile creeps along your face. “My best friend—Mia. She’d worked with him before and it just happened to work out… I don’t know. Strange series of events.”

“Sounds like Frankie.” When you give him a questioning look, Santi explains, “He has a habit of finding himself in unconventional situations. Like crashin’ a fucking helicopter, for example.” The breathy laugh that accompanies his words should lift your spirits, but it doesn’t.

A drop of water falls to the back of your hand, and before your brain can catch up, you’re sobbing in the emergency department waiting room. The pliable chair beneath you threatens to fold with every sob that wracks your body. Santiago sits next to you, frozen in uncertainty.

“Sorry,” you say, voice garbled with tears. “I—it feels like my fault. He shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

“Look, hey. Listen,” Santi starts, “People like us, like Frankie and me…we do dangerous shit. It comes with the job description. That’s the deal we cut.”

You don’t want that. Not for Frankie, not for Santiago. Not for anyone. You love what you do—what you did, before the accident. You know there is no reward without risk, but somehow that doesn't seem quite fair. The hardship you’ve endured is a different sort of pain, but you know regardless. No one should have to live that life.

“But I can tell you that these last few months, Frankie’s been the happiest I’ve seen him since his kid was born. He’s not one for show ‘n tell, so I wasn’t sure why. But I am now.”

“You don’t have to say that.”

“Sweetheart, with all due respect, I don’t say anything that I don’t mean.” He averts his gaze now, staring out at nothing as he says, “Frankie’s been through a lot. Done a lot. I don’t know what he’s told you. But I do know when that man cares about something, he will do anything in his power to get back to it.”

You get tissues from the nurse’s desk, settling in. You’re in the middle of trading Catfish tales when you freeze mid-sentence. The man himself stands before you—patched up and limping, but alive. They’ve taken his clothes and given him a hideous set of toothpaste green scrubs. You practically rush him, pulling Frankie close in a bear hug. The material crinkles like paper beneath you.

Your nose brushes against his jaw, the smell of him under soap and cleaner. Frankie carefully wraps his arms around you in turn. The action warms your skin, bringing you in from the cold.

“You’re okay,” you whisper.

“I’m okay,” he confirms. Frankie pulls back from the hug to look at you. “You saved me.”

“I don’t think—”

“You did. Thank you.”

“Always.” The word falls from your mouth like second nature.

Frankie must spot Santiago over your shoulder, giving him a nod before he pulls you in for another, briefer hug. Then he moves to Santi. You watch as they pat each other on the back like brothers. The shorter man paws at Frankie’s shoulders to get a firm grasp. They share a deep, concentrated stare; their communication is all in the eyes. Maybe that’s where Frankie gets it from. Regardless, you can’t decipher it. Whatever the two men share stays between them. Frankie embraces Santiago, lifting him an inch off the floor for effect.

“Alright,” Santi huffs. “Put me down, Fish.”

“I see you two have already met,” Frankie says as he steps away.

“Quite the lady you got here.”

“He was telling me some stories about your first deployment together,” you say.

“You got here right in time,” Santi says. “Was just about to tell her about how you got that call sign.”

“I think that’s enough storytelling for tonight,” Frankie says resolutely.

You narrow your eyes at him with a laugh. “You can’t escape me, Catfish. I’ll find out sooner or later.”

They let you take Frankie to your car in a wheelchair. Santiago makes Frankie promise to call him before he walks it back to the hospital doors. Frankie’s seat sits at an incline, letting him lay down while he stays buckled in. He looks exhausted, thoroughly worn down and ready for days of bed rest.

“We’re headed home, okay?” you say, readjusting the seat cushion beneath you at a red light. “You’re gonna sleep, and then when you wake up we can order food. That sound alright?”

Your fingers tap against the center console, a tick you’ve picked up from Frankie’s own car habits. You stop when he takes your hand into his own, squeezing gently. He looks up at you with round eyes, dark circles beneath them. He’s okay.

“I’m already there,” Frankie says.

-

You hate hospitals. The smell of antiseptic can never truly hide the stench of death. Your dad died in one; the possibility of living life as you loved it was robbed from you in a room just like this. And yet here you are putting your faith in this hospital, the doctors that work within its walls, and the spirit of hope that lingers here. Or maybe that's just Frankie.

They've got you in a gown, laid out and waiting. Soon enough, the anesthesiologist will come in with another doctor and stick you with a needle. You'll count back from ten...and light outs. It won't be up to you anymore.

Until then, Frankie's by your side. Holding your hand, kissing your forehead. Talking to you about nothing, really, but you like to hear his voice. He stops you short when he asks, "Where do you want to go first?"

"What?"

"When everything is, y’know, said and done. If you could go anywhere?" he explains.

"Home. In a wheelchair. I won't be doing much of anything," you say.

"Come on, just—anywhere."

You laugh. "Frankie, there's nowhere to go. What, are you gonna wheel me across Europe?"

"If you want," he says.

"You are ridiculous."

"And you still love me for it. Where?” Frankie insists. He's not letting this go.

You sigh as you answer, "I don't know. I kind of liked that story you told about Michigan. With the snow."

"The one where I almost froze to death?"

"Yeah, that one. Except maybe we skip out on that part this time," you say.

"There are more glamourous destinations,” Frankie says.

"You said anywhere. That's where I want."

"The great state of Michigan.” He leans back in the plush seat beneath him. “Okay. I think I can make that happen." His phone chimes. Frankie pulls it from his pocket to take a look. "Mia's on her way."

"What? Why?"

"I called her," he admits.

"She won't be here in time, and then I'll be in surgery for a while," you say. Five hours. Three hundred minutes, give or take, to make or break your life. "I won't be discharged for a few days."

"I'll be here. We both will," Frankie says.

"You don't have to—"

"I'll be here," he repeats, firmer this time. The look in his eyes is fierce; halfway between love and a safety net, your own face reflecting back at you.

Part of you, jagged and lingering, wants to call his bluff—expect the worst and you aren't disappointed when it happens. But no, Frankie looks serious. His face is stone, jaw set tight as he holds your gaze. You have no choice but to trust him. Forever and always.

So you nod, squeezing his hand. "Okay."

tags! @wannab-urs @iamskyereads @anoverwhelmingdin

[vvatchword]

I probably could have hit 30,000 words today, but I decided that since I'd gotten pretty close, I'd go ahead and take a little time to make sure I had properly established Dr. Lamb's segments among the Johnny Topside ones--err, chronologically speaking. So I re-read those. I probably didn't need to do this; I've practically memorized them. What I really should have done was update my timeline properly, but that takes time and I don't want to because I am a babey.

I may yet do that tonight. I feel like I'm running along by the skin of my teeth. My timeline is always two steps away from getting itself fucked. First, there's the fact that Aeon Timeline has a satanic flaw where if you fuck up a child object, it fucks everything up in an unstoppable chain reaction and makes you want to kill yourself. Second, timeline additions are not terribly interesting, and I start getting bored about 30 seconds after opening it up, unless I am suddenly not bored and suddenly find Aeon Timeline the most fascinating thing ever. (I am relatively confident I will never fall into latter phase ever again, not after the Aeon Timeline Hyperfuckening of April 2023.)

As to the narrative itself, it's worth mentioning that both Johnny Topside and Dr. Lamb were probably intended to be sent to Persephone incredibly early. I'm talking about 1948-1952 early. The reason I think this is because 2K Marin had to make time for two different elements: the Frank Fontaine/Andrew Ryan blood feud, which would take precedence for the sake of BioShock 1, and the childhood of Eleanor Lamb. In some early BioShock 2 drafts, Eleanor was literally Johnny Topside's daughter. This is not canon, obviously, but it would put Topside in Rapture incredibly early. If she were 7 in 1958, that would put her conception and birth in the 1949-1951 range.

All of this said, these are just my suppositions and preferences, and BioShock 2 was developed in the equivalent of a meat grinder, so god only knows what the fuck 2K Marin intended or knew.

Anyway, one reason I was kinda pissy about BioShock 2 was because Andrew Ryan was illustrated as a one-dimensional villain who started out as a tyrant and just kinda stayed that way throughout. He was rarely classy (he described Diane McClintock as having "an animal bleat," which is--hmm, I hate that, that is an objectively incorrect choice) and he is never right. And if there is something that makes BioShock 1 spectacular, it is having an antagonist who you have to grudgingly respect. "Okay, so he has a point. I mean, fuck him, but also? He is kind of right. Goddammit."

This "insta-villain" feel would only be exacerbated by an Andrew Ryan who had gone full villain by, you know, 1950--literally only four years after Rapture's founding. Call me crazy, but I like me a slow, incremental build. I'm talking about things getting goddamn unbearable around 1956-7 at the earliest.

In terms of narrative, Dr. Lamb and Topside are vaguely aware of each other, because the way I set it up is that their stars both rise around the same time. It ends up exacerbating both of their problems in the long run--Andrew Ryan really hates them both, and sees them as a symptom of Frank Fontaine's rot. By raising them up at the same time, I can link them in his mind, so if he's thinking of one, the other isn't far behind.

Technically speaking, it is unnecessary for them to rise at the same time. However, part of this is so that their stories can be told at the same time, in a chronological hand-off fashion. Another part is because I have this adoration of... what should it be called? Ironic equivalency?

You know how in Les Misérables, Victor Hugo shows how everyone is inextricably linked to everyone else, and how one kindness or evil act ends up affecting important people in one's life, even if one has no clue? That's something I adore. It's also neat to show people in similar situations and how they tackle the same problems in different ways.

Raising Topside and Lamb later in the Rapture timeline also succeeds in keeping them secondary to Fontaine. Another unlikable element of BioShock 2's was the attempt to raise Dr. Lamb as an antagonist at Fontaine's expense. Why the fuck would you do that??? I mean I know why but it was a terrible idea. You don't succeed by fucking over the plot of the game that came before. Big yikes.

All right, enough waffling. Here, you shall see a newer plot development in my lil' old prose snapshots... a little illustration of Stanley Poole, who is so nasty he's fun to write, and a brand-new plot point involving Dr. Lamb.

In my early drafts, Dr. Lamb was independently wealthy. In Draft 5, she's just some working stiff, and her goals of starting a work program down in Pauper's Drop can't take off without more capital. Frank Fontaine steps in just because he hates Andrew Ryan and wants him to fuck off, and he sees Dr. Lamb as a way to diffuse Ryan's attention. He likes Johnny Topside for much the same reason. (He helps neither of their cases terribly much :)))) )

[aahsokaatano]

Fuck it. Best quotes from chapter 1 of "Gender Trouble" by Judith Butler, in the opinion of a nonbinary trans man, because I'm sick of her words being twisted by TERFs.

"gender is not always constituted coherently or consistently in different historical contexts, and... gender intersects with racial, class, ethnic, sexual, and regional modalities of discursively constituted identities" (p. 4)

"it may be time to entertain a radical critique that seeks to free feminist theory from the necessity of having to construct a single or abiding ground which is invariably contested by those identity positions or anti-identity positions that it invariably excludes" (p. 7) (aka: TERFs can fuck right off)

""representation" will be shown to make sense for feminism only when the subject of "women" is nowhere presumed" (p. 8)

"there is no reason to assume that genders ought to also remain as two" (p. 9)

"when the constructed status of gender is theorized as radically independent of sex, gender itself becomes a free-floating artifice, with the consequences that man and masculine might just as easily signify a female body as a male one, and woman and feminine a male body as easily as a female one" (p. 9)

"If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called "sex" is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps is was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all" (p. 9-10)

"The limits of discursive analysis of gender presuppose and preempt the possibilities of imaginable and realizable gender configurations within culture... Constraint is thus built into what that language constitutes as the imaginable domain of gender" (p. 12) (aka: the possibilities of gender are only limited by the language of the time, rather than any limits of 'nature' or 'culture')

“As a shifting and contextual phenomenon, gender does not denote a substantive being, but a relative point of convergence among culturally and historically specific sets of relations” (p. 14)

“The interpretive possibilities of gender are in no sense exhausted by the alternative suggested above” (p. 15)

“[Simone de] Beauvoir proposes that the female body ought to be the situation and instrumentality of women’s freedom, not a defining and limiting essence... Despite my own previous efforts to argue the contrary, it appears that Beauvoir maintains the mind/body dualism” (p. 16) (aka: Beauvoir argues that the mind and the body are inextricably linked when it comes to gender, Butler sees this as playing directly into the patriarchal systems that Beauvoir claims to oppose.)

“Feminist critique ought to explore the totalizing claims of a masculinist signifying economy, but also remain self-critical with respect to the totalizing gestures of feminism” (p. 18) (aka: stop generalizing! Stop treating “men” as a monolithic enemy!)

“oppressions cannot be summarily ranked” (p. 19)

“the insistence upon the coherence and unity of the category of women has effectively refused the multiplicity of cultural, social, and political intersections in which the concrete array of “women” are constructed” (p. 19) (aka: trying to define ‘women’ with specific parameters will always lead to the exclusion of people who consider themselves to be women)

“It would be wrong to assume in advance [of forming a coalition/community] that there is a category of “women” that simply needs to be filled in with various components of race, class, age, ethnicity and sexuality in order to become complete” (p. 20-21)

“Gender is a complexity whose totality is permanently deferred, never fully what it is at any given juncture in time” (p. 22) (aka: gender is a concept that is always in motion and never static)

“Indeed, precisely because certain kinds of “gender identities” fail to conform to those norms of cultural intelligibility [being cishet], they appear only as developmental failures or logical impossibilities from within that domain. Their persistence and proliferation, however, provide critical opportunities to expose the limits and regulatory aims of that domain of intelligibility” (p. 24) (aka: going outside of the cisgender binary exposes the shortfalls and potholes in the cultural expectation of being cisgender)

“[Previous theorists claim that] one is one’s gender to the extent that one is not the other gender, a formulation that presupposes and enforces the restriction of a gender within that binary pair” (p. 30) (aka: working with only two options (cis male or cis female) limits and outright disregards the lived experiences of people who exist outside that binary)

“The institution of a compulsory and naturalized heterosexuality requires and regulates gender as a binary relation in which the masculine term is differentiated from a feminine term, and this differentiation is accomplished through the practices of heterosexual desire” (p. 31) (aka: sticking to a rigid gender binary only furthers the goals of a cishet-normative culture that seeks to destroy the ‘other’ - in this case, people who are not cishet.)

“In this sense, gender is not a noun, but neither is it a set of free-floating attributes, for we have seen that the substantive effect of gender is performatively produced and compelled by the regulatory practices of gender coherence” (p. 34) (aka: gender cannot be ascribed to secondary sex traits (following a brief case study of an intersex individual), and is therefore a cultural performance)

“There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very “expressions” that are said to be its results” (p. 34)

“[In the writings of Luce Irigaray] the return to biology as the ground of a specific feminine sexuality or meaning seems to defeat the feminist premise that biology is not destiny” (p. 41)

“The “unity” of gender is the effect of a regulatory practice that seeks to render gender identity uniform through a compulsory heterosexuality” (p. 43) (aka: the gender binary as we know it is the result of heterosexuality being enforced through cultural and legal channels, in an effort to dispel any queerness.)

“The presumption [in this book] is that the “being” of gender is an effect” (p. 45)

“Gender is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance” (p. 45)

Butler’s overall thesis statement/research question: “To what extent do regulatory practices of gender formation and division constitute identity, the internal coherence of the subject, indeed, the self-identical status of the person? To what extent is “identity” a normative ideal rather than a descriptive feature of experience? And how do the regulatory practices that govern gender also govern culturally intelligible notions of identity?” (p. 23) (aka: how does one’s environment and culture inform gender expression? Why is gender so closely linked with one’s sense of self?)

[pesterloglog]

Rosebot, Dirk Strider

Page 29-31

ROSEBOT: Tidying all finished?

DIRK: In a manner of speaking.

DIRK: I've given Terezi the all clear.

DIRK: Or, I guess just kinda pissed her off enough to kick this whole thing off once and for all.

ROSEBOT: Okay.

ROSEBOT: ...

ROSEBOT: So, I guess today is finally the day everything's been heading towards.

DIRK: You could put it like that, yeah.

DIRK: At least, we're aiming to frame it that way.

DIRK: Our actions from this point on will form part of a crucial inner mechanism, tucked away behind the tightly sealed metallic service hatch of reality.

DIRK: One which will be of our own creation, but which by all practical considerations might as well have always been there.

DIRK: And if we're successful, the distinction won't be significant enough to matter to just about anybody.

DIRK: They'll be too busy getting their mind's dicks collectively blown.

ROSEBOT: Would you say that we're imploring people to "suck on this"?

DIRK: Oh absolutely. Get the hand-illuminated invitations ready on the fucking double.

ROSEBOT: Hilarious fellatioid imagery notwithstanding, there's something about today that feels...

DIRK: Exciting?

DIRK: I can understand that. We've been waiting a long time.

ROSEBOT: I was going to say "portentous".

ROSEBOT: With both the positive and negative connotations that word usually has.

DIRK: You've got misgivings, then.

ROSEBOT: I wouldn't even go so far as to call it that.

ROSEBOT: What I'm feeling is hard to explain to someone whose being is not inextricably linked with the very concept of fortune.

ROSEBOT: The sensation probably doesn't even have a name, come to think of it.

ROSEBOT: Not too many people have ever been in our position before.

DIRK: Just about none, I'd bet.

ROSEBOT: Right.

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.

ROSEBOT: On the other hand, while feelings of positive anticipation also tend to stem from a lack of certainty about the future,

ROSEBOT: The presumption of good fortune allows the uncertainty to become excitement.

ROSEBOT: It's the glee of a child who knows not what the gift contains, but can evaluate from prior experience that it's likely to be something good.

DIRK: Can't empathize.

ROSEBOT: Dirk, you are tragically capable of sucking all joy and convivial sentiment out of basically every situation you find yourself in.

DIRK: Thanks.

DIRK: Anyway, this feeling you were talking about. I take it that we're not dealing with either giddy enthusiasm or paranoid foreboding, then.

ROSEBOT: No. My point is that the present moment feels like neither of those two cases.

ROSEBOT: But crucially, it's not because there is nothing to anticipate. Far from it.

ROSEBOT: Instead, it feels like the very notion of fortune is simply out of the question as a means of describing the potential outcome.

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.

DIRK: Well whatever that means, it doesn't sound good.

DIRK: I didn't know that robots could even get headaches.

ROSEBOT: I'd say it's more of an ontological, existential headache, but that already describes basically everything that's ever happened to us up until now.

ROSEBOT: And also sounds as fake as shit.

DIRK: Is there nothing I can say that'd take the weight off your mind?

DIRK: For what it's worth, I think we've got this plan riding at a level experts might describe as "pretty solid".

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

DIRK: This thing is on lock-down. Hermetically sealed, even.

DIRK: Shit's tighter than a pair of English-occupied micro-shorts.

ROSEBOT: You aren't going to believe this, but it turns out that the deranged horny ramblings of a spurned anime-obsessive have essentially no therapeutic properties whatsoever.

ROSEBOT: And contrary to common wisdom, talking about the problem doesn't seem to have eased my state of mind either.

ROSEBOT: I doubt you could say anything to make me feel better. If anything, I feel worse now than I already did.

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.

DIRK: Well, if talking about it didn't help, maybe talking about how it felt to talk about it might just enlarge the problem geometrically.

ROSEBOT: Fair point.

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.

ROSEBOT: I suppose so.

ROSEBOT: ...

ROSEBOT: Haha.

DIRK: What?

ROSEBOT: The mood is kind of infectious actually.

ROSEBOT: I suppose it's about time we had a little fun around here.

DIRK: Glad to hear it.

DIRK: ...

DIRK: Rose?

ROSEBOT: Yes Dirk.

DIRK: ...

DIRK: How do you feel about games?

[writingpaperghost]

Without You (Chapter 23)

Chapter 23: Here's the Truth, Seek the Basement

Makoto and Tamaki discover what's going on with the Ushijima family.

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43371954/chapters/133448311

“You’ve been distracted, today,” Sakura noted, looking pointedly at Hikaru. “Is something bothering you?”

He looked up, noting her expression of concern. Hana looked at him with a similar look, now that Sakura had pointed it out. “Ah, well… truthfully, there’s something I feel I need to talk to you two about. Especially Hana.”

“Really?” Hana tilted her head, “Well let’s hear it.”

Now that he was put in the position where he had to actually talk about it, Hikaru wasn’t really sure where to begin or what quite exactly to say. He knew, in theory, what he wanted to say, the points he wanted to get across. But he was less sure as to how, precisely, he wanted to say them.

“Well…” Where to start? Perhaps with Hana. “Hana, do you remember how we met?”

Confused, Hana nodded, “Yeah, karate. You recognized me from class and came over to talk to me and were like, actually nice.”

He took a deep breath, “The reason I went up to you that day was because… my parents had wanted me to befriend you. They- they’re my adopted parents, and ever since they adopted me, I’d been a part of this group – Weekend. For some reason, Weekend has an interest in your family. That’s why they wanted me to be your friend.”

Hana and Sakura took his words in, Hana seeming to need more time than Sakura.

Curiously, Sakura repeated, “Weekend…” saying the group’s name like it was some foreign and interesting concept. “Hikaru, would you mind telling me more about this… Weekend?”

“I can’t say much, they never told me a whole lot. I don’t know why they’re interested in the Igarashi family, for example.” He grimaced, “All I know is: when Giff wakes up, they intend to do whatever they can to deal with it and keep people safe. They know Fenix won’t. I can’t say to what extent, but they seem aware that it’s inextricably linked with the Deadmans.”

“How interesting…” She hummed, “And their leader? Do you know anything about them?”

Hikaru frowned, sighing, “Not much. My parents spoke about him, a little. Some kind of scientist, I think, but he was… injured or something. I think he’s technically dead – like legally?” He shook his head, “A lot of it was overhead, not something they directly told me. They probably know more, but they kept me in the dark.”

Finally, Hana interjected, “So the reason why you tried so hard to be my friend is because this Weekend has some weird interest in my family?”

“Pretty much. I figured… it’s about time I came clean about it, not that there’s much to be gathered about Weekend just from me.” He explained.

Hana thought for another moment, before saying, “Thank you for telling us.”

---

Makoto is happy to finally be able to help again – technically, he wasn’t allowed to use the Anomalocaris Vistamp again, but if he needed to fight, he was tentatively given the okay to use the Squid and Marlin Vistamps as usual. As far as anyone knew, the issues arose from the Anomalocaris Vistamp, so he should continue to be fine with the other ones. Hopefully. Makoto didn’t want to end up super sick again.

He and Tamaki arrive to the dismal sight of Papillion – Hikaru – standing alone. No demon, no Jeanne or Aguilera, he didn’t even have a Vistamp in his hand. His clothes had changed since last they saw, this one now fitting more in line with what the rest of the Deadmans seemed to wear – likely like Hana’s Aguilera clothes.

“Hikaru,” Tamaki said, frowning.

Makoto had expected Hikaru to correct him, but he didn’t, “I’m not here to fight.”

“Then what are you here for?” Makoto asked.

Hikaru took a step towards them, “I’m here to tell you: you should ask my parents about Weekend.”

Tamaki scowled, “What the hell is ‘Weekend’?”

“Weekend,” Hikaru said, “Is what’s in the basement.”

“The… basement?” Tamaki seemed confused.

But Makoto understood. There was something in the basement of the Ushijima family’s home. He’d always wondered, and now Hikaru was pointing them in the direction to get an answer. Whatever it was, Hikaru wanted them to know.

Weekend.

“Tell me, Hikaru.” Makoto began, “Why do you want us learning about Weekend?”

Surprisingly, Hikaru smiled, “Because I’m done playing their games, and I think you deserve to know. Weekend has an interest in your family. I don’t know why, but I bet my parents do. I bet you could get it out of them, if you’re willing to try hard enough.” It seems Hikaru has already picked up on some of Jeanne’s mannerisms – that smile was something she’d do. Yet here, Makoto wasn’t concerned.

“Come on, Tamaki. I think we should pay the Ushijima family a visit.” He turned to leave.

Tamaki grabbed his wrist, “Hold up! We can’t just-!”

Makoto shrugged, “He isn’t going to fight us, he’ll likely leave as soon as we do. I’m more curious about this Weekend.”

“We should report back to Fenix.”

“What’s one more thing we brothers can hide from Fenix? We find out about Weekend, then when we go back to Fenix, we tell them just that it exists and that the Deadmans likely know something about it.”

For a moment, Tamaki look conflicted, before sighing, “Fine, let’s go.”

It really hadn’t been too long since Makoto was last at the Ushijima family home, though last time it was to deliver the rather unfortunate news as to what had happened to Hikaru. He hadn’t gone again to let them know Hikaru was alive, he suspected it was better on all fronts, at the time at least, that they didn’t know, and Fenix had wanted it kept secret. Makoto was expecting not to be keeping it secret much longer and hoped Hikaru wouldn’t mind too much.

Beside him, Tamaki was uneasy. He was obviously less curious about this all than Makoto was – but Makoto had always known something was up, had always wanted to find out. This would hopefully sate his curiosity. Without hesitation, Makoto knocked on the door and waited. Soon enough, it opened.

“Oh, Makoto, Tamaki, what brings you here?” Mrs. Ushijima asked.

Makoto gave a polite smile, “There’s just some things we’d like to talk about – not like last time I showed up, I promise. Can we come in?”

She moved back, allowing them through the door, “Of course, wait in the living room.”

Finally, Makoto would learn about what was in the basement. The question had plagued him for a long time.

“Now, what’s this about?” Mr. Ushijima asked.

Smiling, far more than his previous polite smile, Makoto said, “We’d like to know about Weekend.”

“Weekend?” Mrs. Ushijima echoed, “We… don’t know what that is.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Why not?” Mr. Ushijima demanded.

“Because Hikaru seemed pretty convinced you did know. Something about whatever it is you keep hidden in the basement…?”

Both Mr. and Mrs. Ushijima were quiet, for a moment. Quietly, Mrs. Ushijima asked, “What do you mean Hikaru…?”

Tamaki sighed, “We’re not supposed to tell them about that.”

Makoto scoffed, rolling his eyes, “I don’t care what Fenix wants me to not tell people.”

“Makoto…”

He ignored Tamaki, “Hikaru is currently with the Deadmans – it seems, despite the severity of his injuries, they were able to treat them. It was he who told us to ask you about Weekend.”

“He’s alive?” Mrs. Ushijima asked, sounding both hopeful and relieved.

Mr. Ushijima frowned, “With the Deadmans.” Something of a worried expression crossed his face, though was quickly replaced with something else, something more disgruntled. “And he wanted you to learn about Weekend…?” He added, quieter, but Makoto had still barely heard it.

As Tamaki had likely heard it too, it was probably the reason for Tamaki’s concern being replaced with a curiosity. Even he had to be wondering just what Weekend was and, like Mr. Ushijima probably was wondering right now, why Hikaru wanted them to ask about it. By now, even Tamaki must have realized something was up, must be convinced that both Mr. and Mrs. Ushijima know something about Weekend, not just because Hikaru seemed insistent that they did.

“How did you get in contact with him?” Mrs. Ushijima asked, seemingly ignoring her husbands worry on other topics.

“He came to us,” Makoto answered, “The Deadmans don’t seem to hold too tight of a grasp on him.” While it was perhaps a low blow, given how there was a degree of worry evident in Mr. and Mrs. Ushijima’s behaviors, the simple fact of the matter was that Makoto held little sympathy for them. Hikaru, one way or another, chose not to come home, and Makoto really couldn’t blame him in the slightest. Hana’s disappearance had been a terrible blow to him.

Mrs. Ushijima didn’t seem to understand that quite so well, though, “But why wouldn’t he come home…?”

This time, Tamaki speaks up, “I’m sure he has his reasons – the Deadmans have Hana, after all, and we all know he’d do anything for her.”

“And let’s face it,” Makoto added, though Tamaki shot him a glare, “he has little reason to want to come back here.”

“This is his home,” Mr. Ushijima responded, coldly.

Bitterly, Makoto couldn’t help but laugh, “This place is as home to him as the apartment I lived in with my father was to me.” He shook his head, “Don’t delude yourselves, he never loved you – how could he? You never gave him any reason to.”

“Makoto,” Tamaki hissed, frowning.

“Now,” Makoto crossed his arms, unbothered by Tamaki. “Tell us about Weekend.”

Mrs. Ushijima looked contemplative, hesitantly saying to Mr. Ushijima, “Maybe we should…”

Mr. Ushijima shook his head, “No. There’s nothing for you to know about Weekend.”

They wouldn’t tell them. Makoto had considered this possibility, though he’d hoped to avoid it. Hoped that riling them up might make them spill their secrets more easily. But he hadn’t gotten his hopes too high, and he’d made a plan for if they wouldn’t tell.

“Very well, then. Hikaru said that this Weekend had an interest in our family, so I can only assume that, whatever the reason for the interest, I should consider this Weekend an enemy to watch out for. And I will not simply allow my family to be hurt.” Makoto spoke, words careful. “Thus, I would suggest you not show yourselves at Happy Spa. I don’t believe that you know nothing of Weekend and your secrecy does little to help your case.”

Tamaki didn’t protest, listening to Makoto’s words and watching him carefully. Even he couldn’t argue that Mr. and Mrs. Ushijima were being rather suspicious right now. And if Hikaru was telling the truth about Weekend’s interest in their family – something neither thought he was lying about, then that meant they had every reason to be wary of Weekend as well. For all they knew, they could have some terrible plan for their family, or were secretly in league with the Deadmans.

Knowing nothing about Weekend, save for the Ushijima family’s involvement and their interest in the Igarashi family, meant that they could only assume the worst of Weekend. Makoto didn’t exactly think they were truly so bad – at the very least, he doubted they were currently much of a danger, but he had little proof either way. And there was no telling whether or not that could change with time.

“We would never hurt you or your family,” Mr. Ushijima said.

“Pardon me if I don’t believe you,” Makoto snapped, “But you tell us nothing and have attempted to insert yourselves in our family’s lives for years. Likely even before Tamaki, Hana, and I came along. Just because mama and papa didn’t notice or think anything of it doesn’t mean we didn’t.”

Hesitantly, Tamaki added, “Makoto’s right. From our point of view, you’re looking very… suspicious. Like it or not, there’s too much going on right now for us to be willing to trust you.”

Mrs. Ushijima said, “We truly mean you no harm.”

“If we did,” Mr. Ushijima added, “We probably would have already done something.”

“How reassuring,” Dryly, Makoto commented. He tapped his fingers on his arm, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. “You’ve done little to prove yourselves trustworthy, especially now.” Neither said anything, though Mrs. Ushijima glanced at Mr. Ushijima, and Mr. Ushijima appeared to be thinking. Makoto turned, looking at Tamaki. “Now, I believe we should be leaving… you have a report to make to Fenix, don’t you, Tamaki?”

“Er, yes…” Tamaki answered, seeming confused by Makoto’s behavior.

Makoto begins to walk back towards the front door, Tamaki moving to follow behind, still somewhat unsure. Before they can make it far, Mr. Ushijima called out, “Follow us,”

Tamaki appeared unsure, but Makoto couldn’t help but smile, turning on his heel back towards the Mr. and Mrs. Ushijima. Together, they followed the two towards the door to the basement. Makoto was nearly grinning now, an expression that clearly made Tamaki uneasy. He was well aware this could easily be some kind of trap, but they’d likely have to be crazy to try to take on two Riders. So it wasn’t very likely it was a trap. No, they were going to find out what hid in the basement.

The door to the basement leads to stairs, which lead further down to another door. This door appeared locked, but Mr. Ushijima unlocked it, then opened it. On the other side was a few hallways, which the two lead him and Tamaki down, until they came to a more open room. A few stairs lead down to a floor, there were some pipes about, but the primary point of interest were the computers, monitors, and chairs on the other side of the room. The backs of the chairs were high, but Makoto can make out a figure seated there, dressed in primarily black, with some kind of hood. He’s working at one of the computers.

“This,” Mr. Ushijima said, “Is Weekend.”

“So what do you do, exactly?” Makoto inquired, doing his best to hide his smile as Mr. and Mrs. Ushijima turned back to face him and Tamaki.

“When the time comes that Giff might awaken, we hope to do whatever possible to protect people,” Mr. Ushijima answered.

Makoto hummed, “I take it you don’t trust Fenix to do a very good job of it?” That question caused Tamaki to bristle.

Mr. Ushijima hesitated for a moment, gaze lingering on Tamaki. Obviously, he was wary of speaking ill of Fenix with Tamaki right there. Or perhaps there was simply something he didn’t want getting back to Fenix. Makoto suspects that they don’t want any word of Weekend to make it way to Fenix – Makoto would like Fenix to stay in the dark about them too, so he’ll have to convince Tamaki to keep quiet about it.

It's the man in the back who speaks, the chair he sat in moving backwards and slowly spinning around. The man wore a black and white mask – between that, the hood, his clothing, and his gloves, there was not an inch of exposed skin. It would be impossible to identify this man outside of these clothes by anything other than voice. “Fenix will not seek to protect humanity, nor will it try to defeat Giff.”

Though Makoto wasn’t going to believe the man’s words at face value, of course, but he didn’t doubt there was some truth to them. He’s never trusted Fenix that much, certainly, he’s simply stuck with them, and they have resources that make the situation a bit more bearable. Makoto could see just a bit of what lay beneath Fenix’s pristine white exterior, and he didn’t like it in the slightest.

Tamaki, though, was rather loyal to Fenix. He’d trained there, worked hard to become a Rider, and had always believe that Fenix would protect people. Fenix were the heroes, and if he worked hard enough, he could be a hero too. Someone people would look up to instead of fear and scorn. If Fenix wasn’t what he thought it was, then there would go all of his hopes and dreams that he’d placed in Fenix.

“That’s not true,” Tamaki protested, sounding annoyed.

“Perhaps not entirely,” Makoto conceded, “but there’s no telling for certain how Fenix will respond to Giff’s awakening until it happens – and ideally, it would not happen at all.”

That didn’t seem to soothe Tamaki’s irritations, “Are you listening to that guy, Koto?”

Makoto grimaced, “Yes, but perhaps now would be a good time to inform you that, from the start, I have trusted Fenix about as far as I could throw Hana. Which is to say very little, as Hana would stab me multiple times before I ever got close to trying to throw her.”

Looking baffled, Tamaki said, “Fenix’s job is to protect people.”

“Fenix is an entity with a none too small amount of power, and right now we know that there’s someone sufficiently high ranking who is in league with the Deadmans.” Makoto pointed out, “Who that is should not be so hard to track down – why, it’s almost as if someone is deliberately interfering, ensuring that the culprit is never found…”

“You can’t seriously be implying-?” Tamaki growled.

He was obviously very upset, and Makoto needed to be careful – poking an angry wolf is not necessarily the greatest idea, brother or not. But the sooner Tamaki accepted that Fenix was not some saintly entity, the sooner that he could see the truth. The sooner he could be prepared for whatever may come in the future, when what he thought of Fenix would be irreversibly damaged.

Carefully, Makoto said, “I am only stating the facts. Whatever implications that come with them are not my fault.”

Again, Tamaki growled, before storming away in the huff. By the sound of it, he likely left the building entirely. Still, Makoto would have a while before Tamaki would try going back to Fenix, so he could question Weekend further. Then he’d have to go and make sure Tamaki didn’t tell Fenix about them.

“Perhaps you should go after him?” Mrs. Ushijima said.

Makoto shook his head, “No, he’s going to need time to cool down before he heads back to Fenix. I’ve got a bit, and I’ve still got questions.”

Mr. Ushijima frowned, “We’ve told you of Weekend.”

Rolling his eyes, Makoto reminded, “I still want to know why you all are so interested in my family. I don’t believe for a moment that it’s a coincidence.”

It was the man who answered, “We simply wish to ensure their safety.”

“Why? From what? Sorry, but last I checked mama and papa were not the type to even make enemies.” Makoto watched the three. With the mask, it was impossible to make out any of the man’s expressions, but he could see Mr. and Mrs. Ushijima clearly.

“Your parents…” Mr. Ushijima began, clearly unsure how he wanted to answer the question. Makoto didn’t think that he didn’t know, he almost certainly knew. No, there was probably just something or other he didn’t want to say.

“We want to make sure your father’s past doesn’t come back again, as it already has once before,” The masked man answered.

Once before? Curious, but what could he be speaking of? And what about Genta’s past? He was… boring, if goofy, wasn’t he? Makoto pursed his lips, “Papa’s past? And once before, do you mean… when their children were kidnapped?”

“Yes, their children. Weekend was not strong enough, at the time, to protect them and prevent that from happening.” The masked man said, nodding, “But now we are.”

He notably only answered one of Makoto’s questions. “I take it you’re not going to elaborate on papa’s past very easily?”

Noticing the masked man’s hesitation, Mr. Ushijima said, “I don’t think now is the time for that information.” Something told Makoto that he didn’t know whatever it was, either, but was simply defending the man’s choice of not saying anything.

“And… who are you trying to protect my family from?” There were a lot of possibilities, but Makoto really didn’t like any of them.

This question was answered more readily than before, again by the masked man, “There are still people from his past who would use him… or his children.”

“So you’re saying the ones who took their children eighteen years ago.” Did Genta and Yukimi even know anything about that? Or were they as in the dark as Makoto had been and still, in some ways, was?

“Exactly,” Mr. Ushijima nodded.

But their children had already been taken, “Do you think those kids are still alive, if it was these… people, who took them?”

“It’s possible,” The masked man said, “But in all likelihood, they are dead.”

Makoto figured as much. He would never tell such a thing to his parents, especially not right now when they were already dealing with so much. He knows they still hope for their children to come home, even if they made peace with not knowing whether or not they were even still alive. They may still never know – even this man wasn’t certain.

He nodded, “Alright, then, I believe I have just one last question.” He looked at the masked man, curious, “I know Mr. and Mrs. Ushijima, but who are you?”

The masked man hesitated, for a moment, before answering, “Masumi Karizaki.”

Masumi Karizaki? Makoto knew that name, but that should be impossible.

Unable to help himself, Makoto burst into a fit of nearly hysterical laughter. It startled Mr. and Mrs. Ushijima – possibly Karizaki too, though his face is hidden.

Warily, Mrs. Ushijima called out, “Makoto?”

He laughed and laughed, until finally it mostly made it out of his system. Out of breath, he said, “A dead man, then. Though you don’t appear so dead.”

Right here, standing before him, was a man claiming to be Karizaki’s – the annoying one’s – father. A man who supposedly died twenty-five years before. The man who was responsible for the prototypes of the Vistamps and for the Demons Driver. A man who, somehow, knew something about Genta’s past and was worried about it.

“No,” Karizaki said, “I’m not dead.”

“Well,” Makoto said, recovering more, “Now I’m even more curious as to why you want to protect my family.”

Karizaki didn’t answer that, instead he said, “I hope you will be willing to not tell George of this.”

“As much as I would love to see the look on his face, finding out his dearest father has been alive all this time, even I can agree that it’s probably best no one at Fenix hears a word about Weekend. That includes him.” As glorious as his expression would be when he found out. The time would likely come, sooner or later, and Makoto just hoped he’d be there to see it.

“Good,” Mr. Ushijima said.

Makoto clapped his hands together, “Great, well, I should be going and tracking down Tamaki. I assure you none of this will get beyond us.” And perhaps Hana and their parents, at some point or other. But for now, only them.

He hurried out of Weekend’s base, retracing their steps from earlier. He needs to find Tamaki and convince him to keep Weekend a secret from Fenix. He’s not sure which will be harder, but knowing Tamaki, he’s probably hanging out not far from Fenix. He’ll want to be able to go straight there once he’s finished calming down.

So that was Makoto’s search area, and sure enough, he found Tamaki perched on a bench, in an out of the way spot. He wasn’t likely to be seen unless you were really looking for him, like Makoto was. With little hesitation, Makoto sat himself down beside him.

Tamaki glared, “Makoto…”

“Just here to talk,” Makoto said, “Listen, I don’t know about Weekend, still, but I think… we shouldn’t jump to conclusions, about either Weekend or Fenix.”

“What’s your point?”

Makoto drummed his fingers on his leg, “I propose we treat this like Hana. Keep this information between us – if Weekend proves a problem, I got plenty from them I can spill, and if Fenix is as Weekend claims, well Fenix is none the wiser about them, at least for now.”

Rolling his eyes, Tamaki protested, “But Fenix isn’t like that.”

“As far as we know, but we could be wrong. Or Weekend could be wrong. We don’t know, and here’s the thing…” He didn’t look at Tamaki, but he smiled, staring at the sky, “In games like these, knowledge can give you an edge. We don’t know what game we’re playing, yet, but for all we know… being one of the few outside of Weekend to know of them could be an advantage.”

Tamaki grumbled, “Fine, fine. I guess for now…”

“Thank you, I just want to be careful…” He glanced over at Tamaki, “But that means keeping it from both of your captains, too.”

“I know, I know! Though I’d really rather tell them…”

He trusted Mr. Kadota and Daiji far too much. Makoto could understand why, but even telling them could be trouble – especially when neither could be excluded from the possibility of being the mole. It wasn’t necessarily likely, but they were both on the list of people who could get into Karizaki’s lab and the room that the Vistamps were kept in. Makoto certainly didn’t want to suspect either – especially Mr. Kadota with the kindness he'd shown Tamaki, but they were both still possibilities.

Tamaki would want to suspect them even less – not only did he respect them, given they were his captains, but he held a lot of fondness for Mr. Kadota. That kindness that had earned Tamaki’s trust so easily could easily be a weapon against Tamaki. If something happened to Mr. Kadota especially, or if he turned out to be the mole, it would devastate Tamaki. Not to mention Makoto had little faith that Daiji would react well to such a thing, either.

Mr. Kadota wasn’t Makoto’s primary suspect, though. Not that Makoto would ever tell who any of the people he suspected were. There was little real evidence, and making accusations could only cause trouble.

“For now, this is just a secret between brothers,” Makoto said.

“…I guess so.” Tamaki sighed.

Now if only Makoto could figure out what it was in Genta’s past that Karizaki and Weekend wanted to protect the Igarashi family from.

[edgarallanhoetry]

in this corner we have fan made works that ignore, erase, or kill off the canonical female love interest who has canonical chemistry and intimacy with a male character in favor of an m/m ship &&&& in this corner we have the bollywood trope of an m/m/f love triangle in which the bond between the two men is subtextually much deeper but the industry will not portray two queers happily in love so it's still a happy ending for one man + one woman despite being ostensibly a love story between the two men

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

[aroacearborvitae]

I never wanted to have a crush. that took me years to realize, even after I accepted I'm aro. the actions people described abt having one and romance and dating all seemed boring or stressful or stupid. I didn't want to be swept off my feet or look into someone's eyes over a candelit dinner, I'd trip you right back and I hate eye contact.

but I thought I wanted to have one for years and years bc society's messaging decided that romance/crush = happiness. the two concepts were inextricably linked. having a crush, pursuing romance, will make you happy. this is the only way you can be truly happy and fulfilled. otherwise you will be empty and sad. you want to feel wanted and loved, right? and as a 15 yr old with depression... I wanted to be happy. I wanted someone to snatch me from my life and shitty brain and make me feel out my mind with joy, like every story and every song and every person said would happen, a rush of emotion that would fix everything.

and I think separating those concepts in my mind was one of the best things I ever did, bc it helped me accept that this will never happen to me, I don't want it to, and my happiness will come from my own strength of will! 💚

[spacewitchqueen]

Out Of Touch

TOG Joe x Nicky ficlet in which Joe disagrees with Physics* (link in notes)

It was a quiet night for the team. They had checked in on Andy —she’d said she wanted some time alone, but they still called her every day—, and now Joe was absentmindedly watching a game on TV, lying on the couch, his head on Nicky’s lap. Nicky was reading, book held aloft on his right hand, his left hand playing with Joe’s hair. Nile was curled up on a high-back armchair, her attention on her phone. 

Joe was very much at ease, enjoying the sensation of Nicky’s warmth, the delicious tingle running down his back as Nicky’s fingers raked through his hair in a semi-hypnotic rhythm. Joe closed his eyes. Suddenly, Nile snorted, causing Joe to start.

“Listen to this, lovebirds.” Nile cleared her throat and read. “The sensation of touch is arguably a grand illusion, created as the brain’s way of interpreting interactions between our electrons and the electromagnetic field.”

“What are you reading?” Nicky asked, not taking his eyes from his book.

“An article on quantum mechanics, according to this, the concept of touching something does not exist because electrons repel each other, so my electrons repel the electrons of this chair.” Nile patted the armrest. “I’m really just hovering over it by an unfathomably small distance.”

“So what does that mean?” Nicky put his book down.

“That you’ve never really touched each other.” Nile smiled cheekily.

Joe was not having this, he sat up. “Let me see that.” Nile handed him her phone. He read the whole thing in a minute. “This cannot be real.”

“Well, that’s sort of the point.” Nile shrugged, taking back her phone. “What is real? Touch is just a way in which we interpret the physical world, but maybe our brains don’t know it is not actually possible.”

Joe looked at Nicky and then back at Nile. “No, that is wrong. Of course it is possible, how then would I explain the myriad of different sensations felt over the course of almost a thousand years?”

“A very active imagination?” Nile suggested.

“Imagination?” Joe rolled his eyes in exasperation. “No, this will not do.” He stood up, walked to the bedroom he shared with Nicky and closed the door.

Nicky and Nile looked at his retreating figure for a moment. When the bedroom door shut behind Joe, Nicky spoke. “I disagree with that as well.” He stood up. “I’m going to make dinner, do you want to eat something or is food also an illusion?” Nile laughed and joined Nicky in the kitchen.

Some time later they heard a door creaking open, another one clicking close and the unmistakable sound of the shower. Nicky bade Nile goodnight and went to his room. There was a note on the bed, it wasn’t addressed to him but it wasn’t folded or sealed so Nicky didn’t feel as if he were intruding. He picked it up and read it.

“If this, what we call reality, is but a trick of the mind I still would hold on to it. Because in it I was blessed with the love of my life. That more learned men than I should try to tell me that everything I know to be true is fiction…

How would they explain the simplest of feelings? What do they know of hard steel not just pressed against, but going through your flesh? Or perhaps that was just a figment of my imagination. Would they understand the thousand words held on the softest caress of my beloved’s hand? 

Touch doesn’t exist, they say, and yet I know I have touched him, my lover, my husband, my all and more; I have touched him and I have reveled in his touch. Nothing could be more real than my hand on his hand, my lips on his. If everything ceased to exist, I would still know this. Now and forever.”

Nicky smiled, he could hear Joe’s voice in his head saying those words, he read on.

“Time may be a construct, and yet, we’ve been together for a millennium. What do we care if some men of science now say that in all those years, through all those ages, we have never really touched?”

Nicky felt a familiar presence behind him. Joe rested his chin on Nicky’s shoulder. “I feel for them if they cannot even trust their senses.” 

“Nile didn’t mean to upset you, you know.” Nicky turned around to face Joe and put his arms around his waist.

“I know, I just can't imagine anyone believes that.”

Nicky closed the distance between them, they were standing as close as they could. “If it makes you feel better, I don’t. I believe I am touching you know, I believe I feel your heartbeat and I know you can feel mine.” He tilted his head and grazed Joe’s lips with his, wondering how else would anyone describe the intoxicating sensation that flooded him every time they kissed.

“I also believe that I love you.”

“I believe that too.”

Joe took the paper from Nicky’s hand and they silently agreed to test just how much they knew each other through touch alone.    

The next morning there was a note from Nile on the kitchen table. “This sounds much more like you two: ‘Quantum entanglement means two particles are inextricably linked and replicate each other’s every move, even if they are far apart’.”

“Entangled?” Nicky laughed.

“That’s a theory I can support.” Joe pulled Nicky into a deep kiss.

[passionate-reply]

This week on Great Albums: most 80s enthusiasts are well aware of the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star,” famous for being the first music video ever played on MTV. But when’s the last time you actually listened to the whole song? Chances are, it’s better than you remember. And the rest of this album is a masterpiece, too. FInd out more by watching the video, or reading the transcript, below the break:

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, I’ll be looking at the 1979 debut album of the Buggles, The Age of Plastic. If you know anything about the pop landscape of the 1980s, you’ll know that MTV played a key role, codifying the “music video” format and aestheticizing the music industry like never before, not to mention introducing a plethora of British electronic acts to American audiences for the first (and sometimes only) time. The Buggles were one of the many synth-pop bands that scored a crossover hit chiefly from the exposure that heavy rotation on MTV won for them, but at the same time, their legacy is intertwined with MTV’s much more deeply. The Buggles’ clip for their single “Video Killed the Radio Star” has the distinction of being the very first ever played on MTV, during its 1981 launch.

Music: “Video Killed the Radio Star”

I’ve done my fair share of videos where I talk about artists who are brushed into the “one hit wonder” bin in America, and I usually find myself saying that their big hit isn’t that outstanding compared to the rest of their work, or the album it appears on. But in the case of “Video Killed the Radio Star,” I have to say, I think this track is a veritable masterpiece. It’s a shame that it’s become so inextricably linked with MTV, and its place in history overshadows its ability to stand on its own as a great work of art. It’s a song that feels very familiar, because it’s used so often as a sort of jingle for this era of music history, but every time I go back and listen to it in full, it blows me away. The song was, of course, not written with the intent of being about MTV--it’s about how the advent of television doomed radio dramas back in the 1950s, and was chosen by MTV in a bit of amusing irony.

But “Video Killed the Radio Star” is so much more than that post facto smug joke. It’s delicately wistful and nostalgic, with the crisp, soprano backing vocals of Linda Jardim providing a nod to 50s pop, but also very firm and powerful, once you add in that despondent piano. It’s the part that’s usually cut in the “jingle-ificiation” of the song for B-roll, but also the piece that really makes the composition tick--it’s the contrast between the brash and childlike optimism represented by Jardim, and the rest of the melody coming in to remind us of how those hopes are dashed as we come to adulthood, and we grow to see the world we lived in as children collapse upon itself. This all comes together to make the song utterly compelling to listen to in full, despite how pithy and trivial its oft-repeated hook has become.

While “Video Killed the Radio Star” was the single that managed the most mainstream success, the rest of the album features tracks that resemble it, in their sense of cinematic narrative and fascination with nostalgic retro-futurism. It’s not quite a concept album, but it still has an impressive amount of thematic consistency, and its tracks’ resonance only seems to increase when considered alongside one another.

Music: “Johnny on the Monorail”

Stark and plaintive, “Johnny on the Monorail” closes out the album on a moody, introspective note. Those bright backing vocals return, this time adding in some scatting, in a more overt reference to 50s doo-wop. Its high-tech mass transit theme calls to mind Kraftwerk’s seminal “Trans-Europe Express” from a few years earlier--but where they had used heavy, hyper-physical percussion to portray the workings of the machine itself, the Buggles’ hymn to the train focuses on the internality of its human occupants. The train is a socially-charged space here, but one filled with awkwardness and tepid, partial connections to other people. It’s a perfect microcosm of a sterilized future world that separates man from physical actions, like walking, as well as from his fellow man. This emphasis on the human, emotional toll of high technology is a constant throughout the album, even on its lone “love song.”

Music: “I Love You, Miss Robot”

In “I Love You, Miss Robot,” the age-old myth of romance between human and machine serves the role it always does: satirizing the transactional or objectifying nature of “modern” relationships, and the perversity of our attempts to fill our needs for companionship with things instead of people. The composition is, fittingly, quite hollow and languid, centered around a simple bass guitar riff while electronically-distorted vocals flit around like ghosts. Despite Trevor Horn’s reputation for orchestral, baroque pop, there’s actually a surprising amount of driving, rock guitar on this album too. It’s most prominent on the track “Clean, Clean!”, which is certainly a major sonic contrast with “I Love You, Miss Robot”! “Clean, Clean!” actually directly follows it in the tracklisting, albeit broken up by the flip to side two, if you’re listening on vinyl.

Music: “Clean, Clean!”

Despite its rough-edged aesthetics and driving rhythm, “Clean, Clean!” maintains the sense of high-concept narrative that pervades The Age of Plastic, showing us a glimpse into a brutal war. But, set against the haunting sense of distance and sterility embodied by tracks like “Johnny on the Monorail,” “Clean, Clean!” ultimately feels quite different thematically as well, with its soldiers inhaling diesel fumes and struggling to “keep the fighting clean.” Both sonically and lyrically, its feel is a bit less atompunk, and more dieselpunk--and, for once, the linguistic allusion to “punk music” is also relevant here!

The cover of The Age of Plastic features a headshot of Buggles frontman Trevor Horn, rendered in lurid primary colours. Combined with the tight horizontal lines of the background, and the digital-looking typeface used to render the name of the band, it seems to be an image culled from some futuristic display screen, fitting the album’s aforementioned science fiction themes. Looking back on it now, of course, there’s a certain retro feel to these now-outdated ideas about computer displays. It’s a reminder that for as much as this album was, in its own time, looking backward to Midcentury ideas about the future, and embracing a certain retro-futurism, it’s now aged into being “retro” itself, in a world where much of contemporary culture looks back at the 1980s with hope and wonder.

The title, “The Age of Plastic,” calls to mind not only a world of futuristic super-materials, but also the negative connotations of plastic: fakeness, disposability, and malleability to the point of having no fixed identity. In that sense, Horn’s technicolour visage can be read as the image of that plastic-age hominid, formed anew by evolving technology and an increasingly cold and alienating culture.

If you’re familiar with Western pop, the odds that you’ve already heard a lot of other work by Trevor Horn is extremely high. For as much as “Video Killed the Radio Star” has gone down in history as a gimmicky number, Horn’s fingerprints run all throughout popular music, from a stint as the frontman of progressive rock outfit Yes, to producing hit songs for artists like ABC, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, the Pet Shop Boys, and Seal. My personal favourite project of his, though, is probably his sample-heavy, avant-garde work as a member of the Art of Noise. A lot of people don’t know that there was actually also a second Buggles album, 1981’s Adventures in Modern Recording. I’ve met few people who would argue that it’s quite as good as The Age of Plastic, but if you’re interested in more of this sound, you might as well give it a shot! Lead single “I Am a Camera” even managed to chart minorly in several markets.

Music: “I Am a Camera”

My favourite track on The Age of Plastic is its opener, the pseudo-title track, “Living in the Plastic Age.” Moreso than any of the other tracks, it really draws its strength from its narrative, with clever lyricism that really rewards a close listen. It captures a day in the life of a businessman in a soulless, corporatized future, going through the motions despite a nagging notion that the corporate grind is no path to true fulfillment. The song’s frantic pacing portrays that ceaseless, hectic sense of stress, and its soaring refrain is one of the album’s highest points of drama. I can’t think of a better summation of the album’s overarching themes. That’s all for today, thanks for listening!

Music: “Living in the Plastic Age”

[blackswaneuroparedux]

It is always dangerous for soldiers, sailors, or airmen to play at politics. They enter a sphere in which the values are quite different from those to which they have hitherto been accustomed.

- Winston Churchill, The Gathering Storm

**Pictured above: Seated, left to right: Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal; Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, the Rt Hon Winston Churchill; Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham. Standing, left to right: the Secretary to the Chiefs of Staffs Committee, Major General L C Hollis; and the Chief of Staff to the Minister of Defence, General Sir Hastings Ismay.

No one serious has ever doubted the statesmanship of Winston Churchill. However a broad criticism of Churchill as warlord only came to light after the war. Many historians thought that he meddled, incurably and unforgivably, in the professional affairs of his military advisers.

The first surge of criticism came primarily from military authors, in particular Churchill’s own chairman of the Chiefs of Staff, and Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Alan Brooke. The publication of his diaries in the late 1950s shocked readers, who discovered in entries Brooke himself retrospectively described as “liverish” that all had not gone smoothly between Churchill and his generals.

On 10 September 1944 he wrote in his diary (an entry not known until the 2001 updated version was published:

“[Churchill] has only got half the picture in his mind, talks absurdities and makes my blood boil to listen to his nonsense. I find it hard to remain civil. And the wonderful thing is that 3/4 of the population of this world imagine that Winston Churchill is one of the Strategists of History, a second Marlborough, and the other 1/4 have no conception what a public menace he is and has been throughout the war! It is far better that the world should never know and never suspect the feet of clay on that otherwise superhuman being. Without him England was lost for a certainty, with him England has been on the verge of disaster time and again….Never have I admired and disliked a man simultaneously to the same extent.”

Many of the British field marshals and admirals of World War II came away nursing the bruises that inevitably came their way in dealing with Churchill. They deplored his excessive interest in what struck them as properly military detail; they feared his imagination and its restless probing for new courses of action. But perhaps they resented most of all his certainty of their fallibility.

Norman Brook, secretary of the Cabinet under Churchill, wrote to Hastings Ismay, the former secretary to the Chiefs of Staff, a revealing observation: “Churchill has said to me, in private conversation, that this was partly due to the extent to which the Generals had been discredited in the First War—which meant that, in the Second War, their successors could not pretend to be professionally infallible.”

Churchill’s uneasy relationship with his generals stemmed, in large part, from his willingness to pick commanders who disagreed with him—and who often did so violently. The two most forceful members of the Chiefs of Staff, Brooke and Cunningham, were evidence of that. If he dispensed with Field Marshal Sir John Greer Dill as Chief of Imperial General Staff, he did so with the silent approval of key officers, who shared his judgment that Dill did not have the spirit to fight the war through to victory. 

As General Hastings Lionel "Pug" Ismay (later 1st Baron Ismay), Churchill’s chief military asdvisor and link to the CIG, and others privately admitted, however, Dill was a spent man by 1941, hardly up to the demanding chore of coping with Churchill. “The one thing that was necessary and indeed that Winston preferred, was someone to stand up to him, instead of which Jack Dill merely looked, and was, bitterly hurt.”If Churchill were to make a rude remark about the courage of the British Army, Ismay later recalled, the wise course was to laugh it off or to refer Churchill to his own writings. “Dill, on the other hand, was cut to the quick that anyone should insult his beloved Army and vowed he would never serve with him again, which of course was silly.”

It was not enough, of course, to pick good leaders; as a war leader, Churchill found himself compelled to prod them as well—an activity that occasioned more than a little resentment on their part. Indeed, in a private letter to General Claude Auchinleck shortly before he assumed command in the Middle East in June 1941, Dill warned of this, saying that “the Commander will always be subject to great and often undue pressure from his Government.”

The permeation of all war, even total war, by political concerns, should come as no surprise to the contemporary student of military history, who has usually been fed on a diet of Clausewitz and his disciples. But it is sometimes forgotten just how deep and pervasive political considerations in war are. 

Take, for example, the question of the employment of air power in advance of the Normandy invasion.

As is well known, operational experts and commanders split over the most effective use of air power. Some favored the employment of tactical air power to sever the rail and road lines leading to the area of the proposed beachhead, while others proposed a systematic attack on the French rail network, leading to its ultimate collapse. This seemingly technical military issue had, however, political ramifications, because any attack (but particularly one targeted against French marshalling yards) promised to yield French civilian casualties. Churchill therefore intervened in the bombing dilute to secure a promise that French civilian casualties would be held to a bare minimum. “You are piling up an awful load of hatred,” Churchill wrote to Air Chief Marshal Tedder. He insisted that French civilian casualties be under 10,000 killed, and reports were submitted throughout May that listed the number of French civilians killed and (callously enough) “Credit Balance Remaining.”

This is not to say that Churchill’s military judgment was invariably or even frequently superior to that of his subordinates, although on occasion it clearly was. Rather, Churchill exercised one of his most important functions as war leader by holding their calculations and assertions up to the standards of a massive common sense, informed by wide reading and experience at war. When his military advisers could not come up with plausible answers to these harassing and inconvenient questions, they usually revised their views; when they could, Churchill revised his. In both cases, British strategy benefited.

In The World Crisis Churchill wrote: “At the summit, true strategy and politics are one.” The civil-military relationship and the formulation of strategy are inextricably intertwined. A study of Churchill’s tenure in high command of Britain during the Second World War suggests that the formulation of strategy is a matter more complex than the laying out of blueprints.

In the world of affairs, as any close observer of government or business knows, conception or vision make up at best a small percentage of what a leader does—the implementation of that vision requires unremitting effort. The debate about the wisdom of Churchill’s judgments (for example, his desire to see large amphibious operations in the East Indies) is largely beside the point. His activity as a strategist emerges in the totality of his efforts to shape Britain’s war policies, and to mold the peace that would follow the war.

The Churchillian model of civil-military relations is one of what one might call an uneven dialogue - an unsparing (if often affectionate) interaction with military subordinates about their activities. It flies in the face of the contemporary conventional wisdom, particularly in the United States, about how politicians should deal with their military advisers.25 In fact, however, Churchill’s pattern of relationships with his Generals resembles that of other great democratic war statesmen, including Lincoln, Clemenceau and Ben Gurion, each of whom drove their generals to distraction by their supposed meddling in military matters.

All four of these statesmen, Clausewitzians by instinct if not by education, recognized the indissolubility of political and military affairs, and refused to recognize any bounds to their authority in military activities. In the end, all four provided exceptional leadership in war not because their judgment was always superior to that of their military subordinates, but because they wove the many threads of operations and politics into a whole. And none of these leaders regarded any sphere of military policy as beyond the scope of his legitimate inspection.

The penalties for a failure to understand strategy as an all-encompassing task in war can be severe. The wretched history of the Vietnam War, in which civilian leaders never came to grips with the core of their strategic dilemma, illustrates as much. President Johnson, in particular, left strategy for the South Vietnamese part of the war in the hands of General William Westmoreland, an upright and limited general utterly unsuited for the kind of conflict in which he found himself. He did not find himself called to account for his operational choices, nor did his strategy of attrition receive any serious review for almost three years of bloody fighting. At the same time, the President and his civilian advisers ran an air war in isolation from their military advisers, on the basis of a weekly luncheon meeting from which men in uniform were excluded until halfway through the war.

A Churchillian leader fighting the Vietnam War would have had little patience, one suspects, with the smooth but ineffectual Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Earle Wheeler. He would, no doubt, have convened all of his military advisers (and not just one), to badger them constantly about the progress of the war, and about the intelligence with which the theatre commander was pursuing it. The arguments might have been unpleasant, but at least they would have taken place. Perhaps no strategy would have made the war a winnable one, but surely some strategic judgment would have been better than none. Nor can strategy simply be left to the generals, as they so often wish.

The Churchillian way of high command rests on an uneven dialogue between civilian leader and military chiefs (not, let it be noted, a single generalissimo). It is not comfortable for the military, who suffer the torments of perpetual interrogation; nor easy for the civilians, who must absorb vast quantities of technical, tactical and operational information and make sense of it. But in the end, it is difficult to quarrel with the results.

[d-criss-news]

Quibi might seem like the Wild West to creators. When it comes to new media, the creators who step to the front to make untested content have to build the rule book themselves. That is just what Darren Criss did with his new Quibi show, Royalties, as a creator, songwriter, and actor. Criss, known for The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Glee, Elsie Fest and several Broadway roles, debuted the ten-episode first season earlier this month.

The show follows two songwriters as they try to churn out a new hit song every week under hilarious parameters. Criss stars alongside Kether Donahue while the supporting cast boasts all-star talent including John Stamos, Georgia King, and Tony Revolori and guest stars Mark Hamill, Julianne Hough, Jennifer Coolidge, Lil Rel Howery, Rufus Wainwright, Jackie Tohn, Jordan Fisher, Bonnie McKee, and Sabrina Carpenter. The series is directed by veteran comedy director, Amy Heckerling. Each episode release is accompanied by a full music video for the comedy song contained in the episode. These include surprising earworms such as ‘Mighty as Kong,’ where Hamill sings about King Kong’s private parts.

Royalties started out as a proof of concept. Criss and his friends and co-collaborators, Matt and Nick Lang, who founded StarKid Productions with Criss, started with a ten-minute episode which would later become the basis for Episode Seven of the series. Criss was flexible about how to make the concept into a project and Quibi was interested. “We were given an opportunity to make something. It’s the way that I've always preferred to operate, especially with my collaborators from StarKid,” Criss explains. “We’ve always done it first and asked questions later. We just like making things as opposed to pitching what it could be, just make it and see if people like it and then go from there.”

Criss had wanted to make Royalties for a long time. While the show is a zany comedy, many moments feel personal, stemming from Criss’s own work as a songwriter. “My life is divided between a pretty involved career as a musician and songwriting and producing music,” Criss says. “And then the acting side, which sometimes gets connected, but it's often put in a separate box. It has way more exposure just by the nature of what it is. While the [music] side, which has equal involvement in my life, is more behind the scenes.”

Quibi has received a lot of press in the last few months. The streaming app is dedicated to short-form content. Most episodes of Quibi shows fall between seven and ten minutes and feature two different aspect ratios, vertical and horizontal. For showrunners and directors, many of the constraints of the platform are brand new. That didn’t scare Criss. “For guys like me, and I guess artists in general, my brain is kind of all over the place,” Criss says. “Time constraints and other necessities truly are the mother of invention.”

For him, working in the short format wasn’t a hindrance. “I really liked the idea of the short form thing. I think our show is strong enough to be able to exist in whatever medium we were sort of assigned to do,” he says. “You only have seven-ish minutes to tell a story. So you really start to eliminate anything that is not in service of a story or a joke. It's a good exercise. It's that classic thing about killing your darlings. You have to really make sure to focus in on what matters.”

Long time fans of StarKid will immediately see its influence on Royalties. “StarKid is a huge bedrock of my background as a creative,” Criss says. The Langs are a big part of that. “I mean, this whole thing [Royalties] was created and built and bred by me and my two buddies. We've been making stuff for years together,” he says of the Lang brothers. “I was never going to make this show without the Lang brothers; they were always going to be who I wanted. And for StarKid fans that really know our company, the whole show is littered with a lot of StarKid performers. That was always going to happen.”

As a creator, Criss felt like Quibi made sense as a platform. “They are a creator-based company that really just want to support their creatives,” he explains. “They're not a studio, they are an acquisition company, they're a platform. So their business model was appealing.”  

While the show was a labor of love, its production tested the ever-busy Criss. “I pride myself on multitasking,” he says. “I was definitely the most tested I'd ever been as a multitasker; I always say I'm crazy, but I'm not insane.” Part of the issue was the production of Royalties overlapped with Criss’s work on the Netflix Original Hollywood in which he is an actor and executive producer. Production got crazy for Criss with days that included mornings on the set of Hollywood then rushing over to the Valley to shoot music videos and changing facial hair back and forth for costumes. “There was a point where I was in post-production for Royalties editing music videos in a sprinter van that was on set of where I was shooting Hollywood,” he recalls. “I would be shooting a scene on Hollywood, and then I would go into the van and edit for however many minutes and then go back to shooting a scene.”  

Even with all the crazy scheduling, he admits, “It was, a pretty insane old time. I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it.” For Royalties, time was always against the team. “I want to say we had less than 10 days to prep a show that we had to shoot within just a few weeks, a show that we hadn't even gotten fully cast yet, a show that I had to write 10 songs in 10 days to get those produced.” On top of that, they were learning a new platform. “You can look at it as it's very scary because you have no sort of guiding North Star,” he says. “but on the other hand, it's cool because anything goes. We said ‘let's do our best and do what we like and then figure it out later which is my consistent ethos with creating things.”

Despite the stress of production, the final result doesn’t show it. The show is nothing if not endearing. “I think there's no faster way to people's hearts, then the sort of party trick of music and song,” Criss explains. “You can really get into people's hearts and minds through music in a way that just you can't do any other way. I think the close second to that is humor. So when you can combine the two I think you just have kind of like a super cocktail of endearment ability… Music and comedy are inextricably linked.”

For both longtime fans of Criss’s work and early adopters to Quibi, Royalties serves as an example of what a dedicated and close-knit team can create.

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Quadrivium

The four great houses of the university coexist within the mind of Matheus.

Two, a trinity, make up the mind; the house of the mind is the single entity, so called, with the capability of self-reproduction and an innate drive to expand itself, that exists inside every human organism.

The third is the house of the body, made of flesh and blood and bloodless flesh, that is made of the four elements and is governed by law. The mind exercises the body, and the body in its turn exercises the elements.

This arrangement ensures self-propagation, and its own perpetuation. Each generation must reproduce the four elements, and so on, to pass on its values to the next generation. The structure resembles an organism that constantly produces new branches, but no new branch shares structure or essence with any other.

The fourth or "quadrivium" is the house of nature as one might understand it, as distinct from the abstract, mathematical concept of nature as it exists in the mind of a philosopher. The mind does not control the body, or the body the elements, apart from some infinitesimal level of control. The mind and the elements do not have any innate teleological plan, but nature does.

But the mind does not perceive or observe nature, and never have. The elements are observed and studied by human minds, but their relationships are not what the mind is looking for. It is the mind that "sees" these relationships, and the mind perceives nothing.

Matheus has said that when one realizes that one does not perceive the world of things, one discovers that the world of things is not real.

He who does not perceive the quadrivium must be a fool, and a cruel one at that. He is no more able to make himself understood by any of the great material forces of the world than a child who has never used a wooden ruler is able to comprehend the structure of the universe, or to make accurate instruments for measuring his location in it. Like every human organism, he has a unique potential. He may have unique potentiality for goodness, or knowledge, or love, or curiosity. He may have some potential for power, but not many. He may have potentiality for beauty. He may have potential for art that no one has seen, and no one will ever see. But, most of all, he must realize the inextricable link between all this potential, and a fundamental nothingness. Knowing this nothingness is the beginning of wisdom. It is the first thing that the mind perceives, on its own, untethered from external forces or concepts, and so is the last that the mind will ever perceive unless it embraces its nothingness.

And Matheus sees this nothingness, not just from a detached perspective, like a scientist, but from within and in its very being. He knows, in a pure, fundamental way, that he is nothing.

"Are you afraid, Matheus?" Maria asked him.

Matheus did not answer at once. He looked out the window towards the quadrivium building, where the others foundling children were emerging from their rooms to see what was going on. His was a still boy's face.

"Am I afraid?" he asked.

His voice was very soft. "That your sisters might hurt me."

"Lilia and Zita and Cecelia, and Cecelia's friend who just enrolled, are the sisters and Zita is Cecelia's friend. You didn't answer my question."

He looked back at her. "No, I'm not afraid," he said. "Why should I be afraid?"

"It's silly," Maria said, laughing, "to be afraid of little girls. They can't hurt you."

"Yes, they can," Matheus said. He did not rise to the challenge. He sat perfectly still, and said nothing, so that his deference would not be mistaken for defiance. When he did speak, it was almost inaudibly, in a voice that quavered, which seemed to Maria to confirm her impression that Matheus was afraid.

"Matheus knows," he said, "that there is an order to nature, which the mind cannot perceive, but which exists in the heart of each thing as an instinct or a long-honed habit. He knows that the sisters have certain habits of thought that are linked inextricably to their natures as women, linked in their very sex-ness, linked by a link that cannot be perceived by the mind. He knows who they are, in a fundamental way, and he knows that they are women. He knows that they are like his sisters, but not like them in the sense that their minds are like his sisters', not like them in the sense that, of two identical sisters, one of each pair is like the other, or that of two sisters, one of each variety, one of this sort and not the other, the other, equally good and right, but of a different sort. The sister-double is not really a sister in any true real sense, but a link in the chain of all things, a thing that is part and part and part of both. Only the double can produce anything, but the link cannot do so, because it only exists to perpetuate and reproduce itself, or to stand in some relation to its sister-double, in which relation its double is also part and parcel. The double, in so referring to itself, becomes a part, and the link is removed, and the double loses its true nature. It loses its original femininity, the original power and capacity for creativity. The double then becomes a mere animal, and the link is lost also. This is why Matheus sees that there must be order: not nature, real nature, in which sisterhood is the natural way of things, the proper way to think of the world, the only proper way to think of it, for the mind cannot perceive the link; but the sisterhood-nature, links and links-in-chain,quadrivium, body, elements, instruments and rulers, the true order of things, the only true order, the only proper order…. When Matheus has become a beast, and the beast a beast with the nature of a beast, then the sisters will understand that he sees their true gender, which lies in the heart of things, and they will know that he and they are natural things, and not unnatural or monstrous in any way."

He sat down in Maria's usual place by the window on her right, facing north. His eyes were closed, to conserve his inner light. Maria sat down across from him, to Matheus's left, looking towards the quadrivium building and the others who were emerging from their rooms. There was a commotion of voices among the little ones, and a high excited note of delight from Maria, a note that Matheus could not suppress. He did not open his eyes.

He had said "the quadrivium" and so the others turned to look. At first all the faces were blank without exception. Then a little red patch appeared at the edge of the light, and the blank faces began to become animated. There was a certain word or phrase said by each pair of sister and brother, and a wild confusion of half-uttered words, until from many a mouth, in many a voice, two simple words emerged:

GOD'S LIGHT.

A thrill of joy ran through the little ones, and their chirping and cooing grew louder and more joyous. Matheus stirred in his stillness. The light within him burst forth with a flame that made a bright circle on the white of his closed lids.

"I see," he said.

•

A child is God's light: God's unity, His all. He does not, like us, divide up the substance of things, or measure it into parts. He sees Himself as the whole, and in the same way as the whole, a unit. In the beginning, before created time, He saw self-dividedness as one of His attributes, to be sought in all things. For God must have substance, that's all there is to it, and a substance of unity and of perfect completeness. If we must posit time to conceive of things, then there was a time when this was least in His mind. There had been some time in Matheus's past, before he was made, long before the universe was created or created. That was a time of unbroken unity, which was also, by nature, a unity without division, without separation, as an image in a dream can be a dream without difference: a unity that included nothing.

He who sees God for the whole and saw self-dividedness as an attribute of this whole, the unity of which he is, sees at first as a truth of His creation, His will, in which there is something strange: an eternal sequence, a repetition, a succession without a necessary end without end. So Matheus saw and knew from the begin, and did not consider this sight of God as wrong. For he, a being composed of ineffable parts, and possessing ineffable organs, did not consider the sight as strange. He thought, instead, of the link in the chain of nature in which the parts cooperate. To see a link in the chain of things without the chain, or the chain without the link, is a natural,

[shimmershae]

I keep coming back to all the things Kang has said these past two seasons and the things she hasn’t.

Paraphrasing here because honestly? I don’t have the patience to go back and look all these articles up. My apologies. 😉

This is long and rambling. Sorry in advance. Mobile isn’t letting me put it under a cut for some reason, but I’ll try to edit and fix it later.

Last season, when everyone’s spirits were so low because of the contrivance that was Carol’s marriage to Ez3kiel, Kang said something to the effect of if you’re upset or disappointed with the direction this story has taken in this moment, with how things have shaken out ship-wise? Hang in there because what’s happening now is part of a larger, more long-term story.

Fast forward to the end of Season 9 and Carol’s marriage was just as dead as the boy she raised as her own. Carol was on her way back home with her family. And Carol was once again in Daryl’s orbit, much to Ez3kiel’s dismay and Carylers’ relief.

Kang has called Carol and Daryl soulmates. She has not committed to spelling out the true nature of their relationship. Only that they are inextricably bonded and that bond, that relationship is one that is at the heart of much of the current season.

She wasn’t lying or exaggerating. Carol and Daryl and their relationship, however you choose to label it, has had more focus in this season than all of the seasons during Gimple’s tenure as show runner combined. They have been the face she has put on the community’s struggle with Alpha and this latest evil threatening them. We’ve seen Daryl turn himself inside out with worry for Carol’s well-being all season long to this point and the emotional ties these two have with each other have been tested more than ever before.

Additionally, Kang made some comments somewhere about wanting to explore the idea and concept of love during war time.

Now who do you suppose she was talking about there?

Personally? Rosita and her weird quadrangle never really entered my mind for reasons. I could see it being Yumiko and Magna, but they’ve had very little focus this season and there’s not much of a will they/won’t they component to their relationship unless you’re counting whether they split apart or not. Carol and Ez3kiel’s relationship died with Henry and Daryl and C0nnie? Well, they’re not that deep, and Daryl? Has to really get to know someone to even consider dropping his guard for love, but more on that later.

Say that comment was regarding multiple couples.

The most likely candidates with what we’ve seen actually play out onscreen are Magna and Yumiko and you guessed it. None other than the pair whose story and relationship this season is at the heart of the show.

Daryl has literally been all about Carol all season. Her happiness and well being has been utmost on his list of priorities. Of course, he wants his friends and family and communities safe, but the way Kang and Company have written it this season? Carol has trumped them all.

Other than the Grimes babies and firmly established links and relationships he’s already had for years? Daryl has had precious little head and heart space to let anybody else in besides maybe Lydia. And Daryl needs to be comfortable with someone to even entertain letting them in his innermost circle. Forget romance. And you know why?

Kang has strongly hinted if not said outright that because of his abusive and traumatic past and how inherently distrustful he is despite being such a good person at heart? It takes a long time and a lot of work for Daryl to let someone in his heart. Her description of Daryl’s seeming reluctance to enter into a romantic relationship makes it sound like Daryl being demisexual is not that big of a stretch at all.

Making that leap that doesn’t feel like a leap at all? Daryl Dixon can only fall in love with the woman that is already his soulmate. The woman he knows (almost) everything about—the good, the bad, the ugly. The woman that hasn’t left his mind for more than two good seconds this season and has made the already slim likelihood of him picking up and becoming that guy, the guy that pushes a girl up against a tree and has his way with her in the moonlight, even more unlikely.

Guess who that eliminates, especially when you take into account all the things Kang has said and the things she’s left unsaid these past two seasons? Three guesses.

I’ll tell you who it doesn’t—Carol Peletier.

It can only be Carol. It has only been Carol.

All these past seasons, bungled as Gimple has sometimes bungled them, have been leading to Caryl. It’s been the most epic of slow burns. The burn slow as fuck.

Well, lovelies. Kang just struck a match to them Sunday night and the pain. Oh my God, the pain. The love and the pain on both of their faces. It left me aching and in tears.

But you know what?

I’m not worried. Things might not ever be the same with them ever again, but I’m not worried. I have faith these two inextricably connected people, these two soulmates, are going to come out of this stronger than ever together.

They’re the heart of this season, after all.

[dustedmagazine]

Apartment House on Another Timbre: Three Perspectives

If you survey the website of Apartment House, you won’t find an “about” page or any exposition of the ensemble’s history or philosophy. While such reticence is rare these days amongst artistic endeavors of any stripe, the very lack of information tells you something about Apartment House’s raison d’être. It’s all about the work, and the ensemble’s role is to make performances that are about the music, and not Apartment House’s take on the music. This renunciation of ego makes sense when you consider that the ensemble’s name derives from a John Cage composition; one of Cage’s intentions was to envision music that was open to the world and wasn’t about assertions of selfhood. Cellist Anton Lukoszevieze founded the ensemble in 1995, but its recording career didn’t get into gear until 2013.

Since then, the group has released 22 single or double CDs covering work by contemporary composers ranging from Cornelius Cardew to Christian Wolff to Linda Catlin Smith to Ryoko Akama. With a rotating membership, performances range from solos and duos to chamber ensembles. Thirteen were issued by the Another Timbre label, including three titles at once in late 2020, each presenting the music of a single composer — Martin Arnold (b. 1958), Antoine Beuger (b. 1955) and Maya Verlaak (1990). The act of releasing these albums simultaneously affords a chance to consider how Apartment House engages with the different intentions and requirements asserted by each composer. Dusted writers Marc Medwin, Michael Rosenstein and Bill Meyer cover the three recent releases.

Maya Verlaak / Apartment House— All English Music is Greensleeves (Another Timbre)

All English Music is Greensleeves by Maya Verlaak

Múm was an Icelandic group with singers channeling the wisely innocent voices of children while a lush landscape, rife with music boxes and other liquid-crystal sonorities, multihued the adjacent soundspaces. There is something similarly open about this music, something so unpredictably predictable, so comforting, so quietly inclusive! Belgian composer Maya Verlaak delves to the depths of experience’s networks while observing from just far enough to escape the iron grip and rationalizations of memory. This is music in which even the harshest sounds melt into a winning simplicity, a world of sound and sense in symbiosis.

It would be too easy to point toward modality to explain such a beautifully optimistic vision. After all, “All British Music is Greensleeves” tears that increasingly irrelevant construct to shreds in a hurry as two layers of sound, one prerecorded, spin bits of the tune down the dimly lit corridors conjoining memory and reflection. Chord, cluster and motive blur boundaries, even as space ensures a tidy trail of readily identifiable components needling consciousness reluctantly toward recognition. It’s a world with which Ives or Mahler might have made contact, had chamber music been more in their sights, such are the buds and blooms of poly-event amidst distantly lit string writing that refuses to answer Ives’ perennial question. The unfurling harmonies, formed of motives in quasi-counterpoint, are inextricably linked with their kaleidoscopic timbres. Recurrence is both evident and backgrounded but none so blatant as the delicious silences, almost periodic, separating the streamlined multivalences. Fortunately, as with many Apartment House recordings, vibrato is nearly absent.

The “Formation” pieces place a similarly subversive emphasis on relationship so subliminal that a simple listen won’t unlock the door or open the blinds. Any hats doffed toward conventional chord or set are quickly displaced by the gentle but insistent winds of change emanating from a vocal imperative or an intoned repetition. Mark Knoop and Sarah Saviet are in something near dialogue with overlapping technologies guided by a compositional voice whose questions also seek a malleable answer. The openness at the heart of Verlaak’s work stems from the various paths through subversion, re-subversion and integration integral to the majority of these pieces. What, in the case of “Song and Dance,” do performers do when confronted only with the analysis, or justification, for a musical score rather than with the score itself? What happens when the justification becomes the score? How is it possible, practical or desirable to confront musical parameters neither heard nor witnessed? The wonderful thing about such conceptions is that they really form the metanarrative of all artistic endeavor. No art, no matter how explicit, relinquishes all of its secrets, just as no single pitch or sonority, even those as pure as Apartment House offers with staggering consistency, is the actual embodiment of that sound. Composers and performers deal in approximations, and it is to Verlaak’s credit that the processes have been rendered at least partially transparent with such beautifully cooperative forces to give them form and voice.

Marc Medwin

Martin Arnold / Apartment House—Stain Ballads (Another Timbre)

'Stain Ballads' by Martin Arnold

This is the second release on Another Timbre by Canadian composer Martin Arnold, the first being The Spit Veleta a 2017 program of violin and piano solos and duos by Apartment House members Philp Thomas and Mira Benjamin. This time out, Arnold provides the group with a program consisting of a solo, a duo, a quartet, and piece for sextet. Across the four pieces, the composer balances a sense of lyricism with a fascination with the abstracted concept of “formlessness.” In his interview on the Another Timbre site, he puts it this way when asked about the title of the CD. “Stains are… radically specific – always stain-shaped. They might remind one of something – like when one looks at the inkblots of a Rorschach test (though significantly, they don't have Rorschach's added symmetry) – but they don't present a form, a coherent outline, a generic structure that can be abstracted and distilled; with a stain, form and content are the same thing. My work continues to aspire to that condition.” Each of the four pieces here delve in to the way that melodies and themes can be opened up to ride the edges of lyricism and abstraction.

The program opens with “Lutra” for solo cello and humming performed by Anton Lukoszevieze. The piece starts out with arco themes colored with hummed and bowed diaphanous overtones. Hovering at the upper registers of the instrument, threads are introduced, slowly progressing, punctuated occasionally by softly plucked notes. Staying within the same set of registers as well as harmonic and timbral areas, Lukoszevieze lets the notes resonate and serenely decay. In the last section the piece moves to percussively plucked notes with poised slow resolve, fading to hushed resonance in the final moment. “Stain Ballad” follows, orchestrated for cello, piano, viola, two violins, reed organ, and percussion. Arnold voices the various layers in a slow flux, moving in and out of synch with each other. The ensemble does a sterling job of maintaining an overall balance so that no one particular instrument is ever the sole focus. Instead, the various parts wend along as various subsections of the ensemble coalesce and then dissipate in to the mercurial overall flow of the piece. The striated parts adeptly take advantage of the timbral synergies and contrasts of the instruments as one moment, string arco melds with reed organ while in other sections, the percussive attack of Philip Thomas’ piano, the woody retort of Simon Limbrick’s percussion and pizzicato strings shift and shudder across each other.

The pairing of Lukoszevieze’s cello and Mira Benjamin’s violin on “Trousers” dives in to specific techniques like the utilization of multiple mutes, bowing with the wood of the bow, hushed microtones and a sliding sense of harmonics. Arnold talks about it, noting that “the sound of “Trousers” is certainly at odds with a “good” Classical sound: I shut down projection, fullness of tone, resonance, the consistency, stability and predictability of the sound being produced.” Over the course of the 22 minute piece, fragments of melody, muted textures and quavering string overtones play off of each other with measured consideration. Themes play out, get subsumed into the progression of the piece and then resurface. The recording closes out with “Slip,” a quartet for cello, violin, bass clarinet, and piano. The piece takes its name from the Irish slip jig, a jig that is in 9/8 as opposed to the usual 6/8 and a slowed pace accentuates the odd time signature. For the first quarter of the piece, cello, violin and bass clarinet move in woozy unison, lithely navigating the precarious phrasing. Pianist Mark Knoop’s entry, a quarter way in, introduces spare chords that serve to unsettle the phrasing even further, though the quartet never wavers in their assuredly ambling momentum. As the piece proceeds, the four parts veer off from each other, with lines dropping in and out. High-pitched violin arco sounds against crystalline piano chords making way for pizzicato cello and piano. The final section featuring Heather Roche’s dusky bass clarinet playing brings the piece to a transfixing conclusion. On Stain Ballads, Arnold continues to expand on his strategies toward opening up and abstracting melody, balancing compositional form with a sense of “formlessness.” With the members of Apartment House, he has found worthy collaborators.

Michael Rosenstein

Antoine Beuger / Apartment House—Jankélévitch Sextets (Another Timbre)

'jankélévitch sextets' by Antoine Beuger

In 1992, Antoine Beuger cofounded Editions Wandelweiser, the publishing arm of a community of like-minded, post-John Cageian composers. Along the way he has taken on the roles of artistic and managing director. Since Wandelweiser is a collective, his stewardship of the label and publishing arms makes him influential, but not an authoritarian figure. Quite the contrary. On Another Timbre website, there is an interview with Beuger that raises a provocative point about the authority of the score. He compares the current position of a classical composer to a perspective prescribed by Christian theology. The composer hands down rarefied instructions, which he (Beuger emphasizes the masculinity of this approach) best understands, and leaves to others the work of realizing his often very difficult and inscrutable instructions.

With Jankélévitch Sextets, Beuger takes a different approach. It is the fourth in a series of pieces that he wrote for specified numbers of musicians. Each composition deals with relationships implied by that number, and each does so employing mainly quiet, sustained tones. Additionally, each acknowledges a cultural figure; in this case, the Franco-Russian philosopher, Vladimir Jankélévitch. Beuger cites his appreciation for two of Jankélévitch’s ideas. First, music has no itinerary; it flows unpredictably. Second, sounds appear by disappearing. The latter point makes sense if you consider how you notice phenomena only after they stop. One suspects that if Jankélévitch was a fan of mid-20th century American music, he’d have had a lot of time for William Bell’s “You Don’t Miss Your Water (Till The Well Runs Dry).”

Beuger’s piece consists of repeated statements of a close bundle of long tones, each followed by a brief silence, with instruments insinuating themselves or dropping out during each pass. While the name is plural, the music is presented as a single, 64:20 long track, which asks the listener to accompany the ensemble through its entirety. The instrumentation consists of accordion, bassoon, bass clarinet, violin, viola, and double bass, which affords many opportunities for similar-sounding pitches to ease shift between close harmony and beating difference tones. This is not music that tugs at your sleeve; neither ingratiating nor imposing, it’s there if you wish to approach it, cycling through changes that reveal sounds by removing them. The music locates the essence of six-ness not in some contrapuntal exchange that draws attention to all the voices, but in the way that a group can persevere over time by allowing its members opportunities for respite. Apartment House’s treatment of this material captures its subtle balance. It takes discipline to blend sounds so patiently, and even more to do so in a way that don’t ask you to admire their restraint.

Bill Meyer

[thegreenwolf]

Ecopsychology and Neopagan Relevance

Note: This post was originally posted on No Unsacred Place in 2011, and then later Paths Through the Forests. I am moving it over here to my personal blog at http://www.thegreenwolf.com/blog so I can have more of my writings in one place.

Ecopsychology: the psychology of how we relate to the natural environment, and the therapeutic application of the restorative qualities of nature.

When I enrolled in a counseling psychology Master’s degree program in 2008, the single biggest magnet for me was the series of three ecopsychology courses that were offered. I had read Bill Plotkin’s Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World, which explained human psychological development in part through one’s relationship with nature.

Through three straight semesters, I learned the basics of ecopsychology and who some of the key figures were; I also explored how to incorporate a client’s relationship to nature in their therapy, along with family history, spirituality, and other important parts of the client’s experience. I even spent four days out in the woods with other students learning hands-on wilderness therapy techniques. (I also gave a presentation on how Alan Moore’s run of the Swamp Thing comic book could be used in ecotherapy, but that’s a story for another time.)

Not surprisingly, I discovered much that enhanced my neopaganism. Furthermore, I saw a wealth of material that could be relevant to neopaganism in general, as well as elements of neopaganism and related paths that could enhance the development and practice of ecopsychology. I wasn’t the first person to make the connection of course; on the contrary, some of the very foundational concept of ecopsychology are quite relevant to nature-based paganisms.

Here are just a few of the salient points:

–Ecopsychology helps to explore and understand the development and maintenance of a nature-friendly mindset.

Why do we enjoy being out in the wilderness? What is it that makes us respond better to a tree than a live plasma-screen movie of the same tree?(1) What are the effects of disconnection of nature, both on an individual and systemic basis? Ecopsychologists seek to not only find answers to these questions, but to utilize the information in helping clients achieve better states of mental health. Many pagans are already familiar with the relaxation that can result from a weekend spent camping, or the difference between an indoor and outdoor ritual; ecopsychology provides additional insight as to why we may feel that way.–Ecopsychology sets the individual firmly within the context of the ecosystem they are a part of, human and otherwise.

One of the criticisms that ecopsychologists have of much of modern therapy is that while the average therapy intake form asks clients about their family members, significant others, home life past and present, and other human relationships, it doesn’t ask about the client’s relationship to nature. As psychology, particularly applied in counseling, takes an increasingly systemic view of people and their mental health, research and anecdotal evidence alike deny the (particularly American) ideal of the “rugged individualist”. Rather than an island, each person is part of an interconnected greater system, and the natural world is a part of that. Ecopsychology gently reminds us that our very minds and perceptions are inextricably linked to our environment, something that many neopagans have been living consciously for years.

–Ecopsychology meshes well with nature-based religion.

From its inception in the late 20th century, ecopsychology has always been closely entwined with spirituality, especially (though not exclusively) nature-based spiritual and religious paths. Even the anthology Ecopsychology, which came out in 1995 and is considered one of the foundational texts of the subject, included an essay by Leslie Gray entitled “Shamanic Counseling and Ecopsychology”. Whether theistic or not, spirituality is an intrinsic part of the right-brained tendencies of ecopsychology, and paths ranging from neopaganism to Catholicism(2) have been explored within ecopsychological writings.

–Ecopsychology lends itself well to ritual practices.

Joanna Macy and John Seed’s Council of All Beings rite, and Mary Gomes’ Altars of Extinction(3), are just two of many examples of how ecopsychology has delved into ritual as a way of healing and processing the profound level of grief many feel at the destruction of the environment. Ecopsychologists recognize ritual as a structured way for clients to process and work through life experiences past and present; additionally, as many neopagan rituals tend to be focused on the bright, celebratory side, an exploration of the processing of grief may be valuable to our spiritual communities.

As you can see, just in these few examples there are plenty of areas of overlap between ecopsychology and neopagan interests and practices. Our relationship to the world, to include that expressed in spirituality, depends heavily on our perceptions and cognitions; we cannot experience and interpret what is around us without the filters of our senses and our thoughts. Ecopsychology is a formal, though often quite organic, exploration of that relationship between personal microcosm and universal macrocosm.

1. There’s a great study done a few years ago that demonstrated just that; you can read the paper that resulted at http://faculty.washington.edu/pkahn/articles/520_kahn.pdf

2. During my first ecopsych course, one of the co-authors of the excellent text, Care for Creation: A Franciscan Spirituality of the Earth, spoke at one of the classes. Those readers with a particular interest in interfaith dialogue may be interested in the book, though it’s an enlightening read in general.

3. The Altars of Extinction project was featured in issue #96 of Reclaiming Quarterly: http://www.reclaimingquarterly.org/96/96-altarextinct.html

Did you enjoy this post? Please consider supporting my work on Patreon, buying my art and books on Etsy, or tipping me at Ko-fi!

[raichukfm]

To a confused anon: I’m here to offer my assistance, as best I can. As a fair warning, I have a bad habit of shoving my foot right in my mouth and coming off as an ass, but I promise that’s not what’s intended here. Also, I spent a lot of words on all this. If you don’t want to read a lot of words, scroll down past the break a bit and read the bolded bit, because that’s the most important part, I think. Also, anybody seeing this because they’re following me, this is here to show somebody else, so you can read it if you want but keep that in mind I guess.

Step one, as I am a real trans woman who happens to be gay, I can speak pretty authoritatively that this is gay. Because I’m a woman, and I like women. So it’s gay when I like cis women, and equally as gay as when I like trans women. If I hypothetically liked a cis man or a trans man, that wouldn’t be gay, and also I’d find out I was bi I suppose. If I liked someone that wasn’t a man or a woman I’m not really sure what word I’d use for that, but that’s not really the point. Sexuality, sexual orientation, and sexuality are complicated things. But, generally, what you are attracted to is someone’s gender. You may also be attracted to their sex, or you might not. It’s possible to be attracted to someone’s sex and not their gender. It’s possible to be attracted to someone because of an incorrect perception of their gender. It can be messy; real life is messy. Generally, people will define their own sexual identity in regards to their gender, because that’s what most people care more about in their identity. Usually, that aligns with sex, which is pretty cool, but when it doesn’t for someone, the person generally thinks of themselves as that gender that they are. That’s... kinda the point. So, if you were exclusively attracted to women, you would think yourself straight if you’re a man, and lesbian if you’re a woman, regardless of if you were cis or trans. Similarly, most people are attracted to gender; specifically, gender presentation. It’s by definition more visible than gender identity or sex, and also coincides with both, most of the time, though it can coincide with only one or neither, in other cases. You sort of have to learn or infer those. However, people don’t only care about gender presentation. (Okay, some people probably do.) Which has two major components: 1. People almost always care about a potential partner’s gender identity. It’s just a basic interpersonal thing, even if it doesn’t impact one’s preferences. And if there is a preference, it’s not necessarily a dealbreaker, but... If you like men, then finding out someone you find attractive is actually a woman would probably tamp that down a bit. For one, they are likely (although not necessarily) going to adapt their presentation to be less masculine in the future, but even beyond that... They’re a woman. That in itself can put you off. It’s also possible for that to interface with romantic attraction more than sexual attraction. And that’s okay. A good thing to keep in mind is that your feelings are just feelings. It’s possible for them to go against your self-concept, or have unfortunate implications. Feelings aren’t conscious beliefs. So if you’re attracted to someone for their sex, but aren’t attracted to their gender identity, that’s just an awkward coincidence. No more, no less. Don’t let it get to you, and don’t be a creep or jerk about it. If someone’s gender identity changes, or they come out to you as a different identity than you had previously thought, and that’s not congruent with your sexual or romantic orientation, that’s okay. It can definitely be worthwhile to stick together and see if it works out, because it genuinely might. But it’s also entirely legitimate to split up because of it. The thing is, if this was someone who you cared about, that shouldn’t go away even if your attraction does, so be kind and supportive. They might need distance, or you might, I’m no relationship expert, but do your best to help both of you through something like that. 2. People often care about a potential partner’s sex. This is not a controversy-free take, but it is entirely legitimate to be attracted or not attracted to a sex regardless of gender. That’s fine. Feelings are feelings. There is however, as in all things, an onus not to be a jackass about it. If you are attracted to cis women, but not attracted to trans women, just treat them decently, and turn them down nicely when you must. If you’re attracted to cis men, but not attracted to trans men, just treat them decently and turn them down nicely when you must. If you have a strong preference for or against a certain kind of genitalia or other sexual characteristic, that’s legitimate. But if you’re together with someone and then find out they’re not what you’re attracted to in some respect, you still have to be a good person about it. You don’t owe anybody affection, romance, or sex, but you have to be decent. That goes for physical features the same way it goes for habits, beliefs, anything else. I think what leaf brought up with the fetishizing thing is that a lot of the time the people who (loudly) care about a trans person’s sex treat this as, well, a fetish. And while I think it’s fine to fetishize whatever, a lot of the time that fetishization of a concept involves treating real, actual people shittily, reducing them to objects or . It’s not an inherent quality to caring about someone’s sex I use “care about” a bit broadly there, such that it doesn’t necessarily mean “have a preference about”, because some people genuinely don’t have preferences about gender identity, or about sex, or about either, but still wouldn’t really disregard those. This is maybe muddying the water a tad, but oh well. This is mostly focused on binary gender identities, because the whole straight/gay etc. terminology is mostly focused on those, but the general principles also include nonbinary people. I’d elaborate, but I think it’s pretty straightforward how they fit in. The short of it: If you’re attracted to someone, whether that attraction would be classified as “straight” or “gay” is most respectfully contingent on your respective gender identities. It may be useful to understand your own sexual attraction as contingent on the other person’s gender presentation or sex instead, when it’s not congruent with their gender identity, but I’d stress that’s only for understanding your own feelings. Whatever horny part of your brain might not get the relevant nuance, but you’re a whole intellect, so you don’t get that excuse. If you’re romantically/sexually attracted to somebody you intellectually wouldn’t consider a romantic/sexual partner, that doesn’t invalidate your orientation, but it doesn’t invalidate their identity, either. That’s a bit long for something I’m calling “the short of it” but brevity has never been among my skills. As for another point that apparently came up in asks, about the very nature of gender identity as a thing, I’m going to do my best to crack that nut. I think there is a very simple case to be made: Gender identities exist. If you ask someone, there’s a likely chance they’ll feel pretty strongly that they have one. They might tell you they’re a man, or a woman, or something else. People who don’t believe they have a gender will probably feel fairly strongly that they don’t have one. Even people who don’t believe in transgender or nonbinary people almost always believe in this, even if they want to call it something else. Your gender identity is the gender, if any, that you identify as. We’re just defining the term as that. It turns out, people generally tend to identify with genders (or at least sexes), so we have a term that refers to an idea and correlates with observed reality, so... We have a real thing! Score! I belabored the point a bit, but that’s just the thing. The argument against transgender or nonbinary people tends to be that gender identity isn’t a real thing, that it’s denying reality, or that it’s . But... You can verify it exists. It has to. And it doesn’t obey any restriction to only being two genders, because you can see a sizeable amount of people whose stated identities don’t obey that restriction. I mean, you can disbelieve this, you can think essentially everyone is lying, but that’s a bit of a reality denial position. So the question isn’t “Does gender identity exist?”, because that question has an answer you can’t actually reasonably deny. The question is “Does gender identity matter?” and, um... Again, I’ll invoke the argument that most people care about it. Cisgender people usually care about their gender identity, including those that think it inextricably linked to their sex. Transgender people certainly care about it. What grounds is there to think it doesn’t matter? The arguments I see all tend to rest on this assumption that this is a made up thing, but... It’s not, as earlier stated. It’s based on thinking gender identity must necessarily align with sex, but; you have to just arbitrarily assume that; there’s no justification for this other than it appears to be obviously true to some people. But “It’s obvious, duh” isn’t really an argument. “It’s basic biology” also isn’t an argument. Sex is a fairly basic biological idea, although it’s itself considerably more complicated than just XX chromosomes = biologically female and XY chromosomes = biologically male. But gender identity is a thing to do with your mind. Ergo, it’s your brain, and as it happens, that’s considerably more advanced biology. There’s no obvious reason why a mental self-conception should necessarily correlate with biological sex, and the observable evidence doesn’t point to such a necessary correlation, since transgender and nonbinary people exist. Given that gender identity exists and people care about it, I think there’s a pretty clear case to make that you should respect other people’s gender identities: They want you to. It’s kind. It’s at best rude not to do it, and being rude is one of those things generally agreed to be bad. It’s a whole archetypical way for things to be considered bad, in fact. Any argument in good faith based on psychology will pretty easily come to the conclusion that it should be respected, because that’s the field consensus. The studies show it helps people deal with gender dysphoria to be treated as the gender they identify as. All the anecdotal evidence in the world is there to show you people overwhelming prefer to be treated as the gender they identify as. And the utilitarian counterarguments are... that it poses logistical issues? That’s okay, those can be addressed. That it makes some people uncomfortable or annoyed? It’ll probably be easier for them to get over that and adjust to the way things are. That accepting it will lead to some disastrous consequences? Well that’s... I mean it’s already largely accepted. Last I heard, there hasn’t been any disastrous wave of disastrous consequences here to foreshadow the coming storm. So, to put this aside, if you don’t understand gender identity: That’s okay. It’s messy, but relatively simple. People feel like they are a certain gender, and want to be accepted and treated as that gender. (Or feel they have no gender and want to be accepted and treated accordingly.) That’s the same for cis and trans people. Whether or not that gender correlates to any physical or biological feature in them isn’t really the point of it, because it’s a mental thing. No physical part of you directly correlates to what your name is, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t important to you, for instance. (And, as a last note, if you’ve seen a statistic that the rate of suicide attempts don’t fall after one transitions, it’s being grossly misrepresented. Every time I have seen that with its actual source given, if you follow said source, you find the statistic is from a question being asked about whether the person ever attempted suicide in their life. So, someone who was suicidal pre-transition who lost those suicidal tendencies after transitioning would still answer “yes”, and thus be marked down as such and post-transition. Therefore, the fact that the percentage was roughly the same for pre- and post-transition people says exactly jack shit about the effectiveness or lackthereof of transitioning for suicidal ideation. Every other piece of evidence I’ve seen points to transitioning, and more generally affirming someone’s gender, helps with the negative effects of gender dysphoria. Of course, don’t listen to me. Look it up. But I implore you, basically never trust someone’s summary of the research, at least not totally; the media all too often sucks at summarizing science, and average people are often worse, and that’s without an ideological axe to grind. Find the source if you can. You don’t necessarily have to read the whole thing, but check the abstract or such. As an example, I had a college textbook claim that “Women use their whole brain during conversations, while men use only half”, with a citation to an I think Wired article that restated a BBC website article that incredibly poorly reported on a paper that was actually about putting people in MRI machines listen to books on tape. Women had more activity across both hemispheres of the brain while men had activity more centered around one. It was about strokes and how signals travel across the brain, not communication. Professionals can cock stuff up bad. I’m not saying “Don’t trust the news” or “Don’t trust anybody”, but it doesn’t hurt to check into things as much as you can, and that goes doubly so for research and science.)