#but i do love them experiencing girlhood together and the only ones that remember are Nancy Jonathan Will and Mike

[jonathanbyersphd]

Childhood besties Chrissy Cunningham and Nancy Wheeler is real to me even if there's no canonical evidence

[rataltouille]

[start id / a photo of a bronze-coloured statue on a brown background facing a golden globe of yellow-white light. over the image, in serif font, is the text “a million homes and none of them is yours” / end id]

A MILLION HOMES AND NONE OF THEM IS YOURS: WIP INTRO

[this is my original work, do not use / repurpose / plagiarise in any form]

GENRE: literary fiction with speculative elements / fabulism [aka a Vibe]

SETTING: south india / a weird other dimension.

FORM: second-person pov, present tense. told in vignettes that are sometimes poems, sometimes recipes, sometimes full scenes and sometimes a single chunk of fancy description.

STAGE: drafting. expected wc: 30k.

TONE: harsh, quiet, seething.

THEMES + AESTHETICS: girlhood vs motherhood, freedom, fear of change, the feeling of missing something you’ve never experienced. red lights, nights with no moon, dimly lit motel rooms, reaching for something and finding only air, dust hanging in abandoned rooms, endless roads, dark forests, silence.

CONTENT WARNING: toxic relationships, intense discussions of motherhood and pregnancy, violent thoughts and mentions of death.

SYNOPSIS:

When a young college student returns to her hometown on her mother’s request, she doesn’t expect to stay long, doesn’t expect to be wanted back permanently, doesn’t expect her mother to be freshly pregnant and doesn't expect to learn that her father has been dead for days—her mother selfishly keeping the news from her. Mid-confrontation, the earth below their feet splits open and the two find themselves in a strange, red-tinted world with eerie sounds and skies with no suns. With a mere two weeks left until the mother’s child is due, the two must work together to navigate their way out and back home, whether it knits them closer or cleaves them apart.

aka what i refer to as “mommy issues: the novella”

CHARACTERS:

[start id / a collage of three pictures placed horizontally next to each other. first image is a shot of two hands reaching for each other against a grey backdrop; second image is plain white with black serif text that reads “the daughter”; third image is a shot of a city at night with silhouette of buildings, the central building illuminated in golden lights / end id]

THE DAUGHTER

our second person narrator!

tfw when you think you’re the shit but also you hate yourself

moral compass is messed up oops [understatement]

all she wants is stability in life but life said fuck you babe

don’t think she sleeps for more than three hours a day actually

is a med student! decided she’d be working to be an obstetrician because it ties in with motherhood and i’m pretentious like that

mitski album of her life is be the cowboy

[start id / a collage of three pictures placed horizontally next to each other. first image is a shot of someone’s hands on a windowsill looking at a sparse garden; second image is plain white with black serif text that reads “the mother”; third image is a shot of a road at night with parked cars and yellow lamposts / end id]

THE MOTHER

that one judgemental aunt in your family

why?? does she keep lying??? for what joy??? i’d love to know

no chill whatsoever but this def runs in the family

does she actually know she’s a person whose actions have consequences? idk, she makes good food though

accidentally started associating her with crabs after drafting this one scene and it is such an image to live with actually

aggressively atheist [we stan]

mitski album of her life is lush

[start id / a photo of a woman standing in a dark room facing a beam of light that illuminates the top half of her face. over the image, in serif font, is the text “You’re both so similar that it prickles. You know she thought you an anchor. You know she needs to touch skin to believe she’s real. You know she’s just as lonely as you. You hope.” / end id]

AN EXCERPT: She almost smiles at you. You almost smile back. You don’t remember when you stopped making jokes out of everything or when she stopped laughing at them, don’t remember when you started pushing limits to see how far you’re truly allowed to reach, to snap, to be, and when she started letting you, started seeing you as another body in her house, started thinking of you in portions rather than person, started touching her neck and face and heart on Sunday mornings with the curtains still up and the windows still whispering from the night draft to convince herself that at least she’s a real. You’re both so similar that it prickles. You know she thought you an anchor. You know she needs to touch skin to believe she’s real. You know she’s just as lonely as you. You hope.

and that’s all for now!! i literally impulse started this wip a month ago and it’s been super fun because the only rules here were that there were no rules and the story can suck as much as i want, which is something my perfectionist brain really needs. here’s the tag for everything about this project and here’s the playlist. you can send me an ask if you’d like to be added to my taglist !

[cruelangelstheses]

the path to girlhood

fandom: love live! rating: T characters: rin hoshizora, hanayo koizumi words: 3.9k additional tags: character study, au, trans girl rin, bullying, internalized transphobia, high school description: rin struggles to accept herself at her new school when she discovers a love for dancing. a/n: hello hello!! i wrote this a little over a month ago and decided to finally polish it and post it! this au is pretty similar to canon except that they’re just regular high school girls and not idols. i promise it’s not as angsty as the tags make it seem!! i will never write write a fic in which rin hoshizora is cis. happy pride to my fellow Transes of Gender <3 title comes from kururin miracle aka rin’s Trans Song. i love her so much. that's my fuckign daughter

read it on ao3

—

On the first day of high school, Rin Hoshizora goes to school in a skirt.

She hasn’t worn one out in public since she was a child, having resigned herself to hiding inside hoodies and sweatpants. As she wanders the unfamiliar hallways, Rin tries not to be conscious of the way some of her peers sneak curious glances at her from behind notebooks or open locker doors. If nothing else, she hopes the button on her backpack—a striped flag of pink, white, and blue—will be enough to clue them in, if any of them even know what it symbolizes.

Last month, Rin’s parents successfully enrolled her into the local but relatively well-regarded Otonokizaka Academy for Girls, mainly thanks to “proof” from her doctor that she has, in fact, started taking hormones and that she is, in fact, a Real Trans Girl, whatever that means. It’s an old, impressive school with plenty of extracurriculars and classes to choose from, and her best friend, Hanayo, goes there, too. Most importantly, though, it’s a chance to reinvent herself, to meet new people who don’t know her dead name��to make a statement, simply by wearing the Otonokizaka uniform and sitting in an Otonokizaka classroom, that says, I am a girl just as you are.

So far, it doesn’t feel quite as empowering as she thought it would.

Instead, she feels like a newborn baby, cut from the umbilical cord of the closet, naked and confused as she’s thrust into a strange new world. There’s no turning back now, no chance to abort the mission. All she can do is step forward into the light, with all the beauty and danger that it brings.

—

When Rin steps into her homeroom class, a soft, familiar voice calls out, “Rin-chan!”

Hanayo jumps up out of her chair and scurries over, her red glasses bouncing on her face. Rin grins and wraps her arms around her, squeezing her tightly, and for just a moment, she forgets about the rest of the world. There’s nothing outside this classroom, nothing outside her best friend’s warm embrace.

Rin opens her mouth to say something, anything—a how have you been or a help me please I don’t know if I can do this—but she doesn’t get the chance, because then the bell rings, and the homeroom teacher strides into the room. In a flurry, the students rush to their desks. Hanayo has saved a seat for Rin in the back, right next to her, and Rin sighs in relief as she slides into the chair.

While the teacher introduces herself, Rin scans the room, searching for any sign of a reaction from her classmates. Most of them are facing forward, listening or at least pretending to listen to the teacher. One girl sitting a few seats away pokes her friend on the shoulder and gestures to Rin. “Wow,” she mutters, just loud enough that it’s clear she wants Rin to hear it. “They’ll let anyone in this school, huh?”

Rin’s face heats up, and she quickly looks away, down at her empty notebook. In an attempt to seem nonchalant, she pulls a pen out of her pencil case and starts doodling a cat to distract herself. She likes her short hair—it’s cute and easy to manage, and it doesn’t get in her face when she’s playing sports—but suddenly she wishes it were longer so she could hide behind it. That probably wouldn’t work too well, though—before long, she’s sure her peers will be able to recognize her just by her decidedly unfeminine frame.

“Psst,” Hanayo whispers, and Rin turns her head to look at her. Hanayo props up her notebook horizontally. On an otherwise clean page, she’s written in pretty, curly handwriting, I believe in you! with little hearts all around it.

Rin flashes her a tiny smile and mouths a thank-you, but she still can’t shake the feeling that everything about her is wrong. Her knees are too knobby, her handwriting isn’t neat enough, her voice is too loud. She feels like a randomized Sim, like someone just threw together a collection of traits and lumped them all into a person. She’d like to give the spirits a “You Tried” sticker.

—

Rin likes talking to people. She likes jumping in on a conversation about athletics or music or pets and talking about her favorite type of cat (orange tabbies, obviously) or her favorite sports (how could she choose just one?). She likes introducing herself to those who look shy or lonely—in fact, it’s how she met Hanayo. Today, though, she finds herself infuriatingly tongue-tied, stumbling over her words in a way she never has before. Though she attempts, as always, to appear friendly, most of the girls she talks to seem to be at least somewhat uncomfortable with or uninterested in her presence, as if they’re just waiting for her to go away. The last thing Rin wants is to make someone unhappy or upset, so once she senses that she isn’t quite welcome in a particular group or conversation, she politely withdraws from it.

When Rin walks into the bathroom, all the girls that were hanging out and doing their makeup immediately grab their things and leave.

Rin overhears a few more rude comments throughout the day, but no one is overly confrontational. She finds herself pondering over girls and the way they show aggression—how girls who speak disparagingly about others behind their backs are referred to as “catty,” while physical fights between girls are often called “catfights.” Either way, aggressive or passive-aggressive, dealing in physical damage or emotional, girls are consistently compared to cats. It’s unfair to cats, Rin thinks, to associate them only with animosity and violence. Cats can be sweet and loving, too. Cats wouldn’t hate her just for wearing skirts or referring to herself as a “she.”

“Rin-chan,” Hanayo says later that day when they walk home from school together, “are you going to join any clubs or activities? They’ve got a lot of sports.”

“I might do soccer,” Rin replies, “and maybe basketball in the winter. But I’ll have to try it out first to see if I like it.”

Hanayo raises an eyebrow but says nothing. Rin loves soccer; they both know she loves soccer. What Rin’s really saying is, I’ll have to see if I’m treated in a way that deters me from playing.

“Well, if you don’t like it,” Hanayo says delicately, “you could do other sports that aren’t team-oriented. There’s track and cross-country. And there’s dance.”

“Dance?” Rin repeats. “What makes you think I’d be any good at that?”

“Well, you’re so coordinated, and you have really good stamina,” Hanayo says, twirling a strand of light brown hair. “And you like music. It looks like it’d be really fun.”

“You should do it, then,” Rin says, not unkindly.

Hanayo chuckles sheepishly. “I’d like to, but I’ve been too nervous to go by myself. Maybe you could come with me? Just to the first couple of meetings.”

Rin frowns. It’s not that she dislikes the idea of dancing, necessarily; she’s just never considered it. Dancing is for pretty girls with limbs as pliable as putty and skin softer than rose petals, not a scrappy little transgender tomboy with scraped-up knees and a finger that didn’t heal properly because she took it out of the splint before she was supposed to. Dancing is for girls who would never be mistaken for boys.

“The people there seem really nice,” Hanayo adds. “And I’ll be with you, remember?”

After a few moments, Rin finds herself nodding slowly. “Okay,” she says, trying to picture herself dancing to pop music or classical arrangements. It doesn’t quite feel right. “But if it falls on the same day as soccer, I’m choosing soccer.”

—

At the first soccer practice, they have a scrimmage against one another. It’s a perfect chance for Rin to show her teammates what she can do, to earn their trust and start to build camaraderie just like when she played on boys’ teams. Within the first few minutes of the mock game, however, it becomes abundantly clear that most of the girls have no interest in establishing a rapport with her. Some shift uncomfortably whenever she’s near. Others, especially those on defense, play particularly aggressively with her, pressing so close to her that they almost touch, nearly shoving her out of the way, or “accidentally” kicking at her heels when attempting to steal the ball from her. Nearly all of them seem to refuse to pass her the ball, even when she’s wide open, and even though she’s one of the fastest and most experienced members, so that the only times she ever actually manages to get it are when she steals it from the other side. The coach claps whenever Rin scores a goal, but hardly anyone else does, and it only seems to be out of politeness.

At the end of the practice, Rin is about ready to fall over in exhaustion, but not in a good way. She doesn’t think she’s ever had to work so hard in her life to try to make people like her, or at least play nice with her.

Hanayo texts her that evening. How’d it go?

Not great :-( I think I’ll come with you tomorrow to the dance club, Rin responds.

Hanayo’s reply comes a few seconds later. Oh no I’m so sorry!! Tomorrow will be better I promise!!

Rin sighs and flops down on her bed. “I sure hope so,” she mumbles to no one as she stares blankly across the room. A dress she bought online hangs on her closet door, unworn.

—

The room used for the dance club is similar to a gymnasium, except that it’s smaller and has walls made entirely of mirrors. When Rin steps out onto the hardwood floor and sees a few other girls chatting in the center of the room with a dance instructor, her chest tightens.

Beside her, Hanayo takes a deep breath. “I’m nervous, too,” she says, taking Rin’s hand in her own. “But we’re here together.”

They amble up to the small group, and the dance instructor turns to them with a smile. “Oh! It’s so good to see some new faces,” she says. “You can call me Miyazaki-sensei.”

“Hi,” Rin and Hanayo say in unison. They both giggle nervously.

���Hey, there’s no need to be nervous!” says a spunky girl with a side ponytail. “Anyone can learn to dance. I’m living proof! Plus it’d make great material for the talent show!”

Rin and Hanayo exchange glances. “Talent show?” Rin says.

“Yeah!” the girl says. “Every year right before summer break, the school holds a talent show. Anyone can enter! It’s really fun! Last year Kotori-chan, Umi-chan, and I performed as a trio,” she gestures to the other two girls in the room, “and we’re hoping to do it again this year! Sign-ups should be—uhhh, Umi-chan, when are the sign-ups again?”

One of the girls, Umi, sighs in exasperation, but there’s a hint of a smile on her face. “Two Mondays from now. So not this coming Monday, but the one after that.”

“Great!” says the ponytail girl. Turning back to Rin and Hanayo, she adds, “Are you two friends? You should perform as a duo! It would be so cute! I bet I could find the perfect song for you guys—”

Miyazaki holds up a hand. “Why don’t we see if they actually enjoy it first, hm?” she says, amused.

First, they go around and introduce themselves. Miyazaki and the other girls seem nice enough; in fact, Rin thinks she saw Honoka, the ponytail girl, smile and wave at her as she walked into Otonokizaka on the first day of class. She appears to just love and accept everyone; her sincerity is almost childish, but charming nonetheless.

Then they get into the dancing. The three other girls, all second years, seem to know what they’re doing when it comes to planning their performance, so Miyazaki spends most of her time teaching Rin and Hanayo some simple moves to a handful of familiar pop songs.

Slowly, Rin can’t help but unfold. The satisfaction that blooms in her chest whenever she gets a move right, when she shifts her body perfectly to the rhythm of the music, is such a pleasant shock to her system that she feels herself letting her guard down, opening up. She and Hanayo laugh whenever they screw up a step, and no matter how many times they fail, Miyazaki’s patience and attentiveness never waver. When Rin glances over at the other girls, she finds them completely absorbed in their practice; only occasionally does she notice any of them looking her way, and when they do, it’s not with the piercing eyes of judgment, but the joy of sharing in something they love. In this room, Rin doesn’t have to worry about how others see her. She can just be.

—

Hanayo and Rin attend every dance rehearsal together. It’s a small, close-knit group, and even though they aren’t all working together on the same exact thing, Rin can feel that sense of camaraderie that she’s been missing. They’re all constantly looking to improve, to try new things, to create something lively and beautiful. The world is their canvas, their bodies the brushes, the music the paint. For Rin, dancing becomes an unexpected refuge. In the dance room, no one throws crumpled-up papers at her head or tries to trip her down the stairs; no one whispers ugly words in her ear as she walks by.

After hours of deliberation on both their parts, and a lot of convincing (read: begging) on Honoka’s part, Rin and Hanayo decide to take her suggestion and sign up for the talent show as a dancing duo. Honoka apparently spends an inordinate amount of time picking out the perfect song for them, an upbeat tune from an upcoming idol about accepting oneself. “Trust me,” she says, “the audience will love it. Idols are all the rage these days.”

Rin suspects that Honoka picked it out on purpose for its lyrics, but for what it’s worth, it is a catchy song, the kind of song that makes Rin want to jump up and dance whenever she hears it. Luckily for her, that’s exactly what she’s going to do.

Miyazaki helps them come up with the choreography, and they spend the next few months working avidly to perfect it. Even on weekends, they often meet up at one of their houses and practice for hours. Only if they feel that they did the best they possibly could will either of them feel comfortable enough to get up onstage and let hundreds of potentially unforgiving eyes gaze upon them.

Every once in a while, a particularly nasty comment or incident will give Rin pause, and she’ll feel an almost overwhelming urge to beg Hanayo to let them drop out of the talent show. She wouldn’t do that, though; she’d never want to force her best friend to turn her back on an opportunity just for her. Besides, she’ll be okay as long as Hanayo is there with her.

—

The day before the talent show, Hanayo isn’t in school.

During lunch, Rin calls her in a panic in one of the bathroom stalls. “What’s going on?” she hisses. “Our final rehearsal is tonight! Where are you?”

“I have pneumonia,” Hanayo replies.

Rin feels like the floor is falling out from underneath her. Words crowd in her mouth, but all that comes out is, “In summer?”

Hanayo chuckles halfheartedly. “Yeah. I think I got it from my grandfather. You know his immune system isn’t the best. I don’t think I’ll be able to—” She breaks off into a fit of coughing. “I can’t come tonight. I don’t think I’ll be able to perform tomorrow. I went to the doctor yesterday after school, and he says I need to rest until the antibiotics start working.”

Rin recalls the past few days, how Hanayo had been coughing for a little while and seemed more out of breath than usual. She’d hoped it was just a cold, that it would go away in no time. Now Hanayo is sick in bed, her lungs filled with fluid, and they’re scheduled to perform tomorrow.

“Kayo-chin, I—I can’t do it on my own,” she says, her heart starting to race at the thought of standing alone on that stage.

“Sure you can,” Hanayo says. “Just…finish the school day and then go to rehearsal. I’m sure Miyazaki-sensei can help you out.” Then she hangs up before Rin has the chance to argue.

The rest of her classes are a blur. Her mind spins with worst-case scenarios, and her hands shake too much for her to even try to doodle. She speaks to no one, afraid that if she opens her mouth, nothing coherent will come out.

As soon as the dismissal bell rings, Rin snatches her things and races down the hall to the dance room. Her hands are so full that she kicks the door open with her foot.

Miyazaki flashes a smile at her, but it quickly dissipates once she sees the look on her face. “What’s wrong?”

Rin drops her things on the floor against the wall. “Kayo-chin’s sick,” she says breathlessly. “Pneumonia. She can’t perform tomorrow. We have to drop out. I can’t do it without her; we have to drop out—”

Miyazaki holds up both her hands. “Whoa, whoa, slow down. Deep breaths, okay? We’ll figure it out.”

Rin nods reluctantly and tries to steady her breathing. She hears the door open and close behind her, and then Honoka says, “Where’s Hanayo-chan?”

“She’s sick,” Miyazaki says calmly. “Rin’s probably going to have to perform by herself tomorrow.”

“Oh dear,” Kotori says. “I hope she gets better soon.”

“Rin-chan can do it, though!” Honoka says. “We’ve all seen her in action. She’ll do great!”

Rin shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

“It shouldn’t be too difficult,” Umi adds matter-of-factly. “You two were basically doing the same moves, right? It’s not like you were ballroom dancing. You won’t have to change much of the choreography to turn it into a solo act. And we can help you.”

Rin shakes her head again, faster. “It’s not that. I’m not worried about how I’ll do. I’m worried about how it’ll look. I’m not one of those pretty girls everyone loves. I’m different. And everyone’s eyes will be on me and no one else. I’ll be the center of attention…and I just don’t know if I can deal with how they’ll react to that. It suits me to be a partner or a member of a group, so I can blend in more, so someone else can shine. I can’t be the girl who shines. Not like this.”

“Of course you can!” Honoka blurts. “People are afraid of what they don’t understand. But you’re a girl just like the rest of us. Now’s your chance to show everyone. You’re at the Otonokizaka Academy for Girls, aren’t you?”

“But I tried to show everyone,” Rin says, her shoulders slumping. “That’s what I thought going to this school would do. But people still treat me like I’m just too different for them. Like I’m a failed girl, like I’m the wrong kind of girl.”

It’s Miyazaki who speaks up next.

“Then that’s their problem,” she says, “not yours. There’s no such thing as a ‘wrong kind of girl.’ There are girls with short hair and girls who love sports and girls who like to work on cars and girls who wear tuxedos and girls who like to build things—and girls who were mistakenly raised as boys. And the sooner you come to terms with that, the sooner you can be free of what others think of you. People are going to judge you no matter what you do. So if dancing brings you joy, and you want to share that joy with other people, then I want you to dance your heart out on that stage tomorrow.”

For a moment, all is silent. Then Rin chuckles sheepishly. She’s right. Of course she’s right.

“Okay,” she says finally. “Who wants to help me touch up this choreography?”

—

It’s the day before summer break, and the air buzzes with excitement. Even from backstage, Rin can feel her classmates’ gazes from out in the auditorium. Her heart feels like it’s going to claw its way out of her chest and make a run for it, and part of her wants to follow suit. Deep down, though, she knows she’s ready. She’s worked as hard as she possibly could. She’s going to stay, and she’s going to perform like her life depends on it. She has to, for Hanayo.

Rin adjusts her earrings and checks her makeup one final time in the backstage mirror before Miyazaki pops her head in. “Honoka, Kotori, and Umi are almost done,” she says. “You’re up.”

Rin smooths out her dress, a cute pastel pink, the very same one she bought online over the winter. It’s her first time wearing it in public, and it fits her like the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle. She takes a deep breath and glances down at her phone, which glows brightly with a new text message from Hanayo. I believe in you!! it reads, followed by a bunch of heart emojis.

Rin smiles, then fixes the pink barrette in her hair and heads out to the curtain area.

Honoka, Kotori, and Umi are walking offstage when Rin arrives. “You’ll do great!” Honoka whispers to her as she walks by, giving her a brief, sweaty hug. Kotori claps enthusiastically, and Umi puts a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

“Up next,” the principal says from the sound box, “we have Rin Hoshizora!”

The crowd claps politely. Rin tries her best not to look at any of them as she ambles onto the stage; her focus is only on the music and her body.

When she hears the opening of the song, all the fear and self-consciousness that’s been building up in her seems to fade away, replaced by instinct and muscle memory. She knows how to do this. She’s been doing it multiple days a week for months now.

For most of the first verse, the crowd is silent, as if they aren’t quite sure what to make of her. Then, when she bounces across the stage as the song shifts into the chorus, a few people whoop and cheer, and that’s all Rin needs to keep herself moving, to let the melody carry her home. She’s never felt more beautiful, more purely and authentically her. There’s so much she often hates about her body, but right now, she’s thankful for everything that makes her up, from her long limbs to her rectangular frame. Dancing, she’s discovered, isn’t just for conventionally attractive cis girls. It’s for anyone, as long as they have the passion and the resolve.

Honoka was right about the song choice—by the end, some people are clapping and dancing along, even singing the parts that they know. When Rin finishes the song with a smile, a wink, and a pose, the crowd responds in raucous applause. More than a few people in the audience seem shocked, and several others are smirking, shaking their heads, or mumbling to each other.

And yet, Rin finds it doesn’t particularly bother her. She’s realized something about this sudden turnaround: their acceptance of her is conditional, but her happiness is not. If being herself makes others uncomfortable…well, that’s their problem, not hers.

[cactusjacked]

FFVIII fic, “Liberation”

Pre-game. Slightly AU. Lots of odd snippets of headcanon about the Forest Owls/Rinoa’s life in Galbadia/the animal liberationist movement in Dollet. 

Summary: Rinoa wants to be useful. She also wants a dog. 

She had never before experienced the sensation of wanting to be useful. 

 In her old world there had useful people everywhere. There had been valets and maids for doing her hair and maids for making her bed. There had been chauffeurs who never smiled, gardeners with dirt under their fingernails, cooks who made perfect toast. 

She tried to recall to her mind all the moments she had thanked the help, all the moments she made sure to refer to them by their first names or ask them how their day was going. She must have, she thought, must have. 

She had never wanted to be useful for him or for any other Caraway, or for the teachers at her school or even for the people who had somehow ended up as something like her friends but not really. It had been easy then to think of herself as everything her aunt or her ex-stepmother or in his darker moments her father had said she was: selfish, ungrateful, hateful, even. 

No, wait, there had been sitting by her mother by the piano, she had wanted to be useful then. But her mother was only humouring her by letting her turn the pages. She still couldn’t read music, but maybe she could learn, now, here. She didn’t suppose it’d be easy to get a piano through the door of the train carriage, though. 

And money, she chastised herself, pianos cost money, and you – we – have none here. 

She had already burned their shirts and saucepans. Hours of needlework lessons at school learning how to embroider flowers (lessons where she had was forever surly, argumentative) left her unequipped for shirt buttons and sock darning. Watts quietly and gently took over the job of polishing shoes, a task Rinoa had failed to appreciate the intricate labour of – just like she had with boiling lentils or making beds – until now. 

Revolutionaries did not need the skills acquired from years of immersive training in the delicate art of Galbadian girlhood. They did not want or need to know the right way to accept or decline a dinner invitation. They did not have to memorise the words to Vinzer Deling’s favourite folk songs just in case he showed up to a social gathering and demanded the young ladies crowd around the piano to amuse him. Nor did they have to know about Admiral Thibault’s womanising problem that no-one talked about but also very much did (though she knew it thrilled them all here to know the tawdry, hypocritical lives their beloved leaders led). 

No-one is here to make you a housewife, Zone told her, just pull your weight.

Some days she felt brave enough to participate in their study groups. She spent evenings familiarising herself with the illicit canon of essays, pamphlets, books, revolutionary songs. She learnt terms like eco-imperialism, resource imperialism (everything everything imperialism), ecocide, permaculture, food forestry, the military industrial complex, the carceral state. 

She was still afraid to go outside before dark. In the evenings they went gleaning for food disposed of by the restaurants she and her father had once patronised. She learnt to love the texture of stale bread and the soft, fermented flesh of over-ripe apples. She was no good at stealing, but learnt she was good at smiling and distracting the Galbadian business-owners the Owls deemed grew too fat from selling wine and cheese to tourists from Deling City. 

A girl from another faction donated her old boots to Rinoa - in her rush from the house the only shoes she had bought were her party ones, white satin with a heel not made for running. She would slide on her new-old boots and stamp hard on the soft ground of the railyard, laughing giddily at the idea of her father and her aunt and her ex-stepmother and her ballet teacher and her friends watching her climbing deftly over old shipping containers and scraping her knees. 

The first time she is useful – or she at least thinks of herself, finally, as useful -- is because she stubbornly insists upon it. She is bored. She is still waited upon. She is still Rinoa Caraway. 

A group of animal liberationists from Dollet had been in contact with information about a new initiative in a military camp about ten miles east of the city. There was recent confirmation of a new experiment. The group had been involved before in the liberation of Geezards, who were being - unsuccessfully - trained to detonate remote explosives. This new weapon, however, was more cuddly.

 “Dogs.” Zone told her. “Attack dogs, specifically.” 

Her ex-stepmother had been allergic. Her father disinterested and non-committal about the idea of pets. She felt ten years old again when Zone told her, coveting the simple, uncomplicated companionship she felt would – must – exist between her and a dog. She had even collected editions of Pet Pals and shoved them under her father’s nose at the dinner table. 

“Look.” She had said, pointing to a page. “They’ve trained rescue dogs in the Trabian mountains to administer Phoenix Downs to people with hypothermia.”

 Had he thought, then, she wondered, had the idea begun to germinate in his mind? She felt unwell, the same kind of unwell she had first felt when Zone had told her about the Town Square Massacre during the end of the Second Sorceress War (had her father known that they would shoot into the crowd? Had he? Had he?) or the methods of torture used at D-District. 

“I’m going to come.” She announced. A panicked Zone recited the familiar list of reasons over why she absolutely should not come. 

“If they find you--” He started. 

“They won’t.” She said. “Please, Zone.” 

He looked at her as if they were children again, with her barraging in on his and Watts’ play the way she always did, demanding they find a place for her. They always had. 

“They want someone to record inside the facility.” He said. “You just hang back, okay? Stay outta shot. Follow our lead.” He paused for a second, bit his lip. “I meant what I said before, you know. There’s no condition to you being here. You don’t have to help us in our mission.” 

“What if I want to?” She asked. 

“You’re fifteen years old.” He said, only eighteen himself. “Just a few months ago you had no idea any of this existed.” 

She wanted to tell him that that was a lie. She wanted to think that her acts of rebellion – both large and small, both petty and serious -- against her father, her family, her school, even Vinzer had been for something beyond herself. Back then Zone and Watts were just childhood memories, servants’ boys who she had followed and pestered and then lost the same time it had felt like she had lost everything: her mother, the Timber house, her father. 

“And how old were you when you decided this is what you were meant to do? How old were you when you realised how wrong this all was?” She knew the answer. She knew it was the day Vinzer Deling had killed his father. There was no other answer he could give. Rinoa clutched the top of her arm and looked outside the train window, uncomfortable. “You know what I saw, what I went through, as his daughter. It was nothing compared to what people go through here, I know, but…” 

She heard him sigh. She watched Joly and Jehan outside smoking and playing dice under the washing line. Behind them stood the solid boundary of Argoat Forest. It would be autumn soon and she would have been here for three months, waiting for something or someone or somewhere to show her what to do with the rest of her life. Maybe all she needed was a dog. 

~ 

Rinoa accepts a cigarette from one of the Dollet Animal Liberationists even though she had promised herself she would quit because Rinoa Heartilly didn’t smoke. Rinoa Caraway’s last cigarette had been by patio doors of the Timber house as party music poured out into the night air. She had been wearing those satin shoes and the blue dress her aunt always insisted she wore around company. This Rinoa, though, wore sensible shoes designed for scaling chain-link fences and clothes that made her into shadow. 

They sketch out the outline of the base into the earth with a stick. Rinoa does her best to memorise the exit points and guard towers. There is an air of nervous anticipation she can feel between them all as they huddle together in the twilight. An owl hoots in the distance, and Rinoa chooses to take it as a good omen. 

“Rinoa, it’s okay if you want to wait in the van with Watts.” Zone whispers. She frowns and shakes her head and he grips her shoulder. 

She imagines the fence as one of the trees she and Zone used to climb in the grounds of the Timber house. She looks across and sees he is still beside her. They used to have races to climb to the top of the big oak. He wins now just as he did then, but here he is once more with a hand out for her. 

They keep low to the ground, dodging spotlights and sleepy, inattentive soldiers. The forest crowds around the camp, the sound of the wind through the leaves softens the noise of their footsteps on the gravel. Her back begins to hurt. Her comrades open control panels, begin fiddling with wires and keypads, muttering curses under their breath. 

She used to come with him on tours of these places, sometimes. Officials would hurry her father around and talk in squeaky, anxious voices. She used to try and pretend she was somewhere else. Her father didn’t trust her home alone - she had managed her way out of too many bolted windows and locked doors.

The largest members of the Forest Owls and the D.A.L – Bahorel and a Dollet man she knows only by his muddy yellow hair – swarm the lone soldier out for his cigarette break. He is slipped discreetly into a small closet and his keycard stolen, hands bound and mouth gagged. 

When they make their way through the back door of the kennel she is hit overwhelmingly by the scent of dog. She stands, dazed for a moment at the ugly bright fluorescent light, before remembering to switch on the camera. Everyone slips on their masks. They are old pantomime props from long ago showing faces of forest animals: bears, fawns, weasels, and, of course, owls. There is a faint smell of urine as the puppies begin to wake, whining and pacing in their cages. 

Zone and the D.A.L. leader stand shoulder to shoulder. Rinoa raises the camera. She knows Zone’s speech already, he had her sit and listen and critique him on his posture, his over-reliance on metaphor, the use of his hands.  

“We can see here the plain, naked brutality of the Galbadian Empire.” He began. “Not only do they corrupt and brutalise the minds and bodies of the soldiers under their command, but they extend their treatment to these innocent victims.” Someone hands him a puppy, who sits placidly in his arms. “Who gave these animals the choice to participate in their cruel regimes of violence against Timber, or against all who would seek to oppose their imperialistic dogma? This is only the first step in Timber’s liberation. Soon we liberate all of those who make their home on our soil!” 

His delivery is stifled in places, over-practiced. He is not really built for this, she knows. In another place and time Zone would have been a ticket inspector or a clerk in a timber yard, work where his awkwardness and anxious temperament would have proved no serious hindrance to him. But this is not that time. This is not that place. 

After the D.A.L leader’s speech – one that stresses the importance of direct action, of interspecies compassion -- she clicks off the camera. Zone thrusts the puppy into her arms. 

“What are you doing?” She asks. The small body wriggles against her chest. 

“It pissed on me! During my speech!” He replies, ripping off his mask. His face is flustered and he has been sweating. “Hyne this is a disgusting mission.” 

Rinoa bobs the puppy up and down in her arms. All around them littermates are being slipped into carriers covered with dark blankets. One of the D.A.L. goes to take the bundle from Rinoa’s arms, but she will not let them take it. No, not this one, she says. I’ll carry it.

[infinitheismworld]

Encourage-Self-Expression at a Young Age

The crankiness we see in every child is an expression of their growing years. A forced truncation of self-expression in infant hood, childhood, manhood – causes the premature death of that age and the premature delivery of the next one. Let us first satisfy the hunger of the heart before we choose to feed the mind.

It is one thing when the fruit ripens and drops by itself.  That is outgrowing.  It had lived its lifespan as a vegetable, outgrown into a fruit, ripened and now it has fallen to become a seed once again.  This is the natural process of growing and outgrowing.

It is totally another thing when you pluck the fruit from the tree.  Haven’t you seen that the tree then bleeds milk?  This bleeding is not just the bleeding of the tree, but the bleeding of life expressed through the tree.

Every facet has its own lifespan and any premature truncation of that phase causes this bleeding.  Aren’t we familiar with the terms premature delivery and premature death?  This isn’t just related to the birth of a child or the death of a person who died while still young! Any forced truncation of ‘hood’ — infanthood, childhood, boyhood/girlhood, manhood — is both, the premature death of the earlier ‘hood’ and the premature delivery of the next ‘hood’, and it causes bleeding in some form.

The tears of every human being are the external manifestation of an internal emotional bleeding.

A child wants to be like his dad and so he wants to wear full-length trousers and walk in papa’s shoes to appear like an adult.  Parents fight with children, insisting that they should only wear the clothes that they think are right for the children.

Parents take children for shopping and override the choices of their children in terms of what they think is right, not just the type of clothes but also the colours.  From hairband to earring to belt to footwear, everything is interfered with.

 Why can’t we allow our children to choose what they want to wear?  No, I am not speaking about westernisation!!  Even if you call it westernisation, why not?  After all, saris and dhotis expose the human body more than most western outfits.  Neither does modern wear make a person vulgar nor does traditional attire guarantee a pious person.  Dressing is just an expression of growing years.  Nothing more than that!

In one house, a seventeen-year-old boy wants to talk about sex.  In another house, another seventeen-year-old boy wants to know if God exists.  In the third house, another seventeen-year-old boy wants to build his muscles and look macho.

The intellect is flowering in these young-grown-ups and their intellectual curiosity is just an expression of their growing years; of course, their curiosity is in different fields.  If these expressions are not recognised at home, then they are going to meet at the roadside bunk shop.

One is not willing to speak on sex, the other finds the subject of ‘God’ boring and the third cares a damn about muscles.  But, now they have one another for each other.  As the subjects they want to discuss are not on common grounds, they need some other common interest to stand together and be able to discuss.  They either pick up a cigarette or meet at a bar; not because they want to smoke or drink but they want someone, who can recognise the expression of their growing years.

The girl has just attained puberty.  She is going through enormous changes physically and emotionally.  She wants to perpetually stand in front of the mirror and observe the changes in her body from all angles.  She is concerned about her looks.  She wants to speak about her emotions.  She is experiencing new cravings and wants to talk about it.

She is using new accessories that she is curious about.  These are expressions of her growing years.  If these expressions are not recognised at home, then she will befriend someone from the outside world, who is able to empathise with the expressions of her growing years.  And beware; she may even get exploited by that someone.

In one house, she had owned her son all her life and now the daughter-in-law has come to share her most treasured asset.  She is insecure.  In another house, where her daughter has got married and gone, life isn’t all that comfortable; but the daughter-in-law who has come to her house is enjoying all that her daughter used to enjoy.  She is envious.

Mothers, when they become mothers-in-law, need that bit of pampering and that extra dosage of acknowledgement that they are still at the helm.  If not, they go into all sorts of attention seeking tantrums.

He had an identity of his own as long as he was in the prime of his career.  The world looked up to him and he was proud of being a giver and not a receiver.  He is now in the evening of his life and he assumes that he won’t be respected anymore.

Independence to dependence, not necessarily financial but even physical and emotional, disturbs him a lot.  He needs a lot of reassurance and renewal of bondage.  If he does not get it, he goes into all that attention seeking crabbiness.

The crankiness we see in every child is an expression of their growing years.  You can resort to tough measures to regiment the child with admonishments to take control over the child.  The child may even sober down.  But remember, you will then have to face the carry-over of this crankiness into the youth-hood of that child, and be sure, you will find it even more difficult to handle it at that phase.

Any premature truncation of ‘hood’ continues to crave from within and they find expression in a later phase of life.  Premature weaning from breast-feeding finds expression in the child sucking her thumb.  Premature disciplining of a child finds expression in a very adamant boyhood.

Premature truncation of boyhood finds expression in a very indifferent teen.  Premature truncation of adolescence finds expression in a highly apathetic manhood.  Premature end to manhood finds expression in an attention seeking, nagging, forever-interfering and lecturing old age…

Allow the bud to bloom into a flower through the natural process and the flower looks so beautiful.  Instead, forcefully open the petals of the bud and create a forced flowering; now, you see, an artificial-looking flower looks, which not only looks ugly but even that poetic fragrance of the flower is missing.  The expression of every ‘hood’ during the ‘hood’ is so beautiful, natural and lively.

However, the expressions of one facet of life in a different facet of life become intolerable, unbearable and ugly.  If you cannot accept a crying child, how will you handle an apathetic man?  If you cannot accept the preferences of a girl, how are you going to handle the adamant woman?  Seed to plant, plant to tree, tree into flowering, flowering into a vegetable, vegetable into a fruit, from the fruit again the seeds… this is life.  Any intrusion turns it ugly.

Science has of course evolved a lot of short cuts and these short cuts may produce the successes we want, but they can only be bleeding successes and not blissful successes.  When you cross all the facades and masks of those celebrities and successful people, who had to relinquish these natural processes of growing, you find in all of them, oceans of tears concealed behind the shield of their achievements.

Their trade-offs have been very expensive.  They have traded themselves to become the labels they are known by.  In all, we have successfully created a successful but unhappy world.  The collective misery that we see in this world is nothing but the collective suppression of the expressions of the growing years.

The collective happiness that we see in this world, if any, is nothing but the collective expressions of the growing years of the fortunate few, who could go through the natural process of growing and outgrowing.

At every stage, we are standing on one pedestal of life and judging those on the other pedestals, and this has led to disharmony in relationships at a personal level and a disharmonious world at a global level.  At every age, we seem to suffer from amnesia about the phases we have passed through, and we aren’t matured enough to know about the expressions of those ahead of us.

Already having our life and its expressions to deal with, being lawyers yet, we act as immature and undeserving judges of others.

No, we do not have to be reckless or uncaring and just let others go through their own game.  Let us first confirm to them that we will always be there for them before we tell them where to go.  Let us first bathe them with our love before we begin to educate them.

Let us first satisfy the hunger of the heart before we choose to feed the mind.  Remember, the need to feel respected outweighs the need for growth; the need to be appreciated takes precedence over the need for advice; the need to be ‘what I want to be’ is a primary need, while the need to be ‘what you want me to be’ is only a secondary need.

[samwpmarleau]

ships that drank the sea

Rhaenys rises with the sun. It’s something Elia’s never been able to do herself, but even as a babe her daughter always preferred to wake at dawn rather than a more palatable hour. There had been wet nurses offering to take care of her to let Elia rest, but she wasn’t about to let some stranger nurse her child, rock her, care for her, she would not.

Though at least as a baby, Rhaenys could do little more than wail for attention. Now, she can escape from her room and run into Elia’s, then leap onto the bed with the energy only a five-year-old can harness. These days Elia expects to be awakened rudely, but it’s never gotten any less unpleasant. Especially when it’s accompanied by the damn cat who always seems to blame her for his mistress’s overexcitement. She has the claw marks to prove it, too.

“Darling, why don’t you go find your father? Or Grandmother?”

She’d been having a nice dream. It’s dwindled into nothing already, as dreams are wont to do; all she can remember is a voice, and a touch full of naught but desire.

“I want you, Mama,” Rhaenys complains. “And I’m hungry.”

Elia sighs. She may as well concede to her daughter’s wishes. The dream is long gone now. “All right,” she says at last. “I’m coming.”

Rhaenys pulls her from the bed, her chatter all running together as Elia tries to fully rouse herself and put on something decently presentable. Breakfast is laid out in full on the dining table by the time they arrive, Rhaegar appearing just as groggy as she—it seems she was not the only one Rhaenys had pounced on—and Rhaella just the opposite. Her good-mother been like that ever since Aerys perished two years back: happy to greet the morning, her skin free of bruises, her frame no longer fragile as a bird’s. She smiles often and much, and Rhaenys runs into her waiting arms.

The food is appetizing—she wishes it didn’t. Her first indication that she was pregnant with Rhaenys was her inability to so much as see bacon without wanting to heave. She’s experienced that only twice since, and both had ended up as blood on her sheets. She knows the lords have been hinting to Rhaegar to set her aside for someone more fertile, as though she’s doing this on purpose, someone able to give him a male heir of his body.

Or…well. Any child of his body. Not that anyone knows there’s a distinction. None except her. No one expects to see him in Rhaenys, and so they don’t.

She’s yanked out of her daydream by something Rhaegar says, her fork halfway to her mouth. “What did you say?”

“I said Arthur returns today,” he repeats, seemingly not noticing the way her face goes white. “The Brotherhood is no more, as are the Essosi sellswords they’d brought to their side. And it’s about time, too. You’ve been missing your uncle, haven’t you, my sweet?”

Rhaenys is a rush of exclamations, most of them unintelligible, but all Elia can do is choke down her water and try to keep her composure. Four years he’s been gone. Four years of trying to forget he is very much not Rhaenys’s uncle, honorary or otherwise. Four years of half-hoping he’d be killed in his efforts so it would make everything easier, and then feeling so sick she couldn’t breathe at the prospect of losing him for good.

“Elia, are you all right?”

Rhaella’s tone is one of concern; the sharpness of her stare is not. She knows, then. Elia had surmised as much long ago, the way she would frown when Rhaenys would say something a certain way or grin just-so, the way she knows the color of her eyes did not come from Rhaegar like everyone else believes. But she’d never brought it up, to Elia or to anyone else, perhaps clinging to the illusion that if the truth were never spoken, the resemblance could be written off as coincidence and nothing more.

Elia manages to school her voice into something like normalcy. “Yes, I…I am simply overcome by the news. It will be good to have him home.”

She very much would like to feign illness in order to not greet him at the gates, but knows she could not get away with it this time, not when she had shown herself to be perfectly healthy mere hours ago. Arthur rides in with a weary group of soldiers at his back, but Elia is struck by how much he hasn’t changed. There is a scar that cuts through his brow that hadn’t been there before and another across his cheek—no doubt he has more hidden beneath his armor—but his smile when he hugs Rhaegar is the same, the way he bows to her without moving his eyes from hers is the same, the way he glances just a bit too long at Rhaenys is the same. She feels as though she’s been thrust back four years ago; no, thrust back into her girlhood when they’d had no cares in the world except avoiding servants as they kissed feverishly in the closest alcove they could find.

But they’re not careless youths anymore, and remembering their past will do only harm.

She skillfully avoids him for a full week before he seeks her out. It is under a guise, to be sure, an insistence that he accompany her and Rhaenys for a walk through the godswood for protection and to catch up. Rhaenys’s affinity for the foreboding forest baffles him as much as it had everyone else, but Rhaegar had just laughed and said it must be the blood of the First Men in her, the blood of the Blackwoods.

Not Blackwood, Elia had thought. Dayne.

They walk silently for an hour, watching Rhaenys kick fallen leaves about and occasionally peer up at the brown bark of the trees that should be white or imitate the caw of a roosting raven. But the silence builds until it’s stifling, until Elia can take it no more.

“Why are you here?” She can’t bring herself to look at him; if she does, she’s lost. “You shouldn’t have come.”

Quiet falls again for several minutes as he thinks of what to say. In the end, he chooses not to answer her at all. “She’s grown.”

“Yes, that is what happens as a child gets older.”

“She looks like you.”

“No she doesn’t,” she says with a caustic laugh. “She looks like you. Thank the gods everyone’s too bloody blind to see it.”

She does turn to him now. Half of her wants to slap him. The other half wants to kiss him until the pain of the last four years fades away. “Every day I thought of you both,” he says. “Every damn day I thought I might never see you again.”

“Don’t do this,” she snaps. “She’s not your daughter, Arthur. She can never be your daughter.”

There’s a mutinous look in his dark eyes, eerily similar to the one Oberyn so often has. The one of a man who would do just about anything, never mind the consequences. But it lasts only a moment before it vanishes and he looks away from her and instead to Rhaenys, who obliviously, happily, plays in a pile of red leaves.

“She’ll always be mine.” There’s conviction in his words, but…desolation, too. Anguish. “She’ll always be ours.”

Yes, she will.

As much as Rhaegar loves Rhaenys—and she knows he does, more than anything—from the very beginning there’s been a part of her that’s felt a sense of wrongness with it all. The guilt is oppressing, consuming—she knows it’s unfair and reprehensible to think such things. She’s not his, not by blood, nor could he ever discover it.

More than once she’s wondered if she could tell him, if his love for Rhaenys would supersede her sin, but it’s a risk she cannot take. Not when it could spell Rhaenys’s death, or banishment. Or her own. Even a slim chance of being separated from her daughter is too much to bear. She would square her fate with the gods one day, she’s sure of that, but this is a secret she will take to her grave.

“Do you ever think about it?” he asks. “If things were different?”

“They’re not.”

“If they were.”

A vise slowly tightens around her chest, grabs hold of her heart. “Of course I think about it,” she whispers. “But it doesn’t matter, Arthur. It does no good to imagine what may or may not have been. Things are what they are now, and there’s no changing them. Why must you make it worse?”

“You know why.”

He’s close—too close, were anyone to pass by—and four years’ worth of missing him, of worrying for him, is suddenly too much. She pulls him behind a tree and crushes her mouth to his, the sensation as familiar as it is illicit; it brings to mind the memories she’d tried so hard to bury, his bare skin against hers, the desperation, the want. The look on his face as he held Rhaenys in his arms.

“I can’t love you,” she says against his lips, so quietly not even a mighty weirwood could hear, “and I always will.”

[feministfocus]

Interview with senior and founder of The Feminist Focus: Jenna Zucker

Interview by Larissa Lim

How and why did you join GLI?

Jenna: My freshman year I attended the club fair, and both GLI and the NOW club fed me brownies — how could I possibly choose one, right?!  But when I was standing in the crowded, sweaty freshman cafeteria, there was something in my gut telling me to join GLI. I loved its international focus, and the colorful tri-fold poster caught my eye. Co-presidents Sarah and Sophia were encouraging and supportive, and after my first GLI meeting on a Thursday in October, I was hooked. I sat in the back with a group of freshman girls at my first meeting, and the meeting helped me feel united among this strong group of girls — a shock to my system after rough years of middle school.

What does feminism mean to you? Has your interpretation changed since you joined GLI/before?

Jenna: Feminism to me means equality. Feminism means lifting one another up to create a more equal world for everyone. In order to obtain and reach equality we must lift up women and girls and all members of marginalized communities. We need inclusive intersectional feminism so that everyone's voices can be heard.

GLI has seeped into all aspects of my life, and its teachings have shaped the way that I see the world around me. I began to deeply invest my time with GLI just as I was beginning my large project which has now become a book about my grandmother's experiences surviving the Holocaust. My feminist conversations with GLI have helped me understand the complexities of my grandmother's stories as a female survivor of the Holocaust. Throughout the research and writing process I began to notice how the survivor stories of women and girls are inherently different from the survivor stories of men — but most major Holocaust narratives have been written by men. 

When I joined GLI as a fourteen year old girl GLI introduced me to words that finally articulated the beliefs and experiences I had throughout my life. I was no longer afraid to speak up for myself to my figure skating coach who insisted I cover my face with makeup before competitions — blobs of makeup on my face made me feel less like myself. I had new words, and among them, a new definition of feminism, that helped me make sense of the sexist attitudes I faced as the only girl grandchild at family gatherings. GLI helped me better understand the life I was living as a teenage girl, and the life of girlhood that I had been living all my life. For the first time in my life the word 'girl' was being said in a positive, empowering environment, and this reclaiming of the word ‘girl’ has been liberating.

What do you feel you gained from your involvement with GLI?

 Jenna: Where do I even begin? Perhaps I'll start with the end.

"I have become a person with GLI," I said to my GLI friend Maya, wiping tears from my eyes as we walked out of our last event with GLI at CSW at the end of my senior year. 

And I really do feel that way.  

GLI saved me in my large public high school in New Jersey.  I cannot imagine what my high school career would have been like without this organization. When I was moving across the country four days before my junior year, I knew I had to bring GLI with me. This was a non-negotiable part of the moving experience, and I must have asked admissions to my new school ten times if I would be able to start a GLI chapter. I wanted to continue to give back to an organization that had shown me so much and continue to pass on GLI to a new generation of GLI students. I feel so lucky to have been able to find such strong role models among my peers in both of these chapters, and I don't know who I would be without them. 

GLI staff have been huge role models in my life, and their emails and feminist phone calls have been a huge part of my GLI experience. At one point, during the crazy roller-coaster that was November 9th, the day after Donald Trump was elected president, I called the GLI office to speak with GLI staff. And sure enough, the nice secretary at the Feminist Majority Foundation transferred me to Caeli's line, and we chatted about the events, and the sad feminist cupcakes that everyone in the office was eating. There I was, sitting across the country in northern Michigan, comforted by the buzz of FMF in the background. They were still running. Everything was going to be okay. Moments like these remind me of how powerful this organization can be for girls like me across the country and around the world, all at the beginning of our feminist and activist experiences.

GLI has seeped into all aspects of my life, particularly my writing. GLI helped me see the world through a feminist lens and has helped me open conversations such as this one about gender in a way that I never would have considered without the influence of the GLI community and curriculum.

What has been your favorite / most memorable experience with GLI?

Jenna: In February of my sophomore year, the co-president of my chapter, Sophia, brought me to my first New York Student Advisory Board meeting.  I remember riding in on the bus together, chatting the whole way about various feminist issues and our high school. She introduced me to the amazing GLI leaders from our area, and we headed up the elevator to the large, fancy conference room in the law office. My heart beat fast before it was my turn to introduce myself, and I remember feeling caught off guard by the sound of my own voice and the way that it echoed in the large conference room, afraid of the way that I sounded. As the meeting went on, I eventually relaxed and shared ideas with Sophia about the various events and discussions our chapter was engaging in at the time, and I was helping to plan our first feminist Read-A-Thon. By the end of the meeting I felt as if I had experienced an entirely new dimension of GLI, and I was hooked.

A year later I was standing in the same conference room for the orientation for the Commission on the Status of Women with GLI. I had just met the GLI staff I had been in touch with for so long throughout high school for the first time, and I was surrounded by jittery GLI students excited for the feminist-fun-packed week ahead. 

"Introduce yourselves boldly with your first and last names," Kathy Spillar, executive director of the Feminist Majority Foundation, told us. "Girls are taught too often that their last names don't matter." 

It had never occurred to me that girls said their last names less often than boys, but I immediately recognized this within my own life. I confidently stood up from my seat and introduced myself boldly, stating my first and last name. I heard the familiar echo of the way my voice bounced off of these specific conference room walls, just as they had one year earlier, but this time I was confident in the sound of my own voice.

How do you think you may continue to use what you've learned with GLI in the future?

Jenna: GLI has given me so many valuable learning experiences over the past four years, and I think my experiences with GLI are one of the main reasons that I felt so excited and passionate about attending a women's college. Through GLI I have gained leadership skills that I never imagined I would be able to experience during just four years of high school. GLI taught me to be proud of my voice as a girl, and be unafraid to raise my hand for opportunities, or raise my hand in conference rooms filled with UN ambassadors refusing to recognize the specific rights of girls. 

GLI has helped me embrace my own identities and has helped me come of age throughout high school and for the first time in my life become proud of the way that I decide to express and experience my own femininity. I am hoping to continue to explore these values of empowerment and intersectionality in all of their complexity at Barnard College — one of the proud, bold, feminist seven sisters colleges.

What's one of your favorite movies and books?

Jenna: One of my favorite movies is Inside Out.  Inside Out is a movie that celebrates all aspects of the main character Riley’s girlhood and a movie that I can watch over and over again. During my first drive to boarding school in Michigan I listened to the soundtrack of Inside Out for nearly 14 hours with my dad. It kept me calm in the midst of a lot of change.

My favorite book is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  It tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, a black woman whose cancer cells were stolen from her and became the first immortal cells in human history. They are the reason we have the polio vaccine and a number of other scientific breakthroughs. They were the first cells in space! The story of Henrietta Lacks and her family — who never knew their mother’s cells were revolutionizing science and medicine — is told in this book by Rebecca Skloot. It recently became a movie starring Oprah Winfrey.  It’s a must read!

Who is your role model who embodies female empowerment?

Jenna: I cannot choose just one role model when GLI has given me so many!  I am inspired by my grandmother and her strength and joyful spirit that has carried her through her life.  Her stories and presence in my life has changed the way that I see and understand human rights and dignity.  I carry her stories with me everywhere, and they one of the many lenses in which I see the world.  

I am also inspired by my Assistant Dean who has been a huge role model and mentor for me throughout my senior year.  Lydia has helped me destigmatize the word girl and use it as an empowering term on the volleyball court, where she taught me volleyball, and throughout my life.  Her leadership as a strong woman in a male-dominated space inspires me to break barriers (or ceilings) for the next generation of girls.

[ndrmag]

Contributor Interview with Carol Guess and Aimee Parkison

Carol Guess is the author of numerous books of poetry and prose, including Darling Endangered, Doll Studies: Forensics, and Tinderbox Lawn. In 2014 she was awarded the Philolexian Award for Distinguished Literary Achievement by Columbia University. She teaches in the MFA program at Western Washington University.

Aimee Parkison is the author of Refrigerated Music for a Gleaming Woman, which won the FC2 Catherine Doctorow Innovative Fiction Prize. She is the director of the Creative Writing Program at Oklahoma State University and has published four books of fiction.

In your cover letter, you said “Girl in Dog House” is part of a larger manuscript comprising “stories about girls in captivity and confinement.” What did you discover about this story and the manuscript’s themes through the writing process? How do you see this story in conversation with the others?

Aimee Parkison: In many ways, women are confined and held captive by society. The deeper Carol and I went into the project, the more I was surprised to see how many different types of captivity our characters (the “girls”) were dealing with — the captivity of victimhood, the captivity of the body, the captivity of the law, the captivity of stereotypes, the captivity of romantic love, the captivity of self-image, just to name a few. All these captivities revealed themselves in real and surreal ways, both metaphorical and literal.

Carol Guess: Aimee’s absolutely right — this project felt like digging a hole and watching the ground around it crumble. Everything just began sliding into these stories; the question literally became what to leave out. What elements of women’s lives aren’t confined? What does freedom look like? I think towards the end of the project we were asking that question. Maybe that’s the basis for our next collaboration!

I’m pretty sure this is the first collaborative story NDR has ever published. What struggles did you encounter that have been unique to the co-authoring process? How did you overcome them? What did you learn?

AP: This project was my first experience with collaboration in fiction. I’ve written a screenplay as a collaboration before, but never a book of fiction. Both times, the process was fun and exciting, magically disappearing that very stressful/sad part of writing, which is a feeling of being alone and on your own in a vacuum. Collaboration doesn’t allow for that sort of isolation, since there is so much friendship and fun to be had in discovering how your collaborator inspires you to create in new ways, sort of the merging of two minds, which always produces something different than a single mind would.

It reminds me of what the surrealists used to say about creating art — that art should be made by all, that art relies on the creative unconscious, and that every group has it own creative unconscious. Group creative unconscious is true for collaboration.

But, there are struggles unique to co-authoring. There has to be a lot of trust, and you have to learn what works and what doesn’t as a team.

One of the biggest challenges in any collaborations is figuring out the rules and rhythms of the process. Carol and I started out by brainstorming about the creative concept of the book, and then we agreed on some basic “rules” of the process. Carol was great with this aspect of setting up boundaries, which allowed for maximum respect and creative freedom, since she has had so much experience in writing books collaboratively. So, I’ll let her talk about those rules and the process, as well as the foundation to setting some boundaries while allowing for creative freedom.

CG: Thanks, Aimee! First let me say what a great collaborator Aimee is, and what a wonderful friendship we forged out of this process. 

I’ve written a number of books in collaboration. There’s no one way to work; I make it up as I go. Flexibility is the most important rule as you adjust to each other’s unexpected strengths and weaknesses. However, these are some typical ground rules:

— Start with a clear project, including structure or theme, so you’re writing toward the same goal. — Determine whether you’ll co-write each piece (writing half and passing it along), or write call-and-response pieces individually, or craft your own method. — Leave each other’s words alone (unless something you do to a piece requires revising earlier material for consistency and voice). — Treat your collaborator as a peer and expect to be treated as a peer. Remember that you’re not editing or critiquing each other. No one is giving or getting advice. — Share expectations about time and process up front. For example, if you write really fast or need extra time, say so, and decide how you will proceed in advance. — Be playful. Set challenges, leave lines and characters open enough that your collaborator has somewhere to go. Don’t hand them a locked box. What you give and receive should be really strong, but also have an unfinished quality, so you can finish each other’s sentences. Take turns being the person to start and finish things, because those are very different strengths. — Be supportive. You are not in competition; their success is your success, and their challenges are your challenges. You aren’t trying to beat this person; you’re in it together. — Determine pragmatic rules for things like sending out work, ownership of individual pieces inspired by the project, goals that signal success, and things you disagree with.

Presenting the hoarded cats and dogs right at the beginning makes for such an effectively disquieting start to the story. But, in addition to how arresting these images are, they also connote themes that become imperative to the story: vulnerability, confinement, separation and cruelty. How do you go about developing such striking, multivalent images?

AP:  This particular story was a call-and-response process piece. (Carol and I had many ways of writing the material for our book—some pieces as solo works, some pieces as call-and-response works where one of us would send a beginning to the other to finish, and other pieces emerging as something in between.)  I started “Girl in Dog House” with pet hoarding and the puppy holes and then sent it to Carol and was (as always) surprised by the direction she took it. When I started with the pet hoarding, I wrote it as a strange trait, but slightly endearing in its longing for connection, even if confining to the pets and the person. Carol brought a deeper twist when she connected the idea of pet hoarding to the sort of isolation and cruelty that leads to violence.

The narrator feels largely disconnected from her parents and other people in her community, barring Sadie. But, in opposition to the "damaged girl" trope, the story doesn't portray the narrator as overly helpless or victimized. What advice would you give to writers interested in depicting girlhood, particularly in relation to girls navigating a society that is oftentimes hostile to them?

AP: Writers can avoid melodrama and sentimentality by remembering that all people, even “damaged girls,” have power and agency. Not everyone who is victimized has to live her life as a victim, but society’s hostility to certain women and girls is part of a cultural reality that involves many complicated realms of feeling, being, seeing, and surviving. This is why such stories are necessary. 

CG: When we began this project, we couldn’t anticipate the power of the “Me, too” movement — speaking only for myself, I’ve found it empowering to watch women speaking out and claiming agency. It’s true, the movement has mostly opened the door for more privileged women and is often framed in the negative — often about the injustices men have done to women and less about women’s power, resilience, creativity, and agency. At times the “Me, too” framework ignores the voices and history of women of color, trans people, queer women, and cis male allies who have fought for so long. We need more context for what we see on the surface when we read articles about straight white cisgender female movies stars who have experienced abuse, but whose lives are nonetheless shaped by privilege. Still, I recognize our project in dialogue with this complicated historical moment, with the endlessly triggering headlines about men in power who have used privilege to coerce and control; with women speaking truth to power; with women and men telling stories of courage and resistance. And all of this is also in dialogue with the paradigm shift around gender happening in and beyond the queer community. And of course, our book speaks at every turn, not so much to “damaged girls,” but to our country’s victimization at the hands of a ruthless, abusive presidential administration determined to collect power and resources in the hands of a few, and willing to risk the lives of every living creature to do it.  

This project started as a way to explore our mutual obsession with abducted girls. But it became so much more than that. I feel (again, speaking for myself) captive and confined by President Trump and the straight white cisgender men who surround him, who protect him, who enable his violence and his unbridled power to trample human and nonhuman rights; to destroy the environment; to warp the meaning of the constitution. For me, confinement now means something entirely different than it did a year ago. And it’s no longer just about girls, but about humans and animals and even plants. Yesterday I read a heartbreaking article about a woman whose horse burned to death in one of the California wildfires. This is about every living creature on the planet; we are literally burning to death. I can’t overstate the terror of this political moment, and the way that shaped, for me, writing these stories. 

I'm especially interested in Sadie's role in the story, how she is the only character that has any intimate contact with the narrator sleeping "head-toe on the sofa." Additionally, she is integral in the story's violence, teaching the narrator to shoot and binge watching "the bloodiest shows on tv" with her. What did you hope to accomplish in creating her character? How did you go about balancing the violence and tenderness?

CG: Thanks for picking up on the importance of Sadie’s character. You answer the question yourself when you say, “balancing violence and tenderness;” that was my goal with Sadie. I tried to let her be an ambiguous character; my vision of Sadie is that she’s a mentor, a guide for the narrator. She’s a safe and healthy adult. As I intended it, Sadie isn’t actually teaching her to shoot; Sadie’s just teaching her to brush her teeth. But the narrator puts Sadie in with the other, dangerous adults because she doesn’t know how to engage with someone who actually shows tenderness. However, I wanted it to be possible to read Sadie as dangerous, too — as the person who would push the narrator toward violence. The other adults (the mom, the dad) are dangerous because they’re neglecting their child. They aren’t actively dangerous; they’re passive, neglectful and careless, with potentially deadly results. Like keeping guns in the house that a child could easily access. Like ignoring her distress.

With Sadie, the narrator experiences compassion and warmth (and yes, she’s the only person showing the narrator any physical affection). But there’s this hint that maybe Sadie is also the only active adult in the narrator’s world, and might lead the narrator astray. I tried to create two Sadies: one dangerous, potentially pushing the narrator into violence; and one loving and compassionate, who the narrator feels safe with, but can’t fully understand. Is the narrator in danger with Sadie, too? Is Sadie really teaching her to shoot a gun, saying aim to kill? Or is Sadie joking around with an electric toothbrush, unaware that the narrator has access to guns? Does the narrator see safety and cast it in violent terms (e.g. sees the electric toothbrush as a weapon) because she’s never known anything else? And this goes back to Aimee’s genius in writing puppies into the walls – what’s real and what’s magical? What’s actually happening? We tried with most of the stories to create multiple levels of interpretation, both a literal level (often representing abuse and danger) and a magical level (where nothing is as it seems). In this way we called on fairy tales and fables, as well as magical realist writers who have long used the genre to represent cultural and political critiques.