#but the question of where privileged people find themselves as we make major systemic changes is something i think about a lot

[amis127]

Mismag ep 10 spoiler time + an analysis of privilege

So like, am I doing too much by analyzing the Evan vs Bombini scene as a metaphor for how progressive cishet white men have to navigate the unlearning they are doing and their place in the new world they are trying to build? Am I tripping or was there a very necessary reminder from Bombini/Aabria to not just hide back and away from the new world as Evan efficiently decenters himself, but that part of this new world requires him to understand his place along side his friends? Or otherwise Evan will find himself in a similar position alone in his own crumbling tomb someday?

Can I take it one step further and dig into why the one white cishet male character in this tale is welding dark powerful magic in the first place? And how as we watched all the Black and brown characters learn to step into a new power they've never had access to before, Evan is learning how to use the vast power he's always known to protect his friends rather than to whatever dark god he was crafted to serve? To disrupt the path he was on, which left him adrift for a very long time until he met a group of people who cared about him for him (and introduced him to cocoa butter and taking his shoes off when he enters a home)? If the big bad is systemic oppression then what is the responsibility of someone who was best served by it??

Boy howdy do I have some thoughts and feelings out here gang

[lifeofmysteries]

Xue Yang and the Privilege of Revenge - An Essay

How does Xue Yang’s act of personal revenge compare against the Jianghu’s wider view of revenge? When is violence of this kind deemed acceptable, and who benefits from this? I want to explore the themes within Mo Dao Zu Shi connecting classism and the privileges of revenge as explored through Xue Yang and his relationship with the Jin Clan.

Xue Yang’s major act of revenge is against the Chang Clan, the eradication of the entire family. His revenge is motivated by Chang Ci’an’s act of violence against him as a child. This act of violence involved the destruction of his hand and his childhood innocence, as far as the reader understands from the story he tells about himself.

Xue Yang actually considered this seriously. “Of course,” he replied, as if it was an odd question. “The finger was mine, but those lives belonged to others. No number of lives would’ve been enough. It was only fifty or so people—how could that be enough to pay for my finger?”

As an orphan on the streets, he was a member of society that is considered disposable, where finding justice for any crime would be near impossible when the perpetrator is higher up - worth more - in the eye of society than you. There is no over arcing justice system within the Clans, they police themselves.

In defiance of his low class position, Xue Yang places his life as more valuable than the Chang Clan and uses his act of violence to apply his personal world view on the material world. The initial act of violence taken against Xue Yang was intended to show the opposite; that his life is viewed as lacking to wider society. The fact that Chang Ci’an did not face any explicitly mentioned repercussions for this is proof that the Clans believe that Xue Yang is not someone of any importance to consider worrying about making amends with. Xue Yang’s act of revenge can be constructed as proving to them and the world that he does matter.

This dehumanisation he is treated with is repeated throughout Mo Dao Zu Shi. After working for the Jin, he is beaten and left for dead as his worth was only through his value to the Jin Clan’s research. There is no need to allow him to leave respectfully as the Jins correctly believe he would not be missed nor would anyone fight for Xue Yang’s justice in that situation. He is constantly compared to animals, and even his physical features are described as more animalistic than the other characters to emphasise his position within the narrative.

Instead, he grinned widely, baring his canine teeth in his direction.

Xue Yang reacts to this repeated mistreatment by turning it around. He looks down on the people around him, steals from them, threatens them, and turns them into fierce corpses. He takes any action to make them feel afraid or frustrated rather than superior to him. His revenge against the Chang fits into this model.

In the ‘Villainous Friends’ extra, his response of aggression is contrasted against Jin Guangyao’s response of civility. Jin Guangyao also came from a lower class background and was insulted for it. His response was to conform himself to appeal to their idealised worldview of a high class cultivator through obedience to his father and replication of their mannerisms. Xue Yang’s internal viewpoint contrasts this as he is not intending to change anyone’s mind, rather he asserts his own position that he matters through enacting violence. When the previous actions of Jin Guangyao come to light, his position within the eyes of the Jianghu shifts and they revert to seeing him as that lower class, dehumanised being, right alongside Xue Yang.

“Jin Guangyao later got rid of Xue Yang. What a perfect example of dog biting dog.”

Xue Yang’s continued comparisons with the Jin Clan illustrates the intersections of power and violence with Mo Dao Zu Shi. Xue Yang committed his first act of revenge against the Chang Clan when he was a guest cultivator working for the Jin. As we know, the Jins shielded him from the justice Xiao Xingchen wanted to have enacted because Xue Yang was helping them behind the scenes. There is irony in the fact that the Clan held most responsible for punishing Xue Yang’s act of revenge was the Jin Clan when compared against their own actions against the Wen Clan. The Jin Clan upheld the taking of the Wens clan land and the imprisonment of the remaining family members. The view of the cultivation world at that time was that the whole Clan should be held accountable, regardless of their own actions within the war.

Another guest cultivator stood up. “Of course it’s different. The Wen dogs committed all manner of evil deeds. They deserved to fall in such disgrace. All we’re doing is retaliating in kind, an eye for an eye. Giving them a taste of their own medicine. Where’s the fault in that?”

Revenge is thus seen by the Jianghu as a way of levelling the scales between two people and there is no fault in this. Xue Yang’s act falls in line with this way of thinking, and falls in line even more so with the Jin’s treatment of the Wens.

The morality of the Jianghu shows that revenge against an entire clan is justified, and that each and every family member can and should be held liable. The only ones who aren’t are those who surrendered to the Jin Clan, allying their power with theirs.

“Because the Wen dogs committed so many evil deeds, everyone with the surname of Wen can be killed without exception—do I understand you right? Many renegade clans from Qishan surrendered and joined the alliance, and they’ve since found support with the Jin Clan of Lanling. If I’m not mistaken, I see a few guests at this very banquet who used to be the family heads of clans affiliated with the Wen Clan.”

From this, the act of revenge also acts as a move to gain power, eradicating those who opposed or could future oppose the Jin sect. This Jin act in the same way that they protected Xue Yang, defending only those who benefit their interests. This also proves how shallow the ideologies of the Jianghu are. They will not stick to their prior beliefs if there is some way to benefit, or if the subject of their attention is of a lower class to them. The only ones who succeed and gain happiness in their own right are those that leave the Jianghu entirely, shown through Mianmian, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji at the end of the novel.

Through the comparisons drawn throughout the novel by Xue Yang’s close proximity to the Jin Clan, ideas of how and who is allowed to take revenge intersect with classism. Violence is used by those who have the privilege of power to defend themselves, and thus this violence becomes justified in the eyes of the people.

(Citations taken from Sevenseas edition of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation | Mo Dao Zu Shi)

[ellicler]

izzy hands is a sad and desperate little man futilely struggling against the systems he hates, yet unable to escape their conditioning. he constantly recreates the very power structures that he’s trying to destroy because a. he thinks they’re effective, b. they’re the only thing he knows and c. he’s inherently someone who likes existing inside of very ordered and familiar lines and he’s afraid of the chaos of change, of stepping into the disordered unknown. (in that way edward is very complementary and very healthy for him.)

there’s three major areas where he exhibits the same dynamic (they’re all interconnected of course). first is obviously patriarchy with its toxic masculinity, its cycles of abuse, its denial of true intimacy. a lot has been said on this point by people more eloquent than me. it’s stede who has the idea to propose an idiotic and visionary question, ‘and what if it wasn’t like that?’ (stede who has more leisure and more intellectual breathing room as a member of the privileged class. this show is so good.) other pirates (even the ones from blackbeard’s crew) accept this freedom of emotional expression, izzy vehemently rejects it.

second is the (british naval) hierarchy, and probably more generally western colonialism as a theme. it’s great we got to see how much izzy despises the british (’do you really want to lick the king’s boots?’) and yet his intransigence about the hierarchy on blackbeard’s ship is something weirdly parallel to the inhumane discipline on the british fleet. what are you even a pirate for, if you don’t have workplace democracy and a preestablished code of conduct? all right, a ship needs a certain amount of discipline to function, and you want to beat you enemies at their own game, but leaving no freedom for your crew makes you honestly indistinguishable from the system you hate. (it does make me wonder if izzy has some past background in the military fleet.) this is also a perspective that best explaines the rather odd scene of izzy as captain of Revenge lording it over the crew. he’s pointedly having dinner while they work (very much a parallel to the ep1 dining scenes with the british officers, a caste who hold themselves above the simple sailors serving them and get killed for their arrogance) and he also chooses to put to physical work the three men of color from the original crew (who doesn’t love to add a bit of racism to their classism). from the POV of the audience (and the crew) izzy is achieving precisely nothing with this show of symbolic power, but for him it’s probably the natural way to display and reinforce his new status (he wants to establish new boundaries quickly). a hilarious values dissonance. (mate just take a page out of blackbeard’s book and threaten someone with a knife through the eye, even that would’ve worked better.)

third is christianity with its ideas about love, servitude and virtue. (as @knowlesian hasn’t yet written the Weird White Jesus post, i’m forced to muddle through on my own, but i didn’t notice it before their game-changing izzy meta. unfortunately christian insanity is background noise to me, i was raised and bred on dostoyevsky.) there’s a very specifically christian emotional tone about self-sacrifice and suffering as the Greatest virtue, about self-abjection and self-negation due as service to your idol who is the quintessence of all perfection and power. the worship and unquestioning obedience due to White God Jesus and his proxies on this earth are trained into you and that's something that leaves a permanent impression on one’s sense of self. so once you rebel against the corrupt and selfish authorities you still carry that expectation of the Perfect Incarnation of Authority in you, an empty place inside your soul. you’ve learned that joy in acceptance of suffering is the highest form of love. you must not only submit willingly to the pain inflicted on you but also find happiness and fulfillment in it. ...i’m sure it’s plain to see the more extreme of izzy’s kinks have a lot of themes in common with this, but it’s also about the general psychological need to find the perfect leader and submit oneself wholly and entirely to his cause. you can’t just respect and follow a good man: you have to make a God out of him. (again, from edward’s POV being objectified in this way is just a colonisation narrative, again as @knowlesian pointed out here).

so anyway. izzy hands season 2 challenge. if your violent defiance of these systems is to be worth a damn, you have to stop letting yourself be defined by their narratives

[sarita-daniele]

On Fanfiction and Original Fiction

I have a lot of feelings about the Tumblr debates surrounding fanfiction vs. “real writing” and am going to try to engage with them in the most productive/positive way possible, hopefully in a way that holds space for writers of all backgrounds and ability levels.  

A note on my background, for context: I’m a professional published writer and writing educator. I hold an MFA from one of the top ranked MFA programs in the country. In the six years since completing my degree, I’ve been published in journals, anthologies, won literary awards and fellowships, been solicited by agents and presses for upcoming manuscripts, and have my first book coming out next year. My career has unfolded within the literary establishment, and I’m familiar with both its merits and its bullshit. I’m also a successful writer (of poetry, literary fiction, and speculative fiction) who gained many of my first, lifelong writing tools through fanfiction.

I’ve spent a lot of time processing the elitism, classism, and racism that writers (including Latinx writers like myself) face in the MFA world and in the publishing world. I’m working in a literary tradition that uplifts white male American minimalism as a style all writers should value and work towards. A literary tradition that discounts story structures that come from oral tradition, and discounts popular and genre fiction without considering why people connect with those stories. There are so many ways in which writers use their privilege and education to put each other down, and I think that this discussion engages some of these inequities even if it doesn’t come from that place.  

As an educator, I’ve taught in a range of literary spaces. I’ve taught at my top-ranked university, where most of my students were financially privileged and had years of access to elite education. I’ve taught in inclusive nonprofit spaces with writers of all ages and backgrounds. I’ve taught in community spaces, writing poems and stories with homeless youth who dropped out of school, whose imaginations and ability to tell their own stories was no less than the young people who had more linguistic tools. A recent class I taught for my nonprofit was called “From Fanfiction to Fan-worthy Fiction”. In this class, I worked with teen fanfic writers to examine craft differences between fanfiction and original fiction. We talked about the tools they gained from fanfiction: writing genuine character moments, understanding character archetypes and tropes, asking “what if” questions and filling gaps in representation, writing toward an audience, developing a consistent writing practice, and learning to write toward the units of scenes and chapters. We also discussed the pitfalls they might discover as they transitioned to original fiction: original world-building, developing complex and nuanced character backstories, finding the right starting place, understanding story structure and pacing, breaking away from fandom inspiration, and editing and polishing.

Within the class, we talked about how, if we only read fanfic, our understanding of storytelling will be limited to what works in fanfic. There’s a world of story out there, and if we want to write original stuff, novels and short stories and poetry will help us gain the tools we need. This is what I think post “read real books” was getting at, but in a world where young people have their attention so divided by media and technology, I try to celebrate any reading my students are doing. If students tell me what kind of fanfics they love, what kinds of tv shows and videos games and stories they love, I recommend books they might also love. I had the privilege of growing up in a household where my love of books was fostered. This isn’t true for all writers. Some of my most successful writer friends and most talented students didn’t grow up in spaces where reading was valued or encouraged. I react against “read real books” because the phrase contains a certain privilege, as if people aren’t reading “real books” out of laziness or lack of ambition, or because they’re in a fanfiction bubble. It implies that consuming story outside of books isn’t “real”. Some of my students have felt intimidated by novels but welcomed by fanfiction. It isn’t a matter of yelling at them and telling them they’re doing something wrong—it’s a matter of helping them see that they can locate their love of story and character in books, then providing access points.  

I wouldn’t be a professional writer if not for fanfiction. There are successful writers who have written fanfic and see it as separate from the development of their original work, which is great. But for me, who grew up with no writing community, with little access to creative writing education, and no place to geek out over the books I loved, fanfiction was an incredibly valuable training ground.

The heart of this argument is: who gets to call themselves a “writer”? Who gets to call themselves a “real writer”? What assumptions do we make in the process of assigning those labels? In my opinion, anyone who writes is a writer. My adult student who won literary awards and has her first book of poetry coming out with a major press. My friend who writes for Marvel. My friend who won the Yale Younger Poets Prize and a Lambda Literary Award. My retired adult student who always had a yearning to write but never actually tried it, who took her first class in her sixties. My thirteen-year-old teen student trying to find her way back into the education system, who had no grammatical tools, no education around writing, but wrote songs and raps just for herself. The sixteen-year-old fanfic writer who wrote to me seeking private coaching, who saved up all her money from her first job for those coachings, who didn’t even know what the past tense was and wrote and read only what you’d consider “smutty” anime pairings. All of these people were writing. All were doing the work of writing with the tools they had. All of them had an interest in learning more.

I like to believe that all fanfiction writers are writers, whether they pursue publication or not, whether they write original work or not, whether they develop their tools further or not, whether their writing has value for others or just for their own expression. If those writers want to improve—and we should always be improving, no matter how much we’ve published—then they can learn by reading, they can watch Youtube tutorials, and, if it’s accessible to them, they can pursue education in literary spaces. There are books that earn praise within the literary establishment that leave me cold. There are fanfics that ignite my emotion. There are lauded books that have forever changed me as a person and obscure books that have changed me equally. If you feel that writing is part of who you are, and it’s something you practice often, then you’re a writer, no matter what skill stage you’re at. I hope that claiming that title for yourself empowers you to develop your writing, using whatever tools you have available.

And if you want to take classes with me or other awesome writers from anywhere in the world, with lots of free sessions and scholarship opportunities, check out GrubStreet!

[rpmemesbyarat]

RP  meme from Werewolf: The Apocalypse "Black Furies" Tribebook (Revised Version) Ch 2 "Pegasus’ Flight"

"But how can you be here?"

"I’m sorry. I’m easily sidetracked. Where was I?"

"Every day the possibility exists that you will find some great treasure — a companion, a fetish, riches, secrets or whatever is important to you."

"Divine justice is not something that can be safely left in the hands of mortal men and women — or even certain sky goddesses, as Athena’s blindness showed."

"While limits and strictures are frightening to many, I take peace knowing that purposes exist for all things."

"The problem comes when limits become absolute."

"It’s a human mind-twister — and I love mind-twisters — that the only rule to which there is no exception is that there’s an exception to every rule."

"I said before I love mind-twisters, but it’s good to know when to stop twisting your mind."

"Change hurts."

"The questions do not always need to be answered, often just asking them is enough."

"If they lead only to more questions or to simple answers (I remember well learning the answer to “What do bees smell like?”), then that also is learning and therefore good."

"Laughter doesn’t have to be mirthful; it can be bitter or rueful as well."

"How many of these stories actually happened?"

"Take from a story the wisdom that is in it; one of humanity’s biggest problems, I think, is that many of them take their legends too seriously."

"Contemplation is good, but too much of it causes the topic to become irrelevant."

"Beautiful, isn’t it?"

"The average first-time mother can expect an ordeal of fourteen hours."

"Everyone agrees that breast milk is best for babies; doctors, researchers, pharmaceutical companies, and parenting gurus."

"I am sorry for your discomfort, but you can just suffer through it a bit longer."

"A woman’s sexuality is hers, and can be a closely guarded secret or a gift to the world, as she chooses."

"Only the weak deserve pity."

"And yet we’re still spit on as often as not. Unfair, isn’t it?"

"Sex and childbearing is all about responsibility."

"There is no honor in blood for blood’s sake."

"These assaults take place far from the eyes of humanity, and the large-scale ones are most frequently mistaken for natural disasters."

"First, while faith might be eternal, religion must evolve."

"The world is often random, and believing it to be loving and fair is just as false as believing it to be cruel."

"They aren’t thieves, mind you; they just seem to know where to find things."

"I’m quite sure you’ve heard it all. Stay awake and listen again. This is important stuff, you know."

"That kind of cruelty doesn’t really help anyone, does it?"

"Note that there’s a big difference between “breeding” and “having sex.”

"My opinion has always been that announcing one’s presence and intentions when entering another’s territory is polite and proper behavior."

"A predator sees any encroachment on her territory as a threat. If the intruder nears her den, expect her to become very violent."

"If you enter another’s territory and announce yourself, that doesn’t mean you can stay. The one who lives there can still tell you to leave, and you should respect her wishes."

"Be careful when traveling."

"Look, we’ve all got anger control problems. It’s part of who we are."

"If you’re hurt, quit."

"Die to be a hero if you want, but don’t die to prove you were right."

"When the challenge is over, when the winner is declared, accept the ruling and live with it."

"Challenges are serious business — never initiate one without good cause."

"Do not look away. I hardly need to explain what that will lead to."

"We all know why it isn’t good to eat humans; for one thing, their flesh is fouled by the chemicals they eat, and for another, we’re meant to protect and avenge them, not prey upon them."

"If it becomes necessary to kill humans, do so, but remember that you are what you eat."

"From the face you’re making, I can assume you find the notion of cannibalism to be truly repulsive."

"Find other ways to hide your action."

"The problem is that humans are resilient and tenacious, especially in fear or hatred."

"Sometimes, however, we must let go."

"When the time comes for me to die, assuming, of course, that I do not die in battle, I shall walk into the sea and let the waves take me on my last journey."

"They can’t be challenged if no one can find them."

"I’m not saying that the system is corrupt, only that it could be."

"Such a small place, yet so many differing cultures!"

"Any biologist will tell you that you may measure how well an area thrives by the diversity of life it supports."

"Women are, on average, not as physically strong as men. This means that they sometimes need protection. I hardly need to tell you who should provide it."

"Unless I missed a major theological event, there haven’t been any immaculate conceptions recently."

"No matter your personal feelings on men, they are and always have been one half of the equation."

"A man is not evil simply by dint of his sex; to believe so is no better than calling women “the weaker sex.”

"Weak people produce more weak people, and since humans have virtually no method of natural selection, it is up to us to try to correct their weaknesses as best we can."

"Something is urging the citizens towards these evils, for I cannot believe that they did this themselves."

"The idiot humans continue to think that if they could just clear away the trees, they’d have wonderful land for agriculture, never once realizing that it’s the forest itself that preserves the land."

"Tell me why you think you could do better."

"So many believe the courts will do nothing — and if their attackers are rich and privileged enough, that is sadly true."

"Celebrities and advertisements show thin and unhealthy looking women being adored and generally enjoying life. So, young girls are made to feel abnormal and loathe their bodies."

"The Church decries sexuality for any reason but procreation — and women learn to fear their sexual power."

"Time may dull the memory, but we still have blood on our claws."

"It’s harsh, but good exercise."

"Don’t let their foul behavior and mannerisms fool you. These bumpkins and slum-dwellers have contacts all over the city. I avoid them when possible, but when I am left with no other choice and need information in the city, I go to them. Of course, that information does not come cheaply."

"Some of them can get a little corny at times, I admit, but I’d rather have them with us than against us."

"A more serious bunch of assholes was never born."

"They are reprehensible dogs."

"They have money, they have places to stay, they know good places to party, and they have access to guns, and explosives, and body armor, and — well, you get the idea."

"They have a lot of hate, and the near-extinction of their species isn’t something that one just gets over."

"No one ever identifies herself as “evil.”

"You will get far more than you bargained for."

"Most national leaders are ridiculed without mercy, because every mistake they’ve ever made is on display for the world to see."

"Too much time spent mucking with forces beyond their control taints these people, if you ask me."

"Bloody opportunists."

"I’m not going to say they planned it that way, but they sure didn’t stop it either."

"Sure, they got fucked, but they’re still assholes."

"A quaint story, I thought, no more than a sort of urban legend."

"However, they do learn many secrets that we miss. Getting them to give up these secrets, however, is usually more trouble than it’s worth."

"Maybe they aren’t all dead?"

"Greek myths are replete with dragons; Ladon, Typhon, Python, Hydra, and so forth. They are never cast in favorable roles; most of them only exist for a hero to kill."

"I’ve never liked practical jokes, and I don’t like the notion of pushing someone’s buttons just to teach them not to respond. You can lose your head doing that to the wrong person."

"Other creatures share the unseen world with us, and it would behoove you to know something about them."

"The spirits of the dead do not always rest easily."

"The dead aren’t staying in the ground."

"Some of them are complete pigs, so I’m told, but even so, they can be quite seductive."

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Hello! I just found your yt channel (it's amazing) and watched your video on writing diversely. What an awesome video, I learnt and took away a lot from you and your thoughts, especially as a white writer. I am still however a little conflicted on one thing. Not just writing the characters as another race or gender or identity of any kind from the writer, but the actual main character. Would it automatically be offensive and destined for failure for a white author to write a black main protag?

Hi there! I’m happy you found the video helpful, thank you for watching! This is a link to the video if anyone reading this has not watched it.

To be honest, I think I explained this as concisely and accurately as I could in the video as it’s truly the thesis of the video itself. I don’t want to fully reiterate what I said in the video because I feel like I won’t be as accurate/coherent, so I urge you to rewatch the video and take care to look at the timestamps as that may clarify your particular question, first and foremost! Taking a look at some of the comments too might also be helpful.

Stay in your lane as a detrimental, albeit well-intentioned, mantra

As I say in the video, it’s not as easy as saying “white people can’t write XYZ main character” or “we can write whatever we want”, nor is it as easy as and saying “stay in your line” , which may inadvertently enforce the majority as publishing is majorly white (stats are in the video). I believe I did address main characters too in that video, but whatever I said about characters in general 100% applies to POV/main characters as I was rebutting the well-intentioned, but perhaps detrimental idea that it’s only appropriate for a marginalized POV character to be written by someone marginalized in the same way (IMO, long-term, this will cause an influx of white POV stories which is the opposite of the intention [people say “stay in your lane” will allow marginalized folks to represent themselves rather than have white people represent us] as the publishing industry a) is mostly white and b) only seems to care to actively publish white people. “Stay in your lane” may also inadvertently define the role a marginalized person should play in the writing industry [responsible for writing stories about their marginalization]).

Writing POC main characters = automatically offensive/destined to fail?

If you’re viewing or questioning if writing a POC MC is “automatically offensive” or “destined for failure” I really urge you to rewatch the video because this is covered quite extensively but particularly take a look at the “trade fear for empathy” section as this question in itself is laden in a black and white binary of right versus wrong. If you’re asking this question, it might be that you are lacking the empathy to understand what I’m saying in the video (which is okay! there are many others who I’ve further discussed with in the comments). Writing POC isn’t something that’s destined to fail just because you’re a white author IF you do your research, be respectful, write empathetically and craft well-rounded, complex people. If you’re thinking you might automatically fail in this department because you are a white person, I did mention in the video that you may not be ready to write diverse characters in the respectful, robust ways necessary because you may be viewing POC as a “pass or fail” system which is obviously not what we are. If you want to write a diverse POV character and you do your research, write empathetically, speak to those people from that community (with their consent) and be willing to adjust your representation with that feedback without getting defensive, I don’t see how this would be automatically offensive or destined for failure, just like anything else that requires research.

Disproportionate amounts of white versus POC writers being published

In terms of publication failure, white people are actually the ones being majorly represented to write marginalized stories (when they don’t share that marginalization), so you probably wouldn’t have a problem getting a POC-lead story published (not saying I think this is right) because publishers treat diversity as a quota/marketing tactic and IMO, don’t seem to actually care about representation on a structural level, but rather on a topical, superficial level (which is why my main point in that video is that publishers, not individual writers, need to be held accountable).

White writers accidentally “dehumanize” POC in a misguided attempt at being empathetic

I think some white people, (and I don’t exactly want to use this word because it is quite severe but illustrates what I mean) may accidentally “dehumanize” people of colour in worrying that whatever move they’re going to make is automatically going to offend us, when in reality, if you take the time, and put in the effort to research and get to know people of colour (from my comments, these worries often stem from white people who don’t know many people of colour IRL), you will see that yes, we are different from you and difference is good, but no, this difference does not make us an untouchable, unknowable species. I don’t mean to make this seem like an “I don’t see colour” or “the only race is the human race” argument, which would be harmful, but rather a reminder that people of colour are also human beings and as you would write a white character with empathy, integrity, and vigour, you should also do the same when writing characters of colour (I address this in more detail in the video).

Doing personal research in times of confusion

I understand that as a white person, thinking about and understanding these issues may not be particularly easy, and even after a nearly hour long video of me expressing these thoughts, I genuinely do understand why someone who is not affected by these issues daily may still struggle with grasping these concepts. That’s because anti-racism is not something you can accomplish by watching one video, or reading a few articles--it’s a lifelong commitment, and so that’s when you would take your privilege as a white person to do more digging before you ask questions to those who have to expel emotional labour to answer them for you (not saying I have any problem answering your question at all, but putting this out there because there are many well meaning white people who I’ve encountered in my comments that do ask me or other BIPOC questions before turning to other resources that wouldn’t require free labour). Take some time to ruminate with this info, and then do some digging of your own. If you haven’t checked out these, these are my favourite anti-racism resources, all of which are free to access (noted otherwise):

Jane Coaston - The Intersectionality wars

A pretty comprehensive place to start with Kimberle Crenshaw’s theory of Intersectionality

Peggy McIntosh - White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

Wonderful place to start in understanding white privilege for those who don’t understand the differences/nuances between race VS class VS gender privilege etc

Article that explores white privilege beyond McIntosh’s ideas

It’s really important that white people also learn the systemic ways in which they benefit from white privilege and not just the “bandaids are made in my skintone” examples (though those examples are often used first because they’re the easiest to understand for a white person who is affected by other intersections, i.e. class, sexuality, gender, who does not feel they are privileged in other ways i.e. race).

Documentary on white privilege (Jane Elliott’s Brown Eyes VS Blue Eyes experiment)

Angela Davis - How Does Change Happen?

bell hooks - Ending Domination: The Struggle Continues

Abena Busia - In Search of Chains Without Iron: On Sisterhood, History, and the Politics of Location

I was able to access this reading through my university but IMO it is a must-read, especially for non-POC who may not fully understand the privilege of whiteness.

Claire Heuchan - Your Silence Will Not Protect You: Racism in the Feminist Movement 

**Absolute must-read: “The theory did not emerge in order to aid white women in their search for cookies – it was developed predominantly by Black feminists with a view to giving women of colour voice (Heuchan).”

Tamela J. Gordon - Why I’m giving up on intersectional feminism 

Powerful perspective on Intersectionality and how it’s been used in white feminism

Jennifer L. Pozner - How to Talk About Racism, Sexism and Bigotry With Your Friends and Family

Really good place to start if you have loved ones in need of education.

Maria Lugones - Playfulness, “World”-Travelling, and Loving Perception

This is the absolute crux of my points in writing empathetically.

"The paper describes the experience of 'outsiders' to the mainstream of, for example, White/Anglo organization of life in the U.S. and stresses a particular feature of the outsider's existence: the outsider has necessarily acquired flexibility in shifting from the mainstream construction of life where she is constructed as an outsider to other constructions of life where she is more or less 'at home.' This flexibility is necessary for the outsider but it can also be willfully exercised by the outsider or by those who are at ease in the mainstream. I recommend this willful exercise which I call "world"-travelling and I also recommend that the willful exercise be animated by an attitude that I describe as playful" (Lugones 3). 

^^^ For writers struggling with the prospect of diversity and trying to find a place to start in what I call in my video "letting go of fear and voraciously welcoming empathy" I highly recommend this article as it is a powerful account of travelling across each other's "worlds". Read it for free with a free JStor account or through your institution, like your public library.

How to BLACK: An Analysis of Black Cartoon Characters

A FANTASTIC video that is an absolute must-watch (covers writing empathetically, writing with care)

If you have not already, read through the sources I used to formulate and argue my thesis in my video (much more detailed than I could do in an hour!):

Corinne Duyvis (ownvoices creator) on # ownvoices

CCBC - "Publishing Statistics on Children's/YA Books about People of Color and First/Native Nations and by People of Color and First/Native Nations Authors and Illustrators"

Hannah Heath - "5 Problems Within the Own Voices Campaign (And How to Fix Them)"

Saadia Faruqi - "The Struggle Between Diversity and Own Voices"

Kat Rosenfield (Refinery29) - "What is # ownvoices doing to our books?"

Lee and Low - "Diversity Baseline Survey 2019 Results"

Vulture - "Who Gave You the Right To Tell That Story"

School Library Journal - "An Updated Look at Diversity in Children's Books"

TL;DR: if you’re more overcome with the fear of offending people (often grounded in white fragility) instead of making the active, albeit sometimes uncomfortable, decision to do the hard work necessary to empathetically represent someone outside of your marginalization in fiction, I don’t think you’re ready to write POC in the nuanced, complex, empathetic ways necessary for good representation, and I would encourage you do more independent anti-racist work. (Note that “you” is not individualistically aimed at the asker!!)

Questions like this don’t necessarily have a clear-cut answer, and that is essentially the point of my video (I know, not super helpful, but I hope that makes sense!).

Hope this helps!

--Rachel

[whitehotharlots]

Privilege Theory is popular because it is conservative

Privilege theory, as a formal academic thing, has been around at least since 1989, when Peggy McIntosh published the now-seminal essay “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” Even within academic cultural studies, however, privilege theory was pretty niche until about a decade ago--it’s not what you’d call intellectually sound (McIntosh’s essay contains zero citations), and its limitations as an analytical frame are pretty obvious. I went through a cultural studies-heavy PhD program in the early twenty teens and I only heard it mentioned a handful of times. If you didn’t get a humanities degree, odds are it didn’t enter your purview until 2015 or thereabouts.

This poses an obvious question: how could an obscure and not particularly groundbreaking academic concept become so ubiquitous so quickly? How did such a niche (and, frankly, weird and alienating) understanding of racial relations become so de rigeur that companies that still utilize slave labor and still produce skin whitening cream are now all but mandated to release statements denouncing it? 

Simply put, the rapid ascent of privilege theory is due to the fact that privilege theory is fundamentally conservative. Not in cultural sense, no. But if we understand conservatism as an approach to politics that seeks first and foremost to maintain existing power structures, then privilege theory is the cultural studies equivalent of phrenology or Austrian economics. 

This realization poses a second, much darker question: how did a concept as regressive and unhelpful as privilege become the foundational worldview among people who style themselves as progressives, people whose basic self-understanding is grounded in a belief that they are working to address injustice? Let’s dig into this:

First, let’s go down a well-worn path and establish the worthlessness of privilege as an analytical lens. We’ll start with two basic observations: 1) on the whole, white people have an easier time existing within these United States than non-white people, and 2) systemic racism exists, at least to the extent that non-white people face hurdles that make it harder for them to achieve safety and material success.

I think a large majority of Americans would agree with both of these statements--somewhere in the ballpark of 80%, including many people you and I would agree are straight-up racists. They are obvious and undeniable, the equivalent to saying “politicians are corrupt” or “good things are good and bad things are bad.” Nothing about them is difficult or groundbreaking.

As simplistic as these statements may be, privilege theory attempts to make them the primary foreground of all understandings of social systems and human interaction. Hence the focus on an acknowledgement of privilege as the ends and means of social justice. We must keep admitting to privilege, keep announcing our awareness, again and again and again, vigilance is everything, there is nothing beyond awareness.

Of course, acknowledging the existence of inequities does nothing to actually address those inequities. Awareness can serve as an important (though not necessarily indispensable) precondition for change, but does not lead to change in and of itself. 

I’ve been saying this for years but the point still stands: those who advocate for privilege theory almost never articulate how awareness by itself will bring about change. Even in the most generous hypothetical situation, where all human interaction is prefaced by a formal enunciation of the raced-based power dynamics presently at play, this acknowledgement doesn’t actually change anything. There is never a Step Two. 

Now, some people have suggested Step Twos. But suggestions are usually ignored, and on the rare occasions they are addressed they are dismissed without fail, often on grounds that are incredibly specious and dishonest. To hit upon another well-worn point, let’s look at the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders. The majority of Sanders’ liberal critics admit that the senator’s record on racial justice is impeccable, and that his platform would have done substantially more to materially address racial inequities than that being proffered by any of his opponents. That’s all agreed upon, yet we are told that none of that actually matters. 

Sanders dropped out of the race nearly 3 months ago, yet just this past week The New York Times published yet another hit piece explaining that while his policies would have benefitted black people, the fact that he strayed from arbitrarily invoked rhetorical standards meant he was just too problematic to support.  

The piece was written by Sidney Ember, a Wall Street hack who cites anonymous finance and health insurance lobbyists to argue that financial regulation is racist. Ember, like most other neoliberals, has been struggling to reconcile her vague support for recent protests with the fact that she is paid to lie about people who have tried to fix things. Now that people are forcefully demanding change, the Times have re-deployed her to explain why change is actually bad even though it’s good.  

How does one pivot from celebrating the fact that black people will not be receiving universal healthcare to mourning racially disproportionate COVID death rates? They equivocate. They lean even harder on rhetorical purity, dismissing a focus on policy as a priori blind to race. Bernie never said “white privilege.” Well, okay, he did, but he didn’t say it in the right tone or often enough, and that’s what the problem was. Citing Ember:

Yet amid a national movement for racial justice that took hold after high-profile killings of black men and women, there is also an acknowledgment among some progressives that their discussion of racism, including from their standard-bearer, did not seem to meet or anticipate the forcefulness of these protests.

Kimberlé Crenshaw, the legal scholar who pioneered the concept of intersectionality to describe how various forms of discrimination can overlap, said that Mr. Sanders struggled with the reality that talking forcefully about racial injustice has traditionally alienated white voters — especially the working-class white voters he was aiming to win over. But that is where thinking of class as a “colorblind experience” limits white progressives. “Class cannot help you see the specific contours of race disparity,” she said.

Many other institutions, she noted, have now gone further faster than the party that is the political base of most African-American voters. “You basically have a moment where every corporation worth its salt is saying something about structural racism and anti-blackness, and that stuff is even outdistancing what candidates in the Democratic Party were actually saying,” she said.

Crenshaw’s point here is that the empty, utterly immaterial statements of support coming from multinational corporations are more substantial and important than policy proposals that would have actually addressed racial inequities. This is astounding. A full throated embrace of entropy as praxis. 

Crenshaw started out the primary as a Warren supporter but threw her endorsement to Bernie once the race had narrowed to two viable candidates. This fact is not mentioned, nor does Ember feel the need to touch upon any of Biden’s dozens of rhetorical missteps regarding race (you might remember that he kicked off his presidential run with a rambling story about the time he toughed it out with a black ne'er do well named Corn Pop, or his more recent assertion that if you don’t vote for him, “you ain’t black.”). The statement here--not the implication: the direct and undeniable statement--is that tone and posturing are more important than material proposals, and that concerns regarding tone and posturing should only be raised in order to delegitimize those who have dared to proffer proposals that might actually change things for the better. 

The ascendence of privilege theory marks the triumph of selective indignation, the ruling class and their media lackeys having been granted the power to dismiss any and all proposals for material change according to standards that are too nonsensical to be enforced in any fair or consistent manner. The concept has immense utility for those who wish to perpetuate the status quo. And that, more than anything, is why it’s gotten so successful so quickly. But still… why have people fallen for something so obviously craven and regressive? Why are so few decent people able to summon even the smallest critique against it? 

We can answer this by taking a clear look at what privilege actually entails. And this is where things get really, really grim:

What are the material effects of privilege, at least as they are imagined by those who believe the concept to be something that must be sussed out and eradicated? A privileged person gets to live their life with the expectation that they will face no undue hurdles to success and fulfillment because of their identity markers, that they will not be subject to constant surveillance and/or made to suffer grave consequences for minor or arbitrary offenses, and that police will not be able to murder them at will. The effects of “privilege” are what we might have once called “freedom” or “dignity.” Until very recently, progressives regarded these effects not as problematic, but as a humane baseline, a standard that all decent people should fight to provide to all of our fellow citizens. 

Here we find the utility in the use of the specific term “privilege.” Similar to how austerity-minded politicians refer to social security as an “entitlement,” conflating dignity and privilege gives it the sense of something undeserved and unearned--things that no one, let alone members of racially advantaged groups, could expect for themselves unless they were blinded by selfishness and coddled by an insufficiently cruel social structure. The problem isn’t therefore that humans are being selectively brutalized. Brutality is the baseline, the natural order, the unavoidable constant that has not been engineered into our society but simply is what society is and will always be. The problem, instead, is that some people are being exempted from some forms of brutalization. The problem is that pain does not stretch far enough.

We are a nation that worships cruelty and authority. All Americans, regardless of gender or race, are united in being litigious tattletales who take joy in hurting one another, who will never run out of ways to rationalize their own cruelty even as they decry the cruelty of others. We are taught from birth that human life has no value, that material success is morally self-validating, and that those who suffer deserve to suffer. This is our real cultural brokenness: a deep, foundational hatred of one another and of ourselves. It transcends all identity markers. It stains us all. And it’s why we’ve all run headlong into a regressive and idiotic understanding of race at a time when we desperately need to unite and help one another. 

[giorgiastastes]

El hoyo (2019)

"The message needs no carrier" (spoiler: it actually does)

"There are 3 kinds of people; the ones above, the ones below, and the ones who fall. "

I've just watched this small masterpieces and here's my own interpretation.

Obviously the whole movie is a big metaphor. Both an analogy about our society and one about the Afterlife are present.

First of all, in my view, the place they're kept into is like a Purgatory between heaven and hell. The protagonist entered there voluntary because after the six months trial he would have expiated his sins and would finally be ready to enter Heaven. The old man is an accidental killer, therefore he doesn't deserve Hell, but definitely can't go into Heaven either, and his punishment is longer than Goreng's because he did in fact end a life.

Also Goreng is referenced multiples times as the Messiah, and his travel towards this purge tower is quite similar to Dante's one.

Each prisoner wakes up the first day of the month in a different position, which represents our birth. Some are born in better environments, families and countries and all of it is just luck, fate.

Then, since everyone knows that each of higher floors will likely take advantage of their position, our selfishness takes the best of us.

The higher floors know that the lower ones will literally eat their leftovers, while the ones under know that they better take as much as they can, otherwise they won't be able to survive. There's no altruism or generosity in the society.

You're placed high, you sh*t on who's below. You're below, you dream to reach above.

Each of the characters represents something.

The first roommate, the old man, is someone who's very aware of their surrounding, who's tired of fighting and knows very well how the world works because he's been in a better as much as a worse situation.

The lady coming from the Administration is a middle class representative, trying to change the world but also completely unaware of what's happening right under her nose.

The fact that she keeps on saying that a baby cannot be there and there are 200 floors is just further proof that we blindly lie to ourselves that things can't be that bad, that the world isn't that evil and the rules are respect, being delusional of course, to help us sleep at night. That's why when she hits lower than what she was told was possible, she killed herself.

She's also a vegetarian, with a big love for animals. She obviously represents both an activist that is trying to tell others that they shouldn't eat more than they need, because that means that who's lower won't have anything left, which is such a big innuendo to climate change, but at the same time she's also a privileged person who's never been lower than a certain point and thinks that anyone can easily "just eat less" without caring about other's issues (it reminded me of some vegans who cannot accept that veganism is not accessible or sustainable for the majority of the would population)

The last roommate, the one with the rope represents a religious person, who endures the hardship without giving up because of his faith.

Another pragmatic sequence in my opinion was the one where the two, while descending the tower, met an ill man with a companion with the Down Syndrome (I'm sorry if I'm sounding insensitive is just that I don't know how else to better describe the scene to make it recognizable to you) who said that he will proceed to suffocate his cellmate to also eat what went into his stomach even while being no more hungry himself, I mean, can you better descrive greed than this sentence?

Now, coming to the final scene, which left many of the viewers disappoint or confused, here's my idea.

The deranged girl who claims to have a daughter is definitely crazy, but not completely gone. I do believe there is a baby there, and the Administration is probability unaware of that because there's someone higher than them, and they're being lied to, also. But I don't think the protagonist actually saw the little girl.

I think that he reached such a place of histeria that he convinced himself that the baby was alive, hallucinating, to have a last strand of hope as he was dying. Notice how the baby is perfectly clean and well nourished, that would be impossible. The little girl is long gone and dead God knows in which floor but he convinced himself that he saw her as a way of also hoping that some kind of humanity is still left, that they wouldn't kill and eat an innocent and innocuous creature. But that's not the case.

Notice how he reaches the 333th floor and then walks like he doesn't even have a scar. Now multiply that number for each room residents, which are two. He's dead and has now reached Hell. There he finds his first roommate who's also in Hell since they both damned themselves letting their selfishness take over. The lady is obviously absent, since she never hurt a thing or specifically ate someone's flesh.

The baby was all part of his imagination and she doesn't reach the 0 level, simply because she was never there in the first place.

The girl could have been the message if she reached the top, since it would have proven how flawed the system is, but she never will. Some people claimed that it is not possible to reach the top because of how fast the platform goes, that it will just crash on the ceiling. I do not agree. There's no point in letting the platform crash each time so it will probably slow down enough to reach level 0, in facts we don't even know how tall level 1 is.

Someone also claimed that it's impossible that no one else ever reached the top through this method, which means to go all the way down to then come back up. First of all, it could have happened and that person could have been sent back down, but what I find most reasonable is that no one knows how deep the hole is, probably up to hell, and no one is brave enough to do it because no matter how bad your situation is, you're still afraid of having it worse. It's a suicidal mission which led to crazyness and then death even our brave characters.

Another reference I've loved is when it's mentioned that usually the poorest kill each other's to survive, while the richest have the highest rate of suicide. Why is that? Easy, they have nothing to endure, to live for, they have everything, they're not longing for the hope of food plus there's frightening in knowing that the next month it can only worsen.

So now the question remains: What is the ending then if the baby doesn't reach the top? The finale guys was right in front of our eyes, around the middle of the movie. Remember when the chef complains to other cooks about the hair in the pannacotta? That's the real ending: the pannacotta reaches the top (further proof that the platform won't crash) as the message but instead of being interpreted as a statement of insurrection, the level 0 workers believe it was sent back because there was a hair in there. This is the ultimate slap in the face, the final proof that those people are so out of touch, so blind towards what's happening downstairs that they think that was the issue, the hair in the pannacotta, without realizing that people are literally eating each others down there.

So, there was actually a satisfying finale which gave us answers, it's just that the finale was not at the end as usual.

[timothypines]

Is Classical Music Dead? (Essay)

How does society determine when a particular genre of music is dead? From this question, multiple others are born. For example, do we consider that the inspiration from music continued throughout popular genres as the survival of what it was originally? Or is it dead because it has changed into something different from its original form? When it comes to classical music, it isn’t really as question about whether or not it is dead, but if it’s dying. Classical music is still being performed, listened to, and celebrated in communities today, so calling it dead seems premature, even foolish. That’s not to say that the average person believing classical music is dying is without merit; classical music isn’t usually on the radar for say a random person asked off the street. However, when looked at from the perspective of the musical community, classical music is positively flourishing and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.

           In a New York Times Article, a violinist showed concern that the classical music industry was dying. Some readers responded in letters reacting to the concerns she expressed. The violinist started by saying, “A schoolboy recently asked me if Richard Wagner was a pitcher for the Yankees. At that moment I feared that classical music in America was doomed” (Dreyer). Like this violinist expressed, most people in the music community, and outside the community, acknowledge that classical music isn’t a subject that most people going through life know a whole lot about. While many know some parts of classical pieces and perhaps some names of famous composers, their knowledge is surface level and, for the most part, they don’t seek to learn more. This reflects in some worrying trends in the industry. Classical radio stations were shutting down, concerts were being reduced and canceled, less and less were classical musicians being discussed (Dreyer). Classical music simply isn’t popular. But from this trend came a great wave of musicians, teachers, and lovers of classical music who were determined to spread the love and knowledge of a music they deemed immensely important, and rightfully so.

           Most all of the music we have and enjoy today has elements that came from classical music, from the most basic to the more complex. The major-minor scale system that is commonly used in the majority of today’s music was first put into use in the baroque period. It was in this period that the scale system was also standardized (Willoughby). In fact, the baroque period standardized a great many musical tools, styles, and elements. From this period developed keyboard music, which lead to the invention of the modern piano, an instrument that can be argued to be the most important instrument when it comes to creating music, harmony, a base element in most music performed today, and the establishment of the orchestra (Willoughby). It would take a long time to list all of the musical elements gained and standardized in the baroque period, but it is certain that music would not look nearly the same if not for the major development that occurred.

           The baroque period, while very important, wasn’t the only period that significantly influenced music. The romantic period brought what was missing from music in the baroque period back into the musical community, emotion. A big emphasis on music today is how it makes the listener feel. While the baroque period brought technicality, all emotion was sacrificed for ridged structure and extremely complex technique. Beethoven put emotion into his music, effectively shifting people’s approach to composing. Willoughby writes, “These attributes of Beethoven mirror the attributes of the Romantic period as a whole; it was a time when artistic expression became highly individual and personal, and also highly emotional” (Willoughby, 253). With this wave of emotion came another change; music started being made for music’s sake. Composers started writing what they wanted to hear instead of what was popular or what the church needed for service. A large part of what music is now has come from classical music, and most people within the music community, of many genres, understand and respect this.

           It is important to be noted that while people respect the roots that classical music has provided, that doesn’t mean that people are very supportive of how it exists, or rather, how they believe it exists. There is a notion that classical music is elitist, for the rich and privileged only. One could point to the expensive ticketing for opera and ballets and orchestra performances to prove this point, but there are many things that are just as or even more expensive than these tickets that people don’t find elitist—for example, sporting events (Cross-eyed Pianist). Some people will point at the etiquette and dress for attendance at a concert hall. The fact remains, however, that opera houses and concert halls have no official dress code or strict rules everyone must follow. Music blogger and commenter goes on to say, “It troubles me, this negative perception of classical music and its fans, and it strikes me that currently there is an image crisis surrounding classical music. It wasn’t always like this. When I was growing up in the 1970s, there was more classical music in our everyday lives” (Cross-eyed Pianist). Most people have the notion that classical music is only accessible to and is only made for those better off than themselves, even though it has been available to and made for everyone’s ears for centuries now.

With that in mind, the love for classical music itself has not died out yet. There is a vast and passionate community of musicians, teachers, and listeners who adore classical music and saw it failing in the wider community. These people have worked hard and are continuing to work hard to spread a passion for classical music. An excellent example of some people doing this is the YouTube duo who run the channel Two Set Violin. On this channel they make comedy sketches, play games, and react to videos. All of this content is tied together by one thing, classical music. Brett and Eddy, the two friends who run Two Set, are professionally trained violinists who decided to make a YouTube channel to try and spread love for classical music. It was also important to them to make classical music and the education of classical music more accessible. They teach about music in an engaging, funny way all while encouraging their audience to create and perform music. Their saying is simply ‘practice’. They encourage their musician audience members by reminding them that no one who is really good at playing an instrument got there without hard work and tell them to keep practicing. Two Set has even brought on large musicians like Hillary Han and Benny Chen to talk about their experiences and the importance of practicing. This helps to break the stereotype of not only what a classical musician looks like, but how they act and how much work goes into their music. In one video, while reacting to an American Idol performance with two violinists, one of the judges says, “It’s so nice to see such young, good looking guys that play the violin because usually they’re like old and bald and, you know, a bit greasy” (Two Set Violin). They respond by pointing out that they themselves are young and that this is a negative stereotype. In another video they react to a man that says he is the fastest violin player in the world. Brett says, “the world needs to know that classical music is more than just playing fast” (Two Set Violin).  In these two videos, Brett and Eddy are challenging the media’s, and greater public’s, view of classical music, the view that classical music is old, for old people, and the people who participate are elitists who only care about perfection and technicality. And they have done so much more than videos like these reaction to other musicians. They have had videos where they have their followers compose a piece and send it to them to play. They have asked people to send in clips of them performing for them to react to. In so many ways these two violinists have gotten so many people involved in classical music. Over the years they have grown a great following of people who love participating in classical music, whether that be through performance or listening; as of today, they have almost 3 million subscribers (Two Set Violin). Brett and Eddy aren’t the only people who have gotten the public more involved in classical music. As social media has grown, classical musicians have become increasingly accessible to the public. The violinist Hillary Han often posts on Instagram videos of her practicing and other music related things, but she also speaks on social issues and gives insight into her life. This shows all 300,000 followers she is human (violincase).

           It is difficult to say whether or not a musical genre is dead, and even harder to say if it’s dying. The act of music dying would take centuries, and even then, there are arguments to be made that because other music that exists was influenced by the ‘dead’ music, it still lives. Classical music was the popular music for centuries, its memory will not so easily fade, especially to the point where it is considered a dead genre. Even if it is not a popular genre today, classical music is being kept alive by the musicians who perform it and the people who love to listen to it. Music is art that decorates and marks time, and so, as long as people paint time with classical music, it is not dead.

     Work Cited

Dreyer, Les. “Sunday Dialogue: Is Classical Music Dying?” The New York Times, 2012. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/opinion/sunday/sunday-dialogue-is-classical-music-dying.html

Willoughby, David. The World of Music. McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Kindle Edition.

The Cross-Eyed Pianist. “Who Made Classical Music ‘elitist’?” The Cross-Eyed Pianist, 2019. https://crosseyedpianist.com/2019/07/24/who-made-classical-music-elitist/

Two Set Violin. “The World's FASTEST (and most INACCURATE) VIOLINIST!” YouTube, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvsvaCU6i1M&ab_channel=TwoSetViolin

Two Set Violin. “Classical Violinists React to Mainstream Violin Competitions” YouTube, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uVN5Fb_Z44&ab_channel=TwoSetViolin

Han, Hillary. “@violincase” Instagram.

[akitohru]

The Sohma clan and its cult-like characteristics or: why and how they get away with everything they do. Why everyone stays. Why the current system held in place operates so well. I wrote this back when episode 10 came out, but I didn’t post it over here. However, with the release of Rin’s episode, I’m seeing this topic being brought up again a lot, so I wanted to post it over here too. This post will include no manga spoilers, so don’t feel the need to watch out for them.

Warning: Abuse will be heavily discussed in this post.

With the reveal that Akito is God, we find out why the zodiac are so loyal to Akito. However, the curse itself is largely a metaphorical device rather than an actual fantasy device. Even without the curse, their loyalty to Akito is still.. very realistic considering the environment they grew up in. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the Sohma clan (at least, the “inside” part of the clan.) is a cult. This post will be explaining why that is and how being in a cult affects people. I will be using this handout (uucnrv.org/uucwp/wp-content/uploads/Cults-handouts.pdf) in the post as a reference.The handout defines a cult as:

A religion or sect, generally considered to be extremist or false, under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader for whom members exhibit fixed, even religious, veneration.

The zodiac worship Akito as their God. Even if they have problems with how Akito operates things, they still hold great reverence for him and don’t go against him no matter what kind of heinous things he does Ex: Not doing anything about Yuki being locked and tormented in a dark room by Akito for a majority of his young life, Akito partially blinding Hatori + ruining him and Kana’s relationship, Akito harming Tohru, and Akito pushing Rin off from what looked to be the third floor of a building.

Now, onto what the handout describes as common characteristics of cults:

One charismatic leader is the group’s sole authority on truth; only this leader decides, or has the right to approve, all policies and practices. Members are zealous, protective, and unquestioningly committed to the leader.Members regard the leader’s beliefs and practices as truth and law; the leader affirms and enforces this idea. Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or punished.

Since I’ve pretty much already covered how all of these characteristics relate to Akito and the zodiac under the definition, I’ll refrain from repeating myself on certain things. You may have noticed in episode 9 that Yuki says, “He needs to know his place. Him and me both. That’s how it’s supposed to be.“ He and the others have had instilled in them ever since they were old enough to comprehend things that the way things operate in the Sohma Clan are simply just the way things are supposed  to be. That they can not defy that. That is is fate. Like Akito says to Kyo, "It’s what’s been carved into the wheel of fate for those born with a spirit.”

“The group’s leadership dictates how members should think, act, and feel. Members require the leader’s permission to change jobs, date, marry, or have children. The leader tells members where they can live and how to teach and discipline their children.”

Ex: Hatori having to get permission to marry Kana. While this is a characteristic of a cult, this also has to do with the Sohma clan’s family/household system. You can read more about that in this informative and intriguing post made by Furuba Canon here! (It warns in the post but watch out for spoilers.)

“The group uses public humiliation or punishment, debilitating work, sleep deprivation, or other practices to create group-think and to suppress individualism and doubt.”

I’ve already mentioned some examples of the type of punishment Akito exacts against the zodiac for insubordination under the definition, but another example of this would be when Akito visits the school and threatens Yuki with the “special room” he used to isolate him before because he skipped out of the New Year celebration

“The group is elitist, claiming special status for itself, its leaders, and its members.”

The zodiac are most definitely seen as special in the Sohma clan, only the “insiders” knowing of the curse. Akito, of course, is seen as the most special.

“Criticism or jokes about the leader or group are taken very seriously and likely punished.”

We see this when Kyo is fighting back against Akito in the annex, Akito responding with, “Don’t give me orders,” and becoming more aggressive after Kyo tells him not to touch him. We also see this when Tohru protects Momiji from Akito. 

Thought Reform

In the article (people.howstuffworks.com/cult.htm), “How Cults Work”, the author describes how cults manage to have so much control over people:

A destructive cult uses countless techniques to get its members to stay, commit themselves and take part in what may be harmful activities. The sum of these techniques constitutes what some people call “mind control.” It’s also known as “thought reform,” “brainwashing” and “coercive persuasion,” and it involves the systematic breakdown of a person’s sense of self… Thought reform is an umbrella term for any number of manipulative techniques used to get people to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do…most psychologists believe that cult brainwashing techniques, which are similar to techniques used in prisoner interrogation, do change a person’s thought processes

Techniques (I will only be mentioning the ones that apply to the Sohma Clan.):

1. “Isolation- Cults cut off members from the outside world (and even each other) to produce intense introspection, confusion, loss of perspective and a distorted sense of reality. The members of the cult become the person’s only social contact and feedback mechanism…

Cults may not allow unsupervised contact with the “outside world.” In this way, there is no chance for a “reality check” or validation of a new member’s concerns regarding the group.

Cults typically instill the belief that “outsiders” (non-cult members) are dangerous and wrong.”

As we first see in the “Spring Comes” episode, the Sohmas mostly all live in the big Sohma estate with no outsiders being allowed in without special permission. Even if they are allowed to attend school and go out for other reasons, they’re still pretty isolated and surrounded by people who don’t find the way things operate inside the estate odd at all, some even encouraging of it. Someone living in that type of environment all of their life will more likely than not be influenced by the people around them, twisted as those people may be.  

In a more extreme sense, we see this with how Akito isolated young Yuki and still isolates Kureno. Akito rarely allows anyone to see Kureno, keeping him by his side as much as possible, not giving him a chance to break free from his chains. The same went for Yuki. Again, Akito instilled in him that the outside world was pitch black and that no one would accept him out there, that it was dangerous to interact with people outside because they’d find him strange and weird.

2. “Induced Dependency- Cults demand absolute, unquestioning devotion, loyalty and submission. A cult member’s sense of self is systematically destroyed. Ultimately, feelings of worthlessness and “evil” become associated with independence and critical thinking, and feelings of warmth and love become associated with unquestioning submission…

Any doubts, assertiveness or remaining ties to the outside world are punished by the group through criticism, guilt and alienation. Questions and doubts are systematically “turned around” so that the doubter feels wrong, worthless, “evil” for questioning. The member is loved again when he renounces those doubts and submits to the will of the leader.”

We see this when Kyo questions why Akito allowed Tohru to live with them if he hates her so much, if he’s using her for something. In response to Kyo questioning, Akito retorts, “You’re always quick to make me the villain, huh?…You even killed your own mom! Do you think you have the right to fall in love with someone?! Do you think that’s allowed?! Kyo. Hey, Kyo. Think about it. Who’s the real villain here? Who’s the one who involved her the most?” When Kyo gives in, Akito becomes more “loving” towards him, saying, “It’s okay, I’ll go visit you in confinement. I’ll be by your side, so you won’t be alone. I love you. I actually love you so much, Kyo. Be a good boy from now on.“

Akito loves using people’s trauma against them, knows how to use it in such an awfully cruel way. In Kyo’s case, he has been told that he’s a monster his whole life even by his dad. His mother took her life and everyone blames it on him. It’s not simple to erase that guilt he feels from even though he has positive influences around him. (Ex: Kazuma, Tohru.) That’s how Akito breaks him down. Even if he knows Akito is a cruel person, it doesn’t erase the idea from his mind that he is a monster and that, despite Akito being the way he is, that he is right. Akito knows this. He manipulative and knows how to make people bend to his will.

“The leader may randomly alternate praise and love with scorn and punishment to keep the member off-balance and confused and instill immense self-doubt. The leader may offer occasional gifts and special privileges to encourage continued submission.”

We see this with how Akito tells everyone he “loves” them, but, at the same time, emotionally and physically abuses them to keep them in check. The situation with Kyo in the annex applies here too.

3. “Dread- Once complete dependence is established, the member must retain the leader’s good favor or else his life falls apart.

The leader may punish doubt or insubordination with physical or emotional trauma.”

I believed I’ve already used up all the examples I can use that won’t be spoilers, so I’ll copy the examples I used under the definition. Ex: Not doing anything about Yuki being locked and tormented in a dark room by Akito for a majority of his young life, Akito partially blinding Hatori + ruining him and Kana’s relationship, Akito harming Tohru, and Akito pushing Rin off from what looked to be the third floor of a building.

“Once all ties to the outside world have been cut, the member feels like his only family is the group, and he has nowhere else to go.

A specific example of this would be how Yuki felt when his mom gave him up to Akito. To quote him, “I thought that if she abandoned me, if she deserted me, everything would turn dark, and it would be the end to everything.”

“Access to necessities depends on the leader’s favor. The member must "behave” or he may not get food, water, social interaction or protection from the outside world.”

Again, Akito’s isolation of Kureno and Yuki applies here. There are some spoilery things I won’t mention that are very applicable here too.

To end off,

Indoctrination, or thought reform, is a long process that never really ends. Members are continually subjected to these techniques – it’s part of daily life in a cult. Some adjust well to it after a period of time, embracing their new role as “group member” and casting aside their old sense of independence. For others, it’s a perpetually stressful existence.

The zodiac were born into an extremely twisted environment. It’s pretty much all they’ve ever known. They think the way they are living is the way it is supposed to be and something that can not be changed. Akito is the head of the family and has the support of many Sohma elders/adults including most of the zodiacs’ very own parents. It is also worth noting that the Sohmas are a very rich and powerful clan (Notice how they even have a hospital under their name as shown in episode 5 of s2. That’s how Akito/the parents can get away with abusing the zodiac kids and putting them in the hospital without anyone reporting them.); if they really wanted to prevent someone from acting out against them they very easily could and could easily pay off authorities if anyone managed to report them. Another reason why real life cults are so successful is because of corrupt law enforcement who are willing to turn the other cheek if they are paid enough and deep political ties. 

So, with all that being said, you can see why it would be natural for them to feel trapped, to feel that they have no choice. Adults around them that were supposed to take care of them and protect them instead used them for their own benefit/let them be a part of such a twisted system. Abuse, childhood abuse especially, is something that can irrevocably damage a person’s mind. The effects of abuse and trauma are nothing to scoff at. Even healthy adults who’ve never been in that kind of environment can be brainwashed by a cult if they’re unlucky enough to get caught up in one.

[theflashdriver]

Waves of Fate (A Silvaze Modern/Soulmate AU)

Beaches were supposed to be happy places, books always described them that way at least. People came to the beach to have fun, to play games and relax. It was supposed place of joy, where smiles supposedly reigned supreme and you could count on the sun parting the clouds to grant a blue sky.

A grey sky hung over the pale white sands of the secluded, manmade, beach the belonged to the Sol estate. A family made wealthy through inheritance and investment; the sole monarchs of the estate had built themselves a high castle, separate from the common rabble, to settle and grow. Unfortunately for them however, perhaps due to their greed, the pair’s first and only child had arrived with a certain abnormality. That grey sky also hung over that very child, the twelve-year-old Blaze the cat, as she stared down at her workbook.

It was peculiar for her to take lessons by the beachside but, with some effort from her tutor to convince the feline’s parents, a bizarre and impromptu lesson had been quickly organised. Sat atop a thick picnic blanket, wearing a smile so caring that the young girl could practically feel it, was the in-house tutor for the estate, Vanilla. Contrary to the scowl Blaze wore as she carefully considered what to write next, the youngster didn’t dislike the rabbit. She had in fact, even at this young age, come to truly appreciate the role the tutor filled. The feline’s parents were always either distracted or busy, she couldn’t particularly tell or care which, but Vanilla, a mother herself, always found time to listen and care. Even in situations like this… even when the young girl claimed that she wanted nothing more than to be alone.

“How’s it going Blaze? Are you stuck?” Stubborn as ever, trying not to listen, the kitten bit her tongue, “You don’t need to write too much, just think of this as practice writing letters.”

Attempting to make a show of it, the feline (dressed in dungarees rather than her school uniform) silently continued her cursive work until she harshly dotted the end of a sentence, “I’m fine Vanilla,” As she looked up and caught the rabbit’s eyes, Blaze realised that, though she had technically answered the question, something further had been revealed. Of the people she knew, Vanilla was the only one who could peer into her heart and see the truth. The child’s eyes returned to the page, “I’m writing fine I just… you know…”

“I know you don’t believe in this and you think it’s foolish but that’s fine. A hint of whimsy is just what you need right now. Just think of it as a break from boring maths questions and everything else,” It was fortunate that the words everything else were cut off by a certain rummaging sound and a bread triangle entering the corner of her vision, “Gardon made these while I was talking with your parents, would you like to partake?”

Unable to resist her gentle charm any longer, regardless of how arduous today had been, Blaze set her book aside and claimed the wrapped meal with a muted, “Thank you.”

“It’s not the best day for a picnic, but it’s far from the worst,” Vanilla mused, claiming a sandwich of her own, “Not too windy and the forecast doesn’t call for rain, it’ll be smooth sailing for your letter.”

“Assuming it doesn’t just wash back onto the beach,” She glumly shrugged, undoing the wrapping and taking her first bite. Salmon, probably fresh from this morning. Once she’d swallowed, Blaze couldn’t help but look up to her tutor again, “Is it really cold? Are you okay?”

“Oh, no, dear. It’s not that cold, just a little chilly. I’ll be fine, honestly,” Blaze met her smile with an incredulous stare. The rabbit’s face somehow grew even softer, “Well, I suppose I wouldn’t mind just a little warming up,” Without even hesitating, the tutor reached across again; this time an empty hand was extended.

Blaze took the comparatively large hand in her own and, trying her hardest to be gentle, allowed a few small flames to build on the back of her knuckles. The heat immediately began to radiate, even though the flames were stagnant in terms of both position and size. Absentmindedly, ears drooping without their owner’s consent, she spoke, “It’s not hard to control them when I’m comfortable. It’s easier when it’s just you and me.”

“I know dear but, one day, it’ll be easy all the time. I’m certain of it,” Vanilla promised, drawing back her hand and pressing it to her cheeks, “That was lovely of you, thank you.”

A half mile behind them, in the estate’s main building, cindered remains were likely still being swept up. An attempt to set up a playdate with the children of another wealthy family hadn’t gone over well, but the issue wasn’t as mundane as that. To say Blaze didn’t get along with the other children was certainly an understatement, the feline’s very first encounter with those infants had ended in tears and a ball of fire. Today, when her parents refused to see reason, a similar explosive display had ignited the living room couch before spreading to the wallpaper. Of course, plans were in place for this sort of occurrence, the house’s sprinkler system had gone off, but it hadn’t cooled her parent’s scorn. She’d scarcely been able to dry herself and change before Vanilla had plucked her from the house.

“You’re welcome,” Was all she could manage to mumble.

“And whoever gets this letter will surely love you for your gift,” A seriousness lingered in the rabbit’s tone, despite the multiple layers of foolishness behind her claim, “Not despite it.”

Blaze scoffed before quickly finishing her sandwich, not yet returning to her work, “Who even thought this superstition up? I know I’ve read about it before but never like this…”

“This one in particular was thought up by the wives and children of widow sailors, as tragic as that is,” The bunny half cringed, “As I’ve told you, when a destined pair send messages out to sea, they’ll receive a sign of their connection. The ocean will take you letter and, just and only this once, deliver it to your soulmate as long as it meets the right conditions.”

“It has to be fully written by one person, it can’t include that person’s name, physical description, hints to find that person or to try and organise a meeting. It also has to be the first message a person sends to sea and no one else is allowed to read it until it reaches the intended individual,” Blaze recalled aloud, “Making it seem all the more pointless. All you can really tell them is what you’re like and what’s happening to you and, regardless, it’s not going to reach anyone. How are you even going to mark this if you’re not allowed to read it?”

“Come on Blaze, when I was your age, I wanted so badly for a handsome prince to sweep me off my feet. I must have rewritten my letter a hundred times,” Vanilla chastised, plainly ignoring the kitten’s question, “You can tell them what you think loving them will be like, your hopes and dreams. No one else will ever get to read it, only you and them,” Admittedly, that was true. Whatever she wrote down here would likely be lost to the sea, “And even if it doesn’t work, no one who finds it would ever know it came from you. It’s a thought exercise as much as it is a writing one, a way to air your frustrations and ambitions.”

The kitten claimed her journal again, trying her hardest to ignore the cloudy sky above. For whatever reason, her pen felt heavier than it had just a moment prior. She let her thoughts flow onto the page, their pace kept by a modest barrier of consideration, and tried her hardest not to overdo it. In truth, she’d never really considered what she wanted from a partner or what a partner might want from her. Did she even want a partner? Part of her didn’t, and she was certain that would come across in her writing, but she couldn’t deny that she saw the appeal. The idea of someone loving her for her flames was more than a little farfetched but someone who could see past them and still love her? Someone who actively, genuinely, wasn’t afraid of her? How could she say no to that?

Finally, Blaze clicked her pen closed. Vanilla perked up, “Is it done?”

“I think so…” The young feline hummed before drawing her eyes to the page and giving it a final read.

To whomever comes to possess this note,

I hope we can meet and that, when we do, that the reason behind our link becomes clear rather than being the mere whim of coincidence. I have been instructed that, in this letter, I am to tell you about myself. While I was born into fortuitous circumstances, I have not lived the most fortunate of lives: though I am privileged in some ways, I am far more socially handicapped than the majority of my peers. I handle criticism poorly as I always try to give my all, regardless of the actual importance of any given assignment.

My peers don’t think too highly of me, many of them fear me, but the few truly close to me claim that I am mature for my age and intelligent. I’ve recently started to play the violin and have practiced ballet for as long as I can remember. As for other interests, though they’ll undoubtedly change by the time we meet, classical literature and music has always appealed to me. If we are destined to be together then I doubt you are a pilot, so this is probably unimportant, but I do have a fear of heights. I’m sorry if you wanted more details but I’m quite confused as to what is safe to include, in accordance with this dubious tradition.

I don’t think I’m the easiest person to love, both for reasons that should become clear to you and my inherent defensiveness. Though my investment in this idea of soulmates may be limited, the thought that there is someone out there who will love me for who I am is, undeniably, appealing. I may not be the best at displaying how I feel but, if we are to care for each, I will try my best to show you that I care. To be honest, I don’t know what to expect or to ask of you beyond that you keep an open mind if we do meet. Perhaps, just as this rumour being true would, you will surprise me.

Please stay safe and write soon, from your soulmate.

“It’s a little… melancholy,” Blaze admitted, trying not to wince, “But I don’t want to rewrite it. It’s good enough.”

It was all written in her neatest handwriting, entirely cursive and eloquent. There wasn’t a single spelling error, not one that she could identify at least, and it looked professional enough? She’d written it in the manner she’d learned to write all of her letters and, perhaps, that was a little too formal for the occasion. Then again, it wasn’t as though it would actually reach anyone.

And, of course, she hadn’t mentioned her flames; not in explicit terms at least.

“Is it how you truly feel?” Vanilla questioned, “Is it how you want to introduce yourself to them.”

Blaze took another moment, considering it for just a moment more, before tearing the paper from her jotter and rolling it into a tight scroll, “Yes.”

The tutor turned to rummage through her bag again, this time drawing forth three things: a ribbon to bind the note, a small (cleaned and untinted) glass bottle and a whittled down cork from an old wine bottle. Blaze took the ribbon first, gently securing her note, and trying not to crumple it, before gingerly sliding it into the bottle’s narrow mouth. She let Vanilla secure the cork in place, not much trusting that it’d hold if she did it. Then though, curiously, the rabbit produced another object from her bag. A small violet tealight, brand new and untouched.

“I think it might be nice to seal the bottle in your own, unique, way,” The rabbit explained, tilting the cantle upside down and holding it above the now sealed bottle, “With a little bit of fire, we can make a wax lid.”

The tealight exchanged hands, Vanilla held the bottle in place. Just as her prior heating, the tutor was likely the only one who would trust her to do this. Well, perhaps Gardon would too on a good day. Blaze snuck her forefinger around the tealight’s metal casing and birthed a burgeoning flame directly into the wax. The reaction was almost immediate, purple, lavender scented, wax began to drip down in gooey clumps and gather atop the cork. It took a while, and some shifting, to completely cover both the entryway. Most of the candle was diminished by the time it was done, the bubbling mass gradually cooling on the glass.

Vanilla drew it back, gently blowing on it, “Good job, Blaze. That’s perfect.”

In the silence that hung as the wax cooled, Blaze couldn’t help but dwell on her future a little. She knew she was young, far too young to be seriously considering these things, most children her age would still be focused on becoming a pop singer or filling some other extravagant niche. Her parents wanted her to focus on law, become a judge or an attorney, but, despite how important those callings were, they didn’t appeal to her. The only thing she knew that she wanted was to be away from here, to find somewhere that she could settle herself and actually be free to think, but that was so long away. She was bound to this place, bound to her parents, for the-

A gentle hand pushed up the feline’s chin and brought her to look the elder rabbit in the eye, “You might not meet whoever gets this letter for some time, but I promise you, Blaze, you will find them. You won’t be here forever; you feel so trapped forever. With their help or otherwise, I know you’ll do great things.”

The tutor rose, passing the bottle to its first owner. The kitten stumbled to her feet, taking it but quickly reaching out and holding her teacher’s hand. Barren white sand crunched underfoot, the clouds refused to part even now. It wasn’t long until she was at the cusp of the water, the lapping waves mere centimetres from the toe of their shoes. The older of the two drew up the hem of her skirt, Blaze awkwardly fumbled with her dungaree’s legs before retaking the rabbit’s hand. Vanilla took the first step into the foamy waters, but Blaze was quick to follow after. They waded until the sea reached the young feline’s knee, a glance from Vanilla informed her that was far enough.

Gently, Blaze set the bottle in the water. They stood for a moment, just to see that it would leave their sight. The tide was receding, they’d see the bottle bob above the waves every so often as it was gradually being carried towards the horizon. It was off to either meet with a watery grave or find some person somewhere else in the world.

“Well, now we just have to wait and see,” The rabbit smiled, turning and gently retaking her hand, “I’m sure it’ll reach someone wonderful. I can’t wait to see you two together. Its been so long since I’ve seen young love, I’m sure your Prince Charming will be wonderful.”

“M-Miss Vanilla,” The little girl couldn’t help but whine, “I don’t want a Prince.”

“Oh? What is it you want then?” She asked, nearing the water’s end.

“I don’t know…” Blaze murmured, giving it just half a moment’s thought, “I just want a friend. I just want someone else who will be nice to me.”

“Can’t they be both?” Vanilla laughed, taking the first step onto dry land.

The young girl hadn’t considered that, but she wasn’t sure that she liked it. She was about to speak up in defiance when she felt something peculiar. A wave had passed behind her, lapping just above her heels, but it had hit differently somehow. It’d almost felt too hard.

Turning to look over her shoulder, Blaze frowned as her eyes scanned the water. Among the waves, hitched in the sand, was a bottle. Had her note followed them back? Breaking off from Vanilla, the young girl crouched to get a closer look. Something about this bottle looked different. It wasn’t sealed with wax, it had a screw on lid. What’s more, this bottle was tinted green. Dumbfounded, without so much as thinking, she reached down and plucked the bottle from the water.

“Miss Vanilla?”

-----------

Butterflies flapped in her stomach as though they were giant eagles pursuing some sort of endlessly evasive prey. Blaze the cat, age twenty-two, had just spent the last twelve hours traveling with three overstuffed suitcases and a violin case. She’d departed a train forty minutes ago and had been walking ever since but, prior to that, she’d endured two different taxi rides and a full four hours failing to ignore a window seat view on a flight. To say that she was exhausted would be an understatement, she’d travelled further from her home before but never on her own and never like this, but to say she was unhappy would be entirely false. Blaze the cat was free, free from the Sol estate and free from all that came with it. She had finally claimed control over her life.

She’d never thought that the violin would be her escape; music simply been her hobby, but it had borne an unimaginable fruit. She’d managed to land herself third chair in an orchestra with a high probability of moving further up the ranks. The concertmaster was apparently reaching her elder years, looking for a protégé and to breathe new life into the group. A well-placed audition tape and a handful of politely worded emails had secured her the position. Sure, the job as it was now wasn’t enough to fully support her, but with her education the feline was certain she’d manage to pick up another form of income.

That orchestra job had led her here, Station Square; a city filled to bursting with opportunity which just so happened to also contain a cheap apartment-share near the city’s centre. An application for said lodgings had brought her to the door she was now standing outside of, an entrance to the supposed accommodation that persisted above an old pizzeria. She didn’t know where she’d anticipated her life to restart but the fact it was somewhere this plain honestly excited her. No more private beach; she had to build her own luxury.

First impressions were important, she’d been chastised about them her entire life. She’d tried to dress modestly, what few of her more expensive outfits she’d brought she intended to sell online. Her hair was fixed into a tall ponytail that almost crowned her head, a ponytail that she’d already remade five times today. A long brown trench coat, the brown top button of which she redid, was successfully obscuring a comfortable striped t-shirt and (surprisingly expensive yet unassuming) bootcut jeans.

Once she was certain everything was in place and she had some form of greeting in mind, she dared to press the grimy electric buzzer. Almost immediately, a slightly overloud and static riddled voice answered her call, “Hello? Is that Blaze?”

“Yes, hello. I take it this is the residence of Silver the hedgehog?” She answered.

“Yeah, that’s me! It’s so nice to finally meet you, I hope…” He seemed to catch himself mid-sentence, though he went quiet, the buzzing persisted, “Oh, oops, I should probably open the door. Sorry! I’ll be right down!”

The buzzing finally faded and, once again, Blaze was left alone. That was the first time she’d ever heard his voice and, admittedly, she hadn’t been able to hear it very well. He sounded a lot more excitable than she’d truly anticipated. Their communication up until now had been limited to brief emails and, as a result, she didn’t actually know very much about the man she’d be living with for the foreseeable future. He had no criminal record, the flat itself both looked nice and was affordable, but beyond his job working in the museum and need for an additional housemate, that was the limit of her knowledge. Well, that and the picture attached to his=

Before Blaze could ponder on it for any longer, the white painted door before her swung open and a figure practically burst into view. She wasn’t sure who or what she’d expected out of this museum worker, but she certainly wasn’t this. A set of seven ludicrously long quills immediately consumed Blaze’s vision, followed by a set of excitable yellow eyes and a vaguely sun-kissed muzzle. He was rather peculiarly dressed too; he wore a jumper with a strangely low cut that allowed a seemingly endless flare of white chest fur to slip free. As if that wasn’t odd enough, he wore gloves that were lit by a bizarre cyan symbol on both their front and back.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Blaze!” His smile matched his eyes so very perfectly.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Silver,” She half bowed, already feeling a little overwhelmed. The picture she’d seen had made him look demurer, his quills had been tied back and he’d been in his work uniform. She truly hadn’t considered that he’d be a head taller than her.

Almost immediately, he seemed to notice her luggage. Without even blinking, he gestured past her, “Oh, you must be exhausted. I can help with those!” Blaze’s surprise transmuted into total befuddlement at what happened next. With that wave of the hedgehog’s hand, those cyan symbols began to glow much brighter and Blaze heard shifting behind her. Before she could turn, all four of her bags had taken to the air and hovered above her head, “I’ll take them up and show you around, come on.”

She stood in the doorway for a moment, entirely dumbfounded. She knew people with powers like hers existed, but they were rare enough that she had never met another. To think that the first person she’d ever stay with, the first person she’d encounter, was capable of such a feat though? This Silver was filled to burst with surprises. Catching herself though, butterfly-eagles still running rampant in her stomach, Blaze began to give chase.

The hallway leading up to the flat itself wasn’t very well lit, but it was homely enough. It led up to a landing where (judging by the small pile) shoes were supposed to be kicked off. Following it was a glass door that immediately opened into a small and very well stocked kitchen. It didn’t smell like anything was cooking at the moment but, judging by the drying rack, he had been hard at work.

“I cook quite a lot,” As he called back, Blaze couldn’t help but notice the hedgehog had gone from walking to floating amongst her luggage, “Are you much of a chef?”

“Not particularly,” Blaze admitted, nonchalantly. What few cooking lessons she’d received had gone especially poorly.

“Oh, well, if you’re ever in trouble or want to learn then let me know,” He offered, spinning back around to face forward, “I made a little something to celebrate your arrival, if you’re up for it.”

“Oh, thank you,” She said, now doubly surprised at his fast kindness.

Blaze took a sniff but, curiously, couldn’t smell whatever it was he’d mentioned. The hedgehog had clearly done a good job of cleaning up in preparation for her arrival, but then again… she had no idea whether the apartment had been messy in the first place. She passed an open door that seemed to lead into a small combination dining room and sitting room. Two patchwork couches sat near the room’s centre, a modest TV cresting just over them and a coffee table between them.

“Is this a violin case?” He called back, drawing her attention away from the room.

“Yes, it is,” She responded, noticing that he’d turned mid-flight and was now hovering the violin between them, “I’m joining city’s orchestra. I’ll need to practice fairly often, but if there’s ever a time you need quiet then feel free to say.”

“Oh, no, free to play it all you want honestly, the place downstairs just does take away and, apparently, the floor is pretty well soundproofed,” He said, that excitement still clinging to his voice as he landed outside a door, “That’s amazing, I’ve always wanted to meet a violinist. I can’t wait to hear you play, you must be wonderful!”

“I’m well practiced,” She coyly admitted, not used to barrages of kindness (let alone praise). She could feel herself locking up but tried to fight it, “Is this my room?”

“Oh, yeah. It is,” The hedgehog nodded, patting himself down before seeming to realise something. With a wave of his hand up the hallway, Blaze watched as a small set of keys raced their way from the kitchen area to float in front of her, “Almost forgot these.”

“Th-Thank you,” Blaze cursed her stutter, plucking them from the air. They found their way to the lock but, before she dared to push inside, she decided to feed her curiosity. He seemed so very open, it couldn’t hurt to pry, “How long have you been able to do that?”

“For as long as I can remember. It comes in pretty handy around the house, if you ever need anything moved then just say,” He grinned, clearly somewhat proud to have made a positive impression with his powers.

“I see,” She hummed, turning the key. She certainly wasn’t comfortable immediately revealing her power to him but, then again, her name was probably a bit of a give-away. Ideally, he wouldn’t question it, “It does seem rather useful.”

Blaze pushed the door open and found herself faced, for the first time today, with a sight she’d expected. The room wasn’t even half the size of her prior bedroom, its walls were both blank and painted off-white. Unlike the other rooms in the house, a grey carpet persisted underfoot. Blaze watched as her bags hovered through the door and landed inside in a small, neat, pile.

“I know it’s not especially stunning, but the landlord says you can decorate it if you want. I did my room up a couple months ago, before I moved in. It’s easier than you think, I’d be happy to help,” Blaze couldn’t tell whether it was due to her cold expression or some sudden realisation, but the hedgehog seemed to falter and turn away, “S-Sorry, I’ve never had a flatmate before, I guess I’m a little overexcited.”

“You haven’t?” She questioned though, in hindsight, the underdeveloped room spoke volumes.

“I’ve moved from place to place quite a lot, living in tiny, two-room, apartments,” He explained.

“Well, I’m sure we’ll manage to figure this out between the two of us,” She wanted to give a reassuring smile but was fairly certain it would only scare him off. It seemed like neither of them were particularly good at this, “Thank you, Silver.”

“I’ll leave you to get comfortable. If you need anything I’ll just be, uh, in here,” He tapped the door opposite, assumedly his bedroom, “There’s an en suite in your room and, um, I think that’s everything? If you need me then just call.”

Blaze nodded and allowed herself the smallest of smiles, “Perhaps, once I’ve put everything away, we could look over the paperwork?”

“Oh, sure, okay! Just say when,” He managed to grin again, ducking back into his room but not bothering to close the door.

Blaze matched him, stepping inside and heaving a sigh of relief. She’d made it through her first interaction with her flatmate, she’d made it to her new home, she was so close to relaxation. There was a small, single, bed against the wall with a tiny wooden bedside cabinet next to it. A reasonably sized, yet still small in her experience, closet was set up against the far wall and she could see the door that likely led to the bathroom. This was liveable, she could do this, it was just the first step in something new.

Unpacking her clothes and amenities took quite a lot longer than she’d anticipated, getting everything onto hangers and into the right place was relaxing albeit slow. There was nowhere especially practical to place her violin so it’d ended up propped against the far wall for the foreseeable future. The final of her bags still sat where Silver had placed it, entirely filled. Vanilla had packed it for her, saying its contents were mere food and cutlery, but she had made the feline promise not to open it until she was settled in her new home. Well, it was finally time.

Blaze hoisted the bag onto her freshly made bed, immediately creasing her work but not especially minding. She quickly brought the zip around, popping the top open, and was stunned by what she saw. The rabbit hadn’t lied, cutlery and non-perishables of all sorts filled the base of the bag, but a small note affixed to an object that Blaze hadn’t even thought about in almost ten years sat atop the other goods. A certain bottle that had washed up on the beach just after she had sent her own message to sea.

Vanilla’s note was short and simple, “Enjoy your new life, don’t forget to write and remember, they’re out there somewhere,” Concluded with a small, winking, smiley face.

Slipping onto the bed, Blaze found herself cradling both the note and the bottle. While that day on the beach stuck out in her mind like a sore thumb, perhaps due to the familial chaos that had come before it, the contents of this bottle did not. She hadn’t thought about that day often, especially not in the latter six of those twelve years, but whenever a book or a person mentioned the concept of soulmates she’d recall but never mention the occurrence. Admittedly, the young feline had long accepted that the note had in fact been written by Vanilla in an attempt to cheer her up following her childish strop. She didn’t believe in such nonsense then and she certainly didn’t now. Still, what was the harm in giving the coincidental note another read for nostalgia’s sake?

Blaze unscrewed the lid, giving the green aluminium top a quick once over before setting it on her bedside table. Wherever it had come from, the bottle had long lost any identifiable markings, but it was more bulbous than that containing any drink she’d ever had. She managed to get a finger in and, with some difficulty, pluck the note free. The sheet felt more like card than paper and was riddled with creases from its initial folding so many years ago. The handwriting was, admittedly, awful. She’d written her note as a child, but this letter looked to have been written with extreme haste. Regardless, due mostly to the large spaces between words, Blaze could make it all out.

It read:

“Hi there! If you’re reading this then I guess you know who I am? Just in case; I’m your soulmate! I can’t wait to meet you, I’m sure we’re going to get along great! I can’t write all that much about myself, otherwise the bottle will sink to the bottom of the sea, but I’m supposed to describe what I think our relationship might be like? But I’ve never been in one before, I’ve never had a soulmate before, so I’m not sure what to do or what to tell you.

People tell me that I’m a little blunt and that I wear my heart on my sleeve and that I’m pretty gullible. I’m not so sure, but I guess they’d know better than me? I really like sweet food! I can’t have a lot of it, we can’t really afford it, but that’s okay because it’s not good for me anyway. I also really like history books. The lost worlds of the past are so interesting to me and I’d love to discover more of them. I hope you like them too! I guess I can’t write about this too much, but I have a special skill that comes in useful quite a lot. It helps me tidy up and cook and get to all sorts of places, even ones I’m not really supposed to.

I don’t know you yet, but I hope you’re nice. I don’t really know a lot about love, a lot of my friends think it’s gross but not me! I think it’s nice knowing that there’s someone out there for me and I’m just waiting to meet someone. If I can make a difference, even if it’s just for one person, then I’ll be happy, so I’ll try my hardest to make you happy! I’m learning to cook and bake so you don’t have to worry about that, I can already make spaghetti!

Please stay safe and I can’t wait to read what you send me!

From your soulmate”

Blaze’s nose wrinkled as she reached the end of the note. She’d decided years ago that Vanilla had written this note, perhaps with her left hand so as to forge childish writing, but something was bothering her. The feline’s eyes traced back up the note, specifically lingering on the mention of a special skill that helped the individual to cook and clean. A foolish thought entered her head, a quiet whisper that was still loud enough to break the otherwise peaceful silence. Reading over the page again, the bluntness and earnestness mentioned further loudened that quiet voice.

Catching herself in her own stupidity, Blaze quickly rerolled the paper and returned it to its bottle. Not quite knowing what to do with it now, feeling a bizarre heat on her face, she set it on her bedside cabinet and threw her gaze to her lap. Attempting to escape the heat, and realising she’d been too distracted to do so earlier, she undid her jacket and shrugged it from her shoulders.

The occurrence ten years ago was just one of many bizarre occurrences in the flame producing feline’s life, she’d seen her fair share of oddness and coincidence. There was absolutely no way that this bottle had come from the person she was now living with, she’d long decided it was a forgery made to keep her happy. It wasn’t like anyone was pulling at the strings of fate. Even if Vanilla hadn’t made it, for a bottle from someone else, someone who clearly believed in the superstition, to have drifted to shore while she was out there... that was possible, wasn’t it? Just as it was possible she’d seen some vague familiarities between the man she’d just met and that note’s writer.

She took her head in her hands, she was being ridiculous. It must have all been induced by her nerves, she was in a new city and living with a stranger, of course she was going to overthink things. There was no way she’d just stumbled into living with her soulmate; she didn’t even believe in soulmates. She’d never believed in soulmates and now, of all times, wasn’t the time to start. Blaze rose from the bed, collected the goods from her remaining suitcase and made a beeline for the door.

When she stepped into the hall though, her eyes were unintentionally drawn through the askew door of his bedroom. Though she could only see perhaps the smallest quarter, assuming that their rooms were the same, she’d locked eyes with a corkboard. A corkboard with many sticky notes tacked to it but also a small, curled, notebook page stuck to it rather than pierced by a tack. With each passing second Blaze felt her face grow hotter and heard her thoughts grow evermore foolish. It was as though fate was tempting her to burst into the room and look at it, or at the very least ask him about it. But that was the height of foolishness, she’d surely sound insane or rude at the very best. What self-respecting adult believed in such a fairy-tale, let alone would discuss it with a new flatmate on the first day they’d even met! She couldn’t ask about that leaflet now of all times! That would look ridiculous!

His mention of always wanting to meet a violinist metamorphosed in her mind from a show of kindness to a potential deeply held honesty. She didn’t recall much of the letter she’d written, but Blaze knew that she’d listed some of her hobbies. She’d only just started to play the stringed instrument, it’d surely been included.

Finding herself lost and dazed in the hallway, Blaze couldn’t help but call out, “Silver?”

She heard what sounded like the hedgehog falling over before he rushed into the doorway, quills wildly tossed, “Hey, is everything alright?”

Blaze swallowed, “I’ve just got some stuff to put in the kitchen and I think I’m ready to sign the papers, as long as you’re not busy?”

“Oh no, don’t worry; I was just doing a little reading, let’s do it,” He beamed, taking to the air again and leading the way to the kitchen.

She felt an immediate impulse to enter his room, he’d left the door open, but Blaze knew that was foolish. No, the much louder thought in Blaze’s brain was questioning what he was reading. The hedgehog worked in a museum; it was likely that he liked to read about history. Even if he was, it would have just been another coincidence… but things were lining up more and more. What was today? Was this all just some bizarre dream?

Blaze begrudgingly followed the white hedgehog, finding herself analysing him more than she probably should. His fur and quills were unkempt but it wasn’t as though he was dirty, just fluffy. She supposed his fur must just have grown out like that. The strange cyan energy he produced seemed to let him guide both himself and objects through the air… perhaps even other people. Blaze could certainly see how useful this power would be for cleaning… it probably let him make multiple dishes and clean at the same time too, pending how it worked.

Heat flashed across her face again and, reflexively, she balled her fists. Though she’d long learned to keep her powers under control, their connection to her emotions was a constant worry. Embarrassment, of all emotions, was one she hadn’t yet managed to control. While it lacked the ferocity and excitability of anger, it was still especially important to keep it subdued. If she let them, these thoughts would do much more than reveal her power. She might burn down her new home before she could spend a night-

“Blaze?” His voice tore her from her thoughts, he’d made it to the kitchen while she’d frozen up in the hall, “Is everything okay?”

“I’m fine I’m just,” She scrambled for the right words, marching towards him, “I’ve not settled yet, I’m still getting used to this arrangement. Just getting my bearings.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” He nodded, still smiling so very brightly, “Take all the time you need. You said online that you’d never lived away from home before, right?”

“I’d visit hotels with my family but, outside that, yes,” Blaze answered, stepping into the kitchen, “I know I’m a little old for that to be the case but…”

“No, no. Don’t worry, I get it and I know it’s pretty scary,” He smiled, leaning against the kitchen counter, “I’ve moved around a lot and your first night in a new place is always weird, let alone your first time anywhere new,” His smile faltered just a little, he began to scratch among his quills, “I’m sorry if I’m making it worse. I’ve been trying to make things more comfortable but I’m probably going a little overboard, right?”

“N-No, no, you’re doing fine,” Blaze quickly replied but she knew that her stutter betrayed the truth. Her failure to convey what she was actually feeling was simultaneously a blessing and a curse this evening. She tried to smile, “Thank you, Silver.”

“It’s no problem. You can put your stuff wherever you want, but I cleaned these two cupboards out for you. I keep the pots and pans in the big drawer and the cutlery in the one above that,” He pointed, his grin slightly returning, “Oh and there should be enough fridge space, I hope?”

Setting the bag down again, Blaze quickly began to unload Vanilla’s parting gifts. She kept the hedgehog in the corner of her eye, watching as he pulled a magnet from the fridge and slid free a small bundle of papers. Assumedly, that was the lease. He then, seeming to realise he didn’t have a pen, gestured up the hall again. The face he, likely unknowingly, pulled as he reached for the pen was far too serious, his soft features barely allowed for it. He seemed very innocent, harmless even; judging by his apologies, despite his attempts to appear confident, this was surely all very new to him too.

“Is something wrong? Is there not enough space?” He asked, catching her staring.

“N-No, no. It’s fine, there’s more than enough,” She quickly looked away, shoving bushels of pasta into the cupboard as she tried her damnedest not to ignore the little voice screaming inside her. The voice that kept repeating the line in that note, that the writer was often described as wearing his heart on his sleeve.

Too many pieces of this non-existent puzzle were lining up, far too many. As she shifted to put away her cutlery, lost in thought, she very almost knocked into him. Even if it was all somehow true, even though that was entirely possible, then that didn’t actually mean anything. It wasn’t like just knowing some miraculous coincidence had happened meant they were bound to stay together forever or fall in love or whatever. She didn’t know him, he didn’t know her either! They’d hardly even talked!

As the last pan clattered into place, Blaze dared to throw another glance his way. The hedgehog had set the paperwork down on the unit and entered the fridge. Blaze hadn’t ever looked for a relationship before and she certainly hadn’t intended to now. She hadn’t really looked at boys or girls or anyone for that matter, but something was bothering her. Perhaps it was just a result of his earnestness, perhaps it was because he looked so fluffy and soft, but there was something almost… charming about him. Was he attractive? Was he cute? Beauty was supposed to be in the eye of the beholder and this beholder had literally no idea what she found attractive.

The moment his bright yellow eyes hit hers, she understood that aspect of herself just a little better. He’d leaned out of the fridge, having not actually taken anything, “I noticed that we need a witness, do you know anyone else around here who you’d like to be it? I can witness it if that’s okay with you but, you know, don’t want to impose or anything. Landlord owns the place downstairs and said you can just leave it there.”

“I-I’m fine with that, yes,” She quickly rose to stand straight, taking the pen and papers from him, “Don’t worry, Silver. I’m just getting my bearings; you’ve been nothing but helpful.”

His smile returned, the spark of joy in those eyes rocked Blaze to her core, “If you’re sure. I’ll leave you to it then.”

Blaze quickly threw her eyes toward the document. She’d read it before online, of course she had, but it was her only escape! She quickly filled in her share before blindly passing the sheet back to Silver for his witness confirmation signature, pretending to be distracted by the spice rack.

When she finally dared to look at him, Blaze found that Silver had casually let go of the objects he’d gathered and left them to hang in the air. Though she’d tried to fight it, Blaze couldn’t help but peer at his handwriting. He’d signed his name twice, both on the landlord’s copy and her own. It’d been at least ten years since the message in the bottle had been written, of course the writer’s handwriting would have changed over that time, but Blaze couldn’t help noticing the slightly scrawled nature of his penmanship. His handwriting wasn’t bad per say but it wasn’t in cursive, and it certainly wasn’t what you’d call neat. Though she longed to think of it in any other way, that was yet another strike in the soulmate column.

“Oh, um,” The hedgehog’s hand returned to his quills, “I don’t know if you’ve had dinner or anything, and you don’t need to eat it if you don’t want it, but I was so excited for you coming so,” He gestured into the fridge, “I made a cheesecake. Feel free to grab a slice whenever, it looks like it's properly set now.”

The hedgehog couldn’t just cook, he could bake. Alone that fact would mean nothing but, with all this compiling evidence, Blaze felt her head spin and more heat jumped to her face. She shifted by him, glancing into the fridge, and sure enough, there it sat. A biscuit base topped with a creamy yellow mass and decorated with what looked to be some kind of cherry or strawberry jell or jam. She took hold of the door to steady herself, feeling the heat gather and gather on her face until a single spark ignited near the tip of her nose and, with a small pop, burgeoned into a flame. Blaze ran her free hand down her face, snuffing it immediately, but the thoughts that prompted it still ran rampant in her mind.

“Eh, Blaze? Are you okay?” She heard him shift and felt him looking over her shoulder, standing so very close, “You’ve gone all red.”

She had no idea how much of that he’s seen but, regardless, his innocence was astounding. His reaction to that pop and a palpable burst of heat from the fridge wasn’t to question what had happened but if she was okay. His concern for her was so very plain, his heart truly was fastened to his sleeve, he truly was very naïve. She had no idea what his life had been like up until this point, no idea who he really was just as he had no idea who she truly was. They were just a pair of very socially awkward individuals, albeit in very different ways, who happened to have collided due to the machinations of either fate or coincidence. She still couldn’t just up and tell him about these thoughts or the message she’d received but, regardless of them and whether this was fate or not, it was only right that she got to the bottom of this.

“I-I’ll have some if you will,” She blurted out, turning away from the fridge and towards him. Though embarrassment was surely twisting her face into a grimace, he still looked so kindly, “Maybe we should have a sit down and… get to know each other a little better?” The day’s travel had run her ragged, but nothing could compare to this past fifteen minutes, “I think we have a lot to talk about.”

[cassolotl]

On radical feminist and gender-critical survey respondents

Tuesday 25th February 2020

~

Content note: Discussion of anti-trans people (gender-critical, radical feminist, TERF) and sentiments, including direct quotes.

~

I run an annual survey of, give-or-take, nonbinary people. It asks about the words (nouns, pronouns and titles) we use to describe ourselves. It seems like useful data to collect! This year is the seventh @gendercensus, and there have been over 16,000 participants so far. (It closes on 12th March 2020! Go do it!) I’m writing this on my personal blog, though, because this is quite a personal blog post.

Most years I get a small flurry of gender-critical and radical feminist respondents, and this year is no exception.

It’s usually clear that the link to the survey has been posted somewhere in a “come and disrupt this survey” kind of a way. Sometimes I catch a Big Name Anti-Trans quote-tweeting it with fake-earnest enthusiasm, but most of the time I have no idea where it’s coming from. Thanks to this year’s new questions on age and referrals I know that today’s flurry has come from a small Facebook group, where most members seem to be 30-50 year old women.

I won’t get into the mechanics of how I decide what to keep and what to remove. I’m happy to admit that if anything is outright abusive, insulting or transphobic I don’t hesitate to remove a submission, and my tendency to delete entries is certainly not limited to these criteria, but I think it’s interesting to note that the majority of responses during these influxes are also actually quite relevant to the intent of the survey.

For example, gender-critical respondents aiming to disrupt the survey will:

Select woman, and then type words like androgynous and genderless into the textboxes. (Often these entries are accompanied by statements suggesting that genderlessness is the natural state of being, implying that women who feel like women have just been brainwashed into it by the patriarchy.)

Select she/her pronouns, and then they/them pronouns.

Select she/her pronouns, and then use the pronoun textboxes to say that they doesn’t care how other people refer to them because pronouns don’t define you.

Choose “no title” in the title question.

Choose woman, Mrs or Ms, she/her pronouns, take the trouble to say that biology dictates gender, and then describe in the feedback box a lifelong distress with being gendered by people or society. (That last part will be very familiar to many transgender participants, who might call it “gender dysphoria”.)

Type things like, I don’t “identify as”, I AM.

These types of responses and many others are also very common among thousands of nonbinary, trans and queer participants every year. Gender-critical and radical feminist women describe themselves in a way that makes it clear to me that they are the target audience, while apparently unaware of it themselves.

The abusive and relevant responses are not mutually exclusive. Several times I’ve experienced angry women deliberately giving fake answers to all the questions, telling us that we are outright causing direct harm to women by entertaining these delusional notions of nonbinary genders, and then:

Describing lifelong and visceral discomfort with gendered aspects of their body.

Stating that no one can change their own sex, but then clarifying that they finally learned this after years of wishing that they could change or erase their sex.

Saying that they don’t feel cisgender.

Wishing that gender didn’t exist at all.

Believing that the gender binary is a fiction.

Opting out of gender, or saying that they have no gender.

Stating that gender is a social construct, as though this idea is somehow in conflict with the feelings of countless trans and nonbinary participants.

I’ll share what someone wrote into the feedback box recently:

I want to take the opportunity to say I find 'cis' really offensive. I don't identify with the characteristics I'm supposed to have and which are used to oppress people of my sex. I behave and dress in ways which are not typically assigned to my sex. Like most women, I have struggled with this all my life. It has never been a "privilege".

I’ve bolded those parts of the submission because they could have been said by any trans or nonbinary person, word for word.

I don’t mean to imply that these things make you trans, or that they don’t! What I feel is that both groups (if either can be considered a cohesive group) have been failed by a restrictive and deeply flawed system for their entire lives, and as a result trans, nonbinary, radical feminist and gender-critical people’s experiences of their own genders and their places in relation to the gender binary are often strikingly similar.

I started to think more carefully about this issue when I read a rambling and heartfelt feedback box paragraph from someone describing basically my lifelong feelings about and experience of my own (trans, nonbinary, lack of) gender, and ended it with something like “and that’s how I know I am my assigned sex/gender, and [rampant abuse and transphobia].” I have been comfortably out and transitioning now for almost a decade, and I am very comfortable in my lack of gender and becoming more comfortable with myself as my transition progresses, so it didn’t shake me at all, but I definitely did a double-take and had to go back and reread it in disbelief. It took me a while to get my head around the cognitive dissonance.

I have gained an understanding of why and how gender-critical feminists are so angry and aggressive. Anger is a very legitimate response to experiencing a traumatic puberty, gender dysphoria well into adulthood, and a world that enforces a gender binary that causes harm. Gender-critical women have every right to be as angry as they are.

Maybe if they could direct that anger at the oppressive system that is harming them, instead of some people who are hurting alongside them under that oppressive system, that’d be pretty cool?

[thanksjro]

The Transformers #22- Chaos Theory Part 1: Space Racism, Space Classism, and Space Pseudo-Romantic Tension Between Rivals

Before I jump into this comic, it is positively vital I talk about Drift.

Drift is an IDW original character, born on the page without any previous rendition. He was introduced in All Hail Megatron #5, which was Shane MeCarthy’s fifth solo writing credit for IDW publishing. He waited a whole five comics to introduce an original character, and Drift had reason and purpose to his creation- he was meant to honor Japan as the home of Transformers. He existed to show what a Decepticon defector would be like, and how both factions were losing the plot of the ideals they fought for. Pretty thought out stuff.

Meanwhile, in The Transformers #22, on the FIRST FLIPPING PAGE-

Okay, to be fair, Rung isn’t super important here. He will be later on, but as it is, he’s just a funny little creamsicle man who’s wandered into the scene. This also isn’t technically his first appearance within the IDW publications; in the Last Stand of the Wreckers, there are several character profiles, penned in-universe by Rung, going over the members of the Wreckers and their various emotional/mental ailments. This is still quite the step up for him, however. To think, he started out as a one-off psych joke in Eugenesis. He’s come such a long way. I’m so proud of him.

Anyway, our story begins in the past, at Maccadam’s New Oil House, where it’s time for Megatron’s character depth injection. He and Impactor are having drinks- Impactor’s had several glasses of what appears to be molten lava, while Megatron’s more of a children’s cough syrup kind of guy- and Megatron’s showing his friend his writing. You see, Megatron’s a bit of a revolutionary, and an intellectual one at that.

Megatron is dissatisfied with the current state of affairs on Cybertron, and as a man of the people- he is but a lowly miner at this point in time- he feels it is the duty of the public to incite change through the power of language and critical thinking. 

That’s not really Impactor’s style though, as we find out when Rung gets tossed onto their table, and Impactor decides that the best course of action to take is to start punching the guys who’re throwing entire robots around in a bar full of very breakable glasses and drunkards.

In the present day, Megatron’s still hooked up to that full-body harness, and is currently being seen to by Ratchet… and Perceptor. When the hell did Perceptor get here?

Oh, okay, cool. Thank you, TFWiki.

Ratchet runs a bit different than one would expect him to here, not quite as grumpy as he’ll end up in MTMTE, and a bit superstitious. No, the role of the strictly-fact-based bluntness has been awarded to Perceptor this issue, who quells Ratchet’s concern with Megatron using his labelled black hole/antimatter powers by telling him to stop being stupid.

Meanwhile, in the observation room, Ironhide, Optimus Prime, and Xaaron are watching this scene go down. Xaaron’s here to act as legal council, since Megatron’s surrendered himself to the Autobots and is therefore a prisoner of war. Is this the first time legal precedent has been taken into account by the Cybertronian population in the IDW run? No, but it does seem as if Xaaron’s just about the only form of legal council they have. No wonder the planet’s such a mess.

There’s a reference to the fact that Ironfist is fucking dead, and then Xaaron leaves to talk to Wheeljack.

Don’t you smile about that, you absolute jag.

Something is bothering Optimus Prime. Megatron seemed off when they last spoke, as if he were putting on a performance. Which he kind of was, considering he invited the entirety of his Decepticon forces to watch him and Optimus beat the shit out of each other. Does Megatron want to- dare we dream it?- end the war? Only one way to find out: Ironhide suggests a heart to heart.

Back in the past, Megatron is being questioned by a cop, in the aftermath of what happened at Maccadam’s.

Did Megatron get his group’s tagline from some prison graffiti? I suppose inspiration can strike someone anywhere, at any time.

Springarm’s questioning Megatron, or at least he’s attempting to- seems to be having a hell of a time with both reading comprehension and having an outdated form. Cold construction gets its first mention in officially published media- an idea played around with in Eugenesis- and then Whirl shows up to save Springarm from embarrassing himself further. Whirl is a cop here, but don’t worry, he gets better.

Back in the present, Optimus is psyching himself up for his conversation with Megatron.  He enters, has the audio in the observation room cut, and Wheeljack loses a bet.

Oh hey, Drift, been a minute.

Optimus wants a proper conversation with Megatron, but Megatron points out that it isn’t exactly fair that he’s strapped in place, filled with inhibitor chips, and primed to be electrocuted to death if he so much as sneezes. Optimus agrees with him, and releases Megatron from his bonds, then offers him a chair and a cup of tea.

So, Optimus and Megatron get to talking. Actual talking, not the “taking turns reacting” stuff they usually get up to.

And then Optimus more or less calls Megatron a hateful son of a bitch to his face. Which Megatron seems to take in stride.

I think Megatron is the only guy in the universe to hate so insanely hard that it turned off his ability to get hot and bothered.

Of course, Megatron doesn’t hate Optimus- oh, he could never. He just hates everything he stands for, and everything he does. Which, uh, doesn’t leave a whole lot left over to not-hate. When asked if he hates Megatron, Optimus isn’t nearly as composed and elegant about his thoughts. It’s like he thinks “hate” is a dirty word. So did I, when I was, like, six.

They’ve been at war for so very long, it’s gotten to the point where the entirety of the galactic council has kicked any Cybertronian representative out, because these guys clearly have some issues that just aren’t getting resolved. Maybe if they had more than a single mental health specialist for the entire population they’d get somewhere.

As it currently stands, Optimus just wants to know what the hell Megatron is even doing all this for. Megatron says it’s for control and dunking on lower lifeforms with space racism. Optimus thinks that’s a load of horseshit, and presses for more details.

There’s our first mention of the Knights of Cybertron, who become a major plot point in the IDW Phase 2 publications. We’ll hear more about them later on.

It seems as if Optimus and Megatron share the basest of values- both want peace. Optimus just isn’t really digging the whole “subjugate the people for a better tomorrow” shtick Megatron’s touting.

Megatron doesn’t like being compared to Optimus, who’s about as centrist as it gets- Megatron is a radical if there ever was one, and he’s been fighting for his beliefs for the last four millions years, tooth and nail.

Not that these robots have nails.

Back in the old days, the Senate divvied up the populace by alt-mode, and whatever you turned into, that was your job. Personal taste, interest, and  talent weren’t factors. That’s why Megatron worked in the mines- he wasn’t allowed to do anything else. This is Functionism, another plot point that will be factoring into Phase 2 pretty heavily.

Optimus didn’t really oppose Functionism at the time, seeing as he was a rather privileged individual, and also a cop back in the day. Everyone’s a friggin’ cop in this continuity.

But enough about systemic oppression of the masses, it’s time to reminisce on the good old days- also known as every single time Optimus and Megatron have ever tried to kill each other. It’s a lot. Like, a lot. And then they have a good laugh about it.

This isn’t a healthy response to stress, you two. Someone throw Rung in there and lock the door for a couple weeks.

Optimus says that he wants to end the war. All Megatron has to say is that he wants it too, and it’ll end. Megatron doesn’t say anything to that. Optimus still hasn’t figured out just why Megatron surrendered, but it looks like time’s up, and he strings Megatron back up and exits the room.

Later, Autobot High Command is having a meeting, with Bumblebee, Ultra Magnus and Prowl having telecommed in. It’s an emergency meeting, over the complicated legality of Megatron’s trial. Since the Galactic Council isn’t returning their calls, they don’t have any sort of neutral third party to run this thing, and the Autobots can’t just hand out sentencing themselves, because they have a natural bias. Magnus suggests they give Chief Justice Tyrest a ring, seeing as he’s considered a neutral by the Galactic Council.

There’s another part to this issue though; because of the nature of this case, the prosecution gets to decide Megatron’s punishment, should he be found guilty. They start putting it to a vote, but Optimus says that it’s his decision since Megatron has been his responsibility for the last few million years, completely cutting Bumblebee out.

Y’know, Bumblebee. The current appointed leader of the Autobots.

Why do we even bother having elections, if Optimus is just going to pull this whenever it’s convenient?

Then Rodimus calls Optimus out on being potentially compromised, since he listened in on his little chat with Megatron. Optimus reacts to this about as well as he can.

That is to say, not at all.

Back in the past, it’s time for some good old-fashioned police brutality.

How in the hell do you even punch someone when the closest thing you can make to a fist is more akin to a torpedo in shape? I guess only Whirl knows.

Whirl’s decided that he’ll be killing Megatron for his two little buddies, and he almost gets to it before Springarm busts in and stops him. Megatron’s being released, on the captain’s orders, because the captain went through Megatron’s things and read his writing, revealing himself to be a violenceless revolutionary.

Impactor, what the fuck.

The captain is Orion Pax, by the way.

In the present, Optimus is back in Megatron’s room, because that will certainly help his case of being on the up and up. He wants to know why Megatron surrendered, and he wants to know NOW DAMMIT. Megatron asks him to rephrase the question, then goes full edgelord in an attempt to make Optimus react, because it’s the only way the two of them know how to interact at this point.

Megatron gets what he asks for, and Optimus realizes that perhaps attempting to murder his greatest rival minutes after having been revealed as a have a soft spot for the guy wasn’t the greatest idea. He leaves the room before things can get more awkward.

He runs into Ironhide in the hallway, who asks how things are. Not great, Ironhide. Not great. Optimus committed an act of violence on a bound man, thus feeding his hatred of authority figures.

In the past, Megatron finally corrects the etymology error everyone’s been making with his name.

Because that’s not a massive red flag right there.

Megatron’s free to go, and Springarm gives him his little journal back. Too bad Megatron’s been tainted by the ᴘᴏᴡᴇʀ ᴏꜰ ᴠɪᴏʟᴇɴᴄᴇ and doesn’t nearly believe as much as he once did in the power of the written word. He tosses his writing away, causing his first incident of property damage and foreshadowing his future.

That’s the end of the comic, but not the end of the issue. In the back of the book is a little blurb welcoming Roberts to the writing chair and calling him out as a bit of a dork, then a sign-off from Andy Schmidt as Senior Editor of IDW, which also calls him out as a bit of a dork.

So that’s the start of the Chaos storyline. Lots of setup here, both for Chaos and things further down the line. This is a sharp left turn from how the prior issues of this series have gone. It’s not just people punching one another in the face. I’m getting a feeling that character motivation is lurking in the wings here.

[firstumcschenectady]

“Self-Denial and A Plague” based on Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 and Mark 8:31-38

In the book “Debt: The first 5000 Years,” David Graeber says economic history as we know it is a falsehood.  Instead, he says, currency came into being this way:  in order for empires to expand, they needed armies at their ever expanding borders; in order to have armies further from home there needed to be a way to feed them; in order to convince people to feed armies, they gave the coins to the army as pay and REQUIRED all the people have some of those coins to give to the empire.  Thus the creation of taxes, coins, expanded military might, and markets came into being together.  Furthermore, coins made it much easier to calculate and charge interest, which made it much easier to keep some people in poverty and make the rich richer.

Graeber also says that the time when “markets” were created in history was ALSO the time that the world's major religions were formed.  (It was a LONG era.)  He proposes the religions were an oppositional force to the value system of the markets. Instead of valuing coins, interest, and violence, religions emphasized the inherent value of people and our responsibility to care for each other.1

When I read that conception of the history of religion, I was excited and relieved.  First of all, it sounds like God.  God works in contexts, and expansive religions weren't needed until expansive markets needed to be countered.  Smaller, tribal expressions of faith worked just fine.  It also makes sense of our Bible, which if we're honest, bounces back and forth between utterly radical critique of the systems of power and empire and --- well, justifying systems of power and empire, as if there is a tug of war about the empire trying to appropriate religion.  Over all though, I found it a relieve to see the 40,000 foot view of what we're doing.

Both of our passages today are about following God's ways.  In Genesis we God hear claiming Abraham and Sarah and making plans to work with them in the future.  In Mark we hear reflections of the early church, which was undergoing significant persecution, reflecting on the powers of life and death.

So, what does it mean to follow God's ways?

This was an open question in Genesis, and in Mark, and has been one in our lives too.

This is an open question in modern times too, and I hear people offer a variety of answers.  For some following God includes and is expressed by particular clothing or diets.   For some it includes and is embodied in particular prayer types or times.  For some it is reflected in personal choices – everything from what words are said, to abstinence from drugs or alcohol or sex – or just dancing to what is purchased and where and why.  For some this is reflected in choices to join or be present with a faith community for worship – or more.  For some this is related to particular ways of seeing unity with the divine.  For yet others it is related to energy and effort being used to build the kindom of God.  

John Wesley broke things into 4 categories: personal acts of holiness (prayer, Bible Study, healthy living), communal acts of holiness (worship, study, group decision making, sacraments), personal acts of mercy (doing good works), and communal acts of mercy (seeking justice.)  Sometimes I hear people focus on only 1 of those 4, but they work best as a whole.

To break that down into really direct language – I sometimes hear people think that speaking without swearing and abstaining from caffeine are SUFFICIENT ways of being faithful to God.  More power to those who find spiritual power in those choices, but I don't think they're sufficient in following God.  Following God requires connecting with others, as well as caring for others, not just behaving “properly.”  (Whatever that means.)

And all of that gets us to today – to what some of my friends call “Coronatide.” (If you don't get it, don't worry, it isn't funny enough to explain.)  When reading a passage so emphatically about self-denial as a means of following Jesus, how do we hear it TODAY?

It seems to me that two mostly distinct forms of self-sacrifice have been occurring over the past year:

There has been the sacrifice and self-denial of those who have directly cared for others at risk to themselves –which has included people who have gotten sick and people who have died because of taking this risk.

There has also been a quieter sacrifice and self-denial of those who have put life as they know it aside for the well-being of others.  (Masks, distancing, not doing things they love, not being with people they love).  To some degree this sort of sacrifice comes with privilege – many would choose this one and couldn't.  That doesn't meant that this sacrifice has been easy (it hasn't), nor unimportant.  These quiet sacrifices have taken care of the whole, including those in the first group offering care.

At first glance, Mark's passage seems to be about making a choice to follow Jesus, and sticking with it.  Upon close examination, the Mark passage is more radical than it first appears.  One scholar summarizes, “The threat to punish by death is the bottom line of the power of the state; fear of this threat keeps the dominant order intact.  By resisting this fear and pursuing the kingdom's practice even at the cost of death, the disciple contributes to shattering the powers' reign of death in history.  To concede the state's sovereignty in death is to refuse its authority in life.”2

Religion > market/empire indeed!

Mark suggests here that to choose to follow Jesus is to deny and ignore the threats of the state.  It is to pick a full and abundant life, and not fear.

Does that feel strange right now?  I don't know if anyone feels like their life has been full and abundant in the past year.  And there has been LOTS of fear.

Unless...

Unless we change out we think about it.  No, the past year has not been “full and abundant,” but this past year we have picked LIFE for ourselves and for others over and over again.  We have prioritized the full and abundant life of the COMMUNITY over ease and delight in our own lives. We have tried to maximize the number of people who will have long, full, healthy lives – with each and every difficult choice we make.

And sometimes it is a really important thing to remember that the stuff we do – masks, and social distancing, and zoom (eh) and lack of hugs, we do for a reason.

For life.

For each other.

For Jesus.

For the kindom.

We have been following the way of God in new, different, and difficult ways.  We have been denying ourselves the joy of in person worship; we have been carrying the crosses of wearing masks, forfeiting the lives we know for … all for the sake of other people's continued lives.

We have been trying to take care of all of God's beloveds.  We have been reminded that the way to care for one is to care for the whole.  It has been hard, and it has mattered – and it still matters.  While what we've done has largely been quiet and seemingly small, thanks be to God for what we're able to do for each other!

Amen

1David Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years (Brooklyn and London: Melville House, 2011).

2Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998 and 2008, 274.  He is quoting Taylor, 1963: 247.

Rev. Sara E. Baron First United Methodist Church of Schenectady 603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305 Pronouns: she/her/hers http://fumcschenectady.org/ https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

February 28, 2021

[babbushka]

i’m not sure if you’ve already addressed this, since i haven’t been on tumblr in a bit, but do you support acab? and if you don’t mind me asking, how does your personal au play into that? i’ve been feeling really conflicted about my appreciation of characters who are law enforcement, because i find it difficult to separate real life connotations from those characters, especially because i am a proponent of acab. i hope this doesn’t come off as rude, just wanted some advice.

I’m going to put my response under a cut because it’s long and I have a lot of thoughts surrounding this matter but if you read nothing else, please know this: I have always been, and will always be, a supporter of the BLM movement. I believe that if you are a human being, a decent human being, you must be in support of the BLM movement. 

It is a moral obligation, to stand with those who face oppression, and support them in any way that you can. Particularly if you are someone (read: white) who exercises a privilege that exempts you from the oppression they face. We have a duty to our own humanity to amplify the voices of the communities which have been persecuted, otherwise we are no better than those who carry out the persecution. 

As a person who exists within the spheres of different marginalized and persecuted communities (lgbtqia+ and jewish), I do not pretend to conflate one form of oppression with another -- however I do know the life of someone who is hunted, and I empathize as deeply as I can. 

No one is free, until we are all free, and those freedoms do not come easily. I believe that it is not enough to say ‘i’m not racist!’ because racism is an institutionalized system that is integrated into every policy, and societal structure that this country has. We must be actively anti-racist, to be anything else is complicit in further oppression. 

I personally believe, that there’s no such thing as a “good cop”, because the American police force is quite literally built on the grounds of racism, classism, antisemitism, and sexism. Cops have attacked my people since their inception, and they are attacking people now. They will attack people again. The system is designed to protect an incredibly specific type of human, and that is simply unacceptable. Too many people join the police force as an explicit means to attack, to harm, to carry out their personal prejudices because they know the system will support them when they do. I want to say ACAB, I do, because the vast majority of them are. 

However. 

I cannot ignore the incredibly small minority (because let’s be very very clear, it is a minority) of people who become police because they truly believe they are helping their community. I cannot ignore the men and women who seek to fight the system from the inside, who challenge the corruption and the brutality head-on. I cannot ignore the people of color, the queer people, the people from marginalized religious backgrounds, who fight to act as a voice for their community in an otherwise unrepresented group of violent forces. 

And I’m not talking about cops who don’t harm people and just carry on their business with a blind eye. They’re as complicit as those who do harm people. I’m talking about the cops that expose the corruption within their ranks, who put their own lives and careers on the line to rid their precincts of brutality because it’s the right thing to do. I’m talking about the cops who go against orders to keep protesters safe, cops who genuinely do care about the people in their neighborhoods -- all the people. 

Now, all this being said, the actions of an incredibly small percentage of cops cannot and should not be used to cover up or excuse the horrific actions of the majority of police officers. But I am a personal believer that change cannot happen from the outside alone. There must be action from within the system in addition to external pressures. There must be supporters from within the institution that agree with the movement happening outside of it. 

One of the things that I thought was so well done about BlackKklansman, is the back and forth that Patrice and Ron have, regarding the concept of Ron being an officer to genuinely do good and fix the system, and Patrice arguing that it’s just not possible. I personally am on Ron’s side, that though it may seem impossible, we are obligated to at least try. 

And that’s kind of where I fall with the personal AU. For me, Flip is one of the very very few cops out there who, like Ron, is willing to put himself on the front lines to expose corruption and make significant change. The fic that I’m working on, Break The Blue Wall, is entirely about this topic, the idea of exercising privilege in a meaningful way. Do I like that Flip is a cop given the history of police and my people? Of course not. 

But do I think that he has to be condemned for it when he uses his position as a cop to support the movement of challenging oppression and brutality? I don’t know. 

I know that all of this is coming from a place of conditional privilege as a white person (I say conditional because nazis/klansmen do not care if you’re white when they find out you’re Jewish, they view us as almost a subhuman species). I know that. I am trying my best to learn and educate myself as much as I possibly can, to stand up for and lend my support to the BLM movement. I have signed petitions and called representatives, I’ve emailed, I’ve donated to various different funds and organizations, I’ve tried sharing comprehensive information so that others can educate themselves too, without bombarding everyone with posts because I know that so many people come to this blog as an escape from the horrors of the world. 

I want to go out into the streets and stand in solidarity with those who protest, but as we’re still in the middle of a global pandemic and I live with imunno-compromised family members, amassing in large quantities isn’t something that’s possible for me at the moment. 

I don’t know if I have any advice to offer you, aside from just think critically about the stories being told by characters in law enforcement. Think about the people who are writing the scripts, the producers of the show or movie. Think about the message that these shows send on an objective scale. If it’s a bunch of white dudes writing a quirky sitcom about a group of goofball lovable cops, that’s important. But if it’s people of color expressing their experiences with law enforcement in a poignant and realistic manner, that’s important too. 

I hope that this cleared up any sort of mystery or confusion or questions about my beliefs and opinions on the subject matter. I don’t want to talk about it any more than this, because to be totally honest, I mentally like, just kinda can’t handle it. And I know that’s a privileged thing to think, but please know that behind the scenes and behind the screen, I’m doing all the steps I deem necessary to support BLM. 

[sorrynotsorryforwritingthat]

I did actually write this instead of sleeping.

Today the rules in schools regarding bullying are strictly a no violence policy which in theory sounds good, but if one students feels entitled enough to inflict harm on another student they will do so regardless, and the victim of bullying (of course, this term is not necessarily referring to physical harm inflicted on others, but might also refer to verbal or emotional harm inflicted, even though this is not what I am discussing at this point) might even get expelled when push comes to shove, seeing as it will often be the pupils words against each other, sometimes even more people will back the bully simply because they’re afraid of them, or because they are genuinely friends with them (the bully and their friends might not always see themselves as the bullies, a fictional example of this is the group called the marauders in the popular series Harry Potter written by J.K. Rowling, that without a doubt traumatized and bullied one Severus Snape in the fictional piece of literature. They still saw themselves as the good guys and later drove Severus down a very dark and lonely path).

It has been proven time and time again that the current system in place isn’t working, and the only thing that will make a more accepting society is a more inclusive education in schools. It is important that everyone has the freedom of their own beliefs, but when these beliefs are challenged it should not result in harassment of fellow students. When indoctrination often starts at a young age it is the school systems responsibility to counter-act the spreading of information that might end up hurting genuine human beings in the future, after all, one of the current school systems the greatest responsibility isn’t spreading correct information to educate the next generation, but to raise us to be functioning members of this society.

It stands to argue that this is a harmful thing, when it usually tends to narrow peoples’ mindsets as well as resulting in that the same mistakes continue repeating, as well as the powerful people keep their power. People in positions of power will often do everything they can to make sure they keep that power, and that they get their way the majority of the time.

That is why the two-party-system in the United States of America, for example, is a faulty system, seeing as the party that won the election will go on to become president, and then change as much as possible just because, come next election, there’s a 50% chance their opponent will get voted in the office instead and so the cycle will repeat.

Humans are animals that appreciate patterns, as do nature, but after a while they get tiresome, when we have found every single way to squeeze every ounce of power from it, we will move on to the next shiny cycle to repeat, extort and abuse. It’s in and of itself a cycle, a pattern that will never be broken unless we learn to appreciate change as much as we appreciate safety and stability; because the earth is faulty, that much is obvious, humans take, and we take, and we take and what will happen when we have concurred everything on this planet, in this galaxy? What will happen when there’s no more land for us to colonize and rule?

Is there such a thing as a society where everyone is happy? Probably not, seeing as the thing with opinions are that they’re allowed to be different. But when said opinions directly hurt marginalized groups of people, when they are directly responsible for murder, are they still valid opinions? When you can trace the genocide of an entire group of people back to a person with an opinion, is this persons' opinion still valid? When a hundred of people die because doctors don’t give them proper medical treatment based on an opinion, can it still be regarded as valid?

An opinion formed independently from outside influence, based on what information the individual themselves has gathered, free from emotional attachments based on facts (feelings are a valid thing to take into consideration, but seeing how easily our own brain can trick us into thinking we are experiencing one thing when we’re, in fact are not, is scary and if we only rely on feelings to base our opinions on, that would be based on your own brains confirmation bias because we as humans don’t like to be wrong), is what might be called a valid opinion rooted in truth.

Then we have the question about morality, what is morally wrong and what isn’t? Seeing as this will be the guidelines for how we live our life's I fret that schools don’t teach us enough about this from a young age. What we deem morally correct are something highly personal, even though our society teaches us about some things that we generally seem to agree on; one of these examples being murder.

We as a society can in general agree that murder is wrong, immoral, but why? The active act of robbing someone of their choice, to without consent and with a single (or sometimes multiple) motion erase someone from existence (not entirely of course, seeing as the victims family and friends and every single action the victim has done will affect people, as humans tend to have an enormous influence on each other subconsciously or even concisely as the idea of random isn’t quite applicable to the humans psyche), is generally regarded as highly immoral. Does it have something to do with that people in general fear of the true nothingness that is death?

Humans are afraid of things we do not know, and we certainly don’t know death, at all. It is something mysterious, but maybe it isn’t. Death might just be the state when your brain stops processing your surroundings, when your consciousness stops existing. Why are humans obsessed with death? Maybe because we know that our days on this earth are numbered, our mortal lives will eventually come to an end. So why do we insist on hating other people?

Wouldn’t that be considered as a significant waste of time? To spend our numbered days on this planet insisting that our hate is rooted in love. In the end it will always be hate that is the root of our misery on this earth, as well as the fear of what we do not understand. Humans strive to understand the impossible, yet we seem to also resent it.

Words can hurt as much, if not more, than actions sometimes. And often the words will slowly nest itself into our brains, seeking a place to find permanent residence in, and we will let them. Because we are the only enemies we ever seem to lose to, as we are our own worst critic as well as our own best friend.

We can only see the world from our own perspective, we can’t swap minds with someone to see how they view the world, and regardless of how much we might try, we can’t ever understand all the complex threads that makes a person, but we sure as hell will try. Opinions are formed through life experience, so when we only have our own lives to base our opinions on, all of our opinions will automatically be biased in some way.

Then we have the concept of normality, that some things are normal and some things are not. What would you describe normal as? The opinion of the majority or the common trends we see in people? Why would we as a society group normal and good and safe in the same category? Normal is a synonym for common, and I would like to argue that only uncommon people have been able to contribute to change.

Is change a good thing? Or should we prioritize safety and stability? In today's world, I would like to reason that change is needed. While money and power rule the world, those without it will not be able to live as successful, or at least as influential, as the rich. What even is success? The definition of success today can be traced back to money, as humans desire to be in control of themselves and things around them. And without money, we are dependent on society to help us out, we’ll never afford everything that we want, and that’s just how it is.

The economy in the world is one of the most important topics in today's world, and that might just be because it is, in the end, the foundation of our modern society, and it’s been that way for an extended period of time.

The ones with money, if they do not go out of their way to do so, will never understand the ones without it, the privileged will do whatever it takes to stay privileged, and when the less privileged defend themselves society will, maybe to spare their own consciousness, find a way to blame them for their own misery.

In the beginning it was the church, finding ways to get as many as possible to join them, and by doing, so they gained power. With this power they evaded taxes, murdered, repressed womens' rights (in for example old Norse cultures women where regarded as, if not the stronger gender, at least equal to men), and found ways to alienate whole sexual identities, as well as justify slavery.

Today, it is still the remaining influence of the Abraham religions had on society that justifies the alienation of human beings from society. Poland and Russia are starting to draw back on their progress of rights for the LGBTQ+ community, and homosexuality is still met with the death penalty in some places, of course, even in progressive countries' homophobia is common, and insensitive people will always exist in society, I’m afraid, seeing as it was built on ignorance.

Pushing the American people to “settle” for a president is a, if I may so myself, stupid system. As of today, it’s election day in America, and now people are fearing for their own civil rights! It’s quite outrageous. Only a bit over half of the people in America vote in the normal elections (this year, it will probably be higher than that seeing the huge Trump vs. Biden situation), and if it was that way in, for example my country, the whole democracy would fall apart.

We clearly see the small amount of value that peoples own opinions against the overwhelming amount of power that politicians hold in elections, and we also see the clear desperation and willingness to do whatever it takes to keep oneselfs' power.

No one in a free nation, no less in a democracy should have to fear for their safety on the basis of anything to do with things out of their control.