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ravenadottir · 3 years

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trixie and katya react to: love island

hi there!

i started doing research on drag queens for a project i’m working on and well, there’s a whole universe of things to watch, i mean it, A WHOLE UNIVERSE! but there’s one in particular that i really love and that is “i like to watch” which is a netflix segment with queens trixie mattel and katya reacting to netflix stuff. if you don’t know what i’m talking about, click here to see a commentary on the chilling adventures of sabrina, it’s one of my favorites.

the more i watched them the more it got me thinking: what if litg was a real show and they reacted to it?

HUGE DISCLAIMER: one, i understand this is not for everyone but i love it so i’m doing it. it’s a crossover about stuff i like, trixie and katya x litg. two, it’s UNDER THE CUT because this gets explicit. it’s two drag queens commenting on a reality show filled with hot people and i know it might not be for everyone. if you know their commentary you’ve seen they take it far so you’re warned about explicit expressions and words. also, they get dirty (sometimes literally) about their descriptions and you know i’m making this as on character as i can.

starting with the girls, in the order they appear. ’T’ is for trixie, ’K’ is for katya, so i won’t build dialogues, just an outline of their conversation.

💋 hope

t - oh, wait, she looks smart. which is rare for this type of show.

k - she also looks like the girl who’s gonna be cheated on.

t - but you know what? if she’s that confident all throughout then i’m digging her! that pose? power, sis. power.

k - who do you think is her type?

t - big dick.

k - that’s everyone’s type, mama.

💋 mc

t - i kinda hate her right now.

k - *laughs* she didn’t even say anything!

t - she doesn’t have to! you know there’s always a girl everyone steps on, that’s her!

k - can’t argue with that.

t - she’s gonna be having several confessionals in tears because she’s such a pussy.

💋 lottie

t - oh mama, she’s the one making rituals in the laundry room to get any dick.

k - do you think she brought a cauldron?

t - her lucky number is 13 so like, i think she brought a chicken, sis. listen, i don’t want to reinforce the stereotype but the girl is talking about girl code and you know…

k - you know she’s the first one to break it.

t - isn’t it like that every time? and you know she’s not only breaking the code she’s gonna betray her bestie.

k - oh, for sure! “it was really hard for me because you’re like my sister… but…”

t + k - i had to get that dick!

💋 hannah

t - i changed my mind, this one is gonna become the stairs in the show.

k - *laughs* stawwwwp!

t - am i wrong? am i being absurd?

k - and she’s probably the one who’s gonna be besties with the goth girl.

t - we all know that fairy tale, mama. we all have seen it, we’ve lived it, it’s always the nerd getting railed by her bestie.

k - do you think there’s gonna be queer people in the show?

t - A HUNDRED PERCENT. but like, no one is out of the closet unless they’re a girl. deadass, it will be a girl. if there’s a boy who’s slightly into boys i’m gonna shove that tea pot up my ass.

💋 marisol

t - that’s the queer girl!

k - that is absolutely the queer girl.

t - amal clooney is her fashion icon, can you go more lesbian than that?

k - she looks like she’s going to the producers’ room and say something like “what are we doing today, fellas?”

t - lads, because they’re british.

k - you’re right! lads!

t - i do like her, she doesn’t give a flying fuck about the girl code girl and you can see the spells being mouthed at this point.

k - marisol is gonna wake up bald and lashless.

t + k - like us! *laughs too loudly*

💋 gary

t - who is that? i would let him dick me down until my wig went flying, what the fuck is this boy doing in that show? my house is empty, come join mama.

k - that’s the type of guy that would steal your money and “help you find it” but i like that about him.

t - yeah, he gives a severe face of “butt crack shows during work” but i respect him for that.

k - do you think he’s stupid?

t - *looks at katya* i don’t need brains hun, i need head.

k - *laughs on mute*

💋 ibrahim

t - well hello there… katya, do you like braids?

k - i loooove braids! he looks more… polished than the other one though. than the blond lad.

t - yes, which i’m gonna ruin the moment he walks in my house. holding on to those braids for dear life! *bird noises*

k - he’s really young though.

t - yeah, for you, who looks 65 on a good mug day, honey, but i’m young.

k - *laughs*

t - i don’t know if i would go there though, i don’t like teaching.

k - the quiet ones are the worst, he might surprise you. he might be the freaky one asking for weird stuff after everyone is asleep.

t - cuts to him showing up to my bedroom with a blow torch, two helmets and a bottle of bubbly. “let’s do this!” and you know what? my momma didn’t raise no pussy, yes we will do this, ibrahim. *sticks tongue out* nickname, elephant trunk.

k - *dies on the couch*

💋 rocco

t - he’s hot!

k - yes, he really is, in a very douchey kind of way.

t - and just as hot he looks like he needs a shower…

k - A HUNDRED PERCENT! but it’s ok, i have a shower in my place.

t - do you though?

k - *laughs on mute*

t - i was just informed his tattoo means soup. how much do you wanna bet he’s gonna pass it as something meaningful?

k - *in douchey guy voice* “i’m hugging a lion cub on my tinder profile because that’s the only creature who can mask my scent”… bet he tries to pass it as masculine and you know what? he could dick me down in the mood, i wouldn’t give two shits.

t - it’s only one ride to herpes city with this one.

k - he just gives me “dirty dick” vibes and i’m torn whether i would take it. cause i’ve done worse…

at least you got paid, uhhh *sticks tongue out*

💋 noah

t - oooh, very silence of the lambs of him to say shhh in his description.

k - you go to his place to see it’s surrounded by edgar allan poe parafernalia and everything has just the right amount of dust on top.

t - do you think he’s hot?

k - i do, yes, very much. and he’s really tall so he could fucking tower me into the lord of the rings realm.

t - *bird noises* ah, you know this nerd must be talking about lord of the rings all the fucking time. also, he might kill you after but… sis, i’m up for the ride on that gothic styled dick. you just know it’s curved to match the aesthetic of his house.

k - *laughs in mute*

💋 bobby

t - are children allowed in this show?

k - mama, that’s a minor… *shakes head* that’s a fucking minor.

t - *teen voice* i just got back from school and i just finished my teen wolf marathon so i’m here to party!

k - he’s 24?? how? where?

t - in that dick, mama. *laughs* do you think he has freckles on that dick?

k - a hundred percent… like you might catch him playing puppet with his cock after sex like it’s a bitch fest in drag race.

t - i’m surprised they’re so eloquent… hot people don’t need words so i’m surprised they can even say their names without having to read from a card.

💋 henrik

t - oh, wait, mama… tarzan but make it straight… and clean… *looks closely at the screen* well, semi-straight.

k - yeah, yeah, he’s like a… um, a spicy straight. would you fuck him? ‘cause i think he’s hot but… i don’t know if i would let him fuck me.

t - he would be distracted by your pulsing anus and run to his mom.

k - *laughs on mute*

t - that child would be screaming for help and love island would turn into hunger games. just you, in fur, i don’t know where you found the fur…“

k - i have the budget!

t - do you though?

k - *dies on the couch*

t - and then, that carebear runs towards the sea and all he can see runniing after him is this face, saying ”wanna sex young boy?“ poor guy just came here to dumb around these other fuckers, little did he know…

💋 lucas

t - WHO IS THAT?

k - *stares in confusion* i’m… we don’t have that here do we? like…

t - nah, i’ve seen love island usa, mary, i can’t stress this enough, that’s where the stupid people are at. but if they looked like that i wouldn’t mind doing all the talking!

k - would you fuck him?

t - for him i would let his dad fuck me. hard! there’s a reason why drag queens are not invited to these… at any giving point that dick would be in my mouth in the open kitchen. people would be like trixie, again??? and all i can do is *shrugs*

k - yeah no, that one could ruin my credit, he could piss on me.

t - *bird noises* i’ve seen less looking humans doing that to you so i can only imagine what a hot guy could do.

k - *snaps tongue alyssa style*

#litg #love island the game #litg s2 #litg season 2 #katya zamo #trixie mattel #I WOULD DIE TO SEE THEM PLAYING LITG AND FILMING THEIR REACTION

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qqueenofhades · 4 years

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Thank you for your answer to my last ask! Just sort of carrying on from that, what do you think about how they should cover medieval queerness in a potential prequel? I read your post about the deep relationships between knights which was really interesting. I guess what I'm asking is what would "Period-typical Homophobia" for Nicky and Joe actually be? Thank you for educating us better than school does.

Okay, I’m gonna come in here with a Scorching Hot Take that may ruffle some feathers, but possibly... none?

If the point of including casual homophobia or homophobic references is literally just for the sake of evoking some supposed Medieval Bigotry for ~Le Atmosphere Of Dark Age, there is a) no point to it, and b) not much historical evidence either. People love to point out that we didn’t have the modern identity labels of “gay,” “lesbian,” “bisexual,” etc. in the olden days -- well, in that case, we don’t have modern homophobia either, or reactions to those behaviors in the same way. We don’t even have much textual evidence for how ordinary people (outside clerical/religious elites, who would be predisposed to disapprove, just like the religious right today) reacted to so-called “queerness” in their communities, and the circumstantial evidence we DO have suggested that it was far from any imagined universal experience of rejection and isolation. Besides, what we call “queer” due to fragile modern heteronormativty and toxic masculinity was actually intensely normal for medieval people.

One of the tiresome arguments that Straight Historians tend to use, when queer historians are arguing for a queer, romantic, or sexual relationship between two people of the same gender (usually men, because that’s who mostly appears in our sources), is that “friendship was a lot more romantic/intimate/emotional/physical in nature back then!!! They’re not gay They’re Just Pals!!” This is actually true, in that medieval men, far from this Iron Man No Homo No Emotions trope that (once again) we ourselves have come up with, were encouraged (as I wrote about in my gay knights post) to love each other almost, if not quite, beyond reason. There was so much crying, kissing, embracing, tender declarations of loyalty, etc (see: Is It Gay or Is It Feudalism?) Any of those behaviors would make the modern viewer go “lololol HOMOSEXUAL!!!”, but it’s not even always the case? The standards of physical affection, vows of devotion, and close emotional bonds even between platonic friends were just different, and while yes, there was a corresponding anxiety about this attachment turning sexual, the fact that it was considered as a worry in the first place shows you how intense these bonds could be. So while the modern viewer may see two men acting like that and go “oh no gay cooties,” this just wouldn’t raise any eyebrows at all to a medieval person, and hence they’re not going to come back with some dumb manufactured homophobic comment.

Next, in re Joe and Nicky specifically: I SORELY long for a scene in this imaginary prequel where after something romantic has happened between them for the first time, Nicky understandably freaks out a little and goes to confession. There is one other guy in front of him, and a bored priest who is not very good at his job. Guy In Front of Nicky (we’ll call him Guy) goes into the booth and kneels. Priest looks at him, doesn’t even ask. “Oh, is it sodomy again? Fine, seven days fasting bread and water, say two decades of the rosary, Ego te absolvo in nomine Patris -- ”

Waiting outside the booth, Nicky can hear this (since remember this priest is Bad at his Job and has apparently never met the concept of confessional confidentiality in his life) and sags in relief a little. Oh sodomy isn’t that bad, right, it’s a venial sin, no big --

“Father,” says Guy, “I confess that I have also consorted with a Saracen in search of a magical remedy.”

(We don’t gender the Saracen, because we don’t believe in supporting stereotypes, and since it’s established Guy is into Kinky Stuff, you never know.)

Priest LOSES HIS SHIT.

“You WHAAAAAAAT? CONSORTING WITH A SARACEN FOR MAGIC!! THIS IS A TERRIBLE SIN!!! YOU NEED TO REPENT IMMEDIATELY!!!”

Cut back to Nicky. OH SHIT!!! Sodomy not bad, he could deal with that. Consorting with a Saracen?? OH SON YOU’RE DOOMED. SODOMY WITH A SARACEN??? OH MY GOD I’M GOING TO HELL!

Cue Nicky’s silent existential crisis Dying in the background while the priest lectures Guy to within an inch of his life. Finally, Guy decides fuck this priest (not like that, this is not Fleabag) and scuttles out. A thoroughly terrified Nicky thinks about following him, but since the priest has already seen him, he can’t flee. He goes into the booth and kneels down, Quaking.

“What have you come to confess, my son?”

Nicky.exe has stopped working.

“.....jealousy.”

You get the idea. And guess what? This would be COMPLETELY accurate, because if we were using, say, Burchard of Worms’ Decretum, an early 11th-century handbook advising priests what penalties to give to various sins, that’s basically how it’s treated. Sodomy is blown over briefly with the other venial sins as a certain amount of days fasting on bread and water, while Burchard is really, really worried about witchcraft, magic, non-Christian beliefs, and other such things. So again, really, what is “Period-Typical Homophobia?” We’ve already established that behavior between two men that would raise modern eyebrows would be absolutely nothing remarkable to a medieval person, while priests obviously don’t approve of sodomy, but they’re not that fussed by it either. (Unless you’re Peter the Chanter, who’s just a dick, but he is yet again one guy writing about one specific context, 12th-century Paris, and the fact that he’s complaining so much means that it’s obviously happening in reality.) Besides, the whole idea was that sodomy was the “unspeakable sin,” aka something people just didn’t mention or talk about, which is why it can be hard to track down reliable or unambiguous treatments of it. Obviously, queer erasure isn’t a surprise, but it doesn’t mean that these people didn’t exist; it just means that chroniclers, especially monastic chroniclers, didn’t write about it. So even if this is outright happening, i.e. Joe and Nicky’s romance and/or the number of other queer characters we will be sure to include for verisimilitude, there’s still no guarantee that anyone would even actually SAY something.

And besides: not every minute of history was filled with homophobia, just as not every minute was filled with filth, torture, misogyny, etc. There is actually no necessary reason to include it, especially in boring modern homophobia form, unless you’re trying to beat us over the head with Things Being Bad Back Then. Especially if we’re making a movie that honors and empowers queer people, who deserve a chance to escape into a lavish historically detailed gay romance with Joe and Nicky and not have to deal with bog-standard microaggression as a result. Because what I’ve laid out above is just as much (in fact more so) historically accurate, and MUCH more funny, interesting, authentic, and original.

(And thanks so much!! Another GREAT question.)

#history #medieval history #queer history #joe x nicky #persephone-rose-r #ask #the old guard meta

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tristanlovesthequeen · 3 years

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Something Smart

Tristan Arcelona

Claire Daigle

Minding the Canon HTCA-502-01

11/30/16

Artist as Purveyor of the Contemporary Landscape

The first time I saw a representation of Salvador Dali's “The Persistence of Memory” was in a cartoon on Nickelodeon called “Tiny Toons.” I forget the exact scene but somehow this image stayed with me and has pervaded popular culture since its inception. Dali first came up with the idea during a after a dinner party with his wife, Gala and some artist friends. After dinner the group decided to go to the cinema and Dali decided to hang back. He sat at the head of the table observing a loaf of Camembert cheese and pondering the super soft texture of it. He sat down and began to work at the painting. It was almost complete upon the return of his wife. Upon seeing it she proclaimed that it was a sight impossible to be unseen.

The simplicity of the initial concept of soft cheese was then taken to the next step through Dali's hyper paranoiac conceptualism and then taken even further by art critics, theorists, and historians who believed it had to do with Einstein's theory of relativity. Later on in Dali's career he began to paint about this topic, with the advent of nuclear physics and string theory, molecular structures and DNA mapping. This is an instance of artist creating a brand, and the symbiotic relationship between the supply chain and the demand creating new technologies, hybridized paintings, and advancement in concept. Dali drifted between faith systems his entire life, finding sources of inspiration and exploring them, sharing his findings and experiments through the medium of art. What started as landscape and portraiture evolved into impressionism then cubism and then his most famous surrealist stage. This period explored the concept of dream reality and meaning of dream symbols which directly connected him to the theories of Sigmund Freud. When criticized by fellow surrealists as purely a commercial painter, he denounced surrealism, needing only his wife Gala. He lived a life in the spotlight through wars, moving from Europe to New York and back again. He progressed the ideas explored in surrealism to scientific theorems and in the tail end of his career he became more of a faith based painter.

Sometimes the mythology of a painting's creation is more interesting than the painting itself. It's reputation precedes it and therefore it achieves high levels of fame. One such painting is “Dance at the Moulin de la Galette” by Renoir. The Moulin de la Galette was a popular dance hall/ bar/ restaurant for the impressionists to meet in Montmarte Paris, France during the late 1800's. Pierre Auguste Renoir had a studio nearby. Legend has it that everyday he would carry the canvas with a friend down to the Moulin de la Galette and set up his easel.

Renoir leased a studio at 12 Rue Cortot, in April 1875. It came furnished and had two floors, where he lived with his brother. He made several studies at the Moulin de la Galette. Renoir's civil servant friend Georges Riviere writes how friends helped carry the canvas back and forth “We would carry this canvas every day from the rue cortot to the moulin, because the painting was executed entirely on the spot. This was not without difficulties, when the wind blew and the big canvas threatened to fly away like a kite over the Butte.” (pg. 64)

Renoir used his friends and acquaintances from all walks of life as models. He had a favorite female sitter, whose name was Jeanne and was sixteen who refused the main role in the painting but appears later in life as the main character in “The Swing.” Instead, her sister Estelle models the pink and blue ribbon dress.

Renoir went through a period in his life where he and his fellow impressionist compatriots were penniless. Renoir combated this period in his life by writing letters to friends asking for money, also by staying with fellow artists such as Monet. It seemed the impressionist vision was fading with the salon show actually losing money and his artist group parting ways. His main gallerist Durand-ruel closed his London location and it seemed that all was lost. Famished, Renoir started painting portraits and with a stroke of luck and genius, he was able to make the acquaintance of one of Duret's friends Deudon, who was a wealthy lawyer and owner of a clothing store Old England. Duedon comissioned him to paint a mural in his estate, a portrait of Madame Duedon and five of his finished pieces.

This granted Renoir passage to build upon what he had been pursuing with his portrait studies to create the symphony of motion and light that we know as Bal du Moulin de la Galette. After exhibiting, he was able to land several published reviews as was the style at the time. However, instead of advancing his process and concept, the reviews were mostly negative, 2/6 were favorable.

Most of Renoir's paintings are figurative, all signifying spacial pictoral depth. Some are landscape. Now they seem highly unoriginal, the best part about them being the color and motion of brushstroke. His model choice changed slightly over the years, yet remained mostly young white women, beginning with light red hair and progressing to black. He undeniably had a type, at his worst remained a blank, doll-like expression. Even in the Bal du Moulin de la Galette, his most populated painting, it looks as though the main female model repeats over and over as though she were dancing with her clones. However, he combats this with the dappled shadows from the overhanging branches, the representation of the contemporary styles of the time, and the bright and sunny disposition of all the participants of the scene. One cannot help but feel nostalgic for a period that would not have existed if the Impressionists had not imagined and created it.

Advance time about a hundred years or more and we find Bruce la Bruce's movie Super 8 1/2. This movie is a mockumentary based on a queer fetishistic porn producer's life and work. Things have changed since the 90's, with the advancement of the internet interrupting basically every aspect of our lives. Porn is everywhere. This movie is reminiscent of John Waters' tongue in cheek reality. The stars are not perfect right wing citizens, they are “underground” and rife with problems, and we see how very real they are. The main character takes after Andy Warhol, he has taken to alcoholism and lives in a dingy room with aluminum colored space blankets on the walls. He is always in a state of heartbreak and his relationships with his costars are argumentative and violent.

Googie is an adventurous porn producer who finds her subjects in mysterious ways. She finds a lesbian couple hooking up in a graveyard and casts them as her new stars. A confessional interview shows them talking about their threesomes with strangers and hatred for hetero cis men. They like to “fuck them, and fuck with their minds.” Wednesday and Friday describe going into clubs with a pair of scissors and cutting off straight men's ponytails. They aren't serious strippers, they are quirky and take their sexuality and dancing with a slight humorous bend.

The stars are full of themselves and obsessed with fame. Their egos cause them to blow up in violent outbursts at each other and exploit each other. The difference between Bruce la Bruce's porn and every other run of the mill porn filmed in New York or the valley, is that these stars have been given credit for being avant garde art stars. One such plot is Bruce driving an old Jaguar down a a desolate country road and hitting a hitchhiker. He gets out of the car to check on the man who he has hit and ends up getting a blowjob when he regains consciousness. The movie concludes with the stranger throwing up on the side of the road and Bruce hopping back in the car and driving away.

A movie directed by Googie and starring Wednesday and Friday, the two lesbian “sisters,” pictures them holding a man up with a WWII army beretta, lubing up his rear and shoving the covered pistol in his behind. They finish him off by stripping him bare in the brush, powdering him and equipping him with a diaper.

The movie is a black comedy. Visually it is devoid of colour. Needless to say, it is weighty in its stark portrayal of a scene that is hardly ever represented in the main stream without being over glorified. It is an industry, much like the meat industry, that remains invisible in its process, yet is pervasive throughout history, since the dawn of photography. It has it's parallels in the art scene, with painters and photographers alike representing models who may or may not have participated in porn shoots. The credit goes to the artist usually, with the model being a conduit to his concept, and it is impossible to see how much the subject actually contributed to the process and final image.

Eventually we see Bruce's participation in the industry drowning him in sorrow. He stumbles around the courtyard of an insane asylum in black doc martens, white pants, and a white straight jacket. He has been exploited to no end, what was supposed to save his career, the interviews and collaborations, actually detrimented from it. His friend describes him as losing touch with reality, blurring the line between his movies and his waking life. We see him shellshocked on camera dropping a line of infinite wisdom and rebuking it, attempting to cover his tracks, rephrasing it as if it can be edited out of the space time continuum.

The film is filmed in low-fi black and white with almost no budget. Needless to say, it is an art film. It documents a sub culture that concerns itself with a subversive beauty, that the mainstream is dangerous. It takes hard work no matter what you do, whoever said being a pornstar is easy? We see the image of a young black man on a benchpress, the director condemning him for not being able to get it up, that he has had “Three fluffers already.” That the price of fame might be the price of your mental well being, that the more one departs from mainstream society the more danger one welcomes into their personality. That somehow being beautiful and volatile gives you control over others, it creates a desire in them to do your will. However, it is only tolerable for a short period of time. Misery loves company but it also attracts a certain type of self aware genius. We are only comfortable with our avarice in the midst of a reflection, and when that reflection starts to change we are disgusted and need to move on. We accept that life is hard and must accept the most gruesome of challenges because our ability to tolerate and moderate these events bring us a sense of personal satisfaction, the sense of grit to survive. The fear always lies with our insecurities. When will this life bring me under? How much is too much? In this industry, pain and substance abuse go hand in hand. In theory, the dampening of the limbic system allows us to surpass the constant onslaught of painful memories. What is actually happening is quite the opposite. How one chooses to combat these issues or feelings depends on a personality type or a type of abuse someone has endured in the past, whether it was mental, physical or sexual. Occasionally people attempt to welcome back this type of abuse into their lives, they put themselves in situations that repeat or glorify an abusive situation and it becomes a cycle without rebirth leading to their ultimate destruction and downfall. Given the right willpower, resources, and technique one can break this cycle. Life is not without pitfalls and setbacks, but only if we take them that way. This can lead us further into space or further equip us to deal with life has to offer us.

Ultimately society was not built to do us any favors. The kind of free sexual rebellion that this movie introduces is somewhat refreshing somewhat stale. It shows us that this behavior might not land us in prison, but might lead us to a sort of mental exile where we feel alien to the world. The world has offered us an escape from mainstream only to find that we are caught in another mainstream. Crimes against humanity are rampant wherever we go and it is not until we accept them as part of our culture that we find any release.

Tony smith created the steel sculpture “Die” in 1968 with the intention of representing the “square root” of six. It is literally six by six feet, metaphorically representing death by being six feet deep and a six foot box. It is brooding in its intentionality, also seems to be a means to an end goal of traveling to New York. The NGA describes the piece as “embracing the heroic and humanistic attitudes associated with abstract expressionist art of the 1950's,” however I would describe the movement as one filled mostly with a sense of white male machismo. How could he have not noticed the gigantic black cube in the middle of Jerusalem called the Kaaba which houses the holy book of the Q'uuraan? Millions of people flock to the religious site each year to pay homage to the prophet Muhammad. Arguably, this is an even larger homage to organized religion and the prowess of another man of a separate ethnicity. Both cubes are homages to death, one is immensely popular and other remains a mirror of a small dying culture, we shall presume the reader knows which one is which.

Sometimes art is less conceptual as a metaphor for what is already present in life, and turns into a science project that invigorates the future of materiality, which is what all visual art media is based. Traditional materials are often decided by trends in the economy, sudden turns of fate determine which path is chosen and which materials will become the new norm. What replaced the steam engine with the gasoline powered motorcar and what replaced paper made from trees instead of hemp, was usually a rich investor that decided it was easier to pollute than to create something that is sustainable and equally as useful. What we have now is a bunch of overworked, underpaid employees that are just as polluted in their minds as the environments lakes and rivers.

Iris van Herpen is a designer that falls into a new genre of material futures. Material futures deals with finding a category of unsustainable or overused materiality, whether it be, organs, meat that we eat, or clothes that we wear. She creates new fabrics that are produced using 3d scans and furthermore printed and stitched by hand and machine to create designs reminiscent of HR Giger meets fairy princess, Hufflepuff meets Slitheryn in Harry Potter fan lore. She is conducting science with the touch of a skilled wizard, producing new leather from cow cells and lightweight fabrics lighter than silk. This technology continues to progress around the world. Her theory is not that we should be creating new wearable technologies that are stylistically unsound, meant to connect us to the outside world without bringing anything new to the physical realm. Her textures and textiles connote that we can represent how we feel and what we have experienced through a suit that we wear. 3D printing is becoming more accessible, to the point that people could do it “if they could only find the time.” If Iris van Herpen ever becomes mainstream we might not find the time to leave the house in the morning, staring at our reflections, robing and disrobing again until we can find the right form to describe our ever changing mood.

As it so happens, Iris van Herpen interned for Alexander McQueen, a famous English fashion designer who has died but his name still rings on. Before his death in 2010, he put together a show called VOSS, in which models were to reenact the mentality of being in an inpatient unit. Models shaped like gazelles stumble around in high heels looking posh and sleek with some sort of headdress that looks as though they have strapped pantyhose to their heads. Kate moss fumbles at the walls, which, are double sided mirrors, the audience can see in but none of the models on the runway can see out. The models, while nice to look at, sporting some amazing designs by McQueen, are perhaps not the most interesting part of the show. The climax comes, as the large rectangular rhombus in the center of the room comes crashing open, glass shatter and butterflies spread everywhere, fluttering about in the light. The main character, unclear whether she is the protagonist/ antagonist, reclines nude inside the cube, sporting a gas mask with concord wings a precursor to a character in Mad Max Fury Road.

It just so happens that this model is Michelle Olley, a London based writer and magazine editor who specializes in culture. She was a key figure in queer and fetish culture in the 80's and 90's and has since hopped around from job to job and now works as content manager for Turner Broadcasting's Adult Swim. On her blog, she describes the experience of being involved in the project. The all around stress she was under and the real life torture she felt being kept in the box.

“If it weren’t for yoga I’d be in absolute agony by now. I can’t move much because moving breaks wings; my lower leg is dead after about twenty minutes on the chair. I’ve got at least an hour and a half alone in here, and that’s if the show starts on time, which of course they never, ever do. After about another fifteen minutes my right shoulder, which is leaning on a cushion, starts to ache. I’m clutching onto Stephen’s best scalpel—which I need to slash open the butterfly net that contains 250 live moths and butterflies. I’m holding the net in my other hand trying to keep it still so I don’t disturb them. The radio earpieces are throbbing—they’ve been hurting since they wrapped the bandages round them. It’s not too bad in the mask. I can breathe OK. The temperature is awful, though. They need to keep it cold in there so that the moths will remain still/placid. Cold air is being piped in, as when the lights go on at showtime, it’s going to get really hot. The cold air is giving me goose bumps and making the glue/moth parts all around my body really itchy. My head’s hot, my body’s freezing. Time to test whether they really are listening at all times. I ask Anna to turn off the air con and they agree to give it a rest for ten minutes. I have no idea how long it took to shut it off or low long it was off for, but it wasn’t enough. Before I know it, the pipes are blowing again—sending another flurry of broken wings and antennas off me and I’m shivering. Anna tells me they’re running about twenty minutes late (it was about an hour to the official start by this point). By this stage I have no idea how long I’ve been in there, or how long I have left. Time has ceased to be quantifiable. I’m too focused on not thinking about my discomfort, not getting emotional, saying warm and not thinking about the fact I was busting for a pee. I just wanted desperately to get it over with. Sometime later Anna calls to say it would be another fifteen minutes on top of the twenty (“We’re waiting for Gwyneth, who’s stuck in traffic”). Bring. It. On. Before getting in the box, I’d seen all the names on the chairs through the two-way mirrored glass. Paltrow was at my feet, next to Nick and Charlotte Knight; my backside was right to Isabella Blow, Grace Jones, Sharlene from Texas and Ronnie and Jo Wood. Could they tell I was hatching a radio mic? I’d also spotted Tracy Chapman, Tracey Emin and Jake Chapman’s names on the chairs. My early comment about “doing it for art” was coming true in an unexpected fashion...

No, it’s the art thing again. I want people to know what I just went through wasn’t a breeze and I did it for art. Yes, art. Because I believe it’s worth going through that much palaver if it creates a strong image that conveys an important idea. And I believe that the idea that we are trapped by our “civilized,” socially approved identities is massively important. It causes women so much suffering. Fear of aging, fear of not being thin enough. Fear of not having the right clothes. Fear of our animal natures that we carry in our DNA—fish, bird, lizard, insect, mammal. We’ve never had it more techno, we’ve never needed it more human. We humans living now still cannot turn ourselves into perfect beings, no matter how long we spend at the gym, beauty parlour, shops, etc.”

Sometimes it takes a whole orchestra of behind the scenes folks to get a project realized. Sometimes it is only a handful of people who receive the credit for a massive undertaking such as this. Why is Tracy Chapman still relevant? Because she is involved with the culture. And when all is said and done, however equally distributed the pain and strife of the work that was completed, we still live in a world where Benjamin Franklin is accredited with the discovery of electricity. Perhaps McQueen would have not felt so weighed down by the responsibility of stardom if the attention received for such a project was distributed with more equity. Michelle Olley still learned a valuable lesson in body image from the experience of participating in the project, so it seems that process can be the most important part of creation.

Haruki Murakami writes in his novel Kafka on the Shore, “That’s why I like to listen to Schubert while I’m driving. Like I said, it’s because all the performances are imperfect. A dense, artistic kind of imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I’m driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of—that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. And personally, I find that encouraging.”

Contemporary art seems to operate solely upon this concept, that there are continuous builds based upon the notion that everything here is imperfect. Competition is based on this nodule that human kind has something to prove, that there is somehow something better to be strived for. Competition within contemporary art pushes boundaries of what is conceptual, accepted, what element of art history the piece is derived from, and what new materials can be used. Since there is no purpose in striving for perfection, it eliminates the competition within the art world. What is left is abstract free flowing ideas. Competition in the art world, it seems only exists within the art market. Survival of the fittest is based on who has the latest advancement in technology “who has the biggest guns” and who can obtain the largest chunk of the economy. Eventually people try to compensate by dumping the largest amount of money into a particular project, here size of the object, materiality, location, and finish come into play. What is left can be impactful, just because of the immense capabilities of one particular artist.

The Japanese synth composer Yuzo Koshiro, who is famous for his video game scores during the 90's describes this concept when being called the king of FM synthesis. “It’s an honour for me. Though there are a lot of people who use the FM synth well. As I said before, in terms of game music... Trying to use an FM synth with MIDI had so many restrictions. I don’t think people could use the chip to its full potential exactly as they wanted. Since I made my own editor and driver, I could control everything about the chip down to the fine details. So I think that’s why I was able produce that level of sound. I definitely don’t think I’m great at making quality tones though. Being able to control every little thing freely was one of the main reasons I received that kind of praise.” Koshiro was able to fine tune his process by using his own tools, which he developed, using his own ideal of how he saw the future. Still, he believes the final product was not the embodiment of perfection. He finds that the more one plays through a video game with the music that he has composed, the more the melodies grow on us.

“Is it the quiet shore of contemplation that I set aside for myself, as I lay bare, under the cunning, orderly surface of civilizations, the nurturing horror that they attend to pushing aside by purifying, systematizing, and thinking; the horror that they seize on in order to build themselves up and function? I rather conceive it as a work of disappointment, of frustration and hollowing—probably the only counterweight to abjection. While everything else –its archaeology and its exhaustion—is only literature: The sublime point at which the abject collapses in a burst of beauty that overwhelms us—and that cancels our existence” Kristeva.

Kristeva's “Powers of Horror” is a long, drawn out study on the abject. How she was able to complete such a tour de force is beyond us, which is probably why it seems so intelligent. She was able to sustain concentration on the most unbearable subjects, and most art students, given the the task of completing the entire transcript, are unable to do so. If there is one positive concept to be derived from this reading, it is that the abject is necessary in small doses, in order to achieve the opposite. What disrupts and disgusts us can make us believe that there is an opposite. That notion is described in the quote as the sublime.

If we look at the hollowness of space as terrifying, then we see why people decide to huddle together within city walls. We condense only to realize that this too, can be perceived as abject, and in the instance, we decide to disperse. In this way, the feeling of abjection can flip flop, all at once describing the fickle nature of the human personality, and the lightness of being alive.

“Women artists are more inward-looking, more delicate and nuanced in their treatment of their medium, it may be asserted. But which of the women artists cited above is more inward-turning then Redon, more subtle and nuanced in the handling of pigment than Corot? Is Fragonard more or less feminine than Mme. Vigee-Lebrun? Or is it not more a question of the whole Rococo style of eighteenth-century France being "feminine," if judged in terms of a binary scale of "masculinity" versus "femininity"? Certainly, if daintiness, delicacy, and preciousness are to be counted as earmarks of a feminine style, there is nothing fragile about Rosa Bonheur's Horse Fair, nor dainty and introverted about Helen Frankenthaler's giant canvases. If women have turned to scenes of domestic life, or of children. so did Jan Steen, Chardin, and the Impressionists-- Renoir and Monet as well as Morisot and Cassatt. In any case, the mere choice of a certain realm of subject matter, or the restriction to certain subjects, is not to be equated with a style, much less with some sort of quintessentially feminine style.”

Traditionally, throughout history, most of the credit of winning has been given to men. Credit is sometimes equated to fame, such as Alexander McQueen's stylistic designs and art shows, where there are numerous participants. However, what equates fame? How do we quantify how well known something is? If something that lives in our hearts is more important than fame, how is it that we measure? Many ideas presented in the art history canon have been proposed by women first. We see this in the example of Carolee Schneemann's “Meat Joy” and also “Up to and Including Her Limits.” Matthew Barney used the same ideas in his piece “Drawing Restraint” several years later and arguably received more credit. He is also referencing his “personal mythology,” which might include pieces that Schneemann has produced. Meat Joy creates a scene where the body is abjectly presented as a vessel of meat, flesh we consume is also the flesh we destroy, and the theme of abject flesh is now popularized in contemporaries like Jenny Saville. Where once upon a time it was popular to idealize the human form, it is now popular to debunk the myth of a perfect form and present the new ideal as a medley of body types and human characteristics, not ignoring the ever presence of the abundance of flesh, and bodily fluids. In terms of art, the gender of the object is attributed to whomever created it, no matter how rugged or polished the piece may be. The independence of women artists does not suggest that they did not particularly belong to a certain school or class of artists, it just means that they were not recognized for being there. Since the presence of art history is also based upon the presence of critics and historians, the relationships between these individuals and the people they chose to represent is important too. The interpersonal relationships amongst individuals in the art world also influence who receives a review. Ana Mendietta is mostly recognized for her relationship with Carl Andre, as Lucian Freud is mostly recognized because he is grandson to Sigmund Freud. Not to say either is necessarily without talent, which is quite the opposite, however people are recognized mostly from their upbringing and what circles they revolve in.

Which leaves me believing something is missing within the art world and the world at large. We all experience the sense of the void, which is a mirror of the total amount of dark matter in the universe. There is something amiss, and we are not quite sure what it is. The Fifth Element addresses this concept, with the notion that there is a missing element that will save the universe. With designs by Jean Giraud Moebius and Jean Paul Gaultier, this french cult classic is one of the most visually stunning movies to date.

The plot revolves around the main character Korben Dallas and his relationship with the embodiment of the fifth element, Leeloo. She is a fanboy's dream, a young model actress that does not speak English, is the visage of perfection but does not have any visual or cultural preference of her own to speak of, nor any knowledge of who she is or what humans are. Besides this general monotony, she contains an element that is activated by a particular piece of knowledge. What Korben Dallas teaches her, is the concept of love. This is the final unifying element in the universe, the one that clarifies the dream, and brings light to an otherwise dark place. No matter what your belief system is, if you are a human, animal, sentient being, this rings true. What is the essence of life, what is the point of materiality if there is no feeling there?

With my own work, I feel a sense of displacement usually rather than belonging. A jumble of ideas are mashed together usually to bring a solution to some sort of negativity, in order to see the light shine through. Many artists use their art as a way to connect on a broader spectrum, in this way I am no different. I find that personally I connect best at a small scale, one or two people rather than a huge group. Limiting options of who to talk to can create a stronger bond, as if limiting one's palate, in order to know what is truly motivating one's soul.

With what I create, I tend to maximize my reference points. I create a mashup of things I have experienced, usually told in the form of a fable created through symbolism of images derived from 90's pop culture. Perhaps this is me bringing to the forefront the notion of keeping my childhood alive, by subliming memories of contemporary life. Art can be about breaking free of limits, so my process constantly changes to remove myself from an XY axis and a grid, to constantly build and destroy, to remove anger, hate, and turn it into love.

This semester I have learned a few things about the art world and art school in specific. There are a few key tropes that reoccur and navigating them is mostly about the language used to describe them. For example, using the word umwelt for someone's personal bubble; using the term post humanism when someone really means Sci-fi; structuralism for patterns that repeat; anthropocene for the current affect of global warming. Part of the interchangeability of words to describe these things has to do with the malleability of the ideas themselves. As we saw with Salvador Dali's study of string theory, different personal views conjure up different worlds. The study of these worlds leads us on our own personal journeys. We envelop these concepts and let the future unfold, perhaps we use art as the mechanism to advance human kind. I always thought of art as some kind of pseudo-science, now I can say that these things are interchangeable, art can be science, theory, personal reflection, fortune telling, and the economy. The mythology that leads us here today can change time.

Works Cited

Barbara Ehrlich White, Renoir His Life Art and Letters. 1984. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. New York

NGA.gov for tony smith's die

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/t-magazine/iris-van-herpen-designer-interview.html?_r=0

http://blog.metmuseum.org/alexandermcqueen/michelle-olley-voss-diary/

http://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2014/09/yuzo-koshiro-interview

The fifth element

#Tristan Chase Arcelona

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incorrectsmashbrosquotes · 5 years

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The Beginning... Episode 1 Part 2

Okay, wow. People really want this series to be a thing. So, wish granted! I’m super pumped for this! thanks for all the positivity you sent my way. I’ll try to live up to your expectations.

Also, an important note. In this AU, there are no pre-existing romantic relationships between the Smashers. Trust me, there will be. But this way there will be more room for drama.

Enjoy!

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*The Smashers have assembled in the amphitheater at Camp Smashanakwa. The show is on, and the teams are about to be forged. Ganondorf stands on the stage in full on Host mode.*

Ganondorf: Welcome back to Total Drama Smash Bros, brought to you by Lon Lon Milk! The coldest and most refreshing milk in the Chosen Kingdom. 9 Nine out of 10 Hylians recommend it!

Link: It's true.

Zelda: We're addicted. *Chugs a bottle of 2%*

Ganondorf: Now, before we can divide up these poor suckers into their teams, we need to introduce the rest of the staff! First off, is chef Ridley, who will be bringing you all your tasty camp treats.

*Cut to Ridley in the kitchen with a chainsaw and a suspicious bulging bag slung over his shoulder, dripping with blood.*

Ridley: HOPE YOU LIKE PORK! AHAHAHAHAHAHA! Revs up the chainsaw

*Cut back to the amphitheater*

Ganondorf: Next is King K Rool, who will be managing our... forest friends.

*Cut to King K Rool in front of hundreds of giant cages all filled with monsters from various games*

K Rool: You just need to feed them properly.

*A couple of unpaid interns are dumped into a cage with a King Dodongo.*

Intern #1: Meh, still better than studying for finals.

Inter #2: THIS DOES NOT EXPAND DONG!

*Cut back to the amphitheater*

Ganondorf: After that is Bowser, our resident tinkerer!

*Cut to Bowser, working on a massive electrical bear trap.*

Bowser: My motto is, if it can be electrical, it should be! Buahahah!

*Cut back to amphitheater.*

Ganondorf: And finally, Wolf! Our handyman.

Wolf, off to the side smoking a cigarette: I fix your toilets. Piss me off at your own risk.

Marth: I'm beginning to suspect that Master Hand is angry with us, putting these lunatics in charge.

Erdrick: Ya don't say?!

Ganondorf: Anyway! Time to make our teams. *A bokoblin walks onstage wearing a pink glittery dress. It holds a bag full on envelopes.* Simply come up and choose an envelope. If the paper inside is green, then you're a Crying Goomba! If it's red, then you're an Ugly Koopa!

Red: Wow, you're not even trying to hide your pettiness.

Ganondorf: Nope!

*The victims- I mean contestants one by one took up envelopes from the pink dress clad bokoblin. In the end, the teams were as follows*

*Crying Goombas: Link, Daisy, Ike, Leaf, Red, Corrine, Joker, Rosalina, Marth, Bonny Janet.*

*Ugly Koopas: Samus, Zelda, Roy, Pit, Dark Pit, Robyn, Lucina, Captain Falcon, Peach, Erdrick*

Captain Falcon: Aw yeah! Let me hear ya my Koopas!

*Silence, crickets chirping.*

Captain Falcon: Come on guys! We're doing this anyway, least we could do is be pumped for it!

Zelda: Sorry Captain, but we're far more worried about what insanity Ganondorf is going to inflict on us.

Captain Falcon: True... but still! Twenty million big ones!

Peach: At least five of us are royalty. We've got more than enough money. We're just doing this because we want to remain Smashers.

Daisy: And being responsible monarchs means we can't use much of the royal treasury for ourselves. It'll be good to have some pocket change.

Marth: ...Well when it's said like that it seems kind of arrogant.

*Sure enough some of the less monetarily inclined Smashers are looking at the royals with a bit of resentment*

Ganondorf: Ha Ha! Finally some seeds of drama! But, for now, one final bit of exposition before we get the ball rolling!

*a screen descends and shows a picture of a shoddily constructed outhouse*

Ganondorf: This is the Den of Confession. It's a completely private place to air your dirty laundry and darkest secrets. I guarantee you that no one will probably won't not maybe possibly never not see it.

Everyone: …

Dark Pit: Do even you know where you went with that?

Ganondorf: Nope!

Inside the Confessional

Zelda: Darkest secrets huh... … … … … I'm... I'm not actually a blonde. My hair is bleached. … … *she suddenly jumps onto the camera* GIMME THAT TAPE!

*The smashers and new teams now find themselves on the beach where Ganondorf is standing with Bowser Both Ganondorf and Bowser are clad in the loudest Hawaiian swim trunks in history.*

Ganondorf: Welcome Smashers and viewing audience to your FIRST CHALLENGE!

Pit: Ooh! Ooh! Are we playing voleyball! I love volleyball!

Dark Pit: *smacks Pit upside the head*

Pit: Oww!

Dark Pit: Of course not you idiot!

Ganondorf: Actually, my emo feathered moron, we are playing volleyball!

Dark Pit: Wait- what?! That's it?!

Ganondorf, a shit-eating grin on his face: Weeeeeeeellllll.... not really. See we're going to be playing...

Samus: This is going exactly where I think it is isn't it?

Ganondorf, pulling out a Bomb-bomb with the fuse lit: VOLLEY-BOMB!

Samus: Yup.

*Ganondorf throws the bomb at the Smashers*

Ike: HIT THE DECK!

*The Smashers jump for cover as the bomb lands... and nothing happens. It's a dud.*

Ganondorf: HAH! Classic.

Bowser, producing a massive sack filled with bombs: These bombs were designed by yours truly! They're programmed to only explode when they hit the ground, so keep them flying! Cause if they touch down... well you get the idea.

Ganondorf: The rules are simple. The Goombas and the Koopas will each split into two teams of five. There will be two games of 5 v. 5. Whichever team wins both games wins invincibility... and a prize! The loser team will vote someone off the Island tonight.

Peach: Uh, excuse me! But what if both teams win a game?

Ganondorf: Oh. Well, in that case, we'd have to hole... … the tie-breaker. MUAHAHAHA! *Ominous lightning flash*

*Silence. Crickets chirping.*

Ganondorf: Well, hop to it!

Inside the Confessional

Bowser: I'm a little worried about Big G. He's... he's getting really into this whole reality TV deal. Way more than is probably healthy.

Inside the Confessional

Link: Hey, maybe Ganondorf has found his true calling an he'll leave Hyrule the fuck alone! But since when am I that lucky huh?

With the Goombas

Link: Okay team. I think we need to talk strategy.

Bonny Janet: We're all goon ta' die.

Link: No... we just need to be careful. I have the most experience with these types of bombs, so I should head the first Team 1. Daisy, you're the professional sportswoman so you'll head Team 2.

Daisy: You got it! If I can survive Mario Party then I can survive this.

Bonny Janet: Grate. Soo tha' sissy English Elf is goona ta leaad one tame and the talkin' floowers goon to lead the oother?

Link: You've got a problem with that?

Bonny Janet: Aye ah've goot a problem! Who made ye leader eh?! Ike's goot tha flammin' sword o' fire! E' should lead a team, not the flight fairy o'er dere!

Link: Daisy's got the most experience with games like these. She leads Team 2.

Joker: Uh, not to play Devil's Advocate, but Bonny has a point. Ike does seem pretty fireproof.

Marth: Call it same series bias, but Ike does seem like a good choice. I don't doubt Daisy's abilities, but this seems more like a “let's survive and outlast” situation than a “let's beat the other team into submission” type situation.

Ike: Look, Link, I don't want to be the asshole here, but if the group wants me I'll do it.

In the Confessional

Bonny Janet: Dun git ma wrong. Ah' got nothin' against Elfy personally. Boot e's a presumptuous prick if e's thinks e' can joost boss us around like that. We ain'r 'is lackeys!

In the Confessional

Link: And like that everyone's suddenly listening to the Scottish Imp of a Pokemon trainer! I mean, I know she's both adorable and hilarious, but you can't just throw strategy out the window.

In the Confessional

Daisy: I appreciated Link standing up for me, but frankly I think he was more offended than I was.

With the Koopas

Captain Falcon: Trust me guys! I got this one in the bag.

Samus: As much as I want to disagree with Falcon on principal, he's probably right. This does seem like his forte.

Lucina: Indeed. Finally, a use for the meathead.

Captain Falcon: Hey! My brain is made of pure brain stuff. And if it WERE meat it'd be delicious.

Erdrick: *pats Falcon on the head*

Roy: Okay, I say we keep Falcon back until round 2, sort of our ace in the hole okay? Samus, can you handle round 1?

Samus: No sweat.

Roy: Any arguments?

*There is silence for a moment but no one disagrees with him.*

Roy: Alright, move out!

*The Koopas move to leave, but Pit and Zelda are grabbed from behind and pulled behind a large rock by an unknown figure. It turns out to be Peach.*

Zelda: Peach, dear, could you tell me what's going on. I mean, if you want to be behind a rock... with me... I uh... can make some exceptions... but uh... should Pit really-

*Peach smacks Zelda upside the head*

Peach: No you useless lesbian! I'm with Mario remember.

Zelda: Oh. Yes. I see.

Pit: What's a lesbian?

Peach: You'll find out when you're older. But look. Zelda, you're only ride-or-die ally is one the other team right?

Zelda: Now that you mention it... I have been worrying about what to do without Link. I can handle myself but...

Peach: And Pit. It's only a matter of time before Dark Pit gets too annoyed with you and gets you voted off, right?

Pit: No! Pittoo and I are making great progress! This morning he only beaned me in the head with one gallon of milk.

Peach:

Zelda:

Pit: I'm screwed aren't I?

Peach: Not if we stick together! I propose an alliance between us. Together, we'll take each other to the final three!

In the Confessional

Peach: I can see that I'm in a bad boat. Both Daisy and Rosalina are on the opposing team, so I'm already out two allies. I know what people think of me, the “useless Princess”. If I don't act fast I'm going home. Zelda and Pit are both sweethearts, and they're bad asses to boot. They'll make good allies.

In the Confessional

Zelda: I want to go on the record as saying I do not need Link to survive this place. I already have an alliance of my own! Time to show that Princess Zelda is no damsel in distress!

Zelda: I'm on board.

Pit: I dunno... I don't feel right doing this behind my emo brother's back.

Peach: Well with an alliance we can watch out for him little guy.

Pit: You mean it?

Peach: One-hundred percent!

Pit: … Okay, I'm in.

Ganondorf, watching on one of his monitoring cameras: Ooh hoo! Looks like some drama is already kicking up! The Goombas in a power struggle and two princesses already teaming up with a gullible Angel! Will Link take true command of the Goombas? Will Peach survive with her new alliance? Find out, here on Total, Drama, SMASH BROS!

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And that’s a wrap on part 2! The actual challenge will be in the third and final part of this episode, which will include the voting off ceremony. Let me know what you think! Also, try and guess who will win and be voted off.

Be good people!

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crepuscolo-vibes · 6 years

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Okay after seeing all the Choni and character scenes so far I can properly say what I feel about the writing choices of this season of Riverdale.

Half of those Choni scenes could have been added into the episodes instead of the stupid shock value scenes. We saw actual development between them and not be over-dramatic but there was some s1 Bughead level support between those two.

Some scenes like the moving in scene or the new bike scene I don't mind being cut out because that would have made them move so fast (even U-Haul lesbians would side eye that.) But the scene of Cheryl's confessional and her coming to support her girlfriend backstage even though she was not in the spotlight [unlike what s1 Cheryl would have done] would have been great and necessary to see because it shows that she has learned to celebrate people’s success meanwhile showing that Toni is perfectly chill with Cheryl just the way she is. And the voicemail scene and hospital scene also shows that Toni has followed through after 2x14 when Cheryl was in her darkest moments. This would have made the whole ‘Cheryl joining the serpents’ thing a bit more believable.

These Choni scenes as well as the rest of the scenes [like the sleepover] minus the Varchie sex scenes because there were ENOUGH all had one thing in common. It made the show in service of the characters and not the plot, which the lack of character focus was one of s2′s biggest issues.

These scenes made it feel more grounded in a sense as it gave these characters something else going on for them other than the stupidly boring and predictable Black Hood storyline that had garnered a resounding ‘Meh’ from audiences.

Moving forward I hope the writers focus more on what made season one so great, a good mystery for sure but it should never take the priority over character development and moments. This doesn’t mean you write it for the ships only but we love Riverdale for the characters not the mystery of the season.

[Everything underlined is a link to the tweet with the scenes so if you haven’t already, you can check them out for yourselves.]

#riverdale #riverdale netflix #bughead #varchie #choni #rosie #betty cooper #jughead jones #archie andrews #veronica lodge #cheryl blossom #toni topaz #josie mccoy #reggie mantle #kevin keller #queue got to be kidding me

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starsailorstories · 6 years

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not to hit yall with heavy writing thoughts in the middle of wednesday morning but i was lying awake about these artistic decisions for the severaleth time last night

it’s pretty important to me that none of the kids’ actual parents in SC are abusive bigoted monsters, but they all visit pain and invalidation on their children in ways that define those children’s identity struggles. mostly out of misguided, fear-canceled love, and mostly doing the best they’ve been taught, they all crucially fail to refute the hostile cultural messages the kids are surrounded by.

and not to get confessional but like. the homophobia i experienced from my family wasn’t the constant terror some people did. it was more cryptic--policing of behaviors and modes of expression I didn’t think could possibly matter as much as it seemed like they did to my parents, calling me a slur i was too young to understand the meaning of in the heat of anger only for it to echo back years later when i first heard it from a peer. no gaping wounds, just a million little cuts. the stories of constant terror are monumentally important and tragically still all too common, but as overt homophobic violence becomes less and less acceptable, i think it’s important to talk about coming into your own with those million little cuts on you.

rin’s experiences mirror my own most closely since they’re the pov character, and even they’re mostly hinted at through their point of view. the others have it better than I did, I think, and better than a lot of my friends did, because this is all set close to the present day so they’re a few generations after me and also, lbr, they’re in a blue state. i really wanted to paint a slightly idyllic, nostalgic picture of lgbt childhood, or what lgbt childhood could be, and mostly transmute the background struggles--which tbh? they don’t understand yet, because they’re kids--into the fantastic oppression of the alien characters, which is important to them beyond their maturity and beyond their actual involvement specifically because it parallels stuff they can’t articulate.

but even the “accepting” homes fall short because ultimately carey and nina and devin’s parents are trying to relate to their kids through their own paradigms instead of meeting them where they’re at. lux is far from a perfect mentor figure but what’s so important about her guidance (other than the fact that she’s kind of been flung into the role of a lesbian elder by virtue of context) is that she has no fucking frame of reference for any of them, no metric for what they’re “supposed” to be like. and she’s unwittingly replicating what cepheid’s outlook did for the revelator crew with that,

idk at this point where i’ve just been steadily chipping away at it for a couple years and i’m starting to refine it into something more finished i am just doing a lot of soul excavation over what this project is really all about for me

#PROBABLY DELETE LATER IDK #sweet chariot

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greyliliy · 7 years

Text

You know what? It’s the end of the year. Let’s have a giant personal confessional I’ll probably regret later because I’m oversensitive and trying not to cry while reading this book.

But I haven’t been real with you guys in a while and I feel like getting it all out at once instead of putting it into a conversation with one person and burdening them with it, and who knows, maybe it’ll help someone younger who’s dealing with this stuff now.

So let’s get real & it’s under the cut if you wanna’ read it.

I’m reading a book called Torn by Justin Lee about being a gay christian growing up in the church and it’s sort of terrifying how easy it is to relate to (up to a point). Needless to say, it’s got me thinking about life, my own frustrations, and topics about sexuality that have been weighing particularly heavy on my mind this past year as I approach my mid 30′s.

The first part where he’s discussing that he realizes he’s not attracted to women and that fear that something’s broken in him, is a feeling I know that very, very well. And when he starts talking about how he started to notice guys instead, funny enough, that’s when I realized that I...didn’t experience that either, though I could still relate to his fear of admitting this to other people.

I can’t ever remember being sexually attracted to anyone, or at least I don’t think I have (it’s so hard to pinpoint what exactly sexual attraction is and the nightmare of figuring out if it’s happened or not--but then again, I feel like if I’d felt it, I probably wouldn’t be struggling to figure out if I had or not). I remember wanting to be around people, and to have relationships, but thinking back, I don’t think I experienced it the same way other teens did.

I mean, my first serious boyfriend dumped me because as he put it: "I think you just want to be friends.” Thinking back, I went out with him for a year and we never did anything more than hug, so I can see where he’s coming from.

At the time, I sure didn’t though. I really liked that boy. We went out on dates & did stuff for Valentines and I thought we were happy, but I never made any moves physically and neither did he (at the time I was so happy we were on the same page, because I wasn’t ready, but I guess we weren’t as in sync as I thought) and well, I was informed later by a friend that getting dumped because I “just want to be friends” means “You didn’t put out, idiot, so he found a girl who would.” (They didn’t say the “idiot” part, but it was strongly implied by their tone).

I haven’t had a boyfriend since, because I realized that was part of dating and if I went out with boys they’d expect me to kiss and do things with them and I just...wasn’t ready for that. Dating became something I was terrified of; I couldn’t repeat that experience again. It wasn’t even until after college that I tried dating again, and I can count the number of them I’ve been on in my lifetime without using two hands.

I don’t think I realized it at the time, but I was a little repulsed by guys touching me. Girls were fine, boys not. I think it was a little switch in my brain going “Girl touches are platonic so they’re fine, boy ones have sexual meaning so it’s not.” that meant any time I boy touched me I panicked.

And then college hit.

I kinda knew people were having sex in high school but no one talked to me about it. There was this understanding that I had no clue about anything to do with that subject and they liked to keep it that way.

In hindsight, it hit me how much they teased me about it. I was that person who asked once at a friend’s house “How do lesbians have sex?” and they giggled “They scissor.” while miming the motion with their fingers - I didn’t get the joke and thought they were entirely serious and just accepted that answer and tried to picture how that would work. Imagine my face years later when I saw an episode of a certain show that that quote came from and I died a little inside because “Oh. They were making fun of me.”

(I also found out years later pretty much everyone I knew were all convinced I was a closeted lesbian and waiting for me to just come out already, which makes that confrontation all the worse, somehow.)

But if I wasn’t getting teased about how little I knew, they just didn’t talk about it at all.

College was an entirely different matter because I frankly couldn’t avoid the topic if I wanted to. It was in my health class (one of my gen ed. classes ended up being half Sex Ed.), it was in the free condoms they handed out, it was in my major classes (a film class I was in had a long segment that took up most of the semester titled “Sex in film” and I ended up seeing a lot of rated r films and sex scenes I had avoided in high school just because I tended to watch animated films & pg-13 ones more than anything), and well, college kids have a lot of sex, I discovered.

On my first day of freshman introduction week I ended up in a guy’s dorm who already had a “women I’ve slept with” chart on the wall that already had tick marks on it (I was there for all of five seconds while the person I was visiting got his things and we got out; I never saw any of them again the rest of the year).

Culture shock is an understatement.

And all of it made me uncomfortable. I didn’t get it. I didn’t get it in high school when people talked about wanting other people that way, and I sure as heck didn’t get it in college. But I had convinced myself one day I would. I kept thinking: “One day, I’m gonna meet that one guy that makes me feel all this sexual tension I keep hearing about and then we’ll date, and fall in love, and get married, and it’ll be great.” That’s what people kept telling me. “When you meet the one, you’ll know.”

(For the record, it still hasn’t happened, or if it did, it wasn’t over a boy and I’m in deep, soul crushing denial about it.)

I never did find that dating scene but instead, I discovered Boys Love (”Yaoi” at the time.) At first, it was a really guilty thing because I grew up Christian--and still am--(another relatable thing in this book I’m reading; the fear of your own church) and it was “Sinful” but...the stories and art were so good, and I felt bewitched. I remember reading FAKE and seeing how much they loved each other and I don’t know, it was just. Good.

And it was safe. I didn’t have to think about my sexuality when it was only boys on the page. I wasn’t an issue, or a topic, or had any part in it. I was reading about other people and it was fictional which meant it wasn’t real so I didn’t have to feel guilty trying to fantasize about real people (something that still makes me feel really skeevy.)

This went on for a few years and BL was pretty much the only thing I read/watched/did anything with. My roommates knew me as that obsessed BL fangirl and loved to tease me (but also encouraged it; my one male roommate in my senior year apartment expected my “couple of the day” picture posted to his door & bought me doujinshi as gifts. Thinking back, I’m blessed and grateful no one gave me a hard time about it).

I eventually discovered the more graphic, erotic side of BL and that was an experience, because I liked it.

A lot.

This is embarrassing to admit, but the first time reading a couple of those more graphic stories I felt different, and weird in my own skin, and kinda awkward (it freaked me out at the time). I described the exact symptoms to my friend in an IM because I was confused and she laughed at me: “You’re turned on, idiot.” (Again, the idiot was strongly implied but not straight out said. Not that I noticed at the time.)

It was like a bomb dropped. That was what people felt when they talked about getting hot and bothered. That’s what the people in high school and college were talking about when someone touched them. I had a point of reference.

And it hit me that thinking about a living, breathing person had never made me feel that way. Not even close.

That was the first time I felt really broken.

And that was when I got desperate to fix it.

In 2007 all of those feelings exploded into an art project I called “Shout it Out.” (It is my one and only Daily Deviation to this day), and that project is the only reason I can share all of this with you right now. Because in 2007 I wrote down every guilty thought, every embarrassing fact, and every thing I was ashamed of & proud of and at this point, there’s not much I can tell you that can top it.

And maybe also, I read the description and realized I should follow my own advice:

Someone told me once, that she believed we make life hard for ourselves by keeping things bottled up inside. Whether it be due to shame, embarrassment, fear, pride or some other emotion we don't share the things that are on our hearts like we should. We wallow in them and never realize that everyone else feels the same way. Our conflicts, our dreams, and the things that make us who we are should be free to be spoken out loud.

It was a big deal for me at the time, and sometimes I wonder where all that courage went. I don’t feel the same way as I did then on a lot of the topics, but at the time, that’s where my mind and heart were.

Over half of the text is related to sex. Reading it now, it sounds like I was a lustful, sex-crazed twenty-something who struggled to keep myself from jumping everyone (”I want to have sex so bad it hurts...” to quote one of the lines).

But the truth is, while I was obsessed with sex in media (manga, BL, romance novels, health sites,) learning everything I could, I’m learning more and more that how I experienced an obsession with sex wasn’t how many other people experience it.

I was obsessed with reading everything I could about sex because I was desperate to relate to some of it. I had fantasies about sex and myself because I kept thinking that maybe it’d click one day (and boy did I try thinking about a lot of different scenarios desperate to find myself attracted to anything). But many of those thoughts ended up forced or ineffective. I kept trying anyway.

I wanted to feel normal.

(Though that sort of failed too, since most of those fantasies ended up being about girls, and myself wasn’t necessarily involved in the picture.)

I remember desperately wanting to have sex because I thought if I did that then I’d suddenly have a light pop on in my brain that goes “This is why everyone else loves it! This is what I’m missing!” I’d have sex and then I’d be normal and feel attraction like everyone else does because I’d know what it feels like.

In the end, my strong conviction of “No sex until marriage” won out (For the record, I’m still basically of the philosophy that sex outside of committed relationships is a bad idea), but I kept reading smut.

So much in fact, that it became an addiction and it was all I looked at or did. It wasn’t a healthy place for me, and I’d rather not go into exact details, even if this has been a rather detailed sharing session. But I can say that it got so bad that I had to remove myself from the subject entirely at one point and pretty much cut myself off from the BL Community cold turkey. If it was digital, I deleted it. If it was a fanfic site, I stopped visiting. No anime. No manga. No doujinshi. No nothing. My physical media was shoved in the closet (that was a lot of money I wasn’t just going to throw out) and called it a day.

Heck, part of the reason I try to avoid a lot of erotica works is just because it reminds me of those bad times. (And the funny side effect that I read so much of it at one point that now it’s kinda boring because I’ve seen just about all of it).

But as I’m sure you’ve seen from my fanfiction and books, I slowly found a path of moderation. I’m re-reading my old BL books that I’m taking out of the closet and remembering why I loved these stories and art, and just coming to terms with myself in general that BL & straight romance novels might be the only way I’ll experience those sorts of feelings toward another person.

It’s probably why I like the genre so much, while I’m reading I can pretend, and that’s good enough for me. I can write romance without having experienced it and that’s a win in my book.

The truth is, I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that while I’d love a spouse of some sort and who knows, maybe something still might happen yet if there’s someone out there willing to be patient and wait, I can admit that I just don’t experience attraction to other people.

If I could go back to a young me, I’d tell myself to learn more when I’m younger so I didn’t feel so stupid when I was older.

I’d tell myself that it’s okay that I didn’t like anybody and that I didn’t have to feel obligated to find a boyfriend.

I’d tell myself that even if I’ll be struggling with trying to figure out myself and my feelings for the rest of my life, that it’ll be okay.

I’d tell myself that I’m not broken.

So on this last day of 2017, before I go back to reading my book and the rest of things I was going to do to day, I’m going to find a little bit of that courage I used to have in 2007 and just say now what I wish I’d known ten years ago.

I do also get the irony that I’ve sort of indirectly been admitting to it for a while now, but this is me saying it:

I’m asexual.

See you all next year, and now if you don’t mind: I’ve got books to read, random things to reblog, and a comic to draw.

#Liliy Stuff #I can't stop you from reblogging #but I'd rather you didn't. XD #Comments are fine.#I'm now officially emotional exhausted.#I don't know if I'll regret this or not.#But if you want the short version #It's a long story about how I figured out I was ace.

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ajasgf · 7 years

Text

this is awful. please don’t hate me. i know i can do better than this. i wrote this so long ago and never posted it but you asked so here it is. please don’t laugh.

Sharon tugged her coat around her frame even tighter, shielding herself from the forest wind. On a moss covered tree stump to her left laid the holy book; her only downfall. She took the lighter from her pocket and set it ablaze, watched as the flames danced above the metal, twisting in the breeze. Her smile brighter than the small inferno.

Her hand reached for the book, turning pristine pages between her fingertips. She found her way to Leviticus and tore the paper from the binding jaggedly, throwing the book down hard in front of her. With a lighter poised right under the discarded pages, she watched the world burn.

Section by section, Sharon destroyed the book, ashes catching on her coat and in her hair. Never had she felt more divine. “If I cannot move Heaven,” she thought, “I will raise Hell.”

Her cackle echoed through the forest as she threw the ashes into the wind. Nothing left of a creator. For a moment, she let herself pretend that she was free.

_____________

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. The wanting for a girl has overcome me. Please, I beg you to make me forget soft thighs and painted lips. I have prayed and praised you before all else. I want to be perfect for you. I don’t know what more I can do. Are you listening?”

Tears poured down Alaska’s cheeks, harsh sobs wracking her body. Her attempts to be silent had long been abandoned. Already on her knees, she crumpled further into the floor of the cathedral, grasping her chest hard enough to feel the sharp indents of her crucifix against her palm.

Alaska could feel the moonlight flooding through the stained glass windows, bathing her in a soft glow. Her hair splayed out around her, messy blonde locks contrasting against dark tile. Her cries sounded like drums through the church, drowning out the tapping of high heels against cement.

Noticing a shoe in her line of vision, Alaska threw herself even further into the floor. “I’m sorry, Sister! I know I shouldn’t be out of bed but I had to come and confess! I had to,” she cried, voice breaking with the shaking of her body. She had been hit by the nuns once before and the bright red scar still stood out on her pale skin.

“Hey,” came a soft, feminine voice from behind her. Nothing like the harsh tone most of the nuns possessed. A hand touched her shoulder gently and Alaska raised into a kneel, peering through a curtain of tangled hair.

“Hey,” Alaska heard again. She turned to face the figure behind her, a girl adorning the tightest and shortest black dress Alaska had ever seen. It stopped high on her thighs, exposing creamy skin and seductively long legs. Alaska glanced down at the girl’s stiletto heels before meeting her eye.

The girl ran her hand along Alaska’s shoulder comfortingly, her sharp nails caressing the skin. Alaska couldn’t help but stare at her. Long black hair cascading down her back in loose ringlets, bright blue eyes and blood red lips. Alaska could have sworn that she, herself, was temptation.

The girl smiled down at her, continuing to run her hands over her shoulder. “Are you okay?” she asked. Alaska stared, wide eyed.

“I’m not going to tell anyone that you were here. Neither of us are supposed to be out right now. Come with me. My room is right down the hall.” She extended her hand to Alaska, black nails glinting in the light.

Alaska stood with her help, wiping violently at the tears under her eyes. She felt blood in her palm from the sharpness of her crucifix. Before she could take a good look at the cut, she was pulled down the eerily quiet hallway of the cathedral.

A few doors down from the confessional were the unused dorms. Alaska couldn’t recall ever seeing anyone with a room in this place. All of the girls slept in a building across the campus in two lengthy hallways, connected to a bathroom and a small living area. As far as Alaska knew, no one had ever slept this close to the church.

Alaska felt herself being pulled into a room, the door shut softly behind her. She sat on the small bed, watching as the girl rummaged around in a bedside drawer for a second before turning to Alaska.

“I’m Sharon,” she said, taking Alaska’s hand in her own and inspecting the cut from the crucifix. She wiped away the excess blood with her finger, placing a bandage over the wound and securing it tightly. “That’s better. Those goddamn necklaces hurt.” Alaska gaped at her choice of words and Sharon smiled. “And who are you, princess?”

“My name’s Alaska,” she conceded, blushing lightly at the nickname. With her sitting and Sharon standing, her eyes landed on Sharon’s scantily covered breasts. Alaska tore her eyes away violently.

“What was a pretty girl like you doing crying in the confessional at night?” Sharon smirked, placing a clawed hand over her round hip.

“That’s none of your business!” Alaska exclaimed.

“Oh, I know it’s not. But how could I just ignore a beautiful girl looking so vulnerable?” Sharon’s smile was intoxicating as she sat down next to Alaska on the bed.

“I was confessing. I always come at night.” Alaska studied her hands in her lap, refusing to meet Sharon’s eye.

“Why is that?” Sharon placed her hand on Alaska’s thigh and Alaska jumped, shifting a few feet away.

“I can’t risk the other girls hearing. I need more forgiving than they do.”

Sharon crossed her legs at the ankles, turning to face Alaska while still respecting the space she had set between them. “And how are you supposed to forgive yourself when you place all of your faith in a man in the sky?”

Alaska scoffed. “I don’t need my own forgiveness! I need his before all else!”

Sharon’s lips crooked upwards in a sad sort of smile. “What if your God isn’t here, Alaska? What then?”

Alaska stood up abruptly, her Sunday school shoes slamming against the floor. “There’s no way! There is no way that He isn’t here! None of us would be here if he hadn’t died for us!” Alaska replied on reflex and reached for the door handle. “I’ll be leaving now. Goodnight!”

Before she could turn the handle, Sharon called after her softly. “Where will you go, darling? The dorms are all the way across the courtyard. You’ll have to walk past the nuns’ block.”

“I got here on my own, I can leave on my own! I know how to slip through the forest!”

“It’s nearing three am. You know the nuns get together nightly to pray. It’s safer to stay.”

Alaska scowled, hating the fact that Sharon was right. She sat back down on the bed, turning away from her. But she wasn’t hesitant to talk.

“How couldn’t you believe in a God? This world had to start somewhere. We didn’t just come from nothing. There is a creator and he loves us, Sharon. I know it.”

Sharon sighed. “If God created this world, how can he stand the sight of himself? If we are created in his image, can we really trust him? How is there someone who claims to be a beacon of hope when war and poverty affect so many? How can someone who truly loves His creations let six million people be violently tortured and slaughtered for their religion? How can He love us when He lets us be murdered? Did it hurt less after His first child was killed? Is He desensitized now? Does He even care? I don’t want a God. Give me something I can destroy.”

“Of course He cares,” Alaska cried. “The hardships He puts up through it to make us stronger! He’s making us more worthy of his love.”

“That doesn’t explain senseless killing, princess.” Sharon laid out across her bed on her back. “What about the old testament? You all just pretend like it doesn’t exist, like your God wasn’t angry or spiteful. You call Him a savior after he flooded the world. You call Him a hero after He killed more people than anyone else in the Bible ever did. And you say He is love when he condemns people like me to the pits of Hell. There’s no love in wanting to see your own children burn.”

“What do you mean, people like you?” Alaska questioned.

“Women who love women, Alaska. We’re monsters in his eyes.”

Alaska sits quietly, shocked into silence. She thinks about her own breakdown at the altar of Christ. She thinks about the countless days she has tried to force herself to forget wanting a girl’s lips on her own.

Sharon notices her lack of retaliation. “I heard you, Alaska. And I heard my mother when she called me the devil and sent me away. I heard the priest when he tried to beat it out of me. I heard the nuns when they locked me away. If that’s what God wants for me, he is the sickest of them all.”

Alaska continued to sit in silence. She curled her knees up to her chest, resting her head on top of them. Sharon took this as her resign, covering Alaska in a blanket from the bed and turning out the light to catch the two hours of sleep left before they had to be in class.

_____________

Alaska snapped awake, rubbing her eyes. She immediately noticed that she wasn’t in her own room. No, there was too much black to be anything like the pristine white room she shared with her dormmates. Her blurry vision locked on the girl standing in front of her. Sharon.

She rubbed Alaska’s shoulder, placing a clean uniform skirt and blouse down on the bed. “I woke you up awhile ago, but you went back to sleep. You were too cute to disturb and you looked like you needed rest. Class starts soon. You can take my uniform.” Alaska was about to ask what Sharon would do for clothing until she eyed the short latex dress she was wearing.

Sharon noticed her perplexed look and laughed. “I don’t go to your kind of classes, Lasky. I get to sit in a room with a priest for hours while he drones on about my need to repent. He despises me as it is. This dress isn’t going to hurt any more than my very lesbian presence does.”

Alaska blinked a few times, her mind catching on the nickname. Lasky.

Sharon turned to slide into her plumb heels, dabbing at her crimson lips with the pad of her finger. She smiled down at Alaska. “Get changed. Wouldn’t want the good girl to be late for morning prayer.”

Alaska blushed, picking up the clothes next to her on the bed. She eyed Sharon wearily, looking from the skirt and blouse to her own body.

“I won’t look. Contrary to popular belief, sapphic women aren’t the predators they try to make you think we are. No matter how pretty you are, that’s disrespectful and I’m not going to treat you like a piece of meat. Now, get dressed.” Sharon faced away from Alaska, adjusting her dress in the mirror and running her fingers along the crystals that lay at the bottom.

“Okay,” Alaska replied meekly once she had finished and Sharon turned.

“I’ve never seen anyone make a church school uniform look cute,” Sharon flirted. Alaska blushed heavily and wrapped her fingers around the doorknob.

“Wait!” Sharon called. “Can I see you again? No tears this time.”

Alaska hesitated at the door, shocked into thought. She nodded quickly and rushed out into the hall.

Goddamn pretty Christian girls, Sharon thought.

_____________

In class, the nuns spoke of homosexuality. The entire week had been dedicated to Leviticus and Alaska found herself sitting uneasily, trying to push away thoughts of dark hair and a sinfully tight dress.

What if she had wanted Sharon to watch her as she changed that morning? How big of a sin was it to want to see her, too? Alaska wanted to touch her. Wanted to feel those long, long legs wrapped around her head. She could feel a slight dampening between her legs and it petrefied her. She needed to get out.

“Miss Thunder!” The nun roared. “What could possibly be so important that you are not being attentive to my lecture?”

“Nothing, Sister. Nothing is more important. I just think I may be getting ill.” Alaska lied. She needed to get away before someone noticed the slight squeezing of her thighs.

“Very well. You are excused to your dorm and I fully expect you to read over the passage tonight and be here tomorrow morning.”

“Of course, Sister. Thank you, Sister.” Alaska rose from her seat in a hurry, clutching her Bible tight to her chest and exiting the room.

_____________

Alaska avoided her dorm. She loved the six other girls she shared with, but she needed to be alone. She found herself in the forest.

Reaching out to brush her fingertips against each tree, Alaska wandered deep into the woods, lost in thought. Was God listening? How could she still be fantasizing about her hand in the hand of another girl when she had been begging on her knees for so long? Why could she hardly resist the urge to touch Sharon when she had fasted, had prayed? Was He out there? Did He want her to feel like this?

It was Katya who found her.

“Oh! Alaska!” her dormmate cried happily.

“What are you doing here?” Alaska asked after turning to face the thick Russian voice behind her. Alaska liked Katya most of all. She didn’t speak the best English, but it was endearing to Alaska. Broken syllables and forgotten words.

“This is where I kiss Trixie! Secret!” Katya looked breathtakingly happy as she mimed the zipping of her lips.

Alaska’s face cracked. So, the rumors were true. She shook her head lightly to clear it.

“Aren’t you scared?” Alaska asked meekly.

“No,” Katya smiled. “Trixie is smart. We don’t get caught. We are hiding. Sometimes, I see witchy girl here but she just smile at us. She is only one.”

Witchy girl. Sharon.

“You aren’t afraid of Hell?”

“Not at all! I don’t believe your God. He can’t hurt me if he is not real.” Katya looked confused as to why Alaska was asking.

“Then why are you here? You’re aware that this is a Catholic school, right?”

“Because parents sent me here. They do not think like I do.”

“Does it bother you? The preaching?” Alaska questioned.

“No, because I know they are wrong. I love who I love. In Russia, they do this, too. But no one tell me what to do. Girls are soft, pretty. I like them.” Katya beamed.

Alaska cleared a spot on the ground of leaves and sat down. “How did you know?” She asked.

“That I don’t believe God?”

“No, that you liked girls?” Alaska kept her gaze locked on the forest floor.

“Oh, easy!” Katya exclaimed, sitting down next to her. “Girls are nice! Boys’ mouths are rough. They take, don’t give. Girls care about you, too! They kiss you and play with hair and their smiles are pretty! Trixie has pretty smile. And she cares for me, too! So I care for her!”

“Do you love her?”

“Yes. She is good to me. We are good to each other.” Katya looked up at the sky, blissfully lost in thoughts of Trixie.

Alaska picked at her nails, worn down from years of anxious biting. “Will she be here?”

“Soon. We come everyday for few hours before night to talk and read and kiss. You want us to find somewhere new?” Katya moved to sit closer to Alaska.

“No, this is place is yours. I just came to think.” Alaska looked down as Katya took her hand in her own.

“Alaska, you need help? You like girls, too? It can be scary here.”

Alaska tore her hand away like Katya had burned her. She stood quickly, only stopping when she saw the hurt in Katya’s eyes.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know, Kat. I don’t know.”

“That okay, Alaska.” Katya got to her feet. “You going home? You like me to walk you?”

“No, that’s fine. Stay here and wait for Trixie. I’m going to go try to rest for awhile. Thank you.”

Alaska tensed slightly as Katya hugged her before relaxing into the embrace. “It okay. They don’t tell you what to do.”

“Thank you.” Alaska wiped at the tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “Goodnight, Kat.”

“Goodnight, Alaska.” Katya waved as Alaska walked away.

_____________

Alaska hadn’t left her room in four days. Her thoughts were consumed by Sharon and the shame that came along with it left her sick.

#alaska is literally the weakest little bitch in this #i'm so sorry #i know a girl exactly like this i just based it off of her #i have other fics that also aren't good and also aren't finished

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thealogie · 7 years

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under the cut For Five People and my own archiving purposes, everyone please im begging scroll past very rapidly

so their Getting Together comes after rpl has been making increasingly desperate attempts to make steven realize [the orphanage date, a trip to giglio island where it rains the whole time, the time he scores them weed from the vatican press sec., a play he puts on at the vatican (acted by The Cardinals) about a king who is not so subtly in love with his advisor like HINT FUCKING HINT etc.] Lesbian Bernadette and Straight Stanley Tucci keep reassuring him that steven is in love with him but he’s like What If He’s Straight. meanwhile, steven has resigned himself to unrequited love, like “he’s untouchable he’s literally the word of god on this earth how dare i even--”

they’re like walking along the corridor and rpl (with an immense amount of courage) is like...so you may have noticed i’ve been trying to...woo you. and steven just thinks it’s his dry sense of humour but he can’t help flirting he’s like “hahhaa yeah be careful the cardinals think we’re dating ;) they come get me every time you’re being difficult ;)” and he looks over and rpl is so visibly devastated he’s like “omg you were serious” and before he can correct the misunderstanding they bump into Cardinal #3 who is in the middle of ruining rpl’s life (another plot thread for another time)

and then of course a few scenes later, steven goes to the confessional and is like “i have something to confess...i’m in love with a man,,he has a beautiful baritone and he’s not so good with press interviews” and then keeps saying things he loves about him until rpl is tearing up and walks out and into the other side to kiss him

a few seasons they sell flowers out of a VW and eat tomatoes right off the vine (biting into them like apples of course)

FIN

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birdlord · 8 years

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Every Book I Read in 2016

Here’s a list of the books I finished in 2016! By the way, keeping a list like this WILL make you disinclined to start books and not finish them...when I was going through my notes to write these up, I found one or two that I didn’t manage to finish, but otherwise I finished ‘em all! Asterisks mark re-reads (though there’s only one this year!). Here’s last year’s list.

01 * Anne’s House of Dreams; Lucy Maud Montgomery - There are plenty of unlikely plot points in LMM’s books, but this one really takes the cake (SPOILER ALERT): woman marries a man out of blackmail, he disappears at sea, returns brain damaged, gets trepanned in Montreal, and turns out to be his own cousin. WHAT IS THAT EVEN, LUCY

02 Kindred; Octavia E. Butler - Oh just your typical sci-fi time travel slavery story! A thoughtful gloss on the idea that time travel is a white-man’s game (since any other type of person is likely to be disregarded, or killed, or put in jail in an earlier time period in the West) & complicating any modern person’s idea that if they were put in a difficult situation in the past, they’d certainly be able to get out of it easily, with their superior knowledge. I just came across a graphic novel version in a bookshop today, so check that out too if you’re more inclined towards a graphic interpretation.

03 The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society; Annie Barrows & Mary Anne Shaffer - I read this without much prior knowledge, so I was surprised to find that this book with a cutesy title was in fact an epistolary novel about the German occupation of the Channel Islands, and as such is fairly intense (though still imbued with cheery, stiff-upper-lippishness).

04 The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Clash of Two Cultures; Anne Fadiman - This is perhaps the first work of medical anthropology I’ve ever read, and it was eye-opening. It’s not that I didn’t know that western medicine doesn’t easily leap cultures, doesn’t cross cultural barriers in spite of our own belief in its efficacy. But knowing this abstractly is a different experience than seeing it laid out bare, in the body of a Hmong child in California, born with epilepsy.

05 Rain: A Natural and Cultural History; Cynthia Barrett - Two great tidbits from this book: 1) witch-hunts in Europe coincided with the worst years of the Little Ice Age, since witches were presumed to be affecting the weather. 2) Settlement of the Great Plains in the 1870s was brought on by mistaking weather (some wet years) for climate (arid with occasional wet periods).

06 In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex; Nathaniel Philbrick - This is the “real story” that inspired Melville to write Moby Dick. Or, a 2000 nonfiction history of that story, anyhow. Interesting narrative but I found it somewhat weakly-written - Philbrick weirdly (for a book about ships) consistently confuses the meaning of ship tonnage, which is a measure of volume, not mass. What a nit to pick, but here we are. The film version has some seriously bad CGI and added lots of stuff to juice the drama.

07 The State We’re In; Ann Beattie - A book of linked short stories, all set in Maine. I don’t know that I would have noticed that they were all in Maine if I hadn’t read it on the dust jacket, as it’s not really a set of stories where, like the setting is a character, or what have you. Not that I need everyone to be wearing a lobster as a hat, but the connection felt a bit weak.

08 Naked Airport: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Revolutionary Structure; Alastair Gordon - a book about the design of airports, from their earliest incarnations until the milennium. There’s some great material in here about airports and american imperialism in central and south america, under the auspices of Pan Am. Unfortunately I read the un-updated version, so it didn’t cover much in terms of the way airports have physically been changed since 9/11. I want THAT book.

09 The Argonauts; Maggie Nelson - This is probably the best piece of “confessional writing” I’ve ever read. It’s shot through with theory in a way that’s really invigorating, but is at the same time extremely personal and revealing, with thoughtful perspective on radically and motherhood, producing and reproducing.

10 A Bell for Adano; John Keene - More WWII occupation, but this time from the occupiers’ POV. An American major is assigned to administer a city in Italy, and decides to return their church bell to them. Hijinks, stereotypes, bureaucracy and some good ol’ American stick-to-itiveness ensue.

11 The Fly Trap; Fredrik Sjoberg - ostensibly a book about an entomologist who lives on an island in Sweden, it’s really a collection of digressions on summer, a fellow entomologist, travel, and collecting as avocation and vocation.

12 Spill Simmer Falter Wither; Sara Baume - the story of a man, and a dog, and the four seasons that they spend together; a year of increasing dread and discomfort. Exceedingly well-described, just thinking about this again months later has put me right back in a slightly damp Irish seaside town, full of prying watching eyes.

13 How to Watch a Movie; David Thomson - Often more of a biography of a film critic than a book teaching the reader “how to watch a movie”. He might well have called it “How to Watch a Movie Like Me, and Also Be Me, I’m Great”. I did appreciate the comparison of cuts in a film to periods after a sentence - a way of adding rhythm to a scene just as one adds it to a paragraph.

14 Mislaid; Nell Zink - A lesbian woman in 1966 in becomes enamoured of a gay professor at her college, marries him, has some babies, and leaves him a decade later. She and her daughter take to the south and live as African Americans, leading to some identity-politics hullabaloo and a pretty nonsensical over the top ending. Zink is poking at her readers, hoping they’ll feel uncomfortable.

15 Station Eleven; Emily St John Mandel - A lifetime of having Can-con thrust on me leaves me with the sense of vague embarrassment when a book is set in Canada. It feels specific where Americanness feels general, universal. Silly, I know. My desire to see an author’s description of how civilization collapses is ultimately well-satisfied in this book, though it takes a long time for the book to get there.

16 First Bite: How we Learn to Eat; Bee Wilson - A look at how we (and our families, friends, and cultures at large) shape our food preferences. Wilson takes us through her own past of disordered eating, and learning to feed picky children, all the while consulting with neuroscientists and nutritionists for backup. The overall message is about the possibility of change; even bad habits can be altered, even those learned as a wee babby.

17 The Slave Ship: A Human History; Marcus Rediker - This was an amazing, absorbing read, using the slave ship as a site to examine the slave trade in general, its innovations and consequences. Reducer points out that it’s only on the ship that Africans forged a collective sense of africanness, since they would have come from different linguistic and familial groups. It’s the shipboard life that allows the categories of “black” for the diverse enslaved people, and “white” for the multiethnic and multilingual crews to be created.

18 The Devil’s Picnic: Travels Through the Underworld of Food and Drink; Taras Grescoe - This guy is like a low-rent Canadian ersatz Bourdain. Blecch.

19 On Looking: A Walker’s Guide to the Art of Observation; Alexandra Horowitz - Horowitz takes the same walk with 11 different experts, in the hopes of learning or noticing something different every time. Perhaps because of being harnessed to this conceit, she often takes on the pose of a naif, which can strike the reader as a bit rich given that she’s got a PhD in psychology and works on animal behaviour. Is this the editorial hand, making sure the science doesn’t get to be too much?

20 Counternarratives; John Keene - Engrossing short stories (some longer than others, perhaps novella-length?) placed in various north and south american colonial contexts. Each is expanded from a short historical documents (e.g. newspaper announcements) and provides enough background to understand the subjects as complex people in their own rights.

21 An Age of License; Lucy Knisley - All of her books are pretty open, emotionally-speaking, but this one feels especially nakedly exposed. Her feelings will seem familiar to anyone who has gone through a big breakup, then made some assorted attempts to get their shit together. Not everyone gets to do that while on an expenses-paid European book tour, but there you are.

22 Something New; Lucy Knisley - Knisley made her name in graphic travelogues like the one above, but her more recent books concentrate on more conventional life milestones: marriage, pregnancy, motherhood. I read this book about wedding planning while planning my own, in summer 2016. While the problems I encountered were different than hers, I did actually find it useful (and yeah, I made sure that I read it in time for it to come in handy!).

23 Midnight’s Children; Salman Rushdie - This book made me wish for a great documentary (or something?) about India just after independence - I think there was loads of nuance that I didn’t capture at all due to my own ignorance. I found myself distracted frequently while reading this, which is especially bad since the book’s narrator is careening around constantly, breaking narrative rules all over the place. So beware losing focus, or you may be lost for some pages. I appreciated Rushdie’s description of the family’s privilege - our hero doesn’t describe his family as wealthy, and it’s easy to lose that fact until the moment of child-swapping. Or rather, returning?

24 Love & Other Ways of Dying; Michael Paterniti - A collection of harrowing essays, which – before you read the copyright page, which obviously everyone does, right? �� you’d be right to assume that they were written for men’s magazines.

25 One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding; Rebecca Mead - Besides the graphic novel above, this is the only book about weddings I read whilst planning one. And it’s a polemic against the wedding-industrial complex that 1) felt considerably out-of-date 9 years after publication and 2) espoused ideas that I was already in the bag for. So, ok but not ground-shaking.

26 Down with the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the Titanic Disaster; Steven Biel - Though I read the un-updated version of this book, there were a couple of takes that I found interesting here that I hadn’t come across before. Firstly, post-disaster narratives tended to cast Titanic as a moment of per-WWI loss of innocence, but this is overblown, since there was lots of unrest already in 1912 (e.g. extensive strikes during King George V’s coronation summer in 1911 which threatened starvation, suffragist demonstrations. And secondly, the idea of muscular Anglo-Saxon protestant manhood was reaffirmed culturally after the sinking, contrasting their nobility to emotion (perish the thought!) and violence from “latins” and other foreigners.

27 American Youth; Phil LaMarche - A slight little book about gun violence in New England, in which a fatherless (part-time, anyway) boy falls in with a group of conservative teen wingnuts, the sort who would now be recruiting on Reddit instead of at the high school cafeteria. Angsty and pretty much resolutionless, so a fine representation of the experience of adolescence.

28 A Severed Head; Iris Murdoch - Expect the sort of soap-opera plotting typical of Murdoch. Set in London during the choking post-war fog, which reasserts itself over and over. I’ve been hit over the head with her brilliance in the past (The Black Prince, sigh), and this one didn’t pull that particular trick, but I did enjoy it.

29 Their Eyes Were Watching God; Zora Neale Hurston - Janie talks her way through the American south, attaching herself to various places and people until she finds herself, finally, reasonably content. I thought it was interesting that her ability or inability (willingness or unwillingness) to bear children isn’t an issue in any of her relationships. I realize that this is a low bar to clear, but yeah, I’m happy when women aren’t reduced to their decisions about children.

30 A Burglar’s Guide to the City; Geoff Manaugh - Manaugh sees cities (and architecture) in a way that most people don’t, and in this case he’s taking on the mantle of the law-breaker, the intruder. The book combines tales of epic burglaries involving tunnelling & hiding, LAPD helicopter ride-alongs, lock picking seminars, and tidbits about the securitization of the city. E.g. did you know that Paris’ nickname The City of Light came originally from its streetlights, which were installed on police orders?

31 Networks of New York: An Illustrated Field Guide to Urban Internet Infrastructure; Ingrid Burrington - Look, I know you need an excuse to look at your city through different eyes. And here it is! Obviously some of this is NY-specific, but having the ability to see the physical traces of the internet’s infrastructure is a great superpower to have.

32 Pond; Claire-Louise Bennett - lacking a thread of narrative through the entire book, it’s uncertain whether the best way to read this is as a novel, or as a series of short stories with the same protagonist. A woman lives in an Irish cottage, and equally divides her time musing about her surroundings and her own mental state. A quote I liked: “Then it occurred to me that perhaps I’d been terrified for longer than all day, and had rather mixed feelings upon realizing that - I wasn’t much keen on the idea that I’d been terrified for years, but it seemed possible”

33 Anne of Tim Hortons: Globalization and the Reshaping of Atlantic-Canadian Literature; Hab Wylie - This book looks a literature that acknowledges the Atlantic provinces as a contemporary space, rather than as a place frozen in time, and set outside the forces of globalization and finance. That latter notion is shorthanded as “the folk”, eg “The Folk paradigm is complicit in the colonial tactic of constructing the land as unoccupied, because it cultivates the impression that the Folk have always belonged here”

34 February; Lisa Moore - Inspired by the above, I picked up this one from the library. It covers the story of the Ocean Ranger, an oil rig that sank with all aboard off the coast of Newfoundland in 1982, and its long-term consequences for a particular family. I found the interlocking timelines to be pretty effective, and the emotional fallout from the disaster is handled with the appropriate weight and solemnity.

35 Combat Ready Kitchen: How the US Military Shapes the Way You Eat; Anastacia Marx de Salcedo - Once you find out how much military logistics affects the way the civilian world fabricates, ships and even eats, it’s hard not to want to dig in a bit further. This is the story of how military rations became industrial foods. Interestingly, where the “clean-eating” food world might expect the author to reject the convenience foods whose history she’s tracing here, she takes a far more pragmatic approach. I was a bit less fascinated by the specific scientific advancements, and wish more time had been spent on the history.

36 Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture; Jon Savage - A long monograph on adolescence prior to the creation (and cultural ascension) of the teenager in the post-WWII era. Naturally, no matter what the surrounding historical events, there’s always a generational divide between the young and their parents, and Savage plots that rift over and over again, from the 1890s to the 1940s. Sadly his research is restricted to Western Europe and North America only, I’d like to see something similar that has a broader scope (though I’m sure one of the prerequisites of a teen culture is some amount of surplus time, resources, etc which are certainly not available prior to the achievement of some serious development).

37 Our Young Man; Edmund White - A slim little thing (I’m sure all it ever snacks on is plain air-popped popcorn) with allusions to Oscar Wilde, and barely a place towards the AIDS crisis. A change of perspective in the final third was much appreciated, though the new protagonist is scarcely less self-obsessed than the first.

38 When God was a Rabbit; Sarah Winman - I felt a bit like this book’s reach exceeded its grasp. It felt more like a homey, British ensemble dramedy than the lofty Literature it presents itself to be. I was, however, with it until world events (I’ll keep it spoiler-free for y’all) crash into the narrative in a clumsy and un-earned fashion.

39 The Sport of Kings; CE Morgan - A huge, and wide-ranging tale about lineage, blood, wealth and slavery in Kentucky, with a thin veneer of horses to help the whole thing go down a bit easier. Both massively compelling and by times stomach-turning, this is book can be a rough read. I could see a tilt into High Melodrama appearing in the final quarter or so, and I wished mightily that it wouldn’t go where I thought it was going…..but it did.

40 The End of Average; Todd Rose - I was hoping for an interesting history of the science of averages, and/or the idea of designing for “the average human” and that’s what I got in the first third or so. Then the book devolves (or evolves, I guess, depending on your perspective) into a gung-ho self-help book about bootstrapping your way to the top, even if you’ve been disregarded your whole life. Meh.

2016 by the Numbers

Read on a screen 1

Read on paper ALL THE REST :):)

Book Club Reads 4 (our club met 7 times this year, but 3 of those book I’d finished in 2015)

Graphic Novels 2

Fiction 19

Nonfiction 21

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fashiontrendin-blog · 6 years

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From Embracing PDA to Choosing Happiness: 7 Love Letters to Pride

http://fashion-trendin.com/from-embracing-pda-to-choosing-happiness-7-love-letters-to-pride/

From Embracing PDA to Choosing Happiness: 7 Love Letters to Pride

Toward the beginning of June, we asked you to share your personal stories about finding LGBQT+ pride, however meandering or direct your path. Below are seven different experiences, from coming out accidentally, to fighting for space, to choosing happiness over anything else.

Palm trees and droplets of water line my periphery. I am quiet, small, serene. The breeze comes lazily, hot air blowing bamboo wind chimes left and right and back again. They whisper to each other, the clusters of fine wood sharing secrets.

My father has a glassy-eyed, wine-induced stare fixed on my phone screen as I scroll through Instagram. He slurs through his stupor: “Are you okay?” I assure him casually that I’m okay, tossing my phone onto the couch as I head into a cabana for a mid-afternoon nap.

Drunk from the sun and the day I draw the curtains and drift off to sleep. I wake up startled — I fell asleep with the sun ablaze outside, but it’s gone now. There’s no discernible moonlight, and I know I have slept too long. I stumble out of bed and into the bathroom, splashing my face with water to wake myself up.

I walk through the sliding doors to the patio that leads to the kitchen, my throat begging for a sip of water, and my father grabs my arm with tears in his eyes. “I have to talk to you,” he says. I tell him to talk. “Not here. Not in front of everyone,” he replies.

Who died? is my first thought. Which grandparent? Is the dog okay? It’s not unusual for him to be emotional after a few glasses of rosé, but this feels different, somehow.

He tells me he spent the two hours I was resting sifting through his mistakenly gathered information, retracing each step of his parenting, beating himself up for not doing better.

Through his tears, he apologizes for trying to make me someone I wasn’t. He explains he saw a picture of a shirtless surfer on my Instagram feed over my shoulder earlier and thought I was on Tinder. He asks me if I am gay — I say yes, thinking he asked me if I was okay. He tells me he spent the two hours I was resting sifting through his mistakenly gathered information, retracing each step of his parenting, beating himself up for not doing better.

Flashbacks of pain from my childhood race through my brain like the slideshow of photos he made for me on my 18th birthday: the look on his face when I brought my Ariel doll to school with me, when I begged for Avril Lavigne tickets instead of rugby gear, when I dyed my hair red because I felt like I was fading away.

Then I remember the good stuff: pride beaming through a smile that reached his eyes when I graduated, the tears in his eyes when I performed my first headlining set at the Hard Rock Cafe. I realize: I am finally okay. This is okay. We are okay.

The secret that burned my psyche for 20 years is out there, by accident, in the lap of the person I thought I would never tell. My father looks me in the eyes and says, “I couldn’t be prouder of who you are. I wouldn’t change you for the world.”

Hello. My name is Allyson, and I am bisexual. Sounds more like a confessional you might hear at an AA meeting, right?

I hate having to define my sexuality; I feel that I need to define myself for others more so than for myself. I have one foot in the closet and one foot in the world of acceptance. The bisexual community is forever in the closet. We are looked at like a step sibling — not fully a member of the straight community, not fully a member of the gay community.

My close friends know I am dating a woman and support our relationship, but I am petrified for my (male) ex to find out or to tell my family. I am petrified to be vulnerable in the face of the family that has made derogatory comments about the LGBTQA+ community in the past. I am so comforted by the brave souls who have gone before me and come out. As a recovering Catholic, I am most saddened by keeping my partner from my family, feeling as though I am guilty of lying by omission. I have an inkling my parents know I am dating someone. My dad has asked me on multiple occasions who “4546” is that I am calling and texting during the week late into the night. 4546 are the last four digits of my partner, my love.

Our love story is one of those meet-cutes that Tinderites adopt when they don’t want to tell people they met their significant other online. I live in a tiny mountain town on the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range in Southern Colorado. My partner lives in a tiny Mormon town nearly two hours south.

After our first date in her studio, I wrote some love notes on paint chips and stuck them underneath the windshield wipers of her Toyota 4Runner.

One crisp summer night in mid-August 2017, I decided to go to a poetry reading with a new group of friends. That same night, my partner decided to get out of her six-mile radius and go to the same poetry reading. When she performed her poems, I knew I had to talk to her. After acquiring the sort of courage you can only acquire at one of these poetry readings (if that guy sat up there for ten minutes talking about the beautiful color change of leaves in the fall, I think I can go up there and share my truth), I got up and read some of my own. At the end of the evening, my future partner came up to me and said, “That was really brave of you, thank you for sharing.”

Later, after some serious detective work, I found her (and her art) on Facebook. Her words were so comforting to me: “How are you going to change the world? Through language. If I provide the opportunity for change and one person receives it, I’ve done my job.” Lock and key, I have been loving her ever since, and together we have been scheming about how we will bring positive change to the communities we thrive in.

After our first date in her studio, I wrote some love notes on paint chips and stuck them underneath the windshield wipers of her Toyota 4Runner. She didn’t find the notes until the next morning, after turning on her wipers to clear the snow. I was in Albuquerque when she messaged me about hanging out on my way back through Colorado. Our first dates were bookends to the long weekend, and our second date revolved around watching Girl, Interrupted, a walk outside at sunset, a potluck with close friends and our first kiss, lying in bed in the dark with our eyes open.

Around this time a year ago, I had to take a $65 Uber ride from a burger place in Torrance to my apartment in Downtown Los Angeles after getting dumped by my first Love. I came home crying and into the arms of my mother, a Filipina immigrant. She asked why I was crying, and I told her that I got dumped by a girl. I’d finally had the pride to tell my mother I was gay. That night, she slept on the bottom half of my bed to watch me fall asleep as tears rolled down my cheeks.

I grew up in a typical Asian household in Southeast Asia. Coming out in a developing third-world country was not a “good option.” Nevertheless, my queerness was an open secret. I got a pixie cut when I went to college and was not proud to be regarded as the 6th lesbian in school, so I purposely dated boys to validate my heterosexuality to my peers. My mother was living in Los Angeles at the time, more than 7,000 miles away. She would call to tell me how much she missed me — and my long, black, shiny hair. Numerous times she warned me not to date guys out of fear that I’d get knocked up at a young age. In my head my eyes would roll, for it was an absurd warning.

We held hands after our fourth date. To hold her hand felt very uncomfortable, but also right.

During my sophomore year, I grew out my hair and moved to Los Angeles to be with her. The freedom to come out felt closer than ever, but it still took me a year, when I met Molly, to finally dress up in button-downs and bring back my pixie. Molly and I dated for three months. We held hands after our fourth date. To hold her hand felt very uncomfortable, but also right.

One chilly night, over dinner, she asked if she could kiss me. I pretended not to hear her and kept eating my burger. When we walked out of the restaurant, she told me that she needed to find someone who actually cared about her. I told her that I did care for her. She began to cry in the middle of the crowded plaza. When we sat down, she leaned in for a kiss and I shoved her face away as I looked around at the crowds. I was afraid to publicly display my affection for her because I cared more of what people would think. I knew that she felt hurt and unwanted, and it made me realize something as simple as PDA is a heterosexual privilege. I have publicly made out with boys before, but I never found the courage to kiss the girl I loved until I lost her.

And so, at 11 p.m., I spent $65 to get home, full of regret and shame. It was that night I realized that in order to express pride, I had to be able to express being “queer” without any fear of judgment — from finally buzzing my head to holding my significant other’s hand in public. It was also the night that, for the first time ever, I told my mother about my sexuality.

Now, a year later, I have proudly kissed five beautiful queer women in public and have only spent my money on metro rides.

I had been dating a man for seven years. We were likely to get married any day, I thought. But something felt unsettled. I often felt lonely. At the time, I worked as a hostess in a nice restaurant. I often worked back-to-back shifts; I wanted to leave but couldn’t find the steps out. My relationship began to feel the same way: unobserved and slowly chugging along. I had accepted that I would always feel this way. The feeling of loneliness was my closest relationship. It was on a crisp fall evening that all would shift.

On a whim, I went to an ’80s dance night with my friend and on the way, she asked, “Oh! do you remember Bee?”

I said yes.

“They’ll be there tonight and are very gay now!”

I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but I was intrigued to find out. Bee had gone to a different high school then me, but I remembered the name, and that they had been very popular.

When we walked in, my memory is that the crowd opened and there, in the middle of the dance floor, was Bee. Wearing a red backwards baseball cap and a white T-shirt with a wolf howling and a razor blade on it, Bee looked like a confident, incredibly handsome and mischievous boy. We said hello, eyes locking as though we had so much to tell each other, if only we could find the time to tell it.

Later, when my friend left after a bit of dancing, I stayed. Like magnets, Bee and I started talking. I felt so enlivened; Bee’s confidence and swagger filled me. Bee had just graduated from Columbia University and was telling me about all sorts of amazing projects they were involved in. How could I jump on board?! Is all I kept thinking.

Bee was passionate and mindful, confident but refrained, sweet and intuitive. I was completely enamored. Shortly after that night, I heard that Bee was moving to Los Angeles. I remember taking a shower and feeling heartbroken. I tried to comfort myself. We only met one time. The ache overtook though; I felt like I was meant to take Bee’s hand in a great adventure. I felt it so deeply I could almost see it.

I got word about a month later that Bee had gotten a job in our hometown and would be staying for the time being. I quickly gathered myself and went into action mode. I knew in my heart that we were meant to be together. When Bee and I finally went on our first date, it was the feeling of two peas finding their pod. I loved Bee’s presence. Their confidence and style was beyond sexy. And the wisdom that comes with going against what is put on you as a norm provided such a special insight. I would say it was love at first sight.

That day, I repeated to myself under my breath: ‘You have a right to be here.’

Bee and I got married on June 17th, 2011, in Washington D.C. so that our marriage would be legal. Looking back, I am so proud that we made such a strong political statement with only the strength of wanting something as personal as love.

We navigated wanting to be married legally, but not as a same-sex couple, because that’s not how we identify — Bee feels most comfortable with a more masculine identity, but when going to check off that binary box, neither feels entirely right. We let the officiant know our chosen pronouns. And we slowly fought for our space to be. That day, I repeated to myself under my breath: “You have a right to be here.” And when I looked in Bee’s eyes as we were wed, I saw that Bee saw me. I was finally being seen and loved.

On June 17th, we will celebrate our seventh wedding anniversary with our one-and-a-half-year-old son, Jack, and our dog, Harry. And I was right: it has been a grand, sweet and loving adventure.

I knew from the very beginning of puberty that there was something different about me. I was titillated by Francesca Lia Block’s fantastical world of bisexual fairies and scanned the backs of obscure VHS tapes for any indication of homosexual content. But I was also desperate to fit into the socially acceptable constructs of my Midwestern youth. I told myself that maybe I just felt ALL things really intensely and everyone had similar experiences.

In high school, I dated boys (and men, unfortunately), but harbored secret crushes and had my share of make-out sessions with “good friends.” I shelved any self-reflection and was careful to never label myself. Then, after a post-breakup study abroad program in college, I knew I could not forever question what it might be like to date a woman but never try it. I was always one to admire those who lived outside of socially acceptable norms, so why I was so afraid to join their ranks? Shortly after returning to the United States, I had my first serious girlfriend. The experience was eye-opening for me, because even though the person was ultimately not right, so much of the experience was.

Still, I couldn’t really accept myself. I kept quiet, afraid for people at college to know and terrified to tell my cousins or best friends. I wasn’t proud; I was afraid. I knew that this was me, but I didn’t see a reflection of myself — this super femme, fashion-obsessed bookworm — in the lesbians I knew or knew of. Life seemed more exciting, fast and tinged with possibility, but I felt so uncertain.

I learned so much from my mistakes; I don’t need to fit neatly into a label. It’s vastly more important that I honor love and live authentically.

Somewhere along the line, to complicate things, I fell in love with my best friend. She was one of my five college roommates and had also embraced her sexuality later in life. I was in love, but I was terrified. Was I gay? Would this ruin our friendship? Ruin her romantic prospects? Those few years in my early twenties, in which I desperately loved her but also denied my true self and, by turn, her true self, are some of the most shameful in my memory. I didn’t allow either of us to be proud. I kept our love secret and dismissed it, acted flakey and irresolute. I hurt her. I hurt myself. And she hurt me. It was only after things ended between us in a deeply painful way that I truly embraced who I was. Through that pain, I found my pride. I learned so much from my mistakes; I don’t need to fit neatly into a label. It’s vastly more important that I honor love and live authentically.

Luckily, not all was lost. Despite the hurt and tumult, we eventually got back together. Fought (and loved) our way through an open long-distance relationship to a monogamous one. Moved to Brooklyn, where she eventually proposed. I came out to all my family, colleagues, friends and any random person that inquired about my marital status. We had a big, fabulous wedding in Minneapolis months after gay marriage was legalized there and everyone cried buckets.

I couldn’t be prouder. Of her, of us, of the life we have carved out together or of the baby we worked hard to make and will welcome next month. This June, I honor the struggle for pride on a macro- and micro-level and the ways our society has eradicated labels and divisions and strives to allow everyone to love freely, no matter what that looks like or who sits in the White House. I’m proud to be a gay American, desperately in love and, very soon, a gay mom!

At the end of May, I celebrated one year as a woman. I sometimes struggle to wrap my head around the fact that I made it happen and that it went so well.

I know that there are many who never take that step. If you are considering it, I hesitate to urge you do so because every situation is different. You may not wish to risk your current life, be it family, job, etc. That is understandable. All I ask is you don’t close the door on the possibility.

For me, I kept my relationships, my job and so on. I lost nothing but the baggage — the years of anxiety and the years of worrying about being outed. Unfortunately, I may be in the small percentage of transgendered individuals who can say that. I hope I’m wrong in that assumption, but so much of what is reported in the media is the bad. But “bad” is not always the end result. You can come out the other side being who you were meant to be, bettering your life and, most importantly, being happy. Being happy is f-ing fabulous!

What follows is an abridged version of the coming out announcement I posted to Facebook on the morning my transition was announced at the office. It’s a short synopsis of my journey and where I was a little over a year ago. Take what you can from it and know that the journey is there for you if you choose to take the first step.

***

The time has come to address the cryptic posts of the last few months, to clear some New Year’s resolutions that have lingered way too long, to fulfill what I once thought was only a dream.

What has this all been about? It’s been about how I want to live my life. It’s about being happy and not settling for contentment. Screw being content. I want to be HAPPY. That’s something I never thought I would say.

Ten years ago, I reached a crossroads where I had two paths in front of me. One path was to stay as I was, battling my demons and hoping for the best. The other was a riskier path, but one that offered a chance to defeat my demons and live the life that I deserved.

I chose the latter.

I chose wisely.

I chose to become a woman.

There. I said it.

Ten years ago, I decided to figure out if becoming a woman would resolve the anxiety I’ve been dealing with off and on almost my entire life (the first inkling was in elementary school). There have been periods when I could suppress it and periods when I could not, but it was always there.

So I started experimenting — taking little steps and evaluating how each step made me feel. Each time it felt right, so I took another step. In late 2015, I decided to confirm everything that I thought, everything that I had read and every step I’d taken. I talked to a therapist. Turned out I was a textbook case of “gender identity disorder.”

If you’re not familiar with gender identity disorder, it’s not cross-dressing or being a drag queen (no offense intended). It is also independent of sexual partner preference. Gender and sexual preference are not related. Gender identity disorder is also genetic. It has ZERO to do with how you are raised, a point I repeatedly drive home with my parents. Someone on either side of my family (or both) was like me, whether they were aware of it or not.

I mean it. I’m happy. That’s what this journey has given me. Happiness.

I started hormones in 2016. The first few weeks were an utter panic because I was afraid of the unknown (and almost everyone knows I can’t deal with anything medical, i.e., I faint). The panic eventually subsided and I forgot about it. Then, at a point that I can’t pin down, I became happy. The shit in my head was gone. When someone asks how I am now, I say “fabulous,” “super” or “fantastic.” And I’m not saying that to just say it — I mean it. I’m happy. That’s what this journey has given me. Happiness.

My new name is Genevieve. It honors the original, but also gives me the opportunity to define the new me. Don’t fret if you happen to call me Gene, Geno, Andy (from younger days) or any pronoun such he, him, etc. I will still respond. This is a change for everyone, and I recognize it will take time.

I was planning to thank everyone that helped make this possible, but after ten years, the list is long and simply too much to include here. You know who you are. You had a hand in this journey, and I owe each one of you a debt of gratitude. You have always shown me nothing but encouragement and, most importantly, respect. I love all of you.

I also want to thank those I informed leading up to this announcement. You are my dear friends and co-workers who were unaware or unsure. Please don’t hold it against me that you were not “in the know,” but this was a journey I had to make in some seclusion. Your response, including the response from my company, has been overwhelming. I’m simply blown away by it and I love all of you as well.

My parents are still processing this, and it’s going to take a while. My initial discussion with them went much better than expected. There was no crying, yelling or screaming. Initial shock, yes, but we worked through it. People who love each other do that. By the end, I heard the words that I wanted to hear above and beyond anything else…they love me and will support me no matter what. I wouldn’t trade them for the world.

I’m posting this to Facebook because I want you to be informed. Ignorance and misinformation could be hurtful for my friends, co-workers, parents and myself, and I’d rather avoid it. If you have a question, ask me. Ask me in the comments of this post, reach out by messenger or however you would like. I can’t promise you I have all the answers, but I’ll honestly tell you all I can.

If you can’t wrap your head around this, that’s fine. If you want to unfriend me, that’s fine too. You do what you feel is right, but what you do is not going to change how I choose to live my life. I’m choosing HAPPINESS.

A rainbow comes after a storm. For many LGBTQIA+ youth, there is that storm.

With multiple deaths by suicide in the national spotlight, it seems important to highlight how LGBTQIA+ youth are extremely at risk. According to the CDC, lesbian, gay and bisexual teens are almost five times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers. So while it’s important to celebrate this Pride Month, it’s also important to be aware of these realities and to shower others/ourselves with “I see you” love and kindness. For queer youth and our allies: LGBTQIA+, people of color, folks with disabilities.

I can’t speak for the entire queer community, but I would personally love if Pride were a celebration for all the otherness people feel and experience. Let your freak flag fly! Tell your friends, family and chosen family that you love their freak flag!

You can bet I’ll be bopping to Hayley Kiyoko while wearing a rainbow caftan, screaming to my queer family and allies that they all matter and that they make this world more special.

As a self-identified queer, white cis-female, I have privileges. With those privileges, I can champion others around me. So, how am I celebrating Pride? You can bet I’ll be bopping to Hayley Kiyoko while wearing a rainbow caftan, screaming to my queer family and allies that they all matter and that they make this world more special.

To quote Lena Waithe, as everyone should: “The things that make us different, those are our superpowers — every day when you walk out the door and put on your imaginary cape and go out there and conquer the world because the world would not be as beautiful as it is if we weren’t in it.”

Here are two quick things that might save a life or brighten someone’s day:

Donate to The Trevor Project, the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) young people under 25.

Send a gif or text/call a friend to tell them that you were thinking about them. Reach out — that’s what matters. And while you’re at it, might I suggest a “Happy Pride” to your queer fam? A rainbow flag flying behind a bald eagle gif recommended, but not required.

Feature photo via Getty Images.

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