#i am all about everything the story is doing w/ emphasizing it's women who are most impacted by these questions of consent

[vegaseatsass]

While I'm 6am textposting, I wish to talk a bit about The Warp Effect and consent, and some compelling subtextual storytelling I think we're getting that I haven't seen discussed yet. TW: rape!

It feels really significant to me that the first episode of a story which is so conscientious about its portrayal of sex and consent

1. Opened with a casual, never-commented-on rape*

2. Closed with a time warp event precipitated by yes, a magic camera, but narratively by Alex having gotten pushed AWAY from the fully consensual sex he was about to have, into drunken shenanigans he visibly has little conscious control over and a morning after where he's informed (in a humiliating, kind of sexually-tinged-hazing way) of sex he has no memory of.

*In case I'm not being clear, I mean Meow hopping onto Alex's dick after he told her he wanted to stop. Not some "sex work is rape" shit or something.

Like!!! Yes there is a story about religious trauma and purity culture being told here, but to me it also feels like whatever his mother intended with the purity ring, Alex's path to breaking his sex curse may require realizing he has to 'wait' to actually want and choose to have sex, instead of being thrust (violently, casually, drunkenly, time warpedly, or any other way) into it.

Which would be suuuuch a cool subversion of the sex comedy genre as a whole. Right now he's having pussy and dick literally thrown at him, and the tone is very jokey (ha ha you're a renowned vagina doctor now! have fun!), but he is still v much having to negotiate consent for himself and his partners!

We see it explicitly with Kat - he doesn't want to let her fuck him thinking he's this other version of himself she has a pre-existing relationship with - but I'm wondering if he'll realize it also applies to his relationship with Army, where even if the other Alex consented to Army smooching him whenever he wants, he's allowed to want the guy he still sees as his high school bully to quit being so handsy.

Anywayyyy I sometimes get nervous I'm reading too much into everything, but if the story is at all aware that Alex has learned to prioritize consent for his partners but so far, not so much for himself, there's a lot of rich narrative there to explore.

[delacyrose224]

Champagne Problems

-Pairing: bassist!Yoongi x OC

-Premise: Yoongi keeps to himself, but everything changes when he opens up to his best friend about his past.

-Genre: rock band!AU, angst with some fluff

-Word count: 2.8k

-Author's Note: This is a continuation of the Gold Rush universe! Each band member will get his own story based off a song on Taylor Swift's evermore album. This story revealed just how much of a soft spot I have for Yoongi...

“Are you sure you can’t come with?” Jungkook shoots Yoongi a sad look with his doe eyes.

“Yes, now shut up and go. Stop trying to guilt trip me with puppy dog eyes, suck it up and go be awkward with that girl you met. I can tell you think she’s cute, so go be gross and flirty somewhere else far from me, please,” Yoongi huffs as he loads equipment into the band’s van.

“Yeah, JK, leave him alone...he’s going to hang out with Olivia.” Jin emphasizes the last word with a shit-eating grin on his face. “Olivia’s more important than us anyway...even though we’ve known him longer. It’s fine, we’ll be fine.” He throws his hand against his forehead as if he’ll faint for emphasis.

Yoongi cuts a harsh side eye at Jin. “Yes, I am going to hang out with Olivia. I’ve had plans with her for a week now. You knew this. It’s not my fault if you forgot.”

Jin falters at this, his face softening into care for his oldest friend. “Yeah, I know. We’ll see you when you get home, okay?” Yoongi nods in affirmation.

“I’m taking the train there, make sure the equipment gets unloaded tonight. I don’t care what goo-goo eyes those two girls make at you, it needs to go in the spare room in our apartment.” Yoongi tosses the van keys at Jungkook, who catches them with ease.

“Aye, aye, captain!” Jungkook exclaims with a grin, opening the driver’s side door as Jin climbs into the passenger side.

Yoongi gives a small wave at his two friends as he turns to walk to the subway station nearest The Dynasty, the bar they had just played at. He didn’t mind that he was by himself, it would give him the time he needed to decompress after the show. He appreciated the attention that the band and their music got (after all, he had a hand in writing most of the songs), but he absolutely hated the attention of the crowd on himself. Jin and Jungkook ate it up-they were literally about to go meet two strangers from the show to eat and hang out. That could never be him. Yoongi stuck with the familiar. The familiar was safe. And Olivia was familiar.

He smiled softly to himself at the thought of Olivia...he had known her since college, where they had met when they were both dragged to a party they didn’t want to be at. They had bonded over their shared distaste for large gatherings of loud, drunk people, but their love for their friends that reveled in it.

Reminiscing had taken Yoongi all the way down to the subway platform, where he met the red line just as it was pulling in...a bit of good luck for once, he thought. He climbed on and found a seat off to the side where no one else was, and collapsed into it. He must be more tired than he thought.

As the train pulled out of the station, he found himself looking out the window. The red line was a train that went above ground, so he was able to stare at more than just gray tunnels. As skyscrapers and streetlights came into view, his mind started to wander. Last March. A night similar to this one, exactly a year ago. He had just finished playing Gold Rush’s first show, when his whole life fell apart. Promises of a future, shattered alongside his heart. He can feel his eyes starting to prick with tears, which he hates. Yoongi looks around, simultaneously grateful that no one else is around to see that he’s upset, but at the same time, if there were more people around, maybe he never would have gotten lost in his memories in the first place.

Before he can start internally chastising himself too much, the train pulls into his stop. He uses his black t-shirt to wipe at his eyes in what he hopes is a nonchalant way, then leaves the train car and heads up a set of stairs back into the city.

He doesn’t have to walk far before he’s at Olivia’s apartment, knocking on her door. She flings the door open wide, a smile on her face and a bottle of champagne in her hand. “Yoongi!! You came! Come on in.”

Yoongi follows her into her apartment and plops himself down on her couch and closes his eyes momentarily, feeling some of his stress dissipate. “Happy Anniversary!!” Olivia exclaims. At this, he jolts up, eyes flying open. He can feel how wild he must look with the way Olivia stares at him. But how does she know about the anniversary? She doesn’t know anything about that, right?

“...w-what do you mean?” he manages to stammer out, trying to gain some of his composure.

“The anniversary of Gold Rush’s first show?...you’ve been officially playing together for a year now! I remember the first show like it was yesterday, you were so nervous you thought you were going to throw up. And then Jungkook actually threw up after the show because he drank too much...anyway, I’m so sorry I couldn’t come out tonight, I had a work thing I couldn’t miss.” Olivia looks truly disappointed, like she would have rather been sweating in a gross bar at the show.

Yoongi breathes a sigh of relief. Of course, the anniversary of their first show. Why would it be anything else? “It’s okay, really,” he replies. “It worked out anyway, Jin and Jungkook met these two girls who came to the show, and they’re hanging out with them. Makes me feel less guilty when I’d rather be hanging out with you anyway.” He lets a small smile grace his features as he glances across the room at Olivia, but it disappears as his eyes fall on the champagne bottle that she’s placed on the living room table.

First world problems. Champagne problems, she’d called them. Not Olivia. Her. Yoongi can feel his eyes starting to swim with tears again, so quickly he doesn’t have time to hide the few that spill down his cheeks.

“...Yoongs? What’s wrong?” Olivia moves to sit beside him on the couch.

He pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to compose himself again. “Nothing, it’s nothing. I’m fine.”

“Yoongs, the last time I saw you cry, it was in college when you found out that your aunt had passed away. So I’m gonna ask again...what’s wrong?” she reaches out and gently wipes his tears away with her thumb.

“Livvy…” he starts, unsure of exactly what to say.

“Just start at the beginning,” Olivia reassures him.

He sighs shakily. “Okay. Do you remember when I started dating Isabelle senior year?”

Olivia nods.

“Well, that’s the beginning.”

----------------------------------------------

“...and everything was fine for a long time. Those first two years were everything. She was everything. Jin and Jungkook used to get so mad at me because I would bail out of band practice early all the time to go see her.” Yoongi hiccups as he continues talking. He’s stopped crying for the time being, but as he’d been telling the story, Olivia had opened the bottle of champagne and they had both been drinking straight from the bottle. Yoongi was a little tipsy, if he was being honest with himself...otherwise, he didn’t think he’d be able to get the entire story out of his mouth.

“Okay...so, everything was good. What happened?” Olivia looks over sideways at her best friend. They’d both thrown their heads back to look at the ceiling rather than look at each other to talk-Olivia knew Yoongi would never be able to fully share with them making eye contact. He looks over briefly, then back to the ceiling, brows furrowed.

“Well. I’m not sure exactly when things started to fall apart...I guess Isabelle started acting weird once she met my family. Jin and Jungkook didn’t care for her that much either, I never understood why. I know now they were just looking out for me. But in the moment, all I saw was her. She loved me, and I loved her. I wanted to marry her,” he breathes out softly, closing his eyes.

Olivia’s eyes widen. She and Yoongi had been friends when he dated Isabelle, but they hadn’t kept in close contact during that time. They were each trying to find their footing in the real world, moving into apartments, starting first jobs. Him entertaining the idea of marriage to anyone was news to her. She knew he was serious about his relationship to Isabelle, but not that serious.

Yoongi is still sitting with his eyes closed, face towards the ceiling. Try as he might, he can’t stop tears from falling for the third time that night. He hates how vulnerable he’s being, but maybe he can blame it on the champagne. Instead of wiping them away, Olivia watches the tears fall onto his t-shirt. Her heart feels like it’s being wrenched apart. Why did Yoongi never share any of this with her before? She should have been there for him. Did Jin and Jungkook know about all of this? Surely he’s told someone else. Slowly, she reaches out her hand and places it on top of Yoongi’s, squeezing gently.

At the sensation, he opens his eyes and looks over at Olivia. She always knows what to do or say. Or not say. He twists his palm upward to meet hers and intertwines their fingers together. It feels nice. He’s forgotten how pleasant human touch can be since he’s shut himself off from other people.

Olivia’s cheeks are dusted with pink, but she doesn’t pull her hand back. “Okay, so, you wanted to marry her. What stopped you?” She traces small circles with her thumb onto the back of Yoongi’s hand.

He leans forward and grabs the champagne bottle with his free hand, chugging quite a bit before he answers. “...she did.” he whispers, hardly loud enough to hear. “Last March, at our first show. You remember she came?” Olivia nods. She remembers, it had been one of the few times the two women had been in the same room.

“We went back to her apartment after the afterparty, once we all made sure Kook was fine after he got sick. I was planning on proposing in a much more planned out way, but I just remember looking at her once we got back to her place, and she was so beautiful. Even though she was sweaty from the show, even though we were both exhausted. I couldn’t help myself...I didn’t even have the ring with me, it was sitting at my apartment in my sock drawer. I just loved her so much.”

There’s a long pause. Olivia squeezes Yoongi’s hand again for reassurance. He continues to blankly stare at the ceiling at a loss for what to say next.

“Yoongs...c’mere.” He looks over at Olivia questioningly. She lets go of his hand and before he can protest the loss of contact, she gently places her hands on his shoulders, turning him and slowly lowering his head into her lap. He’s still staring at the ceiling, but also able to see Olivia. She begins to softly run her hands through his hair, tracing patterns onto his scalp every so often. Yoongi sighs contentedly and closes his eyes again.

“...I got down on one knee in her living room, and she stopped me. Before I could say one word. She just said, ‘Yoongi, I can’t.’ And that was it. She didn’t cry. She said she couldn’t do this, whatever this was. She said I deserved better than her. And then she asked me to leave. We never talked again.”

Suddenly he opens his eyes again. “I became a zombie after that...the only time I socialized with anyone was to go play shows, if that even counts. I was so rude for no reason to Kook and Jin, when they were just trying to help. I never even told them what happened. They didn’t know I proposed, they just thought we broke up.” Yoongi’s speech starts to speed up as the trainwreck he’s lived through for the past year plays in his head.

“I used to care so much...I closed myself off. I don’t think I feel emotions properly anymore. I can’t love anyone anymore. I haven’t told anyone about any of this until now, and it took a bottle of champagne to even do that, and you’re one of my best friends.” Yoongi sits up suddenly, motioning frantically at Olivia with his hands. He looks at her, holding eye contact for more than 10 seconds for the first time that night.

“...I think Isabelle broke me,” he breathes. Seeing the care emanating from Olivia’s gaze is what truly breaks him. He’s suddenly sobbing uncontrollably, shoulders heaving with the emotion that he’s held in for so long. Olivia pulls him into her embrace, where she simply holds him while he cries.

What he doesn’t see are the tears streaming down her face as well. She can’t believe that he’s held all of this in for this long, without telling anyone. That he felt like he couldn’t share this part of himself. She just wishes that he could understand how much she cares. How much she loves him. He deserves the world, not to feel this way.

After a few minutes, Yoongi leans back, wiping his eyes and trying to collect himself. It’s then that he notices the wet streaks running down Olivia’s cheeks.

“Livvy, what’s wrong?” he reaches up to gently wipe her cheeks with his thumbs. She inadvertently leans into the touch, sniffling softly. “Livvy...look at me.”

As she lifts her gaze to meet his, Yoongi is struck by how Olivia’s eyes seem to be glittering because of tears. How does she look so pretty even after crying? He’s sure he looks disgusting.

“What’s wrong?” he repeats.

“You deserve the world, Yoongi. I’m so sorry that Isabelle broke your heart, but she was right...you deserve so much better. More than anyone can give you, probably.” She says this while looking intently at her lap, fidgeting with the rings on her fingers.

At this statement, Yoongi stops. Memories of the past year run through his mind, each rapidly following the other. Who did he go to when Gold Rush lost their slot in Battle of the Bands? Olivia. Who did he vent to about Jin and Jungkook when they were fraying his last nerve? Olivia. Where did he go when he needed to destress? Olivia’s. Who made him feel safe? Olivia.

“...hey,” he whispers gently, taking Olivia’s hands in his. She looks up, tears still swimming in her eyes.

“Isabelle may have broken me...but I think someone’s been slowly putting me back together again without me even realizing it.” He smiles, intertwining their fingers and leaning his forehead against hers.

“...w-what?” Olivia stammers, barely loud enough to hear.

Yoongi laughs softly. “Livvy, I think...I think I’m in love with you, and I didn’t even know until right this minute.”

“Yoongs...I...I don’t…” she whispers. Yoongi gasps sharply, pulling away as fast as he can.

“Olivia...I’m so sorry. I misread everything, everything...forget this happened. I’ll leave, forget I said anything!” he scrambles to get off the couch as rapidly as humanly possible, cheeks flaming in embarrassment.

Before he can get far, he’s being pulled back down onto the couch. Making eye contact with Olivia for longer than 10 seconds for the second time tonight, he tries to form an intelligible sentence with his brain. Before anything can come out of his mouth, Olivia’s lips come crashing down onto his.

Yoongi’s eyes widen impossibly, eyebrows raising to meet his bangs. As Olivia’s lips move against his, he stops thinking and sighs into the kiss almost imperceptibly. His hands move to her hips, pulling her as close as he can to himself...he never wants to let go if he can help it.

When the two break eventually break apart for air, Olivia chuckles. “What’s so funny?” Yoongi asks, raising an eyebrow at her.

“I was just trying to tell you that I didn’t know what to say, not that I didn’t like you...way to jump to conclusions,” she giggles.

Yoongi rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. We solved that miscommunication luckily,” he smirks.

“We’re both idiots, aren’t we?” Olivia leans her head against Yoongi’s shoulder.

Yoongi peers down at her, smiling as he wraps an arm around her.

“Yeah, I think we’ve been hanging out with Jin for too long.”

[tenemos-que-hablar]

“Are you seriously this cool all the time?”

(Macarena Achaga interview for InStyle Magazine, October 2019)

This phrase stuck in our heads when we stalked Macarena Achaga on her social media (that is, before an interview, we read, investigate, and we even get into those forgotten corners of the internet to know about the celebrities on our cover.) And we believe that this is the one question that many ask the Argentine actress...she answers it for us.

“I’m so excited, what did you think of the photos?” asks Maca about the photoshoot we did in Barcelona, ​​with the new collection of the Spanish brand “Desigual” (we love them, by the way). Precisely, she is an example of that (desigual), of originality embodied in a person; not only transcending from being a teenage entertainer in Mis XV, to becoming the actress whose character, along with Barbara Lopez, became the first lesbian couple on Mexican television in Amar a muerte, a telenovela written by Venezuelan Leonardo Padron and produced by Lemon and W Studios.

“I don’t want to discount any of my work because each of them has taken me to where I am now and shaped me professionally; I started with Mis XV and there I learned the importance of freedom at a young age. I am very grateful to have done it with maturity and that my parents always gave me the chance to make my own decisions; I constantly say that it’s better to regret the consequences of your own choices than to regret the ones that were decided for you. From a very young age, I faced and lived many things that, without knowing, would later give me the weapons to tell other people's stories and have empathy so that girls feel recognized.”

“That was the number one factor that happened with Juliantina; we were able to raise our voice for so many people out there who don’t have the opportunity to do so and who don’t have the freedom that I had. The transition in my career has been immense, but going through different experiences gave me the strength to go out and act. I do this because it allows me to be the voice of so many who don’t have one. Following what my heart says lets me do my job with a purpose,” confesses the artist who began more than 12 years ago in middle entertainment and today is one of the coolest faces on the small screen.

The growth that the Argentine has had has been tremendous, but she has also encountered unexpected challenges and obstacles. The industry is difficult, “as humans we are made to please. I think that it is one thing to pretend to fit in and quite another to want to belong. I don’t think it’s the same to fit in by changing who you are than to be with a group of people who are moved by the same things you are; however, I don’t look to change my way of being. I’m guided by the projects that align with my way of thinking. When I am old and I look in the mirror, I want to say ‘You did everything out of love’. I look to play roles that touch someone from a different point of view, but at the same time tell a message that I believe in.” And it’s precisely that, that she’s sure is how things are flowing and has been the success of her career.

She even told us a story of one of her castings, that she realized how the camera connects you to the audience, and because of that she is transparent with her acting and she feels that is part of the movement that is taking place with Juliantina.

Without a doubt, there are many girls, regardless of their sexual orientation, who have felt moved after seeing her performance as Valentina, who is part of a same-sex couple: “She encouraged them to speak without such filters. I don’t label myself and I want to convey that message. Of course, this opens up the conversation that you can have the relationship you want in the way you think it best; I think that these stereotypes and ideas that are so deeply rooted in society have finally begun to fall. I feel proud and responsible--even blessed--because so many girls have chosen me to be a voice that gives the message of equality and put it out there with the ideals of thousands of people. I am inspired by the change I see. As for the sexuality argument, it seems to me that it shouldn’t be a topic of conversation, not because it’s bad, but because it shouldn’t remain a taboo.” Macarena celebrates individuality and is sure that being yourself is the path to happiness, although she knows how difficult it is to translate into words.

And for the Juliantina fans comes a very important project: the movie that will take the couple to the big screen. Undeniably, it will mark a before and after in the history of Mexican television in which an LGBTQ+ couple transitions from a telenovela to a movie.

“It's beautiful to listen the community of women who are making themselves heard and who want to see the story that touched them so much. I thank God I was chosen to play it; it needed to be told. It is a romantic story, but above all, real. For me, it’s a response to the audience that’s socially responsible and their hope to see so much love and camaraderie. This opens a window for the world to be part of a turning point of love stories in general,” she emphasizes.

For her, it is important to go beyond generations, to reach entire families and that the audience connects with this moment of change. “It’s inevitable, urgent, and necessary that these issues are on the table, discussing important things requires courage. Talking about sexuality is uncomfortable, but it has to be done and we are opening the conversation. Recently, I had coffee with a fan from Brazil who told me that after a time of struggling, then seeing me on TV, and then on my social media, she realized that there was a life out there that she wasn’t enjoying. I want to end the prejudices and not have to explain, when many times you yourself are still discovering what is happening with you”.

Macarena is different, rebellious and breaking the rules since she was a child because she has a conscience that allows her to identify with what she likes and what she doesn't, although she admits that she couldn’t have accomplished it without the support of her family and fans who send her gifts, even from Korea, and make her feel special. 

“I like to break the rules and it’s important to learn how to say no and be an example without shame. End the excuses, give the answers from a place that comes from confidence in who you are,” she declares.

So yes, the answer is that Macarena is this cool, all the time.

--

Interview: Karla Jáuregui

Photos: Paola Vivas

Styling: Paulina Zas

[dreadwulf]

*sigh* Okay, I just had to write this all out to get it off my chest and hopefully get over it and move on.

People tell me I look just like Brienne of Tarth. I’m tall, blonde, broad-shouldered, and homely. I get mistaken for a man, even when I have long hair that goes all down my back, even wearing a dress. I’ve gotten used to it.

My earliest memory of school is lying on the ground while a crowd of boys are kicking and hitting me, because I was an ugly freak. Girls grow earlier than boys do, you see. I was the tallest kid in my elementary, and I was hated for it. I endured constant abuse. When I got a little bit older, and I was almost 6 feet tall when I was 12, the abuse mostly turned away from being physical and into emotional and psychological. Girls followed me into the bathroom, laughing at how my clothes didn’t fit, how awkward I was, how masculine. Boys no longer hit me, just ignored or ridiculed me. Because it was the 80s I heard constant references to the East German olympic team, how I looked like a member. I didn’t understand the references at the time, but I knew it was yet another reference to how I didn’t measure up as a woman. Much later I learned about how those women were dosed with testosterone by the government against their will - a terrible story that the people around me regarded as a joke.  There’s nothing funnier than a manish woman, apparently.

When I was young I was undatable, never considered an option to anyone. I never kissed anyone until I was in my twenties, and was a virgin until I was 25. It’s bizarre when I look back now at photos of myself, because I’m expecting a hideous monster, and all I see is an ordinary girl - a little taller, broad-shouldered and plain, not pretty, but ordinary. But it all got into my head, you see. Inside I still feel like a freak. Undesireable. Unloved.

I started watching Game of Thrones from the first episode (mainly because I’m a big fan of Peter Dinklage!), and I was intrigued. Intrigued, but not obsessed, not yet. I’m a grown woman and I don’t have time for that sort of thing. But the first time Brienne of Tarth took off her helmet onscreen and I saw her face, I literally pointed at the screen and said out loud, “that’s me!”

Never in my life have I reacted that way before. Never before, and never since.

Granted, the actress who plays her is a great beauty, but the character of Brienne I latched onto instantly and felt a deep kinship with, especially after reading her story in the books. How as a child she was a girl very much like Sansa, who loved songs and romance and dancing and other girlish things, but the adults around her told her she was too ugly. Her septa told her no one would ever love or want her. She was shamed for wearing dresses and trying to be feminine, was told she was embarassing herself because her body was not womanly enough. She was made to feel like a failure just for existing, for being umarriagable, for causing the end of her house by being so ugly that no one wanted her. But instead of just crumbling and disappearing, Brienne of Tarth took up a sword and decided to make something else of herself. She wanted to help people, she wanted to contribute something to the world, and she decided to find a good lord and serve them as a knight. Brienne is brave and caring and defends the weak and wants to protect the people she loves. Brienne is a hero. She is a hero while not being tiny and delicate and pretty but large, sturdy, and ugly. In that she is completely unique, and completely wonderful.

A lot of old wounds opened up, watching that story and reading A Feast For Crows. Old issues I thought I was over all came back up. I identified powerfully with having your femininity stolen from you because your body is different, with being abused for not being woman enough, and with longing for love in a world that hates you. I remembered being hated, constantly and visciously hated, just for existing. I relived the bone-deep belief that I would spend my entire life alone, because no one would ever want me, a belief that was constantly validated by the actual people around me. I became painfully aware of the sense that I still have to this day of being constantly too big, too loud, too much, that has me slouching and shrinking and taking up less space and whispering timidly and the effect that those things have had on my life and career to this day.

And watching Brienne’s story, I saw how someone can endure the same things I did, and keep trying. Can keep struggling to succeed, and even fall in love. That was the most amazing thing of all, you see. This woman on television who looked like me, she was a love interest! She had her own romantic storyline! I could hardly believe it at first. I watched through my fingers trying to talk myself out of hoping. Because this never happens - an ugly woman, a masculine woman, is never desirable in fiction, never important enough to the story to be a love interest, and never worthy of romance. Yet here it was, it was happening right in front of my eyes.

Her love story with Jaime Lannister was a competely unique thing on television. An ugly woman with a beautiful man. A bond of deep respect and admiration, with undeniable sexual tension. Here were two people who can understand each other because they have both been hated for reasons beyond their control, who sought refuge in honor and knighthood and were loathed for it. Brienne understood how hatred can warp a person, make them someone they never meant to be, just the way she herself had been made to harden and close off to the world. She saw the person that Jaime might have been, if things had gone differently, and the man he could still become. Jaime for his part saw worth in her when everyone around him called her ridiculous, even though she was his enemy. He still knew that she was more deserving than any knight in Westeros, and believed in her when no one else in the world did. He gave her a sword and a quest and even a squire, lost his hand defending her, and he put his own life on the line to save hers.

Jaime openly adored her, looked at her like she was the most wonderful thing in the world, and I have never seen anything like that. A woman who looks like me, being looked at like that. Do you know what that felt like for me? Can you imagine it?

This story meant a lot to me, is what I’m saying. It was healing for me. I believed in that story, and I expected that even if there wouldn’t be a happy ending, at least there would be that respect for the character, and that she would be taken seriously by the narrative and her story would be completed in some fashion.

And then they aired Season 8.

In season 8 we learn that not only did the show never bother to adapt her storylines from the books, where she is slated to face Lady Stoneheart and the Brotherhood Without Banners, they gave her no story in replacement. She has no material impact on the storyline of the show, she simply doesn’t matter in any way. The only major storyline they kept from the books was her romance with Jaime Lannister, and in Season 8 they destroy that story in the cruelest possible way.

After emphasizing that Brienne is an adult virgin, they give her one scene with what we thought was her love interest, where they share one kiss. One. Onscreen within seconds of Brienne being naked Jaime looks dissatisfied and unhappy, and in the same episode, leaves her to go back to his traditionally beautiful ex. Leaves her crying and pleading with him to stay. And then her story ends, except for a brief bookend where she writes an entry in the White Book showing she still loved him, even though he abandoned and betrayed her in the worst way possible.

Right now I’d really like to know if anyone involved with this show ever gave a moment’s thought to what it would be like to watch that happen. After years of patiently waiting to get the love story we were promised for five seasons, instead, to humiliate and punish Brienne for daring to think she deserved love. Did anyone ever consider what that would feel like for women like me? If they did think about it, I hope they enjoyed the hurt they caused me, because the way this story played out felt outright malicious and hateful. They could have given me one tender moment, one declaration of love or affection, just to know what it would look like to see that onscreen for a woman like me. Instead they deliberately withheld that. And then went out of their way to invalidate absolutely everything about the storyline we had been watching, as if it had never happened, as if we had imagined it all, and been foolish to believe in it in the first place.

Yes, I know, it’s only a story, but stories matter. We wouldn’t put nearly the effort and investment into them that we do as a culture if they didn’t. My story has never mattered before, and it meant something to me over the last 8 years that someone was telling it. So was this ending intended as a deliberate slap in my face, or was that collateral damage that the show simply did not care about?

The messages sent by our media are sometimes unintentional, but they are usually given at least some consideration. So I wonder what sort of message was trying to be sent by giving the gender non-comforming woman who dared to open her heart an immediate rejection, and have her then swear to serve a celibate organization for the rest of her life? Giving up her inheritance, her island, her own sworn vows to Sansa, and everything else she cared about? Am I meant to regard this as a happy ending, I wonder? Her feelings and dreams don’t matter, but hey, she has a position in the small council, so Girl Power! Was there a single woman anywhere involved in this production who might have pointed out how awful this is?

I understand that what’s done is done and there’s no fixing this, and complaining about it is pointless. But what I really want, what I wish for, is for somebody to confirm that at least at some point this was a love story, and that for whatever reason, network interference or showrunner decision or whatever it was, it was changed at the last minute. Just tell me that at some point the intent was real. To know that would be helpful. Because right now I feel like a stupid chump for ever believing that anybody wanted a woman like me to have a love story, and you cannot imagine how much that hurts.

[direquail]

An NB reading of Grace in Terminator: Dark Fate

Disclaimer:

Before I start, just want to get this out here: I’m in no way insisting that Grace *has* to be non-binary, that we’re *supposed* to read her as non-binary, or that that’s in any way what she’s “meant to be”. This is just some stuff I’ve noticed that, as someone who sits on the genderqueer/non-binary/transmasc side of things, really resonated with me. Again--read her as entirely woman-identified if that’s what you want to do or feels right to you. I am ecstatic that lesbians and wlw-identified folks have someone that they feel represented in, too. I wish I’d had more characters like her when I was growing up and felt so out of place because of my gender non-conformity. 


But I, for one, would love a non-binary or even trans reading of Grace.

So what I’d like to do instead is just lay out a couple ways someone who is NB-identified *might* connect with Grace as a nonbinary character. Starting with the obvious.

Androgyny Now, I do want to be clear that I know that gender presentation =\= gender identity. And again, obviously, people will latch onto things that they relate to in characters, and I really do believe that there’s no “one right way” to read a character. The character of Grace isn’t a real person; she’s part of a story, told by people, who had something specific to say, and her character reflects that. But from the perspective of the people who watch her, who internalize and connect with her character, there can be points of connection that have nothing to do with the author’s/creator’s intent, and so, Grace-the-character can be many things to many people. The only real way to know how a person IDs is to ask them. That’s it, that’s all. You can’t assume. But also, sometimes, people do “ping” a certain way. They give off a sort of “energy”, and for me, Grace’s energy isn’t the sort of “diaphanous femininity” that even visibly-gender-nonconforming AFAB characters are often framed to exude. Grace’s energy isn’t masculine, either. Her mannerisms don’t seem intended to read that way; rather, they seem intended to read as soldier. I’m not very skilled at breaking down movements, especially when it comes to how actors move and what it all means. It’s totally possible that a lot of what’s unique about how Grace moves is because Mackenzie Davis is, self-admittedly, not the most athletically-inclined person. Grace is long-limbed and rangy and sometimes very stiff/poised, but never stiff through the hips like a Straight Dude(TM), or heavy through the shoulders like a musclebound meathead. She takes up space, too; she’s taller than Dani and Sarah both, and the only recurring characters who are “bigger” than her throughout most of the film are Carl and the Rev-9.

To be clear: Women can be tall, and rangy, and androgynous, and take up space, and that doesn’t make them less women--unless they don’t identify that way. My point with all of the above is just observing that Grace doesn’t move like a “male action hero”—but she also doesn’t seem over-the-top feminine in the way that mainstream-y media will “compensate” for perceived unfemininity, and that’s kind of wonderful. Her stature, her physique, all of that, seem to be chosen and calibrated towards an end goal that isn’t gendered: Combat, efficacy as a warrior. Whether you want to read her as a woman or as nonbinary is largely going to be about your personal preference. This also has the effect of giving the impression that Grace is absolutely unselfconscious about her body and how it looks—and she has no reason to be, not because she looks good or bad, but because what she can do with her body is just so vastly more important, and because she’s so willing to put her body and everything it can do on the line in order to fulfill her mission (and protect Dani). If Grace has a gender, it’d be “Protector” or “Warrior”. And in a way, what makes Grace so appealing to female-identified lesbians is the same thing that makes her appealing to NB people—Her character was explicitly designed not to cater to “the male gaze”, and therefore, she also exists outside the typical gendered confines reserved for “female characters” in media. The emphasis is just slightly different: Instead of a different way of being female, NB!Grace has little to no use for those categories at all. Again, it’s all in how you want to read her. Grace comes from a future where survival and fighting take first priority, and you could project the same tired “Gender isn’t a ~problem~ in the future/after the world ends” approach that a lot of cis and hetero men take to sci-fi--but also, why? It’s tired. Give me a Grace who is preoccupied with survival, yes, who maybe doesn’t have time to think too much about this gender shit--but also, a Grace who finds that this “androgyny” (although she might not call it that) suits her, who takes to this way of moving and being in the world, this way of using her body, and identifies more with that than with being a “man” or a “woman”. 


(Sidenote: as someone who took a fair amount of Queer Studies classes, it does irk me a bit that discussions of mainstream-y speculative media seem permanently suspended between this sort of “genderblind” futurism where “identities” just don’t exist because they’re apparently not needed anymore, or copy-pasting our contemporary discourses about identity into a future that is materially very different than ours. The point of these identities is, in part, to describe our experiences, the good as well as the bad, and those experiences of gender and sexuality don’t exist in a vacuum. So, the words we use will necessarily change to accommodate that—especially in the post-apocalypse. BUT, everything that comes after us will also bear the stamp of what came before it; it’s just a matter of what the creator means to emphasize.) Augments & Body Mods This is a little dicey, because there’s some clear tension in the movie between the idea of robots = inhuman/unfeeling = bad, and humans = good/feeling. And in that light, it’s potentially problematic to (even incidentally) imply that nonbinary/gender-nonconforming = not human.

But I’d like to point out that the film does deliberately challenge any neat separation of “human” and “machine” with Carl’s evolution as a person. 
And based on what I’ve read from James Cameron and Tim Miller interviews, there is some “blurring” intended between human and machine in the franchise.

In fact, Carl and Grace are foils for each other, somewhat, in the sense that they’re on opposite ends of a spectrum where human and machine become blurred, and I love that. As a genderqueer person with a very fluid experience, it appeals to me on a deep level because you could spend literally forever breaking down where does one “gender” end and another begin--emotionally, socially, spiritually, and physically.  


So the fact that there’s (1) no hard binary between human and machine (it’s explicitly subverted), and (2) we’re given multiple points of inflection, especially if you count Sarah and the Rev-9--alleviates a lot of the tension I’d feel otherwise in mentioning this. But I don’t think this is something that should be allegorical or a direct comparison; I think that it operates best on a metaphorical or theoretical level. 


And just, it’s the whole vaguely-cyberpunk idea of modifying your own body, not in a mass-produced or manufactured sense, but in this organic and highly individual sense, born out of contingency and necessity, that makes Grace’s Augments so meaningful. It’s one of the things that makes her read as human, too, because it feels more in line with our tendency to stick ink, steel, bone, what have you, through our skins whenever we get the chance--as opposed to some kind of symbolic dehumanization by “becoming a machine”.

Grace routinely refuses to categorize herself in anything other than the most general terms, or explain the details of her Augments, and she seems very protective of them. Rather than seeming ashamed, this refusal reads a lot like the popular queer identity explanation “not gay as in happy, but queer as in “fuck you’”. Her Augments are part of her, and part of her humanity; she volunteered for them, she owns them, and is even protective of them, viewing CBP’s invasive examination of her Augments as a kind of violation of her bodily autonomy. They’re clearly complicated for her, but they’re anything but depersonalized.

And going even further, the reason why she volunteered for them is so that she can defend humanity--and also someone she loves (Dani). They’re an extension of her sense of family, loyalty, love, and willingness to sacrifice.

And I don’t know for sure, but I imagine that Grace is basically one-of-a-kind, even among other Augments, if only because those Augmentations seem to be performed with the tech that’s on hand--salvaged Legion tech, by the sound of it, at least to start with. So the outcome depends on the parts available, the complexity and maturity of the Augmentation technology and process, and the skill & experience of the surgeons, all of which would vary over time. 


And honestly? If that doesn’t qualify as “beyond the binary”, I don’t know what does.

Some other general observations:

- Grace’s short hair is a constant throughout the post-Judgement Day scenes. As someone who started wearing their hair short as a preteen and hasn’t had hair to my shoulders since age 12, that does seem significant.

- Grace only introduces herself by name after Diego shouts “HEY LADY” in the factory before dropping an engine block on the Rev-9. Granted, most women don’t like to be addressed as “HEY LADY”, either, but it stood out to me, especially because she refused to give her name only a couple of minutes before that. Either way you read it, the line feels like it expresses some level of discomfort with or objection to that gendered statement. Maybe she finds that particular reference annoying or even offensive, but also, maybe she doesn’t really identify as a woman. She’s just... Grace.

- there were multiple times I mistook the back of her tank top for the back of a binder, even though she clearly was not binding.

- she constantly steals mens’ clothes--partly because she’s too tall for a lot of womens’ clothes around her, partly out of utility (like at the factory and CBP, where a lot of the guards are men). But also, it pleases the genderfucking queer in me quite a bit. And, I should note, when she had the option to take a female guard’s clothes at the CBP facility... she didn’t.

But ultimately, when I look at Grace, I see someone whose gender is “Warrior” or “Soldier”. And it’s so wonderful to see that so purely represented on a character we’re meant to perceive as female. So, please believe me when I say I don’t want to “take away” what Grace means for other people. 
And, for the record, I do mostly default to using she/her pronouns for Grace, because that’s how she’s canonically referred to. But just for fun--try this on for size: Using “they/them” pronouns for Grace. They (Grace) came back in time to protect Dani. It rolls off the tongue, right? It feels nice. Let’s re-try a couple of sentences from above: 


- “multiple times I mistook the back of their tank top for the back of a binder, even though they clearly weren’t binding” 


- “Grace’s Augments are about their ability to be a soldier. They were Augmented in order to hunt Terminators... Everything else is secondary to that, and their mission to protect Dani”

- “Grace only introduces themself by name after Diego shouts “HEY LADY” in the factory before dropping an engine block on the Rev-9 ... Maybe they find that particular reference annoying or even offensive, but also, maybe they don’t really identify as a woman. They’re just... Grace.”

And finally: 


Can you imagine the poor sod who tried to make fun of Grace for having a “girly” name? lmao rip

[roominthecastle]

Hey Room! Thanks for replying to my Q. But if Illya was that lovesick for Katarina since he was 6, doesn’t it give a stench of classic transference to the Red/Liz dynamic? Like, Illya couldn’t get Kat, so he sees her daughter as his second chance . . . with Kat really. Liz was supposed to be the woman Red “loved and lost” in Cape May, but if Red = Illya, then that description must apply to both girls.

I would see it as such if Red chose to whisper Kat’s name as his final word, or a memory of her flashed across his mind before his impending almost execution, or if he talked about her as the woman he loved/his heart/his life. But it’s always clearly Liz, there isn’t even a touch of ambiguity to this. If he still harbored feelings for Kat, they should have surfaced in these key moments but they didn’t. His past relationship w/ Kat has an influence here, I don’t deny that, but I don’t believe Red sees Liz as a replacement or consolation prize. He sees her as her own person, and if he fell for Liz, he fell for Liz bc she fits his type just like all the other women he has fancied before – 99.9% of whom were not her mother. He’s loved before but not the way he loves Liz now.

And I should have worded my response better re: the lovesick puppy thing bc I don’t think he’s been in love w/ Kat since they were 6 or that it’s some sort of guiding constant in his life. They likely lived separate lives on different continents, for starters, and she wasn’t interested in him that way. And I mentioned somewhere else how I see an inconsistency in his attachment to Kat in “Rassvet”: he isn’t devastated when he thinks she committed suicide, at least nowhere near as affected as he was by Liz’s death, which undercuts the whole selfless lover-hero image that seemingly follows soon after she comes out of hiding to ask for his help. There are no hurt feelings, no stinging sense of betrayal in the way he interacts w/ Kat (it’s almost like “oh, you’re back, good, wanna make out?”), yet it was all there after Liz came back from the dead, which already suggests different depths of emotional involvement.

Ilya’s repeated insistence to honor a pledge he made when he was 6 is the takeaway in “Rassvet”, imo. “My word is my bond” and “loyalty above all else” are still the most important guiding principles in Red’s life (both in business and personal relationships), and this is also what Ilya – or through Ilya, Dom – kept emphasizing as the only reason to help Kat. Treating a childhood promise as a serious, binding contract is a very Red thing, imo. How much actual “in love-ness” went with it remains to be seen since this is Dom’s version of the story and Red is clearly not happy w/ it.

But this signature compulsion is there in Red’s relationship w/ Liz, too. He promised her to keep her alive and safe, to give her the life she longs for, and he is not stopping until he succeeds but he also has his own agenda unfurling in the backdrop of their relationship. So he pledged himself to Liz, too. This compulsive aspect of the “lovesick puppy act” is what I think these two dynamics have in common, that’s why I said that Ilya’s behavior around Kat fits w/ how Red behaves today. This super intense loyalty to a select few stems from who Ilya/Red is as a person at his core, and it’s independent from romantic/sexual feelings but it’s easy to confuse/conflate the two, esp if one is young(er) and/or lonely like Ilya/Red was ~30 years ago.

And all this naturally brings something James once said to mind:

“I think in life, people have this confusion about love. We all want to fall in love so badly that we are almost willing to lie to ourselves, to force ourselves into believing that we are in love when we aren’t. It’s too bad, because in so doing, we cheapen it. I don’t think we recognize the depth of the emotion at all. It’s entirely transformative and we think of it as a blurb on a Hallmark card. When you’re in love, you can’t control it. It’s when you can’t take charge of what you feel, when you are completely powerless in the face of the emotion. When it happens, it happens in spite of you.” [x]

In “Rassvet” Ilya is, in fact, taking charge and Dom emphasizes this by calling him “the architect of this charade”. He gets himself transformed as part of a deliberate plan, a power move, he came up with and had to talk Kat into. Liz, however, is unintentionally yet inescapably transforming him in ways he is 100% unable to control, and she is transforming him back to who he used to be (a lá Beauty and the Beast). She tears right through every design he’s ever come up with, zigs when he zags, and lands him in the most insane situations he had no intention of ending up in (most recently: the execution chamber).

So the first part of the quote above feels more Ilya/Kat atm, and the last bit is 100% what I see when I look at Red and Liz’s relationship and, perhaps not by accident, that last bit is also what made it into actual canon dialog btw Red and Liz, and it’s been repeatedly stated how only Liz can render Red powerless and how she is his kryptonite. Liz.

So I don’t think Ilya/Red truly felt for Kat in the past what he – in spite of himself – ended up feeling for Liz in the present (true, all-consuming love). But he follows the same “my word is my bond” principle in both dynamics.

I can def see him being irritated by how Dom chose to reduce his relationship w/ Kat to some sanitized fairytale, but I still don’t think Dom believed that lying through his teeth was the way to dispense closure here. It’s Dom who warns Red at the end of S5 that Liz is never gonna stop digging for his true identity, then again tells him that she was gonna find out sooner or later anyway, so he did Red a favor by ripping off that band-aid. Liz was desperate to know Red’s real identity and Dom gave it up, hoping/thinking it would be a small price to pay for a way forward. Dom himself is sick and tired of secrets and hiding, living that way has cost him so much already and he knows nothing good ever comes from it, so I don’t think that heaping full-on lies on this issue was his go-to move here. I could be wrong, of course, but for now, I am rolling w/ “most of what Dom said he believes/assumes to be true but stuff was omitted that will end up re-framing things once they are revealed”.

But nothing (potentially) traumatizing was revealed here? things Red wanted to keep from Liz were revealed and he clearly did not like it or the way Dom chose to tell it, but “I know you used to be Ilya who made a huge sacrifice to protect my mother and me” is not quite in the same league as “I know you killed Sam” or “I know I killed my father” as far as devastating revelations go. I think Red’s reaction matched that + he was also still fuming and hurting from the confirmation of her most recent betrayal, so that’s also coloring his response and mood here, imo, making him so tightly wound that only a few twitches escape as he listens to her.

That smartass Popeye remark was not his immediate response, it’s not a response to “I know you’re Ilya”. It’s a deflection that comes when she – sensing an obvious hole in the story – starts questioning why he kept Reddington’s identity once the alleged reason of taking it on was satisfied. That’s when he says, “I am what I am. … Popeye the Sailor Man.” to avoid the topic bc – imo – now she is truly close to knowing everything and he needs to stall to figure out how to handle this entirely new playing field.

I think his reaction to her at the end of “Rassvet” is a unique mix – previous methods of (now half-hearted) deflection w/ an undercurrent of surprise, fear, anger, uncertainty + a touch of “you disappoint yet impress” he also voiced at the end of S5.

[kristmullet]

My Journey to Delmar

Wow, blog #3! Who knew I had it in me??

My love life(if it could be called that) was never fun and mostly just confusing and messy until I found my husband. 

I’d had crushes on boys when I was young but my first “boyfriend”(psh!)  was in 8th grade. Back then I had a group of friends that was pretty evenly mixed boys and girls. At that time, we all basically played square dance with each other(it was just a case of switching partners when the last girl was done with whoever she was “dating” at the time. embarrassing, I know). My first actual guy who acknowledged the mutual crush we had on each other and put that boyfriend/girlfriend label on us was a boy named “B” (names changed out of embarrassment). He was sweet, funny, somewhat shy as well, but never seemed embarrassed of me. It was a quick, young thing that ended for reasons I’m not sure(patterns start here). I casually dated/crushed on other “square dance partners” from that friend group with little heartbreak or consequence. It seemed like I always had more feelings for them than they ever had for me(also pattern). I was friends lots of guys as well at school just because they were generally more fun/funny than the girls. My style at that time also started to transition to more of a punk/emo style that made me feel more comfortable and like myself. 

Anyway, my next, more serious, “square dance partner” in that friends group started innocently enough, with pretty little thought that this one would actually change my life pretty intensely. This relationship started out pretty chill. Mostly just hanging out, taking walks, sitting together at parties(if they could be called parties). “O” was even my first kiss. Sadly, this was a time I initiated and felt like I was more into him than he was to me. We started hanging out more and more and with my close friends less and less. He started to lightly pressure me and guilt me in little ways that I didn’t even really notice. He would make small comments about things he liked and disliked about me. Sometimes he would contradict himself but I just assumed I misunderstood him the first time. He would even tell me things that I knew instinctively(!) were lies and stories but I just figured I was wrong. Slowly his moods, attitudes, preferences would start going from one extreme to another. His stories got more unbelievable but they also preyed on my want/need to help and take care of others. He had claims of abuse, neglect, being poor, but all of it had a ring of believe-ability to it all. So I always tried to protect and help in whatever way I could, even financially.  With his swinging preferences, one day he would love my style, then say I was a “poser.” He wanted me to be a “bad girl”, then wanted me to be more “innocent.” He would love my curves, tell me I was fat, tell me to leave alone, then call me and tell me not to hang up for hours. Make me stay with him while he cried and tell me to go F*** myself basically. I sincerely stopped believing everything that I thought. **Big disclaimer: Ladies, Always trust your instincts. Don’t brush off that nagging voice. If you think someone is lying to you, they probably are. For those of you believers, I fully believe this nagging women’s intuition that people always talk about is the holy spirit trying to guide you. Don’t ignore that gut feeling. It can save you time, money, energy, heart break, and possibly your life. I’m not exaggerating when I say there are times I think this intuition saved my life.**

I second guessed everything. I mean everything. What I thought, wore, said, how I acted, even as little as what I listened to with my music. I would talk to my few remaining friends about him but I shielded him. I made everything sound less bad. I cannot stress to you how much he just straight up made me think I was wrong. Always wrong.  I went from having normal female teenage emotions to my feelings predicated on his and his swung so hard that I felt just sad and anxious so much of the time. I didn’t even realize it either. Hindsight has cleared this up so much. So how the hell was I supposed to get away from this? I didn’t! I believe 100% that God used his mood swings to save me. He decided he hated his life in Indiana so much that he ran away to his biological mothers house in Washington. Also around this time he told me that his mother was diagnosed as bipolar and that he thought he was too. This did start to connect the dots for me in some ways but also made me feel like a crap person if I gave up on someone who was mentally ill. He straight out told me that he would never get on medication and never talk to a therapist. He thought it would take out his spirit of who he was(or some ridiculous crap like that). Even with this, I was so controlled that I still stayed with his ass. He would call and message at all hours to talk, to beg for us to be together, to cry, to yell, to vent about how terrible his life was. He even would tell me how he hated me but didn’t want to break up, but wanted to get another girlfriend who was better, hotter, would “take care of his needs”, as a second girlfriend. That broke my heart. Destroyed me. Made me feel like a piece of trash that had to be discarded to the side but was kept around for the scraps. 

Finally, one night he flippantly said he wanted to break-up so he could be with this girlfriend(whom he did cheat on me with). I just said OK. I do not think he knew I meant it. He wanted me back almost immediately the next day but I decided I was done. I even eventually had to block him because he was still trying to manipulate me. 

After that, I was a bit more hesitant with my heart. I still tried to just have fun with guys(laugh, make jokes, etc), but I second guessed when I thought I maybe had a crush on someone. Even now looking back, I remember boys pretty obviously flirting with with me but I thought they were actually making fun of me. I couldn’t fathom someone genuinely flirting with someone who looked like me, who was as uncool as me. Sad, huh?

The next guy I even attempted anything with was this super friendly guy I had class with. I crushed on him and I figured he didn’t have  a crush on me but he was kind enough that he’d go to prom with me if I asked(he was a sophomore, so could not go by himself, so it made sense to me to ask him.). He agreed to go and we went. It was a pretty fun night, lots of dancing but nothing too remarkable. At the end of the night, after having an ok time, I got pretty bummed out when he basically left me at that. Polite after that but pretty much stopped being friends. 

After a while, one of my friends invited me to go to a random guy she somewhat knew house to hang(aka she wanted to make out with said dude but didn’t want to go alone). I went, hung(very uncomfortably), and ended up being set up with make-out dudes buddy, “W”. This was another time I was half-sure I was being made fun of or being set up as a total joke. “W” had no balls to even ask me out himself. It was fully ridiculous, BUT, we dated for maybe a month. This was another time where I initiated the first kiss. I basically always felt like a joke with him. Like he was going to throw up when he kissed me. He ended up breaking up with me in front of his bosses house after hanging out the whole evening, just to get back with his ex-girlfriend the next day. Yey for me.

I even met some dumb joker who was a friend of a friend. I think our first interaction was on instant messenger. Two dates, me driving 35 minutes to meet up with him both times. He immediately gets back with his baby mama. I never wanted to admit that one. I will say that these terrible “relationships” all came back to this complete lack of self confidence and respect. I wasn’t worth anything better. Totally thought this. 

After I met my husband, I still continued to have these thoughts. Still wondered when the other shoe would drop. When would he drop me and find out it was all a joke or a lie? Even in the past year, I am realizing I still allowed those things put in my brain long ago to still affect my feelings today. I’m still working today to be more clear and accurate in how I feel and how I look at myself. Also, allowing myself to feel happy and good when someone(AKA hubby) wants me to be happy and feel good. Insane but God is still working in my heart and head. 

Also, I can’t emphasize how much my husband has done to be steady and strong, caring and loving. I know I’ve never told my husband the extent of what happened in my relationships in the past, so the fact that he has always been such a rock is that much more amazing. Whether or he knows it or not, he saved me. Literally saved me from everything I could have put myself through. I could never repay him. Ever. I’ll love him forever. 

[ariannjs]

KARIN | A SasuSaku FanFic (6/10)

(Karin - Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5)

———

Dinners and walks together on the way home became a usual day to day thing for them since then. Eventually, Sakura came to realize that Sasuke was intentionally spending time with her amidst daily tasks to aid the Hokage, for it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the Uchiha wasn’t merely visiting the Hozuki family in the hospital after all.

She couldn’t help but feel so flattered with how he would still pick her up from the hospital even right after coming back from a mission, wounded or not. And it was then that she knew that Sasuke was, in his own subtle ways, trying to work things out between them. If he started feeling the same way towards her, she couldn’t be sure yet; nonetheless, she was absolutely grateful for the tiny steps that their relationship was taking towards rebuilding their bond that Sasuke almost oh-so-completely severed.

Undoubtedly, that fact gave her reasons for her insides to do somersaults and her heart to pound against her ribcage, yet her favorite part was getting to witness Sasuke’s kind and gentle side every time they were together – the side she has always believed to be present even back when they were still genins, no matter how much of an ice block he may look like on the outside. And whenever it resurfaces, her heart couldn’t help but feel in awe.

“I’ll ask Kakashi to allow you to take missions alongside me, then,” Sasuke suggested to Suigetsu during that last day of Karin and Suika in the hospital. Three pairs of eyes – purple, red, and green – looked at him afterwards.

“You’re really doing that?”

“You have a family now. You need to have a source of income all the more. Can you think of other ways to earn while you’re in Konoha?”

The head of the Hozuki Family stared at him in understanding and shook his head. “But won’t they think that I’m an outsider or something?”

“If they can trust me now, then they should trust you too.”

Sakura grinned at that, unable to stop herself from humming happily as she assisted Karin in finally getting off the bed after such a strenuous week.

“You seem so delighted, Sakura.”

“Huh? O-of course! You and Suika are now better enough to be discharged.”

Karin arched an eyebrow at her, a smirk forming on her lips. “I don’t think it’s just that.”

A blush appeared on Sakura’s cheeks as she glanced at Karin and then peeked at the men across the room again. “Fine,” she started in a softer voice. “I’m just glad that Sasuke-kun’s visibly more comfortable around the village now. And he’s been helping you guys and many others. I just…” She grinned. “I couldn’t help but be proud.”

The redhead’s eyes followed Sakura’s line of vision, which was directed to the Uchiha. “You have every reason to be proud of him. He’s come a long way.”

Sighing in content, Sakura beamed at her patient.

There was a clear agreement between the two women who adored Sasuke in their own ways. “Right.”

It wasn’t really a difficult adjustment for Sakura to have someone waiting for her whenever her shift was over; it’s just that this time, she was actually more eager to go home than stay in the hospital for as long as her body could.

Pleased with this progress, Shizune made a mental note to personally thank Sasuke once they get a chance to talk out of the pink-haired medic’s earshot. If Shizune knew it would only take Sasuke’s intervention in making Sakura obey after months of failed attempts in asking her to stop immersing herself too much in her work, she would’ve forced the Sixth Hokage to summon Sasuke much earlier.

But that didn’t mean that Sakura wasn’t tiring herself anymore. Hence, as if it was a self-proclaimed mission, Sasuke had been true to his word when he said that he would monitor if the hardworking medic was eating right.

Whenever he found the opportunity, he would discreetly add food on Sakura’s plate as she animatedly narrated about her day – which consisted of the surgeries she performed, the deliveries that were much easier compared to that of Karin (“Thankfully! Shannaro!”, she emphasized), the kid who didn’t want to take his medicine unless it was her who let him take it (Sasuke didn’t know if he would feel amused or threatened by this), and the flock of male medic and shinobi who endlessly left flowers or letters in front of her office (now, he absurdly had the urge to crush the teacup he was holding while hearing this part). Taking advantage of her focus on her stories, it didn’t even matter to him that he was taking quite a lesser amount of food, as long as Sakura got to eat more.

“Wow. I’m almost so full and I’m not even done yet.” She let out a deep exhale, rubbing her stomach in the process. “How about you, Sasuke-kun?”

“Hn.”

Recently becoming adept in Sasukenese, she already knew what that meant so she continued, “Just as I thought! They give big servings of their meals here, don’t they? I think this has become my favorite!”

Sasuke stifled a chuckle through wiping his mouth with a table napkin. “There’s a new restaurant a few blocks from here. We could try it there next time if you’d like to. I’ve heard they’re serving anmitsu too.”

“You’re kidding.” Her eyes widened. “Okay, I think that’s going to be my favorite place soo—hang on…” She eyed him carefully before taking a bite of another vegetable tempura that was secretly placed on her plate.

Sasuke braced himself at the idea of being caught.

“How did you know that I have a thing for anmitsu?”

Inwardly sighing in relief, Sasuke just simply shrugged in response to her question, not willing to let her know that he had been mentally taking down notes of the things he had learned about her since they were kids.

Meanwhile, he found it cute, to be honest, how she was one of the most intellectual in their batch yet she always failed to notice how her food became half greater than the amount that was first served to her. With that, he didn’t know if he would be glad or concerned that she is a shinobi yet she could completely let her guard down while he was with her. But at the end of the day, he often noticed how much that fact helped him trust himself more just because she trusts him fully without hesitation.

Sakura could go on and talk about everything under the sun, he realized. But he could observe that glint in her eyes whenever she talked about the medical field. On the outside, she might just see him nonchalantly chewing his food in front of her, but on the inside, he couldn’t help but be filled with pride and reverence for his former teammate.

How in the world could he not admire such a passionate woman whose heart is just so big for the people around her?

They were both privileged with immense abilities and strengths, yet he recognized how totally different they were. For in the past few years, he used his power to destroy and kill, but she used hers to heal and bring more life into the world.

He knew he could never be like her, considering all the negative things he had inflicted to others in the past. But as she continues to give her all in healing and taking care of more people, he vowed to himself to be the one taking care of her in the best way he could.

Even if he had to continue stealthily adding food on her plate just so she could properly eat everyday.

After all, it was her who deserves all the tenderness he could give and more.

A scowl with disapproving mismatched eyes met Sakura by the hospital doors one night, puzzling her if she was about to embark on a sudden battle. Because, why in the world would the Sharingan be activated if they were just about to go home, right?

“You’re chakra is almost completely depleted.”

“H-huh?” Ah. So she had just gone through a chakra X-ray courtesy of her former teammate’s visual jutsu. She scratched the back of her head. “Well, I visited Suika and Karin in their place for their weekly check up. And then I...I had four surgeries in a row. But I’m ready for dinner! Let’s go, Sasuke-kun!” Her attempt to tug at his hand failed when Sasuke remained still on where he was standing.

“You need to rest, Sakura.”

Her shoulders slumped forward. “But I need to eat too. I don’t know how to do both all at once.” She groaned. And true enough, her stomach started growling, but she was too exhausted to even feel ashamed.

“Annoying,” Sasuke muttered under his breath. “Follow me then.”

“W-wait! Where are we going?”

Sasuke stopped pacing and narrowed his eyes at her over his shoulder, suddenly remembering something. “Can you walk?”

“That’s not the answe—wait a minute...” She suddenly smirked which caused Sasuke to raise an eyebrow at her. “Why, Sasuke-kun? Are you planning to carry me? Because—ow!—my leg hurts right here, and I don’t think it’s—h-hey! Wait up!”

“Tch. You’re not a good actress, Sakura. You’re annoying,” Sasuke said, already a few strides away from her. When she fell in step with him, he stopped himself from laughing at the sight of her visible pout.

“Wouldn’t you actually do that if my legs were hurting?” And then Sakura mumbled, “I wonder what it feels like to be carried by you.”

But his sense of hearing was as sharp as his sense of sight with the Sharingan “I’ve done that a number of times back then, Sakura.” He smirked.

“Eh? You’re kidding.”

“Am not.”

Deciding to press on the issue, she walked a few steps ahead and stopped right in front of him with her hands on her hips. “Alright, spill. Because I honestly can’t remember that happening.”

Sasuke sighed. He didn’t expect Sakura to be stubborn times two at her chakra-depleted state. As much as it was, in fact, annoying, it was still quite entertaining for him.

“One, when Orochimaru pretended to be Naruto,” he began. Both of them slightly flinched at the name of his former sannin sensei. “...which I’ve noticed so I kicked him. Two, when he was about to hit us with two kunai while we were under a genjutsu.” There was something amusing with the puzzled expression on the kunoichi’s face that made him pause. “Three, when you’ve been freed from Gaara’s sand. And four, when I...left you on a bench that...night.” He suddenly trailed off.

Somehow, Sasuke felt a tinge of guilt again at the reminder of those memories he had suddenly dug, especially that last one. He has always wondered if Sakura has totally gotten over what happened that night. But to his surprise, Sakura didn’t show him any look of disappointment or harbored hurt, only of curiosity.

“Oh.” Sakura blinked, once, twice, feeling a bit lightheaded which she thought was due to her effort in remembering the said instances. “So those were years ago?” She giggled sheepishly with a hand on her head. “I don’t seem to remember any of it though.”

With that, he sighed once more, thankful that Sakura didn’t have any grudges about their agonizing encounter on that eventful night. He cleared his throat. “Well, you surely don’t. You were either only half aware or completely uncon—”

“...Uh, Sasuke-kun?”

With widened eyes, he suddenly leaned forward and caught her limp body on reflex just in time. Still stunned, he recalled what happened in the past few minutes and grumbled to himself. If she didn’t stop to insist in discussing about the past instances wherein Sasuke has carried her, they would’ve reached their destination before she even passed out.

But now, he had to do it again, and Sakura wouldn’t even get the privilege of experiencing it while fully awake.

He shook his head and then released a soft cackle as he stared at the woman he now held protectively in his arm with the help of a Susanoo limb. “Tch. Again.”

With the way her head was throbbing, Sakura was certain that she wasn’t performing a surgery anymore, for if she was, she would’ve channeled some chakra in her temples to ease the headache. But what happened after she conducted an appendectomy anyway?

A familiar handsome face then entered her now fully awake mind, causing her eyes to snap open. It didn’t take a minute for her to recall the scenario before she lost consciousness. And then she rubbed a hand on her face. Did she really just faint in front of Sasuke? And did he really go out of his way to carry her to—

Wait. Where am I?

She carefully sat up on the bed while allowing her healing chakra to do its thing to her head. Looking around, she couldn’t remember being in the same location before. But when she saw the lone picture frame similar to hers on the desk nearby, and noticed the oddly familiar manly scent emanating from the duvet she was clutching, a blush appeared on her cheeks at the realization that she was in the Uchiha compound.

And she was exactly in the last Uchiha’s room.

With a beam on her face, her body fell once more on the bed, her hands pulling the duvet up to her face afterwards. She couldn’t believe what was happening. She has always believed Sasuke to be caring in his own ways, one that would fight for the lives of his comrades; however, this gentle and tender version of him was always astonishing to witness, especially now.

With the nature of her work, she was used to being the one to look after other people to the point that it has become a second nature to her. But there was something so heartwarming about having someone to look after her as well, something Sasuke seemed to be purposefully doing for the past month or so.

That’s when it dawned on her – for the first time in a long time, it was Dr. Sakura Haruno who was being well taken care of.

And much to her delight, the one making this possible was the man that she has come to love for so many years.

Meanwhile, where was this hospitable and caring gentleman?

Sakura hopped off the bed and made sure that she left it fixed. Due to not being familiar with Sasuke’s house, it took her some time to maneuver from hallway to hallway inside the large place.

A new smell took over her senses when she turned the last hallway. That’s where she finally saw the man she was looking for, immersed in his task as usual, but this time, his task at hand was kitchen-related. She found herself grinning at the sight, for it’s not everyday that one gets to see Sasuke Uchiha stirring something in a casserole with an apron around his torso.

She cleared her throat after a few seconds of admiring him from behind.

Sasuke stiffened then, hand gripping tighter on the wooden spoon he was holding. In a flash, the memory of seeing Sakura’s Byakugou seal up close due to him brushing his lips against it appeared on his mind.

“Hn.” He didn’t attempt to face her, adamant to conceal the crimson stain now painted on his cheeks. “Did you sleep well?”

Sakura’s smile widened. Years ago, it was a very rare occurrence for Sasuke to be visibly caring, but lately, it was like his aloof personality was slowly being peeled off right in front of her, just her. She couldn’t help but feel honored with that.

“Yes. Thank you so much, Sasuke-kun. So, you carried me again while I was unconscious, huh?”.

Sasuke smirked to himself, she was probably pouting now due to missing an opportunity of being carried in his arms while wide awake. But then, he heard a sigh.

“I really appreciate it. But...I’m sorry.”

He suddenly furrowed his brows as he heard her footsteps coming closer behind him. “What are you apologizing for?”

Sakura stopped by the table. Although it was such a sweet instance to have Sasuke go the extra mile for her today, a big part of her still couldn’t avoid feeling embarrassed about showing weakness in front of him. For a moment, she felt like her 12-year-old self that was hungry for the acknowledgement of her crush and teammate resurfaced, much to her dismay. “I didn’t mean to be a burden, Sasuke-kun.”

Oh. He was barely aware of the sudden change in her mood. Tipping his head over his shoulder, he glanced at her as she fiddled with the hem of her tunic. It was in moments like this that he knew he had to do or say something, for even when they were younger, Sakura seemed to have a skill in overthinking. And he didn’t like seeing the effect of that now.

“You shouldn’t exhaust yourself, Sakura,” he replied; his eyes were soft but his voice was unyielding. “You don’t need to overwork just to make sure that you’re saving many lives. You’ve already proven that fact.”

Sakura’s head snapped up. The way her eyes widened a bit after he spoke confirmed to Sasuke that she was able to read between the lines.

You’re not weak. You’re doing enough. And I admire that. But I don’t like seeing you forgetting about yourself.

When Sasuke returned his focus on his task, a lone tear fell on Sakura’s cheek as a growing affection for the man in front of her filled her chest. Part of her wanted to dart towards him and throw her arms around him, but she wasn’t that 12-year-old clingy fangirl in his life anymore.

She understood how Sasuke wasn’t a man of many words, but it was after hearing his recent statements – despite being vague – that she knew: Sasuke didn’t only care about her, but he also saw her worth.

How could she not fall even more in love with such a man?

With a content smile on her face, she wiped her tear with the back of her hand while her gaze was fixed at her beloved’s back. “Hai, Sasuke-kun.”

Sasuke’s lips curved upwards, feeling accomplished with his small contribution. “Hn. Dinner’s almost ready.”

As if on cue, Sakura’s stomach made a noise once again. She could swear she heard Sasuke chuckle before he turned around to face her. “Oop. Sorry!” Red-faced, she then sat down as he placed the appetizing meals on the table. “Wow, Sasuke-kun! I’m honestly quite surprised that you are adept in cooking.”

Sitting across her, he shrugged. “I had to be. I’ve lived alone since I was eight, Sakura.” And then he started putting food on their plates.

She simply gazed at him, mentally vowing to herself that she would do everything that she could to make sure that Sasuke would never feel alone in his life again. An idea then crossed her mind. “How about...next time, let’s stay at my place so I can return the favor and cook for you as well?” Keeping her composure, she separated her chopsticks as she waited for his answer, quite afraid that Sasuke would think differently about her sudden boldness.

It felt like an eternity passed when she observed how he stared at her for a long moment, seemingly wondering if she would really be willing to do such a thing for him. She looked down on her plate and bit her lip in anticipation. Somehow, she was already bracing herself for his refusal. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time that Sasuke would reject an offer from her.

However, when she peered at him again, her heart skipped a beat upon seeing an almost unnoticeable yet genuine smile now plastered on his face.

“Thank you, Sakura.”

In one of their late night dinners, Sakura finally had the urge to ask Sasuke about something a lot deeper than their usual conversations.

Remembering how flustered and quiet Sasuke was when Suigetsu expressed how he and Karin have chosen the right path because of his influence, she wanted so bad to make sure that Sasuke understood the fact that he has come a long way ever since the war.

For some reason, the former avenger has such a fine skill in being too hard on himself. But Sakura thought it was just fitting to reassure him until he gained a change of perspective. For someone with unique and powerful eyesight like him, it saddened her how he couldn’t even see the good in himself.

“Sasuke-kun?”

The raven-haired man (whom she tried so hard not to call her date whenever they were seated across each other like now) glanced up at her as he chewed on his onigiri.

Her eyes didn’t meet his as she mentally prayed that she wouldn’t be dismissed with her question. “I know I’ve asked you before about how your journey was. I noticed how your answers were mainly about the things that you’ve seen, places you’ve visited, and people you’ve met, but…I think you haven’t mentioned much about...you.” She now looked at him. “How were you, Sasuke-kun, during your redemption journey?”

The silence was palpable. And there weren’t much food on the table that she could pretend to be focusing on while waiting for his answer. She didn’t want to rush him into discussing personal things, but she also believed that it’s time for him to completely forgive himself at the very least.

"There were days that were much difficult to survive than the others..." Sasuke began, catching her full attention. "...days that I thought should be the last. Days that made me believe that I'm better off having no tomorrow to wake up to." He absently traced patterns on his plate with his chopsticks as a vivid image of his brother's face before his undeserved demise crossed his mind again. "On some days, I...I remember Itachi, and all the things he had done for me and the village despite the immense cost. That's when the guilt cuts so deep. And then it makes me feel like redemption wasn't meant for me at all." Sakura’s eyes brimmed with tears. Although she has always known that he was a broken man due to losing his family horrendously at a young age, she had never seen him in such a state as if the injustice of the entire Shinobi world fell on his shoulders. Again, she felt honored that she got to witness that firsthand. But she didn’t want him to continue to dwell on that vulnerability.

"Forgiveness is available, Sasuke-kun. And so is hope.” She smiled faintly as her hand landed on top of his across the semi-filled table. “You just have to open up your heart for it."

Sasuke didn't know how to respond to that at first, for a part of him still believed that forgiveness is something that he has to work hard for, just like what he had been doing on his journey. But then, he gazed at the woman in front of her, and he was reminded of her love that he never even had to earn. Her love that he will never deserve. Her love that has always been there.

For such a long time it was just there, even during those moments that the Curse Mark consumed him, the Curse of Hatred changed him, and the drive for revenge destroyed him to the point of desiring to destroy others as well. And although he tried so hard to neglect and push that love away during his darkest days, it only waited and stayed. If such a love is possible, then forgiveness is available and hope is believable as well. Sasuke sighed, his eyes fixed on the hand above his. "You're right. There are things that I just have to accept after all. I understand now."

And then he gently pulled his hand so he could lace his fingers with hers. The gesture reminded him of that time he was bracing her hand for support while he was writhing in pain due to the tormenting effect of the Curse Mark – the very first time he welcomed any kind of comfort after the bloodshed of his entire family. This time, as his eyes met with her widened ones, he was welcoming her as a whole. He was accepting and reciprocating the love that's always been there even when he was most unlovable. And he was also finally completely receiving the forgiveness that has always been available for him – from the people closest to him, and also from himself.

———

(Karin - Part 7) 

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Hey guys! What do you think about this chapter? I kind of struggled writing this one because of some internal struggles as well. I think I’ve mentioned in one post before that I needed to take some time off of writing after experiencing a recent anxiety attack. But praise God, I still managed to get Part 6 done! :D

Please please let me know what you think! It’s always encouraging to hear from you. The past two weeks weren’t completely unproductive for the Epilogue of this is already done! ;) It’s much more difficult writing the middle parts, haha. Hence, Part 7 & 8 are still rough drafts as of now. Pray for me as I finish it! Thanks & God bless! 

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That last scene was inspired by the Love that I've personally experienced, the Love that you could experience for yourself too, the Love that we never even have to work hard for because it was made available to us for free despite the gravity of our sins that originally makes us bound to go to Hell.

And just like a gift, all we have to do is receive this Love, this then assures our redemption, and that we could be with the Author or Love for eternity in Heaven one day. It's been the best decision I've ever done since I've accepted Jesus as my Lord and Saviour. And more than the joy you give me whenever you read my fics, my heart would absolutely rejoice with you when the time comes that you decide to accept this Love as well :)

"This is real love—not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins." — 1 John 4:10

It's the Love Month after all. And I believe the greatest gift I could possibly share with y'all is this Love. Belated Happy Valentine's Day, friends. :) See you on the next chapter! – A

[atruelioness]

and ooh, it’s good to know...

i never thought i’d be writing this. i was going to leave it at 3 and done. i like 3. 3 is nice. 3 is neat. 3 is trinity. i figured that was all i would have to say anyway. that my confession would somehow lead to liberation and then would come love, then marriage, then baby carriage bc what else is marriage sex for?

anyway. 

soundtrack: amerie - just like me (on repeat).

“for somebody, somebody who��s just like me...”

i’m listening to old songs again to remember who i am. i used to be a woman so inside of herself that all she had to do was think and there it was. the truth.

now it seems like i have to search and surrender and sacrifice and scream from the mountaintops just for anything to be or feel or manifest itself as true. well, not anymore. i freed myself and broke chains all by myself or whatever beyonce and kendrick said as they were splashing barefoot through puddles.

i meant to password protect this. partially because i doubt you even read this. just like my IG stories. just like my book i sent you. just like everything i do that’s usually for a man’s ego and not his heart because naivety. mreeuh said stop using that word bc it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy but i say it because sometimes truth is the light you need to shine to dispel darkness.

plus i’m tired of hiding. my feelings. my heart. myself. man up and recognize a real one when you see her. or read her.

“somebody, somebody who feels like me.”

GOD WHAT IS THIS ALL FOR? i’m tired. i’m tired of loving with a heart with no sense of direction or GPS and making all the wrong turns that have me ending up exactly where i need to be each and every time like a pinned tweet.

can you be real without me fucking up first? can love be real without the frontin and denying and triangulation and abuse and emphasized and loved texts but never a text out of the blue (pun fucking intended and dismissed) to see how i am doing while i pray and basically ascend you and raise you as a king only for you to randomly and spontaneously sweat everyone but me so hard that they themselves have to question why you’re so obsessed with them. wyd?

like, no really, wassup with you? can i invoice you for all this wasted time because i could really use the money to get out of the situation i was never planning to get up out of in the first place. like, i get it. mans a huge fucking wasteman. huge bloodly bloodclaat pussyhole eediat. i get it get it or whatever drake said.

“that there’s somebody... there’s somebody, somebody who loves like me.”

but what was the point of being rescued only to wind up on the white horse by myself? i guess i could have rescued my damn self so i did but i keep giving credit where none is due. just like the logos i placed on that flier for no reason for people who would style me in a second, i built an entire throne in my heart and placed you on it just to get someone else off only to find that you never set it in anyway. you too busy being whoever the fuck you are when you’re not being the man of my dreams which seems to be any time spent outside of my own head which is why i wasn’t with the shits in the first place.

but hardhead. but hopeful romantic. but God. yeah yeah, ye ye ye. burn har like a burna boy song. do whatever makes your ego feel amazing because i guess all of m y love and and prayers and accolades and whatever the heaven i was doing was just me being a spiritual schoolas again and not a grown ass woman.

GOD NO REALLY WYD?

i’m ignoring every call and text and DM and email of my narcissistically abusive ex-lover for my possibly narcissistic crush to lead me on a long journey to nowhere. i say nowhere because how in the world could you get that close to love and decide you wanna subtweet her and the God she serves?

who are you and why did i ever think you were the One? what kinda illusion, what in the obeah, what kind of rice water did you dip your face in to come up with that one? who sent you so I can ship you right back to sender?

okay that was mean. but didn’t they tell you that i was a savage? didn’t your wife tell you that we could be heartless, regardless, of our conscience? women that is. i’m not upset or bitter so much as i am perplexed and disappointed.

do you know what i went through to trust you? i still have the worn out magazine. i still have a thousand blue items strung around my home. i still have this memory pressed inside of my head of how it felt to finally release that night to your music and how you felt like the only pure energy in the room. how i knew exactly what to do and where to sit even if i didn’t know what to say. how you were always where i could see you and how all of our favourite songs were playing. how i placed khanzi in your lap only to come out and find him in someone else’s. how many people have it twisted and still don’t get it.

“i’ve waited so long, for somebody who can do it like me.”

i don’t even wanna write about it anymore. i don’t want to spend another second on anything that isn’t real or God or love or all of the above.

i took it far enough to know i don’t need to take it any further. i went through this already. with so many others. didn’t i tell you? did i not recite jhene aikos stranger perfectly and wasn’t sparks will fly w. jcole about.... ? nah. no more.

never again. because next time i will be sure.

because i am a true lioness. because i don’t come easy. because i am a girl like this, in a world like this. because i’m a bbc queen, star.

what hapn to you?

i guess we’ll never know.  this is not me giving up, btw. this is me not giving in. to temptation. being delivered. not from evil, but still. amen. mentally and socially and culturally and verbally and spiritually preparing for africa. i said 2021 but jah9 said kenya 2020 and i’m like you know what, that could work. i just wanted to see vision 2020 come true for jamaica. i know i said forever, but 3 stacks said forever never feels that long until you’re grown.

and i’m a grown ass woman. again. there’s a song about this you’ll never listen to: xavier omar - grown woman. another xavier omar - blind man. and hours spent loving you (spzrkt).

“waited all my life, for somebody like... somebody who’s just like me.”

i mourn all the songs i’ll never get to play for you. i mourn all the locs i’ll never get to play in. i mourn khanzi and mocha’s play dates. i mourn those navy blue shorts and what i accidentally almost felt was in them and how for some reason in that moment i wasn’t shy whatsoever, and all the unspeakable things i did in the name of love and liberation.

by mourn i mean listen to r&b lol. by mourn i mean... damn, bruh. 

maybe next lifetime.

i’m not with ntn. just God alone.

still love you. but yeah, bless.

💙

[marshmallowgoop]

Ryuko: Senketsu, if I go too far, I’ll need you to stop me.

Senketsu: I cannot promise that. It is you who is wearing me.

Ryuko: Sheesh, you’re an outfit that doesn’t have much give, you know that?

Senketsu: But when you were out of control, you did stop. Using your own willpower. That is why I am not frightened in the least.

Ryuko: Gotcha. We’re all responsible for our own actions.

I’ve written pretty extensively on Ryuko and Senketsu’s relationship and why I think it’s so healthy, positive, and commendable (to put it mildly). But I don’t think I’ve focused enough attention on the above scene from episode 13, “Crazy For You,” which is a particularly strong example of the merits of Ryuko and Senketsu’s partnership.

On a surface level, the moment emphasizes and is utterly dedicated to the importance of good and proper communication---something especially noteworthy in a series that even describes itself as having a “lightning pace” (episode 16). By focusing so heavily on Ryuko and Senketsu’s conversation, there’s a considerable significance placed on talking to and being honest with a friend; the message is clearly and unambiguously that in any close relationship, it’s absolutely crucial to be open and truthful with one another. Otherwise, you’re not going to get along well. As Mako puts it earlier in the episode, you’ll just be “glarin’ at each other.”

Of course, a scene devoted to the positive effects of strong interpersonal skills probably doesn’t seem all that groundbreaking, but in an action-comedy anime, I love the inclusion of such a thing. It would have been so easy to gloss over emotions and provide viewers with over-the-top battles and little else, but Kill la Kill decided to breathe some real life and soul into Ryuko and Senketsu’s teamwork. The two of them have to endure hardships and struggles just like any real relationship, and just like in any real relationship, they have to work through those hardships and struggles to come back together.

More on that line, the moment is also remarkably humanizing---and sweet---for Ryuko. Throughout the episode, Ryuko hides her guilt and self-hatred behind flimsy assurances that she’s all right and explosive anger and rage. She smiles reassuringly at Mako’s mother, Sukuyo, and she yells fiercely at Shinjiro Nagita, but in the end, she finally, finally reveals everything on her mind to Senketsu. We’re then left with a character who is far more than an infallible hero or the “straight-up punk” that she describes herself as (episode 8); Ryuko is a flawed, complicated human being whom viewers can readily empathize with, and, as a result, it’s incredibly endearing to see her let down her walls and allow someone into her heart. 

Kill la Kill comes off as a strangely affecting and memorable series due to all this narrative weight placed on real-life emotions and feelings while the characters inhabit a world that’s one of the most ridiculous to ever be put on screen, and when it comes to the included scene at the top of this post, I think that’s a phenomenal thing. Because that scene? It’s also wonderful when you consider the history of how relationships have been portrayed in fiction.

While Ryuko and Senketsu are far from the “norm,” it’s not at all uncommon for a fictional story to imply that it’s essentially one person’s “responsibility” to keep another person in line. In the article “The Vulnerability of the Relational Self: The Implications of Ideals of Gender and Romance for Female Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence,” author Elizabeth McManaman Grosz discusses this topic at length, arguing that “the notion that a special woman can tame the beast” and “is thus, in a way, responsible for controlling his beastly nature” is one of the widespread cultural discourses that effectively “primes” women to accept and brush off instances of abuse (81, 88). 

Again, of course, I recognize that, in many ways, Ryuko and Senketsu really don’t have any place in Grosz’s argument. For one, Grosz exclusively utilizes the work of Western authors and philosophers to support her position, and entire other books have been written concerning Japan’s ideals of gender and romance and their implications and effects (believe me, I’m in the midst of reading through just some of said books). On top of that, the fact that Ryuko would be taking the place of the “man” in the situation I screenshotted for this post does question the applicability of Grosz’s article here.

But I find Grosz’s thesis compelling in regards to Kill la Kill because, in a lot of ways, Ryuko and Senketsu do rather embody typical positions of men and women in fictional stories both East and West... except, the roles are reversed. Ryuko is the unruly, aggressive, and hot-blooded protagonist just as a man often is, and Senketsu exhibits many traits that are traditionally associated with women; he’s sensitive, emotional, and a considerable worrywart. Further, while I find the term “love interest” both degrading and unfitting for Senketsu in a series that Word of God denies any romantic intention for, I have to admit that he fits many of the conventions. In an anime with a cast primarily composed of women, the fact that Senketsu is arguably coded as male makes him, just as the standard heteronormative “love interest,” the most narratively significant character of another gender in the show (for just a few other examples, see Ran from Detective Conan, Sam from Danny Phantom, Katara from Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon). Whether I’m watching an anime or an American cartoon, I don’t think I’d be too surprised to see a scenario like the one from the end of Kill la Kill’s thirteenth episode, where a man tells a woman that he’s afraid of losing control and needs her to be there for him so that he doesn’t.

What makes Kill la Kill different is more than the simple reversal of roles, though; Kill la Kill also reverses the harmful implications of this standard set-up. Instead of it being Senketsu’s “job” to “lead [Ryuko] to ‘moral decency,’” as philosopher Immanuel Kant noted a woman must do for a man in the late eighteenth century and of which Grosz argues is an ideal continued on even to this day (such as in sports culture, as elaborated upon in Susan Bordo’s The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and Private), Senketsu outright tells Ryuko that she must be in control of herself (qtd. in Grosz 87). It’s not Senketsu’s responsibility to keep Ryuko from abusing him, and the fact that both understand and acknowledge this is, well, good. Senketsu is not going to write off or blame himself for any mistreatment he receives from Ryuko because he feels he failed in “pleasing” her, and Ryuko’s ending sentiment that “[w]e’re all responsible for our own actions” indicates that she feels the same way towards him. Both Ryuko and Senketsu are cognizant of each other’s emotions and needs, and they will not allow abuse to continue without a word about it, as is sadly often the case in reality (Grosz 95).

It would still be nice to have an actual situation in which a man is in the standard “man” position, but I’m happy to see anything like this at all. Abuse and mistreatment are seriously discussed, the responsibility for poor behavior is placed solely on the actor rather than the receiver, and the fact that this kind of moment receives so much focus in the first place absolutely signifies the importance and power of proper communication with a loved one. Ryuko and Senketsu are my most favored relationship in all of fiction, and it’s scenes like this that really emphasize why.

Sources

Bordo, Susan. The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999.

Grosz, Elizabeth McManaman. “The Vulnerability of the Relational Self: The Implications of Ideals of Gender and Romance for Female Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence.” Women's Studies, vol. 47, no. 1, 2018, pp. 80-97. 

Kant, Immanuel. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. Translated by Victor Lyle Dowdell. Southern Illinois UP, 1978.

Kant, Immanuel. Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime and Other Writings. Edited by Patrick Frierson and Paul Guyer. Cambridge UP, 2011. 

[misterbitches]

unpop opinionz abt bl or just my opinions. that may or may not be popular. stream of consci. no one has to care or read. i will  do this whenever i like or when i am drunk and/ or high. like now. i do tharntype + sotus, uwma, lbc, and MODC...and long ass writing and spoilers so if u stumble it aint my problem

tharntype:

some user on here blocked me cos i said rape is bad*. and it is. and it’s stupid. and not done right it has no place in these writers, who really cannot write, or producers hands. it’s easy for people to judge it because it allows itself to be judged. and bl doesn’t fix its own issues. it just keeps perpetuating. when you gain an ounce of respect for women mayhaps that will change and we fuck up all that misogynist shit in our brains (FREE YR MIND)

but anyways i skipped til like ep 6. i barely know what the storyline is and id ont care. it isnt that interesting. they’re not great actors but i like the look of that bigger one. together their chemistry is fun i wouldn’t say like....as deep as i would like but watching them is nice

(this is where the wife/husband thing is relevant. i watched 6 - 13 a lot. so the father saying “as long as you’re not the wife i’m ok with ur HOMOSEXUAL rship then” but it turns out his son was the “wife” and guess what? that’s gross. if you can’t write female characters then leave us out of it.)

anyway i can see why people didn’t watch it. i say skip everything and see how they are together. the skinnier one is not as good w like idk. being seductive? but he’s fun to watch lol. together they are nice. i really enjoyed watching their dynamic.

some of the kissing was a lot but not in a bad way. i think if they had a deeper connection i would feel it more. but i saw gifs of them and piqued my interest and i clicked(footnote 2)

 the actors as themselves and whatever their rship is fun to watch..i read some UNSAVORY things about one of the actors with another dude in another show but whatever.

hm what else....yea the show is ok. theyre not great actors. cute together. sometimes when they kiss there was way too much like breathing jesus christ shut up. they totally could have done some inverted tropes but they didnt bc why would they.

a...c? c-? i give it? maybe that. people who had some criticism for it were right (like me :P) idk why i got BLOCKED cos i was JUST SAYING. rape in a story for no reason or as a startoff for lust is ridiculous. disgusting. i wont ever shut up about it. it helps no one and doesn’t help the gay community (can go down a rabbit hole here, too)

C- (this is generous but D+ seemed kinda mean...)

sotus + sequel:

idk why but i’ve seen some things flaoting around about the light guy. idk if they are true or not. i did not like that. i saw this before i read those tho (abt him not being comfortable)

this is what im talking abt...and this is where gmmtv will fail. but most bls. they’re CLEARLY worth something. they make money. the actors are a draw for others. i am not a thai citizen nor a thai teen so but i am assuming many get popular. this is because there’s a formula that is almost always stuck to. i am guessing that the channel is a public broadcast (not an HBO type) so there has to be more censorship

i LOVE seeing what countries with less production $ or a more current industry, (like in SEA tho ppl hav ebeen making revolutionary art foreverrrrrr don tforget there’s more than dramas) create. there’s less money and stuff and maybe the editing isnt good or a certain way the drama is shown is very particular and not always appealing. i am nigerian, i respect that shit. nollywood is that shit too.

and as people ge tmore $ for prods or more public support they get better (i cannot emphasize how MUCH BETTER SOUND HAS GOTTEN FOR THAI SHOWS OMG dramas in general but)

so sotus kind of suffers from lower prod quality. but also the acting is bad. sorry it is. i like the darker guy (sorry im too lazy to google names but...singto? right? hes a good photographer) and he has gotten better or wil get better i think but. yea. terrible acting lol

also like...u can tell that other dude wasn’t totally comfortable or they just didnt know each other enough. i don’t know. it was very much two guys standing next to each other now like kiss once. the reluctance to show like affection even in private settings is BONKERS TO ME. literally it’s like these men have the most sterile rships and that is suchhhh an issue in BLs, particularly the thai i guess. 

tbh if the storyline was better and if they had more chemistry it would be better to me. i know ppl love it, i dont really get it lol...their kisses r ok...idk it’s like a waste of time. i’ve tried watching it like 1000000 times 

thats all i have for now 

*im oversimplfying. i think it was bc ppl were being harsh. but any excucses people want to use the fact is that....rape bad and that’s stupid ok. but it sucks cos i wanna rt their gifs sometimes but nope lMAO

i know im not wrong so...

lbc, uwma, modc: 

I LITERALLY CANNOT WATCH THESE ACTORS. I’M SORRY  I CANNOT. THEIR FACES MAKE ME FURIOUS OR THEIR ACTING. I DONT KNOW WHY. i am shocked i dont totally hate saint bc i abhorred the character in LBC and like. every ounce of it. i dont rly like taht small dude from uwma (the past s/l?) i just cant w his face, and modc...omfg....the guy was so fucking SICK LOOKING

this is where footnote 2 comes in: if i cannot handle ur fucking face i will hate the drama. the secondary char in tharntype like the highschooler? oh my god i wanted to die too but like. shit. i wouulda watched for teamwin but that was barely there. and i could not get through modc. the couple with the age gap is gross, and i lit cannt look at this hot-ass big guy making out with a stick that dies

i cant be the only one. i didn’t like uwma dude’s face in the other drama he was in either. i like him as a person. maybe if i could see him do something else. ...

oh this is also why the first 2 moons....i hated...pha’s....whole.....existence. his face, his attitude, fuck. maybe it’s the playing up the femininity part of someone but then having them being a fuckin doormat. sad cos in lbc and modc the main love interests i like. but they’re also stupid. and just. god. stupid fuckin rships.

too much emphasis is put on love as The Thing but they can’t even exhibit love the way they should. idk what im SAYING IT’S JUST WORDS

had sth else to jot down but i forgot i may update this and remind meself

[pope-francis-quotes]

19th August >> (@ZenitEnglish By Deborah Castellano Lubov) #Pope Francis #PopeFrancisMessage to Annual #Rimini #Meeting ‘This is origin of profound joy that nothing & no one can take away from us: our name is written in the heavens, & not for our merits, but for a gift that each of us received w/ Baptism #meeting19 @meetingrimini

Pope Francis’ Message to Annual Rimini Meeting (Full Text)

‘This is the origin of the profound joy that nothing and no one can take away from us: our name is written in the heavens, and not for our merits, but for a gift that each of us received with Baptism’

On the occasion of the 40th annual Meeting for Friendship among Peoples, which opened Sunday in the Italian city of Rimini on the theme “Your name was born from what you gaze upon,” Pope Francis sent a message, through the Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, to the Bishop of Rimini, Francesco Lambiasi. The meeting closes later this week.

Here is a ZENIT working translation of the message:

* * *

To His Most Reverend Excellency,

Monsignor Francesco Lambiasi, Bishop of Rimini

On the occasion of the 40th Meeting for Friendship Among People, I am pleased to send the greetings and best wishes of the Supreme Pontiff to you, the organizers, volunteers and all those who will take part in it.

The theme chosen this year is taken from a poem by St. John Paul II, referring to St. Veronica, who makes her way through the crowd to dry the face of Jesus on the Way of the Cross: “Your name was born from what you gaze upon” (K. Wojtyła, “III. The Name”, in Id., Tutte le opere litterarie, Milan 2001, 155). Servant of God, Don Luigi Giussani, thus commented on this poetic verse: “Let us imagine the crowd, Christ passing with the cross, and her staring at Christ and opening a gap in the crowd, looking at him. Everyone looks at her. She who had no face, was a woman like the others, she acquired a name, that is a face, a personality in history, for which, we are still remembering, for what she was staring at. […] To love, is to affirm the other “(La Convenienza Umana della Fede, Milan 2018, 159-160).

“He was looked at and then he saw; […] if he had not been looked at, he would not have seen “(St. Augustine, Discorsi, 174, 4.4), says St. Augustine about Zacchaeus. This is the truth that the Church has been announcing to man for 2000 years. Christ loved us, He gave his life for us, for each of us, to affirm our unique and unrepeatable face. But why is it so important that today, this announcement resound again? Because so many of our contemporaries fall under the blows of life’s trials, and find themselves alone and abandoned.

They are often treated as statistics numbers. Think of the thousands of individuals who flee wars and poverty every day: first of all, they are faces, people, names and stories. We must never forget it, especially when the culture of waste marginalizes, discriminates and exploits, threatening human dignity.

How many are forgotten and urgently need to see the face of the Lord in order to find themselves again! The man of today often lives in insecurity, walking as if groping, alien to himself; he seems to have no more consistency, so much so, that he easily lets himself be gripped by fear. But then, what hope can there be in this world? How can man find himself, and hope? He cannot do it only through reasoning or strategy. Here then is the secret of life, that which brings us out of anonymity: to fix our gaze on Jesus’ face and become familiar with Him. Looking at Jesus purifies our sight and prepares us to look at everything with new eyes. Meeting with Jesus, looking at the Son of Man, the poor and the simple found themselves, they felt loved deeply by a love without measure.

Let’s think of in the book I promessi sposi when ‘the Innominato’ is found before Cardinal Federigo, who embraces him: “The Innominato, melting from that embrace, covered his eyes again with one hand, and, raising his face, together they exclaimed:” God [is] really great! God [is] really good! I know myself now “(A. Manzoni, I promessi sposi , Milan 2012, 481). We too have been looked at, chosen, embraced, as the prophet Ezekiel reminds us in the wonderful allegory of the love story with his people: “You were the daughter of strangers, you had been put aside; but I have passed and I have cleaned you and taken you with me “(Ezek 16). We too were “foreigners”, and the Lord came, gave us an identity and a name.

In an age where people are often faceless, anonymous figures because they have no one, to lay their eyes on, the poetry of Saint John Paul II reminds us that we exist because we are in relationship. Pope Francis loves to emphasize this by referring to the Gospel of Matthew, his original vocation: “One day like any other, while he was sitting at the tax collection desk, Jesus went by and saw him, came up and said to him: “Follow me.” And he got up and followed Him. Jesus looked at him. What a force of love the gaze of Jesus had to move Matthew as he did! What strength those eyes must have had, to make him stand up! […] Jesus stopped. He did not pass by hastily, but looked at him without haste, looked at him in peace. He looked at him with eyes of mercy; looked at him like no one had looked at him before. And that look opened his heart (Homily, Plaza de la Revolución, Holguín [Cuba], 21 September 2015).

This is what makes the Christian a presence in the world different from all others, because it brings the announcement of which – without knowing it -men and women of our time are more thirsty: it is among us, the One who is the hope of life. We will be “original” if our face is the mirror of the face of the Risen Christ. And this will be possible if we grow in the awareness to which Jesus invited His disciples, like that time after having sent them on mission: “The 72 returned full of joy” for the miracles performed; but Jesus says to them: “Rejoice rather because your names are written in heaven” (Lk 10:20-21). This is the miracle of miracles. This is the origin of the profound joy that nothing and no one can take away from us: our name is written in the heavens, and not for our merits, but for a gift that each of us received with Baptism. A gift that we are called to share with everyone, without exception. This means being missionary disciples.

The Holy Father Francis hopes that the Meeting will always be a hospitable place, where people can “assign faces,” experiencing their own unmistakable identity. It is the most beautiful way to celebrate this anniversary, looking forward without nostalgia or fears, always supported by the presence of Jesus, immersed in His body which is the Church. The grateful memory of these four decades of hard work and creative apostolic work can arouse new energies, for the witness of faith open to the vast horizons of contemporary urgencies.

His Holiness invokes the maternal protection of the Virgin Mary and, from his heart, sends his Apostolic Blessing to Your Excellency and to the entire community of the Meeting.

I add my personal good wishes and take advantage of the circumstance to confirm to you, my sense of distinct homage.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin

Secretary of State

[Original text: Italian] [Working Translation by ZENIT Sr Vatican Correspondent, Deborah Castellano Lubov]

19th AUGUST 2019 13:10PAPAL TEXTS

[agron-rps]

just finished you and w o  w what a wild ride that was.

if you haven’t watched any of you, please don’t read below the cut. i’m not going to post play by play spoilers, but if you’ve seen any of the show leading up to the final two episodes, you might be able to guess the ending based on the tone of my rambings.

i am horrified. i am disturbed. i am sickened. i am at a loss.

i knew everything that was going to happen in the finale and yet i still sat there shaking my head and holding my breath hoping and praying for a different ending that never came. i was on edge the whole last eight or so minutes of “candace” and even now having finally finished “bluebeard’s castle” i still am. because this was a lifetime series led by the same people that created riverdale, i had low expectations but i was hooked by episode 2. the writing, the plot as a whole at the end and holes in the plot (like why did no one question where benji was the whole time, did anyone look into what happened to the other you know who in the finale, or why beck didn’t do what we all would have done in that situation if given the chance -- if you watched, you’ll know what i mean) /questions that the final minute of the finale raised wasn’t the best (like seriously... how??? would??? he??? not??? know??? or??? be??? surprised??? the way the line was phrased didn’t make sense to me unless it’s just joe being joe and the lines between reality and fantasy are blurred again), were annoying for all their various reasons but FUCK did penn and elizabeth actually blow me away in those 47 minutes. her entire performance in the finale was captivating for me, as was his (i got used to him and his creep factor throughout the show so wasn’t really expecting more but he brought it, fam. especially the last couple minutes that were a direct callback to the first minutes of the pilot - fucking CHILLS and it made my stomach turn.) because besides episode 4 we never really got a real taste of beck and who she really was of a person. we were only seeing what joe wanted to see in her up until the bitter end of season 1. we only saw his rose colored glasses with green and red tints version of her. the one that just showed and voiced his obsession with her beauty, body, and the “perfect” nature he imagined. it showed her having no real humanity or any real substantial emotion other than love towards him. i wish we could have seen more of her personality, not sexuality, throughout the series. learned more about her past. heard more of her stories and poems and explored her creativity. instead she ended up being this bland archetype and i think that’s why a bunch of people didn’t really connect with her. and with that being said, it’s funny how out of their way the writers went to make joe relatable.

i understand he’s the main character and that the story is ultimately about him. i understand they want you to see the persona he puts on v. the REAL joe that is kept behind closed doors or in the woods or dark alleys. i understand they want to emphasize that this could have been anyone. even the seemingly nice and introverted guy that works at a bookstore. and that’s fucking terrifying. but still. they gave us so many moments for us to laugh during his internal monologues/voice overs (they need to give dexter major props for that idea) or for us to try and fawn over him and root for him in moments where he’s being “sweet” or “romantic” towards beck and claims everything he does is out of pure love. they gave us moments where we could say he was a giant fucking MOOD when he was around benji or peach or had to run. they even gave us moments where they tried to make us sympathize with him and show that he’s human and went through some shit. 

but beck really didn’t get any of that, did she? funny how that happens, isn’t it? women characters being overlooked for their male counterparts and only being used for a plot device. also that HARDCORE VICTIM BLAMING FROM PEOPLE WHO’VE WATCHED THO. it’s honesty amazing that someone would blame beck for being stalked and manipulated because she was confident in her sexuality/”used” joe and then say she’s unlikabe and they don’t really care about what happened because she seems “shallow” and “self centered” it’s mind boggling.

 i’m not even going to say anything about her annika, lynn or especially peach because... the first two were literally irrelevant, poorly written (though i imagine because of joe’s warped and unreliable perception of them) and served basically next to nothing for the story except annika once for 2 seconds and i just don’t have anything to say about peach fucking salinger. a rant comparing her to joe and how she was made out to be just as manipulative and predatory is for another day because was that really what peach was like? or was joe so threatened by her that it was mostly if not all a facade that made us turn against her to make him look better? is that what happened with benji too? we honestly don’t know because joe can’t be trusted as a narrator due to his behavior and obvious bias (which is why he claims both were a problem in beck’s life so things must have been done about that) so you have to question everything. i now question everything.

also, my most spoiler-y moment for last because I’M UPSET: 

PACO WHY DID YOU DO THAT. I TRUSTED YOU. I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU. WE WERE ALL ROOTING FOR YOU. that was SUCH a fucking betrayal and i took it personally. as if the rest of the episode wasn’t already hard to watch (and maybe that’s because i watch a lot of true life crime documentaries/series and like i said before, joe could literally be anyone and so could his/her victims) that moment with him just left me speechless and I felt helpless. i need paco to fucking explain himself and apologize to me and women everywhere.

that’s it. goodnight.

[leah-jeffries]

I think the biggest thing that I looked forward to after Book Expo and Book Con was the launch party for Sarah Dessen’s ONCE AND FOR ALL at Books of Wonder. I had been on the fence about being able to go, but things worked out and I was so excited to also see both Jenny Han (ALWAYS AND FOREVER, LARA JEAN) and Jennifer E. Smith (WINDFALL) again. I knew that it was going to packed since it had been one of Sarah’s first appearances in NYC in a while and good gosh, I was right. 

I think that the Penguin staff had gone all out for the launch since the date (6/6) was also Sarah’s birthday. So there was a huge banner where people could write messages and take photos (w/photo-taking opportunities to hashtag them #SayYestotheDess), balloons, flowers, and cake (of which ran out before I could partake L) The energy in the bookshop was really buzzing and I could certainly feel the excitement everyone felt.

Once the three authors came out, the attendees sang a chorus of HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Sarah which really did seem to touch her and it was so nice to see how happy she was to be spending her birthday this way. Jenny sat in the middle of the three because it seemed that she was going to be moderating the panel, which I find so freaking awesome because she’s just so funny and always has a great repartee with whoever she talks to. She went over how Sarah’s book was about weddings, her own book had a wedding, and Jennifer’s book…had a lottery! If you were in that room, you could feel the ease at which these three authors were at while they talked – it was just so funny and easy going.

Jenny kicked off the event with what each of them would do if they won the Powerball lottery:

Jennifer: We’ve actually talked about this. Jenny thinks my ideas are impractical. I would wanna buy a little cottage in Scotland. I would want to give a lot to charity. I’d want to do random acts of kindness. And I would also just want to travel a lot. I travel a lot anyways, but I would wanna do even more and potentially in first class.

Jenny: Just for the record, it is impractical to have a cottage in Scotland when you could just go visit there and stay in a lovely hotel instead of committing yourself. What about you, Sarah?

Sarah: I would travel also. I was asked during one of these five hours’ worth of interviews where I’ve always wanted to go that I’ve never been. I’ve never been to Italy. I haven’t been to Europe since I was twelve. I was really afraid to fly for many years and so now I have a daughter and I don’t really wanna put an ocean between us and I’m just a little nervous about that. But she’s getting old enough for us to go. We’ve been watching MASTER OF NONE and now I’m just like we’ve got to GO. But I think the first trip for us is London – lottery or not. I feel like it’s user friendly for a nine-year-old moreso without the language barriers. I would definitely travel because I haven’t done that. I would just yank my kid out of school and pay for an awesome tutor because then I wouldn’t feel guilty about dragging her around the world with me.

Jenny: I have to say that these are very modest wishes.

I think one of the things I really love and admire about Jenny is that she can be so extravagant and have these beautiful and expensive things, but at the same time – she’s just so down-to-earth and relatable. If she had won the lottery, she would have wanted to start her own production company focused on stories about people of color and women (to which Sarah emphasized that Jenny would always best them). It’s an answer like this that just enforces why she became a NYT Bestseller and became so widely appreciated for both her thoughts and stories. They enforce the idea of #WeNeedDiverseBooks.

They went back to talking about Jennifer’s book and we heard a little more about what it was about. It’s pretty much about a girl who gets a lottery ticket for her best friend (who she’s obviously in love with) as a joke but he really ends up winning. If you have not read this yet or have yet to put it on your TBR pile, then do it now! It’s very much in the same essence as her bother novels and it just grounds you into realizing that things are more than romance (but romance doesn’t hurt). It was then that the news was dropped that WINDFALL as optioned for a movie which earned plenty of collective gasping and applause. I am very excited to see how it comes across film. Both Jenny and Sarah expressed their excitement for the news. Sarah, in particular, thought Jennifer had done a good job of showing what effect the lottery can have on someone and what dreams could really come from winning so much money. Jennifer talked a little more about what she had done as prepwork for WINDFALL (in terms of research). She spoke about the more research she had done, the more happy she was that she hadn’t won. When you get past the idea that there’s just so much money won, there’s also a grim side to it too. There are winners that have lost the money and gone broke and winners that were taken advantage of as well. However, she’d apparently done a questionnaire and asked multiple people what they would do if they won the lottery. She had been surprised by the responses, most of them being very big-hearted and generous. I imagine that if I won $140 million, I would definitely spend a million of it first and give half of it to my parents so they could live happily and without worry. What would you do if you won the lottery?

I think the conversation grew much more lighter when Jenny asked her second question: In a few words, describe your ideal bachelorette night.

Sarah: My wedding anniversary is actually June 10th. So my birthday is today and my wedding anniversary is 4 days later. We don’t ever celebrate our anniversary because it’s right after my birthday. But gosh, I had a really good bachelorette party for my actual wedding back in 2000. My friends from high school and some girls I’d made friends with since high school – we just went out and had a big dinner and went to a bar and danced. And we had this big joke that I had all these leis around my neck, or maybe they were bracelets. So at the bar, the deal was that I had to give these bracelets away to different boys…or men.

Jenny: Did you kiss them or no?

Sarah: No, it was a kiss on the cheek!

I couldn’t help but laugh as she talked about how there was a box of Polaroids (hidden away from her daughter ;)) of her kissing various people on the cheek that were not her husband. I do think that Sarah hit the nail on the head about the essence of bachelorette parties – that beyond the risqué plans that it’s a night about a woman and her friends having her last hurrah as an unmarried woman.

Jennifer: I’d go to the cottage in Scotland.

Jenny: That’s not a bachelorette party – that’s a writer’s weekend away in the woods…Mine would be like…Paris. We’d get a suite at the new Ritz and they would be photoshoots and cake.

Sarah: I want to be invited to this bachelorette party by the way.

And how do you follow up a question about your bachelorette party? Well, who would be your bridesmaids? I’d taken this to mean a whole, OH, WE WOULD BE YOUR BRIDESMAIDS! Like each other. Of course, Jennifer answered Jenny and Sarah automatically. Jenny was a little more extravagant with her picks, (Oprah, her sister, a few of her friends like Morgan Matson and Siobhan Vivian). I laughed when Jennifer countered this by saying she would have family and friends, but not Oprah because she probably wouldn’t be invited.

Sarah explained how she only had one bridesmaid because she had been to so many weddings that it was either pick one or have twenty people in her bridal group. But I couldn’t agree more with her fantasy picks of Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. This segued into Jenny asking about Sarah’s research on wedding planning since both she and Jennifer were impressed by the amount of detail that went into that side of the story – to which she confessed that she made up a lot of it, haha (especially the acronyms). She did mention that some details were from her own wedding and the planning that went into that for her. I mean, have you seen THE WEDDING PLANNER? Or even 27 DRESSES? But it was kind of fun to listen to her talk about the downsides of her wedding (like how hot it was in the Carolinas and uninvited people that her guests invited). Of course, then there was talk of Instagram and Pinterest and the pressures of having the perfect photo wedding that was not present back when Sarah got married (to which I felt like she was grateful for, XD).

I thought one of the most interesting tidbits was when she brought up how she had gone to her first wedding since writing ONCE AND FOR ALL and how she was very aware of the wedding planning aspect. The wedding had started an hour later since there was an accident on the highway and this would not have been a good thing for Natalie (the wedding planning mom in OAFA). She emphasized that since she knew what it was like to go through a wedding that she was far more sympathetic and enthusiastic about the endeavors of a bride (like how “This is a beautiful napkin.”). She just notices everything now.

AND THEN THEY TALKED ABOUT FOOD. What food they would have at their wedding:

Jenny: What are your visions for the food?

Jennifer: I would have funfetti cake. Just kind of your…standard…

Jenny: Carving station?

Jennifer: I’m just gonna have Jenny plan my wedding.

Sarah: Jenny would be a great wedding planner.

Jenny: I would definitely wanna do Korean food meets Southern. So there would be kalbi with the barbecue. You know…corn on the cob, potato salad, and that kind of thing. And a late night nacho bar.

Can Jenny and I just be friends? I want to go to her wedding and pretend to be Oprah and partake in pink champagne and a nacho bar where I would pile on the sour cream and cheese. Mmmmm. All of the food talk is making me hungry as I write this (even after having a cupcake and a turnover).

I think there was definitely a chorus of AWEs when Jenny asked Sarah about the first song she and her husband had danced to – which was AT LAST. When I think of that song, I think of two things entirely – it’s for cheesy moments on television, or it’s definitely for romantic moments like Sarah’s wedding which seemed really low-key despite the trials and tribulations she went through. She talked about their relationship and how they had gotten together in college, broke up a few times, and by 1989 – no one thought they were going to get married because they’d been together for so long. To me, that is a very fitting song.

And of course, she delved into the drama side of weddings – the bridesmaid that has to make it about herself, the crying, when something doesn’t go right – and she told us the most adorable story of when her daughter was four and she had been a flower girl. Sarah had given the people in the procession before her M&Ms to lure her daughter so that she wouldn’t stop or veer off the aisle – which earned a lot of laughs.

I was pretty sad when the discussion was coming to an end – but Jenny definitely ended with a great question:

Jenny: If you could pick your signature cocktail, what would you call it and what would be in it? I’ll start. (which earned a lot of ooh’ing and laughter)

Jenny: Mine would be…True Love Waits. And it would have a delicious raspberry – fresh raspberry with strained, no seeds and a premium vodka and a nice champagne on top and taste really refreshing and delicious.

Sarah: How am I supposed to follow that? I’m a wine drinker. So I would probably have a really nice wine and just call it…At Last. I’m not a signature cocktail drink. I would probably outsource that. My sister does that. She would do it for me. It’s fantastic.

Jennifer: I’m not a cocktail drinker either.

Sarah: She would have a really nice beer.

After that, there were a few questions from the audience that were written on index cards prior to the event starting which I will do a quick recap and talk about the conversations I found really interesting.

1.       Because they had all written a number of books, they were asked if they ever went back and read their old books.

a.        Sarah does not – her philosophy was that once the book is printed, there was nothing that she could go back and change. There’s so much time spent writing, editing, and copyediting that it would only make her wish she could go back and improve upon things she wasn’t 100% about. She told this hilarious story about being on a plane a while ago and her seat mate had asked her what she did for a living (trying to get her to divulge more and more information). When Sarah told him/her that she was a writer, she was asked if the book she was reading was written by her. The answer was no. I am constantly surprised by the way that people go through their thought processes and how they come to ask the questions that they ask.

b.       Jennifer expressed the same sentiment, especially as an editor as another job for her. For her, she spoke about how it’s hard to read anything that’s finished without wanting to do something to it.

c.       Jenny – being the only one that’s written series, she has to go back and read. She made a great point in saying that despite having three different series, she thinks of those separate books equating to one whole story which is definitely a concept that I’ve never realized until now.

2.       How do they feel about reviewers tagging them when reviewing their books?

a.       According to Sarah, there seems to be a lot of discourse about this. She said that she doesn’t often click on the links and learned that Googling yourself is like looking for your name on the bathroom wall. She expressed that she’s a curious person and would always have that urge. Because OAFA is her thirteenth book, the idea of negativity is easier to roll of her shoulders, but she still resists.

b.       Jennifer answered that she appreciates when people take the time to review her book, but she tends to not click and if she does, it’s just to read the first few sentences. I felt like a lot of authors would agree with her – that when a review is like…90-99% positive, it’s that fractional remainder that hits the hardest to a writer. I so agree with her because reading that sort of thing can become addicting and unhealthy. She equated that kind of moment to someone walking to her front door and just saying, “You suck.” It came off as great comedic timing, but at the same time – it’s so true.

c.       Jenny believed that reviews are meant for readers and not for authors to look at. She’s looked at reviews for some of her books before but does not make it a habit because of its ability to squander her enthusiasm for the rest of the series. There was a brief moment of laughter when she talked about reviewers who don’t leave the best reviews, but then show up at said author events. I didn’t even know that sort of thing happened!

d.       Sarah’s words of wisdom (borrowed from Meg Cabot) – You’re not a $100 bill, not everyone’s gonna want you. She led with an anecdote about how people had been complaining about how similar her books are to one another and when she wrote THE MOON AND MORE, she had meant it to be different than her other books. When that came out, people were also dissatisfied and frustrated with how different it was from her other works. SPOILER ALERT for THE MOON AND MORE – The girl and guy don’t end up together and Sarah expressed a sense of female of empowerment: the girl doesn’t need to end up with a guy in the end.

3.       What book did they write was their favorite and why?

a.       Sarah – To her, it was hard to pick a favorite since each one was a representation of a different part of her life and where she was at. But she did say that ONCE AND FOR ALL was special to her. After writing SAINT ANYTHING, she hadn’t been sure that she had another book left in her since she’d been writing for 20 years and all good things come in 12, but ONCE AND FOR ALL was just that bonus book that made her happy to be where she was.

b.       Jenny – SHUG was her very first book to be published and that probably had a special place in her heart.

c.       Jennifer – the same sentiment was expressed from her as Jenny – THE STATISTICAL PROBABILTY OF LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT (which is being made into a movie if you hadn’t heard! And it’s starring Hailee Steinfeld whom is an ultimate fav of mine).

4.       This question was to Jenny Han and Asian representation in teen lit (which I have a deep interest in ;)):

a.       She spoke about TATBILB and how it was something that she remained thoughtful about. She had the idea about a girl who wrote love letters to boys and how she wanted to cast the girl as an Asian American because she thought the idea had enough effervescence to it that people would be drawn to the idea. And she asked herself why the main girl couldn’t be Asian? Why did the story need to be relevant to the fact that the girl was Asian? This was a story about an American girl that just so happened to be Asian. She talked about the girls who came up to her and talked about how meaningful it was to them that there was an Asian character, but also girls who were not Asian that came to her and talked about how relatable Lara Jean was to them. Something that hit me really hard was Jenny’s whole goal behind TATBILB was that when someone walked into the bookstore that this Asian character was front and center on the cover. It was something that you couldn’t hide. As an Asian American girl, I found this so freaking important and even when I sit here writing thing and thinking back to that moment, I truly find myself bonding with this idea and just how thoughtful Jenny Han is. I am so happy that she and this series were so warmly and well-received because she has done so much for the diverse reading community as a whole.

After one last question, Jenny presented flowers similar to the ones on the cover of ONCE AND FOR ALL with the intention of having her throw them over her shoulder like a bride with a bouquet. I have to say that I love these sort of spontaneous (but not really spontaneous) things that transpire and it was so great to watch her do that to just round out her launch event. I will say that there is nothing to end an event than giving the birthday girl her birthday cake. When her cake was brought out to her and she made her wish, everyone was surprised to see that she had gotten frosting all over the top of her white dress. How can an event end anymore perfectly than this? Of course, Sarah seemed to brush it off and it was in such good humor that people wanted to make sure she was okay.

Once the signing line started, I was grateful that I was in the first ten so that I could leave sincem y commute is long. I had a fleeting moment with Sarah since I only had one book to sign and I loved chatting with Jennifer and Jenny because they’re both such personable and down-to-earth. I couldn’t help but mention to Jenny how much when she talks about the spot gloss on the covers of the new editions of THE SUMMER I TURNED PRETTY just because I’m in production and I totally understand the effect it has on a book’s aesthetic.

I left in such good spirits and it was another great event to remember for me. Were you at the same event? Let us know how your experience went!

[newsbiteswithjennysok]

Aug 6, 2019

1. “Southern Charm” star Shep Rosewon’t back down after mocking a woman for collecting cans on the streets of New York. On Monday night, Rose posted a video making fun of a woman sitting on the street next to several trash bags filled with cans. Although the woman covered her face with her hands, he recorded her anyway and can be heard saying: “Look at me. Nice cans! I mean, the cans you have!” He captioned his Instagram story, “I love double entendres. Yes she was camera shy. But she laughed.”After Rose shared the video, social media erupted with backlash.

 One Twitter user screen-recorded the video and posted itto emphasize disappointment in Rose’s behavior, writing: “Is this Southern Charm? … Cheap way to get ‘laughs’ from followers but there is nothing funny about homelessness. I’m DONE w/ him.” 

Rose responded to the fan in her Twitter comments by saying: “Omg. I offended you! Ok. Here’s the plan, sensitivity training 5 times a week. Then intensive therapy (hot yoga?) followed by a public flogging in the town square. Then i move to Siberia and live in an igloo for 4 months. At this point. I think I’ll be cleansed of your disapproval.”

To another commenter who expressed upset, Rose, unbothered, wrote on Twitter, “Unfollow then. No big deal.” Rose also refused to clarify what he considered comedic about the situation. “Doesn’t matter. You follow me. You can easily get out of the situation. It’s not a binding contract. I am not responsible for your happiness. If i miss the mark in your mind just keep scrolling,” he said. 

Bravo declined to comment.

2. Cameron Diaz truly took the plunge when she married Benji Madden. In a rare interview, Diaz spoke to InStyle about her very private marriage to the Good Charlotte rocker. “I don’t know if I was ready [when I got married], but I knew Benji was special. He’s just a good man,” she told the magazine of their 2015 nuptials. “There’s no bulls–t. It’s really refreshing. I’m really grateful for him. I like doing my own thing.” Diaz, 46, also said her marriage to Madden was “the best thing” to ever happen to her. “My husband’s the best. He’s the greatest human being, and he’s my great partner,” she shared. “Marriage is certainly hard, and it’s a lot of work. You need somebody who’s willing to do the work with you, because there’s no 60-40 in marriage. It’s 50-50, period. All the time.” The former actress — she officially announced her retirement from Hollywood in March 2018 — previously said she waited until 41 to get married because she hadn’t found the right person.“I think it’s a matter of I just hadn’t met my husband, you know? I had boyfriends before. And there’s a really, really distinct difference between husbands and boyfriends,” Diaz told pal Gwyneth Paltrow at a live event. “And I have a husband who is just my partner in life and in everything. Talk about two very different people! We are so different from one another, but we share the same values — we’re totally two peas in a pod. We are both just weird enough for each other.”

3. Jeff Bezos ditched last week’s pretentious Google Camp in Italy to meet girlfriend Lauren Sanchez’s parents, but the couple has apparently now jetted off to Europe to party with the elite.Billionaire Dreamworks founder David Geffen — who attended Google Camp, even giving Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom a rideon his $400 million yacht — posted a group photo to Instagram Tuesday morning that included both Bezos and Sanchez aboard the massive boat. “Having a great time in the Balearics,” Geffen captioned the picture, taken off the coast of eastern Spain. Also in the photo were Joshua Kushner and supermodel wife Karlie Kloss, ex-Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, agent Michael Kives and lawyer Lydia Gray Kives, and entrepreneur and oil heir Mikey Hess, who is reportedly engaged to Meghan Markle’s designer pal Misha Nonoo. Megayachts like Geffen’s — plus scores of private jets and gas-guzzling SUVs and sports cars — caused quite a stir at the three-day Google Camp, which was focused on climate change. Last week, instead of heading to the extravagant summit with the likes of Prince Harry and Oprah Winfrey, the Amazon honcho, 55, met Sanchez’s parents, Eleanor and Ray Sanchez. A few days later, he joined Sanchez, 58, as her ex Tony Gonzalez, who is the father of her 18-year-old son Nikko Gonzalez, got inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in Ohio.

4. One of the few women to hold an executive post at Tinder is suing parent companies IAC and Match Group as well as former CEO Greg Blatt for wrongful termination. Rosette Pambakian, Tinder's former Head of Communications, claims that Blatt barged into a hotel room after a 2016 holiday party and began 'forcibly groping [her] breasts and upper thighs, and kissing her shoulders, neck and chest.' This all happened 'without [her] consent' according to the lawsuit She states in the court filing, which was obtained by DailyMail.com, that she had been hiding from Blatt at the time of the alleged assault, retreating to the room after he said: 'I get hard every time I look at you. Let's get out of here.' Pambakian claims Blatt did apologize, but that her complaint was never fully investigated despite the fact that there were three witnesses present, including his executive assistant. She also notes that one day after Tinder's current CEO Sean Rad reported her allegations to executive at IAC and Match Group, 'Blatt exercised approximately 5 million stock options in Match Group, realizing over $44 million in value.' Pambakian claims that for the next two years she was 'marginalized, subject to additional harassing, offensive, and insulting behavior, put on administrative leave, publicly accused of consenting to her attacker’s advances, and finally, wrongfully terminated by Defendants' this past December. 

The company would not comment on this new filing, and instead referred back to a previous statement that addressed these allegations.

'The Match Group Board – with the assistance of experienced outside counsel from two nationally recognized law firms – promptly conducted a careful and thorough investigation under the direction of independent Board members, concluded, among other things, that there was no violation of law or company policy, and took appropriate action.'

Pambakian and other Tinder executives sued Match and IAC seeking $2 billion a year ago for allegedly bilking them by manipulating financial information to create a lowball estimate of Tinder's value.

She also detailed the alleged assault in that filing, which the company stated was 'meritless.'

The suit states that she informed 'Blatt and Chief Human Resources Officer, Ms. Nelson, about the reporter’s inquiry' into the allegations, and that her 'own perpetrator' told her to instead 'explain the ways Tinder combats sexual harassment, and to throw the reporter off the story.'

Blatt was later asked to resign his post because of the assault according to Pambakian, who says that Blatt told her she would need to 'sign something' in order for him to be able to stay in his position.

At the time, she had just refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

She was placed on leave in August 2018 after she and other employees filed their lawsuit, and terminated on December 18 via email.

'Upon information and belief, Defendants terminated Plaintiff in retaliation for speaking out against Defendant Blatt for his sexual misconduct and for participating in a lawsuit against the Company Defendants related to her stock options,' states the filing.

'As a result of these actions, Plaintiff was forced to surrender millions of dollars in equity granted to her as compensation for her work as an executive at Tinder.'

Pambakian is seeking damages to be determined at trial for eight causes of action, including: Negligence, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, Sexual Battery, Gender Violence, Ralph Act Violation, Negligent Misrepresentation, Wrongful Termination and Retaliation for Engaging in Protected Activity.

5. Tom Brady just finished his 20th Patriots training camp. The 42-year-old quarterback is taking this time to get his head back in the game while on a remote island in the Bahamas at a luxurious beach house with a fully-equipped gym and a practicing field. During his interview with Men's Health magazine, he spoke about getting ready for the next season, what he keeps in his fridge, and his pliability-focused workout routine.

Brady says he always starts with the massage table to get his muscles going for his workout. But while on the road, he never leaves home without his pliability roller.

'I use it always before my workouts—which is critical—and then always right after,' he said.

Then, he heads on over to the resistance bands and does drills such as squats, lunges, and some planks.

During his workout, he wore a shirt that said 'pliability' which he also said he 'does a lot of.'

The 16-time division champion says he tries to get in four to five workouts a week.

His favorite exercise? The butt blaster 'because it blasts my butt' and went on to say that he enjoys working out his legs. His glutes are his 'engine' which he adds he 'needs more of.'

[how2to18]

Having had a cup of hot tea and written a bit — my mind sweetens on life once again.

The mercurial aspect of me! Why is it so extreme? No drug, not even aspirin, and yet my mood is as different from what it was 45 minutes ago as the Himalayas are from the Sahara. Why? What does it mean? Am I so utterly a creature of my juices? Entirely? It would seem so.

— Lorraine Hansberry, from her journal entry titled “Puzzle” March 15, 1964

¤

A RAISIN IN THE SUN playwright Lorraine Hansberry is one of the most noted names in US theater history. And yet it is only now, more than five decades since her death in 1965 at age 34, that we are beginning to uncover her influence beyond the stage. As a journalist, Hansberry was a social justice warrior whose work brought her under FBI surveillance. She was an activist who took on the Kennedys (both John and Robert); associated with the likes of Paul Robeson, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, and Langston Hughes; and in her personal life, challenged conventional mores of race, gender, and sexual politics: she married a man, but identified as a lesbian.

Born on the South Side of Chicago, the daughter of Southern migrants, Hansberry grew up in the gap between the black bourgeoisie and abject poverty. Her move from the Midwest to the Great White Way forms scholar Imani Perry’s Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, an American odyssey and intimate portrait of an artist — young, restless, gifted, and black — at a crossroads between craft and justice; between life and dreams; between self-care and sacrifice.

“One of the great lessons from that period is what it really meant to invest one’s self in the struggle,” said Perry on the phone from her home in Philadelphia. “You think about how young she was when her passport was taken; she was under surveillance — this was her early 20s. Same with [W. E. B.] Du Bois, same with Paul Robeson. Now everybody loves Baldwin, but they were talking about him being too political after the deaths in ’68 when he was like: ‘I think we need to give up on this place.’ Then he wasn’t right anymore; he wasn’t smart anymore. You can say the same for King.

“But the point is, they were willing to give up everything for their investments and struggles for justice. We have to get to a way of celebrating not just their achievement, but their courage and their sacrifice because it really poses the question for us: What will we stand for? What are we willing to risk?”

¤

JANICE RHOSHALLE LITTLEJOHN: In the book’s introduction, you wrote that Hansberry’s “is a story that remains in the gap,” and you go on to discuss the various people who are going into those gaps to reveal who she was and her impact on culture. What is it about this particular time that has prompted this kind of interest in Lorraine Hansberry, her story and what it means to us now?

IMANI PERRY: A piece of it is definitely the renewed interest in black women’s history, in particular, and attention to the submerged histories of black women. Combined with the fact that she’s this figure who sits at the crossroads of so much: she identifies as a lesbian, she’s a woman who comes of age in Chicago in the midst of this period of intense discrimination and upheaval and migration. There’s all of these forces that are part of her identity and her story that are in some ways very similar to the kinds of questions we’re talking about now, whether it’s about the inequality — just this morning on Twitter there was this robust conversation about violence and racial inequality and policing in Chicago, all of which were central to her life — or this kind public conversation about intersectionality, and for her she’s trying to figure out feminism and sexuality, race, class.

All of these issues are at the forefront of our minds right now. On the one hand, she speaks to the moment, and on the other, she’s this incredibly well-known figure, the most widely read — arguably — black playwright in the history of the United States, and yet there isn’t that much known about her life. There’s a natural curiosity that hasn’t been fully satisfied.

Tracy [Heather Strain] did an amazing job with the documentary [Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart] giving us a picture of her life, and there’s just so much work to be done.

What kind of community has developed from those of you who have been exploring Lorraine Hansberry’s life? You mentioned Tracy Heather Strain along with others in the book. How often do you connect with each other to share stories or findings, or simply borrow from one another to fuel the work you’re each doing?

Working on her and being in a community with Tracy, [biographer] Margaret Wilkerson Sexton and [scholar] Soyica Colbert has been this extraordinarily beautiful experience. So often there’s this sense of competitiveness and selfishness and guardedness with respect to work on a figure, and my experience thus far is that we all have this sense of this being a collective endeavor in trying to give Lorraine her due. We have conversations. We did a panel together at the Schomburg [Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem] in the spring that was really wonderful. We all bring different emphases to our work, so there’s room for many books about her. I’m also excited about the different sides of her that will emerge from the different bodies of work. Given how intensely competitive academia can be this is such a beautiful, refreshing experience to work with people where everybody is really motivated by the work and not self-aggrandizement or selfishness.

In the book, you do draw some of your personal parallels that you feel have connected you with Lorraine’s story. Can you talk a bit about those similarities? And, to piggyback on that, as you were “looking for Lorraine,” were you able to gain any insights on yourself?

Certainly, the kind of space she occupied between the radical left and black working-class life and bohemian counterculture, all those spaces were very familiar to me — and really the environment I came of age in — so she was always this figure to me that felt like the reflection of the kind of coming-of-age experience that I was having. But I think actually working on her, more than the stuff about identity and where she was situated, but her dispositions, the sense of restlessness, this feeling of wanting to do everything and feeling kind of all over the place and being so overwhelmed by passion to do this project and that project, I really identified with that. My tenderness toward her — seeing how she was very self-critical in a way that I can tend to be self-critical — actually allowed me to have more tenderness toward myself; to not see this sense of hunger to explore as a weakness, but one of the many kinds of dispositions that people who are trying to live the life of the mind and are trying to do something good in the world can have. It wound up being, and was not intended as such, a very affirming process.

You mentioned earlier Lorraine’s migration story, which you discuss in the book, and how her upbringing — being the daughter of parents who migrated from the South; her father’s activism while still being part of the black bourgeoisie — not only shaped Lorraine’s social and political views, but also inspired her art.

It’s one of the things that is such a sign of her sophistication and maturity well beyond her years — because she died at 34 years old. Her parents were very much traditional mainstream civil rights bourgeois black people, and she has a very different set of politics: she’s on the far left, she’s radical, she’s unconventional. And yet, she really has a great deal of respect and appreciation for the labor of her parents — and in particular her father — for their struggles and their commitment to black people. I find it really intriguing and also useful as a model to think about how she could have a different set of politics and yet see a real value and integrity that motivated the work that they did. She was a communist and a socialist, and at points anticapitalist and not patriotic, and yet she understands her family’s efforts at accumulation were still an effort of racial uplift. That I thought was really powerful.

In terms of seeing her as a child of migration, and this is one of those pieces that certainly resonated — although I was born in the South — but feeling the proximity of a migration story, and I always think of Chicago — actually to echo Langston Hughes’s poem that forms the title of A Raising in the Sun — is this site of the dream deferred. There’s a deep anger and also a melancholy that she carries that is really at the heart of it; both about the aspiration that this was going to be better and the reality of how deep racism and inequality were in Chicago.

That finds itself in both the way she talked about migration and what it ultimately didn’t provide, and also in the way she talked about her father’s journey and how he spent his whole life doing things the “right way” and then dies embittered in Mexico. He ultimately gives up on the United States. That, to me, is something that’s very much a sign of her as a second-generation migrant — and I often use the language of immigrants when I talk about migrants because we don’t talk about migrants as such, but it really is a profound displacement and rearrangement of one’s life. There’s something powerful about her in that role generationally that comes out repeatedly in her work.

There’s a scene in the book in which you describe the white mobs that frequently harass the Hansberrys in Chicago, and “that the failure of police to protect black residents from white mobs was to be expected,” but that “what Lorraine meditated upon with some frustration was gender,” and that seems evident throughout the book. Although race and class were issues in which she was politically and artistically involved, was there a burden for her in being a woman?

It’s complicated. On the one hand, she very clearly identifies as a feminist and is also very explicit about the particular burdens that black women bear. But there’s also a way in which she is really chafing against not just gender roles, but sometimes I read her deep identification with male writers and male activists as almost a real frustration about being confined to the spaces that women were traditionally confined to. So sometimes it feels like there’s a little hitch in her feminism. [Laughs.] That’s one of the great things about being in her archive because you see all of these characters who start as women or stories that begin centering around women and then she changes the protagonists to men over and over again, and I feel like I know why she’s doing that. Partially it’s because it’s the way that genders work in a society, but it also, for me, complicates her feminism. These characters do become more believable as men, but what’s the cost of not having women at the center in that way?

Many of her early influences while she was in college were also men: Seán O’Casey and Frank Lloyd Wright and Carlos Mérida. Not only were they people from whom she drew artistic inspiration, but she also admired them for the way they could unapologetically live and move in the world.

There are a couple of figures she’s less explicit in talking about their influence but obviously Gwendolyn Brooks and Alice Childress — and the Brooks thing is interesting because she seems to me to be so influential and Hansberry didn’t talk about that at all, which is surprising. It may have been more about politics than anything because Hansberry was a radical before Gwendolyn Brooks became more radical, so her influences did tend to be men.

At the same time in her work, even when men were the central characters, she was very critical of men and masculinity, so she brings a feminist lens; there’s a feminist critique going on.

If you think of her in Les Blancs, which is one of the earliest versions of an anti-colonial play, and technically unfinished, is a really strong critique of patriarchy and ideals of masculinity there, and it’s the character who is a queer man who has the greatest courage and integrity in the story. Les Blancs is not often read in that way, but I really think it’s a very strong critique of patriarchy, and even in A Raisin in the Sun Beneatha’s suitors are; even Joseph Asagai — the character who is some ways very much Hansberry’s voice as much as Beneatha’s — is still a critique of his sexism even though he’s someone who carries a lot of her political ideas in a more sophisticated way than Beneatha is doing.

All that to say, it’s complicated.

As was Hansberry. As you lay out in the chapters, be it her time in college, her political leanings from communism to socialism, her marriage and sexuality, there was always this restlessness about her.

Yes.

In moving through the book, do you believe this restlessness, and even in her depression — in which she would then create poems and plays and other work — serviced her as an artist?

That is a great question, and it’s such a subjective question. I think yes. But I can also see an argument made in the alternative, and it really does depend on what people do with the archive. Most people look and say: Oh, my goodness there’s all this unfinished work, and perhaps if she hadn’t been so restless and she homed in on just one project at a time we’d have more fully fleshed out work and that would have been in greater service to her art, and the fact that she went through all these emotional ups and downs made it impossible for her to finish all she wanted to finish.

I think differently because it is such an enormous body of work for someone who was 34 years old to have completed, particularly given the last couple of years of her life she was so severely ill. But I also think that the meaning or the value of the art isn’t only in the completed artifact but that there are all of these works that are partial vignettes or stories or poems that are so beautiful, really extraordinary; poignant. When you look at the body of the work and the way that she was searching and all the different kinds of engagements of ideas and aesthetics, I do think the restlessness served her. I do think going into that space of searching, of deep loneliness, of trying to pull together all of the aspects of who she was and imagine a world in which she could exist. Just part of what that was, I do think that it led her to some insights that were really profound.

Let’s take a bit of an aside here because I’m really interested in learning more about the archive and what Lorraine Hansberry left behind. It’s known that her former husband, Robert Nemiroff, took care of maintaining her estate. Give us a picture of just what that was: a collection of notebooks and journals, or boxes of various things?

Between Robert and Margaret Wilkerson Sexton being involved in putting together the archives and archivists at the Schomburg, it’s very well organized so you can read the various drafts of given works; there are diaries, there are works in various stages of development, there are stories, there are poems, and there are a lot of letters and various kinds of communication. There’s also her library — what she was reading — in there, too. It’s a larger archive than I was anticipating for someone her age, and also for the period in which she lived. It happened quite frequently, particularly for gay and lesbian writers, that lots of their archives would be destroyed who were not out. Robert was clearly very diligent in maintaining the entirety of her archive, so you also get a sense of what was happening in her life as she wrote her pseudonymous writings, or the different kinds of explorations she engaged in when she was writing on lesbian themes than more explicitly about race or politics. I’m really excited to see what people do with it over the next decade or two because it just hasn’t been explored fully yet.

Her relationship with, and marriage to Robert is so very interesting, and really profound, in that theirs was likely not a romantic relationship, as you say in the book, but definitely a union. He certainly cared about her even when they were separated a lot during the marriage; he believes in her as an artist, but also as a human who was going through issues of her own sexuality. And I don’t want to oversimplify things by saying that he was so evolved, because we really don’t know that about him, but he does seem to have been very selfless.

It was kind of extraordinary to actually realize how much he facilitated her work. When we look at the history of men artists and intellectuals, so often they were able to do their work because there was a woman facilitating them doing their work and this was a flip of that situation. He really created the occasion, and a really deep belief in her as an intellectual and as an artist and saw a huge portion of his life’s work to be making sure that she was able to do what she was called to do in the world.

They were close friends, and I think there was intimacy there. It’s hard to know how do you account for the border between the romantic and the sexual, and the kind of friendship arena, especially after separation, it’s hard for me to fully flesh out. They’re definitely real intimates, and I also know it was really difficult for her in terms of her romantic relationships later on.

One question that many of the people who I was talking to as I was writing kept asking, “Why did he do this?” “How hard must this have been for him?” She becomes the superstar and he’s still facilitating her, and she’s having these other relationships. The question of what his motivation was is kind of an open question. I think partially it is this sense that he decided to devote his life to ensure that her work got the stage that it deserved. I also think he really loved her deeply, that much is very clear, and seems to have, in some ways, submerged his own creative work in service to hers.

We might not have learned all that we know now about Hansberry had it not been for him …

Oh, absolutely not. I just think the world would have, in so many ways, eaten her up. Even just having the time to write and have someone take care of you; being a young person in New York and having no money … all these things. It’s hard for me to imagine how she could have done the work she did. Regardless, I think she would have been an extraordinary intellectual. I think actually the solitude and space that it required for her to be an artist, also, I think he was essential to that.

In the book, you provide insights to the lesbian-themed work Hansberry had done under her pseudonym, Emily Jones. What resonated with you about those pieces?

What was so interesting to me is that the style is different; it’s more lyrical, more attention to color and beauty than in her other writing; more “conventionally feminine” would be the term for it. Color is really important, landscape is really important, and I was really interested in the fact that in a lot of her fiction that has a lesbian theme takes place in public spaces even as she’s known for interiors and domestic dramas. It’s an interesting inversion that the work that deals with her sexuality, which is secreted — as we now would say closeted — is the work that is more out in the open, in terms of where the action takes place.

It’s also melancholic; a lot of it is unresolved yearning. It’s a really beautiful dimension of her writing, and as someone who studies black women’s literature part of what is really interesting to me is that I can really see how it fits in with the tradition of black women’s writings in a very explicit way, and I found that really intriguing. Whereas some of the other work you see the influence of Seán O’Casey, you see the influence of Du Bois, but in this work I can see so many of the kind of Harlem Renaissance black women’s writings influencing her. So, it’s fascinating.

And it’s fascinating, too, that the production of A Raisin in the Sun was not quite the Cinderella story we tend to think of it as, and you dive into the lessons that came along with her distinction of being the first black playwright to have a production on Broadway, which might not have happened had it not been for Alice Childress declining the opportunity to stage Trouble in Mind about four years earlier because she wouldn’t compromise on her indictments of racism — specifically racism in the theater world. And Lorraine knew she would have to make some compromises …

Yeah, I mean it was such a Catch-22. On the one hand, I think that probably what she learned from Childress is actually if you want to have access to The Great White Way, pun intended, [Laughs] that it made sense to not be too heavy-handed with your politics. A lot of it for Hansberry was about craft. She figured out how to tell a story that included a critique of white supremacy, of capitalism, of racism — all these things — without having to tell you that that’s what it was doing. But through the motivations of the various characters and through their interactions and the events, and the play is really masterful for that; for her to figure out how to do that, for her to actually allow people to invest before they balked; to invest and identify with the characters.

I think what she learned, and I think it was very painful for her — was that the way race works in this society so often — rather than her audience being transformed, she tried to make it fit into the logics that they have in mind like, “Oh, we can like this play because these people want to buy a house just like we do and it has a happy ending,” and obviously the ending to the play was not a happy ending, but so many people read it as such. She was really stuck because if, one, she had hit people over the head with the politics it wouldn’t be as well crafted a play, and, two, it probably wouldn’t have made it to Broadway. On the other hand, this care with crafting almost gave people a vehicle not to deal with the issue directly and so it was real frustration for her.

And it was particularly painful to have people from the black left attack her work and then attack her work on the basis of her class background, even though she had spent all these years as a member of the black left working diligently in various political organizations, and a lot of that I think was motivated as much by sexism as much as anything else, like, “Oh, she’s the little bourgeoise princess. We don’t have to take her seriously.”

Alice Walker’s cover quote to Looking for Lorraine that “to miss the larger story” of Hansberry’s life “is to miss a huge part of ours.” Considering what a fearless artist and also a fervent activist — even up to the end of her life — what are the lessons we can take from Hansberry in our own resistance?

For me, part of what makes her so inspiring — and some of it is connected to her youth — but there’s a way in which there are moments where she’s self-deprecating and you think, “Okay, this is a genius and she’s being self-deprecating,” but she’s really always asking herself the questions: “Am I a revolutionary? What do I need to do?” And that kind of interiority combined with a sense that she has to be present with other people around questions of justice, that’s such an important model.

In so much of the current landscape, interiority is about taking care of one’s self, but not about: How do I become the kind of person I want to be in the world? I think that’s really powerful. Being in community is really powerful. All these people who she was talking to and hanging out with and at times arguing with, they thought there was a sense of responsibility of being — to borrow from Hamilton — in “the room where it happens”; like being present. That’s very hard for us today because we tend not to be socialized to do that; to do the work that’s not your job, or caring for your family. But how do we work together to make a better world? They’re models for that.

¤

Janice Rhoshalle Littlejohn is a Los Angeles–based journalist, author, and producer exploring issues involving women, culture, and media.

The post Young, Restless, Gifted, and Black: Exploring the Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry with Imani Perry appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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