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Hitsuzen
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Summary: Yuri Plisetsky has always seen strange things and odd spirits often follow him around. One day he stumbles into an odd shop that grants wishes run by a strange man named Victor Nikiforov. Will Victor grant his wish and what will be the price?
Pairings: Yuri/Otabek, Yuuri/Victor, with Yuri crushing on Yuuri
...Yes this is an xxxHolic AU where Yuri P is Watanuki, Victor is Yuuko, Yuuri K is Himawari and Otabek is Doumeki (yes, you read that right now go think about that; if you havenât read the manga then itâs okay, donât worry. Everything will be fine. Probably)
Edit: you can now vote for this to be the next fic I write here!
The world is a large place full of wonderful and terrifying things. Humans walk proudly through it, arrogantly thinking they know all of its secrets when they havenât even scratched the surface. Because even those who know some of Fateâs secrets know that they canât change their own fate.
But most importantly, they know that there are no such things as coincidences. There is only Hitsuzen.
 It was a gloomy morning and it was made even worse by that thing. That thing, which, for some reason, no one could see but him. It followed him down the street, floating a few meters off the ground.
It probably had a name, but thing was all it was going to get from him.
Describing it required a good look and that probably meant going mad as well. And he wasnât going to go mad. He was already really angry. Going mad would only make everything worse. So he could only describe it (if anyone ever forced him to) as a big disgusting, foul thing, as something unnatural in all meanings of the word.
And Yuri Plisetsky was well acquainted with the unnatural. Unfortunately, he was much better acquainted with it than he would have liked.
No one else could see it. Why couldnât anyone else see it? Why was he the only one cursed to see it? Why couldnât he also be oblivious to it? Seeing it didnât exactly give him any special abilities.
âAargh!â he screamed, the sound of his voice filling the street. âWhy do you have to follow me?â
But shouting didnât help either. He stumbled down the street, feeling his knees give out under him. He caught the gatepost of a house just as he thought he would pass out.
And the foul thing vanished.
He looked up and stared in amazement at the house before him.
Yuri was in a normal street, or, at least, up until that moment he thought he was in a normal street. Now he wasnât so sure. There were regular-looking houses all down the street, mostly identical to each other. Nothing about any of them was exceptionally memorable.
Except this house.
It was an odd house and that was the biggest understatement imaginable. It was made of dark wood. There was a crescent moon on its roof. The gates, which were made from the same wood as the house, somehow contrived to look more solid and menacing than the stone gates of the other houses.
Whatever, he thought, I donât care. I just want â
And even though he couldâve sworn he told his legs to go away, they marched on, completely without any input from him whatsoever down the path that led right to the front door of the house.
He tried to stop. He tried to fight this sudden impulse of walking into odd places, but all with no luck.
They carried him onwards to the house.
âStop it!â he shouted at his legs (and knew deep inside that it was a sure sign of impending madness). âItâs rude to walk into peopleâs houses without their permission!â
It was a stupid thing to shout, but that didnât matter. What mattered was that it didnât work.
His legs took him right up to the front door where three identical-looking girls stepped out to greet him.
âWelcome to the shop!â they exclaimed in unison with serious looks on their faces.
And then the serious looks vanished and they burst out into an excited chorus of âA customer! A customer!â They were almost tripping over themselves and each other in excitement.
They grabbed Yuri by the arms and, before heâd even had time to realize what they were doing, before he could turn and run from this mad place, they dragged him inside.
The inside of the house was just as odd as the outside, but the three girls didnât give him a lot of time to study his surroundings, or even think about the recurring image of the crescent moon: they dragged him into one of the rooms, where his attention was captured fully by someone else.
There was a man in this room. Heâd draped himself lazily (and way too dramatically, in Yuriâs opinion) over a red couch, a smile on his face and a pipe in his hand. He was in a red and yellow kimono that only added to how dramatic his pose was. His icy blue eyes regarded Yuri with disinterest, as if to say âoh, there you are at last; isnât that nice?â
Yuri, whoâd been close to his breaking point for the past ten minutes, snapped. âWhat the hell is this weird place?â
âItâs a shop!â the triplets exclaimed. âYeah! A shop!â
The lazy figure on the couch watched him without a word.
The triplets went quiet and a complete silence settled over the room and its inhabitants. There was no ticking of a clock and no sounds came from the street.
The man got up and reached Yuri in several long strides. He tower over him. âThis is a shop that grants wishes,â he said, taking Yuriâs chin in his hand. âIf youâre here, it means you have a wish.â
Yuri pushed him away. âDonât touch me! What the hell is the problem with you? Do you just lure people in here to sell them your crap?â
âNo. I just told you: this shop grants wishes. Youâre not a very clever young man, are you?â
âSo anyone can march in here, demand anything and get it?â Yuri asked. As if I will believe that!
The strange man chuckled. âFor a price. This is a shop, after all. For the right price, any wish can be granted.â
âAny wish?â Yuri repeated incredulously.
He nodded. âYes, but some wishes come at a very high price and would cost you your soul.â
âSoul?â he backed away.
âYes.â The strange man circled Yuri. âYour coming here was no coincidence, no accident. It was Hitsuzen!â
Yuri swallowed nervously, feeling a bead of sweat trickle down the side of his face. âHitsuzen?â he repeated.
âHitsuzen - a naturally foreordained event. A state in which other outcomes are impossible. A result which can only be obtained by a single causality, and all other causalities would necessarily create different results. So reads the Kodansha Japanese desk dictionary, second edition.â The strange man paused with a smile.
Yuri stared at him with his mouth slightly open. âWhat the hell?â he demanded as the meaning of the last sentence sank in.
The man chuckled, no doubt pleased by this terrible joke.
âWhat is your name?â he asked, draping himself over the couch again.
âYuri Plisetsky,â he answered.
âAnd your birthday?â
âM-March 1st,â Yuri answered.
The strange man burst out laughing. âWhat sort of person tells a stranger their real name and birthday?â
âWhat?â Yuri demanded, his fists clenching.
âMy name is Victor Nikiforov,â the strange man said, wrapping his arms around the triplets as they circled him. âItâs a fake name, of course.â He kissed the forehead of one of the triplets. âAnd these are my assistants in the shop: Axel, Lutz and Loop. Arenât they the cutest names you ever heard?â
âNo! What the hell is the matter with you?â Whatâs the deal with him? And what do I say to that? I need to get the hell out of here! He turned to go, but Victor was there right in front of him.
âLike I said, you being here means that you have a wish and that I must grant it,â he said, taking Yuriâs chin in his hand again.
âLet go of me, you pervert!â Yuri exclaimed, pushing him away.
Victor stepped back. âDo you have a watch?â
âHm? What?â He searched around in his pocket and pulled out an old watch. âItâs a family heirloom,â he said, handing it over to Victor. âMy grandfather handed it down to me from his father.â
âYuri Plisetsky,â Victor whispered and threw down a little circle that expanded in size. Yuri wasnât sure where it came from. It looked like Victor had pulled it out of his sleeve. Victor stared into it as if hypnotized. âYuri Plisetsky⌠birthday March first. You lost your parents when you were small. You live with your grandfather now. Your future is very uncertain, but you are hard-working and independent, which might help you deal with anything that comes your way. Or it might only make things worse. You have a big trouble, caused by your blood.â
Yuri stepped back. He hadnât been prepared to hear his fortune read out like this.
Victor went on, as if in a trance. âYour blood lets you see creatures that few humans can see. Unfortunately, this means that theyâre all attracted to you.â
The circle was gone and Victor pocketed Yuriâs watch. âIâll grant your wish,â he said.
âGive me back my watch, you idiot!â Yuri demanded.
âItâs not your watch anymore,â Victor told him. âIâve taken it as payment for reading your fortune.â He put an arm around Yuriâs shoulders. âYou live only with your grandfather, which meansâŚâ He leaned in close to Yuriâs ear, as if about to whisper some great secret, ââŚthat youâre very good at housework, right?â
âYes,â Yuri agreed, confused at the speed at which they jumped from wishes and his fortune to housework.
âExcellent!â Victor exclaimed, stepping away and giving Yuri a big grin with a clap of his hands. âThat will be your payment: from now on you will do all of the housework around here.â
âWhat?â
âYou will work in this shop until I say itâs enough and then I will grant your wish!â Victor announced.
When the hell did I agree to this? Yuri demanded as the triplets danced happily around him, singing the word âhouseworkâ over and over again.
At some point during the evening heâd walked into hell itself and now he wondered if there was a way back to the land of the normal and the sane.
 He wondered the same thing the next afternoon as he stuffed his things into his school bag. It was the end of yet another uneventful school day. He only wished the afternoon could be equally uneventful.
âThat man is insane,â he muttered to himself, âand that store of his is as mad as he is. How much junk can one person keep? And how long will I have to deal with this crap? Ughh! And now I have to go back there!â
âGo back where?â another voice asked.
âTo that stupid store of his, of course!â he answered without thinking.
He froze, realizing that not only was he complaining aloud, but that there was another person joining in. He raised his head and met the eyes of the most perfect being in existence.
Yuuri Katsuki.
He felt his heart melt and all thoughts of creepy men in strange shops went out the window.
Yuuri Katsuki â the best person in all the world, his classmate and his crush. He was tall, dark-haired and handsome. He was the best at everything. He was kind and just being in his presence was enough to make the day better.
âDid you get a job in a shop?â Yuuri asked, giving him a smile brighter than the sun.
Yuri pulled himself together. He did what he always did and fell back on his hostile attitude. âYeah and whatâs it to you?â he asked.
âY-youâre right,â Yuuri said. âItâs none of my business. It was wrong of me to listen in.â He turned away, looking as if someone had hit him.
Why do you have to be such a pushover? Yuri wondered. If anyone else had done it, it wouldâve pissed him off to no end and it wouldâve been enough for Yuri to consider them a loser and hate them for all eternity.
But this was Yuuri Katsuki. And everything he did was perfect.
âI⌠I just meant,â he racked his brains for a good excuse, âitâs awkward that I have to work in a shop.â What a lame excuse!
Yuuri turned around with a smile. âThereâs nothing wrong with that! What kind of a shop is it? Maybe I can visit it sometime?â
He had a terrible image then of innocent Yuuri in the clutches of that strange Victor who would try to steal his soul in exchange for the promise of granting him some wish.
âNo! Itâs a horrible shop!â Yuri protested. âYou wonât like it at all!â
And then he wondered if Yuuri had a wish. Not a small, silly wish, but a big wish that only Victor could grant.
#Hitsuzen#fanfiction#fics to vote for#AU#yuri on ice#xxxHolic#Victor Nikiforov#Yuri Plisetsky#Yuri Katsuki#oh wow a Victuuri fic where Yuri P is the main character and written by me amazing
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Happy Birthday to the Wonderful Scienceoftheidiot! <3<3<3
A birthday fic for @scienceoftheidiot , who wanted: "Something about Reid and Jackson geeking out over science."
You are the best and kindest person ever! I really admire your art and fics. I hope by the time iâm your age Iâll be as good as you are at things. I love our little chats. You are just so pure and caring, its adorable!
Sooooo: Edmund Reid and Homer Jackson have little chats about advancements in technology over the years.Â
(A special thanks to @soot-and-snide for helping me edit this)
Read below:
Homer Jackson and Edmund Reid didnât have much in common. One thing that they did have in common, however, was their love for new technology and science. Early on in their strange relationship, even before they were friends, they discovered their mutual interest by a small accident. That incident unknowingly helped their bond become stronger.
Most of his life, Reid had been attracted to all things innovative and scientific. As a young boy he would often read of the changing times and of the advancements clever men of science had made. He would get his nose into a good and informational book whenever he had the chance to do so. When he joined the police force, his love for science was renewed. Chemicals, poison, narcotics, and the occasional use of explosive were regular aspects of his job that he wished to know more about. Studying them, at least the basics of them, helped him with job and simply fascinated him at the same time.
While some of the scientific facts that he knew had been discovered due to the many years he worked his job; the other source of his knowledge was from reading. Reid read articles, papers, scholarly journals and scientific or forensic textbooks as a hobby in addition to his normal reading almost on a daily basis. Learning could do nothing but help him, he reasoned with himself every time he purchased new material. His expenses were justified. One such of these texts he regularly read was a periodical that contained within its pages the worldâs newest scientific, engineering and the occasional new technology advancements. He usually kept his reading material at home or tucked safely away on his desk.
One evening, Homer Jackson, a man Reid personally employed on occasion, found his way to Reidâs office to ask him a question.
âMr. Reid, I wanted to run this by you before I did it but... Hey, what is it youâve got there?â A smirk crawled across Jacksonâs face
âWhat?â Reid demanded, not quite catching on to what the American was talking about.
âThat.â Jackson pointed to the periodical on Reidâs desk.
âOh,â Reid furiously blinked. âThatâs my magazine. Why?â
âCause I got one, myself, that I left in that room I was working in. I thought you confiscated it or something, I dunno,â Jackson chuckled lightly. âI would have never figured you a man of science. Most of your kind are against it.â
âMy kind?â
âCoppers. They only believe that a criminal is guilty if he is caught with the bloodied weapon or someone says they are guilty.â
âI think the fact that I employ you under the table, proves quite the contrary. There are certainly other methods to prove guilt, as you well know. Youâve been more than helpful than the other surgeons in our employ with your science.â
âBut you're the only one whoâs willing to try my methods.â
Reid paused. âI suppose so.â
----------------------
Jackson came into the Stationhouse to help Reid two weeks later.
âDid you read the new issue yet?â Jackson asked as Reid was looking over his work.
âOf what? Ah the magazine! No, I havenât the time. Iâve been busy with the case...â
âYou mean-â Jackson started.
âYes, that one,â Reid said, tensed and tired.
âI can tell you about the main articles if you want while weâre waiting for the results here. One thing first.â Jackson turned on one of the bunsen burners he had been working on and lit up a cigarette. He took one puff before handing it to Reid. âHere, I think you need this.â
-------------------------------
âReally, guncotton?â Jackson coughed as they sat outside of the charred remains of the photographerâs darkroom they had just been trapped in with Drake.
âIt was mentioned in one of the papers I read about two months ago,â Reid said.
âHave you ever made it before now?
âNo.â
Jackson started chuckling. âYou amaze me, Reid.â
âHow come you didnât think of that. You're supposed to be the scientific one,â Drake accused.
-----------------------------
âI canât believe you made me my own goddamned deadroom!â
âJust as you described,â Reid said repeated proudly for the second time that day. It was evening now and Jackson and he were breaking in the new room. Both were equally excited.
âHow on Godâs green earth did you remember.â Jackson was referring to that evening they had talked for hours about John Hopkins over drinks. They had chatted about science, experiments and their results. Jackson was more than happy to tell a listening ear about his findings but Reid was different, he listened attentively.
âYou were quite passionate about the building,â Reid smiled softly. âIt made me want to see it too. So, I brought it here to you. I hope you wonât disappoint.â
âI trust you've tested all the equipment yourself before you let me in.â
âI may have.â
--------------------------------
âI need you to help me send a telegraph,â Reid commanded.
âMe?!â
âYou're the only other one around at this hour who would be of any help.â It was about a quarter to two in the morning and everyone was gone, asleep. âItâs important.â
âDo it yourself.â
âI donât know Morse.â
âA learned man such as yourself doesn't know Morse code?â Jackson asked inquisitively.
âI have a book at home and know the basics but the message I need to send is important. I donât have room for error and I was hoping that you may know how to use one since you were in the Army and worked as a Pinkerton.â
âIâll be right up to the room. Five minutes.â
Reid walked up the staircase by himself and looked at the wired machine on the table. He really had meant to learn how to use it, but with Hobbs and the other constables working for him, he hadnât the needed to.
Jackson came up the stairs to find Reid staring at the machine intenltly.
âItâs not going to bite you, you know.â
âI know,â Reid admitted. âBut I have no idea how to work it and donât want to break it.â
âIâve never used one before either,â Jackson admitted.
âThen why are you up here?â
âAn opportunity. Never had the chance to play around with one of these before.â
âJackson, this is not a plaything or an experiment. Itâs an expensive piece of equipment!â
âFine. I wonât help you then.â
âNo wait!â
âI thought so,â Jackson smirked. He loomed over Reid who was sitting in the only chair.
âLet's see nowâŚâ Jackson mumbled to himself. Suddenly, he crouched to the floor and looked underneath the table. Reidâs body tensed up as the other man on the floor for some reason. âGot it!â Jackson shouted as he hit his head.
âWhat is it youâve got?â Reidâs voice crackled.
âHis notes,â Jackson said as he emerged from underneath the table with his hair tousled. He slapped upon the flat surface a half-sheet of paper with telegraph basic, written ever so small by hand. Reid looked impressed. âI saw Hobbs under here once. He tacked this under the table when he was still learning.â
âThis is most helpful, Captain.â
The two got to work.
âThis machine is incredible,â Reid breathed as his large fingers danced on the small knob of the telegraph that allowed him to create letters.
âIt really is.â
âTo think, Iâm communicating with someone miles away with just the tip of my finger.â
âYes, but you must stop hogging the machine! I donât know why you made me come up here if you wonât let me do anything.â
âYou found the paper. And converted the message to the code.â
âYou made me do all the work with no reward!â
âIâll let you do the last sentence, but I have to wait here all night for the reply. Youâve got the better end of this partnership,â Reid smiled. It was now around 3 am. The smile on Jackson's smile sparkled in the moonlight.
---------------------------------
âHave you taken a look at this monthâs Science Journal yet?â Reid asked Jackson as he came into the dead room to check on a caseâs progress.
âNah. Havenât had the time,â Jackson said poking at a lung with his scalpel. âAnything interesting this time around?â
âA few articles and dissertations. Edison put a new patient out again.â
âIâm not surprised. Bastard. But he is doing more than Iâll ever do with my life, Iâll give him that.â
âYou do a lot, Jacksonâ
âIâm not as spectacular as him,â Jackson pointed out. âHeâs making money.â
âHeâs an inventor, you're a surgeon.â
âExactly! Heâs done more with this life than I have... and more importantly, is making money from itâ
âJackson, I say this in earnest: I donât know what I would do without you here.â
âYouâd figure something out.â Jackson's eyes flashed mysteriously, as if he had other plans and secrets that he neglected to tell Reid of.
-------------
The whole of H-division hadnât slept in days. There had been three killings in the last week, and during that time, nobody got any sleep. Reid was currently pacing around the room in an agitated circle.
âWill you hurry it up, man!?â
âIâm going as fast as I can!â Jackson stood with a pipette and a bunch of chemicals in all sorts of shaped containers. His eyes were sunken in and he was in desperate need of caffeine, nicotine, or anything that could help him focus and stay awake better.
âHow much longer?â
âItâs done when it's done, goddammit!â
Reidâs pacing stopped. âI cannot stress enough how much I need this now, Jackson. Lives are at stake!â
Jackson stopped his work too.
âIf you think you can do a better job, then you do it.â Jackson shoved his pipette and bottle of liquid he was working with into Reidâs hands. The liquid sloshed over the side and Jackson walked out, leaving Reid standing there with his hands full and his shirt soiled.
Jackson walked out of the station in a hurry and slipped off to fill his belly. Reid could be demanding sometimes, too demanding. He was sure when he returned heâd find Reid and his men rushing around the lab with their heads cut off, and heâd get an earful. A break to whet oneâs whistle was always good.
When he returned, Reid was still in the room, leaning over Jackson's findings and work-space. He didnât glance up as Jackson entered the room so Jackson decided to get back to work at his station. Reid, however, did seem to notice once Jackson was working next to him. He grabbed Jackson by his lapels and yanked him towards his own body.
âJust what do you think youâre doing!â
âI was taking a break,â Jackson said as coolly as possible. He felt his anger began to rise as Reid pushed him back towards the table to release him. Glass broke and spilt all over the work space. âWhat the hell, Reid!â Jackson howled, removing himself from the table and using his full strength to give a shove at Reid.
Reid nearly lost his footing, but when he regained it, he gave Jackson a poisonous look and rushed at Jackson, pushing him down upon the glass-shattered covered table. They were fighting now. Actual fighting. In the end, they gave up on the thing they were working on for the day.
The next day, a few shards remained on the floor that hadnât been picked up from their previous fight. Jackson sat at his station watching a tinted liquid filter itâs way through a twisty tube. Today he felt a lot better. He had a full night sleep for the first time in awhile and food in his stomach. Reid probably felt the same way. They were both too damn tired from lack of sleep and it just got out of hand.
Reid lingered near the doorway.
âCome in,â Jackson allowed. This time he was the one not looking up from his work.
âJackson-â
âWhat do you want, Reid? I've had to start this whole process over from scratch and with substitute and less than ideal methods.â Jackson gestured to the pile of smashed beakers. âIâm working as fast as I can.â
âI just wanted to say, Captain. About yesterday; what I mean to say is that Iâm sorry.â Reidâs hand found itself on Jackson'sâ shoulder, âYou may take all the time you need to yields proper results.â Reid released Jackson's shoulder with a reassuring squeeze.
Jackson finally turned around and nodded. âThanks. See you around, Reid.â
#ripper street#request#jackmund#jk its not#jackmund friendship#lots of gifs#gift#scienceoftheidiot#happy birthday#fanfic#my fic
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ODE FOR THOMAS PYNCHON
  There is an episode in Season 6 of The Simpsons called Hommie the Clown. The story begins when Homer is driving down a motorway, and, seeing lines of billboards in front of him, exclaims, âIt must be the first day of the month! New billboard day!â He drives closer and stops in front of the first billboard, an advert for English muffins, which perks his interest, and then onto the next, an advert for BBQ sauce, which makes him chuckle. He then spots a billboard with the bold letters âKRUSTYâS CLOWN COLLEGEâ with four dancing Krustys under it. Homer scoffs and remarks, âClown College ⌠You canât eat that!â and drives off. Despite declaring himself uninterested in the Krusty billboard, it keeps popping into Homerâs mind. He begins to hallucinate at work, his colleagues turning into clowns, accompanied by jangly circus music. At the family dinner table that evening, he makes a circus tent with his pile of mashed potatoes. Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie turn into dancing clowns, prompting Homer to explode, âThatâs it! You people have stood in my way long enough! Iâm going to clown college!â
 This is an analogy for a discovery I made as a younger man in my University days. But, before going on, allow a brief introduction to the personal context within which that discovery was made.
 I was 22 and had just completed the 3rd Year of my Psychology undergraduate degree. It was summer, and Iâd just moved in to a new flat. Iâd also just been dumped by a girl â ha â which made me rather blue. The said girl had been inviting me out on dates for around two months. The first month went pretty well, or so I thought back then. The second month the girl began to repeatedly talk about her ex-boyfriend, who had been a half-friend of mine before and who I hadnât known was her ex. Her talking of the ex grew more repetitive on our dates, until it became one of the main things she talked about. On the last date I had with the girl, she invited me out on a picnic, and talked about how impressed she was with the ex for getting a 1st in his Degree. He was graduating that same day, and she was sending him a surprise bottle of wine for his afterparty. We finished the picnic, which she had prepared, and she made to leave. I motioned to kiss her bye on the lips; she snatched her head away to the side and allowed me to kiss her on the cheek. I made some jokey remark, like, âOh I was actually aiming for the lips âŚ?â She laughed, turned, and walked away. A few hours later she called me up to break it off, insinuating that there was another man in her life. And kept asking me to guess who this other man was.
 But, blah blah, this story is so absurd I now just find it funny. The relevant thing was that it led me onto a horrific alcoholic binge after it ended. I got fucked out my brain on whisky, wine, beer for weeks on end â drank as much as I could, just to hurt myself. I became obsessed with Kurt Cobain, like some 14-year-old, and kept self-harming with Bic razor blades, determined to convince myself that I had Bi-Polar Disorder. Haha, it was pathetic. I drank a half bottle of cheap whisky before every shift at work: I donât know how I didnât get fired.
 My flatmate whom Iâd just moved in with went off on a long summer holiday to Europe, meaning I had the space to myself for three months. My binge came to a moment of clarity, one lucky day, and I decided to halt the boozing for a night. I cleared all the bottles/cans out to the bins, and I went down to the University Library that evening.
 The Sir Duncan Rice Library at Aberdeen was terrific â probably the place which has most nurtured me intellectually. Whilst I studied a scientific degree, which was dependent on reading electronic science journals, I was far more interested in the physical literature section in the Library, which was huge. So I would raid the novels and poetry collections alongside doing Psychology, a healthy mix of art and science. The Library also had this little music room in an isolated corner of the building, with a keyboard and recording equipment. Iâd go in there and make weird recordings, many of which became part of the Violent Birth of the Moon repertoire. The Library was thus an enchanting place where I could learn and be creative.
 It also stayed open into the a.m. hours each night, so that a handful of us insomniac-Travis-Bickle types could go there whenever we pleased. But that day when I sobered up was the most important day of my University era.
 I first saw it â the book â whilst roaming the American literature section. âGravityâs Rainbow âŚâ I thought, âThatâs a ballsy title âŚâ I picked it up â a huge, blue, hardbacked, clumpy thing, without any jacket or front cover image. Just those words and an author Iâd never encountered before. I skimmed through it and the text was smaller and denser than any of the other books I had in my current haul. Iâd come on it by chance, and why hadnât I heard of it? And why was there no blurb, or author bio â nothing to explain it? Annoyed with curiosity, I hesitated, but then put it back on the shelve. And I went back home with the other books, and sat in my silent flat, trying to read them. I managed to avoid buying booze from the shop before 10 p.m., and I dosed off to sleep, unsatisfied with the books Iâd tried. I had a dream about the enormous blue book Iâd left behind in the Library. I woke up whilst it was still dark, got dressed, and cycled back to the campus and took Gravityâs Rainbow out. Â
 I stopped drinking, ended the absurd binge, forgot about the silly girl-incident, and became completely obsessed with this new book.
 These are the two sentences which complete the first paragraph of Thomas Pynchonâs 760 page novel Gravityâs Rainbow:
âA screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.â
After and during my obsession for the book, I kept telling other people about it. I kept trying to explain the answer when they asked âwhatâs it about?â I couldnât do it, at least not very well. Wikipedia cites the basic setting and plot of the novel as thus:
âLengthy, complex, and featuring a large cast of characters, the narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II, and centres on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military. In particular, it features the quest undertaken by several characters to uncover the secret of a mysterious device named the "Schwarzgerät" ("black device"), slated to be installed in a rocket with the serial number "00000".â
Except, the above is not a revealing explanation. Not that I could do any better, but Iâll try.
 The main plot-premise involves the central character Slothrop and his adventures during the closing chapters of WWII. Slothrop travels across Europe a great deal and has sex with a great deal of women. Every time Slothrop has sex, a V-2 rocket strikes the exact same spot in which the sexual incident occurred, a few days later. All kinds of military craftsmen and rocket scientists begin to believe that Slothrop has some mystic ability to thus predict the powers of the V-2 rockets, which is in someway connected to this coveted secret called the Schwarzgerät with the special number 00000. These military craftsmen and scientists seek to capture Slothrop in order to understand a mystical element of warfare for self-benefit. Slothropâs sexual exploits take him from London, to the French Riviera, Northern Germany ⌠yet nowhere is specific, and Europe becomes a roaming magical place of setting. Alongside his women he meets MI5 agents, SS officers, sex slaves, Pavlovian psychologists, a militarily-engineered octopus with which he has a physical fight, Schwarzkommando cadres, a witch, a porn star ⌠Slothrop slowly begins to lose his mind, and channels a variety of alter-egos, as a war reporter, a German actress, a Russian troop ⌠It is too hard to explain, really.
 Because it is unlike any thing I have ever encountered artistically. Not even solely in a literary sense. There is no book like Gravityâs Rainbow, but no film, or symphony or spectacular work of art either. I love GR for its ability to blend the obscure, the offbeat and the irregular into something that can be read with a type of astonished relish. The book is narrated almost entirely in present-tense, which gives it a rollicking pace. Words and sentences constantly explode in chaotic directions, yet all seem to be linked together in perfect imperfection. Pynchon bends his syntax, elongates language, punches and drags the reader through wacky scenarios. There are rape scenes, murder scenes, which should be too horrific to read â and they are horrific, but are described so exquisitely that oneâs eyes lap them up. A lot of the book is very funny, often crass, crude. And yet most importantly Pynchon clearly has morality behind his multivariate approach. For instance, hereâs an example, taken from a single paragraph (from my edition pages 549-551):
âThe nationalities are on the move. It is a great frontierless streaming out here ⌠Poles fleeing the Lublin regime, others going back home, the eyes of both parties, when they do meet, hooded behind cheekbones, eyes much older than whatâs forced them into moving ⌠Estonians, Letts, and Lithuanians trekking north again, all in their wintry wool in dark bundles, shoes in tatters, songs too hard to sing, talk pointless ⌠white wrists and ankles incredibly wasted poking from their striped prison camp pajamas, footsteps light as waterfowlâs in this inland dust ⌠bobbing, drifting, at a certain hour of the dusk, like candleflames in religious procession â supposed to be heading today for Hannover, supposed to pick potatoes along the way ⌠non-existent potato fields plundered by the SS, ja, every fucking potato field, and what for? Alcohol. No, not to drink, alcohol for the rockets. ⌠Women in army trousers split at the knees ⌠looted chickens alive and dead ⌠harmoniums, grandfather clocks ⌠paintings of pink daughters in white frocks, of saints bleeding, of salmon and purple sunsets over the sea, dolls smiling out of violently red lips ⌠So the populations move, across the open meadow, limping, marching, shuffling, carried, hauling along the detritus of an order, a European and bourgeois order they donât know yet is destroyed forever.â
What can we see here? Aside from wonderful wordplay and beautiful language we see how clever Pynchon is. He has a wide knowledge of the war, and a compassion for the masses of people it affected. The sense of setting is profound; the enormity of the war is emphasised. This is only a fragment of the quoted paragraph âŚ
 Pynchon is thus a historian as well as a writer of fiction. As well as a mathematician, scientist, music fanatic, film buff; all seen in a glorious collection of references, stats, diagrams, quotes, you name it. Iâm clearly a nerd of this book. And perhaps not everybody would feel the same about it. Indeed, the book received much negative backlash by the critics upon initial reception in 1973. Although nominated for the Pulitzer Fiction Award in 1974, it was described as âunreadableâ and âoverwrittenâ by the jury board. And directly rejected because of a sex scene involving coprophagia â the consumption of faeces, in this case for sexual gratification. This particular scene is only one of many erratic moments in the book, and definitely not the most âimmoralâ, if that is the correct word. This is a common example of how stupid the critics can be. And another example of how great works of art do not receive the attention they deserve by the critics of their time.
 Anyway. Thomas Pynchon is a writer who has influenced me vastly, in a way differently from other influences. Iâm not saying he is the âbestâ or âmost importantâ to me, his work simply has a unique power over me. That particular summer, when I cleared up and read GR was among the most exhilarating periods in my life. It set me new ambitions, not necessarily to emulate Pynchonâs work (because this is impossible) but to be confident that there are always new things to be expressed in literature, and art. How an artist can be playful, universal with his craft, not afraid to seep up all his influences and hurl them wherever he wishes. Iâve read Pynchonâs other works too, and love them as well. Iâll admit I have a personal attachment in Gravityâs Rainbow because it singlehandedly pulled me out of that deranged period of alcohol, yet more importantly extended my love for literature to even greater levels, which I would never have thought possible. Itâs an obsession which I still have, lingering.
 I found a rare copy of Gravityâs Rainbow which Iâd been looking for for ages. In a second hand bookstore â a neat, antique copy, for only ÂŁ3. Thrilled, I took it into the woods by my home neighbourhood to read again. And I still canât quite believe it, but I went and lost it somewhere in the woods. I was playing football with my dog at the same time, and somehow I must have left it on one of the park benches perhaps. Somebody found it, picked it up â and took it home? Or they threw it into the bushes? Either way, it feels like thereâs a copy of it, waiting, hidden somewhere in the woods for me to find one day in the future. And hidden in my childhood play-arena, as it were, gives it a further sense of mysticism. When works of art can obsess a person so, they must have something special. As a developing writer myself, I hope I can make something that will affect people in such a way, one day. But Iâll need to put a lot of effort in before I can get anywhere near Gravityâs Rainbow.
  15/05/19
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âI do not know a Blackness that isnât queer. I never have, never will, and never could separate the two even if I tried.â
I wrote the above in response to an article by a colleague in which he argued the merits of centering his Black identity before his gay identity. I understood where he was coming from then, and perhaps even more so now.
For him, gay identity was so often taken over by white gay men that he felt the need to reassert his Blackness, so forcefully, perhaps, that it pushed his sexuality to the back-burner.
But I believe it is vitally necessary to hold all of my identities in the same hand at all times, and remain convinced that they are each always affecting my lived experience. Though maybe less obviously depending on the context, all aspects of who I am play an equitably important role in bringing the whole picture together. In fact, they affect one another so much that none can really be understood on its own.
My Blackness, for example, is only understood as Black through how I have encountered it as a queer person in America.
Everything I know about Blackness has been interpreted through that lens.
This is what intersectionality really is â not parsing out separate identities and lining them beside or in front of each other, but knowing that all parts of us are always connected and informing one another.
Recently, though, it has become almost impossible to ignore the level at which white LGBTQIIA+ folks, white women and white gender non-conforming people have taken over gender/sexuality identities.
In their activism and in asserting their identity, marginalized white people continuously try to force people of color into their mold and then chastise us for not fitting â all the while demanding solidarity.
For example, both Madeline Albright and Gloria Steinem, widely considered (white) feminist icons, last week demonized (all) women who donât support Hillary Clintonâs White House bid, with Albright proclaiming âthereâs a special place in hell for women who donât support other women,â and Steinem suggesting that young women support Bernie Sanders simply to meet boys.
I can most certainly imagine even some white women have better reasons than boys to refuse to support a candidate simply because they are also a white woman.
More importantly, though, this insistence on unconditional solidarity from women of color, whose gendered struggles may not be represented by Clinton, is indicative of a far more sinister issue upon which my colleague touched.
In the minds of many white people, gender and sexuality belong to them alone â they get to define it, set its parameters and make themselves the default, then demand support for that default.
Black women, for instance, are supposed to not even consider how the Clintonsâ policies have harmed them significantly in the past because of a shared âwomanhood?â
But the issue is that âwomanhoodâ isnât shared cross-culturally any more than âmotherhoodâ is shared across families. Yes, the relationships between you and your mother and me and mine have at least some similarities, but my relationship with my mother is unique from yours.
She still may be a mother and you still might deal with some of the same things that come up when dealing with a mother, but I will never be your motherâs child â though this doesnât negate the importance of the fact that we are both someoneâs child, or that motherhood means something different for an adopted child than for me, or that my relationship to my mother may be more positive or negative than even my siblingsâ relationship even while we are all her children.
Though intersectionality is becoming more widely understood and the problems with white feminism are being increasingly deconstructed, we still havenât gotten to the root of the problem.
White gender and sexuality arenât even nearly the same thing as my gender and sexuality, and the differences canât be glossed over any more than the âmyâ in âmy motherâ can.
White queer folks benefit from the âgay rightsâ movement focusing on âmarriage equalityâ in ways that I do not.
White male-perceived folks benefit from their gender presentation in the workplace in ways that I do not.
White queer folks benefit from blaming Black communities when âgay rightsâ fail on the ballot, though that doesnât even acknowledge my existence.
Gender operates vastly differently across race. Here are 4 reasons this should always be acknowledged.
1. Unless An Ethnicity Is Specified, Whiteness Is Always the Default â And Thatâs A Problem
A few days ago, I had a good laugh with a friend about something I noticed when writing about racial issues for a certain publication. In each of the edits sent back to me, whenever âpersonâ or âpeopleâ was added to my language, they never specified âwhite,â though that was always to whom the sentence would sensibly refer if following my argument.
As evidenced by when Dan Savage spread the lie that the Black community was the reason Proposition 8 failed in 2008, making white the default means the humanity of many nonwhite people doesnât even register. If âthe Black communityâ can hate âqueer peopleâ with no nuance, what about Black queer people? Itâs as if they donât exist.
This is dangerous on so many levels.
For one, it means that the issues affecting nonwhite queer people specifically are never addressed, and if  queerantagonism only affects white people, who needs to care about queer people of color?
Secondly, it means the things that might honestly benefit white people while inversely affecting their counterparts of color go unanalyzed. Hillary Clinton becoming president might be a breakthrough for white women, but what about the harm her policies might do that are specific to women of color?
Bayna-Lehkiem El-Amin became the target of gay rights activistsâ hatred, under the guise of âactivism,â after being seen on video hitting a white gay man with a chair in New York City, even as his own queerness was noted and he claimed self-defense.
Eventually, full video of the incident proved he was attacked first, but the same âgayâ media outlets that had so demonized him without considering a racial element never picked the story back up. In fact, many of them never remarked on his sexuality in the first place.
This is because âgay rightsâ basically means âwhite gay rights,â and when it came down to a choice between supporting a white gay man and Black one, âgay rightsâ had already picked at side.
If we always name race when discussing these issues, we can avoid the problem of white becoming the default and make its harm less easy to disguise.
2. White Concepts of Gender/Sexuality Categories Do Not Always Fit for POC
Iâve been doing a lot of public exploration of my gender and sexuality recently. Itâs been a wonderfully beautiful and enlightening experience.
However, a few weeks back I was reprimanded by a white queer person for claiming âqueerâ when they thought I was only interested in men (untrue and irrelevant) and for claiming to be non-binary when (to them) I was perceived as a man.
Because of the previously mentioned problem of white being the default, many people assume that gender and sexuality are only determined when it matches what white people know it to be. If white never needs to be specified, it must be the most legitimate and everything else is an aberration.
Real women vote like white women. Real queer folk fuck like queer white folk. Real gender looks like what white people perceive it to be.
But gender is expressed differently across race and always has been.
Regardless of âsharedâ gender and sexuality, we are affected by different things, perceived differently and move through the world in different ways.
Cultures that existed before European colonization looked at questions of gender and sexuality through a lens unfamiliar to many now, and that means that ideas of gender and sexuality exist outside of the Eurocentric imagination. Allowing white to be the default limits gender and sexuality to a very incomplete imagination.
By always recognizing race with gender and sexuality, we are better able to expand those concepts to cover all of the different, beautiful and important ways we exist.
3. POC Are Blamed For Not Fitting Into These White-Centric Categories
What that white person said as he pushed back against my identity was that without ascribing to how they viewed gender and sexuality, I was âtaking up spaceâ in their community.
This was through no fault of my own, I am queer and non-binary even if this person couldnât perceive it.
But not fitting into their perception of what that means was reason enough for them to attack me â and that is a violent appropriation of sexuality and gender justice.
Similarly, women of color with perfectly good reason not to automatically find solidarity with white women are told they are not âfeministsâ and that âthere is a special place in hellâ for them by the likes of Albright and Steinem.
This is part of the reason why Womanism was created, with Black women becoming fed up with being told their feminism must look exactly like white feminism for them to really care about gender based oppressions.
Along with intersectionality, all these ideas point to the same thing: gender is raced and race is gendered (and classed â this shouldnât be forgotten either), and therefore we should always be aware that they exist simultaneously.
This person was correct, I do not fit into their idea of queerness, but thatâs because my queerness is Black.
Queerness absolutely does show up in different ways across cultures, and acknowledging this is not only a recognition of simple reality, but also a necessary affirmation that this reality is okay.
4. Gender/Sexuality Solidarity Is Demanded from POC Without Reciprocation
As Twitter user Margi Nowak reminded us, Gloria Steinem and Madeline Albright never chastised women for not backing Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman Presidential candidate in 1972. In fact, they never even campaigned with her.
Black queer people in California were called homophobes when Prop 8 failed without even being acknowledged by people like Dan Savage, what to speak of actually having him campaign for the issues that affected them most. Even while being blamed and ignored, they were supposed to unquestioningly support those blaming and ignoring them.
Trans women of color are supposed to cheer along with Caitlyn Jenner as she loudly supports conservative policies and organizations most fatal to them.
When gender and sexuality are default and default is white, Whiteness doesnât even need to be mentioned in order to take precedence.
All our issues are tied in with theirs, but none of theirs need be tied in with ours.
This doesnât mean that the issues affecting white people in marginalized communities based on their gender or sexuality arenât important. In fact, those issues are tied in with ours. But it does mean that the centering of the multiply marginalized is most important. If anything should be default when talking oppression, it should be the most affected by it.
By naming race with gender and sexuality, we can better point to those whose issues have gone ignored and better support and amplify their voices.
***
Language is important. Too often when things arenât mentioned we take them for granted, and taking the reality that gender is always raced and vice versa for granted has proven very dangerous.
I could make the case that all identities should be spoken together, and in many ways this is a case for that, barring impracticality. But at the very least, we should always be cognizant of the ways the different aspects of us exist simultaneously, and take great measure to prevent forgetting.
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