#like really i oscillate wildly day to day (hour to hour) what i think/want/fear is going to happen

[cementcornfield]

What do you think is going to happen with Joe's contract

Man I am the wrong person to ask this question to lmao. I literally became a football fan less than a year ago and am still definitely a novice in this sort of thing.

I think the internet is a very big place and you can find evidence to argue for literally any possibility from Joe taking a team friendly deal to Joe resetting the market and leaving the Bengals in two years to go wherever he pleases. And I think, as people are wont to do, that fans tend to pick and choose from all this evidence to support whatever theory they already thought about Joe and what /they/ want him to do.

But really the only person who knows what he'll do at this point is Joe himself, and he's not the type to share. And I know I don't have the knowledge and context to try to figure it out for myself. So I'm just going my typical half hugely pessimistic/half hugely delusional route and both preparing myself for Joe to leave in two years and never look back, and for Joe and Ja'Marr (and Tee) to write each other into their contracts and stay together forever winning every super bowl from now until they retire 🤷‍♀️.

[no6secretsanta]

From: @skiesinlove

For: @dreamingsap

Happy holidays!

*

Nezumi hates hospitals. This is no secret. The way they look with their walls so white it's like all the color's been sucked clean out of them; how they smell with an astringent so potent he can taste isopropyl in the back of his throat; the beeping of machines rhythmically broadcasting how close people are to death.

Beep beep. Beep beep. Beep days. Two days. Two days.

If he could never step foot in a hospital again, it would be too soon. Fuck this noise—he'd rather die in a ditch than be poked and prodded and restrained and given mysterious substances and the whole thing is really just a nightmare for Nezumi specifically.

But he's here. With gritted teeth and the fury of a thousand ordinary men, he's here—because Shion's here, and he sure as fuck isn't going to leave him alone, not like this. He's oscillating wildly between feeling like he's going to throw up and feeling like he's going to punch a hole in the wall and feeling like he's going to cry. Fear like claws tears him apart from the inside out and makes him want to scream or fight someone until he gets answers or both.

The first day was spent pacing in circles around the too-big room while nurses and doctors filtered in and out, putting all kinds of tubes and needles in Shion with very little explanation for Nezumi.

"It's to help with the tachycardia."

"We'll monitor his heart better with this."

"He can't protect his airway right now, so he has to be intubated."

"It's pain control, for when he wakes up."

When he wakes up.

Nezumi holds onto that line like it's a life preserver and he's drowning at sea. Not "if," but "when." There has to be a "when," because if there's no "when" then Nezumi is going to make that everyone else's problem before he implodes in on himself.

Shion has to wake up. He's going to wake up.

It all happened so fast that on the second day, when Nezumi has time to slow down instead of tearing his hair out and walking a circular groove into the linoleum, he finally tries to process it. It still doesn't seem real. It was like this:

Nezumi comes home from his daily scavenging of the West Block for anything of significance that can be salvaged to the little cottage he and Shion share between that area of the city and No. 6. Shion, it turns out, has been home all day, which is very unlike him. He's been known to go into work practically on death's door. He's semi-conscious, flushed, vomiting, and burning up so badly Nezumi can feel it without needing to touch his skin. When Nezumi tries to rouse him, he just groans and tries to roll away, shaking. Nezumi tries everything he can think of to break the fever—cold rags, herbs, drawing a hot bath that he basically has to carry Shion into and hold him upright within—and nothing helps.

It's when his breathing begins to shallow, his pulse racing so quickly Nezumi isn't convinced his veins won't burst, that he snaps and finally brings him to the hospital in their horse-drawn cart. He carries Shion inside because he's not even conscious enough to stand and Nezumi barks and yells and screams until someone takes his love from his arms and whisks him away in a wheelchair, leaving Nezumi in the hospital waiting room. It isn't until hours later that he's finally allowed to see Shion with the briefest, most "I have to do this because it's part of my job description" explanation of Shion's condition.

"We're not sure what's wrong. We're running some tests. He's unconscious but stable. You can see him now."

And that's about as much as Nezumi's gotten in the two days they've been here.

"We're not sure yet, but we're running some tests."

It's an answer he gets about a hundred times before he finally snaps.

“What's going on?” Nezumi finally demands of one of the nurses, grabbing them by the elbow as they leave. He releases them the second they turn to face him, stiffening into a pillar of quietly shaking rage, because he's sure any longer will get him thrown out.

Thankfully, the nurse looks more irritated than frightened. Even though that annoys Nezumi even more. 

You should be more frightened, he thinks darkly. I'd burn this place to the ground if I thought it would help him.

“We’re not sure. Still running tests,” the nurse says curtly.

“You've run a thousand tests already. How do you not know what's killing him?” Nezumi practically spits, his throat tightening to keep from yelling.

“We're doing everything we can.”

And that's the last human interaction Nezumi has that day.

Nezumi hasn't slept in all that time, not since he came home to find Shion barely responsive in their bed. Exhausted and at his wit's end with fear and frustration, Nezumi collapses into the chair beside Shion's bed.

He's barely recognizable, hooked up to all those monitors with a huge plastic tube down his throat doing his breathing for him. Nezumi watches the rhythmic, mechanical rise and fall of his chest in a sleep-deprived, hypnotic trance. Almost automatically, he takes one of Shion's hands and presses the back to his lips. It's warm and soft and smells like that horrible jasmine-scented soap that Nezumi hates, but right now it smells like Shion so it becomes another raft keeping him buoyant enough to breathe. He brushes his lips against Shion's skin over and over and over and over again, until his lips are chapped and the back of Shion's hand is pink and the only thing his body seems to know how to do or feel is the motion of the kiss.

Hypotheticals have never been Nezumi's forte. There's always too much to worry about in the present to think too far into the future. It's the only saving grace now, his ability to pull his mind from the worst case—the only thing worse than the incessant beeping of the machines, which would be them ceasing to do so—and simply focus on the smell, the feel, of Shion against his lips.

At some during this reverie, he nods off. It is in this space that Nezumi is plagued by the what-ifs. What if Shion doesn't wake up? What if he's hooked up to all these monitors and machines forever? They'd ask Nezumi to be the one to pull the plug, and he would just to spare Shion any further torture in this place, but at least a part of him would be pulled out and die alongside him. Or even worse, what if Shion does come to and is completely, irrevocably different? That happens sometimes, Nezumi’s heard. What if he loses Shion, to death or to a changed mind?

It's not that Nezumi can't lose Shion, as in “it isn't possible to lose Shion,” it's that Nezumi can't lose Shion as in, “I will tear this city apart before I lose this man.”

It's been a while since Nezumi has been this afraid, and there aren't even any guns involved.

The what-ifs give way to sleep. His dream is amorphous and confusing: he's following Shion down a long, dark hallway, and he's always about twenty feet or so behind him. When he tries to call out, it's silent, and when he tries to run forward, he can't seem to catch up. The longer he follows, the more Shion starts to change. His hair slowly starts growing just a little too long, fading from white back to its natural brown, his shoulders slimming down more than normal, his fingers growing just a touch too clawed. There's a point when Shion stops in the middle of the hallway, and Nezumi stops too, and then Shion starts to turn around and Nezumi isn't sure if he should look at the face of the creature in front of him—

When he wakes up, the first thing he becomes aware of are the voices in the room. He keeps his eyes shut because it's probably just nurses and doctors coming to stick more things in Shion or take more things out of him like he's a kitchen junk drawer. But then there's some canned laughter and a musical sting and he realizes it must be one of those fancy televisions built directly into the wall opposite Shion’s bed. When his eyes fly open, he almost comes to with fist swinging because what kind of unprofessional, inconsiderate fuck would watch a sitcom in the room of a dying man and his lover?

But then eyes the color of a dying star flick to his face and thin, serpentine lips curl upward and Nezumi nearly vomits.

“Fuck.” Nezumi straightens as relief and affection and more anger (this time the knife points inward rather than outward) flood his system. He wipes some drool off the corner of his mouth, realizes he was still holding Shion's hand from where he'd slumped forward against the hospital bed and wipes some saliva from there too, and scoots closer. “Fuck. I'm sorry. I—god I didn't mean—how long was I out? When did you wake up?”

“Hello to you too,” Shion says with a quiet, croaky voice. Shit. That's right. He had a fucking plastic tube shoved down there for at least thirty hours.

“Don't talk, it sounds painful,” Nezumi corrects quickly. He reaches forward and brushes a thumb across Shion's cheek, feels his forehead. He's still warm, but not enough to kill braincells. “Just… fingers, how long have you been awake for?”

Shion's smile widens and he looks bemused, if not exhausted. He could move across the world packed in the bags under his eyes.

He holds up two fingers.

“Hours?” Nezumi clarifies.

Shion nods.

“Do they know what happened?”

Shion nods again. 

Nezumi exhales. “Is it contagious?”

Shion shakes his head. He opens his mouth to speak, but Nezumi leans forward and captures those lips in a kiss before he can cause any more damage to his clearly raw throat. It's short, but Nezumi pours a thousand unsaid words of gratitude and love into the contact and hopes to god Shion can understand all the things he can't say. By the soft, contented look on his face when Nezumi sinks back into his chair, it appears he does.

“Oh good, you're both awake.”

Nezumi nearly falls out of his chair at the sound of someone suddenly at the end of Shion's bed. God, he's so sleep deprived and distracted he hadn't even heard them come in. He's got to be more on his edge than this. Especially now.

“I just came to check on Shion here, make sure he's still recovering.” 

The… doctor? Nezumi assumes by his long white coat that Nezumi can't believe people still actually wear and isn't just something from old movies. Anyway, the doctor pulls out a piece of technology Nezumi thinks is called a tablet or something and starts tapping away at it. 

“You certainly gave us quite the scare,” the doctor continues. “Toxic shock is serious business.” The doctor's gaze moves to Nezumi and Nezumi squirms internally. There's something piercing about those eyes he immediately detests. “Good on you for bringing him in when you did. A few more hours without medical intervention and I'm not sure he would have made it.”

Okay. Okay so maybe… maybe Nezumi did do the right thing.

Nezumi just nods. He should probably thank the doctor for doing whatever they did to make sure Shion was okay, but Nezumi isn't in the practice of thanking people for just doing their job and he's not about to start now.

Shion, ever the more polite one, manages to rasp out a “thank you,” for them both anyway.

“Of course. Now, rest up. We're not out of the woods yet.”

The doctor doesn't say anything else to clarify whatever that extremely upsetting phrase means, just taps a few more times before giving both Nezumi and Shion a nod and leaving.

“They seemed nice,” Shion says, then coughs, then coughs harder.

Nezumi reaches over to the bedside table and shoves a cup of water into his hands, which Shion gratefully accepts.

“You think everyone is nice.”

Shion takes a long, long drink, actually finishes off the cup of water and swallows a few more times in an attempt to lubricate his throat. 

“No, I don't. I think most people aren't… well. They might be nice for politeness sake, but they aren't kind,” Shion says thoughtfully. “It takes too much effort to be kind.”

Nezumi snorts and shakes his head. Almost automatically, he reaches forward and grasps Shion's hand with both of his, brings it to his lips again. “I've made you too cynical.”

Shion hums at the kiss and settles back against his pillows. “I was cynical before you. I just didn't voice it.”

His head rolls to the side, and he looks absolutely exhausted but for some reason he's smiling. “I can't believe you actually brought me to a hospital. Are you starting to put trust in society again?”

Nezumi makes a disapproving noise through his teeth. “Fuck, no. But I wasn't about to watch you die on our bathroom floor.”

Shion's smile fades and his brows pinch together. “Was it that bad?”

Nezumi clenches his teeth, remembering Shion leaning over the side of their bathtub and vomiting blood into a tub they used for washcloths, and he nods. Shion's face falls. 

“Oh. I'm… I'm sorry. I didn't—”

Nezumi lurches forward and captures Shion's lips in another kiss, not at all interested in hearing Shion apologize for something that wasn't his fault, as usual. Shion makes the most adorable little noise out of his nose before relaxing against Nezumi’s mouth. Feeling Shion's living, breathing warmth soothes something inside Nezumi. 

Shion is here and he's alive and he's going to be okay. The sun could fall out of the sky and Nezumi’s world would still be fine. 

“Don't apologize, idiot highness,” Nezumi mumbles, pulling back. “Just… don't scare me like that again. Ever.”

Shion chuckles, his cheeks pink again but not feverish. “Alright. I'll do my best. Kiss me again?”

And Nezumi does. And does. And does. 

Loving someone might be a burden, but with Shion alive in front of him and kissing him, Nezumi feels it's more than worth it.

[animasend]

     little things about olga with her new canon point that i wanna list out [vague spoilers]

she can’t dream and can’t sleep so like, you can probably find her wandering around at ungodly hours. spot her at the corner store at 3 am trying a slushie sort of thing 

prefers floating and flying above walking [heh] so if you see her walking it’s a very rare thing. may also provide unsolicited commentary over your shoulder like some annoying deity as you go about your day 

as she’s fully uncapped, and doesn’t really have anything or any need to fight, you may also find her idly playing with her lightning. don’t mind the lightning or pseudo-black holes but like, mini sized. do not touch the black holes

seeing as she’s a servant but doesn’t know it (thinks she’s still just the alien god), absolutely gives off magical energy and the like so for some muses it’d be pretty easy to tell she’s. not human

as listed in her app, olga has the ability to read the mental waves of any living being and this mostly comes off as her seeing peoples emotions in colors [ red for anger, blue for fear/distress, yellow for friendliness, etc etc] she is also capable of telling if someone is lying to her so do not try it because she does not like being lied to and she Will Know. it isn’t mind reading in the traditional sense but a form of it!

yes this means that technically she can speak animal. catch her talking to her cats 

her memories as olga marie animusphere are pretty much gone. anything from up to the end of fuyuki where she ‘died’? gone. zilch. no more. her only memories from that time is the ones she has from being here in spirale and because of that, she will often refer to these times/memories as both being hers and ‘not hers’ and may refer to herself/olga marie animusphere as two entirely different people when talking about those times. 

also her memories from the city are a bit hazy for the time being but not completely gone! she knows faces and names and the vague sensation of what that bond is but everything else is gestures

do not call her animusphere she is just olga marie. you can however call her anything to inflate her (currently baby) ego like cool, almighty, the best god around, etc etc

was proposed to by a deino. also went on a small little date with said deino. it did not end well do not ask about it

tho lacking her heart, she still naturally holds some iffy feelings about humanity which contradict the lingering feelings about wanting to help them. so like, she may oscillate wildly when talking to humans but she has her reasons

she is such a huge tsun it’s staggering and i love her

if you do anything to karna’s flower shop she’ll turn you to ash. yes she still has her deep fondness and love for flowers don’t try anything with them <3

[plays-the-thing]

Netflix’s Witcher: What Makes a Good Adaptation? – A companion piece

If you’ve somehow found this without seeing the video first, here’s a link:

In this video I analyze the screen adaptations of Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, and the Witcher series. I use the comparisons of the three to discuss what makes adaptations in general work and to explain why I feel the Witcher is heading down the road to mediocrity.

However, this is a hugely complicated subject, and the works themselves are also complex, especially Martin’s work. I make plenty of claims in the video that a reasonable person could disagree with without any explanation for why I think they are true. Unfortunately, if I were to go down every rabbit hole that I touch on the video would be hours long, so I have to gloss over some potentially confusing or controversial statements.

Enter this post. Here I will be attempting to pre-empt any questions that I think people may have, and go through my thought process on certain claims. I don’t recommend that you read the whole thing. Each explanation will be followed by a timestamp and relevant quote from the video that I am expanding upon so that you can quickly search the page and find what you are looking for.

 I’m sure there will be things I don’t think to cover, or things that are poorly reasoned both here and in the video, so feel free to ask additional questions. Just please check to make sure you aren’t asking something that I already covered here.

 I will also be attempting to give as much credit as possible to all the wonderful writers and creators who have influenced my thinking with regards to these works. I’ll be linking as much as possible to my sources, as well as to additional content that expands on ideas I mention. Also I’ve included some personal tidbits and commentary, just for fun.

 Under a cut for length.

INTRODUCTION:

Huge props to the people who put together the behind-the-scenes footage of LOTR. I’ve watched all the bonus footage numerous times in my life. If you have any interest in the nitty-gritty of how movies get made, I can’t recommend it enough. It really shows all the work and complexity that goes into making movies. That they even get made at all is honestly incredible, especially massive undertakings like LOTR.

[3:30] And if you've ever wondered what the hell happened to The Hobbit, to me it seemed like they were indulging all of these worst impulses instead of catching themselves and editing them out like they did in LOTR.

As soon as I saw that they were making three Hobbit movies my hopes plummeted. It just reeked of executive meddling, and of trying to make the story into something it just isn’t. Lo and behold, that’s what we got: sticking in loads of unnecessary and thematically incoherent material to stretch out the runtime and make it more “epic.” I couldn’t bring myself to watch past the first one, but Lindsay Ellis has an excellent video series exploring in detail what went wrong with the trilogy.

PART ONE: LORD OF THE RINGS

[8:40] If you followed the events and the chronology of the book they would just hang out with Faramir for a little bit and then the movie would end

Technically it’s more complicated than this because that’s already following the revised movie timeline. In reality, Frodo would have just left the Black Gate. They *are* moving the events around to some extent, usually by a few of days here and there, but they can’t move stuff together that takes place weeks apart or the whole timeline would crumble.

[9:55] You can call it the theme, the soul, the spirit, the point, or whatever else you want, but the great works of fiction have something at their core that pulls everything together and elevates it into art. It’s a difficult thing to describe, but I think this scene perfectly tapped into the soul of Tolkien’s work.

Huge shout out to Bob Case and his video “Blame of Thrones” for first introducing me to this concept and the language of the “spirit” of a work to describe this phenomenon. In many ways the first two parts of this video are merely building on the LOTR-GOT comparison that he makes in that video, digging a little deeper and looking at more specific and concrete (and spoileriffic) examples of what he’s talking about so that we can apply these ideas to the Witcher…and beyond. Like all his work, it’s excellent. His YouTube is pretty much inactive these days, but he also occasionally writes content for Shamus Young’s blog if you want more of his work.

PART TWO: GAME OF THRONES

Alright, here it is: the section that really caused me to want to make this companion piece. Earlier I mentioned that I have sympathy for the GoT showrunners, and I really do. Martin’s work is incredibly complex, and so this section dominates the blogpost because there is so much to explain and no way that I could explain it all in the video without incredible bloat.

First I should mention that I, and all the writers I am going to credit here, share a very specific interpretation of Martin’s work. This isn’t the only interpretation. I doubt it’s the interpretation of the majority of readers. Obviously, I fully believe it is the correct interpretation, but the showrunners clearly had a wildly different one.

People who have this interpretation express it in different ways. Joannalannister collects hers in her tag #the-meaning-of-asoiaf. PoorQuentyn expresses it here, and in his analysis of Davos, Quentyn, and Tyrion. Other writers express it in their own ways.

With my lit degree hanging over my head, I can’t help but see it as a problem of competing artistic movements. To me, HBO’s Game of Thrones is part of the art movement of the past few decades, namely postmodernism. Art movements are complex, but basically postmodernism is the cynical reaction to the sincerity of modernism which came before it. Cynicism is, I think, the defining trait of Game of Thrones.

But it is NOT the defining trait of the books. In my view, Martin’s ASOIAF is part of the art movement that we are moving towards, which is starting to become known as metamodernism. Metamodernism is a reaction to the nihilistic pessimism and cynicism of postmodernism, and replaces it not with the unbridled sincerity of modernism, but rather oscillation between the two modes. It can be both ironic and sincere, deconstructionist and constructionist, apathetic and affectual. Once you have peeled back all the layers however, it is ultimately hopeful and optimistic. It embraces a sense of radical optimism. In metamodernist works optimism is often radical because the world the characters live in can be so dark. But that darkness serves only to highlight those characters that can hold fast to virtue amidst such darkness.

So, be warned. If you believe that Martin’s work is all about controlling the Iron Throne, and believe that cynicism is for the wise and honor is for fools, we just aren’t going to see eye to eye.

[12:45] Ned is a competent northern politician who has some trouble adapting to southern culture. Through a combination of bad luck, some understandable mistakes, and a misconception about his position, he fails in his goals.

The show didn’t invent the idea of Stupid Honorable Ned. Plenty of people believed this, even before the show. Obviously I believe they are wrong. If you would like to read more about it I would suggest Steven Attewell’s analysis of Ned’s chapters that he does on his blog, particularly Eddard XI and Eddard XIII. Steven does a much better job of analyzing Ned as a political actor than I ever could.

[13:00] Most of these changes are subtle…the best example is the council debate about whether or not to assassinate Daenerys.

Many of the ideas in this section are pulled from two essays by turtle-paced: Poor Doomed Ned and The Argument to Assassinate Daenerys. Turtle goes deep into the details of the differences between the Ned Stark of the books and the show, and I skimmed some of their comparisons for my argument. Steven Attewell’s analysis of this chapter is also worth reading.

[14:09] It’s a good argument, and I think in the books we are expected to mostly agree with Ned, both morally and politically.

When I say “expected” I mean from the authors point of view, which of course relies on me being correct about my interpretation of Martin’s work. Obviously I think I’m right, but if you don’t agree with my interpretation you may not agree with this statement.

[14:16] Notice also that the supporters of the assassination: Littlefinger, Varys, Renly, and Pycelle are all villains (all except Pycelle are trying to destabilize the kingdom), and the people who oppose it, Ned and Barristan, are heroes.

Each of them represents a different sort of evil. Littlefinger is a scheming sociopathic villain. Varys is a well-intentioned extremist whose willingness to commit utterly heinous acts in the pursuit of his goals makes him a villain. This is because, as Huxley puts it, “The end cannot justify the means, for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature of the ends produced.”  Renly is narcissistic ambitious evil, willing to throw a realm into war to satisfy his own ego, and is totally uncaring about the lives of other people. It isn’t precisely correct to say that Pycelle is a villain because he represents the banality of evil. He thinks he’s just doing his job, but he’s morally bankrupt and politically corrupt.

[16:40] It would take too long to list all the ways that Tywin is awful, and everyone knows it.

To clarify, I mean that everyone in-universe knows it. For some god-forsaken reason, some readers seem to think that Tywin was just being effective after he unleashed the Mountain on the Riverlands and violated every military and political norm in Westeros.

If you are going to say that he is “Machiavellian” I would encourage you to actually read The Prince, where Machiavelli says “Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred” and goes into the reasons why.

[17:17] Tywin on the other hand accomplished a lot of short-term gains by being as treacherous and dishonorable as possible. But this has a cost: by proving themselves fair-weather allies they surround themselves with the same. Nobody trusts them, and so their allies scheme and betray them.

Oberyn and Doran are both scheming in their own way to revenge themselves on the Lannisters for the deaths of Elia and her children. The Tyrells poison Joffrey and scheme to spirit Sansa away to Highgarden.

[17:36] Ned failed due to a couple of minor mistakes, some bad luck, and treachery.

I mention a few times that Ned, and more broadly the Starks, get “unlucky.” Again, Steven Attewell does an excellent job of documenting this with his keen eye for how GRRM cheats political realities, but I’ll note a few of the many ways George has to bend over backward to screw the Starks.

In AGoT Catelyn leaves King’s Landing roughly around the same time that Tyrion leaves the wall, and both are on horseback. In order for them to meet at the Inn at the Crossroads Tyrion has to travel roughly 2,000 miles in the same time that Catelyn travels 400 miles. This is basically impossible, but necessary for the plot so that Catelyn can lose Tyrion at the Eyrie. If she had caught him somewhere further north she could have simply chucked him into her own dungeons and managed his trial herself.

Cersei has been trying to kill Robert for goodness knows how long with just as unreliable methods as “get him drunk on a hunt.” In order for Ned to get screwed she has to succeed in killing Robert at precisely that moment. If it had failed like every one of her other attempts she is most likely dead, because Ned would tell Robert the truth about her children as soon as he got back.

In order for Theon to take Winterfell, veteran military man and castellan Ser Rodrik Cassell has to stupidly empty the Winterfell garrison while he knows that Ironborn raiders are running loose in the North, not even leaving behind a mere twenty-five to fifty men that would have completely thrashed Theon’s assault. If Theon can’t take Winterfell, the Red Wedding doesn’t happen (as Martin has told us that the real inciting incident of the Red Wedding was the fall of Winterfell).

[17:41] However, killing him was a terrible idea, and backfired on the Lannisters instantly.

Continuing this theme, the Lannisters were in an absolutely horrible position at the beginning of the War of the Five Kings. They pretty much just have their bannerman in the Westerlands. Stannis seems to have the support of most of the Crownlands, and he and Renly are splitting the lords of the Reach and the Stormlands (with Renly having the larger chunk). The Starks have all the support of the North and the Riverlands combined. The Lannisters are surrounded by enemies who outnumber them on all sides. Killing Ned immediately jumpstarts a war that will almost certainly crush the Lannisters. That it didn’t took some very thin plotting and improbable developments at times, but overall George made it work. For more analysis of this, again check out Steven Attewell Blog: Race for the Iron Throne.

[17:48] Tywin was killed by both a guest whom he considered his ally, and his son.

I firmly believe Oberyn poisoned Tywin. Here’s a good rundown of the evidence. Beyond simple means, motive, and opportunity it also provides neat answers to lingering odd questions like why Tywin rotted so oddly and aggressively, why Tyrion knew he would find him in the privy, why Oberyn was willing to chuck his life away for a confession before seeming to have secured revenge against Tywin.

It’s also thematically juicy. I love the idea that Tywin, who so egregiously violated Westerosi norms culminating in the total breach of the social contract at the Red Wedding, was a victim of contrapasso. He can’t be protected by social norms, so he gets poisoned by his guest and ally. Did Tyrion know he was dying? Had he put it all together? Was that bolt really an act of mercy? Perhaps it was one final service to the Lannisters, to keep the dream of their alliance with the Martells alive. Who knows, but boy is it interesting to consider.

[18:13] his alliances fall to pieces, and his children are abandoned by even their own family.

I’m referring here to the infighting between the Tyrells and Lannisters (and Martells, though they never had any intent of staying true to the alliance) after Tywin’s death (though there was some before as well, just intensified after Cersei takes over from Tywin). Kevan forces Cersei to take the walk of shame, and Jaime and the rest of the Lannisters abandon her to that fate.

[19:41] Just like Lord of the Rings, and the Witcher, ASOIAF is clearly dedicated to anti-violence. Not pacifism: all three works have heroes dealing out retributive violence in order to try and restore justice.

I understand it might be odd to suggest that three works which feature so much violence can be dedicated to anti-violence, but depicting something is not the same as endorsing it. I would argue in the case of Martin’s work in particular that his depiction of violence, so un-romantically brutal and direct, is intentionally revolting, and therefore is designed to be anti-violence. Martin purposefully makes you want revenge on certain characters, gives it to you, and then forces you to stare at the inhumanity of this thing you thought you wanted. Yeah I wanted Theon to pay, but not like that. Yeah, I wanted Cersei to pay, but not like that. Yeah, I want the Freys to pay, but I don’t think I’m going to like what Stoneheart is going to do to them.

There is a certain amount of this in the Witcher as well. I can specifically think of one scene in The Blood of Elves, but I promised no Witcher spoilers.

The violence in LOTR is much more romanticized, but as Faramir says: “I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.” The hero is still Frodo, who doesn’t fight anyone or anything in the whole story. Frodo is a pacifist, but his pacifism is enabled by others who are willing to fight.

[20:07] In a Dance with Dragons Daenerys allows the old slave-holding class to maintain too much power and so they immediately attempt to continue the old violence of slavery. Daenerys did not commit enough violence against the slave-owners, so they were allowed to continue existing, and as long as they existed they were always going to abuse and oppress the ex-slaves.

A couple years after the release of ADWD, an obnoxiously wrong and poisonous idea began to creep into the ASOIAF fandom: Daenerys’ violence against the slaveowners in Slaver’s Bay is dangerous and immoral, and peace is the better option. This idea was most persuasively argued in the Meereenese Blot’s series of essays.

I’ll quote some of the conclusion here:

“They are supposed to feel this generic distrust for everyone, and to fail to grasp that their peaces were actually quite successful. Dany is supposed to conclude — wrongly — that her behavior through most of the book was silly and foolish. And if you came away with those impressions too, it’s perfectly understandable…The whole plotline is designed to maneuver Dany into a mental place where she’ll decide to sideline her concerns for innocent life, and take what she wants with fire and blood.”

This idea, much like the idea that Daenerys is some sort of unhinged fascist just waiting for the right trigger, makes me unbelievably angry. This idea that I am supposed to value the life of the slaveowner and the slave equally, and that maintaining a “peaceful” slave-owning society is an acceptable alternative to violent revolution is so fundamentally revolting to me, that it turns my stomach even to write that sentence.

Some fans went even as far as to suggest that Daenerys’ occupation of Meereen was a parallel to the US occupation of Iraq, and that she was engaged in erasing an authentic slave-owning culture that she despised. If you read the above series of essays, you can see that they are, at the least, enabling that kind of thinking.

To be clear, I do not consider any slave society to be worth a damn thing. Anything that continues it is evil and all that attempts to destroy it is good. That being said, once again Steven Attewell does a better job than I ever could of rebutting the ideas of the Meereneese Blot, and explaining how the correct parallel of Daenerys’ actions in Meereen is the American mistake of abandoning radical reconstruction. He describes her actions in Meereen as abandoning a revolution half complete. I highly recommend reading it, especially if you are American. 

Martin is not a pacifist. He has said he would have fought in WWII. He demonstrated against Vietnam. As far as I know, the first time George ever used the words “Fire and Blood” was in a book released in 1982 called Fevre Dream:

“I never held much with slavery […]. You can’t just go… usin’ another kind of people, like they wasn’t people at all. Know what I mean? Got to end, sooner or later. Better if it ends peaceful, but it’s got to end even if it has to be with fire and blood, you see? Maybe that’s what them abolitionists been sayin’ all along. You try to be reasonable, that’s only right, but if it don’t work, you got to be ready. Some things is just wrong. They got to be ended.”

Daenerys is a slave-freeing, slave-owner-killing Hero with a capital H. She has made mistakes. I weep for the lives of the slaves that she has thrown away by abandoning her revolution, by failing to give the people of Astapor the strength to defend themselves, by maintaining a false peace that allows the Meereneese KKK to kill ex-slaves in the night.  I shed no tears for the slaveowners that she has killed. When you treat other human beings as property you forfeit your right to Prosperity, Freedom, and Life. Preferably in that order—I would prefer that a slave society could peacefully transition, that those who attempted to continue it could be locked up, and that bloodshed could be avoided. But sometimes violence is necessary.

Daenerys will make more mistakes, I am sure. I believe that she will swing too far in the other direction, temporarily. But that’s a topic for another time.

[20:57] She comforts the hound even as he threatens her and helps him on his path from violence to peace.

Sandor did not die, despite what the Elder Brother told Brienne. He uses his words very carefully, to suggest that the Hound is dead, but that Sandor Clegane the man is simply “at rest.” He has become a brother of the isle.

“On the upper slopes they saw three boys driving sheep, and higher still they passed a lichyard where a brother bigger than Brienne was struggling to dig a grave. From the way he moved, it was plain to see that he was lame.” - Brienne VI, AFFC

[21:40] If they don’t understand why Tywin is a villain then of course they won’t understand why the Others are the main villains of the series, and will probably replace them with some blonde queen. And if you don’t understand that the cold of the human heart is the real enemy than of course you’ll think you can stop winter by just stabbing it. Like Tywin would.

In the books the Others are the villains. They are what the whole story is building towards, much like in LOTR the story builds towards Frodo casting the ring into the Fire. Martin has said that he thinks that the finishing chapters of LOTR, like the Scouring of the Shire, were important, so we may see something like that, but the clear emphasis will be on the existential evil, and cleaning up Cersei or Aegon “Targaryen’s” mess will be a clear step down in importance. It’s something that the heroes have grown beyond, but still need to handle, just like Saruman in the Shire.

[22:04] There’s nothing wrong with liking Game of Thrones, or disliking Lord of the Rings, or anything else.

I really do mean this. I am going to be critical of things you like, and am going to praise things you love. People are different, that’s to be expected. I am not here to pretend that people should only like the things I like. I’m interested in what makes these stories work. I said much the same thing in my last video about some of the new Star Wars properties. People tend to get really attached to the media they like (I’m no exception) and that can color our perception of criticism. Do try to keep in mind that if you like something I criticize it isn’t an attack on you. You have a sacred and personal relationship to the things you enjoy that no one can take from you. I like all kinds of stuff that other people might consider bad, and that’s okay. Actually it’s great, because it gives us something to talk about.

I may genuinely hate Game of Thrones because it butchers something I came to love, but that doesn’t mean I have anything against the people who do like it for their own reasons. We’re all just out here enjoying what we like.

PART THREE: THE WITCHER

There is less in this section for two reasons. First, I promised not to spoil anything past the material covered in the show and I’ll stick to that here. Second—full disclosure here—I haven’t read all of the books because after Blood of Elves I got pretty bored and from what I had heard they did not improve in quality, and if anything got worse. Having already felt that going from the anthologies to Blood I was happy to end my reading there.

If something I say is contradicted by a later book that I didn’t read feel free to let me know.

[23:31] First I should mention that Sapkowski’s works are not on the same level as Tolkien’s and Martin’s, who are the best and second-best fantasy authors of all time. I have enjoyed the Witcher books that I have read, but they are not anywhere near as complex or beautifully written.

This is just my opinion, see above paragraph. I really do think that it’s a pretty common opinion though. I’ve read it before, and you often see people recommend the first two Witcher anthologies in a “if you like it maybe see if you like the rest of them?” sort of way. Book sales numbers also support this, though by all accounts they are exploding in the wake of the show.

But, one potential issue is that I’m reading a translation so I have no idea how good Sapkowski’s prose actually is. You get a lot of sentences in the US edition like: “it must be both bothersome and irritating.” Translation is art, not science, and passages like these make me worry that the translator is just translating each phrase without worrying about all the subtlety that makes language beautiful. These are minor examples of course, but they worry me about what else might be changed. So take my criticism of his writing with a giant, translated, grain of salt, in that I don’t read Polish.

[23:58] Despite this, Geralt the Witcher has been worming his way into popular culture for years, interestingly on the back of a series of video games

Google trends clearly show that the video games are what primarily generated interest in the character before the show. There were no English editions until around the time the games started coming out, and the US editions all feature concept art from the games on the covers. The release of the subsequently translated books after the games received very little attention in comparison to the games.

[24:15] In my opinion, that decline of focus on Geralt was the greatest weakness in the books, and the focus on Geralt is the greatest strength of the games. Because Geralt is at the core of what made Sapkowski’s story and world engaging in the first place. He is a fascinating character in a way that Ciri, who is a fairly standard fantasy “chosen child,” could never be.

This is just my opinion, and I explain why I think Geralt is so great in the subsequent paragraphs. Reasonable people can disagree on this, but I’ve come across more than a couple fantasy characters who could be generically described as “royal orphans with special powers.” It’s not exactly novel. Geralt is pretty novel, at least in terms of what I have read.

[24:49] He suffers many of the same psychological problems that characters like Tyrion and Brienne suffer from in Martin’s work

The technical name for these kinds of issues is “internalized bigotry.” This happens when you get treated consistently horribly by the society you live in due to some fundamental fact about yourself that you didn’t choose, and eventually you begin to believe and “internalize” their opinion of you. For example, people expect Tyrion to be unlovable, conniving, lecherous, and debauched. Eventually he simply leans into these characteristics, because in a way it’s almost easier to be what people expect you to be.

[25:48] To top it off, he hides all this inside a cynical and nihilistic exterior, he pretends he doesn’t care when in fact, he cares more than anyone.

The shot that accompanies this, of Geralt looking intently at what’s happening in the room while others tend to be watching with a sort of mild curiosity like you might at an unexpected circus performance, did an awesome job of conveying this idea.

[26:36] This was kind of a cool idea, but predictably their scenes ended up being generally less interesting and engaging then Geralt’s. Yennefer’s were sometimes fantastic but Ciri’s rarely were.

This was the opinion of fans that I most commonly observed. I don’t have any empirical evidence of this. If you have any that either supports or contradicts this please let me know, I would be fascinated to see it. I could see someone really loving Yennefer’s scenes, and I personally enjoyed a lot of them, but I don’t understand how someone could walk away from the first season with Ciri as their favorite character of the three. I’ll come back to this in a later section.

[27:40] In many ways the first two books, and the games, have more in common with Sherlock Holmes than they do most other fantasy stories.

Really a more accurate comparison would be Philip Marlowe since Geralt is definitely more of an American Pulp detective than a British one. I do love the similarity between Geralt’s Witcher Senses in The Witcher 3 and Sherlock’s detective vision in Crimes and Punishment. I can’t make the same comparison to a Philip Marlowe game, because no one’s made one yet.

Actually that’s not strictly true. There was one game that came out in 1996.

[28:12] But Netflix’s Witcher has barely a whiff of detective fiction anywhere. I think this has caused a lot of fans to feel alienated by the show, even if they can’t explain exactly why.

It’s not reasonable to expect people to know why they like or don’t like something. It’s a feeling, and unless they have experience with writing, narratology, literature, film studies, or just read a lot of tvtropes.org, they are not likely to be able to put their finger on what it is. This causes people to disproportionally blame the things that are most obviously wrong. The premiere example of this is Jar Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace. Jar Jar was obviously bad, but he doesn’t even come close to the top ten biggest problems with the movie. It was much worse that there was no main character or understandable plot and drama. Check out Red Letter Media’s legendary review for more on that.

I think a similar thing happened with Ciri, in that her story was sort of obviously underwhelming and so received a lot of flak, but there are deeper problems with the show.

[32:04] The third change is more subtle, but I’m worried that this Geralt genuinely believes in neutrality.

Just like Ned, the showrunners would not be the first to espouse this view. This quote in particular about “evil is evil” is obnoxiously peddled about as a justification for fence-sitting despite the fact that Geralt’s actual behavior doesn’t support it at all.

I don’t know for sure if the showrunners genuinely think Geralt tries to be neutral. There’s some evidence for yes in the first episode, the Borch episode, the Striga episode, and a couple of others. There’s strong evidence for no in the Duny/Pavetta episode. We’ll just have to see.

To be clear, when I mean “neutral” I mean in the face of immediate violence or injustice. Geralt often doesn’t care who is king, as he explains to Ostrit. But he won’t let a Striga continue to kill people just for coin.

[37:20]  When the writers took away Ned’s best arguments for his actions, when they took his story of existential triumph, of not compromising his morals, and turned it into a simple tragedy, they showed they clearly did not understand his heroism.

See PoorQuentyn’s explanation of existential heroism, and how it applies to ASOIAF.

[37:58] In the books, Ciri and Yennefer are included in the story through their connection to Geralt, because he is our hero and the foundation of our connection to the world. In the show they are included before ever having met Geralt, and they take up time that could have been spent focusing on those devilish detective details that make Geralt’s stories and character work.

Originally this video had a lot of discussion about how well these two other characters worked, but it ended up being kind of useless because it comes down to personal opinion, and the writers failure to properly use Geralt massively overshadows whether or not someone liked or didn’t like either of the other two leads. Again, I get why someone could like Yennefer’s scenes. I get why someone could maybe even like her scenes more than Geralt’s. Anya Chalotra did great. I thought the writing was a little weak at times, but on balance pretty decent. Geralt gets the benefit of all his stories being straight adaptations, and she didn’t, so it was a pretty decent job.

On the other hand, I thought Ciri’s storyline was a giant waste of space. When I think of all the best moments in the show, Ciri doesn’t show up in any of them. She spends the entire season running away from and interacting with fairly minor and forgettable characters that did not need to be introduced in this season. Calanthe, Eist, and Mousesack were great characters and the actors gave great performances, but that did not make up for the fact that her storyline went nowhere and did nothing to justify its inclusion. If someone loved Ciri’s storyline I would genuinely be interested to know why.

[39:10] I do have some sympathy for the writers of the Witcher.

Many times in this video I mention sympathy for various writers. Moviemaking is a massively complex undertaking. If you know anything about the difficulty of getting these things together you’ll know that it’s an absolute miracle any movie gets made and takes herculean effort from everyone involved. Television series are arguably even worse because they are longer, more complex, and often have a lower budget despite that. The people involved are honestly doing their best, and I recognize that, even if I criticize the product.

[39:47] They are in this unfortunate position where they can’t really pull the majority of their writing straight from the books because the material isn’t really strong enough by itself.

The books are very dialogue heavy. As I allude to, the one scene that was very close to the book is that scene with Filavandrel and it’s just obnoxious because the two characters just dialogue at each other. It goes on even longer in the book. How well that works in a book is up for debate but it wasn’t going to work on the screen, and it didn’t.

These problems are not insurmountable though. You can put other footage over these monologues. You could have included some footage of Elves fighting in their war. You could have footage of the “cursed” daughters of Lilit being locked in towers or autopsied while Stregobor explains it. I get this is more budget, but that budget went other places.

On the other hand some great scenes that I think would have translated excellently shot-for-shot from the book with little additional budget, like Renfri and Geralt in the Alderman’s attic, are entirely cut. Ah well.

[40:25] Well, I have my theories, but it in the end it doesn’t really matter.

I have a sneaking suspicion that somebody thought it needed to be more “epic” than the first two books are, so we got all this princess and political stuff in early. If there’s any merit to the idea that this series “copied” GoT, it’s somewhere in here, just like how the Hobbit got poisoned with all of the “epicness” of LOTR.

[44:54] Lastly, I’m gonna do my best to put out more regular content going forward. I’m aiming for at least one video a month.

I place no limitation on topics. It’ll probably be mostly media analysis, but if I’m honest I’m just going to write about whatever interests me. That’s the best way to keep myself interested.

That being said, if you have something you think I should analyze let me know. If I’m interested, I might do it.

[paganchristian]

The neighbor cat and its friend, sibling?  We were playing with them, and they were chasing this bag, racing, leaping around the grass. The one is more dominant and the other stopped visiting us.  Maybe because the one is jealous and intimidates the other from coming.  :(  Even though they’re both so sweet.

We had a fire last night, again.  We have much firewood, coincidentally, because we a big oak tree fall on our property recently.  And the cat came and visited us, and sat beside us for hours.  But this time he seemed to be more aloof.  I’m not sure if he even has an owner, and I fear, I hope he’s ok, well-fed, safe, but I don’t want to steal anyone’s cat.  As far as I can see, he’s not too thin, but he’s a little on the thinner side though, it’s hard to say with cats, with fluffier ones, maybe, especially it would seem that under all that fur maybe they’re thinner than they seem. He just laid there or sat there instead of being so affectionate the whole time, like before.  Then I think he fell asleep and slept for hours as we watched our fire and time slipped like sand by some meditative change of perception or something, how it is that time slips pleasurably away, without knowing where it went.  

And we’re not even talking much, just watching the fire, and we’re not sleeping.  It’s like a time warp.  Few things can calm and soothe me like that, but spending time with a playful, affectionate cat, is one thing that also makes time disappear, and doing artistic crafty things too, sometimes.  Dance, yoga, qigong and tai chi and pilates.  Visions of love from spirit, when they save me from life’s stress.  Many things that work like this for others aren’t the same for me, gardening, music, movies, reading, walking in nature.  It’s not that I can’t enjoy them sometimes, even a lot of the time, with some of it (like walking in nature), but it doesn’t swallow time in a quickly elapsing hourglass of hours turned into minutes...  

And so with those other sorts of positive “time-wasting”, relaxing things, ...  With these other things, they don’t seem to be a safe haven in which I am able to lose myself..  Worries still writhe their way in, take over, destroy my peace, if I don’t have someone else to hold me in check, like my daughter, my husband, whose emotional stability keep me from abandoning healthy pursuits in favor of obsessive and escapist, addictive, imbalanced, fretful, self-destructive things, how it was when I was a housewife, before my daughter grew up into a relatable creature.  I was miserable before she was born and I was tormented after she was born, not happy as a mom of a baby, either, but I tried my best, and she did bring me much joy and love and I gave her much love too.  But still, I wasn’t happy, because I never did mean to become  a mother and was too depressed, ill and confused to manage well.  But after she reached a certain age, I had been gradually healed over many years of her loving, patient, childlike, unself-conscious, peaceful, patient, joyful, playful life,... 

Because I learned to become more and more of my inner child through her good example, and find the parts of me that can patiently, calmly enjoy fun things without feeling bored or guilty to be spending time just having fun. 

And spirit healed me over those years too, and that helped me become able to just enjoy life, without a torture of guilt and fear and meaningless anymore, bit by bit, without a heartless leaden weight consuming and casting itself like a drowning weight, keeping me mired in the mud.  Spirit still helps me like this, and more and more with this new Christian path, these new groups, the pagan-Christian compromise path I’m making for myself too, now.  

Spirit beings, over the years, ... they healed me with energy, with ideas, with spiritual practices, and bliss poured over me, and changed the cells of my being, in a chain reaction.  I don’t know how.  It changed me, my heart, my mind, my soul, without my conscious participation, as a feeling of sheer love just soaked through my being and changed me.  It was God, but before the Judeo-Christian God, it was in the form of Hindu deities, and before the Hindu deities, it was spirit guides and it was visions of beings, and sprits, other humans, astral projecting to heal me, at least that was what I experienced, not that the people ever said they did any such thing.  But all I know is it changed every fiber of my being.  Spiritual practice and ideas and philosophies too, changed every core of my being.  Every core of my being?  Well, I think so, ..

I think,..  I seem to have multiple beings, or multiple cores, a changing, oscillating, spiraling self, an orbit of selves.  Not multiple personalities, or dissociative identity disorder, but something else, more like aspects of the self.  That are very distinct and separate from each other.  And that need to be healed in different ways, and each have their time to come out and express themselves, or they will fester and mental illness, and physical illness and overall disorder will come from them.  That sounds weird, maybe, but it works for me. I was thinking why did I say, cores of my being, and I thought, as often my weird wording and other such odd coincidences happen for me, I find deep, satisfying and uncommon meanings and answers inside them. 

  And anyway, my daughter grew up to become more and more someone who is able to relate to my interests, ... whilst I was changing, becoming more of my inner child and learning to relate better to her interests, ...  And now we’ve come to a point where we kind of met in the middle, and now I’m a grown up mom who is still very childlike.  I hope she doesn’t outgrow me.  Lol  I want to help her to keep her inner child alive and well and thriving and maybe we’ll always have this inner child fun relationship together even once she is grown and we can connect that way,...

But yeah, these good and relaxing things that aren’t pure mediation for me , like the fire can be, those other things, they’re really at risk for being derailed,...  Even with the things that feel like meditation, I seem to need a companion to help to keep me from abandoning it.  

Worries and pains do melt away from me, somewhat, when we walk in the soothing nature and wilderness, yes,...  

But,...  it’s not that thick gloop of cooling, erasing pain feeling, pure meditation.  These other things are just meditative, without being pure meditation... 

But sometimes I don’t need pure meditation.  So I often prefer a less mellow thing.  I spend much time on many days doing walking, divination, doing homeschool with my daughter, that keeps my mind more engaged but tones down the worry spiral and keeps it under control and spiraled down into a coiled up snake that is just ever waiting to explode wildly when something can trigger it.

Why is it all these other things that are meditation for others aren’t for me?  I guess we all have our preferences and different things that work for us for different things.  And sitting meditation and breath meditation and no-mind, no-thought meditation, I do enjoy but these days I like something more to be going on in my meditation but in the past I would slip into these for hours, these meditation nothingness, no-mind places I could disappear from my self and worries and the world into them.  But being meditative or pure meditation is helped by the prayer, the continual background prayer that I do all day, almost, these days.  

Anyway, once the fire was done, last night, the cat woke up and was so very talkative, and I was so sad we had to go indoors and it was our bedtime.  It never talked so much before, continual little mrrr sounds, high pitched, adorable, sweet and eager.  What was it saying to us, anyway?  I think maybe, it was surprised it could sleep and wake up and there we still were.  It’s nice to sleep beside someone you love and wake up there with them.  There’s something magical.  It was purring all through its sleep too, sometimes sleep is so happy and rejuvenating.  A sleep filled with loving energy and dreams.  But I don’t know what it was thinking, I wonder. 

I feel like my life is boring, it is riveting and joyful to me, actually.  I feel my life is nonverbal, and mute, but for my daughter who spends most of the day with me, we actually talk about things through the day, but if I try to connect to my loved ones, then how will I connect?  I feel like I’m a boat lost at sea, so far away, so distant.  And if other boats pass by I feel I can’t reach out.  I’m in my own little boat.  I don’t know how to relate to them.  I am scared they need me.  When the people in the other boats shout out, I can’t answer.  I not only cannot bring myself to say much, as my mind is blank.  I even feel sad and weary to even hear them, to see them.  

I am an island, my little boat of my immediate family only, here with me in this boat of ours. My husband peripheral and I can’t talk to him either much, even if he’s in the boat and we spend a fair amount of time together, but distant and coldness is inevitable with our history and present as it is.  With the pain that can’t be erased, probably, ever.  So it’s mostly me and my daughter in my boat and my husband is just a peripheral navigator, taking us where we need, and he is sometimes a practical companion for certain things. A frightening character who we might need to leave behind if things ever get too crazy and his warning signs ever become something worse and realer, more dangerous, as they have been, in the more distant past, several years ago, for many years, when my daughter was very young and then before she was born, many years of horrible hell.  But for now, we live in the river and he’s our only boat and we have no boat without him, and may as well drown because I don’t think I can do it without him.  The depression might destroy me finally then.  Might, and I don’t want to test that theory, so I stay and I pray it away... Thinking this humiliation might be a design from God, a test to make me stronger through conflict and challenge, like I have written of before. 

And yet, with my other family and friends, still,...  I can’t shake this deep feeling, this yearning feeling, this eager and hopeful feeling, there is a promise and there’s a surprise and there is a secret here, waiting for me to unveil the present in it...  There is so much I have to offer, I know it, I know it.  And so I feel surely there is a way I can reach and share with them, my loved ones.  But how?  

My life is full and overflowing with joy and beauty, to me, to my daughter, but it feels our joys and beauties and pleasures and meanings aren’t something others can really get and appreciate, or how can they?  I don’t know how to share these homey, slow, childlike, tacky, cringey, dumb and simple things with others, even if to me they are beautiful, fulfilling, the height of meaning, love, beauty, creativity, intuition.  For me, but again, what works for one is not what is even tolerable to another.  How can I reach them?  How can I tell them to even be near them more often than just a few times a year,... that more time together with them than that overwhelms me, ...

Or how can I,... Or, can I change this horrible, sad reality of isolation and being such an island to those closest to me, except for one person, one child?  

And,...  How can I find what lets me bridge the gap to ever feel not drowned by another language I can’t speak, suffocated into silence and neglect?  Because that is how I feel around others.  Their sun wilts my self.  I don’t enjoy it all that much, but especially if I feel ignored and unable to speak my own voice.  I don’t feel they would really care that much about my self, I can’t reach out.   And how can I teach my daughter to learn how she can reach out to others, relate, connect and enjoy other peoples’ company as well, since we both need to have others who we can relate to in the real normal modern world so we’re not doomed to isolation and loneliness if we don't’ always have each other this close and so what do I do I wonder?  

But ...  Speaking of loneliness, .. 

I am much less lonely without the other people than I was, back then, when I depended on them and tried to reach out.  I never found solace and joy in them, try as I might.  Well, actually that is not entirely true, because in high school I had friends who were a lifeline in my otherwise completely miserable lost depressive existence, totally depth of despair day by day life.  But I was different then, they were different then, we were both teenagers, that was another world, another self, another life.  I can’t apply it to who I am anymore at all. 

[elspethsunschampion]

Gifts

Rating: T

Summary:  Billy Kaplan wakes up to a surprise one morning--maybe his powers aren't just lightning-based after all?

A/N: I just have a LOT OF FEELS about trans Billy Kaplan okay

         Billy woke up feeling weirdly refreshed. Considering he’d cried himself to sleep the night before, he hadn’t been expecting to feel too amazing, especially since he was probably PMSing and liable to start his period within the next day or two, which was Grade A Suck, in his opinion. He checked his sheets, which at least turned out not to be a murder scene, so that was a good sign.

           Sleepily, he headed into the bathroom and flipped on the light switch. His face was itching some, which might mean more acne—oh, joy. With a sigh, he grabbed his washcloth and rinsed his face before reaching for his toothbrush.

           Something was different. He hadn’t had a cup of coffee, so it was hard for him to put a finger on what it was, but there was definitely something different. Yawning, he squinted into the mirror. Weird, his chin looked almost fuzzy. But he wasn’t even on T yet, and not likely to be for a few years if he couldn’t even manage to come out to his parents, who were, seriously, the most harmless, accepting people in the world. Except—Billy frowned and ran his hands down his front. He’d managed to get a binder by ordering it from a pretty discreet online source, but he didn’t wear it to sleep in, since that wasn’t good for your breathing, and, again, there was the potential concern of Mom and Dad noticing. So how come his chest was so flat?

           “No way,” Billy said out loud, and his voice came out pitched half-a-tone lower than it usually sounded. “But I have lightning magic, I don’t—” He swallowed. He was dreaming. He had to be dreaming. With trembling hands, he stripped off the Thor t-shirt he always wore to bed and ran his hands down a smooth, skinny chest. “No way,” he whispered again, and then he pulled down the boxers covering his skinny thighs and actually squealed. “Oh my god! I have a dick!”

           For the entire day, Billy oscillated wildly between ecstatic and fucking terrified. He felt right, he looked right, and after desperately digging out the razor he used to use to shave his legs and armpits, he managed to scrape off the fuzz on his chin. His face looked different, but it didn’t look different enough that he thought anyone would actually notice. Firstly because they’d have to look at him instead of looking through him and secondly because it was such an insane thing to happen that no one would ever, ever believe it. No one was going to come to the conclusion that “that weird Kaplan girl (ugh) grew a dick last night and is really excited about it!”

           But he wasn’t a girl and now he had goddamn proof of it, even if he couldn’t exactly show it to anyone. And that was fantastic! Less fantastic was the fear of how the other Young Avengers would take it, because it seemed really likely that Billy wasn’t just a lightning-user after all, unless they’d skipped some really crazy shit in Earth Science. And—there was Teddy.

           Teddy, who’d been so great about it when Billy came out to him, who’d never fucked up Billy’s pronouns, not even once. Who’d given him the most breathtaking smile and said that he wished they could swap powers for just a little while so that Billy could feel more at home in his own skin. Who, Billy had to admit, he kind of sort of definitely had a crush on, and he thought Teddy might feel the same way, but how would this change things? In principal, it shouldn’t change anything, but Billy couldn’t stop worrying about various different ways Teddy might react. He could be weirded out, or it might turn out that he was straight and he’d only been interested in Billy because Billy still looked enough like a girl. Maybe that was why he’d never made a move. Because Teddy was definitely one of the nicest people Billy knew, and if he was attracted to women, Billy was pretty sure he’d never put the moves on him, because he respected Billy’s identity too much for that.

           And, yeah, that wasn’t the worst thing in the world, definitely not. But it was such a depressing thought—having somebody attracted to you but attracted to you in a way you didn’t want to be. That would suck.

           He spent his lunch hour trying to figure out how this had happened, in the hopes of being able to report something more concrete to Nate and the others than, “my tits vanished overnight, I’m overjoyed, none of this makes any sense.” What had happened the night before? He’d wrestled with his precalc homework, mostly finished it, read one of his Thor comics, and then gotten hit with a wave of dysphoria. And he’d gone to bed and cried. That was it. Wasn’t it?

           It wasn’t until he was trudging out of school that he remembered the last thing. I am a boy, he’d said, when he was crying, when he was curled up in bed. I am. I am a boy. I am a boy. And he’d gone to sleep whispering it.

           Just like the day he’d said, I want to stop Kesler.

           Maybe his habit of verbalizing the spell he was about to cast wasn’t just a habit…Billy swallowed as his entire world seemed to shake on its axis. If he wasn’t just a lightning mage—what was he?

           Freak, whispered a voice in the back of his mind, and he shivered, pushing the thought to the side. Maybe the rest of the Young Avengers would have some ideas.

           “All right, before we go home for the night, does anyone have any news?” Iron Lad asked them, the way he always did, although it didn’t look as if he was going to wait for an answer, and he probably meant news about Kang the Conqueror. But Billy hadn’t managed to get anything out until now, and this was basically the perfect opportunity. And if he didn’t say anything now, he didn’t know if he’d ever manage to get it out.

           “So…” he said slowly. “You know how we thought I had lightning powers?”

           “Yes, and you’ve been doing a remarkably good job at learning to control—thought?”

           “Um.” Billy looked nervously from Iron Lad to Patriot to—Hulkling. “Um. So. I—” He couldn’t figure out how to say it. “Last night, I—you know how I told you I, um, don’t like the way I look?”

           “Oh, spit it out,” Patriot said, although he sounded more impatient than unkind.

           But Billy couldn’t. “Look. Last night I went to bed—the way I usually do—and this morning I woke up and—” He took a deep breath, reached down and grabbed the hem of his t-shirt and hoody, yanking them up and over his head. He had to fight the absurd urge to cross his arms over his chest. “I was saying last night before I went to sleep that I—that I was a boy, y’know, because I was feeling kind of shitty, and—and—” Fuck. There were tears prickling at the backs of his eyes. That was stupid.

           A soft hand was laid on his shoulder, and he glanced to the side to see that Teddy was regarding him with a kind of wonder in his round blue eyes. Billy flushed to the roots of his hair.

           “That’s definitely something we’ll need to test,” Iron Lad agreed, and the matter-of-fact way he said it soothed part of the terror that had been gnawing at Billy’s innards all day. Patriot’s eyebrows went up, but all he said was, “Huh. Well. Congrats, man.”

           “Uh, thanks. I, uh, I guess I better put my shirt back on, huh.”

           “Here.” Teddy handed it back to him. “Um. You look good, Billy.”

           Billy’s cheeks chose that moment to go from slightly warm to approximately the temperature of the surface of the sun. “Uh, um, th-thanks,” he stammered, attempting to yank his shirt back on and getting tangled in it. “I guess, uh, we can talk more about it at our next training session?”

           “Good plan,” Iron Lad told him briskly. “Maybe if we can figure out the extent of your powers, we can figure out why you were listed on the Avengers Failsafe.”

           Billy tried to nod through the all-encompassing layers of shirt. It didn’t work terribly well. “Argh,” he groaned. “Can someone—”

           A pair of gentle hands took the hem of his shirt and tugged it down carefully. “You good?” Teddy asked.

           “Yeah, I th—” Billy’s voice was arrested as he finally managed to get the offending article of clothing straightened out and found himself staring straight into Teddy’s eyes. Apparently Teddy hadn’t been pulling from behind the way he’d assumed. Billy stared, trying to move his limbs, trying to do anything other than just let Teddy’s warm breath ghost across his mouth. And Teddy wasn’t moving away either, but—

           It was a fucking perfect moment, so of course Billy’s mouth opened and said exactly the thing most guaranteed to screw it all up. “Look—I’m flattered, Teddy, but, uh, if you weren’t attracted to me before—I don’t know if—” Yes, you do! screamed a voice in the back of his head. You know exactly what you want! You want to make out with his perfect face, right now! His brain couldn’t even use the you’re just a straight girl faking it anymore, but somehow he was still—afraid. “I mean. What if it’s temporary? I don’t really know how I did it, and—and—I’d rather not have you than just lose you again because, uh, my breasts came back.” Which, of course, was the point at which he realized that Teddy hadn’t said anything, so Billy had just assumed that he was thinking about kissing Billy the way Billy had been thinking about kissing him, and he might’ve just opened his mouth and shoved his foot so far down his throat he was kicking himself in the kidneys. “I mean, um.”

           Teddy went red, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. “Billy, I’ve always been attracted to you,” he said, and Billy’s train of thought derailed with a screeching crash of phantom brakes.

           “You…have?”

           “I, uh, didn’t know if you wanted anyone to be attracted to you? I knew you had issues with your body, and I didn’t want to complicate things by making you think about them too hard, I guess. But—maybe I accidentally complicated shit anyway?”

           “Fuck me,” Billy said incredulously, and Teddy got a mischievous look on his face.

           “Maybe I should kiss you first,” he suggested, and Billy flailed his arms in the air.

           “Kill me now,” he moaned.

           “Your instructions are getting worse,” Teddy informed him, and Billy opened his mouth, having absolutely no idea what he was going to say this time, but before he could drive his foot further into his abdominal cavity, Teddy cupped his hand around Billy’s cheek, bent down, and pressed their lips together. Billy froze in shock, and then he had his arms wrapped around Teddy’s shoulders, and he was kissing him back.

           “Get a room, you two,” Patriot sighed.

           Billy flipped him off over Teddy’s shoulder as he brushed gingerly at Teddy’s mouth with his tongue. The screaming little voice in the back of his mind that had consistently insisted that he had definitely fucked something up lately had finally gone quiet.

           After a long moment, Teddy pulled back, but his hands were still resting on Billy’s waist. “So, um,” he said, awkwardly.

           “D’you want to get something to eat together? Tonight?” Billy asked him eagerly, and Teddy’s face broke into a wide smile.

           “I’d love to.”

           “Fuck yes!” Billy leaned forward into Teddy’s embrace, then had to lean up and kiss him again, on the cheek this time. “This is the best damn day of my life,” Billy told him, and Teddy’s smile got, if possible, even wider.

           “I’m glad,” he said, and he squeezed Billy tighter.

[lunarfae714]

guatemaya & mecksiko

12.29 Atop Yaxha Pyramid

when we can measure our journey

in love shared,

found, exchanged?

instead of in fear of disease

hijack eyes of mania

panic

feeding-off-conflict

the beauty is known no ego

only offerings

can the love always be

charged like the Sun,

infinite, and changing

in each hour-

when does it become a service,

the exchange?

when can it be fully free

undrained, exuberant?

for yourself & for all

for the earth

for the wind

for all that is—

changing form

a leminascate

can it all be

selfless 

words & actions,

are they enough?

like the rocks that love the water which kisses them,

the eternal dance 

of stability & moving union.

***

after noon

soft dreams

downstream

count backwards

from twenty

& forth

until the numbers dissolve

facts turn to feeling

& the border boxes break free

natural & unseen

patterns yet changing

each non-moment still

like pre-dawn’s cirrus

the dance like curtain

unfold away lights

strong-

the elements

burnt sun

ice water

really

feeling it all

full

heart

full

mind

full

of

nothing

as it should BE

always still

&  moving

seed to harvest

sow

in to morrow

with Love’s light

blasting

*

1.17.16

amethyst

charged

emerald & selentine

dreams directed

by the mind’s wind

candlewax drip

fixed on fingers

the torch lights

our nightcrawl

naked under the quarter moon

& the river runs high

poison toads

& branches that split,

graze under the soles

night becomes dawn

time told by Sky

the visions change in Ember’s logs

consume gadgets not necessary

almighty mother fire force

acts, destroys, creates

our womb ignite

as we place hot stones on our sacral chakras,

active the living unacknowledged children

the family of us

&

the natural

All living as one.

water pulleys from the creek,

the new flow.

the same water near passes

over our feet twice

our collective feeling,

on solid foundations.

***

when I’m alone

& write poems

of travelers notes

how real addictions can be

to communication

sugar from the parasite

all the world addicted to the white mans crystal

ancient ruins of conquest

how to get away

from conquerer mentality?

can we remove ourselves from history?

why do we capture another?

separate, control, dominate

trapped in the material system

material hunger

we are spiritual beings

meant to live like plants

will it disappear as the bombs go

the few who print the papers

the chemicals & vaccines

police and sex tourists

drag us where?

the north and south pole

on the same earth.

*

morning meditation on the river dock

silver smokerings oscillate

tubes of ashes fall

the air moves east

& the river rolls west—

wind & water

frankincense & appelblauwzeegroen

their dance

smooth & constant

like thoughts dancing along the rivers

(background noise is all)

no use to anticipate

the next moment

or dwell

the past moment

who you were

what you said

what you thought

what you felt

meaningless

when we live in the mind

in our fears, pain, or planning

we will miss the sweet kiss

of wind on our lips,

the first sip of coffee, bitter

the way the monkeypod shines crimson

gleams bark in the noon sun,

the glory in taking a inhale deep

in tune with the sway of the trees,

you may not see

the makeshift fishingrod

of sticks & shells

the bearded fishermans tailored pants

beside me on the dock

what are we trying to catch?

how simple to speak in silence

when we are at peace,

knowing we swim through these bodies

beyond our crown

beneath our feet

complete

in the profound simplicity

of stillness.

***

day mares

1.7.16

cold breeze & hard nips

a woman sings go ask alice 

and the naked children shushing me

under fallen ladders ex-lovers

with newfound company locked

out of the room of togetherness

outside, the observer watches

the time

a stolen wristwatch

a sun blistered lip,

salty like sea waves

& bad barganing

what golden melancholy brings

an even pace a meditation

a clearing of nebulous brain lobes

rotten with acid washed

down gopher holes

bruised & fallen tangerines

which do we shape shift into

focus our energy our hearts

we can be the potted plant

or are we already,

and who is the gardener?

****

san marcos sound wave

lights across the lake, starry

dogfights in the calle

endless & ghastly

cries of infants constant

like crickets

& fireworks

thrown reckless

like the piles of shit

scattered on cement

trumpets & flutes

balancing cop cars on fire

across the lake

peace in the balance

of turquoise caldera

the mother lake

has waves.

*

*

when i heard pretchel speak of

the navel—

bellybutton of the earth

blood sacrificed from the

hard hits

deep fingered

dirty regrets

just to sleep in a bed

away from the nightmares shadow/work

9-5 & 5-9

what a way to pass the time

we jump off the piers onto boats

trembling volcanos make our circles as we

kiss on the mouth

bless the food

break the blender

pull the Devil

karma

as orange the Sun understand

could twist that way

pure BLISS the goddess

we are all a part of

perfect nothingness

nonetheless

i am you

are me

what i do to you

i do to me

when i pour out my mind

like lemonade

the sun shines through

shitshow brigade

body ecstasy

outside the body

we were born as two

we were born without shoes

without the navel of the earth

that keeps

pulling us back.

***

friends with scorpions

the all-knowing scorpion

aliens

why do they return

to the same places

same beds like

second-time lovers

who think they can get by

hiding beneath your pillow

while you wonder in silence

what it will take to be strong

amid Surprise

**

5.18

sleep paralysis

& dead drunks on the sidewalk

brains hanging loose over

puddle of blood sangria

faerira any excuse

to drink to death

feel the pain in my kidneys

free the beating heart parasite

pulse in my body

pulse in my pulse

in my despair,

mary oliver’s wild geese sing,

tell me of yours

i will tell you mine

tell me why the shadow man

comes at the coldest part of night

sun rise before

we rise too

pretend these bodies

will keep us going

and the wind will carry us

in the way she pleases

living to die noble

or living humbly?

***

6.20

sweetwater

the little pleasures-

to graze my tongue along a frozen mango

perfectly ripe

deep orange, unique & so sensual,

craving union with the mouth

to remain nude all day in the jungle

to dance wildly to a drumbeat capable of visioning

to hear ruiz shout the problems of the mind

to think of life outside misery

to cook granola on the fire

to free the lice eggs from my head

to view problems as roadblocks

water-filled potholes choose

how to get through and admire the turtle.

reptilian overload

to see the birth of the day—

the fresh black baby chick

bounce under mamas wing

to roam freely & pick cactus spikes

to prepare dinner

all when the negativity has stepped out. 

***

jellyfish regenerate, they are the aliens of the sea. 

how to live naturally, harmoniously

here i am, meant to

reflect the fucked up system i am from,

to encourage others to return to the land.

wake up & work together

return to simplicity

not selfishness, pleasure & comfort

we meet the right people at the right time.

truth comes in action & awakening

not the the illusion of movement

or perception deception.

thank you iyke

***

*

not feeling

vs. feeling it all

meant to ascend

& experience nothing

do you love rollercoasters

or are we?

*

poems hidden in moleskins

in a sugar-addicted consumer country

malnutrition consciousness

school teachers in system to know the enemy

there’s a reason why the madmen cooped up in the jungle

away from us all

& there’s a reason why the city folk stay cooped up in concrete,

swarm like fish, absorbed in screens & button

virtual reality, where Gaia Mama

shows her pubes in remote rooftops

the belief in the debt coins & papers

manifest by three generations of puppeteers.

And yet-

who feels more alive?

i see the frustrated alien bacteria control the game

war mentality,

beheading kittens 

craves community-

yet blows them away with the word vomit violence.

hate the system, know the system

to use the system,let the system

control how much can we control?

how much will outside stimuli satisfy?

busy consume interweb-reliant

instantly gratified

forget what is really gratification, blessings

how many systems

no different species

we are infinite,

nonlinear time

no reptiles control

don’t get caught up in the spiderweb of the world

who weaves your dreams?

the spiders body, lemniscate

forever expanding

intend, manifest, unchain, let be.

you  hate poetry because it doesn’t move fast enough

& paints a portrait too pretty

unknowing that scenery

& the white spaces

speak and move in in ways

the human body could never.

spinning in the cycle of earthly life

creatures on the wheel, darwin

hired to tell us dog-eat-dog

& win not work together

lets separate for power & call it evolution.

but we eat too. we eat chemicals in candy

the white man’s crack, let memory be a hard drive

in the computers of our minds.

backpacker dilemma

live in love

live to get high

live in fear

live to die

live to live

***

morning coffee with crazed

one way to wake up.

irony of sitting & talking

the real parasite the defeat of pessimism

when truth speaks

don’t be insulted

swimming in sweat

in the mexican sun

caked dirt

being in isolation

makes one angrier?

lonelier?

working together

the real solution

instead of believing

in the money go-round

that separates us in our boxes

our safe.

*

in a meat-excessive society

to fight, kill, invade

poison the food

control the water

damage the sea

leak nuclear waste

when free energy

could fix it all?

ets walk, step by step,

mindful

in our place

in the evolution

of being, aware

of control, corruption

of our ripple, on ourselves

into the universe and under the stars.

remember what hicks said,

we are all expressions of the same ocean

6.16

each day i’m asked by a mexican man

why I’m traveling alone

they don’t understand

im not alone

last weeks companion

a parasite in my gut

and now i have a family of lice on my head.

eggs waiting to watch

you see

i attract the finest suitors to share myself with

you wouldn’t think they wouldn’t want to join me

as i walk for hours in vernal Mexican sun

eating only fruit

living away from traditional travelers

caught in the system

on vacation oil their money runs out

drinking their way along the hostel road

sightseeing the hits of their tourist books

you are your surroundings

you are your environment

express the unique wave

you image yourself to be

all your beliefs

shaped by stimuli, external

reflections

pregnant in the dreamscape.

*

fast-paced taqueria tales

i find it silly to spend much money on myself

pay the price of locals

& sit at the tamale stand

on the street corner

with teens and papas

& saucy mujer server

(always love that central american women are not afraid to laugh at you)

behind the counter like a dealer

in the casino of the calle.

bright lights

of the coke machine behind her

& bad television, sports that fuel the town

in the sugar-addicted novella.

division as entertainment.

hit me.

another tamale strikes the bar

with swift hands,

the 40 peso workday

soft camote sleeps in a bed of corn

under a blanket of hot sauce.

hit me.

*

a week of accidental fruitarianism.

can’t stand the heat

reptilian land

a far walk to the village

flesh-eating bacteria going around

the one who passes gives me a ride

with shotguns in the backseat

he eyes it & grins,

“are you scared?”

*

today a gang member

tattooed tears under his eye

in an iron blue shirt

large bodyguard

working the tourist turtle beach

like a chessboard

eyescans

hustling at the entrance

to watch all who come & go

like prey. he lent me

his nephew’s jacket

from his swanky rick roller

family car

and thought about

the slice of cheesecake in the dumpster

you can find sweet things hiding

in all corners of the earth.

*

pat watches as papayas

do the reverse-rainbow dance

satisfied, self-reliant

as the green parrots pass

& a new pair of eyes

hatch from the egg.

meanwhile, the masses dive

in binary systems

of separation, run the wheel of the money-go-round

chew on the potent chemicals,

live inside cement boxes,

domesticated mice working for money-driven madmen

but

since time isn’t linear

& the seeds have been planted

what you seek

is seeking you

in the karmic cycle

of non-attachment

non-aversion

true action.

with steady hands,

a quiet mind,

patience

you’ll watch the earth

return to tribe or die.

*

flora teaches us

to honor what’s growing

follow new life

all realities created

*

christmas eve in the mayan jungle

mules do the pleasure bankroll not he dirt

as the rainbow scale turkeys peek aimlessly from the forest

the jaguar stalks the deer behind us

& the howler monkeys do the tree-top tango.

their call like a lion

i practice the guitarita

watch makeshift football

& lazing hammock brothers sway

blistered soles from miles of dirt deep

treks through mosquito village

i miss my blood family

yet present with my tree family.

my ancestors in their mysteries

corn & snake gods

modern looters & night guards

body full like the moon,

blood sacrifices and love rituals on the jaguar pyramid,

solstice of the waves of this recycled life

of forgiveness.

*