#shame and then engagement and then finally just labour

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia. Not sure if this has been asked before but what makes you decide how long a chapter is going to be? I noticed that the chapters in your stories like FFS and TIP have really long chapters whilst stories like the current UtB have shorter chapters, and I was wondering why that was.

Hi anon,

So... it's mostly down to two things:

First -> Engagement. People just generally comment a lot less on longer chapters. The longer the chapter, the less comments it gets. I don't know if it's reading fatigue or what, but The Ice Plague taught me a lot of hard lessons and longer chapters do not get the engagement to justify that level of effort (I love love love the comments I get, don't get me wrong, but I also make money off this writing to live, I do have to think 'longer chapters mean I eat less and can't see all my medical specialists' - that's not nothing). People might say they love them, but they don't show the authors love for them in the same way, and that's the only way I can justify doing them.

Second -> From a labour perspective, I can release more chapters for different stories if the chapters are shorter. There was a time when the average length of my chapters was around 6-8k per chapter. That works out to maybe five chapters for like, possible one or two stories at once per month. The editing took longer and was harder to do, and it was also more laboursome for my beta as well. Shorter chapters are easier to edit, even if you're doing two and a half in the same amount of time. Stories like Palmarosa, A Stain that Won't Dissolve, probably most of the Underline stories like Gold and Red and Blue would not exist at all if I was still writing longer chapters. Because I could never justify the time it took simply to write a single chapter, and it would be - like so many of my story ideas - just a pipe dream that I sometimes talked about.

So if you like some of those stories, they are literally in existence in part because I went to shorter chapter lengths, which allows me to be more experimental with different story ideas to see what ones I really enjoy, without impacting my monthly wordcount and schedule too severely.

There's other factors too. But engagement was a huge, huge part of it. These days my chapter length ranges from around 2.5-4.5k which seems to be the sweet spot (it's also still about 2-3 times as long as what's recommended in serials, which sadly is like 500 words to 2k, which to me is like, damn, I can't live like that). And a lot of later FFS chapters are actually around this length as well. In fact I think at least one chapter in FFS is 2500 words. So I was already experimenting then with shorter chapters and was already finding that the shorter chapters had more engagement. I think one of the chapters that had the most comments of all of them, was actually one of the shortest chapters.

There's a time and place for really short chapters so I don't like to do them too much, so instead I'm around the 3-4k mark.

There's also the fact that when it really suits, I will write longer chapters. Though I don't ever want to write chapters over 6-7k again outside of epilogues, simply because of the sheer amount of labour that goes into them, and the fact that they seem to fatigue readers a lot more overall.

The other thing is, anon, I used to be very ashamed of how long my stories were, so I used to prefer - out of shame - shorter chapter numbers but longer chapters so it 'felt' like the story was shorter to me even though it wasn't. Realistically, Game Theory should - pacing wise - have 100 shorter chapters. But this embarrassed me so much I shoved a lot of different things into chapters that would have made more sense broken up. When I gave up that shame, I could pace the stories better in a way that made more sense to me. In longer chapters, you'll see a lot more chapter breaks (the asterisks), and some of those are where many writers would logically just have started a new chapter.

[dragontrailz]

YesCymru - The Struggle for Power (Part 2 of 4 - 2021 to 2023)

This is the backstory to what happened when Gwern Gwynfil was dismissed in late 2023 and what's happened since (that will be covered in Parts 3 and 4). Part 1 will cover the 2021 coup (which is summarised briefly in this Part) in more detail and was written in late 2021 and edited recently for clarity.

The detailed story is indeed to act as a historical document in order to inform the membership that restructuring is needed. What happens next is up to the membership. It has become necessary to publish something to stop the paralysis that has overcome the movement and seems entrenched.

Introduction - 2021 to the Gweithgor

I first joined YesCymru in 2020 for a 12 month membership period, as the movement was scaling impressively with the Covid Pandemic bringing more attention to the campaign. Mark Drakeford was perceived to be handling the crisis better than Boris Johnson. A low bar you might think, but it seemed to be drawing attention to how devolved power was allowing us to manage our own affairs and resolve our own problems. 

It was during this period of rapid growth that a group of interlopers with a subversive agenda began to plot and to mount a coup. As the May 2021 AGM approached, the plotters saw their chance to create an opportunity where new members could be voted onto the Central Committee, whilst simultaneously targeting two founder members from retaining their place on the committee. 

All of this might have remained a secret, if it wasn’t for the online bragging by the co-ordinator of the meeting, a Labour Councillor for Prestatyn called Bob Lloyd.

According to a prominent right-wing third-sector blogger named Mr Jones, the plot appears to have been coordinated by Bob Lloyd, Mark Hooper, Lab4IndyWales co-founder Ben Gwalchmai, ‘All Under One Banner’ founder Llewelyn ap Gwilym (who was on the Committee at the time) and a final plotter, who was a key person at a now defunct Welsh media outlet. For the purposes of the story, let’s just call him ‘he who does not like to be named’ (HWDNLTBN).

They were assisted by Momentum’s Harriet Protheroe-Soltani and Elin Hywel from radical-left IndyWales campaign group Undod. Happy to go along with the plot were a collection of artists who seemed to be using YesCymru as a promotional vehicle. 

I verified Mr Jones’ work back in 2021 and it checked out. It was a shame that the research was inflected with some colourful language in places, which seemed to deter some people from engaging in its content. Rather strangely at the time, Nation Cymru, a major rival to HWDNLTBN’s paper, weren’t able to really call out what was happening. I’ve never really been able to ascertain why, but I suspect someone behind the scenes was sympathetic to the aims of the coup plotters.

Once in power the group prioritised trans rights, which they knew could be used as a wedge issue to cause internal tensions within the organisation. Their shift in direction triggered a response, where the wider YesCymru movement made clear their discontent, eventually resulting in the resignation of the Central Committee on August 2021. It was a turbulent 3 months. While Ben Gwalchmai took to Twitter for some epic rants, the wider movement breathed a sigh of relief and Mr Jones, who it was now rumoured to be in retirement in the Dysynni valley, claimed the credit for being the only journalist, employed or retired, to call what was going on. 

A prominent tweeter who resides somewhere not too far from this author’s location stated on X that “everyone knew what was going on, but no one was able to stop it”.

Well that was because you never got organised enough to do anything about it.

The Gweithgor

After allowing my membership to lapse for a month, I rejoined for a second year, briefly sitting on the Gweithgor transitional council that attempted to regained control of the organisation. The aim was to put in place a new constitution and legal structure, but it was beset by problems from the start.

At the time, it was clear that YesCymru was going through a period of flux after 18 months, largely dominated by the Covid Pandemic, which had seen the organisation scale beyond what anyone had really expected. The tight timescales meant it was challenging for those who sat on the Gweithgor to attend the meetings, communicate the outcome to their group, obtain feedback, integrate the group’s wishes into the process and be ready in time for the next cycle. 

Some members seemed to expect miracles, many others were simply not engaged with the process. YesCymru wasn’t used to operating effectively and democratically across these two tiers, which was a real indication of the trouble yet to come. It seemed clear to me and others I was in communication with, that there were still troublemakers in the working groups obstructing progress.

Despite the obvious obstacles and the rushed timeline, in December 2021, an Extraordinary General Meeting voted to adopt the recommendations of the Gweithgor. 

The movement looked forward to a new start in 2022, albeit with a reduced membership. Almost 3,000 members voted to change the legal status of the organisation from being an unincorporated association to that of a company limited by guarantee. This gave YesCymru a strong mandate to proceed and nominations opened for positions on the new National Governing Body (NGB).

The majority of members who were nominated to YesCymru’s governing body were elected automatically, due to a lack of candidates, after the movement moved to a new regional structure based on Senedd regions. 

Elfed Williams assumed the Chair and the role of Financial Lead; Nerys Jenkins took the Vice-Chair; Louise Aikman the Legal Lead; Geraint Thomas the Communications Lead; whilst Phyl Griffiths headed up Campaigns and Marches. The organisation issued an update, where it looked to professionalise the movement, increase grassroots participation, drive the Independence agenda in the media and engage key demographics.

Barry Parkin was elected unopposed as Director for ‘Outside Wales’ alongside Louise Aikman, who only lasted until May 2022 as Director, before being removed on a technicality after not attending three consecutive meetings. The solicitor, branded the organisation ‘dysfunctional’, after a clash with Barry Parkin and Elfed Williams, a pairing she referred to as the ‘gerontocracy’.

The removal of Louise Aikman appears to have been the start of a process where Barry Parkin and Elfed Williams began their consolidation of power. Her departure left Parkin as the only ‘Outside Wales’ Director, as she was not replaced until April 2023, when Dafydd Smith was appointed as a new Director for that region.

A month after Louise Aikman’s departure, in June 2022, the organisation took to the streets of Wrecsam, for their first national march in almost three years. It was recognised to be a huge success and there was a general feeling of relief and euphoria, which carried YesCymru through the summer. To most members at this time, the organisation looked to be back on track.

In September 2022, Gwern Gwynfil was announced as the new CEO and he set to work to re-establish YesCymru, stating that the organisation needed to raise its membership in order to be effective. 

A second march of 10,000 people took place in Cardiff in October 2022, at which the new CEO addressed the crowd, alongside former Plaid Cymru leader Dafydd Wigley, actor Julian Lewis Jones, novelist Ffion Dafis and Irish comedian Tadhg Hickey. 

My impression was that Gwen Gwynfil was popular and he seemed to be doing a good job. The reality was the membership were not engaged with the NGB via the regional group structure and many did not realise how the organisation was being governed. This lack of democratic engagement with the grassroots, was to prove a real limiting factor. However, YesCymru did attempt to address this by organising a National Conference in Aberystwyth during the summer of 2023. 

What happened next came as a shock to the membership and raised the spectre that there were hidden problems at the heart of the movement, which had been overlooked when Louise Aikman was sacked.

[balkanradfem]

So I got a lot of backlash on my substance commentary, and this surprised me, because I didn't think people were going to read that at all. I was looking trough the comments and found a lot of anger, and some of it didn't feel like the regular misogyny, people were genuienly upset. I didn't find any arguments that debunk what I said, so I didn't feel the need to engage, but I understood that people really liked this movie, and it meant something to them, they needed to defend it even if they had no arguments to do so. I thought about it for a while, and watched the 'Final Girl Studios' commentary on youtube, which confirmed my own thoughts.

I was able to criticize this movie the way I did, because I was not the target audience. Rather, I'm as far from target audience as it's possible to be. And I perceived the theme wrong. This movie wasn't really trying to make social commentary or depict the evil of the beauty industry, it was merely – a representation of it. And people felt represented by it. Seeing a woman struggle with self hatred about her appearance, about aging, about eating food, or even appearing in public due to how she would be perceived, that is a common struggle of girls and women, and women felt represented by it. Even the part of the movie where the protagonist is depicted as vain and shamed for struggling, was just representation, that's how it feels.

I somehow evaded the femininity struggle, eating struggle, age struggle and the appearing in public struggle, because I could opt out, my survival never depended on it. My job never depended on it. I could just go 'I'm ugly and I'm going to do physical labour and its fine' as a child and never tried to adjust my appearance to fit social standards. Which now feels like a privilege, because despite believing myself ugly, I didn't have to sink into a hell of eating disorders or equate my appearance with my value, I could just not care. So seeing women struggling with that hell hole just made me horrified, when for a woman who goes trough all of this on a daily basis, this is just her normal, this is representation.

So sorry to all the people I made angry with my criticism! I came from a place of ignorance of what your experience is like, and looking at it from outside, it looks horrifying, inhumane, and like a torture to me. I didn't experience it from the inside, so I could only see what the movie failed to do – focus on the root of the problem and explore why things are the way they are. We're not there yet.

If we're coming from a place where the struggle with eating disorders, aging, and beauty standards for women is invisible, then visible representation of it is the next step, the only direction we could go to. To me this felt like not good enough, but we can only take steps forwards, we can't take leaps. I think once we do make this struggle visible enough, we can take the next step and look at who benefits, why is beauty industry like this, who made it, who wants it to continue, who profits off of it, who is getting off to it, who are women dying to try to please, why are women even subjected to the option of 'aging out of a job'.

And also, a way out of it! One reason the movie hit me wrong is because of how deliberate and planned it is; once the protagonist is trapped in changing her body to the beauty standards, there is no turning back for her. It's always going to turn out the way it does. She has to keep going until she is turned into something considered 'less human' by the social perception, and then die. But it never shows a way out of it, a way for it to stop, a way for her humanity to be reclaimed, for beauty standards to no longer matter. I think for this, human warmth is needed, representation of normal and unaltered womens bodies is needed, humanity given to bodies that are altered, positive representation of food is needed, positive representation of women's human needs, social needs, needs for attention, all these being fulfilled in a way that never brings any harm to her. But for that, we couldn't make a horror movie. It would have to be a warm movie about making women feel human again.

And I also think it's okay for me to want more, to think that we deserve more than just representation of suffering, of being dehumanized. It's okay for me to criticize a movie for failing to engage with the root of the problem! I am a radfem and this is my job. I think we deserve to see more than hopeless suffering of women, I think a movie could be both representative of suffering, and engage with the cause of it. Can you imagine if a movie like this made a paralel with a woman whose body was never altered, who had no makeup, and was perfectly happy and unbothered? Can you imagine if we even got a saw unaltered woman's body in a movie? Can you remember ever seeing that? We have the right to demand it! We should be represented in more than suffering. Our body is more than a horror movie.

Did anyone watch the horror movie 'The Substance'? I've seen it because someone recommended it to me, and I saw one of the three directors was female, but now I just have few thousands words of criticism and upset about it. Click if you want to read it. Tw for themes of women abused in tv industry and the fear of aging out of their jobs.

So, the substance is about a woman aging out of her role in television where she runs a fitness program, and she is distraught to realize she's going to get replaced. Sadly she blames her own aging process about it! She gets in an accident, and then a male nurse gives her an usb showcasing 'the substance', a serum that makes a younger version of you come out of your body.

She takes it, and her body opens up to let out a younger version, a different acctress, come out and look at herself in the mirror. I was already upset by this point about the depiction of a woman losing her job for aging and hating herself, and not the industry and the males in it, but now I was in disbelief. It was funny that they wanted me to believe another woman exited from her back and didn't break her spine in the process, whatever, but now she was in a new body, and immediately went 'yas slay look how hot I am' Excuse me what?

I thought, at least one part of the horror would be feeling off and alien if forced to switch consciousness to another body, a body that is unfamiliar, that you didn't grow with, it would be traumatizing. No matter how much more 'socially likeable' a new body was, I can't imagine looking at my own hands and legs and having them look completely different, and being okay about it. It would cause a crisis in anyone, your identity would be in shambles. You couldn't get used to it, you'd have trouble looking at the mirror at all, and would forget it and constantly be reminded of it when seeing glimpses of your own hands, and it would shock and disturb you every time. How would you talk to your friends and family now? How would you deal with people you loved who couldn't recognize you? It would be mentally scarring.

If she had one single friend to talk about this, the entire premise would fall apart because it would become obvious that this is stupid and shouldn't be done.

Watching on it turned out they cut this woman out from any social context of her life. She had no friends, no family, not even any acquaintances. The only person who ever talked to her was one(1) single ex classmate, and other than that, she seemed to have zero people in her life who even knew she existed. But there's nobody like that. Yes, you can be socially isolated, but hardly to the point where nobody in the world knows you exist. If you go outside people memorize you. She didn't have anyone who knew her. She was supposed to be a popular figure on tv. But she didn't exist. This woman had no past, no existence in anyone's world, no connections to other people whatsoever. It made her less of a believable character to me. Nobody can exist completely out of social context of their life. We didn't get an explanation of why she has no family, or friends or acquaintances, or past loves, or anything like that. It was almost like she was now so irrelevant due to her age that the world just cut her out, which is scary but also ridiculous, she looked young!!

Another glaring flaw in the movie was that... the older woman in the movie was so clearly more attractive than the younger. They tried to shoot her face in harsh lightning and highlight whatever they thought was wrong with her body, but she just looked excellent under any kind of standards. What do you mean this teenager is 'hotter' than the original protagonist. She looks 17, she looks like she shouldn't be allowed outside after dark. The idea of her being filmed by older males gave me nausea, get that child away from them. I had to skip most of the scenes with her because it looked like child pornography. They had her wearing breast prostetics to make her look adult and put her in clothing no woman alive would find appealing or comfortable to wear, it was painful, uncomfortable and horrifying.

The entire existence of the younger woman was dehumanizing. She didn't eat. She didn't watch tv. She didn't do anything human. She was a male idea of a 'hot young girl', who only existed to look like what males think is appealing, dance on stage, and get male approval. That's it, we never see her exhausted, sad, commiserating how difficult it is to be around males who objectify you all day, we never see her complain about sexualizing and so obviously ignored sexual harassment she was put trough – the movie acted like sexual harassment didn't exist. Males around her appeared to only care about how much money she could make them and even though that was disgusting too, I don't believe for a second that a woman in that scenario doesn't get extensively sexually harassed. But the movie skipped over that. Like it just didn't matter. She doesn't have mental health issues because she's an attractive female child on television. She isn't human to them.

The younger woman had to switch bodies with her original counterpart weekly, and at first I found these little moments soothing, because the older woman was clearly showing signs of pain, hunger, exhaustion, irritation, depression. I thought 'oh, there's the humanity I was missing!' and was just happy to see her eat something. But then, to my horror, these little moments of humanity were ... demonized. The fact that she was eating was a flaw and a failure in the movie. She was depicted as addicted to food, jealous, bitter, angry and like giving in to any human urge for entertainment and rest was her 'wasting her life'. I was chilled by this notion, because I realized that's how males see female needs in real life. A waste.

Another thing I found upsetting was the amount of completely naked scenes the acctresses had to go trough, because I can't imagine anyone feeling okay and comfortable with being filmed like that. It felt invasive and uncomfortable for me to see. I knew it was done like this for male satisfaction, it wasn't catered to me. It disturbs me to think they felt comfortable looking at that. Female discomfort is a source of pleasure to them.

The movie progresses in the protagonist taking more and more time being in the younger body, resulting in the older body deterioration. She ends up feeling like she's two people, which is logical at least; you would feel like you're someone else if you're a different body, it at least displayed that little bit of 'you are your body' consequences. The male nurse who gave her the substance starts stalking her, and talking to her in public, and I found this part interesting. The male tried to get her to relate to him, said things like '7 days is long' and 'has she started eating at you already', and to me it became obvious that the male nurse knew exactly what this was going to do to her, and did it anyway. Because he felt lonely and wanted a female companion who also switches bodies. He picked her out and victimized her because he wanted company who also suffered and struggled with the same problem, he spread the misery for his own benefit. I thought we were going to look at that? I thought we would unpack that for a second? Male selfishness and bringing misery into female's life for their selfish purposes? But movie said no and we never see him again.

The younger version seems to forget she ever had any more age, and recklessly parties and does public events not caring that her counterpart is getting destroyed, until at the end, they both end up in some kind of monstrous shape, which okay, the extra teeth were fun, add extra teeth on women yes. But she is ultimately killed when appearing in on a social event looking like that. The ending just shows her dreaming about being famous and cheered on by the crowd, and it looks almost like the movie thinks her endless greed for glory and fame did this to her. Like this is her own fault, she destroyed the body she had in pursuit of eternal approval and gratification of a cheering crowd. I was looking at this like, who was this made for? Nothing about this clicks, is this for people obsessed with their own fame? Is this just a made up idea of what the world looks like for women who are trying to be famous? Because it wasn't clicking with any reality I was aware of.

We've listened to women going trough fame and popularity, and we know what these stories entail. First half of it is being introduced to it too young, forced into it by their parents or guardians, being overworked, missing on childhoods and schooling and family time, not getting enough sleep or rest, being pushed into substance abuse just to get trough the day. And then, endless sexualizing, endless situations where they're in the presence of predators and unprotected. The industry ruthlessly rejecting their personality and forcing them to mold into whatever the public wants, or the producer wants, having their identity crashing with the public opinion of them. Lack of privacy, lack of safety being outside, getting harassed and crowded on the street, not being allowed to live a normal life. Having body issues due to being forced to focus on how you look, because you're under constant scrutiny and now your job depends on how your body looks like, developing mental disorders due to lack of control over your life, and due to control you have to have over your every action. Having your opinions and wants dismissed because your word doesn't count in the industry when you're a woman, being forced to hide what people have done to you in private, often suffering sexual abuse and being forced to keep quiet if you want to keep your job. Breakdowns, suicidal thoughts, both fearing to lose relevancy and wanting out of the industry for your mental health, but it's all you've known and you don't know how to function otherwise. Getting jaded, realizing your own value drops with age, learning to despise everyone who took advantage of you and dropped you the second you weren't making them enough money. Being sick and tired of males talking down to you and dismissing your humanity. Not knowing where to turn for understanding and safety, because the charade has to keep on going in order for the industry to go on.

This is what I would expect a woman in the industry to have learned after being put trough all that, and instead the main character was so void of any backstory, any real experiences, any thoughts or criticism about it, any anger or bitterness about the abuse she'd have suffered in there, and was sorely upset about her lack of job security and that she was no longer looking like a commercial. She would have learned from this, that this is an inherently insecure job industry, it's not worth being in it, but she doesn't seem to learn this. She isn't even angry they hired someone else without telling her. All of her anger was directed towards herself. And the movie was not challenging it. It was saying 'yes, it is your own fault, both for aging, and for wanting not to age. Look what you did.'

And by the end of the movie, she was just the same as the beginning, still just longing for the fame and cheers. She is a character who is not allowed to learn from her experiences, in fact seems to have no experiences, even of the things that happened to her in the movie. She cared for nothing but male validation. She only seemed to care about the younger body for the sake of this validation. Even at the very end when she was killed by the same males who she gave everything to impress for, she wasn't mad at them. She just wanted more validation from them.

And I'm watching this thinking, this must be whats inside of a male brain. He did that because thats how he would act in this situation. Males are incapable of learning from experience, so they assume women are too. Males think that having a body of a young female in their posession would resolve all of their needs and desires, so they think for a woman that would work too, in fact that she would destroy herself to get there. The creepy male fantasy of what a woman would do. It was done to validate their dumb opinions.

One thing I was surprised with was the road not taken in this movie, because it had a lot of potential symbolism! The younger woman exiting the woman's body, was reminiscent of birth. When I noticed it's a different acctress, I thought maybe we were making a parallel of mothers and daughters. Because it's a thing that happens sometimes; women with daughters will look at the daughter and feel she is a prettier, younger version of themselves. It reminds them of their own potential when they were just children, before their lives got decided by marriage and male ownership. And when daughters start receiving male attention, due to the flock of predators always creeping by, mothers will sometimes forget that this is a child bonded and dependant on them, who is now in danger, and instead get jealous, and want that attention for themselves. They'll try to vicariously live trough their daughters, get themselves into the spotlight, or win attention of the males attracted to the child. It's a horrifying event each time, I was reminded by it while watching the movie, seeing how angry the woman was at the younger counterpart for partying, being on tv, being in the spotlight that was now unreachable for her. But the movie ignored this cruel reality as well.

The movie's conclusion is just 'this is somehow the woman's fault', while trying to be a movie about the pressure of the tv industry on women to not age. The pressure is real and experienced by all women, so the movie could have been about analyzing the source of it, showing us the other side of it, how dehumanizing and cruel the males are benefiting from this, how it makes absolutely no sense to cater to them or to care about what they think of female age and appearance. It could have been about male selfishness, greed, pedophilia and predatory nature, it could have pointed us in the horrifying direction of women sacrificing so much of their health and life only for males to have financial benefit and sexual gratification from it. It could have depicted how hard work of women is unappreciated and only rewarded with further abuse.

Instead it focused on pulling women inside out to make horror of their bodies, and depicted teenagers as the ultimate goals for anyone. I think that's where I experienced the most horror, seeing the younger version being dehumanized and depicted as a sexual dream, her every private action looking like a commercial, making her into a reduced non-human robot that only acts the way males think women should. And the woman who actually looked like an adult, was not allowed to learn, criticize, or long for anything except male validation, another fantasy that is as far removed from reality as possible.

[daydreaming-in-letters]

Good night, Mr Cavill

Part 7 - Save your breath

06/23/2021

Pairing: teacher!Henry Cavill x plus-size teacher!reader (3rd person)

Word Count: 1,703

Warnings: rpf, Mr Cavill imagining cardio with Miss Y/L/N quite vividly, body issues, talk of body shaming

Summary: Mr Cavill learns about Mr Mosley's reasons for sending Miss Y/L/N on the class trip with him.

A/N: Today is graduation day at my school which marks a happy but also a sad day for me. I'm so proud of my students for making it this far, but my heart is also a bit heavy from seeing them leave. So, as some of them actually inspired the students that are depicted in this story, I'm going to celebrate them by posting another chapter (which actually doesn't have any students in it, but anyway... 🤣).

Picture by Jessica Ruscello via Unsplash

If you like my story, you are very welcome to like, comment or reblog. Please don’t copy, repost or share my work on other platforms.

Finally the heat of the day seemed to have decided that it had tortured the world enough for now as the glowing ball of fire had begun its descent. And still he was sweating profusely, salty beads gathering on his skin to form small rivulets that cascaded down his face and back. His laboured breath came out in harsh puffs and he wished that he could skip forward in time and be on his way back to the hostel already. But he had only just reached the beach to set out on his evening run and he was too disciplined not to finish what he had started.

He had to admit though that he wasn’t very fond of doing cardio. At least not like this. Not if there were so many better ways of working up a sweat he could think of. He couldn’t help a rapt smile from pulling the corners of his mouth upwards as he allowed himself to imagine the kind of cardio he would rather like to be engaged in right now.

It didn’t take long until the images inside his mind developed a life of their own. He could feel her now, her lush body pressed to his, their sweat mixing in all the spots his skin touched hers. She was moving in sync with his thrusts, moaning her appreciation into his ear while her fingers dug into his back to release some of the agonising bliss he caused her. Her legs wrapped around his hips, she pulled him deeper, and he picked up the faint flutter of her walls that held him in a tight grip. “Henry,” his name fell from her lips like a desperate plea and he knew she was close. “Henry,” she begged again, but suddenly her voice seemed to come from a distance, his daydream slowly slipping through his fingers.

“Henry!” His eyes flew open upon her warning tone, but it was too late, and he could already feel the cold water of the surf soaking his shoes when he finally came to a stop.

“What are you doing?” Her voice came closer now rapidly and among all the worry he could also make out a hint of amusement.

He sighed before he turned around to face her. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Yeah,” the worry was now gone completely and she practically beamed at his dumbfounded face. “I kind of got that when you left your straight line and drifted relentlessly towards the sea.”

From one second to the next his face was set on fire as he imagined how ridiculous he must have looked and he didn’t need a mirror to know that he was blushing like a peony.

“You know when you said something about enjoying your afternoon off while the little monsters are blowing their pocket money in town, I didn’t think you would take this morning’s experience a step further and go for a run at the beach blindly.”

“Haha, very funny,” he retorted while he stepped out of the water. “And may I remind you that it was you who couldn’t even walk across a bridge properly.”

“Well, thanks for mentioning it.” She rolled her eyes, but still she couldn’t stop the small smile that was forming on her lips. “I had almost managed to cross that moment of embarrassment from my mind.”

But he hadn’t. And he probably never would. Especially not the short eternity she had allowed him to hold her in his arms, her trembling slowly easing away underneath his tender touch. God, he wished she would have never pulled away.

“Come sit with me for a while, will you?” He followed her outstretched arm that pointed towards a towel a few feet up the beach from where she had most likely watched his silly run. “I mean, unless you want to continue your run in a pair of wet shoes.”

What a ludicrous thought. As if he would prefer running to sitting next to her on the beach during sundown. And so he found himself facing the ocean, bare feet buried deep into the warm sand, while a contented silence had settled between him and the woman to his right.

Quietly he watched the waves lap at the beach, their soft sloshing and the cries of some seagulls the only sounds that reached his ears. The last beams of sunlight covered his skin like a warm blanket, slowly lulling him in and for a moment he allowed himself to close his eyes and feel one with his surroundings.

“Aaah, fuck,” she suddenly hissed, her pained voice pulling him from his meditation instantly. His head whipped around to find her holding her elbow while her nose was scrunched up in agony.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing. Just my stupid brain forgetting about my elbow and trying to lean back into the sand.”

“May I?” he asked carefully, his hands held out to take hold of her arm to examine her injury.

Holding his gaze, she nodded quietly, granting him permission to touch her.

“Ooooh,” his nose scrunched up as well as he felt a knot form in the pit of his stomach, “that really is a nasty bruise.” The mark covered her whole elbow, shaded in deep purple, and he wished he could have done anything to ease her pain.

Looking up at her face, he had at least wanted to shoot her a sympathetic smile when he suddenly found himself silenced by the view in front of him. The sunlight reflected on her skin, tinting her gorgeous face in a golden hue that brought out her features magnificently. The reflection in her eyes created the illusion of a fire that was burning inside of them, and he found himself wanting to believe that it was burning only for him. And before he knew what he was doing he heard himself confess, “You look so beautiful in this light.”

But as soon as the words had left his mouth, her eyes told him that he had screwed up again. He was such an idiot. He had actually wanted to listen to the advice he had gotten and stop complementing her looks as it so obviously made her uncomfortable, but here he was, overpowered by her beauty once more.

“As compared to every other kind of light?” she snapped as she tore her arm out of his hands.

“What? No, that’s not—”

“Save your breath, Henry,” she cut him off, “I know I’m not pretty. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

“Whatever is that supposed to mean?” Still trying to fathom why on earth she would say something as nonsensical as that, he didn’t notice that she was scooting away from him a little.

“Well, it’s simple really. When Mosley called me into his office the day I helped you with your copies, he told me that I was the perfect yin to your yang when it comes to sexual appeal and that he wanted me to go on this trip with you because I was the least tempting woman on the whole staff, so there would be no risk of any inappropriate actions happening between us.”

Henry found himself unable to say anything for a while until he had organised the flood of reactions her account had stirred up inside of him.

“Please tell me you’re kidding. Although it wouldn’t be a very funny joke. He didn’t actually say that, did he?” He found it hard to keep his composure. This was outrageous. And so wrong on so many levels.

“Oh, believe me, he did.” Her voice sounded bitter now and he hated everything about it, but it were her next words that really broke his heart. “And I get it. It’s fine. After all, he just had the courage to say what everybody is thinking anyway.”

“No, it’s not fine at all. How can you even think it is?” He had almost started to shout by now and he had to take a deep breath to keep his anger at bay. “Nobody has the right to talk to you like that, especially not him. And it’s also not true that everybody is thinking of you like that.”

She scoffed and he realised that his words had done nothing to convince her of the truth. Maybe words just weren’t enough to make her see what he saw. Maybe he needed to -

And before he could even finish the thought, his hand darted out to cup her cheek and hold her in place until his lips had overcome the distance between them. Pointedly his mouth moved with hers, trying to make her feel all the affection he held for her. And after a moment of shock, he could feel her give in to him. She moaned deliciously as her lips fell open to welcome him inside, making a bolt of lightning shoot to his groin. Her taste was heavenly, sweet and tempting, and he was sure his lips had never tasted anything as wonderful as her. He could have kissed her forever, enjoyed the feeling of being this close to her, but without a warning, she pulled away, staring at him with wide eyes.

“I…um…I think I’m gonna finish my stroll now,” she mumbled while her fingers had shot up to her mouth where she could probably still feel the touch of his lips. And without letting him out of her sight, she got up to gather her belongings as fast as she could without looking at what she was doing and walked a few steps backwards. “I see you at our bedtime walkabout.”

He watched her turn and hurry down the beach into the direction of their hostel and he only snapped out of his shellshocked state when she had vanished from his view completely. With a desperate groan he let himself fall back into the sand, covering his eyes in frustration while he fought the strong urge to punch himself in the face, hard. And as he still tried to hold on to the feeble hope that he hadn’t messed it up for good with his impulsive behaviour, he finally took the advice he had been given this morning and prayed for a miracle.

Part 8

***

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[ibijau]

Deathbed Wedding pt12

In which all is revealed (also on AO3)

Without waiting for an answer to her odd question, Yu Ziyuan entered the room. More puzzled than ever, the two men followed her. Nie Mingjue’s expression grew dark when he saw Meng Yao sitting on the side of Nie Huaisang's bed, checking the young man's pulse. In turn Meng Yao shot Yu Ziyuan a worried look. 

"Don't make that face," she ordered. "Did you give him the medicine yet?" 

After another anxious glance at Nie Mingjue, Meng Yao shook his head. 

"Lan gongzi asked me to wait for him. And since Lan zongzhu was leaving, I thought it was probably not necessary. I just brought it anyway in case he decided to come check here one last time." 

"You're a clever boy," Yu Ziyuan said, in such a tone that Lan Xichen couldn't have guessed if her words were meant to compliment or insult. "Let's see how clever. Throw that away, and then bring me some water." 

Watching Meng Yao empty the bowl, clean it and fill it with water, Lan Xichen could help a small cry of distress. 

"Doesn't he need that?" 

"Not anymore," Yu Ziyuan retorted, digging into her sleeve until she found a small wooden box. "Lan gongzi, as I told you the other day, I have little affection for your father, while your uncle is a friend of mine. When they both arrived here to check on your brother and discovered Nie gongzi's state, they had an argument of sorts where Qiren let it slip that Lan zongzhu had greatly wronged that boy."

Lan Xichen grimaced, while Nie Mingjue vehemently nodded. 

"Qiren thought it was a shame that even after going so far, Nie gongzi would not get his prize," Yu Ziyuan continued, opening the box to reveal some dark pills. She took one, and closed the box again. "That boy saved my son," she said, her face hardening for a moment. "What mother would not want to repay her son's saviour? At first we were not sure he would survive of course, but when we realised he would probably make it... Qiren and I discussed how to do this. Then Meng gongzi arrived from Qinghe to check on his master, so he joined our conspiracy as well and made a few suggestions. It turns out that from his previous employments, he knows a little about some unusual medicines."

Meng Yao, holding the bowl of water she had requested, paled at hearing his role mentioned and shot a terrified look at Nie Mingjue. 

"Yu-furen is too kind," he said in a strained voice. "My contributions were so small, it is Yu-furen and Lan-qianbei who did the most. I only tried to help, since my failure to fulfil my duty caused this situation." 

Yu Ziyuan scoffed at his display of humility. She took the water from him and went to sit on the side of the bed. Very carefully she pushed the pill inside Nie Huaisang's mouth, before using some water to help him swallow it. 

"It does not matter who came up with which part of this deception," she said, putting the bowl on the nightstand and turning to look at the young men. "What is important is that we decided to convince everyone that Nie gongzi's health was much worse than it is. It is easy to give that impression, with the right medicine. I realise this might have caused you some pain, but we figured neither of you would be any good at lying. Our plan was for Qiren to bring the conversation to Qingheng-Jun's refusal about the engagement, and to breach the subject of a last chance marriage, but Nie zongzhu beat us to it. For the best, I think. Lans really make for poor liars. You know the rest."

Both Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen stared at her, stunned by the tale she spun for them. After so much sorrow, it was too much hope, and Lan Xichen dared not believe it yet.

"Yu-furen, are you saying that my brother is not dying after all?" Nie Mingjue asked.

"Come and check for yourself," Yu Ziyuan encouraged him, rising from the bed. "The pill should have started to eliminate the effects of the potion we were giving him." 

Immediately Nie Mingjue strode to the bed, and took his brother's wrist. He frowned at first, then gasped in surprise. It was all Lan Xichen needed. He rushed to the bed as well, taking his husband's other hand to check his pulse. It was weak still, but getting steadier, his energy returning to him already. Even his breathing, so laboured in the past few days, became more even. Instead of being a dying man, Nie Huaisang seemed to be only asleep now. 

As he had done many times in recent days, Lan Xichen broke into tears, but this time they were happy ones. 

"He'll be awake in a day or two," Yu Ziyuan announced. "Congratulations, Lan gongzi. Your marriage will last longer than expected." 

-

During the two days that followed, Lan Xichen refused to leave his husband's side unless absolutely forced to. He helped the Jiang physician care for Nie Huaisang, learned how to clean the wounds and make sure there was no sign of infection. He also fed the sleeping young man with light broth several times a day, and monitored every change he saw. 

Most of the time Nie Mingjue was there as well, watching over his brother, though he preferred to let Lan Xichen be the one fussing over him. Even if he was in a better state than they'd been led to believe, Nie Huaisang’s condition remained somewhat delicate and his brother feared he might lack the necessary gentleness. 

The only time Nie Mingjue left the room was to have a lengthy and apparently intense conversation with Meng Yao about lying to one’s sect leader, regardless of intentions. Meng Yao offered a full apology and expressed absolute repentance, though Lan Xichen had a suspicion he might not have been fully sincere. That plan had worked perfectly after all, which would have been less likely if Nie Mingjue had had to act instead of just reacting. For his part, Lan Xichen was too relieved by this happy turn of events to have the strength to be angry. 

On the afternoon of the second day, while Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue were chatting together in the bedroom, they started hearing ruffling noises coming from the bed. When they checked, it was to find Nie Huaisang weakly pushing and kicking away his blankets, breathing more heavily than before, his left eye fluttering as if it were trying to open. Lan Xichen pressed one hand to his forehead, only to find it warmer than before.

“I’ll go get the physician,” he quickly told Nie Mingjue. “I won’t be long.”

Nie Mingjue nodded and knelt by the bed. He took his brother’s hand, before starting to whisper words of comfort to him. Lan Xichen threw them one last look, then hurried out of the room. He was back in less than an incense stick’s time later, Yunmeng Jiang’s physician at his side.

“He’s awake,” Nie Mingjue announced when they came in, making some room by the bed for the physician but refusing to let go of his brother’s hand. “And he can talk already. He said he’s hurting a bit.”

The physician walked straight to the bed while Lan Xichen lingered by the door, half afraid if he came close, this would turn out to be nothing more than a dream. 

"Of course he's in pain," the old lady scoffed, forcing Nie Mingjue to let go of his brother a moment so she could check his pulse. "Not too bad," she said after a moment. "Nie gongzi you're an idiot, but a lucky one. You'll recover." 

"What about the others?" Nie Huaisang asked weakly, his voice barely more than a breath. "How are they? Did they escape too?" 

"They're in a much better state than you. I'm sure Jiang gongzi will come running the instant he hears you're awake." 

The physician then turned to Nie Mingjue. 

"When he comes, don't let him stay too long, and tell him to be quiet. Nie gongzi still needs rest."

"I need food too," Nie Huaisang mumbled. "So hungry…" 

"I'll go tell the kitchen to prepare some light broth for you," the physician offered. "And I'll bring something for the pain as well. How intense is it?" 

Nie Huaisang didn't answer right away, and instead moved a little, as if trying to assess the situation, and grimaced deeply. 

"Pretty bad," he sighed. "My head is killing me, especially my right eye. I can't open it at all, it hurts so much if I try." 

"Then don't try," the physician ordered, exchanging a glance with Nie Mingjue and shaking her head. There was no need to overwhelm Nie Huaisang with all that was wrong with him, not until he was a little better and could handle the news. 

Satisfied with the state of her patient, the physician left the room. Lan Xichen, still by the door, hesitated to come closer, fearing that a too strong emotion might cause problems. Meanwhile, on the bed, Nie Huaisang sighed deeply. 

"I'm really feeling weird," he mumbled when his brother took his hand again. "Like I don't have strength at all. And earlier I even thought I heard Xichen…" 

Nie Mingjue startled, and shot a look toward Lan Xichen who still didn't dare to move, but Nie Huaisang did not notice. 

"Do you think he'll be angry at me?" the young man whispered. "I thought I'd finally done well enough, but I messed up again. His father must think I'm so weak, and if Xichen gets angry…" 

"I'm not angry!" Lan Xichen cried out, rushing to the bed and kneeling next to Nie Mingjue. "A-Sang, don't think I could be angry at you! But I certainly was worried." 

Nie Huaisang’s good eye opened wide, and he gasped in surprise. 

"You're here… I really thought I'd dreamed. And you're not angry… You're really not?" 

"Not at you," Lan Xichen replied. 

He might never stop resenting his father for the lies that had caused this situation, and he would have words with Wen Chao someday. But it would have been impossible to be upset at Nie Huaisang, he was just too happy to have him alive and mostly well. Even if they'd need to have a conversation someday about knowing one's limits and about taking risks, right then Lan Xichen only care that everything was turning out so well after all.

Nie Huaisang smiled weakly, then turned serious again as he looked. 

"Next time I'll do better," he whispered fiercely. "I'll show your father…" 

"There's no next time," Nie Mingjue snapped, making his brother flinch slightly. "It's over, no more Night Hunts for you."

Nie Huaisang sighed deeply, turning paler at the news.

"Oh. I really messed up pretty bad, uh?" he mumbled. "Is it too late? Is Xichen-ge engaged to Jiang-guniang now?" 

Nie Mingjue rolled his eyes, while Lan Xichen couldn't help a small laugh. 

"A-Sang, you and I are married now," he announced, gently tucking some stray hair behind his husband's ear. 

"Oh." 

Nie Huaisang's tone on that single syllable was very flat, and a frown quickly formed on his face. 

Lan Xichen felt panic rise inside his chest, his heart hammering against his ribs. He would have expected a rather different reaction to the news. Suddenly, he feared that they had made a mistake. Maybe after so much effort, so much pain, Nie Huaisang had decided Lan Xichen wasn't worth the hassle anymore. Or maybe since his head had been injured, he didn't remember his feelings. Or else… 

"Da-ge, Xichen-ge, I think I'm not awake at all after all," Nie Huaisang sighed. "Did you say we're married? Ah, that's too good to be true. It's really too good, so I must be dreaming."

Relieved to hear that was the only problem, Lan Xichen laughed again and pressed a quick kiss to his husband's cheek who gasped and turned a pretty shade of pink. It really had to be a lot to take on, especially after everything else that had happened, so it might take a little time for Nie Huaisang to accept it. And at worse, they'd have another ceremony in Qinghe when Nie Huaisang was well enough to travel, just to make sure it sank in that they were truly married. 

It would be lovely, Xichen thought, to take his bows next to his husband rather than a paper doll, and to have a true wedding night. 

It would be a discussion for later though, because right then Jiang Cheng came running into the room, shouting about how stupid Nie Huaisang was, followed quickly by the physician and a servant who carried food and medicine. 

It was fine. The conversation could wait. They had time. 

Lan Xichen smiled to his husband, who weakly smiled back, seeming a little dazed by everything that was happening, but definitely not unhappy about it. 

They had time, and what a wonderful thing that was to have. 

[trickstercaptain]

POSEIDON’S TOMB  /  ‘YOU CUT ME YOU CUT THE BOY’ DRABBLE

tl;dr; here i am torching the entire canon version of this scene nearly four years later. it’s actually been a creative urge of mine for a while to revisit this part of dmtnt, but i finally got around to it after a little nudge from @lighthouseborn and therefore this is specifically dedicated to hannah <3

                                                               ~ ~ ~

          If Henry uncharacteristically barrelling towards the two of them hadn’t been the first sign of something being amiss, then there were two others: the boy’s speed, and his stance. Henry’s tuition with the blade was something of a patchwork of several different influences back on Shipwreck, one of which being Jack’s own ( whenever the boy wasn’t more content to scrappily solve an altercation with his fists, which was always his go-to preference ). While not being the superior swordsman himself, and having adapted his form and bent the rules of the engagement over the years to suit his own whims, Jack knew the boy’s approaching stance right now was one of somebody who had been schooled in the art of precision fencing for years ---- more akin to the boy’s father or even the man with whom Henry shared a name. It most certainly was not, could not, did not belong to the lad who he’d had to chastise on several occasions for holding a sword more like a blunt instrument than a tool --------------

          No, Jack knew who this was. He didn’t know how it was possible ( when did he ever? ), but he knew.

          The next few seconds passed by in a blur. Jack could only remember drawing his own blade, shoving Carina aside, and throwing himself forward ( in a rash move that would no doubt win him both Henry and William’s approval ) to meet Henry’s first strike with a shattering clash that rung out throughout the length of Poseidon’s tomb.

          The fact of the matter was that Captain Salazar was a much better swordsman than him. He also had the benefit of years on Jack if he was indeed using Henry as some sort of vessel, as well as a seething, roiling anger at the supposed injustice dealt to him that would see his stamina extend further than it might have done otherwise. These were all the things that Jack was sizing up as he went through the motions, parrying each blow as it arrived, trying to figure out his strategy to buy Carina enough time to get herself over to the trident and solve the final part of her diary.

          And then there were the things not to size up, but to swallow down and put to the back of his mind. That this was Henry staring him down with the look of a man who had wanted him dead for decades. That this was a familiar, always warm, always loving set of brown eyes now regarding him with such contempt. It was difficult to meet them and not contemplate the less rational questions of the moment. How Salazar had accomplished this. How Jack might even start to think about reversing it. Whether there was a chance in Hell that the Trident might in fact help matters, not make them worse.

          How he was planning to live with himself should the unimaginable happen.

         The last question was enough to re-align his thoughts like tacking a sail back to windward. Emotion made you vulnerable to mistakes and sloppiness. Much like Salazar’s anger exposed his own weak spots. And, as Jack raised his blade to block another blow and, in doing so, push the boy away from him, he spotted the opening.

          It was a mere flesh wound, a nick across the boy’s cheek in the hope that it would enlighten him as to the limits of this particular brand of magic. But perhaps that in itself had been too great a risk to take given the potential consequences. Perhaps it was too reckless. Too callous. Particularly when the halt in Salazar’s counter-strike, and the words he levelled back at him made the blood turn to ice in his veins.

                  “ You cut me, you cut the boy, Jack. ”

          Jack faltered, and Salazar advanced. With every frantic block and step backwards, all he could focus on was the way his freshly-inflicted cut blended in with the mottled, cracked flesh on the side of Henry’s face. On the side of Salazar’s face. Despite the confirmation that was lodging itself somewhere in the levelheaded part of his mind that the two of them were now one, now connected, the conclusion he subsequently reached of this making the Spanish captain human was meaningless. Not when he could see that fresh mark on that face, and could feel the revulsion rising in him that he was the one to put it there.

         Jack didn’t care how fallible this made him. Not when the fallibility was Henry’s. So, that left him no choice but to try a different approach, and summon up the guile from somewhere to make it convincing.

        “ Shame that he won’t let you kill me. ” Said with much more confidence than he felt as he planted his feet and met Salazar’s blade with another loud clang. Leaning towards the gap between their crossed blades, Jack lowered his voice. “ He’s still in there, Capitán, Kicking and screaming and attempting to thwart all that you’ve fantasised about for years. ” At least, he hoped that Henry was in there still. If he was, then he most certainly was fighting, and perhaps that meant that this assumption wasn’t entirely --- well, an assumption. “ Reckon that makes it two against one, and I don’t fancy your odds on this one, mate. ”

         It seemed to anger him. Salazar --- or rather, Henry ---- pushed Jack away with his blade and, with a cry of frustration, renewed his offensive. The back of Jack’s boot came into contact with a coral rock, and as he carefully stepped around it, he only just managed to parry the force of his opponent’s next blow. “ Did he make me do this, Jack Sparrow? ” He swung again, with even more power this time --- and for the first time Jack caught sight of the man’s crew at the ocean’s edge, waiting on both sides of where it had parted to reveal Poseidon’s tomb. “ Or this? ”

          The distraction was the first time Jack had let his guard down. It took a moment for the injury to register: a slash from just below the nape of Jack’s neck to his collarbone, but when he spotted the blood soaking through his shirt and waistcoat the potential severity of it became clear. How many times had he aimed for the same area, hoping to sever the vein that would swiftly put an end to a fight? Of all the people to think of in that moment, Jack saw Robby Greene’s face in his mind’s eye, and the warning he’d given him after his first duel to the death.

          If that had gone an inch or two deeper, you’d have been lying there dead, right beside Christophe.

         Was this how he would come full circle? Certainly, in this case, he very much hoped that it hadn’t gone any deeper ---- and for now, the adrenaline was stopping the wound from doing little more than stinging at the spray from the rushing ocean beside them. The more concerning matter at present was his own laboured breathing, in comparison to Henry who was barely breaking a sweat. He was half-tempted to glance over his shoulder and verbalise his frustration at being the only one here to pull his weight. Has Carina not worked the bloody thing out yet?

           Whatever was going on behind him, Jack was running out of options for the problem in front.

           “ Then why make it a fight at all? ” He noticed that Salazar’s ( or was that Henry’s? ) gaze was, for the moment, preoccupied with the growing bloodstain on his shirt, giving Jack enough space to briefly catch his breath. To glance around him. To look down at the lightly bloodied sword in his hand and debate his next choice. One that he should have made hours ago, when the Pearl had first encountered the Silent Mary and Salazar’s crew. One that, until now, he’d been too cowardly to make. “ All you’d have to do is let Henry go and I might just stop resisting altogether. ”

            “ No, no no no, Jack, don’t you see? ” There was a peculiar softness in the way the words were spoken, an intimate whisper between the two of them that was the most he’d sounded like Henry since this had started. Salazar didn’t raise his sword to strike again. Instead, he crossed the scant distance between them, and pressed his ( Henry’s ) hand into his blood stained waistcoat. Jack hissed, and fought against the black dots dancing around in his vision, but otherwise didn’t say a word. “ Don’t you see? ”

           Jack might have been forgiven for thinking that there was something kind in Salazar’s expression, then, but it didn’t last. The look on Henry’s face quickly morphed back into rage, and a hand tightened with surely supernatural strength around Jack’s throat.

           As things went, it wasn’t the first time that someone had tried to strangle him, but having had experience of such things never made it easier to resist the urge to struggle. Ringed fingers rose in a desperate attempt to claw the hands ( Henry’s hands ) off of his neck and release his airway, but it ended up not being his efforts at all that spared him. Instead, it was the loud, rushing noise of the Trident being released from its perch; loud enough, and promising enough, it seemed, for Salazar to momentary abandon any desire he may have had to finish Jack off.

            Besides, it wasn’t as if Jack was in much condition to resist being finished off even if he’d wanted to. As the air rushed back into his lungs, so too did the sea floor rush up to greet him. And only when he’d finally pulled himself up into a sitting position, using one of the rocks on the seabed as an aid, could he finally turn his gaze on the commotion at hand: Captain Salazar picking up the Trident, and Henry seeming to slide out of his control and physically collapse at his feet.

          Carina was nowhere to be seen, but he knew where, or indeed whom, the focus of the Trident’s ire was about to be directed towards. He also knew that, physically speaking, he was just about spent.

          He could have rushed to Henry’s aid, but he didn’t fancy his chances of being intercepted before he got there. Or whether he’d even like what he found.

          All he could do, really, was wait. And it took but mere seconds before Salazar’s eye was once again trained on him ---- though this time, more importantly, looking much more reassuringly like his unnervingly ghostly self.

          Jack steeled himself. You’d better have a bloody plan, Carina. He drew a deep breath, carefully pulled himself to his feet, and had just enough time to slip the girl’s diary under his waistcoat. Just below the bleeding wound. Just above his breastbone.

           One final gambit.

[aethelflaed93]

Given how many eyes must pass over a script during phases of editing and rewriting, that final episode of BBC Dracula was remarkably...holey. Many, many inconsistencies, loose ends and redundancies - and much laziness.

First. Positives. Performances, effects, certain bright glimmers of rich dialogue.

Dolly Wells and Claes Bang fucking sparkled. Bang was as repulsive and attractive a Count as one could hope for. (Let's not mince words, he's fucking gorgeous. God. And the eroticism of his appeal matters.) Wells was mercurial and witty and more than his match.

However...

One especially egregious writing hole to begin with. Dracula outright declared his (peculiarly hurried) fascination for the unique Lucy Westernra to be grounded in her willingness to open her veins to him. The first in 500 years, apparently. We see Agatha doing that very thing, and beating Lucy to the punch by some way, just over a century ago...

Mina was utterly redundant. She had no effect on the plot whatsoever. It isn't at all clear why she is included in the story. Jonathan's attachment to her never seemed half as affective as that to Dracula; the Count would have found "Johnny" regardless, and would have been invited in. Once dismissed, she disappeared. Poof. Gone.

The point about Zoe's distaste re. the source of funding was, if intended to be a subtle allusion to Dracula's sponsorship of others in the Demeter episode, too subtle by far. In either case, this point also became redundant. A curiously laboured repetition of the issue that never actually went anywhere.

The whole confinement/Wifi password/lawyer scene was so silly I hardly know where to begin. So I shan't.

Jack's storyline was, similarly to Mina's, dead weight. Assuming his ultimate purpose was the staking of the woman he loved, Lucy's final death could well have (and should have) been accomplished some other way than having a worryingly suicidal young woman be punished for an obsession with her beauty. Her narcissism, most irksomely, was completely unmoored from any social or cultural origin: it was irritatingly disingenuous to have it exist in a vacuum. (Note: the only other person to take a selfie in the show was another young woman who is immediately killed in a violent fashion. When Dracula takes advantage of Insta-culture to locate victims i.e. through Tinder, it is amusing. When women do it, it's reprehensible).

The general shallowness of the engagement with the new characters. Jack, Lucy, Zoe...there was simply insufficient time or focus on any one of them. Things were, clearly, rushed.

Dracula's sexual behaviours and the topic of reproduction. This is never expanded on, except, it seemed, for the purpose of queerbaiting. Given his other brides, it is heavily implied that vampire reproduction must occur between those of the opposite sex: Dracula's half-teasing/half-earnest enquiry about Jonathan wishing to be his bride simply uses bisexuality as a hook on which to hang the prurient misapprehension of the writing. Dracula himself appears to be libidinous but not erotic: he simply uses eroticism as a weapon to entrap and misdirect. Yet the show repeatedly coded Dracula's lack of gender preference in victims as (bi)sexual "greediness". Ravening his way through the Demeter - which gluttony is even pointed out by Agatha - relied on a lazy trope. As did the conjuring up of Agatha's apparent queerness in the context of promiscuous vow-breaking.

The Peekaboo child. Gratuitous. We know Dracula has no qualms about killing children, as per the first episode.

The fear and shame of Dracula at the end. This had the germ of a great idea: they just didn't stick the landing. That the nonsensical limits that had been set on Dracula (sunlight, invitations, the cross) should prove to be illogical precisely because they are the darlings of internalised guilt was an interesting touch. But they had Zoe/Agatha blurt this out in a few lines of dialogue, when it deserved to be unpacked far more thoroughly (especially given the various instances of wasted time in this episode re. Renfield, Jack, practically the whole Harker foundation shenanigans).

[uk-news-talking-politics]

Peak uncertainty: This is what covid might do to our politics

By Chaminda Jayanetti

Just because something should happen, doesn't mean it will.

Many articles speculating on how Britain will look different after coronavirus mistake what the writer thinks should happen with what probably will, trusting in the logic of the moment when politics often obeys anything but.

Others focus on the party political fallout, which is the most unpredictable aspect of all. Coronavirus may determine the next election - or it may play no role in it at all.

But to really get an idea of how Britain could look on the other side, we need to get away from the big picture discussion and dig deep into policy areas.

Who cares?

The centrality of the NHS is now guaranteed no matter who is in charge. The Tories had already pledged increased funding, and the need for spare capacity in the event of pandemics may force a rethink of service redesigns and efficiency measures that aimed to minimise 'waste'.

Bigger questions surround the adult care system. No-one can now ignore the funding cuts and staff shortages that have left the care sector so depleted. If elderly and disabled people find themselves dying untreated in care homes in large numbers, this might - and should - become a point of national shame over the coming weeks.

The Tories' direction of travel is towards a social insurance system, whereby people pay in to a fund during their working lives that gives them access to care provision when they need it. But those who are retired or have lifelong care needs won't be able to pay into an insurance scheme before receiving care. These immediate care needs will need direct public funding, not long-term insurance.

Labour under Jeremy Corbyn took a different tack: universal free personal care for the over-65s, with an ambition to extend this to all working age adults. This is simpler and more inclusive than our current means tested mess, but it doesn't come cheap: Labour's manifesto estimated the cost as £11bn a year by 2023/24.

Keir Starmer will be under pressure from some to stick with their existing policy, and from others to engage with social insurance proposals. Keeping Labour MPs united behind whatever strategy he adopts won't be easy.

But it's plausible the Tories will also be pulled in another direction - towards voluntarism. The party's social and fiscal conservatives - uneasy bedfellows in recent years - could use the increased community cooperation seen amid the pandemic as evidence that volunteers and family members can take on more of the care burden, while still improving pay and conditions for care staff.

Expect to see rhetoric that the pandemic has 'unleashed' Britain's 'community spirit', which should be 'channelled' after the crisis by relying on family and neighbours to 'look in' on people in need - the soft-soap version of women doing unpaid care work in lieu of public services. The current trend in care provision is towards making use of what 'assets' people already have, including friends and family - an approach that can be used for good or ill. The temptation for the government to lean on unpaid volunteers instead of the taxpayer is not hard to imagine.

The care system was the biggest public service challenge facing the government before coronavirus. Now that's been magnified tenfold. It could become one of the big battlegrounds of post-pandemic politics, between competing visions of society based on universalism, managed markets, and voluntarism.

Bob Crow was right

Before his death in 2014, Bob Crow was one of the most demonised figures in Britain. His readiness to threaten to shut down rail networks as head of the RMT union made him a bête noire for commuters, causing considerable disruption.

Crow was a rarity in post-Thatcher Britain - a union leader who was ready to use strike action as a sword, not just a shield. Whereas most unions only went on strike in defence of existing jobs, pay and conditions, Crow levered the criticality of the role of his members to transform their economic position.

He was accused of holding passengers and politicians to ransom, but his argument was a simple one: the disruption caused by his members going on strike showed how important their role was, and they should be paid more - much more - to reflect this.

It has taken the worst pandemic in more than a century for many people to realise this point. Pay does not necessarily reflect the importance of a worker's role - in fact, very often it does nothing of the sort. Pay reflects many factors: supply and demand of labour, required skills and levels of education, the strength or weakness of collective bargaining, the resources of the employer, and the profit-making productivity of the role. The social necessity of the role comes below pretty much all of them.

There may well be a post-pandemic cross-party consensus for a higher minimum wage and more protection from exploitation - action on zero hours contracts, for example - to protect low-paid workers from poverty.

But Crow didn't want his members to be low paid at all. He wanted to transform their economic station. We keep hearing about essential workers in cleaning, portering, social care and customer service. Will this be rewarded with more middle class pay and conditions?

There are reasons to be doubtful. There will likely be broad acceptance of the importance of care workers, who are a very visible part of the fight against coronavirus. But that does not mean politicians will be ready to fork out for transformative pay rises. Will Starmer accept billions of pounds of extra spending on top of the £11bn Labour has already earmarked for social care, let alone the Tories?

And where is the industrial, political or public pressure going to come from to secure such pay rises for the often migrant workers in portering and cleaning? We don't want to accept it, but many workers on middle incomes would sneer at the idea of porters and cleaners being paid the same as them.

The safety net

The benefit system has taken a battering over the last decade. Now the economic shutdown is driving more than a million people to seek refuge in the rubble left behind.

The government has responded by performing emergency repairs -  raising benefit payments and scrapping job search requirements in a desperate attempt to stop the newly unemployed middle classes struggling in the way the unemployed poor were expected to.

Things could play out from here in a number of ways. If Universal Credit functions to a level the government can live with, they will declare the system a success, leaving Starmer in a politically difficult position. Will he keep Labour's pledge to axe what will have become an established system, or switch to reforming it, thus angering his left flank. Labour may try and build a minimum income guarantee using the framework of this system. Or they may 'abolish' Universal Credit by tweaking it and changing its name.

If Universal Credit simply topples over - unable to process claims properly, or pay out the right sums of money - the government might be forced to give up its costly and chaotic flagship scheme.

What then? Labour would push for a more generous system with far fewer conditions and sanctions. The Tories would be truly hamstrung, having in this scenario wasted a decade on a failed system.

Public opinion would not necessarily favour a more generous, less judgemental approach. The declared end of the pandemic, and the gradual return to some kind of economic normality, would likely bring back demands that the unemployed get back to work, and that they be cattle-prodded into doing so. Laid off workers do not carry the same image as health and care workers in this pandemic - and doubtless right wing ideologues will start shouting about the deficit the first chance they get.

But if the economic recovery is insipid, with little job creation, enduring high unemployment, and a stop-start lockdown as the virus returns, both parties could be drawn to more universal systems - a minimum income guarantee set at a liveable level, or even a Universal Basic Income.

The government toyed with introducing UBI last month, but it would face wide opposition from Tory MPs unhappy at its cost. Claire Ainsley, who is expected to be unveiled as Starmer's policy chief, is also a sceptic. It is expensive, blunt and largely untested. But if jobs don't reappear as the pandemic passes, the 'on yer bike' mentality that has underpinned the benefit system for decades will itself be left redundant.

A costly affair

Britain is running up huge deficits as sectors of the economy grind to a halt. How will all this be paid for? Starmer is calling for higher taxes on the rich, but that alone is unlikely to be sufficient, especially if corporate profits remain depressed for years. Everyone is going to have to pay more.

Could the Tories go in for funding cuts? Perhaps - but likely not at the scale we've seen. The big targets after 2010 were local government and welfare. The former can't be cut further without it collapsing. The Tories may winnow away at the latter. Foreign aid could take a hit. But the party would have to tear up its electoral strategy of higher spending on schools, hospitals and police to recreate full-blown Osbornomics.

Labour, and possibly even the Tories, may look to wealth taxes to help bring down the deficit. Taxing people's wealth would be a major shift in Britain's approach, and could finally tackle one of the key sources of economic inequality.

But there's a problem. The richest hold most of their wealth as financial assets, meaning they can easily move it to offshore tax havens. Fixed assets, like houses, tend to benefit the middle classes. Taxing property wealth could hit Tory homeowners while barely affecting hedge fund billionaires. Targeting the latter would require a Tory government to clamp down hard on tax havens.

Conservative MPs are likely to be split on middle class tax rises and spending cuts. If the Tories go after tax havens and impose a progressive wealth tax, it would be one of the most dramatic changes the pandemic brings about. The curtailment of the free movement of capital would be a paradigm-shifting development, and an extraordinary one for a Conservative government.

What does need to happen is for governments to spend on preventative services - such as social care - in the knowledge that this will cut required spending down the line. Only when that happens will Britain's fiscal politics finally grow up.

But on a variety of fronts, the British are going to have to decide what it is we are willing to pay for. If we want functioning public services and low deficits, we'll have to pay more tax. If we want properly paid frontline public servants, we'll have to pay more tax still. If we want to end poverty pay, we may have to pay more for goods. If we want to protect the high street, or British producers, we may have to pay more in digital sales taxes or import tariffs.

Cakeism has run out of road.

The known unknowns

If Britain does head down the path of higher taxes, more generous benefits and greater public provision, our politics and economy will start to look more European - either universalist northern European, or rather more patriarchal southern European.

But the irony is, we'll be firmly outside Europe. Nothing that is happening right now will be fostering a European identity among voters. And if the government decides to take radical action on the economy, that could mean Britain fundamentally diverges from EU rules, keeping us on a separate path into the future.

All this is predicated on coronavirus being conclusively 'defeated', and a one-off in its mortality, geographical spread and disruption. Those are the prerequisites for things eventually returning to some recognisable norm.

If, however, pandemics of this scale become even semi-regular, shutting down national economies for months at a time, everything changes. Rents become unpayable, debts unaffordable, jobs untenable, the economy itself unsustainable. When Rupert Harrison, George Osborne's former adviser, is openly suggesting debt forgiveness, we are in very new territory.

Most people will want life to get back to normal as soon as possible. But if normal never comes, anything goes. And even the most radical ideas we've discussed would be on the moderate end of what could happen then.

[zoeygreensimblr]

I Forgot the you Existed

On Thursday morning we had another appointment with Candice at the medical centre in Brindleton Bay, she did a scan and assured us that everything was looking good.

"Welcome to week 6 of your pregnancy Zoey, you're officially half way through the first trimester, have you noticed any weird cravings or that you've developed a higher sex drive due to those hormones kicking in?" She questioned me and I smiled, looking up at Angus

"Well I do find that I want to be intimate a lot more" I laugh, I had no idea it was due to the hormones

"I'm not complaining Princess" Angus say, taking my hand and giving it a squeeze

"You'll feel a whole range of emotions while pregnant, you will get angry over the smallest things, things that you would normally think were petty but just know that it's your hormones running the show and you remember that too Dad, that when she cries or lashes out that she just needs love and understanding" Candice informs us

"And ice cream" I add on, looking up at Angus and caressing his face, he just smiles brightly at me

"I'll get you some ice cream to go with the love and understanding baby girl" He promises me before turning his attention back to Candice, "Is there anything we should be doing to maintain a safe pregnancy? I know the risks are higher with multiple births". I look up at him scared, he had never spoken to me about his concerns.

"I'll give you a lists of foods to avoid, of course alcohol and smoking are the biggest things you wanna avoid but Zoey already said she's a non smoker, living in a non smoker house and that she's cut out alcohol from the moment she found out she was pregnant. Being pregnant with multiple babies could mean it does put a heavier strain on the body, she will be bigger than a one child pregnancy, she will become more tired and she could go into labour a lot sooner than her due date but we will monitor you Zoey, weekly and right now it looks like you're doing everything right" Candice explains, smiling warmly at us

"What about doing exercise?" I ask her, I know I beginning to become more exhausted more easily, I struggled with our session on Wednesday and it was just spin class

"Don't push yourself, running is alright at a reasonable pace but nothing where you put pressure on your stomach, no heavy lifting" She says, printing out the information about what foods to avoid and what ones to no increase my intake of, I see soft cheese is on the list and feel a little disappointed, I love cheese.

After we finished our appointment I approached the reception desk to enquire if Liam was working that day

"Dr Green is with a patient right now but has lunch after" Eliza informed us

"Can You ask him to meet us at the cafe across the road once he's free?" I asked and she nodded, theres no way after last week that she doesn't know he's my father.

Angus and I wait nervously at the cafe, he orders us food as well as a peppermint tea for me and a coffee for himself. We are not waiting long when we see Liam walk through the door, approaching our table, I can see on his face that he is also nervous

"Eliza gave me a message that you wanted to meet me here Zoey" He says, standing at our table

"I want to talk, I'm willing to hear your side of things but I'm warning you now, I don't want to be fucked around, if you lie to me then I will leave" I warn him. He takes a seat as the waitress delivers our food and drinks and he places an order of his own.

"I have nothing left to lose Zoey so I want to be as honest as I can with you and your boyfriend, I'm assuming" Liam says, holding out his hand to Angus

"Fiancé" Angus corrects him, shaking his hand, "I'm Angus" He introduces himself.

"Oh wow, Zoey, you're engaged?" Liam remarks, looking at the ring on my finger, "And you two are expecting or trying to fall pregnant?"

"We are expecting, twins actually" Angus answers him, "Zoey is 6 weeks along but we we've been engaged since before we found out so I'm not just marrying Zoey because I got her pregnant, I love her, we love each other and I've  wanted to make her my wife since I met her, I knew I had found the woman I wanted to be with" Angus rambles on, nervously trying to prove to Liam that he is good enough for me and I hold his hand to try and ease those nerves. My relationship with Angus has nothing to do with Liam and Angus has nothing to prove to him.

"Why did you cheat on my Mother?" I ask Liam, not wanting to drag this out anymore. He looks at me with shame in his eyes.

"Your Mother, Ruth, was 19 when she discovered she was pregnant, I was 25, we hadn't been together long either, I was in my intern year at the hospital and Ruth was a nursing student who was doing on the job work experience once a day, weekly. She was sweet and shy and we would go on coffee dates and talk about the hospital staff. I'd been dating her 3 months when she told me she was pregnant with you and your sister, Teresa" He explain

"Tess, she likes to be called Tess" I tell him and he nods

"After you were born I devoted my life to you girls, whatever you wanted, you were so cute, I'd read you stories at bedtime, I remember you Zoey loved the stories about ponies the most, you had a massive My Little Pony collection that you displayed in front of your books and Ter-, sorry, Tess, loved to colour in all the time so I would find her these fun colouring in books but being a doctor meant I wasn't around a lot and it caused problems, between Ruth and I, we started to fight a lot and by the time I started working at the clinic Ruth and I were only staying together for you girls, so you could grow up in a two parent home, it's what your mother wanted so badly for you." He says looking down at the coffee that the waitress had not long placed in front of him.

"But even if you and Ruth split up, I still don't understand why she would stop you from seeing your daughters, I know Ruth, pretty well in fact and she doesn't strike me as the type to just cut the father of her children out of their lives for no reason" Angus points out, urging Liam to give us the full story

"She had her reasons and it wasn't because I cheated either, Eliza is my sister-in-law, not my wife, she married my brother Patrick and they had two beautiful daughters together." Liam clears up, "I had an accident one night, coming home from work, you were around 7 or 8 Zoey so you probably don't remember this but I was badly injured, I couldn't walk for a while and I was prescribed heavy pain killers to try and ease the pain"

"What's this got to do with why you left us?" I ask him, confused

"I became dependant on those pain killers, addicted and when the doctor I was seeing stopped prescribing them I started forging my own prescription, I felt I needed them, long after the pain had gone, they made me happy, like I wasn't coming home to a woman who resented me and two children who had no idea who I was because of the long hours I worked. Eventually I hit rock bottom, I was erratic and had major anger issues and would lash out at Ruth, I did abuse her once, only once but  it was the final straw for your mother, she had had enough and she took you and your sister and banned me from seeing you, it was Don who paid for her court cost and he would push for drug testing, which I failed once and never got a second chance. I never wanted to lose my girls, I loved you and Tess so much, please believe me" He breaks down and I can see the honesty on his face, I reach out and take his hand to let him know that I believe him.

"Thank you for being honest, it's a lot to take in" I tell Liam, "I'm glad we were able to talk though"

"I'd like to get to know you Zoey, Tess too, I know I've lost so much time but I thought about you and your sister every day, wondering who you would grow into, you look exactly like your Mother when she was your age, you even have her voice" Liam tells me, sorrow in his eyes, "I've been sober for 7 years now, been to rehab twice and attend weekly meetings for addicts because that's what I am, an addict and I will always be an addict but I've turned my life around and I would love to know my daughters"

"How about we meet here every Thursday, after our appointment and we can just talk?" I offer and he smiles at me like I've just handing him his world back, "I cant make any promises for Tess though and I wont have you speaking poorly of Mum or Don, regardless of what happened" I warn him and he nods.

"I'd also like to get to know you too Gus, if that's ok" Liam says to Angus

"He hates being called Gus" I tell Liam

"Zoey, it's fine" Angus says to me, he doesn't want to cause trouble

"I'm so sorry, I know how that feels too, I hate when people call me William or Bill, being that Liam is Irish for William" Liam apologises to Angus and Angus smiles politely and nods, he gets it.

"Well Zo and I have been together since June last year, she blew me away the first time that I met her, she's funny and intelligent and has a heart of gold and I love her with all of my own" Angus gushes and I blush a little.

"How did you two meet?" Liam asks us, smiling brightly

"I met Angus at the gym that he owns and operates in San Myshuno, he is my personal trainer. We started dating not long after we met" I explain, squeezing Angus' hand 3 times, I love my boy and I proudly talk him up

"And you treat my daughter well I hope?" Liam asks Angus, sternly

"She's my Princess, I'll always put her first, well her and our children. I am sorry that I yelled at you last week but protecting Zoey is my number one priority" Angus replies, looking at me with admiration, "She's my world and I love her"

We end our catch up with Liam, making plans to meet at the same time next Thursday, I even hugged him before we left. We walked back to the parking garage under the clinic, Angus begins driving towards the city and I cant understand why.

"You realise you're going the wrong way right?" I laugh at him

"Am I though? Isn't the city where they keep the best formal dresses?" He asks me, without any further explanation.

"The formal was months ago Angus, remember, you took me and we danced together and had such a grand night?" I question him, he's acting very odd.

"I do remember taking you to the formal but I also remember afterwards at the apartment and how I ruined your perfect night and I just found out this morning that I've been nominated for business person of the year, for last year and that the awards ceremony is this Saturday night and my Princess will need a new formal dress and shoes and will have to make an appointment to get her hair done because baby it's formal and you're going to be my date and this time I'm going to be doing everything right, including ending the night with my girl, kissing her lips and telling her how much I love her" He gushes

"Oh wow, I'm so proud of you baby, my man, business person of the year" I say, getting excited

"It's just a nomination baby, I was up for it last year too but didn't win so I don't have high hopes of winning this year either but I couldn't turn down an opportunity to see you in a a beautiful dress and being able to dance with you, also Tess, Brian, Annabelle and Steph will be there too so it wont be as boring as last years ceremony where I got sat with all these CEO pricks who talked about how great their golf game was and how much money they earn" He explains, taking my hand and kissing it.

We parked in the garage under the apartment complex and walked to CAS formal, I started browsing through the dresses but began to become dishearten when I realised I no longer fit into any dresses, my size had gone up and I felt so frumpy.

"I'm so fat, nothing is going to look good on me" I complained, "Maybe I should just stay home, you don't want your fat fiancé in pictures with you when you win." Angus pulls me back from the dress, leaning down, looking in my eyes with a stern expression.

"You are not fat Zoey and I don't want to hear you  refer to yourself as fat ever again, you're fucking gorgeous and I want you by my side forever" He tells me before kissing my forehead, "I love these changes in your body, the beautiful glow in your skin and the luscious curves." He boosts my confidence.

"You say this now but wait until I'm five times this size and can no longer fit into anything" I point out

"So you're telling me you will be naked?" He jokes, trying to lift my spirits and I cant help but giggle

"Naked and on bed ridden" I add

"Now you're just teasing me Princess, bring it on" He smiles brightly at me, "But for now I want you to pick out a dress that makes you feel sexy, not for me but for you because I want my girl to feel good about herself" He tells me, leading me back over to the racks of dresses, "And Zoey, for once in your life don't give a fuck what anyone else will think, if you feel comfortable then that's all that matters. I'll leave you to it, I'm going to pop into another store down the road, get my Princess a special surprise" He kisses me on the cheek and leaves me to browse, I look through all sort of dresses, some long and elegant, others short, cocktail dresses, strapless, halter neck, off the shoulder sleeves, satin, silky, sheer in an array of colours and then I found an amazing dress, red, long, sexy and fit me like a glove without drawing attention to my ever-growing bump. I paid for my dress just as Angus came back into the store, carrying a black, paper bag.

"What's in the bag?" I ask him, trying to sneak a peek but he hides it from view.

"I got you a few things, one of which you will get tomorrow night and the other you will receive on Saturday, after the ceremony." He tells me, "I also booked us a room at the hotel where the ceremony is taking place, I thought you may enjoy a night away in a fancy hotel instead of coming all the way home to Brindleton Bay "

"You spoil me way too much my gorgeous honey bear" I tell him, kissing him softly

"Well deserved I assure you Princess" He says, taking my hand and walking me back to the car.

****What are your thoughts on Zoey's father?****

****What do you think Angus bought Zoey?*****

[i-am-parsec]

Page 4

Henrik has gone from ignoring me for weeks to monitoring my every move 24/7. Stacy goes around the house making jokes about the benefits of having an live-in doctor since she may go into labour any minute now but I can't tell she's just as worried as me about the Doc. Worried because he's not explaining himself. Worried because he won't tell what's in the goddamn book. Worried because of his reaction when she "dared" to use Google to translate the first page. Henrik claims it's ancient German, too hard for him to understand, "after all, Chase, I only lived in Berlin for a few years as a kid, I barely speak modern German!, but you can't bullshit the bullshiter, Schneeplestein.

He's scared, and while I keep telling myself I don't what of, I think it's time to face up to the facts. It's time to call mom and ask what the fuck happened the night Charles broke his arm and I met my wife.

***

I have two uncles. Both of them in prison. One of them for murder, the other for rape and murder. I had no idea they were in prison or that they existed at all. My mother told me as that trying to contact them was pointless, she swore to my father I would never meet them. Apparently delivering that fucking book wasn't his only deathbed wish, knowing him, the fucker probably made a list. I want to be mad at him, I really do, but I can't, right now I can't feel anything. There's so much going on inside my head and at the same time, it's blank. It reminds me of our time working in Arizona, the attempted robbery - when Stacy shot at that guy with the gun so close to my head, I felt the whole world going completely mute while simultaneously exploding. The ringing right after, that's how I feel now. Silenced terror.

I go back to how mom greeted me and it makes me want to scream.

"I'm glad you called, dear. You have no time to waste; now, listen carefully and everything will be alright, you are the one who's gonna get it right, son."

Reassuring words as she holds me in the monster's den. Nothing but lies, that's all this family is. She asked me to record the conversation. I should have hung up right then and there

Triplets. Dad was born first, then Lucas, then Matthew. The three of them seemed like healthy, happy boys despite their father's distant behavior. If what my mother says it's true, that grandfather I never got to meet only held his children once for a picture after they were born and never again touched them, not a hug, not a caress, not even pat on the back. Their mother tried really hard to make up for their father's lack of affectionate gestures, in other words, she spoiled them. That alone could explained my father's addictions and his brothers' criminal tendencies but mom insists there's more. She insists there is a curse.

I am going insane, aren't I? A sane person would suggest their mother to get herself checked after listening to what I did, yet here I am writing it all down, going over the recording again and again, afraid I might miss some details. This is ridiculous...

A curse has followed the Brody men for at least 6 generations. Someone, somewhere made a pact and apparently screw all of us up; with who or what is up to debate but what my family has deduced over the years is that this entity preys on all of the males who descend from that poor fucker and that it feeds off our pain (either emotional or physical) while working its way into the brain of its victims. Once it achieves this, it starts controlling the victim's body until it completely destroys it and then proceeds to start the same process with the next generation, i.e. It drives you insane and, after killing you, it starts torturing your son.

I've always doubted my mother’s sanity but this certainly sounds like reason enough to lock her up in an asylum - although, given the fact that I might go crazy myself in a matter of months, maybe that's a not a good idea; last thing I need is to end up trapped in a mental institution with her. That could totally happen, I'm unlucky like that, as time has proven more than once.

From here on, I'll just write down her exact words, I'm done with trying to process all this crap, it's obviously not happening. 

"Your father loved you and me more than anyone has ever loved anyone in this world. He made the biggest sacrifices so you and every other man with Brody blood on their veins could get an actual fighting chance, a shot at happiness. He went through Hell, and back for us, my love, and maybe you think ‘no, that's not right, he put us through Hell, he was the devil himself’, but that's just not true and you know it. Maybe that thing managed to slip away from your memory but it’s not an easy sight to forget, once you see it, it sticks with you forever, and you saw it, son, many times. Every time your father pinned you down on the floor, every time he burned your skin with a cigarette, every time he threaten you or me to kill us, there it was, relishing in our fear. You have to understand, Chase, that while all of us could see it, no one knew how to stop it, no one was brave enough to find out, except your father and his brothers. He wasn't the horrible man everyone saw from the outside, he was and will always be the tender boy I fell in love with so many years ago.

He didn't know what was going to happen to him as he grew older, his father never warned him - you see, that was your grandfather’s strategy. This thing needs the victims to love and be loved, to have hope and dreams, it needs them to be happy, so he can rip their happiness apart. Your grandfather learned this from the old book I sent you and he concluded that if he stayed away from his sons and never allowed himself to love anyone, he would be safe, he could starve the demon and maybe even destroy it. But there's no escape from love, no matter how bad it hurts. He suffered just as much as your dad did, but got nothing out of it. When your dad and uncles found out about this curse of sorts, they realized there was no point in trying to fight it, so they didn't. They let it consume them completely, so they could learned as much as possible from it, what it was, how it behaved and especially, how to kill it.

I knew your uncles. They were good men, and they loved your father very much. By the time your grandfather died and the truth came out, Matthew was engaged, Lucas was a successful singer (you won't find his songs on the internet but trust me, he was gifted, just like you, dear) and your father, well, he and I had just moved in together and I was pregnant with you. It is truly a shame you never got to meet Matt and Luke because they would have been the most wonderful uncles any kid could ever have. In a way, they are. They decided your dad was the one who had the most to lose, so they sacrificed themselves, hoping it would prevent the monster from attacking him too. That's how they ended up in jail. They were the kindest people I had the honor to meet, they would have never hurt anyone, but they thought if they became the evil puppets this thing wanted them to be, it would leave your father and his new family alone. They loved you a lot, Chase, if your father made me promise you will never to see them, it's because they are no longer the lovely men they once were. This thing consumed them. You must remember them as the smiling kids in the pictures I'm sending you. You should be getting them soon. That's who you uncles are, not the emotionless shells who are in prison now.

Just like them, your father was not the beast you sadly had to grow up with, he was kind and creative and he would have let this thing eat him up alive if it meant finding a way out for you, son, and I think he did. The book is mostly notes from your great grandfather, the first one to "investigate" this thing, but on the back there are your father's own findings. Read them, dear, prepare yourself but most importantly, don't make your elders' mistakes. Don't try to ignore it or hide it, this is a fight you can't avoid or win alone. I'm glad you married the Walter girl, she always seemed so strong and determined, I know that if you tell her the truth, like your father did with me, she will stick with you.

I'm sorry it took me so long to tell why we could never leave, my love, I really am. I hope, one day, you can forgive us all.”

I want to tell my mother to fuck off, to stop making shit up and accept the fact she married an abusive drunk worthless piece of shit who happens to be brother of two equally fucked up pieces of shit and that maybe now that he's dead she can finally get some professional help to deal with it, but I can't. I want to put this pen down and go to bed and hold my beautiful wife, tell her everything is alright, but I can't. I want to call Henrik and tell my friend there's no need to lie because whatever is written is that book is nothing but some drug-induced crap my great-grandfather wrote many years ago, but I can't.

Because I know it's not true. Because I remember my father's true voice. Because I can see the void in the window's reflection, hovering over my shoulder, reading these rushed words. Taller than a human, wider than my desk, I can feel its freezing breath against my back. I don't want to turn around. I don't want to stare at it and listen to its heinous scream. I don't want to tell the truth. I don't want to admit my father was a good man controlled by a fucking demon because then that means my monster is not gone and I'm still not free.

It means my monster is standing right here with me and this time there's no one to hold it behind a shut door. This time, I have a son on the way, and it's my turn to hold it shut.

4 pages left. Page 3 // Page 5

❤️Tag list❤️: @amyxmiaplay @awkward-bullshit @beck-pma @closedworldofmathiel @darktrash-drash @fanfictionrecommendations-com @flyingfishflopsthings @fruitycasket @happysingingturtles @hiimizzyxoxo @hishex @kitnkas @mcomegalletas @mijako98 @mjjau @mysterious-cupcake-ninja @mysticalanimallover @novasingalaxies @plutoandpolaris @probablyghosting @randomartdudette @saltyweirdbi @sassy-in-glasses @scarlet--raven @septicuniverse @skyewardlight @thevampireauthoress @youllnevertaketheskyfromme

[lizzybeth1986]

I can see what Hana is going through, but I'm disappointed that she never gets to be her own person. She never grows up to be a completely independent character. She puts everyone's need before her own. I'm not even sure if she has her own dreams and desires. If she does, she hasn't shared them with my MC. The scenes I’ve played were all about the things she couldn’t do when she was a child and hot chocolate dates are not exactly my idea of having fun.

Content Warning: I will talk of extremely controlling parenting and the aftereffects to some extent. If this feels like it might not be safe for you to read, I’d like to warn you of it at this juncture.

I don’t know if you’re the same anon who has been sending me multiple asks regarding Olivia (with comparisons to Hana that were, frankly, unnecessary), but at this point I’m quite positive you are.

You say you “can see what Hana has been through”…but I’m not sure you can. I’m not sure you understand at all.

I don’t know if you understand what a wide gap of difference there lies in “being your own person” when you’re a child who grows up a result of extremely controlling parenting, and someone who doesn’t. The statements you make after you claim to understand tell me as much.

I’m not sure you realize how deep the repercussions of going through that really go. But I owe it to myself, and individuals like me, and a character whose journey I have experienced in my own life, to openly tell you what it does to a person. Because it is so damn easy, in this seemingly open-minded fandom, to reduce people like Hana (also Liam) to just “fluffy-clingy-bland-dependent”, when the evidence that she’s been fighting a losing battle her whole life has been there in the books all along.

I could post a hundred articles, a thousand thinkpieces, and numerous papers on the long-term damage “helicopter parenting” - of the kind that Lorelai and Xinghai engage in - involves, but I will stick to just this definition and back up with evidence from the books, that

1. Hana doesn’t have the luxury of figuring out what she wants for most of her life. 2. Despite her own nature and the way her parents have brought her up, she fights for her own autonomy and still struggles with the long-term effects of her parents’ choices in parenting.

This is not about just you, Anon. This is a trend I’ve been noticing for a while now, ergo this is to those in the fandom that use similar arguments as well.

–

Put quite simply, “helicopter parents” are referred to, as parents who are overly involved in their children’s life and decisions to an extreme. They are called so because they practically “hover” over every movement or action the child takes. Often such parents provide their children very little opportunities to explore what they want or what they would like to do, control every aspect of the child’s life, and at times shame the child for trying to step out of the boundaries they have set.

The long term effects of such parenting may result in (among other things) severe emotional dependence on parental/adult authority figures, extreme risk-avoidance/risk-taking behaviour, lowered self-esteem, a constant fear of failure. Having family breathing down your neck every minute to follow their ways and methods and rules without any scope for independence is damaging. It forces you into a state where you’re constantly measuring your every deed to see if it matches up with the expectations your parents push forward on you.

Often it is emphasized to you, in words and in action, that your choices do not matter. You’re told by your parents that you aren’t capable of acting independently, and then not allowed to cultivate that independence. You’re pressurized into aiming for success, except that success is constantly determined on someone else’s terms. Where, in such an environment, is the scope to develop this “independent character” you speak so highly of? To actually believe that you even have the right to dream? Do you expect it to emerge out of thin air?

Now that I’ve established what that kind of environment can do to a person in general, let us explore what it does to Hana in particular. You speak of Hana only in terms of “things she wasn’t allowed to do as a child”, and “hot chocolate dates”, which sounds like an extremely shallow exploration of her journey to me. I mean, I think even the writers who have done such a poor job of her seem to have fared a little better than that. This is what you’ve missed:

Hana as An Individual

1. She was a lonely child, who nonetheless used her imagination to create imaginary friends for herself (Princess Snickerdoodle and Miss Lemon Curd).

2. Her imagination also led her to embrace the joys of reading, imagining her in the place of the people in the books. At a time when she didn’t even know what fanfiction was, this girl was writing her own stories. The freedom she couldn’t find in her own life, she explored through her imagination and her music.

3. She was often rushed into forming alliances rather than friends, and later on had to navigate through an engagement even before she had the words to articulate what appealed to her romantically.

4. I agree that she steps forward to help people more than she does anything for herself, but I don’t see why this is a problem if that is something she likes to do. Such people exist, unbelievable as it may sound.

Control and Submission

1. In both of the above cases, Hana followed through because she had no other options really, and in both cases she couldn’t find it within herself to actually refuse outright. One of the consequences of very controlling parenting is that you have a hard time saying “no”. Yet during the engagement tour, she recognizes she CAN and MUST refuse things she is uncomfortable with, and does so even though she doubts her actions later

2. This controlling environment involves different tactics - especially from Lorelai - to maneuver her into their way of thinking. One very obvious example of this is in Book 1, where she argues with her mother over the phone. Lorelai alternates between affection, criticism and “your talent doesn’t matter if you’re not delivering the required results”. The moment Hana actually attempts to fight back (in the same conversation), it doesn’t take too long to escalate to threats.

3. Hana is made to be dependent on her parents in every way possible, but especially emotional and financial. She is made to believe that nothing - not even the things she has lovingly made with her own hands - belongs to her, that she is completely at the mercy of her parents. One may say she could leave, but can you? When you’re brought up to be that dependent on your authority figures, can you really?

4. Disownment seems to directly refer mostly to loss of money and property, but in Hana’s case it also means she loses the only family, the only life she has ever known. You mention “hot chocolate dates”, so I’m surprised you didn’t catch the fact that her parents were threatening to throw her out if she didn’t do exactly as they said. And we saw what Lorelai’s version of disownment looked like: it meant taking away even her clothes. I’m surprised that it escaped your notice that she returned to Cordonia to protect the MC while keeping up her ruse of conforming, even with these fears.

5. Let’s look at this point again: nothing belongs to her, not even her belongings. We’re talking about material things that most children would take for granted. If she’s grown up with the impression that even the roof above her head and the clothes in her closet aren’t her own, that she is incapable of surviving without her parent…where and how is she going to even THINK about complete autonomy without another person’s help?? If she isn’t allowed to even enjoy the things she likes on her own, if interests and activities are forced upon her, if the focus is forever on what you can gain with these skills rather than if you like doing them, how is she going to have any idea what she likes?

6. The most telling proof of the long term effects her parents’ conditioning have had on her, lies in Hana herself. She perceives their tactics, behaviour and criticism of her as normal. So normal, in fact, that she views Olivia’s jibes about her being “damaged goods” as the truth. It takes her being outside their immediate control and the help of someone who has lived an independent life to see how messed up her upbringing is. Let’s also not ignore that Cordonia is the first time she has stayed long term outside of her parents’ influence.

7. Even after she has broken ties with them, she still shows some level of wanting them to be involved in her life. Her engagement shoot has her secretly arrange to send her pictures to them through Ana, and even when Lorelai doesn’t seem to have learned her lesson, she seems to accept her apologies and start over. Some may call this being a pushover, but you can say that only if you forget the complexity of such relationships. Many adults in such relationships find it hard to completely break away, and often a lot of time is spent trying to either work around this or to educate the parent, until they’re too exhausted to do any more. She knows in her heart that on some level her parents want what they think is best for her, and think they’re doing their job as parents. It’s why she chooses to take the emotional labour of educating Lorelai over and over, why she doesn’t cut them off completely, why when her mother apologizes she will reiterate that she doesn’t want them out of her life, she just wants them to respect her and her boundaries.

8. The repercussions of what her parents did her live on even after she has left them. She is so affected by their poor treatment that if you are marrying her - she stresses over wanting her own dream wedding, frets over whether she is turning into her parents if she finally decides to do what she wants. She overcompensates, struggles to understand how to set boundaries, has trouble figuring out what constitutes a healthy amount of control. The entire book shows her still trying to navigate this, even though they abandoned this plot line later on.

How Does Hana Fight For Autonomy?

Surprisingly enough, she does so early on in her life. She doesn’t do it in what you may call major ways, but in small ways.

1. Like I mentioned earlier, when there are things she genuinely likes, she goes all out to pursue them. That’s the difference between her attitude towards activities like ice skating and wine tasting, and her love for flowers and books and music.

2. She develops a sensibility early on, of recognizing that things she enjoys need to be done for herself first, not paraded for other people’s entertainment. Her piano scene in Book 1 is a perfect example of this. She knew why she had a problem with constantly performing for others, she figured out at that early age why she felt so uncomfortable.

3. Not only that, she actively works against them when she does recognize this. Telling them no doesn’t work for her, so she screws up her performance on purpose so they will never ask her again. She’s learned early on that what she wants won’t be taken into account, so she finds other ways to work against it until she can keep the one thing she loves most for herself.

4. With reference to the previous point, I’d like to point out that she recognizes how sacred her art is to her, and goes to extremes to make it her own. She has the foresight to understand that this parading will make her love her art less.

5. In her adult life, she only volunteers to play piano if she finds someone she CAN trust. Someone who will value the integrity of her music and respect her boundaries. It’s not easy to understand the level of courage that takes. Her final scene shows her setting boundaries with her parents and standing by them.

6. When an outsider advises her to “say something snappy” back, she responds that that simply isn’t her way of doing things. This is something she stays firm about throughout the series. When she does take the initiative to fight back, she does it on her own terms, in her own way. She does it with Olivia, she does it towards the end with Madeleine, she goes the extra mile with Neville because he’s acting like an ass both to her and her friend Drake.

7. She reads forbidden literature (in her mind, that’s Wuthering Heights). She chooses her own reading material and is involved in engaging with it critically and creatively. She essentially took an activity her parents made her do, and made it her own.

8. This is a woman happy doing domestic activities, and she genuinely enjoys doing them for other people. She chooses the people she does it for.

9. In her first scene in Book 3, Hana speaks to us about planning her dream wedding from the time she was a child. She mentions making hundreds of PinStop boards just for this purpose, at the same time telling us she knew back then that with her parents she wasn’t going to have much of a say in her own wedding. She knew her choices didn’t count. She still worked on it!

This is just a small sample of the things she does to affirm that she, indeed, has a voice and an identity independent of her parents and even friends - no matter how small and invisible it may seem. To some this might not count for much. But for someone who has had to grow up under this level of control, the amount of pushing back she has already done on her own is PHENOMENAL.

Pushing back from this level of parenting never happens in one go. You don’t wake up one morning and suddenly realize this in a flash of light. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes some level of distance before a person with that kind of familial background can even contemplate that what they’ve experienced so far is not normal.

We need to remember that the core of Hana’s journey lies in enjoying her uncertainty, in basking in the knowledge that she doesn’t know yet where she is headed. Especially if you don’t marry her…she finds that for the first time in her life there is no set plan she needs to follow, no final goal she must use all her skills for. Let us remember the patisserie scene in Book 2. The pastries she is shown represent the directions she could go in and she finds a surprising sense of freedom in recognizing that she doesn’t need to overthink this.

In the Book 2 Lake scene, if Hana isn’t your LI she joyfully replies that she doesn’t know when asked what’s next for her. She is happy about not knowing - she is ecstatic that she has a wide range of options to choose from. If you are marrying her, she trusts you enough to know that while she now has a path to follow, she is secure in the knowledge that she is free to explore who she is within that path. I think that’s as good a proof of independence as anything.

–

Where TRR went wrong, was in choosing not to center Hana in her own story. Half her diamond scenes in Book 1 explored everything else BUT her. The Shanghai portion of the book itself took a mere two chapters compared to Paris and Italy, and we learned next to nothing about her background. We know about her parents but it’s a pity that even while we spend time in her city we know next to nothing about her environment or how she was brought up. But to decide without adequate evidence that she has no life, no dreams, no individuality just because she doesn’t bury weapons in her ballgown is grossly inaccurate.

@grapecaseschoices did a phenomenal post regarding the things about Hana that many tend to overlook, and I would suggest anyone who considers her one dimensional or a mere clingy pushover, to read it at least once. Here’s the link: https://grapecaseschoices.tumblr.com/post/178004874932/playchoicesconfessions-sent-by-anonymous-hana

I’ve been seeing quite a bit of Hana hate, and a lot of unfair comparisons to Olivia. I really like Olivia, I think she’s awesome and I understand if Hana’s character type doesn’t appeal to you. But there is a difference between that and making judgements on a character that aren’t backed up by the text. This isn’t just about the anon, this is about a huge number of people who clearly don’t know about the character yet act like they do. And I think that needs to stop.

Note: @callmetippytumbles is awesome. And helped me immensely with getting my jumbled thoughts on this in some order. And awesome. That is all.

–

[kkatot]

Syllabus, Social Media and Society, 2018

Sharing is caring. I found other people’s syllabi very helpful when designing my two new courses - Social Media and Society and Digital Culture. Both are masters’ level, both will be taught at Tallinn University in the New Media Masters program this fall. I am still working on the details of Digital Culture, but here’s Social Media and Society:

Social Media and Society, 4ETC

taught by: Katrin Tiidenberg, PhD

Short description: ‘Social Media and Society’ considers the role of networked communication technologies, social media, and specific platforms and applications in personal and societal life. It takes a sociological perspective on society (conceptualized via structure, agency, social institutions, inequality, social change and knowledges) and makes sense of social media via the concepts of affordances, platforms, connectivity, (in)visibility and user practices. Relying on relevant academic work that conceptualizes the social dynamics and implications of social media, we will explore the personal, social, economical, political and ideological aspects of living in networked, digitally saturated societies.

Course structure:

Lectures

In-class discussions

3 in-class exit quizzes (about the content of the class)

6 in-class reading quizzes (about the reading assigned for that class).

Participation in and passing the class involves reading a total of 13 texts (journal article or book chapter length) in academic English.

Grading:

Grades are based on the total number of accumulated points (100p = 100%). Points are earned from in-class quizzes (reading or class content related) and from the written exam. Maximum possible points: 45  - quizzes (5 per quiz), 55 – final exam.

A -  100% - 91%

B – 90% - 81%

C – 80% - 71%

D – 70% - 61

E – 60% - 51

F – 50% and less

Sept 6 - Intro & TRUTHS AND KNOWLEDGES

16:15 – 17:45

Introduction to the course, introduction to social media and society.

What is social media? What are its social implications?

How do we make sense of society?

What are the main concepts we use to study networked society and mediated sociality?

18:15 – 19:45

Truth, knowledge and discourse.

Attention, polarization and the public sphere.

News and information. Truth, post-truth, fake news, deep fakes. Flop accounts.

Augmented reality.

Exit quiz

*

Sept 13 - STRUCTURE AND AGENCY

16:15 – 17:45

Structure as Governance  -  governments and corporations, social institutions, platforms

Structure as Infrastructures – networks, databases, datafication, automation

Structure as Maintenance – algorithms, affordances, automation, bots, content moderation.

Failures and Breakdowns.

Read: Gillespie, T. (2017). Governance of and by platforms. In Sage Handbook of Social Media.

Reading quiz

18:15 – 19:45

Agency and self-presentation: Identity and networked communication technology, identification, self- and group categorization, interaction on and with social media, social cues, self-presentation, automated / datafied representations of the self, qualified self.

Read: Humphreys, L. (2018). Qualified Self, the Introduction.

Reading quiz

*

Sept 20 - Visibility, power and social inequalities. Categorization and identification

16:15 – 17:45

Visibility and invisibility on social media: Privacy, anonymity, pseudonymity, privilege, boundary work, shaming, moral panics

Read: Marwick, A., Fontaine, C., & Boyd, D. (2017). “Nobody Sees It, Nobody Gets Mad”: Social Media, Privacy, and Personal Responsibility Among Low-SES Youth. Social Media + Society, 3(2), 1–14.

Reading quiz

18:15 – 19:45

Visibility and invisibility via social media: surveillance, power, algorithms, social sorting

Read: Brayne, S. (2017). Big Data Surveillance: The Case of Policing. American Sociological Review. 1-32.

Reading quiz

*

Sept 27 - Social Institutions and networked capitalism                

16:15 – 17:45

Labor, work and exploitation: immaterial labor, aspirational labor, venture labor, glamor labor, visibility labor. If it seems free, you’re the product.

“Sharing” economies, platformisation and appification of labor.

Read: Duffy, B. E. (2016). The romance of work: Gender and aspirational labour in the digital culture industries. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 19(4), 441–457.

Reading quiz

18:15  - 19:45

Consumer culture and networked capitalism: personalization, advertising, commodification (of data and attention), self-branding

Exit quiz

*

Oct 4

Future Making

16:15 – 17:45

Civic engagement, political participation, activism, social justice.

Publics (networked, affective, ad hoc).

Read: Poell, T., & van Dijck, J. F. T. M. (2018). Social media and new protest movements. In The SAGE Handbook of Social Media.

Reading quiz

18:15 – 19:45

Net Neutrality, Critical Literacy, alternative Social media

Exit quiz

*

Oct 11

Reading week

Read the 6 additional pieces for the exam.

Oct 18

EXAM

**

Readings for exam:

Bucher, T & Helmond, A. (2017). The affordances of social media platforms. The SAGE Handbook of Social Media, edited by Jean Burgess, Alice Marwick, and Thomas Poell. 223-253

Casilli, A. (2015). Four Theses on Digital Mass Surveillance and the Negotiation Of Privacy. 8th Annual Privacy Law Scholar Congress 2015, Jun 2015, Berkeley, United States. 2015.

Gehl, R. W. Alternative Social Media : From Critique to Code, 1–23. The SAGE Handbook of Social Media, edited by Jean Burgess, Alice Marwick, and Thomas Poell.

Humprecht, E. (2018) Where ‘fake news’ flourishes: a comparison across four Western democracies, Information, Communication & Society.

Marwick, A. (2016). “ What Can I Really Do ?” Explaining the Privacy Paradox with Online Apathy, 10, 3737–3757.

Van Dijck, José. 2014. Datafication, dataism and dataveillance: Big Data between scientific paradigm and ideology. Surveillance & Society 12(2): 197-208.

***

Suggested readings for those interested in these topics, or contemplating a related MA thesis:

Books

Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet, 2018

Akane Kanai, Gender and Relatability in Digital Culture, Managing Affect, Intimacy and Value, 2018

Siva Vaidhyanathan, Antisocial media, how Facebook disconnects us and undermines democracy, 2018

Safiya Noble, Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, 2018

If you read Estonian:  Katrin Tiidenberg, Ihu ja Hingega internetis: kuidas mõista sotsiaalmeediat, 2017.

Socialbots and their friends, Digital media and the automation of sociality, edited by Roberg W. Gehl and Maria Bakardjieva, 2016.

Digital Sociologies, edited by Jessie Daniels, Tressie McMillan Cottom, Karen  Gregory, 2016

Nancy Baym, Personal Connections, 2015

Jose van Dijck, Culture of Connectivity, 2013

Articles / chapters

Markham, A. N. (forthcoming). Critical pedagogy as a response to datafication: Research methods as data literacy tools. Qualitative Inquiry. (title may change). Final draft here:  https://www.dropbox.com/s/suf2uoesim4slkl/critical_pedagogy_as_data_literacy_final_draft_feb_2018.pdf?dl=0

Gerrard, Y. (2018) Beyond the hashtag: Circumventing content moderation on social media. New Media and Society. ISSN 1461-4448

Stevenson, M. (2018). From hypertext to hype and back again: exploring the roots of social media in the early web. In J. Burgess, A Marwick and T Poell (eds.). The SAGE Handbook of Social Media. Sage Press.

van der Nagel, E. (2018). “Networks that work too well”: intervening in algorithmic connections. Media International Australia, 168(1), 81–92.

Duffy, B. E., Pruchniewska, U., & Scolere, L. (2017). Platform-specific self-branding: Imagined affordances of the social media ecology. 8th International Conference on Social Media & Society, 1–9. http://doi.org/10.1145/3097286.3097291

Marwick, A. and Lewis, R. (2017). Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online. Data and Society. Retrieved from https://datasociety.net/output/media- manipulation-and-disinfo-online/

Papacharissi, Z. (2016). On networked publics and private spheres in social media. In Hunsinger, J. and Senft, T. The Social Media Handbook. New York: Routledge.

Abidin, C. (2016). “Aren’t These Just Young , Rich Women Doing Vain Things Online?”: Influencer Selfies as Subversive Frivolity. Social Media + Society, 1–17. http://doi.org/10.1177/2056305116641342

Marwick, A. E. (2015). Instafame: Luxury Selfies in the Attention Economy. Public Culture, 27(1 75), 137–160. http://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-2798379

Ross, A. (2013). In search of the lost paycheck. In T. Scholz, Digital labor: The Internet as playground and factory. (13-32). New York: Routledge

cf. Annette Markham's Future Making Project - https://futuremaking.space/

[crapfutures]

Careless whispers

In a previous post we mentioned the story of the infamous conflict between King Henry II and Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 12th century England. It’s a familiar story of two powerful and egotistical men clashing over issues of status and pride. After a series of altercations over clerical privilege, Henry finally loses his temper; what he actually said to the assembled courtiers has been lost to history, but the most likely version comes from the biographer-monk Edward Grim, who recorded it as follows:

What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?

Whatever Henry said, four of his knights (Richard le Breton, Reginald FitzUrse, Hugh de Morville, and William de Tracy) interpreted the utterance as a royal command. They rode to the Normandy coast, took ship for England, and confronted the Archbishop. What happened next was described by the aptly named Grim, who was on the scene and actually wounded in the attack:

The wicked knight, fearing lest Becket should be rescued by the people and escape alive, leapt upon him suddenly and wounded this lamb who was sacrificed to God, cutting off the top of the crown which the sacred unction of the chrism had dedicated to God.

More terrible blows followed, and eventually the Archbishop succumbed. Was the king’s statement interpreted correctly? We’ll never know. But we can perhaps read parallels to our own time in the complex motivations and agendas that informed the knights’ collective decision to commit murder.

Another story, more recent. This one takes place in Dallas, Texas, where a six-year-old girl asked her family’s Amazon Echo: ‘Alexa, can you play dollhouse with me and get me a dollhouse?’ Alexa promptly complied, ordering a $300 KidKraft Sparkle Mansion doll’s house from one of Amazon’s suppliers. She also ordered (for reasons known only to the internal logic of the system) nearly two kilograms of sugar cookies. The story doesn’t stop there: the following day, when a San Diego news programme reported the story, a number of Echos were roused by the wake word ‘Alexa’ coming from proximate television sets, and they in turn followed the command to also purchase dolls’ houses.

What inspired Alexa to order the biscuits? A flawed system or a very smart one?

In 560 BC, King Croesus of Lydia set a challenge to the world’s oracles to determine who provided the most accurate prophecies. His emissaries were sent to seven sites to ask the resident oracle what the king was doing at that precise moment. The winner was the Oracle of Delphi, who correctly reported that the king was making a lamb-and-tortoise stew.

Oracles were seen as conduits to the gods, speaking and giving advice on their behalf. Divination came in many other forms: augurers would follow the flight paths of birds (legend has it that the location of Rome was decided through this approach). Haruspices would read the entrails of sacrificed animals. Today, however, reading the future is much less exotic or gruesome, being mostly about data and statistics.

The next story starts back to front. A man walks into a Target outside Minneapolis and demands to see the manager. He’s got a handful of targeted coupons that had been sent to his teenage daughter, and he’s angry. ‘My daughter got this in the mail!’ he said. ‘She’s still in high school, and you’re sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?’ In fact the daughter actually is pregnant. Target knows it before the girl’s father, thanks to a hunch based on its analysis of online searches and product purchases - in this case a particular lotion often used by pregnant women in the second trimester.

One more story. In happier times for Facebook, the social media giant played a significant - if unevenly distributed and still debated - role in the Arab Spring by facilitating communication between protesters. The April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, for example, used Facebook to launch a successful call for protests in the aftermath of the Tunisian Revolution that preceded the spread of uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East in 2011-12. Events of the Arab Spring demonstrated that social networks provide a perfect mechanism through which to disseminate information broadly and quickly, as long as you have access to the internet.

So far this is a familiar and well-trodden tale; the more interesting story, however, happened when Arab states began to shut down internet access. Activists in Cairo found the solution in a different kind of social network - not screen-based, but via the city's taxi drivers. The activists realised that if they could direct conversations towards the planned anti-Mubarak gathering on 25 January 2011 in Tahrir Square, taxi drivers might spread the word and the protest would be a success. Initially, the activists tried to talk directly to drivers. 

But they soon discovered that due to the highly politicised nature of their subject, conversations would quickly turn into arguments rather than dissemination, and their objective would fail. The solution was found in exploiting the human tendency to gossip. Instead of engaging in direct conversation, the activists allowed the taxi drivers to overhear a mobile phone conversation where they would disclose the details of the protests. The taxi drivers eavesdropped, and believing they had overheard a gossip-worthy secret, they began to spread the message.

‘Technology is making gestures precise and brutal, and thereby human beings.’ - Adorno

In one of our very first posts, The Pleasures of Prediction, we described the daily experience at our local cafe - where the gestures of interaction were not always precise, sometimes brutal (depending on the mood of either ourselves or the people behind the counter), but mostly genial and surprisingly seamless. More recently, our colleague was telling us how his landlady keeps track of the number of bottles of alcohol he consumes each week by counting his recycling - a sort of small island version of a fitness tracker like the Fitbit. ‘She’s not judgemental’, he said. ‘Well … not really.’ Of course surveillance and tracking - mediating, amplifying, interpreting - have always been present in society; in the past they were just more social, or at least more analogue.

These examples raise some big questions, such as: Would you rather be monitored by a human being or a machine? If machine, why? Why don’t we trust humans? For that matter, why don’t we trust ourselves? How have we been shown to be untrustworthy and unable to control our own self-destructive or anti-social impulses? For the past two years we have been collecting stories that relate to the interpretation of information - tracing the shift from human beings to technological mediation as translator and interpreter; who is making important decisions, on whose behalf, and why.

There is certainly precision and brutality in Cambridge Analytica’s use of Facebook data for micro-targeting and psychological profiling. Likewise Amazon Echo, a data-based Trojan horse mediating our personal lives in increasingly precise but also brutal ways. There is a tendency to understand and evaluate technology according to old-fashioned notions of progress: faster, easier, more efficient and so on. But digitisation, the data that it creates, and the vast networks of dissemination also facilitate the augmenting of darker aspects of human behaviour, targeting our deepest vulnerabilities. How we examine the implications, embrace the ethics, and understand the complexity of these systems are some of the fundamental challenges we face.

Real Prediction Machines

Shortly before the Echo appeared on the market in 2014, Real Prediction Machines addressed many of the issues Amazon’s new device (and others like it) would raise. The speculative project was developed by James Auger in collaboration with designer Jimmy Loizeau, artist Alan Murray, and Edinburgh University data scientist Ram Ramamoorthy, who at the time was developing predictive modelling systems combined with machine learning to predict when professional athletes might sustain an injury through overtraining.

James, Jimmy and Alan began by asking Ram what kind of other things might be predictable through such techniques, such as ‘Will my child become a professional football player’, ‘Will Labour win the next general election’, and ‘Will I suffer a heart attack?’ The words inside the circles of the Bayesian network diagram represent potential variables. In relation to a heart attack they could correspond to something like diet or exercise, the data coming from a supermarket loyalty card, or the accelerometer in your smartphone. Or more finite information such as family history, for example data coming from a genetic testing service like 23andMe.

These variables combine to create a live and ongoing feed into the predictive algorithm. The heart attack example seemed a little too banal due to its obvious connection to wellbeing and the huge growth of data and tracking methods, so the group suggested another question to Ram: Will I have a domestic argument?

The Bayesian network shown above looks similar to the earlier one, but in this instance a microphone was added for live sound input (anticipating the omnipresent Echo). Using machine learning, the system would become better at predicting arguments through the statistical analysis of keywords, tone, and frequency - identifying particular subjects that a couple might commonly fight about.

The output was translated into an object - not an app but something more symbolic, sympathetic. They settled on an ambient device sitting in the background, providing information when you might need it. 

The device essentially has three states:

Clockwise means that the argument is moving into the future;

Anti-clockwise means that the argument is approaching, and the slower the rotation the more imminent it is;

When the rotating stops, the argument starts.

Projects like Real Prediction Machines work when it is not completely clear whether the idea is a ‘good’ one or not. Is it too invasive? Is it genuinely helpful? This is how we should think about all potential technologies, but we rarely do.

What happens next? How far away are we from Alexa ordering not biscuits, but a councillor? How much control will we have in the future, and how much do we want to have?

Images:

All diagrams by James Auger; photo of Real Prediction Machines by Sophie Mutevelian.

[thelioninmybed]

so you did a imrael/khazri meet-cute for if khazri's family never tried to kill him, but what would their first meeting be like if khazri joined the priesthood like his uncle suggested? :) thanks love u bye

There are eight gods in Zalach’ann - but no, that’s a simple lie, told so as not to confuse the peasants. The truth is that there is one god, and she is worshipped in eight aspects. 

The Lady of Spiders weaves the world and weaves us every one. She snips spent threads and she alone knows what will be left when her long labour’s done. Then there is Marath Who Rides Forth, rejoicing in war and bloodshed while her husband, Iavarin of the Hearth, preserves and mends what has been broken. There is dreaming Naphael, patron of poets, prophets and the mad, and Ilinya of scrolls and lore and secrets. Xolodano the Gilded is beloved of merchants and Valian is beloved of lovers. A whore’s god and our boy’s father danced in his temples once upon a time. The last and the least is Arteru, who walks in dark places, who is hunter and hunted, and if out lost son had kept his faith then it is Arteru he would pray to. 

If he had kept it - you understand there are some gods it is not fitting for a boy to serve? Well then…

Iavarin

“They say,” Imrael said, rising from his bow, “That the priests of Iavarin are the greatest healers upon the earth, and under it. I’ve travelled a long way to-”

“You and every other supplicant,” said the priest. He was a tall man, taller than Imrael, with a nose that would have been very handsome had he not been looking down it. “We do not barter away our magicks to pedlers at the gates.”

Imrael spread his hands, refusing to let his smile flicker. “Well that’s fine, I was proposing more an open exchange of knowledge.”

Behind the priest, one of the novices, robed in ashy grey, ducked his head to hide what Imrael was pretty certain was a smirk. The priest’s lip curled. “See him gone,” he said and turned away, robes swishing behind him, the great fire at the temple’s heart throwing his shadow out behind him. 

“I thought ‘Hearth’ implied, oh, I don’t know, homeliness,” he told the novice prodding him towards the temple gates. “Hospitality.” 

“We lean more towards ‘preserving’,” the novice said. He at least had the grace to sound apologetic. 

“I’ve seen pickled lemons less sour.”

 The novice smirked again. “I’m sorry. For a wasted journey.”  

Not as handsome as the priest but his face was far more appealing. “Not so wasted,” Imrael told him. “Buy me a drink, show me the secret passage into the temple archives, and we’ll call that hospitable.”

“A drink,” the novice agreed solemnly. “The tenets of my god demand no less.”

Naphael

“I thought,” said Imrael. “I thought. Eight gods, right?”

“One gods. God.”

“One god, eight whosits. I thought only the big one, spider lady. I thought only she could see. The thing. The fate of everything. So how come, how come your god. How come they get to do prophecy? It’s bullshit. Your god. Is bullshit.” 

That was probably a pretty stupid thing to say to a priest within his god’s own temple, but whatever they used to fuel their visions had stolen Imrael’s common sense along with his hand-eye coordination and he hadn’t had much of either to begin with. 

“It’s like a carpet,” said the oracle. He was draped across the floor and Imrael’s shins in a very good imitation of one.

“You gotta prophet harder than that. Or less hard because that actually was very prophety.” 

Propping himself up on his elbows, the oracle took another pull from the water pipe and said, less oracularly, “Can’t see much of it when you’re lying on it.”

“Ah!” Imrael cried. “I see. So you think it’s just a bit of blue with yellow squiggles, but then you sit up-” Imrael said, sitting up. “And it turns out that the squiggly bits are actually a dragon’s tail and the whole carpet is dragons fighting-”

“They’re not fighting.” 

“Dragons. But you didn’t know. Because you only saw a little bit”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.” Imrael stopped looking at the carpet and looked at the man draped across his lap instead. Pretty, in a dreamy, disaffected kind of way. “Hey, hey, if you can see the future, how lucky am I?”

“Tonight?” said the oracle. “Not very. I’m a priest.”

Valian

“Did you come to pray?” said the dancer. He wasn’t wearing much to speak of, beside a veil and some bodypaint that glowed luminescent in the temple’s dim interior, and so Imrael struggled to pay attention. “Because it’s not- um. If you go to the outer districts, there are…places. That will serve foreigners. It’s not done here.” 

“I actually came to propose an exchange.” Imrael coughed. “Of knowledge, nothing else.” That was absolutely not true, but Valian was turning out to be a decidedly conservative sex god and Imrael knew better than to push his luck in a city full of violently xenophobic misandrists. 

“Oh.” The dancer’s drooping ears lifted and his stance from self-consciously provocative to something more natural. There were other priests tending to petitioners, taller and lovelier, and actually smiling behind the veils, and Imrael didn’t think it was by chance that the one who’d been sent to talk to an encroaching foreign man was small and diffident. “If you want knowledge, the temple of Ilinya. Has it.”

“Not the kind I’m looking for. I’m a doctor-” Imrael said and then waited, as he’d learned to here, for the other man to say something disbelieving but he only tilted his head so that the glass beads on his veil clacked and chimed. 

“Iavarin is for healing,” he said.

“Preservation. But creating new things, that’s all on your guy, right?”

“I suppose.”

“And it’s criminally underresearched!” Imrael spread his hands, taking in the veiled lanterns and incense, the gorgeous frescos of gorgeous men and women engaged in anatomically improbable acts, and the shameful lack of academic rigour. “All that drive, all that desire - and that’s what magic is at the root of it - but a little squeamishness keeps anyone from considering the full potential!”

The dancer’s expression hadn’t been seductive to start with, and now it was something close to a smirk. “You’d be surprised. Most every petitioner’s here for research. Inspiration. I don’t know anyone that comes here just for sex.”

“That’s very unfair, and my purity of purpose is provable; you just said you don’t let foreigners worship.”

“I’m not very good at my job,” the dancer said. And, before Imrael could work out if that meant what he thought it did, “I’ll show you to the library.”

Arteru

People had said there would be danger - he’d rather counted on it - but he’d been anticipating the sexy, not-actually-that-dangerous kind. It turned out being stalked through the woods by a mostly naked man was not even slightly thrilling.

The moonlight gleamed on the hunter’s bare skin, pale as the bone of the wolf skull mask he wore. There was a knife in his hand of black obsidian, sharp enough it might not even hurt. 

“I’ve heard stories,” Imrael said, voice wavering like the wind-tossed leaves on the branches above their heads. “About your god. About your hunts.” He’d also heard conflicting tales of the priesthood of Arteru; vows of purity and bloody orgies beside their kills. He didn’t think it would be a good idea to mention them now. 

“You have to kill something worthy, don’t you? And that- that should be someone who can run more than a quarter of a mile at a go, someone who’s armed, which I’m definitely not, so there’s really no point in killing me, none at all, gods, don’t come any closer, please-”

The hunter’s face was as still as his mask and his steps were silent on the leaf litter, slow and sure. He was twenty yards away, and then fifteen, shadow-dappled muscles rippling with a predator’s grace, eyes hidden by the dark hollows of the skull’s sockets. 

Imrael paced him, backing up, faster and faster as the man came on, praying to any of the gods he didn’t believe him that he would not trip over a tree root. 

Either no gods were listening or they took exception to an atheist. He stumbled and went down hard, grazing his elbows. He didn’t feel it, even though he knew coat and skin both had been torn open. The muscles in the hunter’s thighs tensed and Imrael clutched his bag to his chest, with the vague intention of throwing it as a last, desperate defence.

(It would occur to him much later that he was a wizard, but Imrael did tend to lose his head in a crisis.)

The hunter leapt. Imrael yipped and, shamefully, closed his eyes. 

There came a rush of air, a rustle of leaves, and the shrill screech of an animal in pain. No blade though. Unless he really hadn’t felt it, but that didn’t explain the yowling. 

Imrael opened his eyes again. Looked up to see something sleek and green and serpentine thrashing and flailing, long body coiling around the hunter, who had one arm about its neck, one hand on the gore-slick hilt of the knife buried in its eye socket. The drake’s flailing claws had scored darkly oozing gashes across his skin, and his mask had been knocked loose to reveal a face younger than Imrael’s own. 

The boy pressed in with the knife and, with a final convulsive shiver, the creature stilled, coils falling limp like a discarded ribbon. He ignored Imrael, who clambered slowly to his feet, wincing over the damage to his elbows, and then wincing more at the pins and needles pain as he set the skin reknitting. 

It probably wasn’t a good idea to draw the man’s attention, given he was wild-eyed and still holding the knife. 

“Thanks!” said Imrael anyway, because he’d never met a bad idea he didn’t like, and this one’s chest was heaving provocatively. “That…looks very worthy. Good job.”

The hunter, ignoring him, pulled out a knife and began to skin the carcass. 

[janeaustentextposts]

I love reading your answers to Jane Austen related questions, and I've finally come up with one of my own. We often see characters from that time period saying things like "she has entered her confinement" and I've inferred what it meant for the most part. But I'd like a more specific answer if you know one. Also, pregnancy seems like something barely mentioned in most books of that time. What was it like being pregnant in those days? Was it shameful or inappropriate to talk about?

Confinement is a practice which goes way back in many cultures, and in some continues to this day as a period of time for the community/family of a pregnant person to support them around the time of their giving birth.

In European history, back to medieval times, nobles would enter this confinement in the latter stages of pregnancy to provide quiet and calm before the birth. (Given Austen’s own darkly snarky comment in a letter: “Mrs. Hale, of Sherborne, was brought to bed yesterday of a dead child, some weeks before she expected, owing to a fright. I suppose she happened unawares to look at her husband...” we know that even in her own time people believed shock could have a disastrous effect upon a pregnant person.)

(That dead baby joke, though...Jane, please.)

This period of time was also known as one’s lying-in, as it could often involve bed-rest, and confinement to one’s chambers in comfort and ease would result in more informal dress as the expectant person would be attended largely by their ladies-in-waiting or female family members. On average, the confinement period would extend about a month following the birth, though this can vary depending on local custom or personal needs. Recovery from a birth takes however long it takes, but standard practice would support the new parent and baby for the crucial first month. Consider nowadays how in European/American cultures new parents often have professionals, friends, family, and neighbours help them out for a little while, whether it be lactation consultants or dropping off a casserole or doing some laundry while the new parents catch a much-needed nap. Our human needs for these things still exist--the practices simply used to be more socially formalized and even a little superstitious.

In some Asian countries, confinement is a term for a modern practice of this kind of familial and community support, and there are confinement centers in some cities where pregnant and postpartum people may book accommodations to rest and bond with their babies, with supportive women-only staff on-hand, special traditional baths and herbal/massage treatments available, and catered meals with offers of special post-natal diets. (Men may not be permitted to visit, which is not ideal for some.)

In Austen’s time, confinement might also be known as accouchement, a French term which literally means time spent lying on a couch--it just sounds fancier, I guess. Much like how a lady might be more delicately referred to as being enceinte, rather than pregnant. (The word actually literally means ‘enclosed’ as in a fortified building, so again, hearkens to the notion of being confined and protected.)

Pregnancy was certainly all around women in Austen’s time, regardless of whether it might be appropriate to speak openly of it in genteel novels by A Lady. Austen’s letters to her family and friends certainly show that she was by no means ignorant of where babies came from, even if she was a spinster. People could not help being aware of pregnancy--and it was an interesting condition for many, being fraught with dangers for both mother and child, as far as health went, as well as with the dependency of estates and titles upon the bearing of healthy male heirs. With no practical methods of birth control available, babies were everywhere. (With infant mortality rates being very much a thing, perhaps even more babies and pregnancies than older children, honestly.) On hearing that her sister-in-law’s sister had recently given birth to her eighteenth child, the unmarried Miss Jane felt justified in writing that “[she] would recommend to her and Mr. D. the simple regimen of separate rooms.” (Mr. and Mrs. D would ultimately have twenty children in total.)

While pregnancy was not shameful nor inappropriate--and could hardly be so, when it was everywhere--the messier details would certainly not be discussed in polite company as frankly, perhaps, as they would be with close female friends or family, or in the letters exchanged therein. So, yes, chat about it in the kitchen with your cousins, but only veiled and polite vague references at her ladyship’s dinner-table, please. In the 2009 adaptation of Emma, Mrs. Weston is clearly in the latter months of her pregnancy by episode 3, though she is still going out and socializing and there is no scandal in her being in company with unmarried young girls like Emma or Harriet, or socializing with all their neighbours when Mr. Knightley calls at Randalls--it’s all just a part of life. She even walks along while they all go to Hartfield, though Mr. Weston holds her hand as much because her balance might be off as because he’s a lovely husband. But by the time of the strawberry-picking party at Donwell, or the outing to Box Hill, Mrs. Weston is absent (and Emma starts to run her mouth about Miss Bates under Frank’s wilder influence towards crueler wit,) so the heat, the more strenuous exercise, and the advancement of her pregnancy all likely combine to prevent her attending. Later, Emma is summoned to her when Mrs. Weston must break the news of Frank and Jane’s engagement, but in the text this is said to be due to Mrs. Weston’s desire for discretion, and to not alarm Mr. Woodhouse in case Emma should take the news very badly. In the adaptation this is less clear, and Mrs. Weston sits at home in a very simple maternity gown with front laces which may be loosened for easy wearing in what must be the more uncomfortable stages of carrying a child--but in the novel she is still going about her life and paying calls in Highbury, so she’s not entirely shut away, even in the final days of her pregnancy.

In Georgian and Regency times, pregnancy was common enough that healthy women could be out and about in society pretty much up until the moment labour began, unless a doctor might recommend otherwise. The Victorians might have been more squeamish about such things, but for a genteel lady in Austen’s time, life very much went on, with everything in moderation, and confinement was more to do with post-partum care than hiding away the sight of a pregnant belly from the aghast eyes of delicate and innocent girls.

Austen’s writing speaks of women’s “safety”, that is, their survival of a birth and the dangers of the days immediately following, where infection and haemorrhages may be as likely to cause death as childbirth itself. While polite euphemism might abound, the practical anxieties and joys of pregnancy and birth were everywhere, and no real secret from anybody unless one really strove to uphold general ignorance of such matters.

[aethelflaed93]

Did you think, after all this time, I would let it hurt?

There were plenty of things about the series as a whole, and the final episode, that I did enjoy (critically, of course!), and in the interest of balance, this is one of them.

For my part, Dracula being shown to himself by Agatha/Zoe was a good deal more satisfying than a stake-in-the-heart finale. As with much to do with this last installment, there wasn't enough leg work undertaken that allowed the fullest and, therefore, proper execution of the matter, but it seemed to me that the idea itself was just intuitive enough to permit the viewer to pick up the slack. (Though, one rather wishes that that wasn't necessary).

Agatha/Zoe finally catches Dracula out when she identifies his inadequacies (as he perceives them) as a man: raised in a cultural milieu that valorised the performance of manhood through martial violence and meaningful death on the battlefield ("you were a warrior"), he has been unable to satisfactorily follow this trajectory because of (what was, presumably, unlooked for) immortality. He has internalised this shame with such conviction and severity, that a full and meaningful death has become to him an abject fear of mortal demise in any form that is neither useful to him nor, literally, to his taste.

Internalised controls become beliefs become externalised behaviours: he cannot disobey the legendary interdictions because he thinks, believes, he cannot. A metaphor for masculinity, indeed. Agatha/Zoe breaks the circuit for him: their exchange over this issue should have been longer and deeper. (See below).

Having a romantically inclined woman be the source of a male character's (implicitly unearned) self-development and/or "rescue" is cliché, trite and hangs everything on shifting emotional labour (quelle surprise) onto the shoulders of the woman. I don't think this was quite that.

Firstly, it didn't seem to me that Dracula was rescued or redeemed: he remained ultimately selfish, taking what he wanted from another person in order to serve himself. He used Zoe's body to commit suicide, even though she effectively saved him.

(Contrariwise, the writing team really needed to sort out the rules and regulations of vampire lore: an insistence on the inability to commit suicide is overturned here (one might infer that all rules are null, including that of self-destruction, but this doesn't quite hold up) and there's no adequate explanation as to why Lucy should have been trapped in her burnt state. Why could she not feed and regenerate, as Dracula had done, when both age and injury caused damage to his body? This is one of the messy technical elements that required greater consistency).

Secondly, their relationship wasn't, I would argue, romantic. Neither Zoe nor Agatha were friends to him, nor were they lovers. They were/she was an antagonist about whom he came to experience care. His observation about her being in pain and the lingering gaze of the Dracula-focalised camerawork on her in the last scene were signposts that he had come to think (somewhat, for him) conscientiously about her. His conversation with the abused housewife at the top of the episode was also, I'd conjecture, a way of beginning to demonstrate that Dracula is, or is becoming, capable of articulating at least potential connection between violent action and altruistic outcome -- even if at that stage, altruism has no real purpose for him. His glimmers of self-reflection (pardon the pun) are glimmers of change in him.

(Zoe, notably, was less contemptuous, less confrontational, and more desirous of seeing humanity in him than Agatha, and this was what made Zoe necessary. His submerged but increasingly apparent form of care for her/them, however, was, as many things, rushed. He was ready to kick the bucket from beneath Agatha's feet and watch her choke in the Demeter episode; his turnaround in the final installment is explicable but rather precipitate).

In any case, it is for the first time that Dracula engages in a transaction that isn't entirely a one-way deal. He uses the erotic dream-state one last time, not as a weapon, but as a salve. She was dying with or without his intervention, and so he calls a halt to her pain. Eroticism is, characteristically, misdirection, and, crucially, it is anaesthetic. This is also the only scene in which he has been naked since the convent gate spectacle: he has been stripped/has willingly let himself be stripped, and only Zoe/Agatha could have done it.

She teaches him to meet death with calm acceptance: the implication of her accusing him of cowardice is that he has been unconsciously self-governing through an outdated form of masculinity. This scene didn't chase that down, and a conversation about change, about his relationship to time, his understanding of himself (something, anything!) could have occurred, given that he asserts on the beach, somewhat ironically, as it turns out, that his age means he is used to the ebb and flow of alteration. (And, indeed, given his self-aware fin-de-siecle campiness in the first episode particularly. He has not, presumably, always been thus).

The story turns out to have been about Dracula and Agatha, and latterly, Zoe-as-Agatha/Agatha-as-Zoe all along -- which in itself was a fine idea. It wasn't handled as deftly as one would have liked. That we were wrong-footed about Jonathan's importance I rather appreciated: pursuing a fresh angle on a much told tale is one of the soundest rationales for further adapations. (That we were sold a variety of absolute stinkers with Mina, Jack and Lucy, and the Harker foundation, was less welcome).