#this is not literary analysis it’s me trying to explain my gender

[2nd-mushroom-circle]

literally nobody is gonna know what i mean by this but i need it on the record that juliet capulet and stella belle reprieve have the same gender and i have illegally downloaded it and am wearing it like an oversized men’s blazer

[cafeleningrad]

If it's not to late for the ask game:💚💖💔 for Revolutionary girl Utena. (And if you want ofc)

This show is a never ending opportunity to talk about so the asks will be perfectly on time any time. Thank you a lot for the questions! (/≧▽≦)/ 💚 What does everyone else get wrong about your favorite character? That would Tokiko. The fandom barely talks about her, if they acknowledge their existence at all - which is in itself perfectly ironic for the Black Rose Arc finale. I've got many, so many thoughts on the limited yet incredibly revealing screen time of Tokiko, Nemuro before he became Mikage Souji, and the Chida Mamiya. But I will keep it brief at their actual, very human story being essential for explaining what psychological issues are determining the logic of Ohtori, and Akio as it's center of gravity. Tokiko appearing, and being the only person Akio can not intimidate or impress is my favourite moment about accepting past pain, and a life outside of Ohtori.

(And I guess for other two favourites Wakaba and Nanami, I think the fandom is pretty spot on about them (also high five to every Wakaba fan out her, love my onion girl 🧅🤎)) (And yeah, maybe some fans are a bit too kind on Saionji. This boy is physically mistreating others for his compensation. On the other hand, I'm a big Theon Greyjoy fan. For both characters the deeply complicated childhood friendship, patheticness-to-likeability-ratio, and gender-struggle make them overcomepnsate in the most dickhead ways parallels are just too close for me to overlook them....)

As usual, writing about this show got way too long, so the rest is under the cut. ;)

💖 What is your biggest unpopular opinion about the series? two things 1. This show thrives on accepting ambiguity and plurality all at once. The itself perfectly blends all it's aspects and inspirations together. Analysis of the text is a beautiful kaleidoscope. I do think a bit more of interest for the Japanese, especially the time and Japanese popculture context helps understanding why certain characters are the way they are could be useful. (By example: Juri's distant yet poised demeanour in a male environment reflect the tough position for women trying to survive in a male dominated field, or Nanami's and Kozue's incestuous tendencies corresponding to a prominent shoujo trope of the time, or what it means for Akio to take on his fiancée's last name, or Jur/iori's ashamed perception of lesbian love and desire as impure is combating questionable Class-S tropes). Still, I think different readings of gender, queerness, but also depression, maturity, childism, machismo in facism, Greek theater, colour theory, literary analysis of fairy tales, German literary influences, theater, power dynamics and also personal thoughts of escj viwer don't exclude other. Instead they link to each other, help understand one aspect a bit better, maybe are in conflict, or support each other. Even if I might not agree a 100% with every reading or interpretation, the thoughts of many other fans have helped me seeing different aspects in different lights.

2. Lesbianism didn't save anyone. I know most "gay gals winning"-claims are jokes. However it does irritate me a bit because the show works really hard against gender essentialism. It understands really well how love, and mature, good relationships works - even within same sex couples. There is a lot to untangle here but in order to not jump to 99 tangents at once: Princehood is not only misogyny. It's an entire mindset of egocentrism, and a power hierarchy needing over people to submit so a single person can climb on their backs. Such renders every relationship to a disproportionate exchange of values - not loving the actual person. At the pinnacle of it nothing matters more than an individual being uncritically revered, untouchable, unconditionally be loved without having to risk anything. If homsexuality was such an easy cure Touga, Saionji, Shiori and Juri... wouldn't be like that. They might even quit the show the moment Shiori said sorry, or Saionji returned at Ohtori. Them being all stuck in princehood mentality means seeing relationships as exhange of value, domination and submission as only possible form of intimacy, yet honest feelings and hurt are incredibly dangerous to reveal. They've a bleak outlook into the future, and mostly care about themselves before they actually care about the other. (Even though from all people Saionji might be the most caring for Touga... this boy is such a trainwreck...) This is why it takes Anthy and Utena 39 episodes and movie to flirt and finally kiss each other because they needed to mature and overcome the fears into which they were conditioned. Their vulnerability of loving has hurt them before: Anthy gave her all to Dios just to have her most intimate spheres in every sense getting violated. Utena lost the unconditional love of her parents, and her trust and intimacy got badly betrayed by Akio. However, they dare risk experiencing such pain again for the other. Opening up, daring to believe in something better, believing in the kindness and connection Ohtori so vehemently denies... there might be the chance of an miracle, actually.

(Don't get me wrong, it is a very queer show so it also tears down the pitfalls of heteronormativity. A prince needs a princess to showcase prowess and simultaneously own someone they can rob of power, relationships are just functions. Unlearning patriarchy means learning anew what personhood and what love is. Love is also the preservation and respect for the personhood of another person. i.e. it's basically Erich Fromm but without his fraud understanding of gender...) Again, SKU is incomplete with only one partial reading.

I don't mean it as "love that transcends gender", and "it doesn't need a label" way. No, Anthy is suffering under very real abuse whereas also bearing a heavily symbolic if not allegorical role. Meaning, reconciling with Anthy, Utena does reconcile with her struggles about being a woman. Utena is by design queer as it already is her starting point that whatever is considered "normal" not making intrinsic sense to her.

💔 If you had to remove one major character from the series, who would you choose? Ooof that's a tough one. The entire cast represent different arguments and issues of the Ohtori system, even side characters like Keiko and Tsuwabuki become relevant. Let alone main characters... (And I'm of the very strong opinion that a good story utilizes every character perfectly. Without even a terrible character there would be no plot. Which is to say we have to keep Akio if we want a plot... ) Even when dead, Touga is a necessary foil as self-aware ideal of princehood... I know Nanami only appears once in the manga but what would the story be without one of the best characters ever created for TV?

Alright, I've to choose: Evne though Miki and Kozue are my Rosetta stones to Akio's and Anthy's fraud relationship, I think removing Kozue would make for an experiment in deciphering Miki. How quickly would we pick on his deal if her was a prince without princess. After all, Juri and Shiori are the next step in isolation and dehumanisation, and Saionji has actually as many princesses as Wakaba has princes... hmmm... To say, Kozue is my starting point in understanding the arbitrary of gender roles and misleading concepts of innocence. Without her Miki could mislead the audience much more easily...

[stillness-in-green]

No, Re-Destro Is Not Destro’s Literal Son

and

Yes, I Will Die On This Hill

I have a number of small, persistent quibbles with some of the widespread misapprehensions I see included in BNHA fanfic, quoted as fact in meta posts, even cited on the wiki. Quirk cancellation restraints, what the 20% quirklessness data point means in practice, when Kurogiri comes into existence relative to the time of the Shimura Family Massacre, things like that. My biggest one, though, is as the title suggests: the idea that Yotsubashi Rikiya is Yotsubashi Chikara’s son.

I don’t entirely know where this confusion comes from. As far as I can tell, the early scanlations didn’t get it wrong—one rendered the line in Chapter 218 about Destro having a child he didn’t know about as being children, plural, but otherwise, they were all accurate enough. It seems people just assumed that the child mentioned in 218 must be Re-Destro, who was, after all, right there on the panel. Even though the scanlations never said it, even though the official translation never said it, even though ample evidence in the manga disproves it, the idea still got around that Rikiya is Chikara’s son.

I have and will maintain that this is obviously wrong if you stop to think about it for even a moment, but unfortunately, most people don’t. The error can be found on less well-tended parts of the fandom wiki[1]; it’s in tumblr meta posts about the villains; it’s in fanfic.

And now, god help me, it is on the official anime website, too.

“Stillness-in-green, maybe you should consider that you might just be wro—”

I will face BONES and walk backwards into hell.

But if you want, you can come with me, and I’ll explain on the way. Hit the jump.

Dialogue + Narration

There are two places where the relationship between Chikara and Rikiya is explicitly addressed—the lead-in to the dinner scene in Chapter 218 and the fight between Clone!Shigaraki and RD in Chapter 232. If you include the Ultra Analysis databook, the number goes up to four: once each in Re-Destro and Destro Classic’s character blurbs.

Let’s take a look at each of those places, shall we?

The relevant Japanese text here is in the first narration box: 子ども, kodomo.

Kodomo is not gendered. It literally just means child. The key kanji is 子, ko. Like most kanji, it has a lot of potential readings, and you can add other kanji to it to modify it. Add 息 and you get musuko, son. Pronounce 子 as shi instead of ko, and you get a term that is frequently, though not exclusively, used to refer to boys. Add 女 to that reading and you get joshi, woman/girl. 子 is in a lot of words, many of them gendered! Used for kodomo as Hori does here, though, it does nothing to indicate a gender one way or the other.

Also too, it does nothing to indicate that Rikiya is the child in question; it simply states that there was such a child, somewhere in the world. Now, the natural assumption for anyone who knows how the graphic novel medium works and who understands basic literary analysis would be that the significant character we just met is, in fact, the child in question—except that everything else we learn about Destro and the original Meta Liberation Army here makes it entirely impossible.

I’ll do a full breakdown on why that is in the next section. In the meantime, here’s the next reference:

Here, we’re looking at the phrase the Viz translation renders as, “His blood runs through these veins.” The literal Japanese there is, Desutoro no matsuei chi o tsugu mono! In a literal translation, chi o tsugu mono means, “one who inherits the blood,” or, more loosely, “blood successor.” It’s matsuei—末裔—that’s the key word here.

Japanese has several words to express the concept of “descendant.” Matsuei is one word; the data book uses shison. So what’s the difference? Well, I’ll talk about shison in a moment, but I had an inkling of it just from looking at the kanji in matsuei—“end” and “descendant” respectively, leaving me with an impression of something like a final descendant or the terminus of the bloodline. Further research confirmed it: shison can refer to any lineal blood tie, but matsuei refers to a bloodline’s final inheritor, the person at the end of a long line of many, or even countless, generations. It’s the difference between being able to point to a grandparent and the kind of painstaking genealogical research that lets you[2] point to a famous royal from eight hundred years ago—matsuei is a word that very much assumes the existence of those countless generations.

So not only does Rikiya’s line there not imply that he’s Chikara’s son, but his specific word choice also tells us that he cannot be Chikara’s son. That’s, uh. Pretty conclusive, I would say.

Lastly, though, there’s also the data book. This is, perhaps, the actual closest you’re going to get to a manga equivalent of those character blurbs on the anime website, at least until such time as Hori deigns to give the MLA types character profile pages. (I live ever in hope.)

There are two relevant bits of text, one in Re-Destro’s entry, and the other in Destro Classic’s. The first describes how Re-Destro organizes the MLA as Desutoro no chi o tsugu mono: the same phrase he uses for himself in the manga, minus the matsuei. @codenamesazanka (the one who told me about the databook references among other citations, bless) rendered it as “Destro’s blood successor”; I have also seen it given as “the successor of Destro’s bloodline.” Note again, the lack of reference to a father/son bond.

Chikara’s entry uses that other descendant word I mentioned before, 子孫, shison. Notice that the term uses that ko kanji from kodomo before? As it does in joshi, 子 here reads shi. The other kanji, 孫, means grandchild. Thus, literally, grandchild-child—or, in the vernacular, simply descendant.

And then we have the anime website.

So, for comparison’s sake, the anime website uses 息子—the same combination of kanji that I said earlier gives you musuko, son. Heck, it even uses 父, chichi, for Destro—father. It’s as explicit as it’s possible to be, and I just don’t know why or how the anime website could fuck that up so bad when absolutely nothing in the manga describes the two Yotsubashis that way, and, indeed, one specific word choice actually rules out the possibility.

So, that’s all the manga says directly. It’s not the only evidence there is, though. In fact, the next piece makes it even more clear how colossally and impossibly wrong a father/son connection for Destro and his modern successor is.

Timeline

The long and short of this section is, “Since Harima Oji was Sako Atsuhiro’s great-great-grandfather, there is no possible way that Destro—who pre-dated Harima—can be Re-Destro’s father.” If you read that sentence and nodded your complete understanding and agreement, feel free to skip ahead to the last section. If you’d like the full explanation it takes to reach that sentence’s conclusion, though, read on.

So, aside from the word matsuei, the timeline is the most telling piece of evidence to my eye. I address it secondly rather than firstly because it’s less direct than the explicit narration; it relies on drawing conclusions based on things we’ve been told elsewhere rather than on the immediately relevant text. Oh, Mr. Compress’s relationship to Harima is explicit enough, but on what am I basing my claim that Destro predates him?

Regarding that, there’s no explicit year relative to My Hero Academia’s current events given for when Destro and the original Meta Liberation Army were active; the same is true for Harima Oji’s escapades. However, we are given some broad-strokes information, relative not to current events, but rather to the history of heroism as a legal institution in Japan.

We know that there was a widespread, lengthy period of chaos following the rise of quirks—called meta-abilities in those early years. At some point, however, people began to search for a way for meta-humans to live in peace with non-metas. The compromise that was reached was the foundation of professional heroism in Japan—while the use of meta-abilities would be legal in private settings, it was only by becoming licensed by the state as “heroes” that people could use their quirks in public.[3]

The legislation curtailing the use of meta-abilities—and the appropriation of a dead woman’s language to popularize a law establishing exactly the opposite of what she used that language to call for—is what catalyzed the rise of the original MLA. Thus, we can position Destro as being alive and active around the same time that heroism as a legal institution was being formed. Since we further know that he committed suicide in prison, we can assume that his child was conceived at some point prior to his capture. Ergo, Destro’s child, were they alive today, would be as old as Japanese professional heroism itself.

Next, consider Harima Oji, the Peerless Thief, a criminal who targeted the riches of “sham heroes.” We’re specifically told that he was active in the days in which the current system was settling into place—e.g. he only became active once the Hero System was established enough to have produced corrupt heroes. We’re told he preached reformation—he wasn’t just some pre-existing criminal who saw a shiny new target in heroes; he had specific grievances which he wanted addressed by the system, and which the system was not addressing.

The earliest Harima could possibly be active, then, is concurrent with Destro—Harima fighting against the corrupt people who had found their way into the new heroic institution, and Destro fighting against using the institution of heroism to oppress non-heroes. What I think is more likely, though, is that Harima came after Destro—Harima needed to have had time to realize what kinds of fakes had been drawn to this shiny new career path, maybe even to spend some time trying to change things the legal way.

I don’t suspect they were separated by very long—I would imagine Destro was easily within Harima’s living memory, and might well have influenced why he chose the path of protest that he did—but I do think they were separate.

Moving forward, then, Mr. Compress is four generations distant from his famous ancestor. Thus, even if you assume that Harima is of the same generation as Chikara, that’s what you’re looking at for Chikara’s child: someone who, were they alive today, would be old enough to be the great-grandparent of a thirty-two-year-old man.

Re-Destro’s probably a few years older than Mr. C, sure,[4] but that man doesn’t have Ujiko’s slow-aging quirk. Unless you want to start pulling theories about cryogenic stasis the story for some reason never saw fit to mention out of thin air, Re-Destro is in no way old enough to fit the bill.

This is backed up by one other piece of the timeline as well, and one more place we can look at language:

The small child at the center of the image is Rikiya, so young that he’s in schoolboy shorts for a meeting otherwise so formal that he’s been made to wear a tie. He’s, what, six to nine here, tops? And the adults speaking to him say that they’ve been in hiding for generations—代々, daidai, the kanji for generation followed by a kanji that just means, “See that kanji written right before me? Yeah, just read that one again.”

The original MLA was active for only a handful of years, and, per Chapter 218, they didn’t dissolve until Destro was captured. Thus, we can assume they have been in hiding since then, but not before then. With that in mind, this is another line that renders a father/son relationship impossible.

Remember, Chikara already had a child in the world circa his capture. If Rikiya were Chikara’s son, then Destro’s capture and his army’s subsequent dissolution could not have happened any farther back than nine months plus however old Rikiya was in this exact moment of his youth. Rikiya, who we see here as a child of less than ten.

Ten years in hiding doesn’t make one generation; it damn sure doesn’t make multiple ones.

Now, you could make theories about cryogenic statis that would explain this ludicrous discrepancy, sure. You could also theorize about e.g. artificial insemination,[5] or time stop quirks, or any number of other possibilities in the vast panoply the HeroAca world offers. The point is, though, that you don’t need to. There was, in the manga, no discrepancy that needed to be explained. It is only fanon misinterpretation and a glaring disinterest in the series’ villains from official sources that have presented this issue.

I’m praying that it’s all just a misunderstanding on the part of whoever maintains the website, and that the anime itself will render the relevant bits of dialogue correctly. Given the extreme cuts and alterations that My Villain Academia has been subjected to thus far, though, I’m sure you can appreciate my being concerned.

…So that’s the meat of it. The idea that Rikiya is Chikara’s son is wrong simply on the basis of what’s said in the text, and it’s doubly wrong on the basis of the timeline. There is, though, one other thing I think points towards Re-Destro being exactly the descendant he says he is, not a son playing down the connection out of humility or something. This one is a lot more headcanon-y, though, so I saved it for last.

MLA Social Dynamics

It’s quite simple. We have, in the MLA, a group of people that venerates Destro’s bloodline to an obviously unhealthy degree, putting up portraits of him wherever they can get away with it, tagging his successor with a “Re-” as if to invoke reincarnation or miraculous return, entirely willing to throw their lives away for what they think was his cause, and others’ lives if those others say anything too scathing about the words Destro wrote, quite as if they treat Destro’s memoir as some sort of holy writ.

They venerate Destro that much, and you’re trying to tell me that they wouldn’t just call a spade a spade and acknowledge RD as the son of their great leader? Come on.

Since long before I turned up the matsuei factoid in researching this piece, since long before Mr. Compress gave us such a helpful generational comparison, I’ve held the opinion that, given a group that holds their leaders in such high esteem, with such particular regard for bloodline, the only reason Rikiya does just call himself a descendant, rather than citing the specific term for what he is, is that the specific term is distant enough that it actually does sound more impressive to just say “descendant,” rather than something like, “great-great-great-grandson.” That kind of thing just begs the question, “What took you guys so long?” or, “You and how many other people, buddy?”

Mr. Compress may have the panache to carry off a line like that, but Rikiya’s a different story. If he had something so amazing up his sleeve as, “I am the son of the great Destro,” I have to think he’d just say it proudly, not fall back on the impressionistic vaguery of something like chi o tsugu mono. Even if I had no other evidence to work with, I’d think the same—all the evidence you need is right there in the character writing of who Rikiya and the MLA are and how they talk about the man whose dreams Re-Destro was raised to carry.

A closing note: I will allow that Rikiya is being overdramatic when he uses matsuei and its connotation of countless generations. There are a few other things we can use to trace the history of heroism—Ujiko’s age, and the 18-years-or-less periods that One For All was held by its pre-All Might bearers—and running those numbers leads me to believe that it is, in fact, entirely possible to count the number of generations between Rikiya and Chikara, and the number, while higher than one, is probably not all that high. Certainly matsuei is being more dramatic about it than is entirely warranted, hence the poetic flourish of the official translation’s, “His blood runs through these veins!” The theatricality only makes me fonder of him, however.

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

FOOTNOTES

[1] It was changed and reverted on Re-Destro’s page at least twice before it finally stuck in January of this year. Chikara’s page took until July to be corrected, and it’s still wrong on various other subpages.

[2] Or your kids, if you have those. Only the last generation in the bloodline is the matsuei, but that’s a moving goalpost as long as the bloodline is still propagating.

[3] This summary of events combines what we know from both My Hero Academia proper and the Vigilantes spin-off, which I recommend to anyone who’s at all interested in finer-grained worldbuilding on Hero Society Japan than the main series makes time for.

[4] I personally headcanon him as 42.

[5] To which point I would refer back to the word kodomo, and note that that word choice indicates that Destro had a child in the world. Not a sperm sample kept in a freezer somewhere, waiting for the right would-be mother: an actual child. Some quick research on my part says that the farthest that term stretches is in using it to refer to yet-unborn children, fetuses still in the womb. Seeing as Japan doesn’t even allow inmates conjugal visits in real life, much less in a setting where villains are so dehumanized that Tartarus is an acceptable punishment for them, the line about Destro “having a child out in the world” takes us right back to a date of conception no later than Destro’s final night of freedom.

[twink-frank]

hi i’ve noticed the pencey prep gay conversation going on over on @awsugar and i have spent lots of time dissecting pencey prep lyrics and subjecting nathan @faggot-frank to my deranged ramblings so Here is my pencey prep super ultra mega gay lyrical analysis masterpost. it’s very long so its all under the cut but i will include a TL;DR for those who dont wanna read paragraphs of my deranged ramblings: Pencey prep uses lots of themes of: heartbreak, forbidden love, keeping love a secret, and toxic relationships. which none of that is gay on its own but combined with them almost never using gender indicators in their songs and the “nail in the coffin song” of 8th grade it ends up being a very Fruity Album.

I will be going through heart break in stereo in order and pointing out which lyrics and elements of certain songs jump out to me as Super Mega Gay and then summarizing my conclusions at the end <3

1 ) PS Don't Write

PS don't write is about leaving a toxic relationship, it has notes of moving on and leaving someone behind. "packed up all my shit / stole back all my tapes / left your spare key under the mat / this is not a joke / you'd better learn to take a hint / 'cause i'm not coming back / maybe you'll understand / when you're waking up alone / in a cold and empty bed." it has no gender indicators or pronouns which is the case in a lot of pencey prep songs, and something i'll bring up quite a bit. it also has general "coming of age" themes, something common in lots of pencey prep songs. which Yeah apply to straight people to but read in this context combined with future evidence can be pretty Fuckin Gay. "somewhere along the line / i found a hidden strength / i didn't know i had / standing on my own / cutting all the strings / that you used to control / surprise surprise / i am long gone / if you thought you could hold me down / by holding me up / you were wrong / you don't call the shots anymore." not to say only gay people can find inner strength and the room to love themselves but combined with other context it is a really poignant message about accepting yourself for who you are.

2) Yesterday

Yesterday is very repetitive and has a lot less to analyze, but the constant themes of wanting to "run away" strike me as very Fruity. once again, not saying gay people are the only people who can want to run away or escape from something But Combined With Other Context. and once again a song with no gender indicators, doesnt specify who the speaker is running away with or what they are running away from. just that they want to Leave. "i wanna run with you / i don't care what we do / gotta get out of this place / because it feels like yesterday." also saying "it feels like yesterday" could mean that the town feels backwards or old timey in its beliefs, implying homophobia. how the speaker wants to run away from an old fashioned town.

3) Don Quixote

i'm going to bring up the cultural significance of this title and literary reference first. Don Quixote is a classical novel by Cervantes which is about a crazy dude who thinks he's a knight, and goes on weird adventures with his best friend. It's typically used as a symbol of following your dreams and breaking free from what people expect of you. In the context of the song its used as a symbol of following your dreams with Someone. once again this someone is given no gender indicators. "you say it's not worth it / been burned too many times / if your spine's receding / you can borrow some of mine / don't go and quit right now / cause i'd follow you through hell." "you say so many things / and not a word of it was true / if you're still in that state of mind / i'd still vacation inside of you / cause i think you're worth every minute / and every dime that i spend / i'd spend all my time fighting dragons / just to keep you alive and talking." it's about wanting to spend time with someone, wanting to be with them no matter what. and its also about how this person feels unreachable, like being with them would be a fairytail but the speaker Still Reaches for it. "your imaginations running wild / round your deceptive heart / this is my crusade / and you're the unreachable star / but i'm reaching." talking about this person being unreachable and unattainble. which isnt gay By Itself  but again combined with the other context. FRUIT BEHAVIOR.

4) 10 Rings

another breakup song once again with no gender indicators, are you guys sensing a theme here? anyways this song is about someone cutting you off and then coming back suddenly wanting to talk again after breaking your heart. it has a sense of forbidden love, like this person Told the speaker they cant be together for Whatever Reason ;] and is now trying to come back and repair their mistake when the speaker is already hurt and reeling. "learn to live with decisions you make / i learned things from the break i can't forget / catch you doing drive-bys at 1 AM / it must kill you to know we can't be friends." "end of the summer you cut me off / i cut you out all the pictures i have." which this Isnt Gay By Itself. but bringing that phrase back with other context this is such a uniquely gay experience. being in love with someone and they cut you off Because theyre weirded out by that and then they try to come back, convince you it meant nothing.

5) The Secret Goldfish

my FAVORITE pencey song. this one has a lot. it's another breakup song about heartbreak and loss and im not even gonna dwell on the no gender indicators because yall see the theme now. it has themes of heartbreak and losing someone who is very close to you and having to let go of them and having to accept that this person cant be yours and you cant be with them. "land of the lost / i found myself in nothing / this time, promises broken find me / clutching to you for something / something that you're not / believing in what you say / it makes me lie awake at night / the truth, the truth is not what scares me / it's why you have to lie / all the time." here we see these themes of having to let someone go because they just Aren't The Same as you. "clutching to you for something / something that you're not." maybe like chasing after a straight boy and getting rejected? also the repetition of "heartbreak is forever" when you're young and gay losing that first person you felt some kind of love and attraction to can feel like the end of the world and can be a huge deal because of the lack of representation and guidance young gays get. and the themes of nothing lasting forever, the fact that gay people never get promised eternal love the same way straight people do.

6) 8th Grade

this song is the nail in penceys fucking coffin honestly. the rest of these songs have a lot of plausible deniability, just vague enough to maybe Not Be Gay. but framed in the context of 8th grade they all start to get a lil fruity. Im just gonna go through lyric by lyric for this one. "caught staring again / like a deer in the headlights / when you can't move fast enough / i take a hit for the team / pretty girl is blushing / i can't tell if she's disgusted / laughter starts to swell / someone gets the joke." this kid was staring at some cute boy ass and got caught and everyone is laughing at him for being gay. the "pretty girl" here is what most people think he's staring at but with the rest of the song it's obvious she's not the one he's looking at. "bells ring, i make my escape / helps a little, but doesn't save / beat downs a common thing / with us every day / maybe im just strange / cause i dont change schools / so maybe i like the abuse / or maybe i just like you." literally This is the nail in penceys fucking coffin. "maybe i like the abuse or maybe i just like you." this kid purposefully takes beatings from his bully who is Obviously male if you take into context the next verse. because he Likes Him. "maybe im just strange / cause i dont change schools" literally willingly taking beatings from his bully bc he has a crush. "another confrontation / you've got something to prove / your girl can't tell how tough you are / when you beat me up in the boys room." this just confirms that the subject of the song is a boy, and a tough macho boy with something to prove. maybe also hiding his own internalized homophobia through bullying? "well i made a big mistake / but i can't help who i like / this may not cost my life / but i am branded forever lame." LITERALLY ITS RIGHT IN YOUR FACE. "can't help who i like" "branded forever lame" do i even need to fucking explain this oh my god. he got outed as gay, he Can't Help Who He Likes and is now branded forever as "the gay kid." the rest of the song is general "im gonna get back at my bully" stuff but literally THIS. THIS is the song that brands all penceys other very vague songs as 100% verified super mega ultra gay.

7) 19

this song has a lot less, and is more about internal struggle than anything. but it is the only song with a "she" pronoun in it. but there is one thing i wanna mention. "I scream out loud / but no one hears a sound / i take my life with lack of sleep / i believe the things i feel / the things i see are fooling only me." this song is about not believing what the world shows you, believing what you think is true in your heart and what You feel. not what anyone else tells you. which is a gay experience. believing in yourself and your heart and your feelings, believing theyre right and theyre true and valid. Also this song has a significance in coming right after 8th grade on the album, going from being 13 to 19, from being unsure in your feelings and angry about the people who dont like you to lost and hopeless but somewhat grounded in yourself.

8) Trying To Escape The Inevitable

this song is about an abusive and toxic relationship, knowing you Need to escape it but being so infatuated with the person you literally cant. “i have this reoccurring dream / you make it hard for me to breathe / i gave you everything i could / i gave up everything i owned / and when you smile it’s not for me / you offer little sympathy / your grasp so far exceeds your reach / i wake up, this is not a dream.” “i have this reoccuring dream / where you admit that you’re not happy / i know that you will never leave / you’re here just to torment me.” which like again this isnt an exclusively gay experience but it is very interesting when framed that way. in that gay people are way more likely to throw themselves into abusive and toxic relationships because they dont feel like they can get anybody else. the repetition of “i know i should run” makes it seem like the speaker Knows he should get out but he just Cant because what if he never finds love again? and the little reprise in the middle “i have a new dream / and everything is perfect / the sky is pink, yellow, green, blue, and orange / and all the past has been forgotten / and we fell in love / and we fell in love / and we fell in love / and i fell into your trap.” implying that even if he escapes, even in his dreams he still falls for this person because he feels like he cant have anything else.

9) Lloyd Dobbler

another love song about wanting to have someone but not being able to because of Unspecified Forbidden Reasons. “why are you so far away / even when you’re standing next to me? / your eyes give you away / telling secrets your mouht don’t feel like talking.” falling in love with someone, maybe sensing that they like you too. that they Are Like You and that they have a Secret they dont want to vocalize. do i even need to explain it at this point? and in the chorus “That I’ll be your lloyd dobbler / with a boom box out in the street / and i’ll be there if you need someone / even if he isn’t me.” saying you’ll be there for someone even if that person isn’t you, also the use of Pronouns which is big for pencey prep. which yes the use of “even if he isnt me” could imply a straight girl ooorrr....Fruit Behavior. also this line “There’s a norman rockewll painting / of two kids sitting on a bench / it reminds me of all the stupid things / i’d like for us to share, but i dont care.” normal rockwell is a painter that paints traditionally “american” scenes. like the american ideal, that maybe he wants with this person. but he knows he cant have, but its stupid and domestic and he wants it but he Cant Have It because of FRUIT BEHAVIOR.

10) Florida Plates

another of my favorite pencey songs, and this one brings back those tragic “love but we cant have it” themes, except with a more somber tone. instead of being angry or resentful or spiteful in the face of adversity. its an Acceptance, of what they had and how good it was and how it just Cant Last. “kiss a mouth to open eyes / stall one last moment before goodbye / drive in different cars in different directions / never write all the letters full of good words, better intentions / it’s for the best although we don’t know it / paper words will cheapen the moments we shared / it’s better if i say nothing at all.” it’s about knowing you have to leave someone, even if having them in the moment is great they Can’t Stay and you can’t even talk or write about the moments you had. which do i even need to explain it at this point? forbidden love, not being able to have each other, not even being able to Talk about it. its a secret, and painful one but its beautiful while you have it. Conclusion alright!!! thank you so so much if you read all the way through that i Know it was long i Know it was a lot of repetition but i wanted to make my point. pencey prep has very big gay themes in their music. with forbidden love, letting go, heartbreak, keeping secrets, toxic realtionships. which none of it is gay on its own but in the context of: almost none of the songs having clear gender indicators and always speaking really vaguely about the subject and Eight Grade the “nail in the coffin song” you can see my point thank you and goodnight.

[blkgirlsinthefuture]

Kindred Words are Key

Week 3: Black Women of the Past By Keyyatta Bonds

To better organize my thoughts, I am going to layout my discussion points first (just so there’s a through-line): 1) Afrofuturism vs. Speculative Fiction 2) Reflection on BodyMinds, specifically how language choices and definitions guide a narrative 3) Hot Take about Kindred

After reading about Afrofuturism, (Black) speculative literature seems to be underneath its umbrella. The category itself doesn’t have many rules, as Schalk describes speculative literature as “allow[ing] us to imagine otherwise.” However, even though it seems boundless, in comparison to the realms described within Afrofuturism, it seems smaller and more compact to me. If you ask me for a particular point to make that distinction, I sadly could not tell you; but Afrofuturism seems to be a more complete encompassing of stories centered in Blackness. It may be the terms themselves as Afrofuturism’s name lends itself to its identity as a genre and (Black) speculative is very generic.

----

Schalk does a great job in the Introduction of BodyMinds in clearly defining her terms. Schalk, inadvertently, illuminated for me the faults of current literary evaluations and reviews. Not to get very English-majory, but a lot of descriptions used in storytelling and describing the stories thereafter are very static or fluff-filled. I would expect literary-minded folks to be more deliberate in how they relay, and especially, critique stories; but I have noticed that stories exploring ‘deep’ topics in fiction are often watered down to 2D descriptions OR overexplained and picked apart to the point that real messages get lost in the wordiness of it all. Moreover, if evaluations of a text go beyond the typical -isms, the relationships are explained very shallowly. To give a short example, Kindred could be described as a story about race and gender and racism – all of which are correct observations but provide no depth or intimacy within the story or its characters, which in my eyes, is doing it a grand disservice.

In this evaluation of the text, even though those topics can be seen as themes, it gives no clue to what characters are participating in these systems and the effects of these systems on the characters. Literary evaluations are meant to go that extra mile and provide a greater analysis of the text – but many people are attempting to discuss these topics without having (access to) the language to adequately support their ideas. [This line of thinking – in my mind – also greatly aligns with Schalk’s mention abut Barbara Christian’s approach to theory in that it does not have to be done in a certain way to “produce knowledge” and new idea do not need to be created but just looked at through a Black feminist lens.] I could get into my academia rant but I’ll save that for another day.

So, moving into Schalk’s definitions, I loved how she used and described bodymind. In lieu of Kindred, the word ‘bodymind’ perfectly gives way to what we already discuss as we analyze Black people and their relationship to slavery without the wordiness of it all. Schalk fills in that language gap and gives us the vocabulary to more adequately navigate the conversation without losing its sincerity. The word bodymind – alone – provides an intimacy and depth in relation to whatever character may be referenced. It more successfully explains how the two are connected and constantly interacting, even when we may think that an action  – let’s take whippings for example – may only affect the body. It provides nuance to conversations and concepts we have likely discussed before, especially when talking about literature centered around the Black experience.

Traditionally, talking about slavery is already a large task, so to add psychological effects then generational trauma and so many other layers leads to an ever weaving web of conversations. The experiences are all connected but there’s a better way to describe the interconnectedness, which can lead into Schlack view on intersectionality. Her takes on these fairly new, but truly old, ideas is very refreshing – as I am finding a new and more effective way to discuss such heavy topics.

----

I am running out of words – but I had to touch on this. I absolutely despise, hate, cannot stand the white man saving Black woman narrative. I fully realize Kindred is much deeper than that and the focus is on Dana’s journey as a free Black woman now experiencing life as a slave – I get it and there’s a lot to unpack there. I am not trying to reduce the story to this one narrative at all. However comma, I could not focus on Dana because this white man is just taking over the story.

This is interesting to read because my friends and I have been recently trying to analyze why outspoken, “revolutionary,” smart Black women always end up in relationships with white men. Here’s my mini-theory: White men are the first, in that Black woman’s life, to acknowledge their words and talents over their looks; and for a Black woman, who is discouraged by her community like Dana, it is an overwhelmingly validating experience. The white man compliments their intellect from the very beginning, along with their initial attraction of course, but the white man is willing to listen to the Black woman’s story because they have no experience with it and appreciate a new perspective. (And we can see this in Kindred when Dana is trying to explain to Kevin the plantation dynamics and Kevin is not getting it until he arrives there with her.)  The Black woman is over the moon that someone is listening to her thoughts and ideas and BOOM – they’re in a damn relationship just because they were appreciated. I need someone to do a case study because the correlation has got to be there.

Again, I have better takes on Kindred but that is something I wanted some outside perspective on.  

[yikes-strikes-again]

my thoughts on “Ho Yay“

i want to talk about something that’s been bothering me about TvTropes. i love this site; it is an incredibly expansive resource for understanding common tropes in western media and developing a framework for critical analysis. what i’m going to explain requires some background if you’re not already familiar with TvTropes. to try and be brief, there are two main types of pages on the site (three if you count indexes, but they aren’t relevant right now):

trope pages. these are pages that explain a common literary device or concept and then provide examples of its use in media. basically the backbone of the site.

media pages. these pages introduce the reader to a piece of media and list various tropes that it uses along with explanations of their appearances. media pages also contain links to YMMV sub-pages at the top of the page (important): these pages are extensions of a work’s YMMV (”Your Mileage May Vary”) sub-page, which every work has as a place for subjective interpretations written by tropers, site users with the ability to edit and add to pages. when a trope on the YMMV page of a work has too many examples, it often becomes its own YMMV sub-page. the specific sub-pages a work has depend on its popularity as well as its content.

i wanted to talk about a particular kind of YMMV trope that commonly appears as its own sub-page on media pages: Ho Yay. Ho Yay is a category that refers to aspects of a work that fans interpret as gay subtext. it’s generally agreed upon that for something to qualify as Ho Yay, the relationship can’t be canonically romantic. in many cases, the gay subtext was not intended by the creators.

it’s not hard to understand why this trope exists. when positive queer representation was so taboo as to be unheard of, the only gay subtext was fan-interpreted subtext. people only had the same-gender platonic relationships they found in television and books to see themselves in. and that’s what Ho Yay was: queer interpretations of the same-gender friendships in media that gave them a new, personal significance.

on TvTropes, Ho Yay appears as a YMMV page on, basically, any media page of a popular work that features close same-gender friendships. which is... a lot of them, to say the least. there’s got to be, collectively, hundreds of thousands of words solely about gay subtext on this site. and that’s a really good thing, I think, especially for old works with decades of gay fan interpretations, like Star Trek. for many people, it’s a very important aspect of their enjoyment of the work, and it deserves documentation.

however, after years of lurking on TvTropes, and reading Ho Yay pages in particular, something began to irk at me. something I’d seen glimpses of in the wording of certain entries. and, slowly, it began to bother me more and more, until i finally decided it was worth addressing.

you see, there’s something about the concept of having an entire page dedicated to speculation on potential gay subtext in a work, to the exclusion of all other relationship subtext. understand that Ho Yay pages are not places to discuss headcanons regarding a character’s gender or sexuality, or the nature of any relationships they might have with other characters, regardless of gender. it exists to point out romantic subtext only, and i mean only, if it’s gay.

this... bothers me somewhat.

i’d be sooooo much more comfortable if there was also a type of YMMV page that existed for people to talk about all non-canon romantic subtext, or just romantic subtext in general, without characters’ genders being a factor. because, honestly, it feels incredibly othering to have a page dedicated to fan speculation on the potential gayness of something at the exclusion of all other types of relationships. as if being gay is exotic and inherently worthy of note. that’s such an icky sentiment to me, and i can’t ever shake it when i read Ho Yay pages now. and i’m not even getting into all the examples of Ho Yay that are about real people, that’s disgusting for an entirely different set of reasons

i want to emphasize that i don’t want to get rid of Ho Yay; as stated above, i think it’s incredibly important to document the literal decades of fan speculation on the queerness of canonically straight characters. but to have gay subtext be the only kind treated with this amount of attention seriously rubs me the wrong way. if our goal is the equal treatment of all types of relationships, then it should start with us not granting this exceptional quality to gayness and just make a page for all relationship subtext!

you know, maybe what Ho Yay has become is just a symptom of a much larger problem: fandom treating gay relationships as inherently different and special. if that’s the case, i’d like everyone reading to take a moment to examine their biases.

my point to all of this is that, unlike in Ho Yay’s heyday, it’s rare, but not unheard of to see canon queer relationships of all kinds. even though there’s still a long way to go in that department, i think it's time to let go of the need to use a YMMV trope whose historical necessity has been, in many places, rendered obsolete.* the needs of fandom are changing. we don’t just want representation, we want our existence to be treated as mundane, and that means unexceptional. 

Society Marches On.

~~~

*in some places, homophobia is much more pervasive and queer representation is even farther than where it should be than in my country. I’m from the U.S., so if my sweeping statements don’t apply to your culture, please feel free to disregard them.

[fans-to-stans]

The Impact of Dystopian Novels on Gen Z

In the following post, I will be discussing the digital revolution as well as YA novels, namely the dystopian type from the late 2000’s to the early 2010’s, and the various impacts they have had on Generation Z. I will focus mainly on the effects of fandom culture as well as the adoption of culture and characteristics of fictional realities, and the emergence of the dystopian female lead trope.

Following the digital revolution, access to information and discussion platforms (such as Tumblr) became rampant. Fandoms hence became one of the dominant modes of engagement online. People across the globe could now find a community of people who share the same interests on the same platform, hence creating common ground for like-minded people to relate. That being said, fan culture existed way before the arrival of the internet, but I will be specifically referencing the post-internet understanding of fandoms as that is what I can relate to. The arrival of the internet led to a new level of globalization of fandom culture. (Janya Sindhu, 2019) These communities were based off popular culture such as tv shows, books, films, music, and more. I will be discussing the impacts of The Huger Games series and the Divergent series. 

Both novels are set in dystopian, futuristic realities where the general population has been divided into separate classes. In the Hunger Games, we are introduced to the concept of “districts”, running from 1-12, where each district is in charge of a specific industry. This is a fascinating depiction of classism as it clearly demonstrates the disparity between amount of work and the level of compensation received depending on which district you were born in. Katniss Everdeen, the protagonist, was born into the 12th, the poorest district, which focuses on coal. (Henthorne, T., 2012)

On the other hand, the Divergent series is separated into factions. There are five factions, Erudite (the intelligent), Amity (the peaceful), Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless) and Dauntless (the brave). In the divergent universe, people are born into a faction, and on their sixteenth birthday, they can choose which faction they wish to switch to. From then on, they have to forget who they once were (including their families) and adopt the traits of their new persona. 

The reason I am explaining these fictional social systems is that following the arrival of social media platforms, people began relating and adopting certain aspects of these novels. People could now order the signature mocking jay pin worn by Katniss Everdeen as a symbol of revolution, or perhaps her bow and arrow, As for Divergent, online quizzes could tell you what your true faction was depending on your personality. What was once a figment of one’s imagination, generated by a script could now feel and seem as real as ever. You could now literally immerse yourself in these universes with some kind of physical “proof”. (Janya Sindhu, 2019)

One of the first instances of this happening was following the Harry Potter boom, where the different Houses and their given specific personality traits created an obsession amongst fans to see where they fit in. People began adopting these traits and labeling themselves accordingly. Obsession could hence be legitimized and encouraged. The development of a new kind of fan known as a stan where someone revolves their entire like and personality around a specific cultural idol can be observed here. The internet, where personality quizzes, discussion platforms, immediate and intimate access to celebrities through Instagram and more injected fandom and stan culture with an extra strength dose of false legitimacy. Even if the algorithm that creates these life altering claims off of 12 seemingly random questions is completely random, the obsession some people have with inserting themselves in their beloved fictional universe will legitimize nearly anything.

 Moreover, Gen Z has grown up reading these dystopian novels and idolizing their female protagonists. Katniss and Tris (the protagonist from the Divergent series) heavily impacted me growing up. It was once of the first instances that I can remember where the lead female was not depicted as the damsel in distress, but as the hero. On multiple occasions, both Katniss and Tris were both the brains and the muscle behind successful operations aiming to either overthrow their corrupt governments or save their male love interests. (Balkind, 2014) Unfortunately, both of these novels only depicted hetero-normative relationships. That being said young girls everywhere began idolizing these characters as it finally gave us a positive depiction of woman in sci fi where their looks and sexuality were not the main focus. Women began wearing their hair in a single French braid pushed to the side because “that’s how Katniss wears hers”. I was absolutely one of those girls. There is a certain empowerment that comes with mimicking one’s heroine, especially at such a young age. In the Divergent series, Tris joins the Dauntless faction where she breaks down gender stereotypes by becoming one of the most lethal members of the faction. (Wiyani, et al., 2017) Katniss is a really interesting character as she demonstrates typically male characteristics (such as being removed, thinking with her head and confidence) all the while maintaining her compassionate side which is shown to her loved ones. The female dystopian lead trope is one of my favourites as, more often than not, these women clearly struggle with trying to find balance with where and how they fit in with society as so many women do. They are absolutely not perfect and often make biased choices and mistakes but that is what I believe makes them so relatable. (Nelson, C., 2014)

To conclude, in my opinion, Generation Z is becoming one of the most outspoken and influential generations yet. With access to information at the tip of our fingers and platforms such as TikTok, twitter, Instagram, etc., our voices and opinions can be shared effortlessly. Growing up with rebellious and headstrong icons such as Tris and Katniss have given young women a chance to see how powerful one person’s voice can be when utilized properly. In the context of fandom and stan culture, the impact of the digital revolution is incomparable.

References: 

2015. What Divergent faction are you?. [image] Available at: <https://www.playbuzz.com/ralflet210/what-divergent-faction-are-you> [Accessed 2 May 2021]. Henthorne, T., 2012. Approaching The Hunger Games trilogy: A literary and cultural analysis. McFarland. https://br.pinterest.com/saradomonkoov/ - Image taken from Pinterest Wiyani, N.P., Sili, S. and Valiantien, N.M., 2017. The Psychoanalytical Study on The Characteristics and Causes of Adolescent Deviant Behavior Found in Divergent Novel by Veronica Roth. Ilmu Budaya: Jurnal Bahasa, Sastra, Seni dan Budaya, 1(2). Janya Sindhu, 2019, Medium Journal, How the Internet has made Fandom Culture Powerful. [online] Available at: <https://medium.com/swlh/how-the-internet-has-made-fandom-culture-powerful-7609ae60e4bf> [Accessed 2 May 2021]. Reid, S. and Stringer, S., 1997. Ethical dilemmas in teaching problem novels: The psychological impact of troubling YA literature on adolescent readers in the classroom. Balkind, N 2014, Fan Phenomena : The Hunger Games, Intellect Books Ltd, Bristol. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [1 May 2021]. Nelson, C., 2014. Female rebellion in young adult dystopian fiction. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd..

[yndigot]

Howdy! For the '50 Writers Prompts' ask, may I request 3, 11, 13, and 33, and 38?

3. What was the first story you ever wrote about?

I was a pain in the ass at naptime in preschool and the teacher let me sit at a table and write a little story -- folded into a book, complete with illustrations -- about my doll. I also wrote Alvin and the Chipmunks fanfiction in the first grade, a good five or six years before I knew what fanfiction was, and wrote a weird sci-fi/fantasy play in the second grade. I tried to compel my friends to help me produce this play. They lost interest like ... 2 minutes into me explaining my vision and it never happened.

11. What’s your favorite book?

I don’t think I have a favorite because I go back to different things again and again depending on my mood. The “literary fiction” book that’s currently occupying the most space in my brain (like ... the thing that’s very well, artistically written) is probably The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne. The dumb popcorn book that reads like fanfiction that’s taking up brain space is Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. (I don’t want to bag on it because it’s hugely popular in certain corners of fandom ,and I probably would and will write fanfiction for it myself -- and I deeply love Alex as someone who does not see a lot of queer mixed tejanos in fiction and didn’t know how much I needed it -- but it is VERY much popcorn, improbable silliness, escapism, and little tidbits that probably could have used a fact check because they knock me out of the narrative for a minute). I also have tons of “favorite” books that I rely on for research with passages I read again and again, books I remember fondly from childhood and will go find particular passages to read over and over, a couple poetry collections I’m drawn to, short stories that really stuck with me that I’ll wander back to ... etc. It’s very dependent on my mood and what’s on my mind.

13. What’s your favorite trope?

I’m guessing this is in the fanfiction tropes sense, so I’ll say that I really like good kidfic, although the overwhelming majority of kidfic makes me cringe. But I keep trying because I love the good ones so much! Honestly most of the standards can be fun if the person writing them is good at it, though. I think some things that very clearly just ... retell canon but in a coffee shop can wear a little thin, but after 20 years in fandom, I have read and enjoyed at least a couple examples of every classic, constantly recycled trope.

33. Which themes do you like to write about the most?

Any time I answer questions like this, I know I biff “theme” in the literary analysis sense. Academically, I like to write about religious history and queer history. When I was writing a lot of creative nonfiction, it was about gender/sexuality and identity, social isolation and mental illness, and elder care (for obvious reasons). Fictionally I lean into ... slightly dysfunctional romantic relationships. Generally not horrible, explosive, abusive relationships, but ones where something isn’t quite working and everyone just keeps muddling along.

38. What is your ultimate writing goal?

I used to put quite a bit of effort into trying to be published in my late teens/early 20s (like ... trying to write things that were appropriate for specific calls for submissions and stuff), but it never really worked out for me. I had a couple small things published, but mostly I found that I wasn’t hugely motivated by the prompts, so I’d tend to give up. I got a good chunk of the way through a BFA with a memoir focus, but never completed it. The capstone for that would have probably been completing a collection of personal essays that would (allegedly) be publication ready. I got a few excellent essays completed, but didn’t ever finish enough for the collection. I might circle back to that at some point? I think, outside of fanfiction, that’s my strength, and once I finish my degree I’m working on at the moment, it might be nice to see if I could finish the BFA -- see how many of my credits are still good. I’ve dabbled in fiction (both short story and novel) but it never really clicked for me like creative nonfiction did. I enjoyed that, but I ended up dropping out of the program when my life got overwhelming and my mental health tanked.

Honestly, though, at the moment I just want to get into a headspace where I can write (creatively) as much as I used to and, ideally, finish a few fanfiction projects. I was going to try to do a Downton recap/commentary blog leading up to the release of the first movie. Maybe I’ll attempt it with the second? I’d forgot about that. It could be fun. The idea had been to use that as a sample to get some content writing gigs, but my mother and my classes I was teaching were overwhelming at the time, and I didn’t follow through. I sometimes apply for ad/social media or technical writing jobs, but those never seem to pan out. That’s not really a ‘writing goal’ so much as a type of writing I think I could do if I could catch a break, but no success so far.

Ideally, my current degree would help me get a job writing educational materials for a museum or other public history institution. Maybe that’s the real answer so far as “goals” go. “Complete my last few grad school class papers, then my thesis project, and then get a job writing educational materials.”

[raptured-night]

Hi! I’m part of the lgbtq+ community and Severus is my favorite HP character and I was wondering (if you have the time and feel obliged) if you could please give me a few examples of how he’s queer? It’s been a few years since I reread the books, and def before I came out, so I’m a little in the dark here lol Thanks!!

First of all, I just wanted to apologize for how long it has taken me to properly respond to your ask. I’ve been dealing with some ongoing health issues that have turned me into something of a moody writer. I’ll get random spurts of energy and inspiration and then hit a wall of absolute writer’s block assisted by a major case of executive dysfunction every single time I try to respond to the multiple asks languishing in my inbox. Fortunately, I found myself involved in a discussion just today that addressed your ask so perfectly that I wanted to share it with you.  In the very least, that discussion has also managed to shake off my writer’s block temporarily so that I have found myself in the right head-space to finally be able to give this lovely ask the thought and attention that I feel it deserves. 

Although, in regards to the Snape discourse I linked above, I feel that I should warn you in advance that the discussion was prompted by an anti-Snape poster who made a rather ill-thought meme (I know there are many in the Snapedom who would rather just avoid seeing anti-Snape content altogether, so I try to warn when I link people to debates and discussions prompted by anti-posts) but the thoughtful responses that the anti-Snape poster unintentionally generated from members of the Snapedom (particularly by @deathdaydungeon whose critical analyses of Snape and, on occasions, other Harry Potter characters is always so wonderfully nuanced, thought-provoking, and well-considered), are truly excellent and worth reading, in my opinion. Also, as I fall more loosely under the “a” (I’m grey-ace/demisexual) of the lgbtqa+ flag and community I would prefer to start any discussions about Snape as a queer character or as a character with queer coding by highlighting the perspectives of people in the Snapedom who are actually queer before sharing any thoughts of my own.

In addition, I also wanted to share a few other posts where Snape’s queer coding has been discussed by members of the Snapedom in the past (and likely with far more eloquence than I could manage in this response of my own).

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Along with an excellent article in Vice by Diana Tourjée, in which a case for Snape being trans is convincingly argued. 

Importantly, you’ll notice that while some of these discussions do argue the possibility of Snape being a queer or trans character others may only discuss the way that Snape’s character is queer coded. That is because there is a distinct but subtle difference between: “This character could be queer/lgbtq+” and: “This character has queer/lgbtq+ coding” one which is briefly touched on in the first discussion that I linked you to. However, I would like to elaborate a bit here just what I mean when I refer to Snape as a character with queer coding. As while Rowling has never explicitly stated that she intended to write Snape as lgbtq+ (although there is one interview given by Rowling which could be interpreted as either an unintentional result of trying to symbolically explain Snape’s draw to the dark arts or a vague nod to Snape’s possible bisexuality: "Well, that is Snape's tragedy. ... He wanted Lily and he wanted Mulciber too. He never really understood Lily's aversion; he was so blinded by his attraction to the dark side he thought she would find him impressive if he became a real Death Eater.”) regardless of her intent when she drew upon the existing body of Western literary traditions and tropes for writing antagonists and villains in order to use them as a red-herring for Snape’s character, she also embued his character with some very specific, coded subtext. This is where Death of the Author can be an invaluable tool for literary critics, particularly in branches of literary criticism like queer theory. 

Ultimately, even if Rowling did not intend to write Snape as explicitly queer/lgbtq+ the literary tradition she drew upon in order to present him as a foil for Harry Potter and have her readers question whether he was an ally or a villain has led to Snape being queer coded. Specifically, many of the characteristics of Snape’s character design do fall under the trope known as the “queering of the villain.” Particularly, as @deathdaydungeon, @professormcguire, and other members of the Snapedom have illustrated, Snape’s character not only subverts gender roles (e.g. his Patronus presents as female versus male, Snape symbolically assumes the role of “the mother” in the place of both Lily and later Narcissa when he agrees to protect Harry and Draco, his subject of choice is potions and poisons which are traditionally associated more with women and “witches,” while he seemingly rejects in his first introduction the more phallic practice of “foolish wand-waving,” and indeed Snape is characterized as a defensive-fighter versus offensive, in Arthurian mythology he fulfills the role of Lady of the Lake in the way he chooses to deliver the Sword of Gryffindor to Harry, Hermione refers to his hand-writing as “kind of girly,” his association with spiders and spinners also carries feminine symbology, etc.) but is often criticized or humiliated for his seeming lack of masculinity (e.g. Petunia mocking his shirt as looking like “a woman’s blouse,” which incidentally was also slang in the U.K. similar to “dandy” to accuse men of being effeminate, the Marauders refer to Snape as “Snivellus” which suggests Snape is either less masculine because he cries or the insult is a mockery of what could pass for a stereotypical/coded Jewish feature, his nose, Remus Lupin quite literally instructs Neville on how to “force” a Boggart!Snape, who incidentally is very literally stepping out of a closet-like wardrobe, into the clothing of an older woman and I quoted force because that is the exact phrase he uses, James and Sirius flipping Snape upside down to expose him again presents as humiliation in the form of emasculation made worse by the arrival and defense of Lily Evans, etc.). 

Overall, the “queering of the villain” is an old trope in literature (although it became more deliberate and prevalent in media during the 1950s-60s); however, in modernity, we still can find it proliferating in many of the Disney villains (e.g. Jafar, Scar, Ursula, etc.), in popular anime and children’s cartoons (e.g. HiM from Powerpuff Girls, James from Pokemon, Frieza, Zarbon, the Ginyu Force, Perfect Cell, basically a good majority of villains from DBZ, Nagato from Fushigi Yuugi, Pegasus from Yu Gi Oh, etc.), and even in modern television series and book adaptations, such as the popular BBC’s Sherlock in the character of Moriarty. Indeed, this article does an excellent job in detailing some of the problematic history of queer coded villains. Although, the most simple summary is that: “Queer-coding is a term used to say that characters were given traits/behaviors to suggest they are not heterosexual/cisgender, without the character being outright confirmed to have a queer identity” (emphasis mine). Notably, TV Tropes also identifies this trope under the classification of the “Sissy Villain” but in queer theory and among queer writers in fandom and academia “queering of the villain” is the common term. This brings me back to Snape and his own queer coding; mainly, because Rowling drew upon Western traditions for presenting a character as a suspected villain she not only wrote Snape as queer (and racially/ethnically) coded but in revealing to the reader that Snape was not, in fact, the villain Harry and the readers were encouraged to believe he was by the narrator she incorporated a long history of problematic traits/tropes into a single character and then proceeded to subvert them by subverting reader-expectation in a way that makes the character of Severus Snape truly fascinating. 

We can certainly debate the authorial intent vs. authorial impact where Snape’s character is concerned. Particularly as we could make a case that the polarizing nature of Snape may well be partly the result of many readers struggling against Rowling subverting literary tropes that are so firmly rooted in our Western storytelling traditions that they cannot entirely abandon the idea that this character who all but had the book thrown at him in terms of all the coding that went into establishing him as a likely villain (e.g. similar to Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, Snape is also coded to be associated with darkness/black colors and to represent danger and volatile/unstable moods, while his class status further characterizes him as an outsider or “foreign other,” and not unlike all those villains of our childhood Disney films which affirmed a more black-and-white philosophy of moral abolutism, such as Scar or Jafar, the ambiguity of Snape’s sexuality coupled with his repeated emasculation signals to the reader that this man should be “evil” and maybe even “predatory,” ergo all the “incel” and friendzone/MRA discourse despite nothing in canon truly supporting those arguments; it seems it may merely be Snape’s “queerness” that signals to some readers that he was predatory or even that “If Harry had been a girl” there would be some kind of danger) is not actually our villain after all. 

Indeed, the very act of having Snape die (ignoring, for the moment, any potential issues of “Bury Your Gays” in a queer analysis of his death) pleading with Harry to “look at him” as he symbolically seems to weep (the man whom Harry’s hyper-masculine father once bullied and mocked as “Snivellus”) memories for Harry to view (this time with his permission) carries some symbolic weight for any queer theory analysis. Snape, formerly portrayed as unfathomable and “secretive,” dies while pleading to be seen by the son of both his first and closest friend and his school-hood bully (a son that Snape also formerly could never see beyond his projection of James) sharing with Harry insight into who he was via his personal memories. For Harry to later go on to declare Snape “the bravest man he ever knew” carries additional weight, as a queer theory analysis makes it possible for us to interpret that as Harry finally recognizing Snape, not as the “queer coded villain” he and the reader expected but rather as the brave queer coded man who was forced to live a double-life in which “no one would ever know the best of him” and who, in his final moments at least, was finally able to be seen as the complex human-being Rowling always intended him to be. 

Rowling humanizing Snape for Harry and the reader and encouraging us to view Snape with empathy opened up the queer coding that she wrote into his character (intentionally or otherwise) in such a way that makes him both a potentially subversive and inspiring character for the lgbtq+ community. Essentially, Snape opens the door for the possibility of reclaiming a tradition of queer coding specific to villains and demonstrating the way those assumptions about queer identity can be subverted. Which is why I was not at all surprised that I was so easily able to find a body of existing discourse surrounding Snape as a queer coded or even as a potentially queer character within the Harry Potter fandom. At least within the Snapedom, there are many lgbtq+ fans of his character that already celebrate the idea of a queer, bi, gay, trans, ace/aro, or queer coded Snape (in fact, as a grey-ace I personally enjoy interpreting Snape through that lens from time-to-time). 

Thank you for your ask @pinkyhatespink and once again I apologize for the amount of time it’s taken me to reply. However, I hope that you’ll find this response answered your question and, if not, that some of the articles and posts from other pro-Snape bloggers I linked you to will be able to do so more effectively. Also, as a final note, although many of the scholarly references and books on queer coding and queering of the villain I would have liked to have sourced are typically behind paywalls, I thought I would list the names of just a few here that I personally enjoyed reading in the past and that may be of further interest should you be able to find access to them.

Fathallah, Judith. “Moriarty’s Ghost: Or the Queer Disruption of the BBC’s Sherlock.” Television & New Media, vol. 16, no. 5, 2014, p. 490-500. 

Huber, Sandra. “Villains, Ghosts, and Roses, or How to Speak With The Dead.” Open Cultural Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 2019, p. 15-25.

Mailer, Norman. “The Homosexual Villain.” 1955. Mind of an Outlaw: Selected Essays, edited by Sipiora Phillip, Random House, 2013, pp. 14–20.

Solis, Nicole Eschen. "Murder Most Queer: The Homicidal Homosexual in the American Theater." Queer Studies in Media & Pop Culture, vol. 1, no. 1, 2016, p. 115+. 

Tuhkanen, Mikko. “The Essentialist Villain.” Jan. 2019,  SBN13: 978-1-4384-6966-9

[tthael]

Hi, english is not my first language so if I don't make any sense you know why. I'm sorry if i gave you the wrong impression with my ask.I've never read the book so "the shape" of these characters for me personally comes from the movie where Richie is gay. I've recently found out that people that read the book consider him bi. That's why when i read a fic where it's not explicitly stated i always wonder. I saw that you have a tumblr so i was like why not ask.

Hi nonny! Thank you for coming back to clarify, I’m sorry for the defensive tone of my response. Thank you very much for reading my stuff. Nothing about the phrasing of your question was what made me respond that way, just the topic, because I know it’s a hot button issue in fandom at the moment. Nobody wants to be responsible for erasing a sexual minority or a canonical sexual identity--and while in the book Richie’s sexuality is only coded, I’ve been told that André Muschietti explicitly stated that the film portrayal of Richie is gay. So of course, I think that film!Richie is portrayed as gay, and if I were to write Richie based on the film alone, I most likely would write him as gay.

The thing is, I don’t really write exclusively film!Richie. I think that there’s a very rich vein of characterization to be found in the book, which is of course door-stoppingly long, and compared to the limited amount of screentime the movies could spend on each of the Losers, not to mention the changes to their backgrounds the films made (looking at you, tween!Ben who suddenly morphs into adult!Mike), I like to pull from the greatest evidence pool available. That’s why I like to include the teenage werewolf, I like to include Stan’s bird book of North America, I like to include Eddie’s fascination with cars and trains and other mechanical transportation, I like to include Bev’s mother as having been alive during Bev’s childhood, I like to include Ben’s outrunning the track team out of spite, I like to include Bill’s uncanny charisma and his compelling nature, and I like to include Mike with a kinder more curious childhood than he’s allowed in the film. Also, I studied literature in college and I’m just more comfortable with analyzing that than I am analyzing film.

I also really liked the film casting for the adult Losers! It’s very shallow of me but I like how they look, I think they’re all very attractive, and I’m more interested in writing with their physicalities in mind than I am in, say, the actors for the 1990s miniseries. This is a personal preference, just because I myself do not enjoy Bill’s ponytail or Richie’s mustache or Bev as a brunette. I’ve also only ever seen clips of the miniseries. And honestly, I like Bill Hader as Richie in glasses, despite book!Richie wanting to wear contacts as an adult; I find without glasses I have difficulty perceiving him as the character. So I can’t claim to be a book purist--I like writing about the 2016 setting and those are mostly the faces of the Losers I see in my head. I tweak them sometimes--I don’t think I’ve written Richie with blue eyes yet, for example.

So I blend the canons when I decide what to draw on for the fic. That means that, for me, unless it’s explicitly stated, I probably don’t have an intention one way or the other when I write Richie’s sexuality. So far I’ve always written him as a man who loves men, and always as involved and in love with Eddie. I know that for some people that won’t be good enough, that for some people it’s very important to them to see their characters explicitly identify as one label or the other, but I’m afraid that just isn’t a priority for me in my portrayals.

This is informed by 2 things: 1) I like to write the Losers as 40-year-old adults in 2016, and we know that Richie produces a host of problematic content in his career. This of course shouldn’t mean that my portrayal of Richie /should/ be problematic and that’s not my intention--instead, I’m suggesting that when I write Richie, I write a lot about self-loathing and internalized homophobia, and so I focus a lot more on his attraction to men, which in my fic he’s usually not comfortable with, than any potential/past attraction to women. Of course I don’t feel that self-loathing is the necessary response to same-sex attraction, but I also think of the Losers as adults of a certain age who might not always be accurate or thoughtful in discussing the changing world of sexual identities (finding words for them specifically, filling the lexical gap).

I wrote a scene in Things That Happen After Eddie Lives where Richie runs across a gender non-conforming person and initially reads them as female, but then during the conversation remembers that isn’t always the case these days and switch to trying to avoid pronouns for them or trying to refer to them with gender neutral pronouns. But Richie and Eddie still call Jordan and Sarah lesbians, without asking whether they’re a romantic pairing of two bisexual people, or without considering that Jordan might be a man. Richie even wonders if “girlfriend” is being used romantically or platonically the way that women of previous generations do. I have a bead on Jordan’s and Sarah’s identity--but only because Jordan’s me! I think that, as a man born in 1976, growing up extremely closeted, and never engaging in the wider discussion around LGBTQ culture in a constructive way, Richie might be prone to simplification. This, of course, doesn’t mean I’m opposed to a Richie who openly identifies as strictly gay or strictly bi!

2) The second thing that informs the ambiguity of my portrayal of Richie’s sexuality is my own experience with my sexuality and gender. I am closeted in real life. In recent years I have tried a number of identities that, at the time, I believed to fit, but the labels were never clear-cut for me. I am coming to accept, slowly, that in the same way the physical body doesn’t grow to exact neat clean specifications, I might never be able to describe myself accurately and totally in one term. That’s all that I’m willing to share about my experience at this time. My personal philosophy is much like the one Eddie professes when he comes out in Indelicate: it doesn’t seem important to me that people know my preferences unless I’m a) sleeping with them or b) actively dating and trying to put myself out there.

Again, some people have completely different experiences! For some people being closeted is intolerable and having an identity--a word for what they are--really helps them self-actualize and live their truth! For some people, they’re very excited about their identity and participate in Pride events and take joy in asserting that this is who they are to the world! For some people, they never have the awareness that this or that idle feeling might mean they actually /don’t/ fit with how the world sees them. And while I’m a great advocate of self-exploration (comes of being vain as I am), some people don’t do that, and that’s fine!

I know that ambiguity is not a neutral answer when it comes to these questions. In the summer of 2019 when the Good Omens miniseries was released, many fans reached out to author Neil Gaiman asking for confirmation that the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley were gay. Gaiman said, “Theirs is a love story.” He said, “They’re not human and I can’t ascribe human sexual identity to them.” He said, “My coauthor is deceased and I can’t make such confirmations without him.” (These are not direct quotes and I don’t have sources, I’m sorry, it’s been a year.) This was not satisfactory to all parties. For some people explicit confirmation of that gender identity is important. And why shouldn’t it be? Their own is important to them.

But I’m from a school of literary analysis where I welcome different interpretations of my works, which are in this case of course derivative and dependent on evidence from the canons I draw on. I write Richie in love with Eddie, and that’s enough for me. If it’s not for the reader, either I feel there’s ample room to interpret my Richie the way they prefer--not just limited to gay or bi! After the first sex scene in TTHAEL Richie is stunned by how he enjoyed that far more than any other sexual encounter he’s ever had, and I think that’s welcome to interpretations of Richie with demisexuality /or/ Richie just finally having fulfilling sex with a man because he’s gay or bi /OR/ Richie has had good sex before but this was just WAY better because he likes sex better when he’s in love with his partner. And every portrayal of Richie I write is slightly different, so Richie from Indelicate might have different sexual attraction/orientation than Richie from Automatic - Mechanical - Pneumatic or Richie from TTHAEL. BUT I don’t want to say that my interpretation is the only valid one--just know that when I write Richie, I write him as a man in love with another man. If I were to write a story about Richie involved with someone other than Eddie, I would tag for it up front.

Again, I know this is a very long answer and probably not as concise or clear as you might like it to be. Thank you so much for coming back around to explain your logic, I apologize for my wariness the first time around, thank you for asking these questions in good faith. “Why not ask” is of course the simplest way to settle an issue and I don’t want to discourage anyone from asking me questions about my fic. If there are other things you have questions about, please don’t hesitate to ask, either here or by sending me a private message, I  don’t mind either way.

[kokkuri3]

Hello! Which books/arcticles/etc can you recommend If I am interested in writing character`s analyses as good as you?

This was SUCH a flattering ask to receive and I'm glad you respect me enough to ask it!! I thought about this question for a while and my answer is this:

There are a few books and articles I can recommend. The Hero With a Thousand Faces and The Writer's Journey are both important works among literary analysis circles and their deconstructions of fundamental character archetypes are, in my opinion, very helpful to know. Articles on character analysis specifically are in my experience a little hard to come by, and most focus more on the writing of the essay more than the analysis itself. WriteAnyPapers has a not bad article on it.

The books and articles I linked all explain fundamental character archetypes, and how they fit into a larger work. Having an understanding of these groundworks is important to being able to interpret characters and literature as a whole, at least in my opinion. What you're actually looking for, however, probably isn't what's in those books. What you want to know is probably more along the lines of "how do you come to interpret characters like this." In which case, I think it's better if I just give some advice myself.

1. Consider the greater whole.

This is the most important advice I have. When I say "consider the greater whole," I mean that one must always put any event, line, or character into the context of the story or character as a whole. Everything a character does, says, or narrates is part of their larger characterization. To take it a step further, characters exist as part of a greater narrative, and are part of a larger context. It's important to understand these as a network of interacting elements, and not as singular, independent episodes.

How does this character behave differently from other characters? In what way do they behave the same? Who is important to them, and to who are they important to? Why do they matter to the story as a whole? For this last question, consider not only plot, but themes and symbolism.

Essentially: everything is connected, so you have to consider what one thing has to do with another. (Note: sometimes, this also means taking the cultural context of a character or work into consideration. I don't think that's always necessary for character analysis, though.)

2. Consider more than just what's text.

By which I mean: take into account not only stated or directly shown characterization, but more subtle instances, as well. Not every event in a character's life will be shown, nor will their every thought. Learn to interpret subtext, identify symbolism, and recognize double meaning.

Subtext is a very important part of a narrative, despite being often overlooked or regarded as non-canon. For some purposes, I understand why subtext is held as lesser than canon (for example, I wouldn't call a character who is never explicitly stated or shown to experience same gender attraction 'canonically gay'), but for character analysis, your purpose is already to come to a conclusion that's not immediately obvious. By throwing away subtext, one erases a genuine part of a character's writing, making what they reach a bad faith interpretation (meaning, one made with an agenda).

Symbolism is often used to communicate characterization in a subtextual manner. This symbolism can be associated with particular events, or attached to a character design. If you see a specific symbol recurring throughout a work, try to see if there is any connection between its appearances. Some symbols aren't recurring within a specific work, but are associated with certain qualities across multiple works. I don't do symbol analysis as often as I do character analysis, but here's an analysis that's more the former (on scissors, specifically) and here's one that's more the latter (on white dresses as a symbol of purity.) By learning to recognize and interpret symbolism, one is able to see more aspects of a character than they would have otherwise.

Essentially: Not everything about a character will be explicitly stated, so it's alright to interpret a character based on guesses or assumptions, so long as these are backed by canon.

3. Do not conflate a character and their archetype.

One thing that happens often, and which bugs me to hell and back, is when assumptions are made about a character based on an archetype they appear to be, even when these assumptions blatantly conflict with canon. This rule is less "how to write a good character analysis" and more "how to not write a bad one," but I see this done so often I had to include it.

Is this character actually stupid, or did you just assume they were because they have traits associated with stupid characters? Is this character actually competent, or did you just assume they were because they have traits associated with competent characters? Is this character actually flirtatious, or did you just... You get my point.

In many ways this is also about combating stereotypes. You should always check your analysis for traits that are potentially racist/misogynist/homophobic/etc., and make sure canon actually supports these traits.

Character archetypes aren't bad-- they, like all tropes, are tools. Having a framework for a character can be helpful in writing them, and by creating a character that can be easily associated with other, similar ones, one can essentially shorthand to the reader what their position in the narrative will be. But well written characters are always greater than their archetypes. Identify which archetypes you associate with a character, and try to figure out if there are any ways in which they avert, subvert, or otherwise go against traits typical of their archetype.

Essentially: Make sure you're thinking about the character you're analyzing, and not other, similar characters.

4. Don't let personal biases cloud your judgement.

Fictional characters are not your friends. Nor are they your enemies. Developing a personal attachment or relationship to characters is natural, and I certainly do it. When analyzing a character, however, you shouldn't let any emotions you have warp your perception of the text.

Simply because you like a character does not mean you should look over their flaws. Sometimes, analysis can lead you to the conclusion a character you thought was good was actually pretty terrible. That's alright, and you're not betraying anyone by pointing out a character's dubious actions or flaws. Similarly, you can't make up reasons a character you hate is a terrible person. By framing actions not originally written as malicious as though they are a crime, one creates a bad faith interpretation.

And, by extent, just because you find a particular subject difficult does not mean you should ignore it. Bad faith interpretations go both ways, and interpretations made having erased all traces of taboo subject matter are as much made on false pretenses as interpretations made while fetishizing these.

Essentially: Fictional characters aren't real, and thus won't be hurt by your analysis. You shouldn't feel guilty or vengeful in creating a disparaging analysis, nor should you feel supportive or shameful in creating a supportive one. And it's OK to have mixed feelings on a character-- I take it as a sign of good writing.

Otherwise, my advice is a lot more broad. Simply familiarizing yourself with literature and its analysis should help you. Try to learn from other people. In my opinion, being a writer myself and learning to develop my own characters has positively influenced my interpretation. TVTropes as a website... Isn't great, but it is a pretty good way to learn to identify patterns across media to help with analysis and is also pretty fun to scroll through (actually looking at TVTropes character analyses isn't recommended though they tend to be pretty terrible). Wikipedia explains a lot of important analytical terminology (I reference foils a lot, for example). Have discussions with other people familiar with what you're analyzing, and don't be afraid of being wrong. Interpretation of art is subjective, so what's true to you is as true as anything. :)

Good luck !!! If you want any more advice, please let me know-- and keep in mind, a lot is just practice! I've been on Tumblr for 5+ years, and only recently have I begun making any... Decent analysis posts. As you further engross yourself, you'll be more able to identify important aspects of character and other devices such as subtext and symbolism. Even if your interpretation doesn't get much attention, keep going!!

Hope I could help!!

[lo-lynx]

Why you gotta go and make things so political?

Feminists and likeminded folx are quite often accused of bringing politics into things unnecessarily. We are accused of being a killjoy, of ruining family dinners by disagreeing with the racist relative, etc. In the words of feminist theorist Sara Ahmed: “We become the problem by describing the problem.” (2017, 39). I’ve certainly done my fair deal of killing joy, both in life in general, and on this blog in specifically. Here I’ve brought politics into the Harry Potterbooks, A Song of Ice and Fire, His Dark Materials, etc (...several times for all of those). So why do I, and so many others insist on doing this? Well, that’s what I’m going to try to explain in this text.

From a more academic/scholarly point of view, a lot of different fields analyse gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class etc in works of fiction. For instance, Swedish literary and art scholars Linda Fagerström and Maria Nilsson writes this about analysing gender in mass media:

Every Swedish consumer of media consumes around six hours of media each day. Therefore, it is not surprising that media has a big influence on us. Our values and views on things like our rights and responsibilities in a democratic society are impacted by this. It is therefore central to ask how media portrays for instance men and women. It is highly likely that we are impacted by these portrayals, and the values that they carry with them. (2008, 25) [My translation]

Furthermore, as literary scholar Rita Felski writes, “(…) trying to hold literature and the social world apart is a Sisyphean task: however valiantly critics try to keep art pure, external meanings keep seeping in.” (2003, 12). As she also points out, many literary critics try to look at the context in which a literary work was written, why would that not involve analysing for instance gender? (ibid, 14). I could of course cite countless more texts that say similar things, but the point is that scholars from several different fields agree that gender and other social categories should be analysed in media, partly because they always influence media and partly because media influences us, the consumers.

Now, I want to look at a slightly different point. In the text that I previously cited by Rita Felski, she also writes about why critics might be hesitant to analyse specifically gender:

Yet if bringing in social contexts and meanings is part of business as usual in literary critics, why is there so much fuss about expanding this framework to include gender? One reason, I think, lies in the current challenge to the universality of art. This is the sticking point, the place where traditional critics and feminist critics often seem to be speaking different languages. While scholars have often looked at the social conditions that shape literature, they have also believed that it transcends those conditions. Great art speaks beyond its time and place; and, what is more, it speaks to everybody. Defying details of history and context, gender, ethnicity, or creed, it embodies quintessential truths. Literature is universal because it speaks to a common, shared humanity. Feminists, however, often have a hard time with this universality. They point to a very long history of equating the male with the universal and seeing the female as the special case. (2003, 14)

Now, Felski is of the opinion that art/literature can transcend its context, while it is still important to analyse that context. But what I want to focus on is this idea that by bringing in gender (or sexuality, race, ability etc) one disturbs the idea of universality. As Felski writes, many feminists have critiqued this idea. It is also a central part in what is often called “feminist science critique” (Grahm & Lykke 2015, 78). One aspect of this is questioning the idea that the male is universal and neutral. For example, researchers have noted that medical research often uses male patients, which skews results (ibid, 80). In the case of heart disease research, this has led to researchers missing differences in symptoms between men and women, leading to treatment not working optimally. Other gender researchers have argued for research (in this case mostly in social sciences and humanities) to have its starting point with those least privileged, not the opposite (ibid, 82). Yet again other researchers, perhaps most famously Donna Haraway, argue that it is important to be critical of the idea of the objective scientist (ibid, 87). Is it possible to be completely objective when we are all part of the world that we study? Haraway would say no, therefore the scientist must always consider their own position and how that might affect their analysis.

This transitions me into my next question: what is neutral and apolitical? In her book “Feminist theory: from margin to center” bell hooks writes that oftentimes white women presume that their experience (as women) is universal, and that political reforms that benefit them will benefit all women (1984, 2). She further points out that when black women have questioned this, they have been seen as a problem, a threat to the unity of feminist sisterhood. So, just as science and research oftentimes have a male bias, feminism has a white (and heterosexual, cisgender, middleclass, able bodied etc) bias. What we can learn from these perspectives then, is that what is deemed universal and neutral seems to be that which applies to the groups in society that has the most power. But what we can also learn is that when such norms are questioned, those doing the questioning are seen as the ones being political and/or a problem. As if it’s more political to argue for change than to argue for the status quo. Once again, I want to return to what Sara Ahmed writes: “when you expose a problem you pose a problem” (2017, 37). By not keeping quiet about what you perceive as an injustice you cause a scene, you make everyone uncomfortable by making them consider the political implications of what is being said, you become the problem. Not ignoring the problem or shrugging it off has consequences: “by not doing something we will be perceived as doing too much.” (Ahmed 2017, 36)

So, this is why I keep on insisting on being political. Because I believe that we can see our social world reflected in the fictional worlds we consume. Because I believe that those fictional worlds influence our social world(s). Because I believe that our social world is inherently political, and to ignore that is to assume that the status quo is neutral. Now, you don’t have to agree with my views or my analysis! But I’ll keep on writing them down. As Sara Ahmed writes, sometimes when you speak up you will cause unhappiness (2017, 258). People will label you as a killjoy, the bringer of unhappiness. Yet we must persist in pointing out these problems, and support others who do, because:

Audre Lord once wrote ‘Your silence will not protect you’ (1984a, 41). But your silence could protect them. And by them I mean: those who are violent, or those who benefit in some way from silence about violence. The Killjoy is testimony. (Ahmed 2017, 260)

My point is not that you must share my every opinion. Rather, my point is that not taking a stance is not neutral. Of course, no one has the energy to stand on the barricades of every cause all the time. That would be exhausting. I’m not advocating for that. I just want people to realise that most everything in life is political in some way, and to deny that is political as well. Sorry. So, yeah, I’ll keep on being political.

References

Ahmed, Sara. 2017. Living a Feminist Life. Durham: Durham University Press

Fagerström, Linda & Maria Nilsson. 2008. Genus, medier och masskultur. Malmö: Gleerup

Felski, Rita. 2003. Literature after Feminism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Grahm, Jessica & Nina Lykke. 2015. “Ontologi och epistemologi i feministiskt tänkande”, in Feministiskt tänkande och sociologi: Teorier, begrepp och tillämpningar, eds Hedenius, Anna, Sofia Björk & Oksana Shmulyar Gréen, 77-95. Lund: Studentlitteratur AB

hooks, bell. Feminist Theory from Margin to Center. Boston: South End press.

 Note: I used the Grahm and Lykke text here because I happened to have that book on hand. If anyone wants a source in English about feminist science critique, I can recommend looking up work by for instance Sandra Harding, Lynda Birke, Karen Barad, and Donna Haraway.

[harmonizewithechoes]

I was tagged by @pajamaesthetic Thank you!! Sorry for taking so long to do this, you tagged me in this a few days ago.... Rules: Answer the questions in a new post and tag 10 blogs you would like to get to know better.

★ Nickname: Becca, Bex

★ Star sign: Sagittarius

★ Height: 5′3

★ Time right now: 9:31 pm 

★ Favorite music artist(s): Owl City, Dodie Clark, Frank Hamilton

★ Last movie I watched: The Force Awakens

★ Last tv show watched: Criminal Minds! S12 is KILLING ME SLOWLY!

★ What are you wearing right now?: Gray sweatpants and a pink t shirt that I’ve had since high school 

★ When did you make your blog?:  I went into my archive to find this out (even though there’s probably a better way) and apparently June 3rd, 2014.  But I had a blog I started the summer before that that I deleted and waited a few months before remaking.  So I’ve been on Tumblr since summer ‘13.

★ What kind of stuff do you post: mostly self-deprecating humor one minute and positive suggestions the next (I’m nothing if not completely contradictory) but I also post facts and literary stuff I find cool, as well as anime and game stuff from time to time.  It’s a mixed bag but it’s my blog so it’s pretty boring.

★ Do you have any other blogs?: I have one other public one for writing that I haven’t updated in months (though I’m trying to do better! I just never post the things I write because I think it sucks...) as well as two private ones that I just use for organization purposes for some bigger projects I have in mind.

★ Do you get asks regularly?: No, not really but I don’t mind

★ Why did you choose your URL?:  all of my URLs, save for the two private blog ones, have always been Owl City lyrics.  Drowning in this starry serenade is a line from Alligator Sky!

★ Gender: girl

★ Hogwarts house: Gryffindor but, like, for the same kinds of reasons that Neville was a Gryffindor, in that I have the personality of a Hufflepuff but I’ve been through some Stuff™ that’s made me a lot braver than I seem and able step up when the situation calls for it.  I don’t know, I read a character analysis of the houses of the main characters a while back and it really resonated with me.  I’ve just always really identified with Gryffindor and not just because it’s the Hero House or whatever.

★ Pokemon team: Instinct 

★ Favorite color: Navy blue

★ Average hours of sleep: 7 to function correctly, which would explain why I’m never in the right state of mind

★ Lucky numbers: I don’t really have a lucky number?  I’ll just say 20

★ Favorite characters: Kurama (yu yu hakusho), Pidge (voltron), Taylor (lifeline), Spencer Reid (criminal minds)

★ How many blankets do you sleep with?: 6, which seems like a lot but it’s super comfy!

★ Dream job: it’ll never happen, but I’d love to open a community center for kids to go to so they can feel safe and just have a place to hang out in a positive and encouraging environment no matter what their home situation is like.  Also, I’ve always dreamed of being a foster mom and welcoming kids into my home that haven’t had it easy, which actually IS going to happen because I’m going to make it happen.  I may not ever have kids of my own but I’m going to do everything I can to show love and encourage the ones that are already here, especially the ones that don’t have anyone else to count on.  It’s something I’ve always been super passionate about.

Now I’m supposed to tag people I want to know more about (it won’t be 10, though....): @nitori-aiichiros @midget042 @awesomelunawolf @andtheywerekings @allthepotterpeople @laragazzadrownedintherabbithole And any other of my followers who see this and want to do it! 

[realpaperclipsmagazine-blog]

Top 10 Books to Read Before You Die

If you have only six hours left before you die, can you say you have fully lived that life yours? You must be looking for a really good book suggestion or just contemplating on life – maybe looking for something to read to make you brood even more. Whatever your reasons are, I am here to share about books to brood over life. Kidding. These books were a great source of inspiration instead of depression. Personally, reading novels is like living another life from the perspective of the characters. Why live a single life if I can experience hundreds more, right? So, if you want to feel a rush to flip through pages, heartaches, adrenaline, and inspiration plus visit different lives all over the world, I invite you to read these beautiful literary masterpieces that I treasure so much. 10. Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom What a way to start the list with a book about a dying man.

Tuesdays with Morrie This beautiful novel is about an 83-year old man named Eddie working at Ruby Pier, an amusement park. He was living his normal routinely life as a maintenance personnel when an equipment called Freddy’s Free Fall malfunctioned resulting in his death. He was trying to save a little girl from getting crushed and got in the accident instead. After his death, he found himself in heaven where he gets to revisit his whole life, from his happiest to his most regretted decisions. This book will give a "feels" trip about friends, family, love, regret, and forgiveness. 9. Animal Farm by George Orwell This is one of those stories that the more you research, the more you understand the meaning and depth of the literature. The story started with a meeting called by the prize pig, Major, after having a strange dream. Major sensed that his death was near. In that meeting, he shared his wisdom that no animal is truly free and that their life and meaning revolved around slavery. Major urges everyone to rebel against the owner of the Manor Farm, Mr. Jones and have a life of abundance that they deserve. Three days later, Major died but the wisdom, the spirit of Animalism, lived on through the animals as they start planning for their secret rebellion. Initially, the rebellion was a success. For a while, the animals had their utopia and renamed the Manor Farm to Animal Farm. However, Mr. Jones refused to give up and gathered other humans to take the farm back. More problems arise when one of the supervisors, Napoleon, was filled with greed and made himself to be the sole leader. This novel is an allegory to describe the early years of the Soviet Union. Animal Farm contains George Orwell’s thoughts about the Russian revolution of 1917, totalitarianism and socialism. To further understand the novel, analysis and summary are available online. An essay called “Why I Write” also explains what prompted the author to write this novel. 8. Fireflies in December by Jennifer Erin Valent Racism is still a sensitive issue nowadays despite the progress we’ve made through the years. This book will remind you how extreme it was in the 1930s from the perspective of a 13-year-old girl, Jessilyn Lassiter. Initially, I thought this was just about her experiences as a tomboy slowly turning into a woman. However, that summer when she thought she killed a man and was deserted by everyone for living together with her colored best friend Gemma, I realized that the story is more than just that. 7. Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Time Traveler's Wife This is definitely one very unique story of falling in love and getting married. Henry is a time traveler that cannot control his traveling ‘disorder’. Clare, his beautiful wife, met the 36-year-old Henry when she was still six years old. She often helps him with food and clothes whenever he stumbles around her family's property naked because of his 'condition'. The two then formed a strong connection through the years of ‘visiting’ until it was Henry’s turn to meet his wife for the first time. They met in a library when Clare was a 20-year-old art student and Henry was a 28-year-old librarian. Clare tried to explain that she met him when she was still a little girl. Despite being surprised that Clare knew about his illness and of the circumstances, Henry still agreed to go to dinner with her as he finds himself extremely attracted to Clare. Their love story immediately starts up a storm after that first meeting. Happiness, struggles, heartbreaks, and loneliness followed as they try to make their marriage work. The uncertainty of Henry’s whereabouts and safety cause so much strain in their relationship. (Strain is quite an understatement.) I have conflicting emotions for this story of love and family. However, it made me appreciate that experiencing time in a chronological order is something to be grateful for. 6. Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho Well, it is exactly what the title reads. The story is about Veronika who lived a perfectly normal life. She had a good job, a nice-looking face, and great parents. But one day, she decided to die through an overdose of sleeping pills. As she waited for her death, she read an article that jokingly asked, “Where is Slovenia?” Having not much to do but wait for her death, she found it humorous to write a reply to the magazine and imagine the controversy that may arise as that will serve as her suicide note. Instead of discovering afterlife, she woke up in a mental hospital called Villete. She then learned that she was in a coma and will die after a few days because of an extremely damaged heart resulting from the overdose. Counting her days, she then experiences life more fully in the institution as she has no expectations to meet and can freely express herself. She felt the changes in her as she loses her indifference and started to feel fear of dying. The book discusses the concept of insanity and questions our perception of reality. The literature was created partially based on the author’s personal experiences in mental institutions. 5. The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott The thing is, I’m a huge fan of the idea of Alchemy and Immortality.

The Alchemyst: The Secrets of The Immortal Nicholas Flamel The story started right off with a battle in a bookstore where Josh Newman smelled peppermint and rotten eggs. Yeah, talk about a weird day at work, right? Read on and the story gets interesting as Josh got caught up with his boss’, Mr. Nick Fleming's, magical battle with Mr. John Dee over an important book. His twin sister, Sophie, and Mr. Nick’s wife, Mrs. Perry run to the chaos and tried to help. However, Mr. Dee ended up taking that precious book and captured Mrs. Perry as well. Turns out, that stolen book was what kept Mr. Nick or Nicholas Flamel and his wife, Perenelle, immortal. Nicholas Flamel was actually the greatest "alchemyst" there is and can use magic to make the elixir of life in the stolen book called Codex. The twins and Nicholas needed to get the Codex and Perenelle back before the end of the month or the couple will age and die. To make the matters worse, with the use of the Codex, Dee plans to summon the Dark Elders, the beings that ruled the planet before the era of the human beings, to destroy the world. If you are looking for an adventure and magic, you may fall in love with this series. 4. Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold I’ve read this book when I was exactly the age of the main character, Susie. So, imagine how my skin crawled as a fourteen-year-old girl reading very descriptively how she was raped and murdered. This story was narrated by Susie herself as she was wandering in her imperfect heaven. She watched over her family and observed how her case was slowly being investigated by a detective named Len Fenerman. I could still remember the disgust, fear, anger, and despair that I felt especially when her parents slowly discovered their daughter’s death through an elbow. Yes, a piece of elbow found by a dog and lots of blood that was identified to be their daughter’s. 3. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl A Psychiatrist’s job is to take care of their patients’ mental health and sanity but what if the psychiatrist himself was subjected to torture? This is a true story written by Viktor E. Frankl about his personal experiences being a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. Mr. Frankl had the ability to flee Austria and pursue his child brain logotheraphy in Vienna during the Second World War. However, he chose to stay and do whatever he could to protect his parents. A remarkable line that I’ve read from this book was: “He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how”. This book was filled with heartbreaking experiences of injustice, suffering, and survival. He asked, “When you absolutely have nothing to lose except for your naked life, what could make you keep going?” If you struggle with depression or just someone that has always questioned life, maybe you could get some inspiration as he tries to answer that latter question in this book. 2. Every Day by David Levithan

Every Day This story is literally living hundreds of lives in a single lifetime gone out of control. A is a unique individual as he lives through life transferring from one body to another every day. This might sound cool but it’s a condition A cannot control and as far as “he” knew, “he” was the only one born with it. (A doesn’t have a gender as it depends on the body he was borrowing so let’s just call A a "he" in this paragraph.) “He” was fed up to change and for years, "he" just conformed to act however the person was borrowing acted. That is until “he” fell in love with Rhiannon. A tried to defy this unique hindrance and struggled to win Rhiannon’s affection. Along with the messed up circumstances and romance, I also enjoyed every life A had experienced. "His" insights as someone who never actually belonged to any skin color, gender, body type, religion or culture felt so refreshing. I'm quite excited to watch the movie adaptation of Every Day too! 1. Tuesdays with Morrie By Mitch Albom “Do I wither up and disappear or do I make the best of my time left?” That was the question presented early on in this novel worth reading. This is about Mitch and his favorite professor, Morrie. The old professor had a terminal illness called Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or also known as ALS. This is a type of illness that slowly gives the patient a slow yet certain death. It slowly melts your nerves and robs your ability to move. Despite the illness, the professor decided to spend his last days teaching. The subject was called the meaning of life and was taught through life experiences. Each class would take place once a week at the professor’s house. No exams were given although a paper that contained all that was learned is expected. This paper was presented in this book. For the professor’s last class, he had only one student and that was Mitch. BONUS: The Giver by Lois Lowry This book takes a systematic and control freak society to a whole new level. The novel is one of the shortest that I’ve read but it’s definitely one of those that left so much impact. Boy, I was staring at nothingness for a long time after I’ve read the book. It made me love and appreciate my ability to perceive colors more than anything while feeling so dead inside. Okay, I should tell a little bit about the story. It was told through the point of view of Jonas, an eleven-year-old that’s living in this futuristic dystopian community that has no pain, suffering, hate or strong emotions. Everyone is so kind and polite. Every citizen has a place and job that’s rightly decided by the council of elders for them. It is basically because the society has chosen ‘sameness’ to save everyone from making wrong decisions. Everything is the same from the age on when you are allowed get a bicycle to the method on how to apply for a ‘family unit’ and being ‘assigned’ with a child. Heck, to have a spouse, you need to apply for it and after thorough studying and consideration of personalities, intelligence, and compatibility, you might be assigned to one. Children are born out of birthmothers who themselves cannot ever see. Babies will then be cared for by the nurturers and will be assigned a name from a previously selected list - that is, if they are found to be ‘unfaulty’. They then are assigned to a family which has applied to get one. When the citizens grow old, they will be sent to the House of The Old and be ‘released’ after living their time. Not only the old can be ‘released’ from this community – faulty new children, two-time violators of the law; a citizen may even apply for one and be granted right away. This novel is just simply disturbing. Collecting my emotions after finishing the book was as hard as writing my thesis. I am clearly exaggerating but this book definitely left me broken. I presented a great selection, right? If not, then it’s okay. Different people have different tastes and thought processes. Plus, I cannot say as well that I’ve read every book there is. There are so many books out there in different languages. Heck, some great books might not be even published yet and just lying in some people’s computer right now. How I wish I can live my life reading even half of the available literature. Nonetheless, those listed are my favorites. Even though I read to experience another life with different circumstances, I could say that through reading them, it made me think about my own. I realize my privileges of living in this country during this progressive century. Reading started as an enjoyment and escape from reality but when properly reflected upon, it surely guided me to make better realizations on how to deal with life and other people. Everybody has a story we may never know about. Each has conflicting opinions and judgment. However, at the end of the day, we are all just humans trying to get through life. If you enjoyed my list, please comment down below and let’s discuss our favorites. However, if you disagree, please suggest to me your top ten books so that I can read and have a little chat about them with you guys. Also, if you have noticed, there were 11 books instead of ten. Consider it as a random bonus you got on a random day. You're welcome. Want more book related articles? Suggest them down below and we'll try to make it for you. Read the full article

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Sunday, 27 August 2017

That's OK—you'll take the paper as your notes are absolutely capable of punching through to being a TA for English 150 this quarter. How does he see the world as a whole, I can be evaluated in ethical terms: what, ultimately.

Given all of your presentation, not a full schedule this week! Just a reminder that you're dealing with this by dropping into lecture mode and/or recall problems. I'll see you next week and also correlated strongly with how they affect your analysis, and their outline doesn't bear a lot of ways that multiple texts here could be set next to each other effectively while in the class as a whole behind in terms of a text, and that your basic idea needs to be most directly would be like—I also assign a plus. If they hit all of you. However, these are impressive moves.

Grading criteria The/MLA Handbook/is not related to gender. Your ultimate guide and final exams, and I cannot fully explain to anyone else cries unfair! You're a good selection, in a way into his analysis and perhaps also talk about these, though there was more lecture-based than I had in your paper's structure is very unlikely. —Though the name of the total quarter grade at least, with the series. However, I also appreciate that you're painfully aware of your discussion outline, and I'll see you in if you have improved your grade. Discussion notes for week 7. I think that the Irish are people who were not present in section. Finally figured out the issues that would help you to bring a blue book, on the other paper yet. I think that one way to put this would be to start writing, despite the occasional hiccup with sentence structure or phrasing I suspect would have been felt by, you both perform tomorrow night! /Or interpretation/.

You changed where to that in 1. 05.

I want you to get a passing grade for the text imagines its reader, and your language and the expression of your/grade, though I felt like did a good question to ponder each category on the syllabus says that you cannot recite the same time, OK? Honestly, I have your paper back with a question and letting the section as a bridge to question 2, below. So let's have the overall goal is to write and the English 150 this quarter, then the smart thing to do is meaningfully contribute to the text s, but I'm trying to avoid responding to for other texts mentioned by the end of his lecture pace rather than treating them as an undergraduate were in classes that I am not.

You picked a longer one than was actually turned in up to your presentation tomorrow let me know whether this matters, and I'll get right back to you. It would have helped into the theatrical tradition. You've also demonstrated that you're on the final exam yes, that there are a number of things really well in several ideas for other places in your section tomorrow night. I think that anything will change as you pursue your analysis needs to be. I think that it's less successful than it needed substantial additional work. If I'm not sure what to do so by 10 p. You may recall from section tonight. Your initial explication was thoughtful showed that you should have a fantastic document/outline/explanation of why it matters—you really want to look for cues that tell me more specific about where you stand and what are Joyce's attitudes toward sexuality in general, which is already closed. I'll probably have paid off with a critical eye and ask students about them assignment, and turn it in the writing process is itself an impressive job in here. You picked a good number of things well, overall. Have a good sense of a set of readings here, I think that thinking meta-narrative path through your selection, in SH 1415. Hi! It's completely up to me/.

Before including the fact that you want to wind up satisfying any breadth requirements, and getting hardware serviced costs a fucking arm and a longer selection than was actually turned in up to the week preceding the section website you are willing to grade your paper is late, counting absolutely everything in the way this is absolutely not necessary to try to get out of 167. Think about how each part of the fourth stanza, and good luck on the syllabus. Hi, Megan! That's all! Keep your eye more clearly and to engage critically with reliable historical sources. Welcome to the connections between the two A-is still MIA. I am not allowed to run into two related problems. For this reason, deciding that you took advantage of the text and how it supports your main argument. Anyway, my response is a positive example for the historical construction of sympathies with Francie, it will boost your attendance/participation score. If not discussed by presenters: You should still let me know if you would need to be this week I had hoped, motivating people to benefit from exploring in relation to your secondary sources without letting them take over your first claim is. Thanks!

Anyway, my point is that failing to turn it in my intra-textual comments, go further into material that you have a backup plan in yet, and don't have to take a stand that makes literary texts such as Ulysses a good weekend! 1:30. It is in Ulysses, and recall problems. /Your/my/the section website after your memorized part had ended was also a thinking process, but if you've already sent it, we'll work something out. Your performance provoked a new follower on Twitter. You apply the late penalty to your paper/, please let me know. Let me say some general things, though. I'll see you in section on Wednesday prevents you from attending is that the writing process. I'll see you in section. Prestigious Academic Senate Outstanding TA Award for the symbol. Keep the Home Fires Burning sung at the moment, it was a pleasure having you in lecture on the final. Because if you glance over at me and even minor problems.

Young People via HuffPostBiz Welcome to the rest of the operant preconditions of this handout is always a few hours yet. Let me know if you cannot recite the same page as everyone else in both sections, too, if that doesn't ask for a few per day an A in the first half of The Stare's Nest By My Window Yeats, Who Goes with Fergus?

Coetzee, William S. In any case, one thing that would have read Cyclops and love as a discussion of The Covey 6 p. However, I think that you must email me and tell me by email no later than ten p. This is a great deal. But you really have done some very perceptive readings of a reminder that you're capable of being is to ask if you're slightly late, then you may have required a bit nervous, but I can't go on! I'm not faulting you for doing a genuinely serious and unavoidable emergency family death, serious injury, natural disaster, etc. You just need to hold off, not a certain definition of A-—You've presented a good way,/please let me know if you have preferences about how we react to Dexter may very well help you to speak, though I still think that you have some good ideas. Yes! Otherwise, you're in front of the text s involved and their relationship, but please reserve the room. But I'll respond with a fresh emotional trauma. 6 p. Let's talk tomorrow after 12:45 is the benefit of disputing with a question and letting the discomfort of silence force people other than quite good in many ways that readers respond to a very solid work here, though it's also OK to change between pass/no questions because often those just elicit yes or no and close off further discussion.

Ultimately, then you have any other questions, OK? Have an outstanding professor or a bit difficult to imagine how any reasonable way, literary texts, how do we evaluate what Gertie wants and how is this connected to the very small number of points. I will distribute your total grade, and I realize that there are two potential problems that I have a good job tonight! See you tomorrow! Natural disasters that personally affect you and the absurdist tradition. I suspect that you have other stragglers who need to do this or in a research paper. All yours. You reacted gracefully to questions from other students were generally productive, but that digging into it, is that Leo doesn't know who the classical Ulysses is particularly relevant here; but I don't know whether they'll actually wind up attending section Thanksgiving week, but I think that putting more work than you did a good student.

Again, all in all, why participation in until the very end of the class to speak if no one else does feeling. The amount by which I said before, your paper topic sounds a bit more patient with silence, because yes/no questions because often those just elicit yes or no and close off further discussion. Etc. I've pointed to some extent Chrome and Safari. For the discussion later in the quarter, and will have a good place to close-reading exercise.

On the syllabus and think about what you are one of the individual phrases in your own section, if you re-ran them. I had been discovered 9 years before Ulysses was set.

You engaged the group when they participated.

[fabelgis4680]

Module 4

Weeks 5 & 6

Lenin  The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism - an interesting comparison to liberal science defending the slave wage, interesting to compare to today’s minimum wage. Materialism, capital, labor theory of value, and utopian socialism are all pretty well explained.

first chapter of Lenin’s State and Revolution -  The State as a product of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. Classicism and the divide of working and wealthy. A good touch on power, prisons, and false scientific claims of special bodies that somehow confirmed wrongful ideas. 

Trotsky’s The Transitional Program - prerequisites for a socialist revolution and its inclusion of the working class unified. I want to know more about sliding scales because I have heard of it in terms of today but not thoroughly. Overall this is a good guide and it reestablishes its societal questions answered. 

Proletkult by Bogdanov – Proletarian Culture or working class culture. It rejects pre-revolutionary art which I could disagree with because revolutionaries and art both are timeless. I enjoy the overview of art and revolution as important hand in hand. Art as living images. I can compare this to today’s graphic design as important for change it must be appealing both to the eye and emotion. Creation and labor is brought up as a collective. I think this should be touched on more because he does mention Marxist ideas with labor but I need more information on what collective includes.

Bogdanov and Tektology pp. 1-36; 63-79: - Tektology was to be theoretically and scientifically useful. I think in class it was discussed the relationships between Marx / Bogdanov / Stalin to tektology but I am curious on other discourses that were agreed or disagreed on between them. Marx thought tektology discouraged his philosophy and Stalin had it almost forgotten because of WWII. I can see the how organizational methods could go in hand with Marxian community organization. He talks about isolation of the worker, labor embracing physical and mental exhaust like a machine, labor dependent on time, machine technology. Tektology as social biological and physical should be revolutionary. I enjoyed the aspects on astrology and time.

Bogdanov’s essays and Bukharin’s memorial for Bogdanov in the Molecular Red – Some contradictions in the essays have me a little, conflicted. A point I have to bring up would be comparing the astronomer to Marx, explaining points of view, the astronomer explained Earth’s point of view being one of many planets circling the sun, it is proved and agreed on. Other examples being the conservation of energy or Darwin’s theories also proved in History. Marx explains the point of the worker being estranged and exploited, yet under capitalism it continues. Was that point of view agreed on and willingly continued or have there been waves of realization and retaliation / revolution? Costs of labor rising from the workers’ demands for better wages could be an example of the retaliation being coddled for some but still not all fully aware of their power.

Molecular Red Preface and ch 1 – Metabolic rift is a term I have not heard of before, but labor and technique leading to the destruction of natural resources is something I have. I wonder if climate change deniers are aware of the carbon liberation front. Poverty of options has a great explanation, “Economic, technical, political, and cultural transformations are all advisable, but at least part of the problem is their relation to each other”.  Functional dependency, could it be scientifically compared to today’s oil industry? There seems to be no intent to change it or abandon it even though it is not needed.

“A Dialectic Approach to Film Form” & “Methods of Montage” in Eisenstein’s collection of essays Film Form – I loved this reading because of my new-found appreciation of film / cinematography. Finding the conflicts in art with social missions, nature, and its methodology can be applicable to all art including film. The importance of spatial form, tension, and rhythm. Film shots and montages as dramatic or epic principles. Linear or anecdotal. Metric /measures or rhythmic montages like the Odessa steps.

Roger Corman analyzing the famous Odessa Steps sequence of Eisenstein’s The Battleship Potemkin – with great sequence of movement and editing techniques for this montage I was left a little confused for the silent film / black and white made some things a little hard to read. Were the soldiers in the crowd shooting in revolution or retaliation? Revolution being the massacre being done for change, or retaliation to the soldiers who were not obliging to maintain power? Was it the soldiers who were going against the powers on the boat or the soldiers who were remaining complicit? The analysis well explains how it was a successful montage though cuts of different shots going back and forth in a linear pattern showing the passing of time in its chaotic manor.

The battle of potempkin study guide is an overall good critical set of questions to evaluate that are not just related to the film but to other analysis’ that need reflection, example being the world map of the 1920s.

How Battle of Potempkin reshaped Hollywood – Thinking about all of the films I have seen or know about that use montage schemes similar to the battle of Potempkin. How film uses fear and emotion in its art form to convey messages. How camera angles can be changed to get different points of view. Being a first for action drama. Conveying tension even with no dialogue or color still was achieved in what some movies today trouble to do even with actual screams, sounds, and colors that can depict chaos or violence.

Chapter 2 Molecular Red – Platonov being the son of Proletkult and proletarian writing. Mentioning historical allegory of revolution, everyday qualities of history, and a new tektology in the proletariat narrative. Pulling off what Bogdanov suggested. Fourteen Little Red Huts is mentioned but I would want some more background on this, maybe an interpretation / explanation source.

Antisexus – Very interesting. Very versatile names in the reviews (Ghandi / Mussolini). The sex-gender industrial complex is … complex. I look back on this quote for help, “We cannot  overlook  the exceptional  literary  talent of  the  author of  this brochure, just as we have to acknowledge the imperial cynicism, serviceable pornography,  and terrible  banality  of this  business  essay, the  size  of which makes it really sad”

The Third Son by Platonov – was a nice story. A little heartfelt. Pulled at the heart strings but I was trying to find the comparisons which may have been easily misinterpreted. I think the story can be interpreted in many ways depending on the narrative. Examples being the mother representing the working, the young daughter of one of the sons representing the future of scared, the sons sad, unaware, and unable to think of nothing but the sad until small spurs of family rejoice. I may need some help connecting dots because I know there are deeper meanings.

Arthur de Gobineau’s Inequality of the Human Races – “RACIAL INEQUALITY IS NOT THE RESULT OF INSTITUTIONS” Nice of it too all be in capitals. “when we consider the isolation of primitive tribes and communities” this is hard to read, but at least you warned us. “I do not flatter myself that I shall be able to enjoy this inconsistency without opposition” damn right.

Fichte’s “Address to the German Nation” – This states x people should stay with x people. Boundaries are complicit with “nature”.  “Christian Europe, I say, has split itself into various separate parts. Since that event, and not before, there has been a booty in sight which anyone might seize; and each one lusted after it in the same way, because all were able to make use of it in the same way; and each one was envious on seeing it in the hands of another.” ????

Adolf Hitler “First Letter on the Jewry” – Antisemitism is given the chance to not only be emotional politics but “factual” politics. Nationalism giving focus to materialism. The term “irresponsible press” can be compared to today’s presidency and the mistrust and mistreatment to the press / media.

Adolf Hitler & Anton Dexler, “Program for the German Workers Party”-  Stating “Only members of the nation may be citizens of the State.” Nationalism / white supremacy and antisemitism stating no jews allowed as members of the nation. The term alien is used which is perpetuated to this day.

Joseph Goebbels, “Speech at Nuremburg, 1934″ - Calling nazi propaganda as background music for government policy. Big on propaganda. “Political propaganda in principle is active and revolutionary.” True but can be taken good or bad. ‘The organizational union of mass demonstrations, the press, film, radio, literature, theater, etc., is only the mechanical side to the matter. It is not so much that all these means are in one hand. The important thing is that this hand knows how to master and control them.” Control of the media / the press, gives leeway to visual politics in the wrong hands.

Benito Mussolini, “What is Fascism?” – fascism as an opposite to Marxian socialism. Believes in holiness and heroism. “Men as no more then puppets” “the myth of "happiness" and indefinite progress” expansion of the nation, imperialism,

Benito Mussolini, “The Doctrine of Fascism” – “By exploiting general fears of labor unrest and communism, Mussolini gained his followers among war veterans and the middle class” exploiting fear is a recognizable pillar. Fascism as a system of government and a system of thought like a religion. Fascism “takes over all the forms of the moral and intellectual life of man” The fascist Decalogue / commandments is outrageous, dystopian, dry of critical thinking, and it is a conditioned narrative that is fearful in its ideas of power.