#understand your relationship to queerness as a way of validating your self image | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thedreadvampy · 4 years ago

Note

Hey Ruth! I noticed you've talked in the past about asexuality in quite a negative manner. As an ace-person (who has received backlash for it) I was wondering: do you still uphold these opinions?

Hey! I have in the past said I don’t really...like people popping up in my ask box asking me My Opinion On Asexuality, but I do appreciate you asking me as someone I kinda know and with your face turned on, so I’m gonna aim to answer in the macro. Though I mean it depends on what the opinions...are? I have had a lot of opinions over the time I’ve had this blog and I don’t necessarily know what all of them were or which ones have concerned you. I can give you a top-level view of how I see my views, though (however, since I have been largely holding off on answering this kind of ask for Literally A Year Now this is less an answer to your specific question and more an answer to the last year of asks)

(also if I get dogpiled in my inbox for Having Bad Asexuality Opinions which I do every time I talk about asexuality regardless of what I actually say then. my phone is broken I won’t know about it :) so I feel untouchable)

I don’t think I hold a negative opinion of asexuality as an identity (I say I don’t think bc we all have blind spots)? I have a lot of very important people in my life who are asexual, aromantic or aroace and. I mean it feels pretty condescending to say ~uwu it’s valid~ bc like. ace and aro people don’t really need my input to validate their identity. but a) it seems like a pretty accurate way to describe their experience and b) I know a lot of them have had a really huge boost from finding a name and community to fit their experience and have found that really helpful, and I’ve seen that make a huge difference in people’s lives and I’m really happy to watch my friends come to understand themselves and feel comfortable and accepted in a part of themselves they had felt really alienated or stigmatised by. In a broader sense, I think there’s huge value in decentralising romance and sex in our assumptions of What Human Happiness Means and for some people that’s not the most important thing, and for some it’s just not interesting.

So like. I find it difficult to really express these opinions in any meaningful way because my opinion on asexuals and aromantics is much like my opinion on trans people or idk like people of colour. like very obviously those people exist and very obviously those people don’t deserve to be marginalised or stigmatised but it would feel. weird and performative to just make a post saying like “Asexuality Is Good And Valid, I Am Pro It” bc again like. who needs my permission or cares about my opinion. it’s not a Good Thing To Do it’s just. a thing you are that shouldn’t be treated as a bad thing.

however. and I suspect that this is what you’re referring to. while I love and appreciate ace and aro people, I think building communities and active support for ace and aro people is valuable and needed and, as above, I think Asexuality Is Good And Valid I Am Pro It, I do take some issue with elements of how discussions around asexuality are framed online (pretty much only online, I really haven’t run into the kind of black-and-white thinking in in-person queer spaces)

and I also. think there are some issues with people extrapolating their experience of their own sexuality onto the world in a way which. I’m just going to say a lot of the time when I talk about The Ace Discourse in a negative way it’s around people assuming that the world is split into a binary between ace and allo people, or assuming that only aspec people experience a nuanced or complex or fluid relationship to their sexuality while pigeonholing allosexuality into a pretty flat image of sex and romance focus. and I have always felt like this does a massive disservice not just to people who don’t identify with aspec labels, but also to the general hope that we could work against the expectation that there’s a Standard Amount To Value Sex/Romance - I think that the assumption that there are aspec people and then Everyone Else Has The Normal Type and Level of Attraction just. reinforces the idea that there’s a “Normal” type and level of attraction. which is ultimately pretty self-defeating and also just. observably untrue.

and this division of the world into Aspec People and Allo People also has some other weird knockon effects - I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically wrong with identities like gray ace or demi or other aspec labels beyond asexual and aromantic, but I do think that the way those labels are used is often. unhelpful. and they’re defined in such personal, subjective ways that you get weirdnesses sometimes like people Diagnosing Each Other With Demisexual or people saying ‘you can’t talk about this experience you share because it’s an Aspec Experience’ and again. there isn’t a concrete material experience there because the whole experience of romantic and sexual attraction, what that feels like and how sharply divisible it is is very, very personal and subjective. and everyone has different experiences of those and will name those experiences differently.

there’s also. historically a minority of Big Ace Blogs that kind of sneer at allosexuality or who would hijack posts about other issues to derail them to asexuality. but I don’t think they were ever representative of the community as a whole and I certainly think that inasmuch as those blogs remain around they’re a legacy of the Long-Ago (and a lot of them are trolls imo)

but there is. an issue I take that does seem to be more currently live which is the question of allo privilege. I think personally that framing all allosexuals/alloromantics as privileged over all aspec people on the basis of feeling sexual/romantic attraction is provably untrue in a world where people, particularly queer people, are actively oppressed and marginalised for expressing non-normative sexuality. it isn’t that I don’t think asexuality and aromanticism isn’t marginalised and stigmatised, because it visibly is, but it seems pretty reductive to boil it down to a binary yes/no privilege when both sexualisation and desexualisation are so actively tied into other forms of marginalisation (this is what I was trying to express in the argument about Martin a while ago - sex and sexuality are so often disincentivised for fat, queer, disabled and neuroatypical people that it doesn’t...feel like a reclamation that those tend to be the characters that get fanonised as ace where slim, straight, able-bodied and neurotypical characters aren’t. like it’s more complex than a binary privilege equation; sex and romance are incentivised and stigmatised differently at the intersection of oppressions and. for example. in a world where gay conversion therapy and religious oppression of gay and SGA people is so often focused specifically on celibacy and on punishing the act of sexual attraction, I don’t think it’s a reasonable framing to say that a gay allosexual man has privilege over an aroace man on the basis of his attraction)

so those are like. things I would consider myself to feel actively negative about in online discourse (and again. in online discourse. not in how I relate to asexuality or aromanticism or aspec identities in general but in the framing and approaches people take towards discussing it in a very specific bubble).

but also. um. the main criticism I have of the online discourse culture of asexuality is that there are things I don’t have experience of that I have mentioned, when asked, that I don’t personally understand the meaning of but I don’t need to understand them to appreciate that they’re useful/meaningful to others. things like

the difference between QPRs, asexual romantic relationships and close friendships

how you know the difference between romantic attraction and friendship

the distinction between sexual attraction and a desire to have sex with someone for another reason

and I hope I’ve generally been clear that this is. honest lack of understanding and not condemnation. I personally have a very muddled sense of attraction and often have difficulty identifying the specifics of any of my own emotional needs so like. it’s a closed book for me at the moment, how you would identify the fine distinctions between types of want when I’m still at step 1: identify That You Want Something Of Some Sort, Eventually, Through Trial And Error. but I think I’ve always been explicit that this isn’t a value judgement it’s just a gap in my own knowledge and yet. every single time I’ve said anything other than enthusiastic “yes I understand this and I love it and it’s good and valid” (and again. I have not gone out of my way to talk about it I have mostly only mentioned it because people keep asking me to talk about it) I have got a massive rush of anger and accusations of aphobia and “just shut up if you don’t know what you’re talking about but also answer my 30 questions to prove you think Correct Things about asexuality” and. I understand that this comes from a place of really unpleasant and aggressive backlash towards the ace community so it’s a sensitivity with a lot of people but like. it doesn’t seem proportional.

also I feel like ever since I hit like 700 followers my Tumblr life has been a constant cycle of people asking me Are You An Ace Inclusionist Are You An Exclus Are You An Aphobe Justify Your Opinion On Asexuality which. eventually yeah I’ve got pretty snippy about the whole thing. but you know. fuck it I’m just gonna lay it out and if you or anyone else is uncomfortable following me based on those opinions then I’m sorry to hear that and I will be sad to see you not want to engage with me any more but I also think that’s absolutely your prerogative. however I will not be taking questions at this time (and not just bc my phone’s broken) - demands for an argument about this Are Going To Be Ignored so if you want to go then go.

so like the big question I reckon is Do You Think Asexuality Is Queer and

yes. no. maybe. I don’t understand the question what does it mean for an identity to be queer?

there are spaces and conversations where any form of aromanticism or asexuality makes sense as a relevant identity. talking about hegemonic expectations of normative romance. building community. combatting the idea that heterosexual missionary married sex between a man and a woman is the only rewarding or valuable form of relationship or intimacy.

there are spaces where I think heterosexual aros/heteromantic cis aces don’t. have a more meaningful or direct experience of the issues than allo cishets. because while being aro or ace or aspec has a direct impact on those people on a personal and relational level, disclosure is largely a choice, and the world at large sees them as straight. they don’t have the lived experience of being visibly nonconforming that SGA people and aroace people do. they may still be queer but there’s a lot of conversations where they bring a lot of the baggage of being Straight People (because. even if you’re ace or aro you can still be straight in your romantic or sexual attraction and if your relationships are all outwardly straight then you don’t necessarily have an intimate personal understanding of being marginalised from mainstream society by dint of your sexuality). this doesn’t make you Not Queer in the same way that being a bi person who’s only ever been in m/f relationships is still queer, but in both cases a) you don’t magically have a personal experience of societal oppression through the transitive properties of Being Queer and b) it’s really obnoxious to talk as if you’re The Most Oppressed when other people are trying to have a conversation about their lived experience of societal oppression. and they’re within their rights to say ‘we’re talking about the experience of being marginalised for same gender/non-heterosexual attraction and you’re straight, could you butt out?’)

(I very much object to the assumption coming from a lot of exclus that “cishet ace” is a term that can reasonably be applied to non-orientated aroace people though. het is not a default it really extremely doesn’t make sense to treat people who feel no attraction as Straight By Default. when I were a lad I feel like we mostly understood “asexual” to mean that identity - non-orientated aroace - and while I think it’s obvious that a lot of people do find value in using a more split-model because. well. some people are both gay/straight/bi and aro/ace, and it’s good that language reflects that. but I do think it’s left a gap in the language to simply refer to non-attracted people. this isn’t a criticism of anything in particular - there’s a constant balancing act in language between specificity and adaptability and sometimes a gain for one is a loss for the other)

some queer conversations and spaces just. aren’t built with aces in mind. and that isn’t a flaw. some spaces aren’t built with men in mind, but that doesn’t mean men can’t be queer. some conversations are about Black experiences of queerness but that doesn’t mean non-Black people can’t be queer. not all queer spaces will focus on ace needs but that doesn’t mean asexuality isn’t queer, or that queerness is opposed to aceness - sex, sexuality, romance and dating are all really important things to a lot of queer people, especially those whose sexuality and romantic relationships are often stigmatised or violently suppressed in wider society. there should be gay bars, hookup apps, gay and trans friendly sex education, making out at Pride, leather parades and topless dyke marches and porn made by and for queer people, romantic representation in media of young and old gay, bi and trans couples kissing and snuggling and getting married and saying sloppy romantic things. and there should be non-sexual queer spaces, there should be discussions around queerness that don’t suppose that a monogamous romantic relationship is what everyone’s fighting for, sex ed should be ace inclusive, etc.

I think the whole question of inclusionism vs exclusionism is based on a weird underlying assumption that If An Identity Is Queer All Queer Spaces Should Directly Cater To That. like. aspec identities can be queer and it can be totally reasonable for there to be queer spaces that revolve around being sexual and romantic and there can be conversations it’s not appropriate or productive to centre asexuality and aspec experiences in and we can recognise that not all queer people do prioritise or have any interest in sex or romance. in the same way that there’s value in centring binary trans experiences sometimes and nonbinary experiences at other times but both of those conversations should recognise that neither binary or nonbinary gender identity is a Universal Queer Experience.

anyway that one probably isn’t one of the opinions you were asking about but I have been wanting to find a way to express it for a while so you’re getting it: the Ruth Thedreadvampy Inclusionism Take.

uh. it’s 1:30 on a work night so I have been typing too long. if there was an opinion you were specifically thinking of that I haven’t mentioned, chuck me another ask specifically pointing to what you want me to clarify my thinking on. sometimes I gotta be honest I’ve just been kind of careless in my framing (thinking of the Martin Fucks debacle where I spent ages insisting I didn’t say Martin couldn’t be aroace then read back like two days later and realised that I had said “he’s not aroace” bc I had written the post at 2am without proofreading and had meant to say “unless you think he’s aroace”) so I May Well Not Stand By Some Posts or might Stand By Them With Clarification

28 notes · View notes

gettin-bi-bi-bi · 5 years ago

Note

Hi! I’m having a hard time not feeling like my attraction to women is predatory, especially since i’m mostly sexually attracted to them and not completely sure if I’m able to develop a romantic relationship with one. What can I do?

Being sexually attracted to a fellow adult (or a fellow teen (or adult) if you’re a minor) is not predatory. It is a natural biological response. And it does not need to be accompanied by feelings of romance in order to be justified. It’s not something you can help. What matters are your actions. Staring, ogling and making suggestive faces or gestures are behaviours that can be predatory. Glancing, thinking and fantasising are not. Your thoughts about women are no more predatory than your thoughts about men.

I hope I don’t offend you but I’m going to assume you’re a woman and/or were socialised as a woman because we see many queer women, trans men and nb queer folk in our inbox feeling this way about their attraction to women and I can think of a couple of possible reasons for it, and none of them are because you’re predatory.

Firstly, thanks to heteronormativity, and patriarchy, we all grow up seeing sexual images of women through the male gaze, which is often predatory or objectifying. That could be why you (and others) feel your sexual attraction to women is predatory. But individual sexual attraction is not the male gaze, even if you’re a man. The male gaze is a sociocultural idea suggesting that men see the world through a different lens because of patriarchal socialisation, power and privilege and it (quite rightly) claims that men’s perspective is dominant in our culture. The individual can be influenced by this but that’s not your fault. The fact you feel like your attraction is predatory means that you’re already critically examining the influences of the male gaze on yourself, which means you probably understand gender better than any cishet man already. Sometimes that kind of self-critique is helpful. But I often tell bi people, if self-critique isn’t helping you then forget it. Live your life, let yourself be who you are and don’t worry about the meanings behind your feelings or thoughts. They’re personal and they’re yours. For queer people, I think radical self-acceptance is more important than self-critique because there’s plenty of time for self-critique later, but self-acceptance should be your first priority.

Secondly, it is possible to be sexually attracted to people without feeling romantic feelings for them. It might be a long time before you feel romantic feelings for a woman as well as sexual. Or it may be never. The split attraction model is valid. You could be sexually attracted to women but not romantically attracted to them. Or you could be romantically attracted to a woman in the future, you never know.

Either way, being just sexually attracted to women is natural and valid. But we live in a very sex negative society where sex is seen as this impure, unclean thing that is only acceptable in the context of romantic relationships or procreation. That’s not true. Sex is a natural and enjoyable activity that can be an intimate, social and bonding experience, even without romantic feelings. Yes, even casual sex can be those things. And even if sex is just about a physical release with no other feelings at all, if all parties go into the sex understanding that that’s all it is going to be, then that is fine too. It’s not dirty or animalistic or inherently predatory. Your sexual feelings are normal.

If you’ve been socialised as female, you grow up with a cultural expectation (thanks to heteronormativity) that you will be attracted to men and only men. Therefore, romantic feelings for men may emerge when you’re very young, before sexual feelings. Then, if you’re bi, when sexual feelings for women develop too, that attraction often presents itself in reverse. Sexual feelings first, followed by romantic feelings. In that way it is a different type of attraction and may feel different to you. It may feel wrong that your feelings for women are only sexual, because in your first experience of attraction, your feelings for men developed romantically, first, and sexually, second. So you assume that’s how attraction is supposed to feel. But those early romantic feelings for men were influenced by heteronormativity. That’s one of my theories anyway.

But the explanations and theories for why you might feel like you’re being predatory don’t matter as much as my main point, which is that sexual feelings and urges are not inherently bad, even though society likes to make us think they are. Your personal and individual thoughts and feelings are not predatory. Behaviour can be predatory, thoughts can not. And this applies even if I was way off the mark and you are, in fact, a cisgender man. A lot of what I’ve rambled on about may not be relevant to cis men, but my main point is. Being sexually attracted to and fantasising about having sex with women is not inherently predatory and is no more or less predatory than being sexually attracted to and fantasising about having sex with men.

I hope that helps a little. As for what you should do? Give yourself a break. Let yourself find women sexy without feeling bad. Women are sexy.

Max

14 notes · View notes

abecat · 5 years ago

Photo

One of the many sketches I’ve done this summer, trying to figure out how to teach the figure drawing/character design class online. Of course, these indulgent drawings are just for me, but they help me think about the biopolitics of figure drawing in the current moment (of pandemic, of political unrest, of collective trauma)

First some background: From late modernism onwards, the whole enterprise of academic figure drawing becomes highly suspect. As I understand it, the french academic tradition (that spread through Europe and into the US) established the educational standards of anatomy and naturalistic rendering, with the aim of training artists in the creation of highly emotional images. These images would be used by the state to form cohesive and durable nationalist identities: cheesy neoclassical paintings that drew a connection between France’s III republic to ancient Greece and its idealized concept of democracy. Like Uncle Sam in America’s WWI, these neoclassical mascots have one purpose above all: to rouse the spirit in service of the sovereign (emperor, corporation) for easy manipulation. Now, dear person reading this, you may agree with the project of building a national imagery regardless of how “ahistorical” these pictures may be. But you have give modernist their due: the worst excesses of these canons were embarrassingly in evidence during the Third Reich, with its obsession over "perfect” bodies for a “perfect” race.

So drawing state-sanctioned “perfect” bodies is out of the question, but modernist didn’t really delivered us from sin either. There are just too many examples of asshole “genius” artists who thrived on a predatory relationship to their subjects (Gaugin and Picasso, anyone?) It seems that the emancipatory gesture against the naive bourgeoise taste could not extend to the issues of gender and race inequalities. Postmodern artists, aligned to feminist, queer and anti-colonial projects, thrived on these active biopolitics, engaging them to draw attention to injustice, to deal with false consciousness and internalized opression, and to express long-repressed lust. The question become not whether we should do figure drawing, but who and why should do it. I find the question to be eminently just and interesting, but just as often, paralyzing.

In this context, a class “Figure Drawing/Character Design” may look, from the outside like a puzzling idea. It is like a bad recipe that mixes modernis-postmodernist unresolved issues with total capitulation to market forces. Anime? Cartoons? Caricatures? Stories? And all of it mixed with figure drawing? How can this be insightful?

Figuring the potential for insight in this class, given this context I sketch here, has been my challenge for the last five years. I could simply say that there is a market for it, that students/audiences like it, that gaining skills is pragmatic, that people have been drawing “characters” from prehistory... and just move on feeling justified. But that wont do.

One day I will write something scholarly about this, but here is a sketch of why I think this class has the potential for insight: Character design and figure drawing exist in the context of a complete immersion in capitalist communication technologies. After giving ourselves a moment to mourn the fall fo the Berlin Wall (if that’s your jam,) we must understand that our existence in this soup of capitalist communication technologies has the effect of diluting the membrane that trap us in our bodies. The concept of “Character Design” as something that can be learned and practiced by anyone (the putative project of art education) means that we all have the right toy around with the body. Paradoxically, the fact that we all are here shouting in social media, telling our stories and drawing our traumas, attenuates some of the inequalities that made modernist and postmodernist so anxious. Character Design is a conversational tool, a shared language that a huge mass of “content creators” use to talk about The Other, and by extension, The Self.

To put it clearly, drawing characters reveals a deep longing for The Other - an enormously human need for proximity and validation (just ask Henry Darger). But because, in the “old, real world” The Other is prickly and hurts (and we hurt them), we must negotiate. Like transitional objects, these characters facilitate the exploration of new shared realities, new embodiments.

Here is the secret you should know: every character I draw is me. Is not a portrait of me, is not a realistic or idealized version of me. It is me extending my being into matter, exploring other bodies, and making those explorations have real stakes thanks to erotic, violent or tender psychodynamics. In every choice I make about the design of my characters I detect, after the fact, the longings, traumas and hopes to form my personality. For example: all this skinny catgirls I’ve been drawing since Im 12 (way before I knew what the internet and furry or anime was) are intimatel related to life-long struggle with body dysmorphia. As I draw a crispy ribcage, I can feel the sharp angles as if they were mine, to mention one example.

The figure component of the class comes into play in a very specific way: the ritual of drawing a nude model in person is a perfect illustration of the shared responsibility for reality formation among people. Nude models, who must stay still and never turn their heads around to scan the room, depend on all artists in attendance to hold the world together, to perceive and refigure what the model can’t see. It is a powerfully intimate dynamic in which the model imposes a moral contract. The model says “ you see me naked and I hold you responsible for my well being, as I remain in this vulnerable position, all in service of this ritual that transcends us both.” To bring storytelling and character design into the mix (that is, to bring the vulnerability revealed by design choices, as in the case of my anorexic catgirls), is to up the ante. I’ve seen it in the room: both artist and model disrobe, the model by putting themslves, nude, in the hands of us artists in attendance. The artists by revealing their current negotiation with The Other through their characters.

And now I gotta teach this remotely. The model is not available, and so the stakes feel lower, less challenging. As I was drawing these characters using cheesy nude photos I found on some website, I realized that I missed the sacred contract, the confessional dimension of drawing like this in the figure drawing room. I guess I’m writing all of this precisely because I feel the need to confess.

13 notes · View notes

jonny-versace · 4 years ago

Note

Hey! I kinda stumbled into your post about The Magicians and, as someone who a) is also interested in fandom culture and b) was an active member of The Magicians fandom during its highest (and lowest) points, I thought I'd share some of the context revolving around the shipping controversy.

So, during the first two seasons, the central m/f ship clearly seems like endgame, with no big hints about the main character being anything but straight. Sure, because the protagonist's best friend is a queer man who has a crush on him, and there are the usual queerbaty lines here and there, they were a big ship among the fandom, but nothing more. Until season 3 came along, and had something of a bottle episode, where the two get stranded in the past together and are explicitly in a romantic relationship. After they return, both kinda acknowledge the fact, but The Plot comes knocking. Shippers became more numerous, and some people started speculating that they could be a viable ship, but most of the fandom took it as a nod from the writers and a self-contained story that wouldn't come back.

All the while, the show's social media accounts hyped up this pairing more than any other, and made frequent remarks suggesting more canon recognition. Virtually every week you'd find a tweet, a poster, and so on, that egged people on. And by this point, the showrunners had the audience's trust due to their handling of other topics. There were more POC than usual for TV, the main character's chronic depression was an ongoing struggle, things like addiction and trauma were handled in believable ways. By having a self-described "depressed supernerd", who is comfortable with being bi/ pan, and storylines that catered to a queer neurodivergent audience, during three years they grew and grew in popularity and as a safe space for exactly these groups. I was one of those: I'm a historian, and pretty used to consuming media critically; I wasn't a teenager who's never seen herself represented, but an adult who got used to looking for good representation when I want to find it, or just watching things with no expectations for the fun of it, and at most dissecting the "what ifs". This show stroke me as the former, and became the relaxing and understanding queer space I ran into after a very long week. And there were A LOT of people in a similar situation.

Then came Season 4, and that's when things got tricky. Because you see, for three years they told us this show was clever, and it turned out to actually be; that this was a subversive and complex story being told in an absurdist way, and all that came to fruition. So when, with this season, there was both a flashback confirming that the main character wanted to persue a romantic relationship with his best friend, like in the past, but got turned down, and a very final break up between him and the girl who seemed like endgame for the first seasons, shipping went from "cool but unlikely pairing" to "damn, that's a great subversion of queerbaiting!". And their social media, trailers, released images and so on confirmed that to the audience (the tweet I recall better had the main m/f pairing, with a closed book, and was captioned with something on the lines of "a chapter ends so that another can begin"). The protagonist spent the entire season trying to rescue the guy he'd confessed feelings for. In a moment where they'd have to establish his identity, the frase said by said guy was the same reference used to talk about the bottle episode multiple times before. The nature of their relationship having changed is acknowledged by another character. At the end of the day, it seemed like a clearly confirmed fact.

And that's when the protagonist dies. There's a lot more ugliness around his death and how it was handled by the script, or how the showrunners pat themselves in the back. But it suffices to say that when an audience is mostly composed of "queer depressed supernerds", killing off the person who represented how someone like this could not only survive, but thrive, is more than a little traumatic. And doing so without ever giving the oh-so-central amd hyped up m/m relationship any ending, good or bad, makes it all seem both pointless and mean spirited.

Sorry about the gigantic text; this was such a unique fandom response and situation that I'm still quite fascinated by it (something like the near perfect creation and corruption of a vulnerable community's safe space). I don't know if you care about it, but just in case this interests you as well, now you have a summary.

hi hello! first, thanks for the extremely thoughtful post, it was interesting (I don't explicitly remember what I said in my post but I very much do remember being fascinated by the fall out of what the show did at the time) (I swear I'll finish pick it from S2 one day, though I'll admit I personally found season one a bit of a slog).

I remember reading enough posts from people on here and articles on sites like io9 to agree that what they did re killing off the bipolar I believe? lead and framing it as a noble sacrifice or something was in extremely poor taste, and I sympathise(d) with all the people who could relate to him and their grief coz like you said, even from my outsider perspective it seemed very ugly on the part of the show.

as far as the ship part of the conversation goes, I'm still largely ignorant of that from a first hand experience pov. but generally speaking, for me, I was and still am fascinated by what these (often lower budget, American CW/syfy etc) shows do to kinda stoke or fan fandom expectations/wants vs what fandoms do to themselves to set themselves up for a fall (canon vs fanon basically). in other words, how much a show queerbaits its audience vs how much the audience queerbaits itself, if that makes sense. not at all saying that's what happened in your fandom, again I haven't yet seen enough of the show to form an opinion on the ship aspect, but really just generally with those kind of shows (Supernatural being the big one recently, that Roswell show, even Teen Wolf going way back).

I usually find myself coming to the conclusion that like most things it's not a black and white issue, and that there's a certain amount of "blame" for lack of a better word on both sides. but again that's usually an observation from me as like a satellite to these shows and fandoms, not really valid in many senses, just something that eases the itchy part of my brain that's super intrigued when these fandom dramas explode as they're prone to do.

but no, I deffo do care in a larger sense so thanks so much! I'll deffo save this in case I ever get around to finishing the show for myself

#planetarywho #long post #really thanks for this!#kinda stoked an interest to get back on the show #again s1 was very much not for me but i want to finish almost from an experimental position lol

1 note · View note

mxenigmatic · 4 years ago

Text

2020’s Self Care Books for Trying Times

With Covid-19 a global pandemic that is still lingering in the air, and keeping our connections at a social distance, added how here at NYPL our librarians miss the frequent interactions with our patrons, I was contemplating on ways to keep our reading connected, our souls warm, and our health having its self care. Before google, I’d rely on the plethora of information our branches hold on any challenge in life I’d be facing. Now with a myriad of problems we can tackle, and resources we can all use to improve our lives, I wanted to tackle grounding and elevating ourselves to cope with our surroundings, than advice I can provide on financial, relationship, life goals, etc.

In this blog “2020’s Self Care Books 4 Trying Times” I’ve comprised my 20 favorite titles for the year 2020 on wellness, people’s journeys, and how health experts can help guide us to a calm and vibrant place for our wellbeing. From parenting tips, to self acceptance, coping with a mental health disorder, or even self care rituals, the need for healthy habits is a topic we all can relate and rely on to keep us striving through this winter, and being united through our current unstable climate. We should never be ashamed of our experiences, asking for help, and addressing challenges in our lives to be at peace with our pasts, content with our present, and hopeful about our futures.

What is Self-care, according to very well mind, describes a conscious act one takes in order to promote their own physical, mental, and emotional health. There are many forms self-care may take. It could be ensuring you get enough sleep every night or stepping outside for a few minutes for some fresh air.

What is mindfulness? Mindfulness refers to being in the moment. This means feeling what our bodies feel, letting ourselves think without judging our thoughts, and being aware of our environment. It is about paying attention on purpose to both what is happening inside and outside of you.

ADULT

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey

Topics: Professional Development, Success, Psych Evaluation

One of the most inspiring and impactful books ever written, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has captivated readers for nearly three decades. It has transformed the lives of presidents and CEOs, educators and parents—millions of people of all ages and occupations. Now, this 30th anniversary edition of the timeless classic commemorates the wisdom of the 7 habits with modern additions from Sean Covey. The 7 habits have become famous and are integrated into everyday thinking by millions and millions of people. Why? Because they work!With Sean Covey's added takeaways on how the habits can be used in our modern age, the wisdom of the 7 habits will be refreshed for a new generation of leaders.

Stay Positive: Encouraging Quotes and Messages to Fuel Your Life With Positive Energy by Jon Gordon

Topics: Self Help, Affirmations, Optimism

Stay Positive is more than a phrase. It's an approach to life that says when you get knocked down, you'll get back up and find a way forward one faithful step and optimistic day at a time. Start your day with a message from the book, or pick it up anytime you need a mental boost. You can start from the beginning, or open the book to any page and find a message that speaks to you. The book is a go-to resource for anyone wanting to inject a healthy dose of positivity into their life

$9 Therapy: Semi-Capitalist Solutions to Your Emotional Problems by Megan Reid and Nick Greene

Topics: Life Skills/Hacks, Self Care Rituals, Budgeting

A collection of the authors' favorite life hacks and mini-upgrades, such as craft cocktails on the cheap or tips for a perfectly planned staycation. Sometimes it takes as little as nine dollars to turn your life around. How to find simple pleasures in a pricey, wellness-obsessed world.

You Were Born For This: Astrology for Radical Self-Acceptance by Chani Nicholas

Topics: Astrology, Self Acceptance

A revolutionary empowerment book that uses astrology as a tool for self-discovery, success, and self-care from the beloved astrologer Chani Nicholas, a media darling with a loyal following of one million monthly readers.

TEEN

Teaching Mindfulness to Empower Adolescents by Matthew Brensilver

Topics: Mindfulness, Educational Guides, Learning Disabilities, Reflections

Effectively sharing mindfulness with teenagers depends on distinct skill sets . . . done well, it is incredibly joyous." Matthew Brensilver, JoAnna Hardy and Oren Jay Sofer provide a powerful guide to help teachers master the essential competencies needed to successfully share mindfulness practices with teens and adolescents. Incorporating anecdotes from actual teaching, they blend the latest scientific research with innovative, original techniques for making the practices accessible and interesting to this age group. This text is an indispensable handbook for mindfulness instruction in its own right, and a robust companion volume for teachers using The Mindful Schools Curriculum for Adolescents

The Self-Love Revolution: Radical Body Positivity for Girls of Color by Virgie Tovar

Topics: Self Esteem, Plus Size Positivity, Hygiene

Every day we see body ideals depicted in movies, magazines, and social media. And, all too often, these outdated standards make us feel like we need to change how we look and who we are. The truth is that many teens feel self-conscious about their bodies and being a teen girl of color is hard in unique ways. So, how can you start feeling good about yourself when you're surrounded by these unrealistic, and problematic images of what bodies are "supposed" to look like? This book is an unapologetic guide to help you embrace radical body positivity. You'll identify and challenge mainstream beliefs about beauty and bodies; celebrate what makes you unique and powerful; and build real, lasting body empowerment. You'll also learn how to spot diet culture and smash your noisy inner critic so you can start loving your body. It's time to create your own definition of beautiful and recognize that your body is amazing. It's time for a self-love revolution!

Out!: How To Be Your Authentic Self by Miles McKenna

Topics: Coming Out, Self Acceptance, Family Dynamics

Activist Miles McKenna came out on his YouTube channel in 2017, documenting his transition to help other teens navigate their identities and take charge of their own coming out stories. From that wisdom comes Out!, the ultimate YA guide to the queer lifestyle. Find validation, inspiration, and support for your questions big and small--whether you're exploring your identity or seeking to understand the experience of an awesome queer person in your life."

Dancing at the Pity Party: A Dead Mom Graphic Memoir by Tyler Feder

Topics: Grief Counseling, Coping with terminal illness, Bereavement. Family Estrangement

Tyler Feder shares her story of her mother's first oncology appointment to facing reality as a motherless daughter in this frank and refreshingly funny graphic memoir.

Superpowered: Transform Anxiety Into Courage, Confidence, and Resilience by Renee Jain and Dr. Shefali Tsabary

Topics: Health, Fitness, Selt Esteem.

The perfect tool for children facing new social and emotional challenges in an increasingly disconnected world! This how-to book from two psychology experts—packed with fun graphics and quizzes—will help kids transform stress, worry, and anxiety

Teen Guide to Mental Health by Don Nardo

Topics: Teens, Mental Health, Body Image, Puberty

Todays teens face and are expected to deal with a wide array of personal, social, and other issues involving home-life, school, dating, body image, sexual orientation, major life transitions, and in some cases physical and mental problems, including eating disorders and depression. This volume examines how many teens have learned to cope with and survive these often stressful trials and tribulations of modern youth.

KIDS

Turtle Boy by Evan Wolkenstein

Topics: Social Life, Friends, Relationships, School Stress

Seventh grade is not going well for Will Levine. Kids at school bully him because of his funny-looking chin. His science teacher finds out about the turtles he spent his summer collecting from the marsh behind school an orders him to release them back into the wild. And for his Bar Mitzvah community service project, he has to go to the hospital to visit RJ, an older boy struggling with an incurable disease. Unfortunately, Will hates hospitals. At first, the boys don't get along, but then RJ shares his bucket list with Will. Among the things he wants to do: ride a roller coaster, go to a concert and a school dance, swim in the ocean. To Will, happiness is hanging out in his room, alone, preferably with his turtles. But as RJ's disease worsens, Will realizes he needs to tackle the bucket list on his new friend's behalf before it's too late. It seems like an impossible mission, way outside Will's comfort zone. But as he completes each task with RJ's guidance, Will learns that life is too short to live in a shell.

How To Make A Better World: For Every Kid Who Wants To Make A Difference by Keilly Swift

Topics: Activism, Human Rights, Organizing

If you are a kid with big dreams and a passion for what is right, you're a world-changer in the making. There's a lot that can be changed by just one person, if you know what to do. Start by making yourself into the awesome person you want to be by learning all about self-care and kindness. Using those skills, work your way up to creating activist campaigns to tackle climate change or social injustice. This fun and inspiring guide to making the world a better place and becoming a good citizen is packed with ideas and tips for kids who want to know how to make a difference. From ideas as small as creating a neighborhood lending library to important ideas such as public speaking and how to talk about politics, How to Make a Better World is a practical guide to activism for awesome kids.

All About Anxiety by Carrie Lewis

Anxiety. It's an emotion that rears its head almost every day, from the normal worries and concerns that most of us experience, to outright fear when something scary happens, to the anxiety disorders, that many kids live with daily. But what causes anxiety? And what can we do about it? All About Anxiety tackles these questions from every possible angle. Readers will learn what's going on in their brain and central nervous system when they feel anxious. They'll learn about the evolutionary reasons for fear and anxiety and that anxiety isn't always a bad thing--except for when it is! Most importantly, kids will discover new strategies to manage their anxiety so they can live and thrive with anxiety

Dictionary for a better world: poems, quotes, and anecdotes from A to Z by Irene Latham

Topics: Inspiration, Self Help, Advice

Organized as a dictionary, entries in this book for middle-grade readers present words related to creating a better, more inclusive world. Each word is explored via a poem, a quote from an inspiring person, and a short personal anecdote from one of the co-authors, a prompt for how to translate the word into action, and an illustration".

I feel... meh by DJ Corchin

(E-book)Topics: Health, Fitness, Management

This series helps kids recognize, express, and deal with the roller coaster of emotions they feel every day. It has been celebrated by therapists, psychologists, teachers, and parents as wonderful tools to help children develop self-awareness for their feelings and those of their friends. Sometimes I feel meh and I don't want to play. I don't want to read and I have nothing to say. Sometimes you just feel...meh. You don't really feel like doing anything or talking to anyone. You're not even sure how you're feeling inside. Is that bad? With fun, witty illustrations and simple, straightforward text, I Feel...Meh tackles apathy—recognizing it as a valid emotion, while also offering practical steps to get you out of your emotional slump. It's the perfect way for kids—and adults—who are feeling gray to find some joy again!

Violet Shrink by Christine Baldacchino

Topics: Phobias, Relationships, Social Skills

Violet Shrink doesn't like parties. Or bashes, or gatherings. Lots of people and lots of noise make Violet's tummy ache and her hands sweat. She would much rather spend time on her own, watching the birds in her backyard, reading comics, or listening to music through her purple headphones. The problem is that the whole Shrink family loves parties with loud music and games and dancing. At cousin Char's birthday party, Violet hides under a table and imagines she is a shark gliding effortlessly through the water, looking for food. And at Auntie Marlene and Uncle Leli's anniversary bash, Violet sits alone at the top of the stairs, imagining she is a slithering snake way up in the branches. When Violet learns that the Shrink family reunion is fast approaching, she musters up the courage to have a talk with her dad. In this thoughtful story about understanding and acceptance, Violet's natural introversion and feelings of social anxiety are normalized when she and her father reach a solution together. Christine Baldacchino's warm text demonstrates the role imagination often plays for children dealing with anxiety, and the power of a child expressing their feelings to a parent who is there to listen. Carmen Mok's charming illustrations perfectly capture Violet's emotions and the vibrancy of her imagination. A valuable contribution to books addressing mental health."-- Provided by publisher.

Check out this link to a presentation by NYPL’s Children’s Librarians, Sarah West and Justine Toussaint on Mindfulness/Social-Emotional Self-Esteem Picture Book Spotlight. Featuring popular book titles in our database of the past few years promoting kids well beings!

Pre-2020 Books

Aphorism by Franz Kafka

Topics: Life Quotes, Recovery, Future Planning

For the first time, a single volume that collects all of the aphorisms penned by this universally acclaimed twentieth-century literary figure. Kafka twice wrote aphorisms in his lifetime. The first effort was a series of 109, known as the Zurau Aphorisms, which were written between September 1917 and April 1918, and originally published posthumously by his friend, Max Brod, in 1931. These aphorisms reflect on metaphysical and theological issues--as well as the occasional dog. The second sequence of aphorisms, numbering 41, appears in Kafka's 1920 diary dating from January 6 to February 29. It is in these aphorisms, whose subject is "He," where Kafka distills the unexpected nature of experience as one shaped by exigency and possibility."

This Book Loves You by PewDiePie

Topics: Life Skills, Inspiration, Food 4 Thought

A popular blogger shares humorous pieces of advice and positivity, including "Never forget you are beautiful compared to a fish" and "Every day is a new fresh start to stay in bed."

The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck: A Counterintuitive Approach To Living A Good Life by Mark Manson

Topic: Self Help, Happiness, Motivation

In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger shows us that the key to being happier is to stop trying to be 'positive' all the time and instead become better at handling adversity. For decades we've been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. But those days are over. 'Fuck positivity, ' Mark Manson says. 'Let's be honest; sometimes things are fucked up and we have to live with it.' For the past few years, Manson--via his wildly popular blog--has been working on correcting our delusional expectations for ourselves and for the world. He now brings his hard-fought wisdom to this groundbreaking book. Manson makes the argument--backed both by academic research and well-timed poop jokes--that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to better stomach lemons. Human beings are flawed and limited--as he writes, 'Not everybody can be extraordinary, there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault.' Manson advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them. This, he says, is the real source of empowerment. Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties--once we stop running from and avoiding, and start confronting painful truths--we can begin to find the courage and confidence we desperately seek. 'In life, we have a limited amount of fucks to give. So you must choose your fucks wisely.' Manson brings a much-needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders moment of real-talk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor. This manifesto is a refreshing slap in the face for all of us so we can start to lead more contented, grounded lives."

Zen Pencils: Cartoon Quotes From Inspirational Folks by Gavin Aung Than

Topics: Writing Development, Expression, Quotes

Gavin Aung Than, an Australian graphic designer turned cartoonist, started the weekly Zen Pencils blog in February 2012. He describes his motivation for launching Zen Pencils: I was working in the boring corporate graphic design industry for eight years before finally quitting at the end of 2011 to pursue my passion for illustration and cartooning. At my old job, when my boss wasn't looking, I would waste time reading Wikipedia pages, main biographies about people whose lives were a lot more interesting than mine. Their stories and quotes eventually inspired me to leave my job to focus on what I really wanted to do. The idea of taking these inspiring quotes, combining them with my love of drawing, and sharing them with others led to the creation of Zen Pencils.

By: @Mx.Enigma

She/They/Queen

#new blog #booksarelife #self care #library #nyc #nonbinary #nypl #life hacks

2 notes · View notes

saltyaro · 6 years ago

Text

[Image description: The cover of the 5th book of Aromantic (love) Story. It features a drawn woman in a red tank top, a white skirt that hides her heels, and red high heels shoes. She has her hands on her hips and looks confident.]

You know what I forgot to do? That review on the 5th and last tome of aromantic (love) story. For those who weren’t aware yet, I’m not going to keep the suspense going on any longer: yes, it is safe, no, the heroine doesn’t end up as a straight woman. That’s already a victory in itself, so now all of you can go ahead and buy it if it’s available in your country ;)

The actual review is under the read more, it’s not spoiler free so!

So, Futaba (the main character) tried dating to see if she’s able to develop romance, or not. The person she chose to do so with of course knows about it, and they’re actually both trying it to see if they can understand romance. Futaba still can’t imagine romantic attraction outside of sexual attraction, which frustrates her, because she *knows* allo aces are a thing so obviously, sexual desire isn’t necessarily linked! The viewpoint of her (straight dude) partner-in-crime is...well, not surprising at all, actually. His opinion is that romantic feelings are born of, on one hand, wanting the other person’s happiness, while also wanting to possess them and keep them all to yourself.

This is, well. A very Straight Man™ way of seeing things, but, on the other hand, this point of view isn’t limited to them. (I promise, I’m not going to ramble about how it’s scary that society puts such a violent feeling as the most beautiful and important. Not on this post at least)

Fun note, at least for me, you have the classical “guy is sick, girl brings him medicine” except...Futaba gives him the medicine and just. Leaves. I love her. Well, she ends up going to his apartment, but that’s where her being aro really stands out. Usually, in a basic romcom, everyone’s flushed, and it’s annoying. But Futaba is aro, so she isn’t embarrassed, she just sees someone she cares about being sick and wants to help. She’s very natural and stoic about the whole situation. It may seem like a detail, but honestly I find that so important!

She explains that, when she was a teenager, she avoided men as much as possible (to avoid romance) and I relate. So fucking much. I don’t know if any of you did the same, but with my parents bugging me about boys, I just avoided them as much as possible (with a few exceptions). I didn’t feel unsafe around men yet back then, so I know that’s not what it was.

She explains she was afraid of creating misunderstandings, and ended up not using the world “love” at all because of that. I relate to that so much too, I’m trying to heal from that, and I think it’s important, really important, for us as a community, to learn to separate love from romance. Anyway, this kind of struggle that just...hinders your vocabulary options is really a shame, and I’m glad to see a character mention it (and not be shamed for it!).

Are you ready for some Hetero Bashing™? Because Futaba reunites with her friends and they talk a bit. The Straight dude (Kyosuke) asked Futaba to think about marrying him, and she’s a bit “huuuuuh” so she talks about it to her friends. Friend 1 is like “well, you don’t need to be *in romance* to get married. I have friends, a straight dude and a lesbian, who got married by necessity” and Futaba expresses that she never thought such a thing would happen to her, she never thought of marriage being an option for her. Friend 2 they says that it’s the contrary for her, impossible to avoid the idea of marriage and children, despite not wanting either, because it’s been so ingrained in her head. “you know, the “to perpetuate the specie” argument, like having descendance is every human’s mission...”

And the friend 1 says “ah...the perfect exemple of a notion made by straight people to validate their point of view!” and I love that?? I mean, in general, even in the larger queer community, we’re dancing around the argument, finding proof that there are non-straight animals in all species, and all. She then adds “If reproductions is *that* important...then rich single people could have a ton of kids using articifial fertilization and bingo, they’d have contributed to society’s well-being!” Friend 2 is like “uuuuh, that would raise ethical issues” to what friend 2 answers: “Personally, I kinda reaaally don’t care for lessons of morality from a society that considers sexual minorities and childfree people as useless. If we consider that humanity will necessarily go extinct one day, then mating to reproduce is nothing but a useless cycle”. I really like that take which’s why I *had* to share it despite it being so long to read haha.

Futaba is surprised by her words, so friend 2 explains that friend 1 is worried that a straight guy is going to steal Futaba from them, and she doesn’t want to be abandoned. Friend 1 is bi but that’s a very aro sentiment here tbh.

(Straight bashing, over)

You have the usual meeting with the family...god, how realistic is that, you see your aunt and uncle you haven’t seen in maybe years and the only thing they’re interested in, is whether or not you’ve found a romantic partner. I swear, I got annoyed for the character cause it’s so true. She’s bothered (and I am too) by her grandma’s affirmation that everyones gets married someday. I hate that, it really, really annoys me that I supposedly can’t be free to make my own decisions! But she also knows that it would be useless to explain to her grandma that her words are paternalism, so she lets her be. Because she means well, and maybe that’s the worst thing about amatonormativity and its assumptions...that the people upholding those mean well.

The manga also touches (rapidly) on Futaba feeling of guilt for not being sincere with her family. Her parents aren’t pressuring her to get married, but she knows that seeing their only child, still single, and over 30, is sure to make them worried (especially given she’s not exactly wealthy). I can’t express how much I love seeing a character like that, she knows what she wants, but there’s still this lingering feeling that keeps you from feeling totally at ease, regardless of how much confidence you’ve got. It’s only natural and nothing to be ashamed of.

I think one of my favourite moments of this book - maybe of all the serie? is after Kyosuke’s friends remotivates Futaba by, basically, telling her to do what she always did, fight out of spite, even if that means to accept to sometimes take hits (this happens throught the phone). Kyosuke says to his friend, that he would never have neeb able to say such things to him, and his friend answers that love blinds him, and prevents him from seeing what she really needs. To that, Kyosuke doesn’t answer, and his friend understands immediately and says “That look...maybe you actually nurture this self-deception.”

And I love this moment because, for Futaba to be happy, she needs to be single, and free. From him, and his expectations of romance, because even though he knows, rationally speaking, that she won’t ever feel the same, he still wants her, and still wants to be the one at her side - when no one should be. Not in a partnership way anyway. He’s actually choosing to ignore the rational part of him because he still hopes for her to make the difficult choice, and stay at his side, because it’s not really that he wants her to be happy but rather, that he wants to be the one to make her happy, which is of course, extremely selfish and possessive. I love that it’s just laid here, without ambiguity. What’s great also, is that the straight dude in romo realizes what he’s doing, even if he tries to ignore that. Later in the manga, Kyosuke thinks to himself that he couldn’t help but hope that she would concecede, yield, and accept him, despite knowing that’s not what she needs, and knowing that’s not the way you build a positive relationship. I...don’t know if alloro usually know they’re doing such things? I don’t know what’s worse, to be confident you’re not doing that shit when you’re doing it, or to keep on doing it even though you’re aware.

On a sidenote, I really, really like that she got boosted by the least expected person? They don’t like each other, they’re more or less at each other’s throat most of the time cause he’s sexist and unsentitive, but in the end, he was touched by the anger in the beginnings of her work, and it built a sort of...professional trust between the two of them. Like, those characters won’t ever be friends, but there’s still that little place of trust between them, it’s a delicate portrayal of ambiguous relationships.

Basically, what ends the manga, if the end of Futaba’s own manga (the romantic comedy). And I really like the outlook she has on it, at the end of her 2 years and a half of work. Even though she didn’t want to write such a thing, in the end, she met a lot of people thanks to it, and, through challenging her own vision of relationships and romance, she finally managed to complete her certitude in herself and who she is. I think that’s a lovely parallel.

It also ends her questions, and she rejects Kyosuke (I usually can’t help but laugh when a Straight man gets rejected in fiction I’m an asshole I know). Their conversation is really lovely after that, and challenged the expectations of partnership. Kyosuke asks her if she would have accepted his proposal if, like one year ago, he didn’t feel anything towards her. And her answer is no. She did think about it, imagining their marriage as a fake straight couple, and how she knew that, while it would have asked concessions and sacrifices from both of them, they could have been happy. But what she needs isn’t some stability based on renunciations, but ton confront reality, so she can live in agreement with herself.

Also, the moment after her choice, loneliness and worry strike her, and she acknowledges that feeling, because it’s okay, it doesn’t mean she made the wrong choice. It will pass.

The younger guy who’s also in romance with her, interestingly enough, resolves the situation in a very mature way. He asks her if she’s found her answer, when they’re about to part ways (he’s no longer her assistant), and she says that, yes, she doesn’t feel romance - and he thanks her, for having endured his weirdness all this time, and bids her farewell. And we then have his thoughts - while his decisions, to act that way, was difficult for him, he did so because it was the right thing to do and he realized that insisting would have bothered her. That was nice. The situation is weird for Futaba too, because, as his senior, she kinda felt responsible for him, protective maybe? And she’s a bit overwhelmed by how much this kid’s grown.

There’s an epilogue of sorts, and we can see that Futaba decided to entirely live while being true to herself, which also means making some changes.

To conclude: I really liked this serie! It’s nice to see a woman over 30, finally embracing herself - despite having gone through doubts, even at her age - after making sure she was right about her feelings. She’s, well, asexual I think, but it’s the aro part that matters to her, and really has an influence on her life, the ace part is more of an afterthought. It’s also nice to see a nonamorous aromantic woman! Aro women are already hard to grasp in our amatonormative and migogynistic society, so a nonamorous one probably even more so.

It was overall a really nice experience, I’m not going to say everything was perfect, and her aromanticism is the topic of the story, but Futaba is also her own person and this is never downplayed in favour of talking about her identity. Definitely something too rare and, as such, very enjoyable.

#my post #Aromantic (Love) Story #Aro representation

361 notes · View notes

worms-wav · 5 years ago

Text

Inhabiting The Body

I began this essay wanting to write a structured, academic piece about the body as a home. Habitat. But the more I searched, the more I realised academia is not the framework within which I can best unpack and understand my (or anyone’s) relationship to the body. I grew up being told that Western forms of knowing were the only ones that were correct. You cannot write an essay without citing sources. It is not enough to just know something, or to inherit knowledge passed down in whispers. Real knowledge is double-spaced, Times New Roman, and cold. This is not to say that I don’t think that kind of research and knowledge is valid. I think there are certainly situations where I want to understand something through the lens of academia, through other people’s research, through a bright, naked paper trail.

But trying to write this essay has taught me that that can’t be the only kind of essay I try to write when I want to understand. Which has been a difficult thing to unlearn, especially when the body has always felt like a site of public discourse. Even more so when the body is femme, grew up as a cis girl, of mixed heritage. Less so because the body is able-bodied, light-skinned, Chinese-passing, and cis-passing. The body -- and I say ‘the’ body instead of ‘my’ body because in analysing it, it rarely feels like my own -- is a crazed intersection of privileges, learned behaviours, unlearned truths and internalised value systems. Who owns the body? Who has a right to the body? When do these people have a right to the body? What is the body in the context of the self? What is the body in the context of society? What is the body in the context of other bodies? These are questions that, perhaps, can be trudged through in Scopus and JSTOR, but are really, honestly, best understood through turning inwards, thinking, and speaking quietly to the people who don’t necessarily wish to filter their experiences through the pipes of academia. Western academia feeds into the myth that the mind thinks, and the body follows. The genesis of an idea can never be in the doing -- it is in the conceptualising, the theorising, the thinking. So when we think about the body, we think of it as primal and lesser and full of instincts we must evaluate before following.

And even as I write this, I know that this essay is not exactly the anarchist anti-academia piece it wishes it was. Perhaps I am Southeast Asian, but I have been so colonised that my regional awareness is clinical, not cultural. I come from Singapore, which has been dubbed ‘the imperialist of Southeast Asia’ because of how passionately we suck the empire’s cock and try to distinguish ourselves from the rest of Southeast Asia. Last year, we celebrated the ‘Singapore Bicentennial’. What is that? It was a nationwide commemoration marking the 200th anniversary of Stamford Raffles’ arrival in Singapore. Raffles was the British son of a slave trader, whose arrival on our shores marked the beginning of our colonisation. So when I speak about the body outside an academic understanding of it, as much as I want it to be an ode to local, indigenous ways of understanding the body, I know it never will be.

So here is the first marker of my body: colonised, but also, coloniser. Literate, in someone else’s tongue. Literate in someone else’s tongue that, for most of my growing-up years, was indistinguishable from my own.

This essay is self-serving. It’s not meant to be a great essay. There are millions of great essays out there by much more qualified people than I. All I want through this essay is a space in which my thoughts and feelings can visibly exist. I speak about my own body and my own feelings, and I understand that academia does not always enjoy these things. We are meant to be rational and disconnected, a voice displaced from personality. But again, perhaps academia is not the entity that needs to read this, and perhaps there is merit in writing about my own experiences and those of the people around me. If art is about externalising the internal, then here is my contribution.

The genesis of this project lay in my own tangled relationship with my body. I used to believe it was normal to be unable to perceive my body accurately -- after all, we drown in images of other people’s bodies on the daily, and we’re constantly told what our body should and shouldn’t look like. It was unsurprising to eleven-year-old me that the sight of my body in mirrors and photographs repulsed me. But the nonchalance turned to concern when the repulsion morphed into vivid hallucinations, also often centred on my body. They ranged from the mild (the body grows old, then it is a man, then it is my father) to the terrible (the skin on the body melts off flesh, exposing neon maggots within).

I wish I could package that discomfort neatly within my relationship with my gender. I wish I could make a broad, sweeping statement like, “once I acknowledged I was non-binary, the hallucinations stopped, and I felt more connected to my body” but this is wholly untrue. I’m sure, deep down, there is some connection between my gender trouble and my disconcerting grip on reality, but on the surface at least, the only thing they have in common is my body. And so this is where we begin - at the body. At my colonised, coloniser, dissociating, disconnected, immaterial, tangible, hallucinogenic, Queer body.

I think most of us begin to conceptualise the body as a space long before we find the words for it. We explore our bodies, trace topography, memorise shortcuts, collapse geography, navigate terrain. We know what goes where, what feels good, what hurts, what is part of our body and what is outside it. We create a distinction between our own bodies and other people’s bodies. Just as geography is not simply a matter of cartographic divisions, the borders between bodies are not simply physical. Our bodies and what they mean, where they are, bleed into each other in meaning and solidarity and sex and pain. How do we group some bodies together, decide the societal value of bodies based on similarities and differences? A friend named Ants points out that the body is not truly separate from the world around us - we are a microcosm of organisms and other things, the “edges” that cut us off from the air around us do not truly exist. Art teachers tell you to look at the world and recognise there are no lines -- this is true on a bodily level as well. This friend points out, ‘the notion of a “home” relies on the ability to invite in and to refuse entry - but actually wow humans are more permeable than we like to admit.’

This permeability goes beyond the physical entanglement of us and our surroundings. We are not the only ones residing in our bodies - we share the room with a thousand other people’s opinions of us, some more dangerous than others. Some bodies, the system has decided, do not belong to themselves. There is a lot to be said about the colonisation of the bodies of Black and Indigenous People of Colour (BIPOC) by the violence of white systems of power within which much of the world operates. There is also a lot to be said about the gentrification of our bodies to fit in, the policing of femme bodies by a patriarchal system, the cheapening and exploitation of some bodies, and the way some bodies must mortgage themselves to imposed power structures in order to survive.

If the body is a space, then capitalism wants to cut us all up into little bitty pieces and make sure each of our components is most efficiently and clinically used. And, as dystopic as this idea is, it has already been achieved. We all labour under capitalism, our bodies are broken and exploited (again, some more than others. Some much more than others.), and we all go to sleep only to wake up to do it again. When the world is constructed such that nothing belongs to you without capital, the body feels like precious real estate (or, conversely - the body feels incredibly fucking distant). We want agency over it, we want control over it, we want it back. We want to feel comfortable in our skin, so we pay a premium to make sure our physical, spiritual and emotional selves line up with the identity we have created for ourselves in our minds. We find ways to slide ourselves into our bodies, we look for things like connection and authenticity. We want our bodies to feel like home. And yet, the language we are given to talk about habitation of body, of space, corner us to think about our agency in very specific terms.

When we think about habitation, we think about the home. ‘Where do you live?’ is the same question as ‘where is your home?’ or, more transparently, ‘where is your house?’ Although the concept of home is arguably intangible, we find ways to ground it in a very material context. Linguistically, we position ‘home’ through idioms like ‘home is where the heart is’, ‘a man’s home is his castle’, ‘home ground’... The English language has developed a very extensive range of phrases that link ‘home’ to a sense of permanence, ownership and identity. This conceptual positioning of the home is mirrored in very tangible ways. We want to buy a house, not rent one. We have landlords who own our houses but do not live in them. We deliberately build walls, doors and locks to demarcate ‘our’ space. And ‘our’ space is defined mostly by the fact that it is not anybody else’s.

We think of habitation in terms of property. It is not really surprising that England declared the legal definition of property in the 17th century, around the same time the colonial empire was established. Theorists like John Locke tried to naturalise the concept of ownership -- in the process, also cementing who was viewed as a person and who was not. Property is an inherently racist, sexist and problematic idea. And yet, we don’t view home ownership as the selfish offspring of imperialism (see: mass deaths and poverty). The home, by all means, is a warm, comforting concept. The home is where the heart is! The home is where we take off our bras, put on a stained shirt and dance arrhythmically to Diana Ross. It is a safe space, where we unfurl, exist without fear of being watched, exist without concern about acing the performance. The home is apolitical - you don’t have to have the right opinion when you are at home. You can just be.

Before thinkers like Proudhon, Marx, Lenin and Mao called for the abolition of private property, there were indigenous peoples who viewed the land as sacred, as living, as relatives and ancestors, who continue to view the land in this way. We do not own the land - we exist alongside it. In many ways, we owe our existence to it. In 2017, New Zealand’s Whanganui Maori iwi won a 140-year-long legal battle to give their ancestral Whanganui river the same legal rights as human beings. India’s Uttarakhand high court cited this case when it ruled that the Ganges River and the Yamuna River have the legal statuses of people. I’m going off on a tangent. The point is that before we dive into thinking that abolishing private property is a radical new thought, it is important we remember it is the age-old thought of the voices we have drowned out.

The relationships between land and humanity, between property and agency, between capitalism and the individual, are complex and political. So when I speak about the body as a site of habitation, there are thousands of unavoidable histories inherent. When I refer to the body as a home, that claim does not exist in a vacuum of happy thoughts and first-world identity crises. Bodies and land are both sites of violence and ownership - historically, they have been, and presently, they continue to be. I move away from describing the body as a ‘home’ because of the way I’ve unpacked it in this essay - but I also want to be clear that I am not trying to police the language we use to discuss our bodies, our relationship to the land, the spaces between us.

In my work, I spoke of the body as a habitat. A space, landmark, geographical love letter. The home is not a habitat, and vice versa. While ‘home’ conjures images of place and ownership, ‘habitat’ alludes to something more natural, more accidental. The space we end up in because it is best for us. The space that feeds us, shelters us and places us within a larger ecosystem of which we are an essential part. When I ask ‘how do we inhabit the body?’ I am not asking ‘how do we make the body a home?’ because the home has already been made for us. It is a question, then, not of altering the body to a point of marketability, but of peeling it back and returning to the state that feels the most comfortable.

So what does it mean to inhabit the body? What does it mean for Queer people whose bodies often feel inherently hostile? How do you slide into a body that, for one, does not feel like the body you want to slide into, and for another, does not feel like it belongs to you? How do you exist as a transgender and/or non-binary person whose body doesn’t feel like the habitat it is naturally supposed to be?

At this point in the essay, I got stuck. I messaged a friend saying, ‘I forgot what my point was.’ And was promptly reminded that I started this essay to de-intellectualise the relationship I have with my body. To feel my way through the words, rub out this idea that I have to have sources and academic knowledge to discuss my primary site of existence. If that was the point of this essay, then you and I both know I have failed. I’ve intellectualised the hell out of the body. And I realise a lot of us Queer people do this - we see the body as distant, so it is much easier to evaluate it without engaging directly with the sense of loss that comes with putting ourselves inside our bodies (not to mention the fact that most of us are rarely, if at all, inside our bodies). But perhaps this, too, is a Western approach to Queerness. I think of the thousands of indigenous cultures that treated Queerness as the norm until their land was colonised and their beliefs stamped out to make way for Western laws. Singapore’s ‘main’ ethnic groups and our indigenous peoples all have long histories of non-binary genders: from the five genders of the Bugis people to the gay Hainanese sex workers to the Malay sida-sida. Was gender ever supposed to be this complicated? Or are the complications a Western import? You can understand my rage with Western LGBTQIA+ activists who view Southeast Asian countries as ‘behind’. ‘Behind’ is a flaccid word coming from those who tread on us until we could no longer walk forward.

And yet, ‘behind’ is such an important position to us -- in Singapore, we want to be ahead. Myself, in my body, wants to be better, as if better is an absolute point that can be reached if I just do the right things, am the right type of person. ‘Better’ is a weird thing to want for a body that does not really feel like it belongs to you. Early in the morning, my mama chides me: ‘you’ll never know what it’s like to fight until you have your own children.’ and I think about the life that I fight to live and I wonder if that’s not real fighting because the body I am fighting for is so far removed from my soul, the soul that is trying its best to inhabit it. And again, what does it mean to try our best to inhabit a body? At what point have we succeeded in being?

This essay is maybe useless academically, but it is useful spiritually. Writing this piece has felt like detangling a very long clump of hair in a drain, spreading them out on wet tile bathed in sunlight and watching them dry til they curl back in on themselves. I am no longer interested in coherence. I am interested in this dissonance, the words I say versus the words I learned, the land I walk on versus the land taken away from me versus the land that was never really mine to begin with. The body as its own agent but so bounded by words and language and bullshit that I have to write an entire essay just to arrive at the point of: oh. Perhaps it is okay for all these feelings to be messy, to be just loosely strung together. Perhaps it is okay that the only thing that they have in common, is my body.

10 notes · View notes

applesdrowned-a · 5 years ago

Photo

PRIDE EDITION !

as promised here are some pride headcanons . the questions are from an image i found ( revised for rp purposes ) , feel free to use for your own hcs !

1. what is your muses sexuality ? : chad is a homoromantic demi-homosexual !

2. what gender does your muse identify as ? : cismale.

3. how long have they been aware of their sexuality and or gender ? : chad knew he was gay pretty much his entire life. he never had to think about it. he just knew "yeah i like boys" and that was that. he got kicked out of private school at age 10 for hospitalizing one of his bullies who called him a gay slur

4. do they have any preferences ? : not sure what this is asking, i assume it means gender preference ? but since my muse is gay it doesn't apply.

5. share a positive memory of your muse coming out : chad came out to his brother and sister when he was ten. his parents found out chad was being called gay slurs at school after he hospitalized his bully. it was only fair he told his siblings. his sister took a while to wrap her head around the concept being younger, but she just wanted chad happy. his older brother was also extremely accepting of his brothers sexual identity. chad became even closer to his siblings that day.

6. how do they feel about pride month ? : chad loves pride month and is super obnoxious about celebrating it. he suppressed his sexuality throughout high school to avoid ridicule so like once he got away from that and felt more comfortable in his own skin. he is not shy about letting people know he is very happy to be gay.

7. do they participate in pride related events / any other events ? : my boy loves pride events. he went to his first pride parade in los angeles in university with his third boyfriend ( they were friends still at the time ) luca russo. chad wore the flag face paint and carried his little flag around. he was in awe of the festivities. he never had the guts to go to a parade before alone.

since then chad has attended pride every year. even if he was single at the time. he does not miss a chance to embrace his identity.

8. how does your muse feel about lgbtq+ roles in media ? : seeing his community represented in media is very important to chad. as long as its done respectfully he is always happy to see queer folk in tv and movies. and like pretty much every person in the community, he hates queer baiting with a passion. the second he sniffs it chad will stop watching the program. he can tell the difference between that and slow burn.

9. do they feel pride in who they are ? : chad struggled with his sexuality for a long time in fear of facing ridicule. it wasn't until he finally left home did he really embrace who he was. there was no reason to hide it anymore. in his adult life chad very much has pride for his sexuality and his community.

hes heard stories from people in the past who wish they were different if only to stop the abuse. but chad has never wanted to be anyone else then the gay man he is. if given the chance he will provide a confidence booster in this regard. born this way by lady gaga is a huge inspiration for him. ( yes i know it came out after he canonly died but on this blog we say fuck canon ) but lets clear the room, well chad is not insecure about his sexuality, he is overall stupidly insecure otherwise.

10. who has been your muses supportive idol in their self discovery ? : as chad didn't really have to struggle with finding his sexuality he never found reason to admire anyone. he does however look up to anyone who is comfortable with their identity and or a positive influence for the lgbtq+ community.

11. who was your muses first crush ? : chad was twelve when he started crushing on a boy in his history class. it wasn't anything more then wanting to hold his hand and sit next to him and smile. it was a fleeting fancy that chad got over in a short time. chad would often get soft feelings inside his chest for boys that would even simply smile at him. but he once again would always suppress his desire for boys, never allowing himself to actually ask one out.

12. what advice does your muse have for lgbtq+ teens ? : if chad could go back and do it all again, he likely wouldn't have repressed himself. he would tell any teen in the community to never be afraid of who they are, if people didn't accept them then fuck those people. you are born who you are, and the real ones will love you for it.

13. has your muse come out to friends and family ? : yes he has. his parents and siblings know. ( see five ) chad never had friends really so there was no need to come out. most people who meet him in his college life onward, could just tell he was gay.

14. how does your muse feel about the phrase "coming out" ? : chad sees this as letting your colours show. before you were kinda black & white like everyone else, the same, uniform. but then you let your colours come out & were seen as different.

15. do they believe there is a closet to come out of ? : yes. the closet in his opinion is something you hide in until you feel safe to emerge. like if someone broke into your house, you hide until the danger has past. for some the danger might never pass, but if they stay in the closet forever they won’t have a chance to really live. sure they be alive but you won’t be living your life. being in the closet is safest, but its not really living.

16. what's your muses biggest pet peeve when it comes to lgbtq+ characterization in media ? : harmful stereotypes. mostly because as a gay man chad can attest to certain things being common, and he knows he doesn't fit into a lot of those commonalities. particularly where sex is concerned. so it makes him a wee bit insecure.

17. what's their favourite part when it comes to lgbtq+ characterization in media ? : finding someone he can relate too. he likes when gay men are portrayed for more reason then to be a token gay character. he likes a story with an actual backbone. something real.

18. do they practice safe sex with the same gender ? : yes and no. he is very adamant about both parties being safe and comfortable but chad for most of his sexual career was a sub/bottom. he took it rather than gave it. his first boyfriend didn't like condoms, and chad being naive and fearful of him didn't ask him to wear one. the fact his boyfriend was uncovered was not what was making him the most uncomfortable so it wasn't really on his mind.

his following sexual relationship with boyfriend three fell into a similar pattern. chad didn't give he took, and when he gave there was no coverage. since they were exclusive neither saw a need for protection. chad didn't see an issue with it.

boyfriend four insisted on wearing one most of the time, but since chad never penetrated him he never had to wear one.

patrick didn't give a fuck, a reason why chad insisted patrick wear a condom in the beginning of halloween part 1 cause he was worried about disease. in fact i hc they were unprotected until chad suspected cheating and got his boyfriend to cover up. although pat never asked chad too.

tldr; chad has little experience with protective sex but will always want to make things as safe as possible for his partner. so boy will wear the condom if asked.

19. what are their turn offs with the same gender ? what are their turn ons : turn ons are older men of authority. chad is very dominant in personality, but also has an extreme submissive side that can come out with the right partner. this part that longs to be taken care of is what attracts him to men in control. he also likes a man who knows what he wants, and has some culture behind him. ( talk dirty to him in another language and he will melt ) oh and praise is another huge turn on, he loves validation

turn offs are pain. he doesn't like it. anything hardcore BDSM will have him running for the hills. no S&M. and anything demeaning, don't call him slut, whore etc. it makes him uncomfy. in terms of actual personality traits from men, anyone that acts like his first boyfriend ( leather biker, hot shot type ) will have him nopping out.

20. how does your muse feel about lgbtq+ clubs/apps/websites ? : this is a grey area for him as he is certainly in support of gay web content, its how its used that effects him. like, his experience with connecting with the community in any kind is limited to a general kink website which his boyfriend used to chest on him. so his feelings around that are a little uncomfortable.

21. how do they feel about the term "queer" ? : chad has no issues with this word. he doesn't have anything deeper to say about it, other than it sounds close to queen in his opinion and he wears that label proud.

22. what tips would they give to heterosexual/cisgendered people looking to better understand the community and news surrounding it ? : chad would tell them to be open minded and not look at it with bias. forget about the hetronormative society you live in and just be open to another view.

23. whats the most annoying question your muse has ever gotten for being lgbtq+ ? : the most annoying question chad gets is when people ask who is the woman in the relationship. it really grinds his gears as something like that implies either he or his partner isn't a real man. it also makes him insecure as he is neither a masculine or effeminate gay. hes kinda of in between and it really rubs people the wrong way sometimes. because they expect him to act a certain way.

he acts gay, but hes more gay, and less gay depending on what people are seeing. so when people ask him if hes the man or the woman it brings out his rage over the fact that thats a homophobic af comment, and also his dilemma on what type of gay he is.

24. how do they feel about receiving questions about their sexuality and or gender ? : chad is overall not a super friendly person. i mean he can be, but his second language is bitch so be careful lol. so it really depends on who is asking and what they are asking. if a stranger is asking dumb shit he won't be inclined to give more than a "fuck off" but if someone he knows has some curiosities he wouldn't mind, depending on how invasive it is.

#🍏 * / everything is blue his pills his hands his jeans / headcanon

3 notes · View notes

melodrawmah · 5 years ago

Text

I’ve noticed I’ve been seeing on my timeline a lot of posts from Black men about how they want to be treated by Black women. How they feel they’re always under attack (ex :” niggas ain’t shit” rhetoric). How they can’t be vulnerable; especially amongst Black women. This is all valid. However, I never see these men taking accountability regarding the fact that Black men can be honestly the biggest discriminators towards Black women. How Black men and women are just NOT equal.

Now, read carefully because I didn’t say ALL Black men, but there’s a history of this relationship between Black men and women that justify why Black men need to stop seeing themselves as equals to Black women and invalidating how some Black men treat us, as well as the privilege you have over us.

In a racial group, you will always have people who have more privileges than others. For instance, a Black straight person has privilege over a Black queer person. A Black cisgender person has privilege over a Black transgender &/ or non- binary person. A Black able- body person has privilege over a Black disabled person. A Black light and/ or mixed has privilege over a Black dark skinned and /or “fully” Black person.

And YES Black men have privilege over Black women! We aren’t equal. I didn’t even use examples regarding intersectionality beyond race and one other factor to show that Black people don’t have monolithic experiences. There’s layers to this.

But , the reality is Black men need to listen to Black women as well and understand why we say and do certain things that may feel like an attack. I’m not going lie and act like they’re not some situations where Black men have it harder. Y’all are more likely to be racially profiled by cops, arrested, accused of crimes, for instance. Y’all are expected to have or show no emotion, which results in bad habits to cope with your mental health. In the worst case scenario, it explains high suicide rates amongst Black men. Black women are the most educated in America, while Black men significantly aren’t .

However, the thing is they’re are plenty of Black women who support Black men, but not necessarily the reverse. We are used as free teachers and therapists for Black men. Always expected by some to educate y’all on social matters , when y’all can honestly get that education from school or by self teaching. That therapy from a counselor, instead of your Black girlfriend, woman friend, etc.

We come from the same neighborhoods and home. Why is it that more Black women have college educations? Even high school educations? But yet, Black women statistically still make less money than Black men?

Black women have always been seen in Western society as unattractive. Unfortunately ,many Black men push this narrative from when they’re young. Myself and so many other Black women can say how many Black men used to shame their appearances. We were too “dark”, “promiscuous “, “ghetto “and “masculine” back then. Even many of us get that same feedback as an adult (ex: Megan Thee Stallion. Look at how many Black men put her down, when they can just ignore her content). Now as adults, many of y’all shame Black women for conforming to Eurocentric beauty standards or undergoing cosmetic procedures, but fetishize those same features on a non- Black woman. Some clown Black female celebrities for saying or doing one problematic thing, but support the Black male celebrities who constantly show to the world how problematic they are.

Even back to our anatomy and upbringing. Y’all took biology 101 like Black women, but some are quick to call Black women “crazy, mean and rude” for hormonal changes that are a results of her period, birth control or pregnancy. The same birth control y’all sometimes make a woman go on just because you want to go raw. Some of y’all hear how many Black mothers shared how they face malpractice when they are pregnant but yet so many Black men end up being absent fathers ( I agree and it takes two to make a child and reality is some men didn’t want to be parents but the mother decided to have to kid anyway. Before y’all try to say anything )

I can go on about the numerous examples of how Black women face multiple forms of discrimination and mistreatment from Black men. But I want to end off with the biggest example of this statement: The Black Lives Matter movement. This movement was started in 2013 by Black queer women, who decided to fight for the rights of Black people who are killed because of police brutality and / or racism.

Fast forward to June 2020. During a pandemic, people had to protest because three Black people (Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, & George Floyd) were murdered by police or racist white people. Out of the there cases, Breonna Taylor’s case is by far the most clear cut. All the people deserve justice but by far Breonna’s is the easiest one to understand and yet her killers are free, no convictions. Only one fired. Now, how is this the Black man’s fault? It’s not. But I’m showing you that police brutality happens to Black women as well. Even during this year 2 Black women activists we either arrested or murdered . They are/ were 20. From young, Black women are always fighting for your rights, risking their lives to protect you. In the same breath, we don’t have that. If you’re curious I can list own personal examples. But they’re plenty Black women besides Breonna Taylor and Sandra Bland who were victims of police brutality. Say their names, the same way you say Black men’s names who don’t align with “respectability politics “. Meaning the only two names we hear for Black women are ones who have a “clean image”. No arrests, “good “ jobs and education etc. While some of the Black men we fight for are convincts for instance. We should say ALL their names. Regardless of status or gender because they ALL deserve justice.

If you made it this far, I know this was a long read but I want you to just comprehend that Black women aren’t your equal. We have our own struggles because we are both Black and women. And those experiences are complex. Our discrimination because we are Black isn’t like yours all the time . Our discrimination as a woman isn’t like the experience of non- Black women all the time. Intersectionality creates a whole new form of disparities.

I’m not saying it’s necessarily okay for a Black women to generalize y’all and say “niggas ain’t shit”. However, have y’all ever generalized white people? Or straight people? Why? It’s because they are the oppressors naturally right? Same goes for men. Your Blackness doesn’t remove that privilege you have over us.

#black women #black girl #black men #black boys #discrimination #sexism #inequality #social justice #analysis #venting

1 note · View note

fuanteinasekai · 6 years ago

Text

Meta #3: The One Where It Gets a Little Weird

Please note: this meta is heavily focused on recent manga developments, so if you don’t want to be spoiled by it you should catch up on fan translations. Okay these aren't spoilers anymore.

Also, while I think reading my previous two metas would be useful in understanding some of this, I don’t really consider this a continuation per se, since this is purely focused on developments in the manga. I really didn’t want to get distracted by anime issues, for reasons which will perhaps becomes clear.

There are two recent stories with particular relevance to Tanuma and Natsume. (Well, three, in a way, but we’ll get to that later.)

First, “Tenjō-san,” a story that’s mostly about the four boys tracking down a mysterious, supposedly yōkai-related artifact for Himura-Sempai, a graduating senior from a different high school. Of particular note are two things:

The unusually strong theme of mortality. The story opens with Kitamoto in the hospital, having scared the boys with a bad fall. He’s fine, but Natsume and Tanuma are very worried. There’s also a subplot about an elderly man who once went on a similar mission with his own boyhood friends. He speaks wistfully of “Tetchan and the others” as if he lost contact—or they died. It's a reminder that human life is short—sometimes shorter than expected—and one cannot wait forever to figure things out.

Tanuma’s complicated feelings make a spectacular comeback. Both chapters of the story have at least one meaningful exchange between Natsume and Tanuma. In the first chapter, Tanuma encourages Natsume to be open about his doubts by telling him, “I still sometimes want to see the same world as you, but I think it’s because we see different things that we’re able to confirm things for each other.” In the second, he tells Natsume that he might need to keep Nishimura and Kitamoto in the dark just so he can have space to be normal, “Since I, out of worry, ask you if there’s a yōkai straight away.” This is framed as a self-deprecating remark and an expression of deeper insecurities, but also as something Natsume doesn’t understand (that is, doesn’t agree with).

The next arc is another long Natsume-Natori-Matoba story about the complicated lives of those who can see yōkai, and the different paths those lives can or should take. This story reinforces the image of Natori as a protective and somewhat controlling big brother, complete with another incident of Touko-san aggressively adopting Natori. It also emphasizes the difficulty of intimate relationships, implied to be romantic, when one has a connection of responsibility to the yokai world.

The story after that is where it gets… interesting. Setting aside my own personal preferences, at the same time as I’ve seen a lot of queer subtext between Natsume and Tanuma, I’ve also always [until recently] assumed Taki would be the eventual implied wife. She’s the only girl Natsume counts as a friend, much less close friend, and she’s the closest anyone gets to being on Tanuma’s level of intimacy. Having said that, I wasn’t happy about it. Compulsory heterosexuality is one of my least favorite tropes, because it always cheapens romance and I am a huge romantic. There are essentially no obstacles between Taki and Natsume—certainly none she wouldn’t share with basically any other girl—which makes the concept of a romantic arc extremely weak.

Yet not only did the opening of the next story appear to confirm our compulsory heterosexuality, it did so in such a laughably cliche way it seemed to circle right around to subversion:

It opens with a girl who acts like she has a crush on Taki (but not explicitly), squealing about how “lovely” but “difficult to approach” she is.

Nishimura-the-Projector assumes Natsume will be upset by Taki’s “boyfriend.”

Natsume claims to be upset because he was left in the dark, rather than because she has a boyfriend per se, which under cliche-logic reads as “denial” even though it’s a perfectly valid reason.

Jealousy trope-storm without actual jealousy.

The boyfriend is actually a relative! Heehee! Nobody acknowledges that this is heteronormative gossip at its finest.

Taki talks about her brother as if she’s trying to hook him up with Natsume??

Natsume notices… the brother… is “the cute type”???

No seriously, why would you do that now of all times?

In any case, this was all tremendously upsetting and frustrating. Since I would have to wait yet another four months (or longer) to see Tanuma again, I decided to temporarily skip the second Taki chapter and spend that time on a thought experiment/coping mechanism: What if it were a subversion?

At first I toyed with the idea of writing platonic Taki/Natsume and romantic Tanuma/Natsume separately, but it didn’t work out. While the idea of subverting “boys and girls can’t stay friends” in isolation is admirable, it’s not something with any basis in Natsume Yūjinchō. That is, Taki’s lack of romantic potential—if intentional—has always been illuminated by contrast with Tanuma, whether through the Furry yōkai/Ito-san pseudo-arc I described in Meta #2, or through more direct comparisons as in “The Time-Eater.” Thus, platonic Taki/Natsume and romantic Tanuma/Natsume are two sides of the same coin, and I approached my theory with this in mind.

Since this story was obviously heavily centered on Taki, with Tanuma having nothing more than a brief mental cameo, the only way to draw Tanuma in for comparison is the “pseudo-arc.” In that light, I created an outline of how the next three chapters should proceed if Midorikawa-sensei did intend a subversive, queer platonic Taki/ romantic Tanuma theme.

First, the real-world logic. There are two basic reasons why Midorikawa-sensei might write romantic Natsume/Tanuma the way it’s gone so far:

Standard editorial censorship. Natsume’s Book of Friends isn’t an international juggernaut, but it’s popular enough to be a reliable cash cow. So there’d be more pressure to stay within the heteronormative lines than in an “indie” manga. In this case, Natsume/Tanuma would never be fully canon, but consistent subtext.

Quiet natural development. That is, if Natsume/Tanuma wasn’t originally intended but grew organically out of character development, then there’d have to be a transition period from “nominally platonic” to “explicitly romantic.” Since they’re both boys and this is a mainstream manga (not BL), it would have to be handled much more delicately than M/F romance.

Some combination of 1 and 2.

The first is actually fairly common and much more likely than the second, though the second is technically a slightly better fit with how things have gone so far. Either way, we’d still be at the “subtext” level for now. With the socio-cultural context Natsume is being written in, shifting a character from “presumed straight” to “explicitly queer” is a complicated maneuver. M/M ship bait is very common, and even a sympathetic audience won’t necessarily trust build-up to be real. So if you want your audience to actually follow the romantic development, it makes sense in theory to present it as platonic emotional development (with subtext) as long as possible before moving on to romantic text. And the subtext, for the most part, can’t be the sort of thing that reads as ship-bait. Which makes “eventually canon” difficult to distinguish from “intentional, but permanently subtext.” For this reason, I won't bother to separate the two.

So, drawing on the way Midorikawa-sensei has written in the past, my theoretical pro-Natsume/Tanuma progression looked like this:

A second chapter of Taki, in which Natsume is implied to be a brother figure (consistent with my initial subversive reading—there are a lot of parallels between Natsume fretting about Taki and Taki fretting about her brother + Natsume and her brother both have complicated relationships with yokai that conflict somewhat with Taki's fangirl-glasses). This creates a sense of depth and longevity to their relationship, while at the same time pushing a more explicitly platonic reading. The “omg Taki has a boyfriend” opening subtly injects a question of romance into the entire pseudo-arc (not so subtly into Taki’s half), answering with “no, they’re like siblings” to the Natsume/Taki question, but leaving Natsume/Tanuma open in the second part. Ideally the girl with the crush on Taki from the beginning should return at the end as a nod to the queer reading, and to close the “Taki needs to talk to more girls” loop that was interrupted by the fake boyfriend.

The second part of the “pseudo-arc” would be two chapters heavily centered on Tanuma where:

There should be some sort of thematic parallel to the first (Taki) part, with a corresponding focus on Tanuma. I speculated that there might be a family theme, since we don’t know anything about Tanuma’s mom (in retrospect a poor guess—in Taki’s story the “family" was mirrored to Natsume), but it doesn’t matter what as long as it’s a definite parallel. [This is the basis for subtextually carrying the romantic question over to Tanuma.]

The parallel should be explicitly acknowledged in some way, however brief. [This acknowledges the existence of subtext and invites the reader to notice and pay attention.]

There should be other, smaller parallel moments, akin to the previous pseudo-arc’s Taki-Tanuma “lonely” mirroring. [This reinforces the existence of the parallel even though the plot is very different.]

The Tanuma story should escalate emotionally. For example, since Taki “listens to Natsume,” Tanuma should do something stronger like “take care of Natsume.” [This reinforces the romantic imagery, in contrast with something more brotherly.]

The trend of Tanuma being emotionally centered on Natsume, in contrast with Taki’s family focus, should continue. [ditto]

Tanuma’s feelings for Natsume should be more romanticized than Taki’s feelings, ideally on a level with “The Other Side of the Glass” and similar stories. [ditto]

No explicit references to romantic feelings, but a story more like a love story than Taki’s. Depth vs. surface. [ditto]

Ideally a reference to the “pond of emotional intimacy” would be super-great, but probably too much to ask. I think Midorikawa-Sensei forgot about it.

So what really did happen?

Just before returning to university, Taki’s brother says “I suppose I could leave [someone like] you in charge of my little sister,” which could be interpreted as deputizing Natsume as “older brother” in his absence. [I don’t want to make any definitive statements about translation at my level of Japanese—it can also be read as a patriarchal approval of the “presumed boyfriend,” though if Natsume is considering Taki that way, it doesn’t seem to fit Natsume and Sensei’s identical reactions.] Natsume then proceeds to explain her brother’s situation to Taki before happily allowing Girl-With-Crush to distract her with sweets. The ending feels very neat—as if their relationship issues have all been more or less dealt with. It’s essentially the opposite of what I expected from romantic Taki, in which we might see a certain ambiguous open-endedness, tension, or a sense that Natsume is reevaluating the way he sees Taki. There is none of that here.

And then there’s the next story. As predicted, it was heavily Tanuma-centered. This alone isn’t terribly meaningful, since we hadn’t seen Tanuma in a while. However, it also had a few… similarities to my outline:

It parallels Taki’s story with a “visitor” theme, and with the way the visitor arguably mirrors Natsume himself.

Natsume acknowledges the thematic parallel: “A visitor every day? I wonder if it’s family like that time with Taki.” I had to take a moment here to laugh hysterically; I wasn't expected it to be this obvious. (Taki: “boyfriend” → family | Tanuma: “family” → ??)

Several mirrored moments, mostly in the first chapter, including “what kind of person?,” Nishimura as contrast, the running, the explanation-of-the-problem, the shocked reaction to meeting, the final-bench-discussion and so on.

“I always get her to listen to me.” → “He always listens and smiles for me.”; “I too [will listen to you] the way you always listen to me.” → “You’ve kept me company so many times when I was mixed up with yōkai, so […] I will keep you company, too.” (When I initially wrote my outline, I had missed that he uses もらう for Taki’s listening, which downplays her intent. So even though his description of Tanuma is similar, this is an upgrade.)

Pretty blatant difference in romantic subtext, here. Taki is emotionally preoccupied with her brother and their grandfather. The climax is her brother giving her the gift he made with their grandfather as a small child. Tanuma is emotionally preoccupied with the gap in power between himself and Natsume and how that affects their relationship. The climax is watching their yōkai mirrors, in matching vessels, spiral together into the sky.

Tanuma clutches at his heart when Natsume calls his name. Tanuma wants to “see the same things Natsume sees, together,” Tanuma wishes he could be strong so Natsume wouldn’t “worry and [I/we could]…”. Natsume feels that Misuzu is “seeing through” him right after Tanuma calls him a friend. A lot of interruptions, unfinished sentences and unspoken feelings. Etc. Though Taki’s story opens with romantic cliche, and Natsume is very determined to be helpful, it’s Tanuma’s story that’s thick with romantic imagery. Taki’s story, by contrast, romanticizes the protective, sheltering image of the older brother, who cares for his little sister (and vice versa) even though they can't quite understand each other.

In terms of the “love story”: again, Taki’s emotions are centered on her brother. Tanuma’s are centered on Natsume, with even his desire to get to know yōkai being fundamentally tied to Natsume. Tanuma in particular is written with strong undertones of longing and trying to find a way closer, while Natsume gets little chance to think deeply or speak to Tanuma alone, distracted by the Misuzu problem and how it relates to Tanuma’s health and happiness. Tanuma’s story is also much more open-ended. While Taki’s story seems to end with a sense of satisfaction, Tanuma’s is full of tension. The question of how they come together safely (platonically or otherwise) remains unresolved.

The pond continues to play a metaphorical role as a place that symbolizes what they do or don’t share. Though Tanuma cannot see the pond itself, he can see shadows ordinary people cannot—in “Same Scenery” he referred to these shadows as something only the two of them could see. For Misuzu and Sasame, it is a literal halfway point between their marshes, and a place where they meet specifically to be together.[IMO, this is why it doesn't appear in "The Days-Eater": the symbolism of the pond is specifically tied to the two of them, so it would be inapproprate to reference it in Taki's presence.]

So… what does this mean? I don’t know. I promised myself I would let go of the queer reading if I got anything less than a Taki-Tanuma pseudo-arc—even if I got a story that heavily romanticized Tanuma without paralleling Taki’s story. Actually getting what I wanted, exactly what I wanted, is less satisfying than it might seem. Set against the overwhelming prevalence of heteronormativity, it's left me in a curious limbo of uncertainty. It’s hard to swallow the idea that my accuracy was a complete coincidence, but I may have been wrong about the reasons for this pattern.

While it’s objectively lazy, there’s a great deal of precedent in letting superficial romantic features like “cuteness” supersede features like devotion, so long as the former is opposite sex and the latter same sex. In other words, I may have the pattern backwards, with Tanuma being set up as platonic soulmate, and Taki as the romantic lead. Perhaps we are meant to draw a parallel between Tanuma and Taki’s brother as a “difficult older brother” figure (even though Tanuma is younger), given they are both “easily possessed.” If so, they have little else in common. The (simultaneous??) mirroring between Tanuma and Taki would probably be for the purpose of establishing Natsume’s most important platonic, non-family-like relationship as equally important to romance. This isn’t exactly inconsistent with the emphasis the manga places on the importance of platonic love.

Still, it’s an odd choice to make Taki’s feelings primarily about someone else if the story is meant to set a romance in motion, particularly in contrast to Tanuma. And the older brother/Natsume mirroring would have to be unintentional, since it’s a bit, um, awkward otherwise, which would mean the undeniable Misuzu/Natsume mirroring is coincidental. And so on. At its heteronormative best, “The Troublesome Two” is a story about Natsume’s crush on Taki, and Taki’s love for her brother and late grandfather. At its potential best, it’s a subversive story about how an unrelated boy and a girl can care deeply about each other without having romantic feelings—and about how girls aren’t necessarily more emotionally and socially competent than boys just because they’re girls.

In any case, Tanuma’s story is worth looking at a bit more closely.

First, a summary of the actual plot:

Tanuma receives a mysterious, persistent, explicitly gender-ambiguous “human” visitor who turns out to be Misuzu (the powerful horse yōkai) in disguise. He’s excited by the opportunity to get to know a yōkai, so Natsume decides to support him, despite his fears, by hovering like gnat and glaring at Misuzu while they go around looking at scenery. Eventually it’s revealed that Tanuma has been quietly possessed by Misuzu’s fellow marsh guardian… soulmate… friend thing, and that it’s this “Sasame” who Misuzu has been interested in, rather than Tanuma. There’s a climax where Sasame tries to escape being removed from Tanuma, and Tanuma empathizes with their relative lack of power because he sees Sasame (who is very weak) with Misuzu as being similar to himself with Natsume. Sensei confronts Sasame about their motivations, thereby leading to Sasame voluntarily leaving and joining Misuzu in their wooden-doll-possessing-competition… thing.

Though nominally platonic, the story is romantic and emotional, centering on the gap in power between Natsume and Tanuma and their mutual attempts to bridge that gap without actually talking about it.

The first thing I’d like to talk about is the imagery.

Chronologically left to right this time. Tanuma looks odd on the right because of Sasame. Friendly reminder that Midorikawa-Sensei hates drawing hands.

Japanese culture is not physically demonstrative or openly emotional in general, but young children and teen girls are allowed far more leeway than teen boys and adults. So much so that teen girls can even hold hands in a “romantic” way and still be assumed to be straight. This is not as visible in Natsume Yūjinchō as in Midorikawa-sensei’s other work, since there’s only one recurring teen girl. But it is visible in her art for Season 6 of the anime, where Sasada and Taki are holding hands in the background. It’s also apparent in the way that different characters express themselves. Female characters are more physically emotional, and more visibly vulnerable than male characters. For example, male characters do not usually hold their hands in front of their stomach or their chest—a somewhat defensive gesture—and will ball up their fists at their side instead. (Or use Sensei as a shield.) Male vulnerability is mostly expressed through facial expressions.

So even for a boy like Tanuma, this kind of emotional gesture is notable. A single example would be interesting. Two is suspicious. Three is a pattern. This fits the theory that this story is meant to break open a new arc in Natsume and Tanuma’s relationship; changing course requires far more effort than staying on the new course. It’s exactly what Taki’s story was yelling about right before it veered off into “family” territory—except Tanuma’s story stayed consistent. The hand-over-heart, standing-on-water scene was on the very first page, without even a chapter cover to get in the way. The longing, out-stretched hand is from a scene that sets the emotional context for Tanuma’s behavior. The heart-clutching is part of the climax. Every one of these is directly or implicitly linked to his feelings about Natsume.

The out-stretched hand is particularly important. This is the dialog that sets it up:

あのヒト妖だったのか… すごいものだな　普通に人間に見えているのに… ささいで小さな妖との繋がりのかけら　夏目はいつもあんなに苦労している　それを知ってるのに夏目が見ているものを一緒に見てみたいと思ってしまう　ー夏目は強い　おれもそうだったらあんなに心配させずにー　… どうしたんだ　おれらしくもない　…なんだか欲ばりだ

“[Spoken aloud to himself] That person was an ayakashi…? What an amazing thing. Even though they look like an ordinary human… [Internally] Such a tiny, insignificant fragment of a connection to ayakashi. Natsume is always going through so much trouble. I know that, but I still find myself thinking I’d like to see the things he sees, together. —Natsume is strong. If I were too, without worrying him— [it would be possible to do something]… What’s the deal? That’s not like me. …Kind of greedy.”

When Tanuma is talking to Natsume about something similar in “Tenjō-san,” his wording is vague, potentially even reading as envy though that doesn’t really suit the context. He says he’d “like to see the same world as [Natsume], sometimes.” Here in the privacy of his own mind, he’s more clear. This scene, with it’s implication that Tanuma wants to share Natsume’s world, is implicitly romantic—particularly in light of Taki’s furry yōkai story.

Though there were several moments when Natsume seemed suspicious of the nature of the furry yōkai’s feelings for Taki (never explicit), it’s reading the letter at the end that seems to convince him. In this letter, the yōkai expresses their gratitude for Taki’s help, and their desire to “see the beautiful mountains and beautiful valleys” with Taki. In fact, the wording itself is suspiciously familiar.

If we set aside the obvious differences and focus on the emotional core of the letter, we get:

[~]をともに見てみたいと思ってしまった。

“I found myself thinking I’d like to see [the beautiful mountains and beautiful valleys] together.”

Compare Tanuma:

[~]を一緒に見てみたいと思ってしまう。

“I find myself thinking I’d like to see [the things Natsume sees] together.”

There are two differences here. One, the word for “together”: the yokai’s letter uses the formal/written ともに, whereas Tanuma’s thought uses the casual/spoken 一緒に. The words are otherwise completely identical in meaning, so this difference should probably be considered functionally meaningless. The other difference is actually in Tanuma’s favor.

What I translated as “I find/found myself thinking” is the auxiliary verb しまう. This word has no real equivalent in English. It means “to finish completely” but is commonly used to add a nuance of lack of intention and probably regret to an action. For example, where an English speaker might say “Oh no, I forgot!” the Japanese speaker would say “I forgot—shimatta!” If “shimatta” sounds familiar, that’s because it’s very common and can even be used on its own (where it is frequently—and hilariously—translated as “damn”).

Here both furry yōkai and Tanuma are using しまう to express regret or even self-reproach for their seemingly futile desires as well as (in Tanuma’s case) the sense that the desire is selfish. The difference is the conjugation. Furry yōkai uses the perfective aspect—often taught as “past tense” because that’s the primary use—which indicates the completion of an action. Tanuma is using the imperfective, which indicates a lack of completion either because something is ongoing (recurring, not continuous), or because it is yet to be performed at all (future).

Grammatically there are a few different interpretations of perfective vs imperfective, but in this context only one thing makes sense. The furry yōkai is encapsulating his desire as a singular experience, something they have wrapped up and set to the side (consistent with their refusal to engage directly with Taki or allow Natsume to do so for them) and don’t expect to deal with in the future. Tanuma, on the other hand, considers this desire to be an issue he struggles with repeatedly and sees no quick end to. Even though he, like the furry yōkai, knows it to be impossible, he can’t let it go—and nor can the story.

Regardless of any potential parallels to Taki’s furry yōkai, this desire to see yōkai in order to share them with Natsume is a major theme. While we do occasionally go a few pages without being reminded, Tanuma’s motivations in this story are neither subtle nor subtext. The logic is fairly straightforward:

Knowing a yōkai ⇒ having a connection to the yōkai world ⇒ having a connection to Natsume’s world ⇒ being closer to Natsume.

The scene above lays it out all but explicitly, but this motivation is referenced multiple times (not in order):

—“I can’t let him keep worrying forever. If there’s anything that would help hurry things along even a little…” [While investigating a dream.]

—“I was happy that your ayakashi friend seemed to take an interest in me.”

––“[I miss feeling like I knew a yōkai but] I still had a good time, in the end. I got to see the same things as you.”

—“So that means I get to know a yōkai Natsume knows?”

The last one is rather telling. First, because it confirms the connection to Natsume is important to him. Second, because he says it while holding Sensei. Sensei does not “count” for this purpose because Sensei is not inaccessible. Even completely ordinary people like Nishimura and Kitamoto interact with Sensei on a regular basis, albeit without realizing he can talk. Tanuma wants more than that. But even more, he wants more than what’s available to, well, Taki—the other “ordinary” person who talks to Sensei.

Yet all of this serves only to reinforce a pre-existing theme. For Taki, the yōkai world is intrinsically emotionally bound to her grandfather. For Tanuma, it’s emotionally bound to Natsume himself. Further, he sees it as a barrier between them that he needs power to overcome. This has a long-running basis:

—When they first meet, Natsume makes it clear he wants to talk to Tanuma because he believes Tanuma can see the same things. Tanuma, likewise, wants to meet Natsume because he’s heard they’re similar. It makes sense, then, that he would see their relationship—and his worth as a friend—as being strongly tied to yōkai.

—In Tanuma’s special, his second major appearance, he frets about his weakness being the reason Natsume always lies and disappears without warning. He knows that Natsume is trying to protect him from yōkai trouble, but secretly fights the fear that Natsume is disappointed in his lack of power. The story ends with him wondering whether Natsume will ever tell him “what color the fish [in Tanuma’s yōkai pond] are” and whether he’ll ever be able to ask. Natsume talking about the yōkai pond, then, is established as a metaphor for Natsume opening up and treating Tanuma as a genuine friend.

—In the mirror arc, Tanuma borrows the yokai’s sight (i.e. power) because he wants to see what Natsume is reacting to. The yōkai later tells Natsume “It was what he wanted. […] Even though he knows [you’re trying to be kind] he doesn’t understand. Even though he’s right beside you, not knowing…” Earlier in the story, there’s a mildly comic set of exchanges where he repeatedly gushes about how “amazing” Natsume’s ability is.

—In “The Other Side of the Glass,” Tanuma’s flashback to Natsume not paying attention while he plays shogi connects the yōkai world to Tanuma’s perception of being kept at a distance. That is, Natsume is mentally drawn away from Tanuma by things that Tanuma (normally) cannot even see and therefore cannot work against. Tanuma eventually breaks down because he feels that in trying to be involved, he’s become “a burden” who “doesn’t know how far to intrude” and “doesn’t want to put up walls because of that.” At the end, he’s wistful about leaving the yōkai world and losing his sight.

—In “Distant Festival Lights” Tanuma reveals he “never even imagined” that yōkai were real until he met Natsume. Thus yōkai as something real to be wondered at must be inextricably bound to Natsume himself.

For several stories afterward, this desire is shifted to the background as the narrative focuses on what Tanuma can do: provide emotional support (as with Natsume’s story about his unwed grandmother) and run interference in the background. Tanuma’s desire to see yōkai does not come up during this calm period. However, the theme starts to creep back in with the ryokan story, along with his lack of faith in his own abilities—he assumes a real vision was “just a dream” because there’s nothing there when he wakes up, and apologizes to Natsume for reacting to it.

In Tenjō-san, he talks about how he feels about Natsume’s world:

夏目の世界はあいまいなものがいっぱいなんだな　おれは…やっぱり時々夏目と同じ世界を見てみたいなと思うけど　見えるものが違うからこそ確認しあえることもあるのかもしれないなって…

“Your [Natsume’s] world is full of ambiguous things, isn’t it? I… still think I’d like to the the same world as you, sometimes. But I also think maybe there are times when it’s because the things we see are different that we can confirm things for each other.” [Emphasis is original.]

In other words, this story is really just foregrounding something that’s always been subtext.

Which brings me to my next point: the use of mirroring. I assumed from the start that Misuzu was a mirror for Natsume in order to parallel Taki’s brother as a mirror. There seemed to be some basis for this in the first chapter—in spending so much time talking with Tanuma, Misuzu was preventing Natsume from talking to Tanuma. (Natsume frets about not getting to talk to Tanuma “at all” because the guest had been coming “for a few days.”) And in taking Tanuma around to look at various scenery, Misuzu’s actions are suspiciously similar to what Natsume worries about failing at: “Even though I have him right beside me, I keep him company with nothing but talk of scenery we cannot share.” [Emphasis mine.] The mirroring ended up being more explicit than I expected: Tanuma openly compares Sasame and Misuzu’s relationship to his with Natsume. This is an interesting narrative technique, for a couple of reasons.

Sasame—and Misuzu in particular—are not just yōkai. They are yōkai who act very differently from humans, to the point that it’s specifically highlighted. Of all the yōkai Natsume knows, Misuzu is one of the least human. They chose the form of a horse. They have a frog as a “retainer.” They once “tested" Natsume’s worthiness with a deadly curse. And in this story itself, they complain that they don’t understand why Natsume won’t just order them around, even though they specifically allowed him that power. In other words, they express themselves in ways that are not easily mapped onto human behavior. This is important because it allows the Misuzu/Sasame to Natsume/Tanuma mirroring to be opaque in many ways. For example, it’s not at all clear what the Natsume/Tanuma equivalent of possessing identical dolls and having a boisterous contest would be. This means that the story can move forward with strong emotional overtones while also refusing to define exactly what kind of relationship they’re supposed to have. It’s a convenient excuse to have two characters behave in a very romantic way without having to justify why they’re not actually in a romantic relationship. This is nearly the opposite of Taki’s story, where the use of her brother as mirror (if intentional) has strongly platonic overtones.

Another example of deliberate (and clever) muddling is in the presentation of Sasame and Tanuma’s emotions while Sasame inhabits Tanuma. Both characters are implied to be influenced by the other. Tanuma says “What’s the deal? That’s not like me. Kind of greedy.” Later, Sasame tells Sensei not to worry about Tanuma because “There was something off with me. [It’s not like me to] take advantage of the child of man this way.” Neither of them are really suggesting that the nature of emotions are strange, only more self-centered than usual. This suggests that their desires are so aligned, they effectively amplified each other, creating a stronger sense of desperation and thus greed. For example, both of them enjoyed their “daily routine” with Misuzu and Natsume, for related reasons. Sasame wanted to share Misuzu’s world, and Tanuma wanted to share Natsume’s world via Misuzu.

However, since Sasame!Tanuma’s actions are influenced by the emotions of both characters, it’s difficult to tease out exactly who is feeling what. When Tanuma is so happy to get dragged off by Misuzu, is that because—as he later tells Natsume—he was “happy that your ayakashi friend seemed to take an interest in me”—happy that part of Natsume’s world was actively trying to involve him? Or was it because Sasame was happy about Misuzu’s active involvement? To a certain extent, it’s beside the point. These characters are mirrors. What Tanuma feels about Misuzu is what Sasame feels about Misuzu is what Tanuma feels about Natsume. Both want to be closer and more involved. Both are afraid of being left behind, of being “unable to keep up.”

On a similar note, we return to the mirroring between Natsume and Misuzu. Misuzu smirks through much of the story, but shows serious vulnerability on more than one occasion—right before returning to smirking. This suggests that Misuzu is hiding just how invested they are. Though they express themselves in very yōkai-like ways, Misuzu is just as concerned about Sasame as Natsume is about Tanuma. Misuzu even uses the same phrase, 付き合う or “to keep company,” as Natsume. That is, Natsume says he will “keep [Tanuma] company” with Misuzu because Tanuma has “kept me company so many times when I was involved with yōkai.” Misuzu later explains their own behavior, saying that they only intended to “keep Sasame company in whatever it is they want to do.” Both, then, are shown to not entirely understand their companions motivations, but to want to indulge them regardless. The implication is that they mirror each other in their style of showing affection.

Further, both Misuzu and Natsume seem clueless as to their companion’s desires. Natsume shows progress in understanding, but is repeatedly distracted by Misuzu. Misuzu, for their part, claims that Sasame retains possession of Tanuma because Tanuma is “comfortable” and “easy to possess,” apparently unaware that Sasame is specifically enjoying the new type of companionship with Misuzu that having a human body offers. On the same note, Misuzu’s confusion about why they want to spend time with Sasame!Tanuma in such “odd” ways is interesting in the context of being Natsume’s mirror. It suggests that Natsume himself does not quite understand how he feels about spending time with Tanuma like this. The reveal that Misuzu was actually talking to Sasame only makes this confusion more poignant: Misuzu does not understand why they are enjoying simply walking around, looking at nostalgic places with their favorite companion, when they had come for a boisterous contest. This is another good example of how being yōkai make the parallels somewhat opaque.

Another interesting point is the way in which Natsume’s feelings balance Tanuma’s. Though we’re given somewhat more access into how Tanuma feels, due to Natsume being distracted by Misuzu, we do get a hint of the broader problem. Natsume is worried about whether Tanuma will “listen and smile” for him “forever.” Then he chides himself for only “keeping Tanuma company with nothing but talk of scenery we cannot share.” When Tanuma sympathizes with Sasame, he points out how “unbearably painful” it is to be “unable to keep up with your friend.” Both Natsume and Tanuma use いつでも “forever” in the context of trying to make their companion happy. For Tanuma, it’s because he knows he worries Natsume. For Natsume, it’s the concern about Tanuma's interest in "scenery we cannot share." Tanuma is worried about spiritual power, and how it would (in theory) facilitate being closer to Natsume. Natsume, on the other hand, is worried about his actual relationship skills. He knows that he’s not giving Tanuma as much as he should, but doesn’t seem to have any ideas about what he should give. The only thing we have to go on is “scenery we cannot share,” which suggests that moving forward might involve finding scenery they can share—exactly like they did with Misuzu. So there’s a sense that they’re both actively trying to find a way forward, but they’re not communicating well enough to do it right.

There is one way in which the story could be read as explicitly platonic. When describing the marshes that they and Sasame protect, Misuzu describes them as being “like identical twins.” If this is intended to mark them as “surrogate twins,” then obviously that would be a platonic reading. However, I don’t think this is the case. Instead, I think this more “soulmate” subtext. After all, it’s not Misuzu and Sasame who are described as “identical twins,” but the appearance of their homes. And place, in Natsume Yūjinchō, is often a stand-in for something like heart.

For example, many of Taki’s stories happen in her home, to symbolize the importance of family to her. Likewise, the Fujiwaras home is a symbol of the affection and safe boundaries they provide to Natsume. Natsume had to let go of the “Natsume” family home before he could move on from the loss of his parents. More dramatic is Reiko’s field of flowers: isolated, hidden from human and yōkai alike, a secret for Reiko alone, yet beautiful—and blue for Souko, the girl who came the closest to seeing her true self. The pond that’s so important for this story is also symbolic: it’s both the place where Natsume and Tanuma’s powers meet and the place where Misuzu and Sasame meet to be together.

But more directly relevant is the story of Gen and Sui: the gods who inhabited a “set of two” dog statues and protected a village from afar, until Sui’s statue was destroyed and she became a demon. The term 一対 implies either a perfectly matched set, or items that are nearly identical but with a twist (like male and female or silver and gold). So while the word “twin” wasn’t used in that story, it’s conceptually very similar to how the marshes were described. Misuzu is an explicitly genderless horse-person and Sasame is literally formless, but Gen and Sui were heavily anthropomorphized and explicitly gendered as male and female. And while the nature of their relationship is never explicit, Gen and Sui made much more sense as a romantic couple than as siblings. For one thing, their style of speech is consistent with an old-fashioned couple (similar to Touko-san and Shigeru-san’s). They also use similar romantic language as other couples, like wanting to “be able to be together forever” and being “happy because you were there.” So the reading that Sasame and Misuzu’s “twin” marshes are symbols of emotional compatibility—and their need to be together—is at least consistent with how Midorikawa-sensei has written in the past.

For a while I was troubled by the symbolism of Sasame’s fading marsh in this context. It’s a terrible fit for Misuzu and Sasame (and thus Natsume and Tanuma) being “like identical twins,” but didn’t seem to fit much better with the idea of their hearts being “like identical twins.” But eventually it occurred to me that the fading of Sasame’s marsh along with their powers did fit with a certain view of “heart”—just not the limited scope of love. In Japanese, “heart” has roughly the same set of metaphorical meanings as in English, but with an additional dash of “mind” depending on context. So think emotions, deep thoughts, sincere beliefs. Sort of an “inner self” thing. In this context it’s easier to understand how Sasame’s heart has been weakened. With their diminishing existence and the “widening gap” in power, Sasame is emotionally stretched thin. Fading hope, the strain of feeling left behind by someone they adore, the belief that the one thing they have no control over is the one thing that matters the most. This is Sasame’s fading heart—and this is what they have in common with Tanuma.

And in fact this fits Sasame’s dialog, as they wonder whether taking advantage of Tanuma, and focusing so much on Misuzu’s power, means their heart has grown “barren” along with their power.

This might be depressing but for the implication that it’s not actually Sasame’s or Tanuma’s power itself that has made them feel this way. It’s the fact that they have been following an old, inadequate rulebook with Misuzu (and Natsume), and need to communicate in order to adapt. Sasame frets about power, but when they comment on the “liveliness” around Misuzu, Sensei makes a point:

にぎやかから満たされているとも限るまい

“I suppose we can’t assume that lively surroundings always mean that one is fulfilled.”

This triggers Sasame’s memory of Misuzu’s “nostalgia” comments, and their realization that “It’s not as if [Misuzu] came hoping I would just be strong.” In other words, there is something about Sasame (Tanuma) that is important to Misuzu (Natsume) that cannot be replaced by all the other “lively” people and yōkai in the world. What exactly this means for them and their future is left unspoken, but it’s clearly emotional:

“I’m sorry [for what I did], child of Man. Surely, even without being able to keep up…[something they want will be possible]”

The way the story ends, as well, feels pointed. As I mentioned earlier, Taki’s story did not fit my conception of “setting a romantic arc in motion” because it felt too finished. The only thing arguably unfinished in the end is Taki’s new friendship with Girl-With-Crush. The end-cap is Natsume cheerfully affirming the importance of keeping promises to family-figures (in this case Sensei, to whom he promised an eclair for dealing with Taki). This is superimposed over an image of the gift from Taki’s brother and grandfather: a rock painted with floral designs (it's a fake yokai connection [the stonewashers], but authentic feelings). The overall feeling is that Natsume has solved all their issues. He convinced Taki she could talk to him, figured out why her brother was acting weird and helped the siblings uncover the gift that was meant to help tie them together, then finally observed Taki having positive social interaction with someone who wasn’t yōkai-adjacent. (Note that Natsume had nothing to do with Taki’s new friendship; it was the girl herself who worked up the courage to approach Taki. And she used sweets—the language Taki speaks—to do so, showing a higher level of mental compatibility than anyone else thus far.) There’s no sense that Natsume’s feelings about Taki have shifted, that he sees her any differently, or that he has any curiosity about her future romantic life.

On the other hand, the ending of Tanuma’s story does what Taki’s didn’t: it leaves a suggestive opening. Tanuma happily says goodbye “Again, tomorrow!” in much the same way as Misuzu has been, implying a return to regular close interaction—and perhaps a more deliberately “daily” interaction. Then Misuzu reappears, and smirkingly tells Natsume “Tanuma Kaname is a rather fun/interesting guy.” Choosing to use Tanuma’s full name for the first time is all but a wink, and using 中々 for “rather” suggests either they’ve begun to see Tanuma with new eyes—or they think Natsume has and they’re making a point of noticing— 中々 has a connotation of “unusually high” or “more than expected.” Natsume’s unimpressed reaction suggests he’s not pleased at the idea of Misuzu’s renewed interest or teasing, and he pointedly reminds Misuzu of Sasame, asking how their “contest” went. Misuzu’s counter that it is, essentially, private is overlaid on an image of the contest’s meeting place: the pond which, to Tanuma, symbolizes both the connection and the barrier between him and Natsume. The pond whose dripping water Natsume was distracted from when Misuzu arrived. This has a strong implication that there’s something about Natsume and Tanuma’s relationship that’s not meant to be shared outside the two of them.

This is all… more than a bit suggestive. But it’s not explicit.

It’s not clear how Misuzu and Sasame will move forward, considering they ended with the same “competition” as usual, but we know they have learned from the experience. Both Misuzu and Sasame found that they enjoyed a quieter way of being together, and Sasame began to realize that Misuzu sees them as more than just someone to play games of strength with.

Likewise it’s not clear how Natsume and Tanuma will move forward, though the fact that they spent time basically looking at scenery together is a neat counterpoint to Natsume’s lament that he “does nothing but talk about scenery we cannot share.” It’s also something they can do without Misuzu or Sasame—as they did with the fireworks so long ago. They do make explicit progress when Natsume, hurt by Tanuma’s reticence, reminds him that “it doesn’t matter whether it’s yōkai or not, if something is bothering you, you should tell me!” However, this is only a single facet of their problem. It’s the sort of thing they ought to have been taking for granted by now, but it doesn’t really answer the question of what they can actively do together to find contentment. There’s a sense that they’re making progress, but still have somewhere to go. Acknowledging that they want to talk about something other than yōkai is simply the first step in that direction.

In the end, there’s still quite a bit I haven’t gotten into: the use of suspiciously suggestive wording, and the way Misuzu is positioned as a subtextual rival. The way Tanuma’s insecurity about his powers mirrors his insecurity about his relationship with Natsume. The various connections to earlier stories. Tanuma’s romanticization of selflessness and the way this, with his insecurity, is an obstacle in their relationship. But this meta needed to end at some point, so this is as good as any.

I’m still uncertain as to the intent of this story. I still don’t know whether it meant to lay down romantic subtext or just sort of stumbled clumsily into it. But no matter what, it’s a deeply emotional story that solidifies Tanuma’s singularity and significance, and the importance of being closer to Natsume. So whatever may happen with Taki, or with Tanuma, there is some comfort to be had in that.

#meta #Tanunatsu #natsume yuujinchou #natsume's book of friends #tanuma kaname #Natsume Takashi #I know I said my other metas were kinda tanunatsu #But this one really is #anyway #spoilers #VERY spoilery #please beware if you're avoiding those #I still want to edit by I got a deadline #haha #And I'm not sure there's a really good way to write this thing.

81 notes · View notes