#why oh why do i love older men who abuse authority and clearly have a temper problem

[morgana-ren]

Leighton, who knows your face but not your name once school is in session. He's never met you before, but you catch his attention in the hallway. You're laughing and giggling with friends, school folder squeezed to your chest and a sweet smile on your face. You walk right past him without a glance, too engrossed in your conversation to notice his leering.

Pretty thing, he thinks, wondering if he has any photos of you.

Surely not. He'd remember someone like you.

Leighton, who sends Sirris out to the cafe as he conducts his 'inspections.' Camera in hand, he lines the girls up and tells them to unbutton their shirts and flash their breasts— for health reasons, of course. He takes his photos as each girl strips and shifts uncomfortably before sending them back to their seats. His grin widens when he realizes you're at the end of the line.

Finally, he thinks.

You lower your blouse over your shoulders and ball your hands on either side of your torso, trying to hide the view from anyone but him, hard swallowing and trying not to meet his eyes. He stares for a moment before finally snapping a few photos, catching your quivering lip in the shot.

"Nice pair,' he says, licking his lips and imagining what it would feel like to jiggle the fat in his palms. You flush, shrinking back as he reaches forward and indulges, running a calloused thumb over the hardening peak. A quick squeeze and he realizes he's out of time.

She'll give me an excuse one day, he thinks, palming his hard cock beneath his desk. All students do at some point or another. You'll end up in his office. He's sure of it.

Leighton, who grows tired of waiting. You're a good girl, it seems. Well liked and behaved. A teacher favorite. So he takes things into his own hands.

He bribes two delinquents to frame you. He doesn't care how.

Just ensure she is sent to me, he tells them. They oblige gleefully. Thank God for this horrible town and the rotten fruit it bears.

Leighton, who is particularly careless with his car the next day. He drives through puddles and parks under trees; he doesn't take the tunnel to work, letting the rain wash over the paint job. Filthy, filthy, filthy.

It won't stay like this for long, he thinks.

You sit in his office after school, squirming and fingering anxiously at your skirt. You've never been here before. You're a good girl.

"I have something special for you today."

He takes you to the private lot, pointing to the sponge and bucket of soapy water sitting beside his car. You look at him and then the bucket incredulously. Surely he doesn't want—

"You'll want to take off your clothes for this," He grins, with far too many teeth. "No sense in getting your little uniform dirty."

You do as you're told. You strip down to your panties and get nice and wet and soapy cleaning his car. He watches attentively— very attentively, legs crossed to hide the throbbing length straining against his slacks.

"You missed a spot," he points, leaning in for a better view as you bend and buff out some dirt on his bumper. Your wet underwear clings to your ass, starting to ride up, and you don't dare pinch at it—

If only he had more time, he thinks.

Leighton, who raises a hand to Sydney in the Library. You rush to his aid, demanding an explanation.

"Supplies have gone missing under their watch," he tells you. "And they are responsible."

You claim equal responsibility, noble little thing that you are.

"Punish me too."

You don't have to tell him twice. Normally he'd have you both over the counter, but he can't pass up the opportunity. He empties the library, and tells Sydney to lock the door behind him. He won't hear any protestation from the little brat. None of it.

"I'm doing as she asked. Now get out."

You cling to the desk as he bends you over and flips your schoolgirl skirt, biting your lip to hide your shame. He takes a good, long look, committing it to memory before slapping the curve of your ass with his hand.

God, what he wouldn't give to—

Oh, wait. He's the headmaster. He can do as he pleases.

Your knees buckle as he crooks a finger in the waistband of your panties and gives them a firm tug down.

"This is a severe infraction, and thus begets a severe punishment. One you won't soon forget."

And one he won't either.

You yelp as he repeatedly cocks his hand back and slaps your bare bottom without mercy, your eyelashes wet and dewy as little silvery tears trail down your cheeks. Your cries border on obscene, and if he tries, he can imagine you're moaning for him like the naughty little thing he knows you are inside.

Your skin turns the most delicious shade, abuse leaving you already turning a cosmic shade of colors from the bruising. He almost pants harder than you do, hardly even needing to touch you to feel his peak approaching. He's horrified, but he can't stop. He's gone far past the 'deserved' punishment but the way you mewl and whimper has his mind obscured with hazy pink lust.

"H-headmaster!"

"Please let me go!"

"I'll be a good girl, I promise!"

He has to stop. He has to. If he doesn't, he's going to make a mess of his trousers.

A mess that should be on your teary little face and jiggling tits and all over your pretty cunt and deep in your bruising ass

With a final blow, he releases your arms, trying to catch his breath. You stay bent and sobbing long enough for him to catch a quick photo on his cell.

(Never the cell phone. Never ever the cell phone. Too traceable, too damning— but he can't bear to forget the sight in every marvelous detail. Before the shape of his hand disappears from your creamy skin and his handiwork heals over.)

Leighton, who leans over you as you sob, large hand grabbing a rough handful of your ass, snarling in your ear.

"You're a naughty little brat, and I'll be seeing you again soon. Mark my words."

He knows you feel his eagerness as he presses against you; there's no way you can't feel the hot, hard length practically ready to pop behind his zipper. His face is as red as your behind and he can tell if he doesn't pull away now, he'll have you here and now. He wouldn't be able to stop himself— couldn't control it.

Leighton, who turns without another word, leaving you heaving and weeping against the counter, bottom bared and practically bleeding.

Leighton, who beelines to his office, locking himself inside before making the mess he so longs to all over the printed pictures he has of your exposed tits and pouting lips.

It's not the same.

It's not the fucking same.

Leighton, who decides in that moment that he can't live if he can't defile you himself. He wants to feel those tight, wet walls constrict around his cock, velvety and hot. He wants to spread your legs and work you over until you're a panting, moaning mess, begging him to stop—

To keep going.

Leighton, the educator, who would be remiss in his position if he didn't teach you all about sexuality. About the dirty things humans do in the dark. About what a mouth is truly capable of and that your ass is used for more than just discipline.

Leighton, the headmaster, who announces to the school the very next day that he'll be rewarding all of his best students with private positions in his office for extra credit.

Leighton, your headmaster, who makes it mandatory.

[welcome-to-oslov]

Oh Einara, love reading her :)

Anyway, I wanted to ask you a non-Oslov question. I've read the thoughts of a few female authors who mostly write m/m who have expanded why they like to. Exploration of gendered dynamics etc.

Do you have any opinions on the matter? Do you feel like writing heterosexual vs same-sex relations is different or is it all rather incidental?

Oh yes, I do have opinions on that! 😁 It’s weird for me because I grew up with no awareness of fandom culture, so I started out reading mainly m/m written by and for gay men (which I still love and respect!). I would read Dorian Gray or some ancient Roman book just for the m/m content. Then I eventually went online and discovered m/m slash, but I never expected it to become mainstream to the point where it would be critiqued as fetishization.

Anyway, for me it’s definitely an attempt to deconstruct gender roles that I don’t feel comfortable with. The traditional dominant man/submissive woman dynamic dominated the culture when I was growing up. I was drawn strongly to D/s dynamics, but I was repelled by the real-life abuse and domination of women. In m/m I found male characters who could be soft or submissive, who could even enjoy submission and still be strong. Exploring those POVs felt very liberating. I’ve always been drawn to characters who aren’t clearly top or bottom but combine characteristics of both.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I started inventing this dystopian world and stories in my teens, when I was getting unwelcome attention from much older men and felt pressure not to “hurt their feelings.” It never quite escalated to the level of SA, but I still feel a lot of anger about having to smile and laugh it off (as we did back then).

I’ve always written m/f too, but I enjoy it a lot more with a dominant female character. So I don’t enjoy writing, say, Tilrey/Vera, even though (because?) Vera is more like my IRL persona. I do enjoy writing Davita and Einara with men, and writing those dominant women has helped me to enjoy writing m/f more in general and to see that it has more possibilities than I once believed.

Since Einara also experienced SA in her teens, she’s sort of Tilrey’s female counterpart. I like writing both of them, but I think I’ll always feel freer writing Tilrey. With female characters, it’s almost like I feel a need to protect them from harm, including the forms of harm that I want to explore in my imagination. I do often wonder why that is! I don’t think I have sadistic or aggressive feelings toward men, and I am happy in a female identity. But crossing that boundary in my imagination is liberating.

[cowardnthief]

Alright, I am curious. Why is Jonny Cade queercoded and what queer subtext was there in their relationship with Ponyboys? 👀

TW: mentions of abuse, violence, death, murder

also spoilers for the outsiders!! (i mean it is a 60 year old book, but still)

-------

OOH OKAY OKAY

(In all honesty, I could probably do a whole essay on this, but I'll keep it brief-ish.)

Bit of background on The Outsiders: It's a book written in the early 60s that focuses on the class divide between the rich Socs (Socials) and the working-class greasers (like, "hoods", criminals), or rather the people within each of those groups who don't feel like they fit into the binary.

Ponyboy is the protagonist of the novel. He and Johnny are both greasers and part of a gang with a few others, including Ponyboy's two older brothers and three other boys.

Let's start with Johnny. Johnny is extremely queer-coded in his own right. He's described early on as timid, shy, weak and maybe a little feminine. He's seen as the gang's "pet" and the youngest, despite being sixteen to Ponyboy's fourteen. His friends are very fond and protective of him. A lot of this behaviour comes from his trauma, being abused by his parents as well as beaten nearly to death by a Soc named Bob. However, it also falls into an archetype of stereotypical queer characters. Writing male characters in this way is a way of subtly telling an audience that they are queer. This probably wasn't done intentionally, but should be kept in mind.

Johnny's character development involves him becoming more masculine, almost. The final important act he does in the book is save children from a burning building. Ponyboy comments on the fact that he seemed braver, louder etc in that moment, all traits associated with masculinity, which is 1) a strange reaction to the situation, especially for Johnny, and 2) exactly the kind of narrative standpoint one would take to show that femininity (or queerness) is bad.

Now for Ponyboy - his queer-coding is more subtle at times, and a little different. He isn't timid or shy or scared or feminine like Johnny. (However, he does once say that he "didn't care too much for girls yet", but that his brother said he would grow out of it. This is particularly strange, considering he is fourteen already.) Early on, it's established that he feels like an outsider within his own group. He doesn't really feel like a greaser, or act like one. He likes things that greasers don't like. He watches movies, he reads, he likes to see the sunset. He considers himself different, or "other", and he feels as if he can't talk about it. His friends just wouldn't get it.

A large part of the book, in my opinion, is Ponyboy finding other "outsiders", like Cherry and Johnny. (Cherry being a Soc while Johnny is another greaser.) All three of them talked once, while at a drive-in, Ponyboy finding a particular connection with Cherry despite her not being the only girl there. They all have the same sense of feeling “other”, and not being able to talk about it for fear of being judged.

Now for Johnny and Ponyboy’s relationship, which...oh boy. Some of it is just scenes like this, which feel very queer, outright:

“‘Guess I look okay now, huh, Johnny?’

He was studying me. ‘You know, you look an awful lot like Sodapop, the way you’ve got your hair and everything. I mean, except your eyes are green.’

‘They ain’t green, they’re gray,’ I said, reddening. ‘And I look about as much like Soda as you do.’ I got to my feet. ‘He’s good-looking.’

‘Shoot,’ Johnny said with a grin, ‘you are, too.’”

Not to mention the whole chapter they spend literally just acting like a domestic gay couple while they’re on the run, just the two of them, from the police. There’s also this conversation they have while watching the sunrise in this chapter (which I’ll talk more about later once I get to the symbolism), in which they talk about being outsiders. Here are a few quotes from that:

“‘You know,’ Johnny said slowly, ‘I never noticed colors and clouds and stuff until you kept reminding me about them. It seems like they were never there before.’”

“‘Well, Soda kinda looks like your mother did, but he acts just exactly like your father. And Darry is the spittin' image of your father, but he ain't wild and laughing all the time like he was. He acts like your mother. And you [Ponyboy] don't act like either one.’”

“‘You [Johnny] ain't like any of the gang. I mean, I couldn't tell Two-Bit or Steve or even Darry about the sunrise and clouds and stuff. I couldn't even remember that poem around them. I mean, they just don't dig. Just you and Sodapop. And maybe Cherry Valance.’

Johnny shrugged. ‘Yeah,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I guess we're different.’

‘Shoot,’ I said, blowing a perfect smoke ring, ‘maybe they are.’”

(Honestly, can my whole argument just be that one quote? “I guess we’re different.” // “Shoot. Maybe they are.” Queer stuff, huh?)

Later in the book, when Johnny is in the hospital, Ponyboy stresses again and again that he can’t think about him dying, that he can’t fathom a life without him. Everyone in the group is fond of Johnny, but Ponyboy acts like Johnny’s death would destroy him.

When Johnny is dying, he asks to see Ponyboy. His last words are to Ponyboy, despite Dally also being in the room. One of the other last things he does is write a letter to Ponyboy.

Johnny is also the first person Ponyboy runs to when his older brother hits him early in the book.

When Johnny dies, Ponyboy falls into denial, pretending and convincing himself that Johnny isn’t dead, because he couldn’t handle the grief. He says the reason that he doesn’t go insane with it, like Dally does, is because Johnny isn’t the only thing he loves.

This isn’t nearly all of it, but this post is already long as fuck, and I want to talk about some of the metaphors and symbols too.

Symbol #1: The hair

The is a more obvious one, as the author clearly intended it to be a metaphor, although probably not for something queer. When Johnny and Ponyboy go on the run after Johnny killed a Soc in self-defence, the two of them have to cut off their hair. This is obviously a big deal to them, especially Ponyboy, because they’re proud of their hair - it’s a symbol of the greasers, of rebellion, and it’s one of the last things they have that tie them with their gang back in the city. However, having Johnny and Ponyboy specifically cut off their hair feels like more of a symbol of them severing their ties to the greasers. They feel like outsiders within their own group already, and this is a way of showing that they’re leaving it behind, or starting to. (Shedding symbols of comphet, you know.)

Symbol #2: Sunrises and sunsets

Johnny, Cherry and Ponyboy, three characters who are outsiders within their own community, all spend time watching sunrises or sunsets. It’s one of the things that Ponyboy and Cherry bond over and talk about. Johnny and Ponyboy also watch a sunrise while they’re on the run. It’s a small thing that unites the three of them and becomes almost a symbol of their “otherness”, and thus, queercoding enters the chat. Also, the sunrise that Ponyboy and Johnny watch can symbolise the “beginning” of their relationship, as they start to see each other in a different light. 

Symbol #3: Gone with the Wind

When Johnny and Ponyboy are on the run, Ponyboy buys the book Gone with the Wind from a corner store. They read it together. The book is an idealised story of the southern, free, country life. Johnny makes comments about how the men in the book are charming and gallant and he admires them. The book symbolises both what Ponyboy and Johnny wish they could be, like happy and free and rich (and straight and masculine), and what they are, or what they’re starting to find with each other while in the countryside. When Johnny is in the hospital, he asks for a copy of the book to read. It’s one of his last requests. In my opinion, he asked for it both to remember Ponyboy and to escape to a reality where he wasn’t young and dying, to one where he was still with Ponyboy on the run, or one like in the book where none of this happened at all. The book is integral to their relationship.

Symbol #4: The poem

When Ponyboy and Johnny are watching the sunrise in the church, Ponyboy recites a poem by Robert Frost:

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold,

Her early leaf’s a flower,

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf,

And Eden sank to grief.

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

At the time, the two of them both say that they don’t understand the poem. When Johnny dies later in the book, his last words to Ponyboy are to “stay gold”. In the letter he wrote for Ponyboy, which Ponyboy reads later, he says that he now understands the poem.

“I’ve been thinking about it, and that poem, that guy that wrote it, he meant you’re gold when you’re a kid, like green. When you’re a kid, everything’s new, dawn. It’s just when you get used to everything that it’s day. Like the way you dig sunsets, Pony. That’s gold. Keep that way, it’s a good way to be.”

Oh boy, there’s a lot to say about this poem.

First of all, the poem symbolises what Ponyboy gave Johnny - a new outlook on life. A lens with which to see more beautiful things. Johnny said that he hadn’t really appreciated sunsets or clouds before Ponyboy pointed them out to him.

Secondly, the meaning of the poem. When you consider Johnny’s interpretation, also taking into account what sunsets and sunrises etc. mean in this book, it’s possible that the “gold” phase is Ponyboy’s acceptance of himself. Ponyboy loves Johnny. He knows he’s different, and while he doesn’t shout it from the rooftops, he’s happy with it in his own way. He finds other people like him, queer, like Cherry and Johnny.

However, the poem’s whole meaning is that nothing gold can stay. That’s the message we’re left with, even with Johnny’s insistence of “staying gold”. It could honestly be referring to an array of things - perhaps Johnny himself, or life in general (given the amount of death in this book), or youth. Obviously, this whole post is about the queer undertones in the outsiders, so one could argue that it’s about a queer youth experience, especially in the past - finding someone like you, someone you love, but it not lasting forever, and it being especially difficult to find again, given the circumstances.

In the end, Johnny dies, but he leaves Ponyboy with all the things that remind him of him - sunsets, sunrises, Gone with the Wind, stargazing. And ultimately, I think that’s the “gold” that the book is referring to.

[a-libra-writes]

about asoiaf sex scenes, incest, pedophilia, etc... i know it's fantasy and you have "freedom" to write whatever you please, but it is absolutely fucking fascinating to me (not even in a negative way) how grrm is pretty much exempt from that criticism amongst the general public and people are like "oh misogyny" and "white savior complex" when that shit goes on. i feel that grrm is rarely criticized for more problematic shit and idk why that is (not saying he should be)... ya feel?

Somewhat (?) Incoherent 6am thoughts:

I dont want to say "no one can write about these dark topics ever" in my opinion it's just the way theyre presented, if that makes sense? In asoiaf it's not presented as a Good Thing in the setting, but it's def a Normalized Thing That is Not Good. Like idk on the misogyny claim bc he writes fantastic female characters but the setting itself is not kind to them - and there's a deluge of women in the setting who know this and try to turn the game to their favor... and several women who self-internalize misogyny and hurt each other because of the system.

The sexual abuse is an extension of this setting putting women as second class. Which, yeah, is historically "accurate" and still true today. It doesnt mean I enjoy reading about it, nor does it mean GRRM endorses it. Male creators of any medium like to throw in sexual violence to show how dark and gritty their world is. It's everywhere. And ive seen this argument done many times:

"Well, it's based off [x historical year/setting that had violence against Y group], so ofc itll have it here!", which the response is "its a fictional setting, it only has those bc the creator decides it", to which the next response is "if theyre trying to be 'accurate'...."

And so on and so forth.

There's many situations where the author clearly believes the biases of the characters/setting in their books (HP Lovecraft), and there are situations where the author is just writing bad people. I've noticed people getting these conflated, especially if the author isn't nailing them over the head with "THING BAD!" (That's very prevalent in YA and it drives me insane).

Examples of that - Sansa isn't happy about these older men creeping on her + she's learning how to play stupid and be unassuming, Cersei constantly remarks on a lot of the shitty sexism and hypocrisy (and she indulges knowingly in misogyny), Catelyn has a lot of internalized monogyny, generally judgmental thoughts & she perfectly follows the role assigned to her gender and rank, the creepy pedo/rape is obvs being done by bad people, etc etc. Tho I do wish Daenerys' chapters had more of her thinking 'wow this is fucked up!!!' and less 'falling in love' with Drogo after all the shit he puts her through :/ but she's also a freaking teen and dealing w a fucked up childhood. Kid!Dany thought she was gonna marry her brother ffs, and it doesn't occur to her that's fucked up bc her whole family does it.

Theyre still way too young tho. Gross.

sorry if this isn't coherent. A lot of this is up to taste for some people, like i rlly cant stand to read sexual assault/rape so i skip over that in any book i read. And theres people who arent bothered by that at all in asoiaf and dont even recall it

If anyone starts ranting at me or getting pissed this is all subjective and we can be adults & have our own opinions here lmao.

[iridescent-peasant]

my mega-long ADSoM review, copy-pasted in from my goodreads so i can share my dumb opinions

To summarize, this book is as if someone took Six of Crows, Britishiezed it, then slapped a red, white, gray, black filter over it.

When I first picked up the book, I was very intrigued. I LOVE multiverse/dimension traveling and the mix of a gritty magic system and 1810s London? I was very excited. And obviously, I've heard a lot about the author already too so my expectations were high. And then... I didn't read it. for a solid few months I had it on my tbr shelf but I just couldn't make myself read it. BUT HERE WE ARE! I did it, I finished the book! So let me rant about it:

PROS:

the multiple dimensions all interconnected via one city! Like that's so creative!!

the magic system. yes, it is basically Avatar but make it dark, but I honestly don't mind elementally based magic systems. i think the author managed to execute it pretty well.

the opening! THE COAT! It's such a small thing and honestly adds nothing to the plot but I love those little details! it's what makes a plot so rich

the grittiness, I usually don't go for these types of books but I can see why someone who does would like this. the blood and gore isn't minimized. it's just as bad as it would realistically be.

The author definitely wasn't afraid to kill characters. A lot of side characters that I did end up liking (I don't usually even like side characters!) were killed. Very brave and I applaud.

CONS:

the main characters. They were just so... blah. Kell was pretty ok but I could not STAND Lila. Her "I'm not like other girls" thing drove me NUTS. Also, Rye being a semi-main character of color but whose whole personality is just a bisexual stereotype... that ain't cute sis.

I am honestly in awe of how this author managed to write a whole book about 1810s London, one that literally deals with royalty vs. the lower class and pirates and exploring and never ONCE talk about colonialism! How even! honestly, that takes some real talent and some big British propaganda

going back to the characters; Kell and Lila are both as non-diverse as you would expect from a YA protagonist couple. I know Rye I supposed to be the lgbtq+ and POC representation, but *come on* (and he isn't even that much of a main character he is mostly a plot device and he does literally nothing). In the acknowledgments at the end of the book, the author says that the book is about a cross-dressing pirate and such. And... miss Schwab, I don't think that means what you think it means. Your (very clearly) cis woman main character dressing up as a man in order to steal stuff is not the representation you think it is.

I was going to talk about how Kell, Lila, and Rye and basically a watered-down Kaz, Inej, and Jesper... but I won't go into that.

The plot is all over the place; sometimes boringly slow, and sometimes way too fast to be impactful or make sense. Basically, the pacing is off.

so much plot convenience oh my g-d... oh, that guy *happens* to have that thing! oh, that woman *happens* to be willing to help!! It grated on my nerves.

(tw rape and assault) Lila's backstory--of course--revolving around rape and assault. I counted at least four men at different points in the story talk about raping Lila. It was just getting ridiculous and felt unnecessarily triggering. I am 100% here for female characters killing rapists, but it was just too much.

Apparently, I haven't complained about Lila enough, so let me mention the fact that she says that killing makes her feel good... and it's not acknowledged at all. AT ALL. Like dude what?? A lot of the reasons she does kill people are definitely understandable and I can get behind a few of them, but her saying that it makes her feel *good* and then nobody acknowledging how problematic that is felt very iffy.

Some points of the plot felt painfully predictable. (SPOILER) the predictability of putting a man with an extremely powerful artifact in his pocket next to a pocket picker??? I knew Lila was going to steal the stone and I was so annoyed by it that I stopped reading after that bit for a few weeks. ALTHOUGH it could actually be said in *favor* of the author that I felt so strongly about Kell losing the stone, it showed that the author managed to make me care about the stone as much as Kell cared about it so... Props to her actually!! But I do feel like there could have been a less annoying way of making them meet? maybe?

Was I annoyed that there were side characters named Parrish and Calla, both names characters from The Raven Boys, a book published six years before this one? Yes. Am I going to get into it? No.

Literally having a place called "Black London" where everyone there went crazy and killed each other... it didn't bode well but that's not up to me to talk about.

The two major villains both being extremely queercoded? Is definitely up to me to talk about. It was so obvious too!! It wasn't like, the hidden sort of queercoding that you usually see on villains in media, it was right in your face. The guy (whose name I cannot for the life of me remember even though I just finished the book) torturing that boy in a sadistic yet sexualized way, the way Holland talks about how he was controlled and stuff... very much felt like the "older gay man using and abusing younger men" trope. Less so for the girl, (whose name I cannot remember as well). Just something about her felt coded. I think the most obvious part was at the end where she had that fight scene with Lila... it just felt like that idk.

so between the queer-coded villains and the only canonically lgbtq+ character being an insulting bisexual stereotype, Shwab ain't looking so good...

FINAL THOUGHTS:

(spoiler about minor character death)  I was actually really upset about Holland dying. I thought he was a really interesting character and I was really hoping that Kell would free him from the mind-control or something. I really love redemption arcs and redeemed characters and I was really hoping that would happen for Holland because I know there are more books so I was hoping he would be a character that appears later... Also, I was highkey shipping him with Rye (sob)

This is way too long so I'll stop now but generally, I would recommend this book if you like gritty / darker sort of fantasy YA books. I feel kind of neutral about it but I am glad that I read it because it was still an overall okay experience. Also, I'm so glad to have finally finished it.

my goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/118399436-iridescent-peasant

[rotationalsymmetry]

General gripes about DS9 and gender (some spoilers) (content notes: some references to sexual abuse/trauma, and specifically spiritual abuse/sexual misconduct in religious leaders, also death/murder):

I swear to fuck these people do not know how to write female characters without shoehorning them into romance plotlines. (Or weird fucked up stuff, like when that Cardassian serial murderer kidnaps Kira.) Especially noticeable with Ziyal -- when Kira takes her to DS9, the writers apparently can't think of a single thing to do with a young woman other than ship her with a much older Cardassian. Then, she's starting to get her own life and make a name for her as an artist, and they fucking refridgerator her. The fuck. (And: the focus is on how her death affects Dukat, that fucker. Which, obviously sure it's going to affect him...but it's also going to affect Kira, who sees Ziyal as like a younger version of herself and was trying to protect her. And then Ziyal dies. That should have some sort of effect on Kira! And did no one else on the station make any sort of connection with her when she was there?) This is arguably not primarily a gender thing, but it is partly a gender thing: the show keeps demanding Kira find sympathy for her oppressors, over and over again. (This is a gripe fest: of course there's a lot of things about Kira's character that are done really well.) She keeps getting thrown in situations that show (some) Cardassians in more nuanced lights and that more or less force her into relationships with them, while meanwhile her old resistance cell friends all get killed off, her parents are dead, if she has any other family we don't hear about it, and she's basically left with no Bajoran friends even, as far as we know. She gets Bajoran lovers who... OK, about that. First, Vedek Bareil. Now, Bajorans are shown to have a pretty relaxed attitude towards their clergy (eg Kira is frequently rude to Winn even after she becomes Kai with apparently no consequences) -- but still. Vedek is roughly equivalent to, what, cardinal? He's high up in the heirarchy. And, he's put himself in a role of spiritual authority relative to Kira: she gets access to one of the Orbs through him. They've got a power imbalance and one that's connected to Kira's ability to do her religion. I don't care what the social norms are on Bajor that is 100% sexual misconduct on Bareil's part. If something went wrong in their relationship, it could fuck up Kira's connection to her faith. And in the show it's presented as no big deal.

(Star Trek seems to be aware of this when it comes to ship's captains! For all that Kirk notoriously fucks everyone, he never voluntarily (/outside of the mirror universe, outside of odd transporter malfunctions that split him into two parts, etc) came on to a crew member. But it's no less important for religious authorities.) (Also: this has nothing to do with celebacy. I'm fine with Bajoran religious figures being allowed to have sex and being allowed to have sex outside of marriage. But: a religious leader having a sexual relationship with someone who they're in a pastoral relationship to is wrong, and while Bareil isn't exactly Kira's pastor I think there is some level of, he's providing spiritual guidance to her. That means she's off limits to him, or should be. In the same way that bosses shouldn't fuck their direct reports, college professors shouldn't fuck their students, therapists definitely shouldn't fuck their patients, etc. Regardless of how they handle their sex life outside of those restrictions. And regardless of whether there's love involved or not -- romantic love absolutely does not make it better.) And then there's Shakaar, the former leader of her resistance cell. That she joined as a teenager. It's...yeah, it's been many years, yeah she's not directly under him any more, and yeah goodness knows a band of resistance fighters is probably not going to have a clearly written up sexual harassment policy so it's not necessarily unrealistic...it's not as blatantly "oh god no" as Bareil, but it's got some...is anyone thinking of potential abuse of power issues here? Anyone?

There was one episode where Jake and Nog were double-dating and it goes badly due to Ferengi, uh, gender roles not meshing well with Federation egalatarianism. And, then the rest of the episode is all about how they're going to repair their friendship. And I was thinking: we didn't see either female character either before or after, and why is a sexism issue being shown from the lens of "how can I, a nice guy, stay friends with my male friend who has sexism issues" and not "how am I, a young woman, going to deal with this affront to my basic personhood" or "how am I, a young woman, going to repair my friendship now that I talked my friend into a double date so I could date the guy I liked but his friend turned out to be garbage?" Like...out of all the potential relationships there, why is Jake's friendship with a guy with sexism issues (who's made it clear he's not going to change, at least as far as dating goes) the one presented as being in most need of preservation? I know, it's because Jake and Nog are more central characters and their friendship has been significant in the show for seasons now. But...that just brings up more questions. Like why does this show have a significant bro friendship between two teenage boys, but there's no friendship between two women (or between a woman and a man for that matter) that's given as much weight? There's some bonding between Kira and Dax, but it doesn't have the same presence and significance as Jake and Nog or, say, Miles and Julian. (I'm having first name/last name inconsistencies here. Ah well.) Keiko has no on-camera friendships. Kira has no on-camera friendships that have Jake & Nog or Julian & Miles weight. Dax maybe does with her Klingon buddies from Curzon's lifetime. (Benjamin Sisko also doesn't.) Ziyal could have, but doesn't. Molly could have, but doesn't. Miles doesn't seem to have any (on-camera or otherwise acknowledged) parent friends (like...there's one couple mentioned who can babysit Molly at times? That's it? We never even see them?), which is weird because fuck knows parenthood can make it hard to have any friends who aren't parents. Odo's got his weird frenemy thing with Quark. Garak has his standing lunch with Julian (if you read that as platonic, which ... yeah, there's not a lot of arguments for seeing it as platonic beyond "they're both men.") I am, don't get me wrong, extremely for showing male friendships. Very much for it. It's just...I want friendships that aren't between two guys also. And I want them to be shown as significant and meaningful and worth overcoming obstacles for. Friendships between women, friendships between people of the same race or culture (or alien species, since we are talking Star Trek here), friendships between men and women that aren't just a precursor to romance. And...parenting that isn't just...I want to see Keiko have problems with parenting that she overcomes with help from other people. I want to explore the emotional ramifications of Kira being a surrogate mom to Kirayoshi or being a semi adopted mom to Ziyal and then having her die. I want Kira to talk about how her own upbringing in times of famine and war and occupation affects her sense of her ability to potentially be a parent. I want a female character to calmly talk about her decision to not become a mother and have that decision be treated with the utmost respect. I want the sort of struggles that male characters have with parenting on the show, like Worf's difficulty connecting with his son or Benjamin's conflict over watching his son grow up and get less interested in spending time with his dad, be shown for female characters as well. And the joys, like when Benjamin remembers holding Jake as an infant, like when they reunite after Jake gets caught in a war zone. Rather than parenting be this thing that mom characters apparently do on autopilot without any internal conflict or feeling out of their depth or particular moments of joy and amazement. There's so many plot lines and moments and bits and pieces that could be amazing moments that give

mother characters balance and nuance and characterization, but they only ever get shown for fathers. (And this is not just Star Trek either...look at all the kids movies that are about father/son or father/daughter bonding, and somehow the moms...just aren't there. It's so good when there are single father storylines, just...where are all the mom storylines that could be like that?) And why do teenage boys get focus and their own stories (especially with Jake in DS9, but also TNG has Wesley Crusher and Alexander, and TOS had one story centering on a teenage boy) but girls either aren't there at all or don't get to have stories that are about them? Ziyal's stories aren't about her, she doesn't get to form her own friendships and only barely gets to develop an interest of her own before her life is taken away from her. Molly doesn't get stories that are about her. (And yeah, Molly's a lot younger than Jake, but those are still choices: DS9 could have been set when Molly was a teenager, or the show could have introduced a different teenage girl as a significant character, or Jake could have been a girl rather than a boy, or Benjamin could have had two children...)

[imagine-loki]

Maelstrom

TITLE: Maelstrom CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 5 AUTHOR: wolfpawn ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine helping Loki leave his physically and emotionally abusive girlfriend. You treat him with kindness and respect, and with time, as he falls for you, you teach him that love isn’t supposed to hurt. RATING: Mature NOTES/WARNINGS: Trigger Warning - This story is going to deal with emotional and physical abuse by a female abuser to her male partner. Maelstrom - a situation or state of confused movement or violent turmoil.

This chapter also references a past suicide. 

Shakespeare’s sonnet #27 is posted at the bottom of the fic for reference. 

Though she knew it was the right thing to do, Cara felt guilty. It was required if she wanted to look after him. Loki was a good being, he did not deserve it. Eir gave her advice and support with assisting her further if Cara felt she needed her ear and advice again. She also told her to take note of everything to do with it in case it was required later.

The next day, Alfred did not come to the healers' rooms for fresh bandages and salve. By evening, Cara was getting worried. When she finished her usual jobs, she got what she required and informed Eir that she had to do a call before setting off with a promise to return soon.

The guards let her through without issue into the Royal hallway. It was when she arrived at Loki's chambers that she was supposed to wait for consent to enter. Alfred opened the door looking anything but pleased. ‘I should warn you…’ He began as he made room for her to enter the room.

‘It's fine.’ Cara walked over to the table which she had sat at the day before assisting Loki. She had barely gotten to the table when the noise began to become clearly audible. She bit her lips together as the tirade became more and more vicious. After a couple minutes, it did not seem to be ceasing or settling down any bit and having become irate by what she was hearing. She decided to step in. Inhaling deeply, she walked to the door that separated the two rooms and knocked on it confidently.

It was Lucia who opened the door, wearing only some lingerie and Loki's overcoat. ‘Yes?’ Her eyes widened when she realised who was there. ‘What do you want?’

‘The prince is due a bandage change and there is a woman in labour that I have been asked to return to assist on, so may he come out, it will not take long.’

Lucia gave her a momentary angered look before moving slightly. Loki walked past and sat at the table wearing only a pair of pants. He extended his arm dutifully without being asked. He said nothing as she worked on it, Lucia standing over them, watching intently.

Cara said nothing as she worked. More than once she felt him looking at her but she did not return his glance, partly in guilt but also partly because she was angry ask him for not sticking to his own wishes. ‘There.’ She stated. ‘I assume you forgot to send Alfred to the healing rooms, so in case you forget again, I will simply leave some extra bandages and salve here. I need to be available for others, especially when babies are insisting on being born at all sorts of hours, not that they can help it of course.’ she joked. ‘I will let you get back to your evening.’ She rose to leave and finally looked at Loki, feeling her heartbreak at his blatant unhappiness. He begged her with his eyes to stay but without him saying anything, there was nothing she could do. ‘Is there anything else?’

‘No.’ Lucia snapped. ‘Now if you don't mind, we were in the middle of something.’

‘I gathered.’ Cara looked them up and down. ‘My Prince, can I assist you any further?’ SHe asked, giving him the opportunity to say something.

‘No, thank you.’ He mumbled.

‘Very well, good evening.’ Cara walked out of the room without another word or glance back.

*

‘Well?’ She turned to see Eir cleaning her hands having delivered Lady Ramona’s daughter.

‘Fine.’ Cara dismissed, tidying herself up after assisting.

‘Cara?’ Eir prodded, seeing the anger in the younger woman’s eyes.

‘Please, I just need to finish my notes.’

‘I think you need to talk.’

‘I think I don’t.’

‘Cara?’

‘Why...What madness comes into play when an intelligent and educated man defies the logic of leaving someone so truly horrid?’

‘We cannot say for sure.’ Eir confessed. ‘What happened?’

‘He gave in to her request and allowed her to force him to bed….but if you only saw his face…’

‘Do you think it to be rape?’

‘Honestly, I believe so, yes. He does not want it.’

‘Are you going to reveal his name to me?’

I can't, not until he asks me to help. You and I both know this.’

‘I know it is frustrating.’

‘I became a healer to help people, yet here I stand, watching this shipwreck as though it is in slow motion and I cannot do anything. I'm only permitted to watch while I bear witness to utter carnage.’

‘I know.’ Eir sighed. ‘It goes against our very beings. I remember a girl, I was less than a century in this profession, she got pregnant from a foolish fumble with an older man who used her naivety to trap her, that we suspect, at least. She was so innocent, I remember the shock on her face as being told that she was to be a mother, she had no idea how it even happened. She was married within in the week. Well, the baby came, a little girl, big enough for a first child. The mother was not particularly dainty but good sized child regardless.’ Eir inhaled before she spoke again and when she exhaled, it was almost shaky. ‘He had her back in the healing rooms two weeks later suffering from damage. He did not even wait for her to heal properly after the birth. She was pregnant again within the year. I told the head healer, we did everything we could within our constraints. She had twelve pregnancies, seven daughters and five miscarriages.’

‘What happened in the end?’

‘She started coming to check up with bruises in the shape of hand marks. Every time we told her it was a girl, she shook and she cried. Three of the miscarriages occurred within the first two days of the revealing of the gender. She had such a difficult life. And her parents all but ignored her because of the “shame” she had brought them. She loves her children but it became too much.’

‘How old was she?’

‘She was barely scraping nine hundred when I diagnosed her first pregnancy. She was not even twelve hundred when I pronounced her death from jumping from the highest balcony she could access.’

‘Norns.’

‘I begged her, I begged her so often let me help her. But she refused.’

‘I…’ Cara could not bare Loki doing something similar.

‘Try and get him to ask for help, Cara. Whoever this boy is, try and get him to see sense.’

‘’And if I can't?’

‘One of the hardest realisations you will ever come to in this life is that we cannot save everyone.’

‘I just feel so conflicted.’

‘How so?’

‘I am not particularly sure. How am I supposed to respect boundaries when such foul crimes are being committed? It is so wrong to be in such a position.’

‘Help him see that.’

‘He thinks men cannot be the victim.’

Eir shook her head. ‘Men are more often the perpetrator but they are as able to be the victim too. Try and help him see that.’

‘I will try.’

*

It was while she was writing more patient notes late the next day when Cara heard the door of the healing room open. She paid little heed to it as there were other healers still in the ward.

‘Excuse me, where would I find Healer Cara?’

‘Her office is the third on the right.’ Amelia, a new apprentice directed.

‘Thank you.’

Cara put away the notes she had readied for whoever was about to arrive. Oddly, the same feeling she experienced in her gut before came to her again. She rose from her chair and walked over to the door before the man on the other side could even knock. ‘Oh’.

‘Alfred, is everything alright?’ She asked worriedly as she let him in. ‘Is the Prince having an issue with the bandage?’ Her voice was low until she closed the door to ensure Loki’s privacy. As soon as it clicked shut, she raised her voice to a more normal level. ‘You can speak freely now, these rooms are protected to ensure confidentiality.’

‘When you arrived yesterday…’

Cara inhaled. ‘Yes?’

‘I…’ She cocked her head slightly. With a shaking breath, Alfred glowed green and turned to Loki.

‘Oh, wow.’ Cara had not expected that

‘I’m sorry.’

‘What for?

‘What you witnessed.’

‘I came back here, and within ten minutes of my returning, Lady Ramona accidentally had her birthing sac rupture on me as I aided Eir during the labour, I can assure you, I am very much aware of intimacy and indeed, its repercussions.’ She dismissed.

‘Are you allowed tell me that? I thought you were bound to secrecy?’ Loki questioned.

Cara looked at him, confused. ‘Lord Henry declared it to a full dining room last evening after dinner and again at breakfast and lunch today that after two boys, he finally gave his beloved Ramona the daughter she yearned for so greatly. It is more public knowledge now than knowing that your father is the Allfather. I suspect he has even gone and told that stray cat that dallies outside the kitchens at this stage.’ She laughed as she sat behind her desk again

‘Oh...I thought…’

‘I respect all of my patient’s privacy.’ Her tone revealed her disapproval of such a thought.

‘I just...how?’

‘How what?’

‘How do I do it?’

‘Do what?’ Cara walked around her desk, begging to herself that what she suspected he was trying to say was, in fact, the words he was trying to get out.

‘Get her to stop?’

‘You can’t, only she can stop her. She has to choose to stop.’

‘I need…’

‘You need to end it. She is not good for you, My Prince.’ She took his hand in hers.

‘But I will never find someone to love me again.’

‘This is not love.’ Cara explained in a sympathetic voice. ‘We do not hurt those we love. We do not make them feel that they are a burden or not worthy of our time and love. She does not love you.’ She declared. ‘You deserve love, someone who, when she sees you, her whole face brightens up, who respects you, who…’ she paused and looked at Loki, who was fighting back tears. ‘My Prince?’ She did it to comfort him. She reached up and went to put her hand to his cheek but he winced and drew back before she even touched him. She felt herself fighting back her own tears as she noticed how scared he was. ‘You do not deserve to fear the touch of another.’

As his resolve broke, Cara noticed his right eye become severely bloodshot. Seeing her concern, Loki lifted the spell that he placed on himself. Cara’s eyes widened as his face changed from pale perfect skin to a mottled swollen mess. ‘I….I couldn’t...perform.’

Cara’s heart broke. ‘Loki…’

‘I always…..I wanted it to be on my terms, with someone I...who made me want to, but I couldn’t and she…’

‘That is how you don’t know about Lord Henry and Lady Ramona’s daughter, you were hiding.’

‘I am a coward.’

‘No, no my Prince, you are no such thing, cease that thought right now. You do not deserve this, you did nothing to deserve any of it.’ She gently brought her hand to the side of his face that was not injured. Startled at first, Loki did not know how to react but a moment later, he leant into her touch. ‘We all just want to be loved. There is no shame in that.’

‘You don’t have anyone.’

‘I don’t entertain thoughts of those I do not think will make me happy.’ She explained. ‘I will find my Prince, when the time's right, I will settle for nothing else. I rather be alone than be someone who I don’t feel I could love fully, it’s not right.’

‘Help me.’ She looked at him. ‘Please.’

‘Do you want to just get away from her or do you want to press charges?’

‘I just want to be free.’

‘We’ll think of something.’ She promised, putting her hand on his, gently squeezing it. ‘When was the last time you felt good about you?’

‘I can hardly remember.’

‘Do what makes you happy Loki, be happy.’

‘She will not accept it.’

‘And you should not accept her not accepting it. We can only be responsible for us.’

Loki could not help but feel sceptical of her words. ‘Can I talk to you?’

‘Of course, we are talking now.’ She smiled.

‘No, just normal talking, please.’

Cara thought of the work she still had to complete, as well as her tiredness from a long tedious day before smiling again. ‘Sonnet Twenty-seven.’ Loki’s brows furrowed. ‘Today, that would be my sonnet of choice.’

Loki flicked through the words in his head and smiled back. ‘That’s a good one.’ Then his smile fell. ‘I am not stopping you leaving, am I?’ He began to turn for the door.

‘Not at all.’ Cara fibbed ‘What about you?’

‘No, I had sent word that I was a little ill so no one has bothered me...oh, you mean the sonnets, I guess….I can’t remember.’

Cara gave a small laugh. ‘Well, we can talk more on it when you do.’ She offered.

‘I would like that.’

Cara was about to speak again when there was a knock on the door. She walked over and opened it slightly. ‘Yes?’ Her voice was polite.

‘Healer Eir gave this to me and said that it was for your eyes only.’

‘Thank you, Amelia.’ She smiled, taking the file, ensuring the apprentice could not see who the other occupant of the room was. She noted the awkward manner in which Amelia was looking at her. ‘Can I do anything else for you?’

‘At the back of the file is my consent for that requires signing to allow me…’

‘I was under the impression that you are to follow Healer Amie?’

‘Yes, but she is away this week and I checked, any qualified healer can sign it and it…’

‘Is due tomorrow.’ Cara noted the date that is was supposed to be returned by the following day. ‘I see. I promise I will have it logged tonight.’

‘Thank you, Healer Cara.’

‘No problem, now, I have a patient that needs me here, I will be out to you soon.’

‘Of course, I'm sorry to have disturbed you.’ Amelia rushed off.

Cara walked back in and placed the form and her document file and the file in a drawer within her desk. ‘My apologies.’

‘Why did you become a healer?’ Loki asked curiously. ‘Tyr is incredibly wealthy, you don't need to work.’

‘No one becomes a healer for financial gain, trust me.’ Cara laughed. ‘I have wanted to be one since I was a child. Father came home for the battle on Nidavellir having received several bad wounds. I watched as Healer May, she was the old head healer before Eir, tended to him. She asked me if I wanted to help, I think she just wanted to calm my anxiousness at him being wounded but I loved every moment of it. I decided then I would become one. It became my goal just as my sister's one was to become a warrior. well, she wanted to be a Valkyrie but they're all gone so she settled for looking for trouble with Thor and his other friends under the guise of being a warrior instead.’

Loki chuckled at what he would describe as an accurate description of Thor and his friends galavanting. ‘And what about Lucas?’

‘Lucas always loved inter-realm relations. When father stepped down from the army and took a more political and diplomatic role, Lucas decided when watching him but that is what he wished for too.’

‘You are all very happy.’

‘What would you like to do?’

‘Travel, and study in Vanaheim and Alfheim for a century or two, broaden my seidr.’

‘Why don’t you?’

‘Lucia….’

‘She is not relevant in this.’

‘She said it was stupid, that I should just be more like Thor.’ There was a clear bitterness in his tone.

‘Does she often compare you to your brother?’

‘Yes, she does. Apparently, he would not be so….’

Cara took his hand as she had done many times before. ‘It’s alright.’

‘I am not as good as him.’

‘You are not Thor, you are Loki, and you are as good as Thor. Maybe not at the same things but you are as valid as he is, never forget that.’

‘You always say these things, these words to lift a being.’

‘You need to hear them but I believe them also.’

‘Of all the beings, why are you so nice to me?’

‘I am nice to all my patients. My role is to tend to your wellbeing in every way. I remember when we were growing up, you were always your own being. I have always liked our interactions, as infrequent as they were while we were younger.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, I always found you to very interesting to speak with or when you were speaking to Lucas, as the case was. We have a similar taste in literature, I find myself enjoying and looking forward to my time speaking with you on certain matters.’ Loki’s eyes brightened significantly at her words.

It was past midnight when Cara crashed onto her bed. Loki had stayed in her office for a few hours, then with her notes and ensuring Amelia’s forms were sent, she was very much tempted to sleep in her office, but instead, she forced herself to her bed.

Shakespeare sonnet #27

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed, The dear repose for limbs with travel tired; But then begins a journey in my head, To work my mind, when body's work's expired: For then my thoughts (from far where I abide) Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee, And keep my drooping eyelids open wide, Looking on darkness which the blind do see: Save that my soul's imaginary sight Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night, Makes black night beauteous and her old face new. Lo, thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind, For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.

[werewolves-are-real]

hey! I was rereading some of your temeraire fics, and I was wondering if you would be willing to share some snippets of any WIPs you have? I really love your writing style haha ❤️❤️

Thank you! I am... trying to figure out which WIPs I haven’t provided snippets of yet, haha. So I pulled out tiny bits from some obscure ones I don’t work on much; hopefully they’ll go somewhere eventually.

1. that fic where Emily and Demane get married and Laurence keeps trying not to cry at the wedding. The dragons fight over Emily’s dress-design.

Even CaptainLaurence has cautioned her to restrain, restrain, restrain herselfuntil marriage, all in the name of propriety – and of course heuses fancy justifications, that she would not want to have regrets orlower her station (as though her future duchessy will be snatchedaway if she is not a virgin), but it is all about Society.

Of course it is very nice for CaptainLaurence to say such things, when he lives up in Scotland with Mr.Tharkay and probably has sex everyday; and they cannot be married,even. 'Let him who cast the first stone', and all that rot.

...

She is informed that Lady Allendale hasvolunteered Nottinghamshire for the location. Emily thinks this is avery thoughtful gesture, as the grounds at Wollaton Hall will be ableto hold an audience mixed with men and heavy-weights with ease. Sheis not certain why, when Captain Laurence explains this generosity, her mother only grins and asks, “And will your mother be providingher a dowry, too?” as his face slowly reddens.

2. that post-series fic where Laurence and Tharkay are together, and Granby and Little visit, and they all get drunk and do things that Laurence will probably regret later

“Oh, pray spare us,” says Littlesuddenly. “You act like I was not there, when you were his FirstLieutenant, always complaining about Captain Laurence's blue eyesand Captain Laurence'slovely stupid face - “

Tharkay cackles over his wine.Laurence cannot quite control his own expression; Granby takes onelook at him and cries “You don't have to be so pleased about it!”,and then he's laughing too.

- the wine is clouding his head, soperhaps Laurence does not take proper note, as he aught, when Tharkaymurmurs, “They would look quite a picture, though.”

3. the cliche soulmate one where Laurence finagles an invitation to one of Napoleon’s weekly dinners during the peace in 1802, and everything seems great, except then war breaks out a few months later and he has Regrets

For his part,Laurence memorizes the name and promptly puts it from mind. Ifsoulmates are rare, it is impossibly uncommon for them to actuallymeet. Not impossible, of course, and he always keeps an ear open inforeign ports; but in truth the name rarely merits a thought. Hestill intends to marry Edith, anyway; the fact that his name is malewould only garner minor disapproval from society, but actuallypursuing the connection is unthinkable.

Then, at the ageof 22, Laurence reads a letter from an old shipmate who writes that“the troops in Italy were routed by some new General of theirs,Napoleon Bonaparte - “

AndLaurence thinks: it cannot be the same man. Perhaps it is a commonname, in France.

(He later checks:Napoleon is Corsican, and the name is not common at all.)

...

“I do not hate Louis,” saysNapoleon, surprising him. “By all accounts he was a decent man; buthe was a bad king.”

“Yet people cannot seek to topplemonarchs whenever they disagree with some decisions,” saysLaurence. “There would be anarchy, and France is only an example ofthis.”

“I am very pleased with France'sanarchy,” says Napoleon. “And what would you propose, Captain?Should the people sit idly while they are abused and neglected, onlybecause the king is trying todo well? That is asmall consolation, when children starve in the streets and the nationweakens. Louis was weak.”

“And you believeyou are stronger?”

“France does,”says Napoleon. Despite the nature of the discussion, he is smilingfaintly. “I cannot fault you your loyalty to your ideals, Captain –wrong though they are. Forgive me; what was your name?”

Laurence pausesfor only an instant – a very brief instant – and then, in a fitof abandon, he tells the truth.

“WilliamLaurence, Your Majesty.”

4. the slightly confused sequel of Terror in War, Ornament in Peace wherein Laurence loses his memory after being shipwrecked near Rhode Island. And is therefore unaware of the fact that he’s a prince of China, a French Baron, a traitor to England, and generally infamous for being Napoleon’s lover. can you imagine

Laurence wakes upin a cell. The native woman by his bedside squints down with darkeyes and looks entirely unperturbed at hisalarm. She finishes wrapping his arm, ignoring his wince, and thenstands. “Do not hit your arm,” She enunciates clearly, and pointsat it for good measure. Then: “Stupid.” She exits.

Laurence stares atthe door dumbly.

A jailor locks thedoor. It's covered by slatted bars along the top, and after a momentLaurence calls out, “Sir, may I know where I am?”

The man ignoreshim.

He is ignored foran hour at least – then the man leaves, perhaps signifying thatLaurence is not even considered a threat. Several hours, he suspects,pass as the shifts changes and the room darkens naturally. His throattightens with dryness.

Finally, someonecomes to see him.

It is a pair,actually – an older man, his hair going gray, and a youngercounterpart who seems just out of childhood. “See, he watches usright as we enter,” the old man says in a tone of great boredom.“He's eager to talk, you see – that's why you make 'em wait.”

Laurence clencheshis jaw.

The young manshifts from foot to foot. They stop in front of Laurence's cell. “I'mGavin Banner - head of the Watchmen here,” the old man explains. Asan afterthought, he waves to his trainee and adds, “This is SamWirth.”

“I would like tosay it is a pleasure,” Laurence says flatly. “But I confess I amconfused; what am I doing here?”

“This is wherehe acts innocent,” Banner says to Wirth. “Realized he made amistake coming here, you see? We don't have any loyalists left aroundhere, you see?” Banner nods with satisfaction.

Laurence exhalesslowly.

“Um,” saysWirth, and then stops.

“What crime haveI committed?” Laurence asks.

At that Banneractually snorts. “Ha!” he says, and then, “Ha! A crime, whatcrime do you need in wartime?” He wags a finger at Laurence asthough he's a misbehaving school-child. “The soldiers will come foryou soon enough.”

“I see,”Laurence says grimly.

“Now, will youanswer our questions?”

“Sir, if you areposed against His Majesty than I will not.”

Banner huffs up.“Well!” he says, and, “Well! We will see about that. Wehave chains – hmm, a poker, somewhere - “

“Ah.” Thisis apparently too much for the boy. “Sir, the First Watch are notauthorized to – to torture. Sir.”

“The city willgive us a bit of discretion for a loyal Brit,” Banner protests.

Wirth shifts butdoesn't back down. “Oh, very well,” Banner sighs. “ - We willask permission. Though I'm sure we'll be kinder than theirregulars, anyway,” he tells Laurence helpfully.

“I will bearthat in mind,” is his dry reply.

Banner stomps outand the boy follows, so that is something.

The guard does notreturn; possibly he has taken a break or simply forgotten Laurence.After awhile another man comes in. “Yes, yes, I am not a fool,”he laughs to someone behind him as he enters; it takes Laurence anoddly long moment to register that the words are not spoken inEnglish. Pieces start to come together. So the Americans have made analliance with the French, then – that is not promising.

“Ah, I had heardthere was an English captive,” says the Frenchman. “I suppose ourcaptain will want to talk to you, and he is not here yet; what isyour name, sailor?”

Laurence debatesfor a moment the tactical concerns of revealing his identity, butfinally admits he is not likely to be known to anyone even if hecannot fully guess what his position might be in this placeand year. “William Laurence,” he reveals.

He immediatelyregrets his decision as alarm overtakes the Frenchman's features.

“Excuse me?”

[bookbeani]

A Girl Like That by Tanaz Bhathena

“Abdullah had told me about such girls. NATO, he called them. No action, talk only. The ones who kissed like whores and then cried like virgins.”

Goodreads Summary: Sixteen-year-old Zarin Wadia is many things: a bright and vivacious student, an orphan, a risk taker. She’s also the kind of girl that parents warn their kids to stay away from: a troublemaker whose many romances are the subject of endless gossip at school. You don't want to get involved with a girl like that, they say. So how is it that eighteen-year-old Porus Dumasia has only ever had eyes for her? And how did Zarin and Porus end up dead in a car together, crashed on the side of a highway in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia? When the religious police arrive on the scene, everything everyone thought they knew about Zarin is questioned. And as her story is pieced together, told through multiple perspectives, it becomes clear that she was far more than just a girl like that.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

My Thoughts: This is officially the worst book I’ve read, ever, which is not something I say lightly. It’s a contemporary young adult novel set in Saudi Arabia that’s supposedly meant to bravely expose rape culture, but all it does is expose the author’s own islamophobia and girl-on-girl hate. Now, it’s a subtle islamophobia, and I suppose a subtle hate if you’re not looking for it, and maybe that’s why it’s gone largely unnoticed so far. But if anything, it’s more glaringly harmful for its subtlety. Let me take you on a tour through this novel, across the dozens upon dozens of quotes and bookmarked pages, and maybe I’ll be able to make myself a little more clear.

Let’s begin with the fact that Tanaz Bhathena clearly did no research when it came to Islam – which is sort of concerning considering she wrote an entire novel set in an Islamic country.  Oh, sure, it seems she knows lots when it comes to the religious police, throwing around everyone’s favourite word, Sharia law, but the history? Apparently the accurate portrayal of that is beyond her. She seems to know a wonderful amount about bridges in hell and eternal damnation, but when it comes to common burial practices? No, not possible, sorry.

Okay, whatever, these are little things, right? Who cares if she doesn’t know that Muslims don’t get buried in coffins or that the three wise men were indeed Zoroastrian priests, that’s not harmful is it? Well, if only it ended there, I could have forgiven this book its shortcomings and moved on with my life.

Let’s move on to the actual Muslim characters portrayed in the novel, shall we? The main character, Zarin, is Zoroastrian, as is the love interest, Porus. The main Muslim characters you see throughout the novel are 1) the religious police 2) Mishal’s family and 3) Farhan’s family. And as far as fucked up representations go, these three really take the cake.  

The religious police: do I really need to say much about them? It seems pretty self-explanatory. They’re a constant threat lurking throughout the novel – reminders that girls must cover up their hair, that unchaperoned interactions between unrelated boys and girls are Not Allowed (funny, that this is only mentioned when Zarin is with other boys, but never when she’s with Perfect Porus), and… that’s pretty much it. Is there any talk of the Muslims who are oppressed by the religious police for their beliefs? The fact that the religious police don’t follow any religion, and are pretty much one step short of being ISIS? Of course not, that would be an almost… positive and accurate portrayal of Islam wouldn’t it? And we can’t have that, obviously. But, ultimately, the religious police are a background thing – they don’t really take centre stage in this novel. That’s where the two families come in.

Enter: the two Muslim families closest to the heart of the story. In one, you’ve got a man who abandoned his first wife for a second, because polygamy is a totally common and normal thing (spoiler: it’s not). You have Mishal, a sixteen-year-old girl whose marriage prospects are “limited to creepy grooms nearly twice or thrice [her] age.” (spoiler: this is also not common, despite what every wonderful portrayal of the middle east would have you think). Mishal, whose brother tells her, after his friend attempts to assault her, “Have you learned nothing about men and the necessity of a proper hijab? Or did you want his attention?”. A brother who says that “A woman’s honor is like a tightly wrapped sweet. If you unwrap a sweet and leave it lying around, you expose it to everything out there. If, by accident, it falls into the dirt – tell me, Mishal, will anyone want to eat it?” Mishal, who lives in a society that believes that sex is something that a girl should “[suffer] through like a proper virgin.” (spoiler: also not true). All this, while Abdullah reads porn magazines, smokes, dates multiple girls, and Mishal the prude watches, scandalized. Not to mention the fact that since their father moved out to live with his new wife, he’s legally the “guardian of the household” and this is something that’s not questioned, even once, by anyone. What a great, wonderful, functional family, right? What a fantastically positive portrayal. But it gets worse.

Farhan’s family is where things start to get properly disgusting. How is it first introduced? Here are the actual first lines of Farhan’s point of view in the entire book, no joke: “They were going at it like dogs, Abba and the maid. My father, who my mother said I would look like when I got older – tall, dark, and handsome – banging the maid so hard that he banged the headboard against the wall and left a mark in the paint.” Yeah, a great start, isn’t it? So aside from a cheating father (because the only two Muslim fathers portrayed in the novel have to be these disgusting men who can’t possibly have a healthy relationship with a single wife, it’s impossible), you have the disgustingness that is Farhan himself. Farhan, who’s most renowned as being the school heartthrob. But unlike your usual YA contemporary heartthrob, because all these characters are Muslim, and thus must be degenerate somehow, right, this one drugs girls to get with them, sexually assaults them, and rapes them. On a regular basis. How wonderful, right?

Thus ends the part where I talk about how terrible each of these characters are, and we can move on to more of the general horrors that make up this book. If my above description hasn’t been clear enough, I’m just going to say it: you have the female characters portrayed as these sexually repressed individuals, completely lacking agency, while pretty much the only reason any of the male characters (aside from Perfect Porus, who wants to get to know Zarin for who she is, like the great non-Muslim guy he is) live is for sex.

In general, this book’s obsession with sex is seriously ridiculous. The entire first third of the novel, the only things that happen are that different people have sex, think about having sex, or judge other people for having sex – that is literally it, I’m not exaggerating in the least. Yes, teenagers are hormonal. Yes, they think about having sex a lot. But that is literally the only thing these characters are characterized by. None of the girls have any hobbies, other than gossiping about boys and hating on other girls (and by other girls I mean Zarin). There is not a single healthy girl-girl relationship in the whole book. In fact, the only relationship in the whole book that can actually be termed healthy is the one between Zarin and Porus. Funny, isn’t it?

There’s a lot more I could go into, honestly – the astonishing relationship between Zarin and her aunt (who started shaming her niece at the age of four for “spreading her legs and sitting like a boy”), the slut-shaming rampant throughout the whole book, the idea that a girl has to bleed when she loses her virginity, the inevitability of arranged marriage for not only Mishal but all the female characters, the objectification of girls for their boobs (seriously, there is a concerning hyperfixation on boobs for some reason, you’d think this was written by a white man because this is almost titting down stairs level boobery), a debate that only seems to show domestic abuse as normalized in this society, and more.

I can hardly begin to explain how damaging something like this is – a book that’s being lauded as this brave exposure of misogyny and rape culture, but is written in such bad taste. The context of this book makes the whole discussion fraught with damaging implications, and the lack of any good, or positive, or normal characters in the whole book to counterbalance all the shitty ones is really inexcusable. 

In conclusion, this book is cancelled. 

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

[jayraffe11]

Spoiler alert 🚨

Seriously, The Shape of Water is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time, and I’m going to attempt to articulate why. (I know I left out some aspects of the film but it’s a tumblr post not an actual essay so give me a break lol)

First, the main character and her relationships: Eliza is the leading role. She is mute, and therefore disabled, but her best friend Zelda, a black woman, has her back. They care for and support one another. Eliza’s other friend is her neighbor, an older white guy. He is struggling with work and Eliza looks after him. These relationships show broken barriers: white and black together (keep in mind this is around the 1960s), old male and young female relationship doesn’t have to be about money or sex - these relationships are about genuine human kindness and mutual respect. With the help of her friends, Eliza discovers that she is stronger than she previously believed. She realizes that doing nothing means you are nothing. Doing nothing when you feel the need to fight is the epitome of weakness. She may not have been able to speak, but actions speak louder than words, as they say. She stands up to an authority by signing vulgar words he can’t understand but recognizes are rebellious but he can’t prove because she then signs “thank you”, which Zelda then translates to him. She rescues the creature with whom she has fallen in love against status quo. They cannot speak to each other but they can sign a little, and they understand one another. They see each other’s truths. There’s something really special about a bond so strong words aren’t needed.

Second, the creature: Is it human? No. Is it a god? Maybe. Should we drag it from South America to a lab in America and run tests on and torture it? Definitely. Why? To beat the Soviets. Duh. Oh, it’s bleeding, what should we do now? Dissect him! That was basically the thought process of the lab people. But we, as the audience, and Eliza find that the creature is intelligent, capable of communication, emotion, and is truly sentient. I literally just wrote a paper on how the world wars impacted how stories about monsters vs men are told, how the monster is villainized and man glorified, and this movie went behind the propaganda and made the case for the “monster” and against the “man”. This movie is telling a story in a way it hasn’t been told for a long, long time, especially on screen. So many movies have shown non-human “monsters” who clearly have a reason for hurting humans but that reason is disregarded by just the total magnitude of all the awful destruction the monster causes and how man saves the day. This movie does the exact opposite. It shows man being oblivious to basic decency while trying to out-wit one another. In a way it is a lot like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein because Victor Frankenstein ignored morality and made a creature without thinking of the consequences of his actions that would be brought on both him and his creation.

And I have to mention the workplace ethics: With all this stuff going on with the allegations of sexual harassment coming out in all kinds of different workplaces, this movie just hits the nail right on the head. It shows how some men of power abuse their position. It shows how easy it can be to get trapped. It shows what verbal harassment is and that it is unwanted. It shows how the way someone stands a little too close is not okay. It showed how the white man thought he was king of everything and could do whatever he wanted, and how deeply flawed that man turned out to be.

Conclusion: Look, I know that there are other films that tell about the immorality of man, but this film did it in such a beautiful, impactful, poignant, detailed way that I have honestly never seen in a film. And more films like this that call out our flaws as humans and representing different kinds of people are coming out and are being made and I am so excited about this beginning of a change in the film industry.

[pkmncoordinators]

This question is probably random, but after seeing how many reviews you had for your fanfics (especially TAC), I had to ask. I was wondering if you ever had very incredibly weird reviews that even to this day you think about.

Oh my god, have I. I’ve had several fucking weird reviews, but let me share some of my personal favorites.

To start, a review from The Ash Connection:

Let me tell you something misty is ugly and a Sherman taking steroids and other drugs like drinking strawberry meth so you need to learn to love sexy girls and drug shemans go for flannery Candice Cynthia Soledad skyla elesa ok 

This one needs no comment. It is presented, as is, in its full glory.

To follow up, another review from The Ash Connection. It is, in fact, the sequel to the previous review:

Again I just like to say fuuck this I haven't read it yet but I read the review (I don't know what shipping this is ) but misty a sheman and you need to put in this story so been doing drugs and taking steroids and sex pills (men's one for bigger peniis) and becomes a ugly drugged man in this story ok now I'm going to read it NOOOOOOOOO OO POKESHIPPING IT'S GAY ASH ISN"t GAY HE NEEDS SEXY GIRLS LIKE DAWN ELESA CYNTHIA (damn sexy Cynthia ) SKYLA CANDICE FLANNERY understand POKESHIPPERS GO TO HEELL YOU SICK DOGS (biitches) BECAUSE YOU NEED TO LEARN READ GAY STORY'S LIKE ASH X SHEMAN IS JUST OMG

The final review I’d like to share is from The Ash Connection II. It is unabridged. This is a real review I received, for no apparent reason, and it is to date probably my favorite:

Pokemon Rant on the evil PaulWhy I hate PaulThe Paul I am referring to is a character in the pokemon anime, who is currently Ash's primary rival while the group is in the Sinnoh region. Paul is really a varied character: on the forums, the Paul character discussion thread has, at the time of writing, nearly spans twenty pages, though most of it is saying how "awesome" he is. However, I do not think he is awesome. I hate him more than I hate Harley from the same show. I want to strangle Paul and break one of his limbs. Most probably won't know why I feel this way, so I will explain.First, Pokemon are sentient beings in this setting. As Linkara pointed out in his review of "Captain Planet and the Planeteers #3," if animals were truly intelligent enough to make their own decisions and follow orders, animals would easily be given rights. Considering that many pokemon in this setting are shown to be smart enough to qualify, pokemon should have a bill of rights. In the real world, Paul's treatment of his pokemon would be classified as cruelty to animals and he would be arrested and sent to Juvenile court, regardless of whether or not his pokemon appreciated his method of training. Though seeing how the world lacks competent police officers and encourages ten year old children to wander around with no parental supervision with only tamed animals for protection, the government must be very inadequate. While I'm on the subject, why haven't his pokemon objected to his training methods? Sure, they might want to get stronger, but considering that his training methods in the Tag Battle arc would've gotten Chimchar killed had it not been for Ash's intervention, wouldn't at least one or two of them start having second thoughts about their trainer? Heck, seeing how strong they are and how humans are pretty much powerless without technology, I'm surprised his pokemon haven't killed him by now. Pokeballs must have great taming powers to keep pokemon from generally rebelling against their trainers.Second, why hasn't anyone reprimanded him? I know I'm stressing this, but why hasn't Paul been punished for his behaviour? He clearly abuses his own pokemon, physically as evident in the aforementioned Tag Battle arc and emotionally, as seen when blames his pokemon for defeats, even after he's stated that when a battle is lost, the trainer is at fault, which not only proves he's a hypocrite but also doesn't make much sense considering the pokemon have all the power in this setting. Shouldn't he have gotten some form of punishment by this point? Not even his older brother, Reggie (who I should note is more like Ash in personality and training methods), has done anything about this. Why in the name of Slaking's lazy ass hasn't Reggie done anything to discipline him? Is Reggie really hoping that Paul will eventually change his way, as unlikely as it is? If Paul crossed the line, outright killing pokemon and showing no remorse for this, would Reggie still be hoping for Paul to change? I highly doubt it.Third, why would anyone want to be anywhere near him? Paul's character in the show is that of a condescending jackass who looks down on almost everyone, including those closest to him (when he admits that his brother was weak after failing to get the Brave Symbol and moving on with his life), and he's too arrogant to admit that he's flawed. In real life, absolutely no one would want to be around him, let alone be associated with him. To be honest, I think the only reason Reggie even gives him a chance is because they're brothers. Also, consider the fact that Paul is supposed to be ten years old (and I say "supposed to" because given that he's said to be the same age as Ash, and how the creators have stated that Ash is still ten after more than five hundred episodes, I don't think many actually take that statement seriously). Most ten year olds are not like Paul at all, which would prompt most to wonder, "What is wrong with him?" It's likely that Reggie would've gotten many complaints about Paul's cold and heartless antics, and as patient as he might be, he will eventually run out of tolerance.As for how he interacts with others, with Ash and friends in particular, he's the same as with anyone else: rude, arrogant, and generally unfriendly, despite that Ash and co have tried to be friendly every time they've crossed paths. I'm surprised that, seeing how unlikely Paul is to change his attitude, they still try to be friendly with him. If they were a normal group of teens, one of them (most likely Ash) would've given him a hard smack upside the head.He's said to be respectful to superiors such as Nurse Joy, Professor Rowan, and Cynthia. However, seeing as how he ignored Nurse Joy's warning for Chimchar's safety in the Tag Battle arc (I'll detail this below), ignored Cynthia's encouragement to change into a more caring trainer, I get the feeling that it's mostly a façade. If he truly did respect them, he would've followed their advice.With all of these in mind, why anyone interacts with him is a big question left in everyone's minds. Fourth, he's become the creator's pet. In the many times I keep my eye on the show, I find myself desperately hoping the writers would give him some form of karma. Much to my annoyance, they do not. Even if they do give him some karma, it never lasts: I can think of at least three cases where he could've used a good smacking: the first is a particularly frustrating case when Paul's victory against Ash after having a humiliating loss against Brandon's regi trio. After all, what better way to break him and get him to start rethinking his priorities by beating him after a particularly horrible loss? Instead, they have Paul win against Ash in a very one-sided battle, with Paul pretty much learning that no matter who he loses to, Ash will be his punching bag.Another case I hoped for a good smacking was for a gym leader to confiscate and refuse to hand Paul a gym badge due to his rude and condescending gloating after getting the Veilstone Gym badge from Maylene. Maylene was pretty much a new gym leader at this point, and gym leaders command respect, no matter how new they are. By all means, Maylene should've forbid him the badge because he didn't treat her with the respect that gym leaders deserve. The aforementioned tag battle arc is another point that could've given him the chance to be taught the error of his ways. After Chimchar was rescued by Ash and put into recovery, Nurse Joy warned him not to put the injured pokemon into battle because the injuries are numerous; naturally, being the insensitive jerk he is, he ignores the warning, knowing that a rival pokemon that Chimchar feared would be there, stupidly thinking that Chimchar would fight with more fury: as expected, Chimchar froze in fear, which is what happens most of the time in real life. Again, why in the name of Slaking's lazy ass didn't Nurse Joy report this? In the real world, people such as her are required to report such abuses to authorities, though considering Japan is drastically behind on the whole reporting abuse issue, it just leaves negative implications. Had I been in her position, I would've reported him to the authorities, complete with the threat of removing him from the tournament if he ignored the warning, as well as following on that threat.Seriously, the lack of punishment and defeats lead me to believe that Paul is like a cheating spoiled brat who has to win, and the writers are following his demands. I swear the only reason he isn't on the TvTropes Wesley page is because of his Draco in Leather Pants status, which is described below.Fifth, the fanbase adores him for all the wrong reasons. I have to admit, this is one of my biggest gripes with the character. It wouldn't be so bad if the audience treated him appropriately, but they don't. Instead, he's glorified and held in a positive light in spite of his generally repulsive attitude, which gets downplayed. While the entire fanbase doesn't adore him and shares some of my sentiments, those who don't raise him to god status are the vast minority.Many say they like Paul because how he's isn't a "goody two shoes" rival like many rivals in the show. In real life, a rival like Paul is the last kind of rival you'd want; since he's an arrogant bully who'd more likely drain the fun out of everything (it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of trainers who lost to Paul gave up training all together). A good rival is someone who provides a challenge, but is a good sport and gives friendly encouragement. Another point that drives me crazy with the fanbase is that they do romance stories with him and Dawn. Forgetting the fact that they barely have any interaction in canon, their personalities are the exact opposite: Dawn is a cheerful girl (when she isn't faking smiles through all of the defeats she's gone through) who is supportive of her friends and participates in contests; in contrast, Paul only goes into battling and is, as I've said before, a cold, condescending jackass who'd more likely make you want to slit your wrists when you're in a depressed mood. And then there are the people who pair him up with Ash, of all people; first, this is a kids' show, so romance is likely light at best, if close to nonexistent. Second, knowing how dull Ash is with romance and how Paul only thinks about battling, a romance with the two characters is near impossible. Third, it's very unlikely that they'd strike in a homosexual relationship, even if Japan is more lenient on the whole subject.No matter what Paul does, the fans who worship the ground he walks on will downplay the horrific stuff, such as Chimchar's abuse in the Tag Battle arc. Even if he destroys a clutch of pokemon eggs after beating up the guarding parents, even if he murders people, or even if he nearly destroyed a town, they'd still fawn over him, where normally most people would consider him a monster after any of tho

[ace-trainer-risu]

Why do you hate bosie douglas?

Oh man bout to lay down some Oscar Wilde Discourse!

Just kidding. Sort of?

Anyway, the short answer would be that I really, really love Oscar Wilde. He’s definitely one of my favorite authors/artists/historical figures ever. He was an amazing and incredibly influential figure who lived a tragic life and died way too young, and Bosie (aka Lord Alfred Douglas, for those unfamiliar with his nickname) was not the only person responsible for the tragedy of Oscar’s life, but he undeniably played a role in it. And I just, I really can’t forgive him for that.

The long answer is…

Well, okay, so at my university, English majors had to take a senior thesis class, which was basically just a seminar where you studied one topic really in depth. I took mine on Oscar Wilde, and it was an amazing class, so I really know a lot about him and have read a lot of his writings. 

I never know what is and isn’t common knowledge about Wilde since I know a lot about him, but for those who don’t really know him, the basic story is that Wilde was a popular and scandalous Victorian author and playwright. He popularized various fashionable movements like aestheticism and dandyism. It was kind of an open secret that he was carrying out affairs with men. He had an affair with a younger man named Lord Alfred Douglas, AKA Bosie, who was a wealthy aristocrat from the Queensbury family. In the late 1890s, at the height of Wilde’s playwriting popularity, Wilde was embroiled in a series of trials that ultimately led to him being jailed for four years hard labor for gross indecency (essentially for having sex with men). Upon getting out, Wilde emigrated to France, where he died shortly after at the age of 46. 

This is not the point of this post, but I highly recommend reading him. The Picture of Dorian Gray is obviously his most famous work, and it’s really beautiful and weird and fucked up and super gay. The Importance of Being Earnest is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read, and it’s also so influential of a work that it’s really hard to see how influential it is, because of course lots of things are like Earnest, except they’re like that because of Earnest. But what I would really recommend to first time Wilde readers is “The Happy Prince” which is a beautiful and heartbreaking little fairy tale that he wrote. He was a hugely influential author on modernism, post modernism, comedy, playwriting, etc. 

This is tumblr so I feel strangely compelled to defend my love for him, so, yes, Oscar Wilde is #problematic fave. He practically invented being a problematic fave. I can almost guarantee that young Victorian ladies were fanning themselves and sighing over how much they loved his plays but it was too bad he was so scandalous and their mama wouldn’t let them go see him lecture. I am Aware. I could cheerfully list his myriad sins. But for pretty much all of them, I can think of mitigating factors. I will settle for saying that it’s essentially unfair for a modern, Western person to judge the sexual lives of queer* people in the past. They lived in a completely different culture from us, and many of them were simply doing the best they could under difficult, painful circumstances. It’s important to remember that legal, socially accepted same sex relationships are a very recent invention in the west. If Oscar Wilde cheated on his wife and turned to sex workers, well, what the hell else was he going to do? It’s probably worthwhile to note that by all accounts, he always treated his wife and sex workers very decently and generously. 

(*Queer is an anachronistic term. I am aware. However, it’s a little tedious to write out “same sex attracted people” every time. In my opinion, queer is the modern term that most closely matches the way that Oscar Wilde wrote about sexuality. So that’s what I’m going to use.) 

Despite his flaws, Wilde also did a lot of amazing stuff. He was, by most accounts, incredibly generous and kind. He was funny and witty. He was good to his children. My friends, we probably wouldn’t look at pretty pictures and write #aesthetic if it were not for Oscar Wilde. He modernized play writing. He was a socialist!!! He was a feminist!! He hated corsets!! He wrote out like a fifty page essay that was basically his headcanons about how Shakespeare was bi and hooking up with his one of his actors who was named Willie Hughes. He wrote kinda bad poetry (which I personally like). He lowkey had a feud with Henry James. He was a Fashion Icon who loved having his photo taken. If you or someone you love has ever worn a tux you can thank Wilde for helping popularize them. And, in my opinion most importantly, he was constantly thinking and writing (subtextually) about how to revolutionize cultural thought about sexuality and male identity. To call Oscar Wilde “gay” or “homosexual” is really a simplification of how he thought about sexuality. In fact, he explicitly objected to being called homosexual (altho it’s important to remember that was a much more stigmatizing term at the time than it is now!). Oscar Wilde, instead, was interested in a forming a world in which, basically, everyone could be themselves and could express themselves freely through art and sex. He wanted people to be able to freely love each other without being slapped with some fixed, restrictive label. Like, you guys, do u ever cry b/c Oscar Wilde just wanted the world to be beautiful and queer and free and for everyone to be gay and happy and make art BECAUSE I DO 

And, like, okay. Bosie had a hard life too. I get that! His father has gotta be on the list of like Top Ten Biggest Assholes In History. As much as I dislike Bosie, multiply that by like ten hundred and that’s how I feel about fuckboy Marquis of Queenbury. I know I made that post about traveling back in time to punch Bosie; well, the only reason I don’t wanna punch his dad is b/c his dad like literally invented (a form of) boxing and I’m very small. I am Positive I could take Bosie in a fight, and I am positive his black hole of a father could take me. Also it was probably not easy to be a trailblazing twink in the 1890s (altho like John Gray managed it without being a literal piece of shit so……..). To be serious, Bosie clearly had a lot of rough stuff in his life. But, you know, so do lots of people. And I know I was just saying it’s hard to judge historical figures for their sex lives, but I’m judging Bosie for his behavior, not his sex. So, with all the context out of the way, here’s why I hate Bosie:

a) His poetry is like the soppiest shit ever. 

b) He was extremely emotionally manipulative and possibly abusive toward Oscar Wilde. I know it seems kind of weird, because our cultural mindset for abusive relationship is big beefy guy beating his small, helpless wife. And Bosie and Oscar are both men, and Oscar was older and physically larger (did you know that he was like six foot? I hadn’t known that.). But there’s a lot of fucked up stories about their relationship. They were very on again off again, with Oscar frequently being the one to end things, and there are reports of Bosie going to extreme ends to get them back together, including threatening to kill himself. One story, which is hilarious with the distance of time but would have surely been dreadful when it happened, is that one time when they broke up, Bosie sent Oscar a nine. page. telegraph. NINE PAGES! For those of you who don’t know, telegraphs back then charged by the word. That’s like sending your boyfriend nine pages worth of texts, except you send each word individually and you know for a fact he’s out of data for the month. Also some poor individual had to type it all out for you. And yes, Wilde was the one to pay, because you could send telegraphs collect. And this despite the fact that Bosie was very well off, whereas Wilde, who was rather extravagant in his pursuit of dat aesthetic lifestyle, was usually tight on money. There’s also a rather horrible story about a time where Bosie fell ill and Wilde tenderly nursed him back to health, and then when Bosie recovered and Wilde caught his illness and fell sick himself, Bosie verbally abused him and left him alone to suffer. What I’m saying is, it was not a healthy relationship and Bosie did not treat Wilde well.

c) It’s basically inarguable that Bosie played a significant role in Wilde’s trial. Again, I’m not saying it’s just his fault, because it wasn’t. But things would have gone down massively differently without Bosie…or they might not have gone down at all. (Do u ever cry b/c maybe Wilde didn’t have to die at 46 and maybe if he hadn’t queer rights would be years, decades ahead of where they are now I mean I’m not saying definitely, I’m just saying m a y b e???)Queensbury family dynamics were a highly complex thing. It’s probably significant that somewhat before the trial, Bosie’s older brother died under controversial circumstances. The official story was it was a hunting accident, but the gossip of the day was that he killed himself because he was having an affair with another man. This was a serious blow to Bosie’s father, so when his youngest son, with whom he’d always had a contentious relationship, started publicly cavorting with a man rumored to be up to some real scandalous shit, the Marquis of Queensbury was not happy. At one point he even physically threatened Wilde’s life. But Wilde, at least at first, genuinely tried to calm things down. He repeatedly advised Bosie to make up with his father; instead, Bosie continued to provoke him. Eventually, Queensbury left a note for Wilde at a club accusing him of being a sodomite (basically the Victorian equivalent of calling someone the f-slur). And this is where things get really messed up. All of Wilde’s friends advised him to just leave things alone, not make things messy. Bosie, in contrast, advised Wilde to sue his father for libel. So, like, quick note about the legal ramifications of this: basically, libel is only illegal if it’s not true. Thus, all Queensbury’s lawyers had to do was prove that Wilde was having sex with men, which they were able to do, because, you know, he was totally having sex with men. I mean, it was wildly foolish of Wilde to sue for libel when he knew it was not libel! Why would Bosie push him into that?And that wasn’t the end of it, because the Labouchere Amendment made it illegal for two men to have sex, even in the privacy of their own homes. So, because Queensbury’s lawyers could prove that Wilde was engaging in gross indecency, he was able to be charged. The libel trial ruined Wilde’s social standing; the second trial ruined him legally. Oh, and the costs of the trial also bankrupted him! Things then get slightly more horrible, because, for a person of Wilde’s fame and status, the police basically gave you a warning period. There was a time frame in which he could have fled the country, and extradition treaties were not really a thing then, so although he would have been ruined and unable to return to England, he wouldn’t have been arrested. All of his friends advised him to flee, but he didn’t. And no one really knows why, although if you ask me, it’s because a) he was basically an extremely self destructive person, and b) I think it’s probably unimaginably heart breaking to have your entire society turn on you and paint you as a monster and pervert, and maybe at a certain point you lose the will to fight, and c) Oscar Wilde wanted everything to be beautiful and like art, like a story, and I wonder if he didn’t feel that this was how the story of his life was “supposed” to go. But that’s really just my theory.And so Oscar Wilde was sent to jail for 4 years hard labor, and by all accounts his heart and his health were broken. He lived in France for a few years, but he never wrote anything again other than the Ballad of Reading Gaol (“Each man kills the thing he loves”… I’m looking at YOU Bosie), and then he died, still quite young, and not of syphilis despite what certain supposedly reputable biographies try and tell you.And none of that had to happen. None of that would have happened if it weren’t for Bosie. He shouldn’t have pushed his father to attack Oscar, and he certainly shouldn’t have pushed Oscar into the libel trial. Oscar Wilde himself wrote that he felt as if Bosie threw him and his father at each other, as if he was trying to destroy both of them. And then after the trial, he basically abandoned Wilde. I believe he only visited him in jail once. Why would you do that? Why would you try and destroy the person you supposedly love, the person that loves you? I just can’t understand or forgive that. I know I joke around a lot in this post but what happened to Wilde honestly makes me so sad. It breaks my heart. He was a beautiful person who wanted to make the world beautiful and full of love and art, and the person he loved tried to destroy him. And really, the inexcusable straw for me is that later in life Bosie wrote some piece of shit biography in which he denied that he and Wilde were ever lovers and painted Wilde as some sort of monster and pervert. No one fucking asked you, Bosie. 

So yes, that’s why I fucking hate Bosie, and that’s my Oscar Wilde Discourse™. 

[ixvyupdates]

5 Ways We Teach Rape Culture in Schools

How do we teach sexual consent in schools? You’ll probably say, “Well, we don’t teach it,” which is mostly true. Most schools don’t have consent written into their curriculum.

But here’s the thing: There is no neutral when we talk about sexual consent. By not actively working to undo the damaging messages of our culture, we are passively supporting them. In fact, many of them show up in the policies and cultural norms that we enforce.

I was thinking about this recently because a group of legitimately kick-ass people here in Minnesota is pushing for legislation that would require consent education in K-12 classes. Their effort is based on some of the affirmative-consent education that has spread in higher-ed institutions, and seeks to make it part of a healthy, comprehensive sex-ed experience.

The more I thought about what consent education looks like now in schools, the sadder and madder I got. Just because it’s not written into our curriculum doesn’t mean we aren’t sending constant and strong messages about consent, and they aren’t great.

When we choose to have no curriculum or plan for teaching consent, these are the messed up lessons we teach our kids instead.

Bad Lesson 1: Touching someone means you are sexually attracted to them.

This weekend, I was out at a coffee shop, and watched as a young girl, maybe 2 years old, walked up to the man in front of her and put her hand on his knee. The girl’s mom said to him, “Oh, looks like she’s got a crush on you.”

Like, I get that’s a thing that we do, but I think it’s weird.

I think it’s super weird, and we do it all the time, and we do it with younger and older kids. We act like a hug is a sexual thing, like lying next to each other is too close. Doing so, we miss an important chance to teach about how to negotiate touch, even non-sexual touch, in a healthy way. When we discuss different kinds of touch, different meanings, and how to communicate about them, we help keep young people safer from those who would actually want to hurt or take advantage of them.

Putting such strict and extreme meaning to touch enforces the idea that someone touching you, on your shoulder or even in some playful, flirtatious way, is communicating more than it is, and at the same time excuses non-consensual behavior.

Bad Lesson 2: Your body is not yours.

One year, in a building I taught, a young woman was being disciplined by a behavior dean. He was walking her to his office and she said, quite clearly, that she didn’t feel comfortable being in his office with him. He told her that she had to go anyway.

Luckily, her friends saw it, came to me and I went and sat with her in the office, but still. This is a version of something that happens all the time in schools, whether or not the student is able to so clearly express their discomfort at the time.

I had never thought of the way our control of student behavior takes away agency over their bodies until I interviewed my wife, a sex therapist and author, last summer. She pointed out how we often control students by telling them where and how to sit, when to go to the bathroom, how to walk, where to be and who to be near.

Some of those things are likely necessary because we need schools to work and to cut down on the flaming chaos of the hallways. But my wife’s outside perspective made me realize that when we do those things, we’re sending a bigger message about their bodies at the same time.

Bad Lesson 3: The behavior of others is your responsibility.

The most egregious way we enforce this in schools is through our dress codes. I’ve written about it before, and so have many others, so I won’t spend too much time here on why dress codes are often sexist and shaming.

They are.

When the dress code is used to say that whatever harassment or teasing or touching can be blamed on a skirt that doesn’t hit your fingertips, or that someone can claim your body because they have seen your bra strap, dress codes are giving a dangerous message to students.

I’ve heard similar messages applied to staff, where an unruly class has been blamed on the outfit of the teacher, where unwanted advances from a coworker have been blamed on—I kid you not—the sharing of food.

When we don’t have real conversations about what consent means and how it is given, we assume too often that any victim of harassment or assault must have, in some way, asked for it. It’s not a statement many of us would feel comfortable saying out loud, so it shouldn’t be an idea that is written into our school handbooks.

Bad Lesson 4: Boys are bad.

Once upon a time, I was a boy in school. I didn’t like it. I remember teachers making jokes about how messy and unruly boys were. I heard jokes about how young men were like children. Now, I hear those same jokes in the staff lounge about teachers’ husbands.

We aren’t good at boys in school. Not as good as we could be. We boys will be boys them too often.

We also allow room for jokes and comments about “real men” and delight at the male teachers at the assembly when they put on a dress. So absurd! A man who would reduce himself to being a woman!

Masculinity is fine. It is great. But toxic masculinity is, quite literally, killing us. When we allow for or encourage this culture of “bad boys” in schools, we allow for an idea of men who get what they want because they want it, of boys who can comprehend no larger threat to their self-worth than a girl who won’t give them the physical or social attention they want.

Bad Lesson 5: Sexual violence is less terrifying than sexual pleasure.

What do the standard texts in our schools tell our students about love and relationships and bodies? I’ve been wracking my brain about this for days, going through the texts I’ve taught, that are taught in buildings where I’ve worked, that I was handed when I was in school. I’m struggling to find examples of healthy romantic relationships.

At first, I was struggling to think of examples of any real relationships in books, which seemed to be by design. I can imagine that we are mostly terrified of addressing romance, most especially sexual romance, in classrooms.

That said, I could think of tons of books and stories that carried rape scenes in their pages, or that alluded to sexual assault or molestation. Tons more had scenes of physical abuse of children and partners. But none, none that I could think of, suggested that sex is something that people find to be enjoyable when done in a healthy, consensual way.

Seriously, the most sex-positive piece of literature I’ve taught that is typical in schools was “Romeo and Juliet,” and they get married after knowing each other for like a day, speak a full five minutes to each other, and then both commit suicide. Not good.

We Can Do Better

When we don’t include healthy relationships as models in our schools, we hope they learn those skills elsewhere, but most of the messages they are getting about relationships are from “The Bachelor” and the messages about sex are from Pornhub.

We are missing a grand opportunity to teach something necessary, to tell counter-narratives to rape culture. We need to take a hard look at how we work against consent in schools, but more than that, we have a chance to take action and provide our students with the tools they need to understand and engage in a culture of consent.

Photo by NINA P, Twenty20-licensed.

5 Ways We Teach Rape Culture in Schools syndicated from https://sapsnkraguide.wordpress.com