#There's a difference between transgression and transformation!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fatehbaz · 11 months

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Mangroves. Estuaries. Shorelines where land meets water. Fluidity and porousness of boundaries. Imposition of imperial, colonial, European property law and the “fiction” of solid borders. Profit extraction from property, the “legal magic” of creating permanent borders, and the destruction of coastal forest-worlds.

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[T]his tropical coastal ecology is a site of continual refiguration: neither sea nor land, neither river nor sea, bearing neither salty nor fresh water [...]. The mangrove has been prone to confused definitions, [...] also a complex coastal ecosystem in itself. With these hybrid conditions of “belonging,” the mangrove lends itself to helping us think through the present-day schematic of Euro-American crises [...]. Its polymorphous personality as a sediment-carrier, land-builder, defender of numerous life forms [...] renders the mangrove a fascinating study in the biopolitics of selfhood. [...] The Sundarbans covers an area of 10,000 square kilometers of intertidal zones between parts of southwestern Bangladesh and the state of West Bengal in India. The largest mangrove forest in the world [...]. As a landscape, the Sundarbans is marked by unfixity, since its intertidal nature places it between appearance and disappearance -- with islands being submerged overnight. [...] [T]heir porous quality does not allow for clear border-making. In reading [...] satellite image[ry] of the Sundarbans, produced by what is said to be “the most stable, best characterized Earth observation instrument ever placed in orbit,” we are met with the trembling instability of borders. [...] [H]ere the coastline becomes indiscernible as a single entity. The legal vexations of such amphibious and obtuse terrain become pronounced in sea-rights cases, wherein border-making becomes the necessity of tenure. Forming rulings over such zones lays legality prone to paradox. In the Blue Mud Bay case, heard by the High Court of Australia in 2008, a legal body was called upon to make a determination regarding the shifting geography of a mangrove coastal region. In the final ruling the aboriginal Yolgnu claimants were successful, with the court ruling that the column of tidal water lying above land should be regarded no differently from the land itself. Thus the court’s attempt to encompass Dholupuyngu cosmology and “aqueography” occasioned a legal magic transforming water flow into the fixity of “land.” [...] The mangrove line is, hence, one of sedimentary reclamation rather than clear political divisions of terra firma. In mangrove zones, human determinations become ghosts.

Text by: Natasha Ginwala and Vivian Ziherl. “Sensing Grounds: Mangroves, Unauthentic Belonging, Extra-Territoriality.” e-flux Journal Issue #45. May 2013.

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Traveling through Bengal in the eighteenth century, [...] [travelers] saw a highly sophisticated water-based economy -- the blessing of rivers [...]. The rivers were not just channels of water; they carried a thriving trade, transporting people and goods from one part of the delta to another. [...] Bengal’s essential character as a fluid landscape was changed during the colonial times through legal interventions that were aimed at stabilizing lands and waters, at creating permanent boundaries between them, and at privileging land over water, in a land of shifting river courses, inundated irrigation, and river-based life. Such a separation of land and water was made possible not just by physical constructions but first and foremost by engineering a legal framework. [...] BADA, which stands for the Bengal Alluvion and Diluvion Act, a law passed by the colonial British rulers in 1825 [...]. Nature here represents a borderless world, or at best one in which borders are not fixed lines on the ground demarcating a territory, but are negotiated spaces or zones. Such “liminal spaces” comprise “not [only] lines of separation but zones of interaction…transformation, transgression, and possibility” [...]. Current boundaries of land and water are as much products of history as nature and the colonial rule of Bengal played a key role in changing the ideas and valuations of both. [...] [R]ivers do not always flow along a certain route [...]. The laws that the colonial British brought to Bengal, however, were founded upon the thinking of land as being fixed in place. [...] To entrench the system, the Permanent Settlement of 1793 created zamindars (or landlords) “in perpetuity” -- meaning for good. The system was aimed at reducing the complexities of revenue collection due to erratically shifting lands and unpredictable harvests in a monsoon-dependent area [...]. From a riverine community, within a hundred years, Bengal was transformed into a land-based community.

Text by: Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt. “Commodified Land, Dangerous Water: Colonial Perceptions of Riverine Bengal.” RCC Perspectives, no. 3, 17-22. 2014.

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[A]t the shore, where the boundary between land and water is so often muddied [...] terrestrial principles of Western private property regimes feel like fictions [...]. Shorelines, indeed, do much to trouble the neat boundaries, borders […] of the colonial imaginary […]. And so thinking about shallows necessitates attention to the multiplicity of water, and the ways that tides, rivers, storm clouds, tide pools, and aquifers converse with the ocean [...]. For Kanaka Maoli, the muliwai, or estuary, best theorizes shoreline dynamics: It is not only where land and water mix, but also where different kinds of waters mix. Sea and river water mingle together to produce the brackish conditions that tenderly support certain plant and aquatic lives. [...] As Philipp Schorch and Noelle M.K.Y. Kahanu explain, the muliwai ebbs and flows with the tide, changing shape and form daily and seasonally. In metaphorical terms, the muliwai is a location and state of dissonance [...], but it is not “a space in between,” rather, it is its own space, a territory unique in each circumstance, depending the size and strength or a recent hard rain. […] [T]he muliwai [...] as a conditional state [...] undoes territorial logics. [...] It is not a space of exception. Rather, it is where we are reminded that places are never fixed or pure or static. Chamorro poet Craig Santos Perez reminds us in his critique of US territorialism that “territorialities are shifting currents, not irreducible elements.” If fixity and containment limit, by design, how futures might be imagined beyond property, then the muliwai envisions decolonial spaces as ones of tenderness, care, and interdependence. [...] Because water has the potential to trouble the boundaries of humanness, it may furthermore push us to think through […] categorical differences […], to consider the colonial mechanisms that produced hierarchies of bodies to begin with [...].

Text by: Hi’ilei Julia Hobart. “On Oceanic Fugitivity.” Ways of Water series, Items, Social Science Research Council. Published online 29 September 2020.

#abolition #ecology #landscape #imperial #colonial

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librarycards · 5 months

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can you explain what transMad means to you using simpler words and shorter sentences please? im not phd i don't understand all these citations. thankyou

i can try!

first, I recommend starting with the easy read version of toward transMad epistemologies: a working text. It's not an exact 1:1 and i have many gripes with the obfuscating/inaccuracy-making work of plain language. But it's a start! I'm also v open to feedback on it.

I'm also going to try my hand at simplifying + summarizing the excerpts I included in the other post, in the rough order that I list them there. below is my attempt. it will be imperfect but I hope it helps!

transMadness, redux:

transMadness isn't just, or most importantly, an identity per se. It's a way of thinking, knowing, and being in the world. I got the idea for transMadness, in part, from words like "neuroqueer" and "queercrip," portmanteaus that also gesture at the links between different forms of bodymind noncompliance. Both are interested in norm-transgression, and both don't hold with artificial boundaries between types (gender, sexual, disability, etc.) non-normativity.

What transMadness does with this knowledge is to embrace unruliness and borderlessness as important to how we know what we know. If psychiatry/the DSM establish authority by creating borders and categories for pathologizing us, transMadness embraces intellectual interdependence and ambiguity, as well as willful refusal of "sane" approaches to organizing the world.

transMadness is also an embrace of failure -- failure to comply, failure to "live up to" cis/sane standards, failure to work without friction -- as something generative, not negative. This is something we can bring into our research/relationships/pedagogy. We can embrace it as a feature of our community, and use it to navigate challenging situations where access needs conflict - for example, when bodily autonomy creates risk for multiple marginalized groups of people.

Another way that I look at transMadness is through xeno/neogender identity and community. For me, an orientation toward coinage/invention is a deeply transMad one, which takes psychiatric/medical authority over language and legitimacy and turns it on its head. Xenocommunities/self-dx oriented communities reclaim and transform hitherto violent language to suit their needs and possibly even serve collective liberation. The communities that form around identificatory self-determination are vital to keeping us alive and loved, and to transMad antipsych resistance. In the face of diagnostic practices that demand individual rehabilitation rather than social transformation, this is deeply necessary.

#let me know if this is clear or if i need to define anything further!#transmad #ask #anonymous #antipsychiatry #epistemology #xenogender #madness

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sagaduwyrm · 9 months

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See No Evil (Wipe Clean My Sins)

It was Nocturne who explained it to him first, the God of Dreams and Nightmares shocked that no one else had tried. Maybe they had. Danny hadn’t been the most aware in the early days, every shape he took too-big-too-small and the Infinite Expanse of the Infinite Realms resting heavy on his shoulders. When you are a god, the Sleeping Ancient said, every act against you is a transgression. When you are a god, every transgression becomes a sin.

It was Nocturne who explained it to him first, the God of Dreams and Nightmares shocked that no one else had tried.

Maybe they had. Danny hadn’t been the most aware in the early days, every shape he took too-big-too-small and the Infinite Expanse of the Infinite Realms resting heavy on his shoulders.

When you are a god, the Sleeping Ancient said, every act against you is a transgression. When you are a god, every transgression becomes a sin.

Danny hadn’t understood what he meant at the time. He couldn’t comprehend how it could matter so much, how a sin against a god could twist the fabric of reality into knots and bend the flow of time away from its path.

He understood now.

Ellie, his clone, his mirror-child, his daughter , looked the same as the day she was born but for the y-shape carved in her chest as she lay behind him. Before him stood his parents.

“Danny, sweetie, I need you to step away from the ghost.” Madeline Fenton's hands shook with fear. She thought it was fear for her son, standing too close to that dangerous spook as he was. It wasn’t. Madeline Fenton was afraid of her son, the young man that came back from college and stood tall in between his parents and the ghost, blocking their way.

Human instincts were not the most powerful of things. They had sacrificed that capability in exchange for a different kind of thinking, one that let them build grand workings and conquer their planet. Still, something in the depths of the human brain remembered what it was to fear something too big and bright for human eyes to perceive.

Danny’s eyes glinted strangely. His shadow thrashed on the floor, gentling where it circled the young girl.

“How. Dare. You.” Danny’s voice was steady and quiet, but something at the furthest reaches of human hearing howled .

The Fenton parents exchanged a glance. Jack Fenton spoke carefully. “Danny-boy, it’s a ghost. It isn’t a real person.” His voice picked up in excitement. “And just look at all the data we’ve already captured!”

Around them, the fabric of reality twisted, rippled, and fractured like a mirror dropped from a great height. The Fenton’s kept their eyes on their son, something in them quailing at the idea of looking at the cracks in the corners of their eyes.

Danny snarled. “That ghost is my daughter. Your granddaughter.”

Now they were alarmed. “Danny, if it has you believing it’s your daughter, we need to get you away from it right away. The GIW has a good program for detoxification from ghost control, they’ll help,” Maddie said. She wanted to turn and walk up the stairs, lead the way so her son would follow, but she couldn’t bring herself to believe that if she went outside of the basement the rest of the world would still exist. Somehow, it felt like the only thing that was still real was the space between them and their son.

Danny closed his eyes and let out a tired breath. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay son!” Jack smiled. “Just come over here and let us make this right.”

Danny kept talking like he hadn’t heard him. “I hoped you could change, that you would change. That you loved me enough to be better.” He met their eyes and his gaze was pained and filled with sorrow. Their hearts started picking up in their chests.

“I love you.”

"But I won't make the same mistake with Ellie that you did with me."

The world screamed . The weight of the Infinite descended all at once, tearing through fragile three-dimensional reality to reach the sinners standing before the King. The Fenton parents had time for one cut-off scream before the world settled and stilled and they were gone.

The High King of the Infinite Realms collapsed into a grief-stricken pile on the ground, pulling his daughter gently into his lap as he sobbed.

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theatrum-tenebrarum · 2 years

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'The Oldest Game' - the myth and folklore of the battle between Morpheus and Lucifer in 'The Sandman' on Netflix (a folklorist chimes in)

Lucifer and Morpheus in a 'wizard's duel', 'The Sandman' episode 4 'A Hope in Hell'

The memorable, grandiose scene in which Dream and the Morning Star face-off in a battle of cosmic scale is no mere magic of visual effects – it is a shamanic, shape-shifting dance of transformation which has its roots in myth and folklore.

It is a continuous chase in which its participants take on different shapes with one goal in mind: to overpower one another. In this form the mythical chase found its expression in the so-called 'wizard's duel', which we find in various European fairy tales and now before our eyes - as the Morning Star once again takes on the skin of the Serpent, poisoning the hunter-donning Morpheus in a visually stunning cosmic play.

Where does the transformation chase come from?

The Carmina Gadelica, a compendium of folkloric texts gathered in Scotland by the folklorist Alexander Carmichael in the 19th century, mentions a magical spell, or rather an occult power by the name of 'fith-fath' which can make one transform into something else or render them invisible. It is said that these transformations might have even occurred involuntarily. The Carmina Gadelica accentuates the importance of these spells to hunters, travelers and warriors, so that they could stay invisible and unrecognizable to animals and possible enemies.

The Mabinogion, a compilation of the earliest Celtic tales (first published in 1840), tells the story of Ceridwen, an enchantress of Welsh myth who had made a 'Cauldron of Inspiration'. The reason for making this magical cauldron is to help her disfigured son Morfran (Morvran ab Tegid) gain knowledge of the mysteries and the things to come. In this way, Ceridwen thought she could give her son a chance to prove himself to the world. As the year-long process of brewing a magical brew in the cauldron had begun, she employed a youth by the name of Gwion Bach to keep watch of the brew and to stir it as needed. One day, three drops of the brew fell out of the cauldron and found themselves on Gwion's finger. Feeling drawn to the liquid's power, he licked them off and instantly absorbed the mystical knowledge of all there is to come. Therefore, he knew this one thing as well – he must run, run from the wrath of Ceridwen, as this power was not his to have.

The sorceress sees him and begins the chase. Gwion, now having the power of transformation, turned into a hare trying to evade her. Ceridwen is now a lithe greyhound and there is no way for the hare to escape. Gwion runs towards a river and turning into a fish, escapes into the quick waters. A hungry and angry otter is the next form of Ceridwen, as she is hunting the fish. Gwion, swimming for his life, dons the wings of a bird in order to fly out of the water. The sorceress keeps up and turns herself into a hawk, a deadly bird of prey, ready to finish the shamanic, deadly chase. However, Gwion manages to outsmart her by becoming a grain of wheat on the floor of a barn, blending into the surroundings and becoming unnoticable. That is when Ceridwen becomes a black hen and finding the grains, eats Gwion in the process. It is this Gwion, now imbued with the magical powers of the Cauldron of Inspiration, who later gets 'born again' and becomes the mythical poet Taliesin.

One whose knowledge transgresses time and space, as this knowledge is beyond them both. Shapeshifting is a primordial memory, an ancient form of magic so deeply ingrained into our cultural muscle that it is continually expressing itself. Masked dances of old, ritual plays, the theatre and the movies – all a part of the same magical urge to transform, to move to another state of existence.

- Heidi (@theatrum-tenebrarum)

„I am a serpent. Horse-biting, poison-toothed.“ (Lucifer as a serpent in the transformation chase)

"I am a bird of prey. Snake-devouring, talons-ripping.“ (Morpheus as a bird of prey in the transformation chase, outsmarting Lucifer)

„I am a universe. All things encompassing, all life embracing.“ (Morpheus as a universe in the transformation chase)

„I am anti-life. The Beast of Judgement. The dark at the end of everything.“ (Lucifer, whose grand shadow looms in the background, is now anti-life, extinguishing the Life of a Universe)

Heidi (@theatrum-tenebrarum)

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attemptsonherlifepdf · 1 year

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bondage and binaries: autonomy recontextualised as a narrative device in science fiction

increasingly popular in mainstream media, science fiction has deep roots in both ancient storytelling and the gothic. the genre covers an expanse of themes that remain socially relevant throughout the entirety of its career; autonomy, transgression, transformation, and corruption. these themes originate from the gothic, the heart of many modern genres. science fiction repurposes gothic themes in fantastical, dystopian and extra-terrestrial contexts and serves as both a well-received source of entertainment and a mode of social commentary. consistent through various eras of sci-fi is the theme of autonomy. much like the gothic, sci-fi stories reflect the social fears prevalent at the time of writing: the fear of a loss of autonomy has always remained an anxiety of western audiences. this fear presents itself in various contexts throughout time. for instance, western societies have dreaded losing autonomy to religious figures abusing their authority (1790s), eastern european immigrants (1890s), and the corruption of the state and technology (1990s). matthew gregory lewis’ ‘the monk’, bram stoker’s ‘dracula’ and the wachowski sisters’ ‘the matrix’ address all these, respective to their time period. bondage has it’s place as a narrative device when it comes to depictions of autonomy as many authors use restraints as a tool to create a sense of helplessness against threat, or to symbolise social or interpersonal constraints. the core difference, of course, between restrains and bondage is that bondage exists in a sexual context and provides gratification for one or both of the parties involved. another key trope of the gothic, and by extension science fiction, is the involvement of taboo, perverse or otherwise transgressive behaviours. the atypical, ‘transgressive’ nature of bdsm gives it’s use in media that relevance, fulfilling two notions of the genre at once. additionally, both styles, at least in their earlier stages, utilise what is referred to as ‘dark romanticism’. this involves taking the stylised language of romantic literature, characterised by purple prose, decadent architecture, etc, and recontextualising it in darker, more morbid settings. the contrast between this lyrical writing and the macabre, violent, alien or taboo content that it is used to describe creates an uneasy, disjointed feeling for audiences. the dynamic between language and content weaves uncanniness into the structure of both genres, which defines them and distinguishes them from other forms of storytelling. for this reason the nature of bondage is integral to the discomfort that sci-fi relies on.

to understand the significance of this writing style and how it characterises science fiction, we need to first understand the chronology of the genre and what impacted its development over time. while sci-fi as we know it today is largely influenced by the gothic, we see fantastical elements in some of the earliest works of fiction, such as the epic of gilgamesh (around 2000 bce) and the indian poem ramayana (5th-4th century bce). ramayana tells of vimana, which are mythological flying palaces or machines that have the ability to travel underwater, into outer space, and to use advanced weaponry to decimate cities. these early references to technology, often used as narrative devices, are a common theme among ancient works of literature. similar examples include the rigveda collection of sanskrit hymns from approximately 1700-1100 bce; the first book contains a depiction of ‘mechanical birds’ that are ‘jumping into space speedily with a craft using fire and water…containing twelve pillars, one wheel, three machines, three hundred pivots and sixty instruments.’ descriptions of technological inventions like this can be found both in early literature, and in later works such as mediaeval stories. it was just prior to the era known as the ‘enlightenment’, which is credited to have begun in 1685, that science fiction started to morph into the form that we see today. 16th century european works such as thomas moore’s ‘utopia’ (1516) and ‘the faust legend’ served as early prototypes of science fiction tropes. moore’s work was the basis for the utopia motif used in sci-fi, similar to how the ‘faust legend’ exemplified the emerging ‘mad scientist’ trope. when the enlightenment era began in europe, it signalled a dramatic shift in thinking, from blind religious faith to knowledge obtained by ‘means of reason and evidence of the senses.’ this was largely influenced by the separation of the church and state, and sparked a wave of speculative fiction concerning the sciences, including: jonathan swift’s ‘gulliver’s travels’ (1726), exploring alien cultures and unusual applications of science, and margaret cavendish’s ‘the description of a new world, called the blazing-world’ (1666), describing a noblewoman’s discovery of an alternate world in the arctic. however, mary shelly’s 1818 ‘frankenstein’ is widely regarded as a major turning point for modern science fiction. shelly’s gothic horror text is the moment where sci-fi and the gothic converge and began to share core elements before developing in their own separate directions again.

shelly’s use of science, and of technology beyond the scope of scientists in her time period as a conceit to drive the narrative is a hallmark of science fiction as we engage with it in the twenty-first century. she develops upon the notion of a ‘crazed scientist’, using the contrast between technology and religion as an extended rhetorical device to alienate frankenstein’s monster. brian aldiss, in ‘billion year spree’ makes the case that ‘frankenstein’ represents ‘the first seminal work to which the label [science fiction] can be logically attached.’ he goes on to argue that science fiction in general derives from the gothic horror novel. the usage of science as a narrative device is one among multiple tropes and elements that shelly imparted to sci-fi with her work. in having an ‘alien’ character fulfil the role of antagonist, shelly comments on the human condition from a new perspective. as put by kelley hurley, ‘through depicting the abhuman, the gothic reaffirms and reconstructs human identity.’ frankenstein’s monster, referred to often as ‘the creature’ is born into bondage; a popularised image from the novel, and several film adaptations, is that of the creature strapped to a board surrounded by rudimentary scientific equipment. from his first introduction to the world, he has no autonomy. these restraints strip him of humanity and reduce him to an experiment. they are not only physical and have practical use, but are symbolic over his general lack of control over the creation of his body, this perverse ‘otherness’ and the public’s decision to outcast him. frankenstein’s monster is an alien in every sense of the word, and it is the subjugation he is born under that characterises him as such. shelly’s work emerged just prior to the fin de siecle (turn of the century), where western science experienced rapid development, which in turn increased the volume of speculative fiction being produced. after ‘frankenstein’, the gothic and science fiction generally parted ways again, but sci-fi now had a host of characterising traits lended to it by shelly’s novel. the general recipe for modern science fiction is a combination of fantasy literature, gothic horror, and advances in western science, allowing us to pinpoint the fin de siecle as a catalyst for the development of the genre. as the era continued, more proto-science fiction was published; most notably was ‘journey to the centre of the earth’ (1864), by jules verne. the tale combines adventure, romance, current technology and predictions of future technology. lyon sprague de camp, an author active in the ‘golden age’ (1940/50s) of science fiction, refers to verne as ‘the world's first full-time science fiction novelist.’

understanding the outlined framework that modern science fiction operates under, we have space to explore the relationship between bondage and sci-fi in detail. in ‘aesthetic violence and women in film’, joseph h kupfer describes violence as having three framings: ‘symbolic, structural and as a narrative essential.’ as previously discussed, violence is an integral factor in the structure of science fiction, starkly contrasting the writing style to create unease. as a narrative device, restraints are often used in conjunction with rising conflict, to create adversity for characters that drives the plot onwards; this is how it functions as a ‘narrative essential.’ the final facet of the relevance of violence is symbolic. typically, women, queer men and ethnic minorities in fiction experience violence on a symbolic level; their identities are seen as purely political, and thus they face adversity against an themselves as an idea rather than as individual people. both the gothic and science fiction rely on the use of the ‘Other’, usually referring to uncanny or supernatural creatures, and often minority characters are ‘Othered’ to code them as a threat to audiences. in this instance, physical restraints are often representative of social, interpersonal or systemic barriers against a character, and by extension, against the minority that they belong to. to exemplify this, we can turn once again to shelly’s ‘frankenstein.’ while frankenstein’s monster is not immediately recognisable as a minority, lennard j davis has insisted the ‘creature’ is disabled or at least treated as such: ‘hideous appearance...inarticulate, some- what mentally slow, and walks with a kind of physical impairment.’ this interpretation of the character leans more towards the social model of disability, rather than defining disability as an impairment of the body or mind, making his argument somewhat controversial. frankenstein’s monster is not functionally hindered, but he is characterised by his disfigurement and unconventional appearance, which davis refers to as ‘a disruption in the visual, auditory, or perceptual field as it relates to the power of the gaze.’ his estrangement from society reinforces his animosity towards people; bound by the physical limitations of his disability, he develops into a ‘monstrosity’ as a result of his ableist environment. this reading sees ableism through the lens of bondage, as a social restraint or barrier that alienates the creature. he is born into physical restraints, strapped to an operating table, and is followed by metaphysical constraints that bar him from social function and acceptance. in his initial creation, what defines our understanding of the use of bondage is the power dynamic; victor is the dominant authority, controlling the movements of the creature, while the creature himself is subordinate to him, with no birthright to autonomy. his inability to control what victor inflicts upon him is illustrated by his restraints, and becomes an extended metaphor for his alienation and lack of autonomy throughout the novel. shelly’s work serves as a commentary, intentional or not, on the estrangement and ‘othering’ of disabled peoples and the impacts this has on their wellbeing and understanding of themselves. additionally, the novel functions almost as a warning tale surrounding the concept of abusing the development of science, and ‘playing god’ as victor does.

adjacent to science fiction is the genre of magical realism. it utilises the fantasy aspects of sci-fi and combines them with a realistic worldview to blur the lines between magic and reality. angela carter’s ‘the erl king’ (1979) is a prime example of using fantasy to illustrate social and systemic bondage in similar ways to sci-fi. carter uses imagery of caged birds to create a visceral picture of female entrapment. interestingly, the metaphor of caged birds can be likened to that of emerging feminism. in mary wollenstonecraft’s ‘a vindication of the rights of women’(1792), she argues that women of the eighteenth century were ‘confined in their cages like the feathered race.’ similarly, carter refers to ‘larks stacked in their pretty cages you’ve lured.’ rather than reinforce the idea that femininity is inherently trapping, carter uses this concept to create an almost tangible illustration of the narrator breaking the cycle of this ingrained imagery. in freeing the erl king’s victims and usupring his position of sexual power, the narrator subverts traditional tropes of female submission and prevents violence against women rather than indulging in it. this is evidence of carter’s signature feminist twist: she writes from the perspective of second-wave feminism. the use of ‘caged bird’ imagery as an allegory for violent and sexist systems is reminiscent of the usage of restraints in science fiction and indicates its relevance across similar genres. sexism and female entrapment are forms of social bondage in ‘the erl king’ the same way ableism is in frankenstein. genre differences aside, carter’s work is an example of how bondage as a narrative device has developed throughout literature. while in more traditional texts, it is used to trap and villainise ‘Othered’ characters, or to demonstrate an antagonist is a threat to audiences autonomy, more modern texts take the approach of reclamation. not only does carter subvert the roles of bondage to allow minorities to shift the power dynamic, she holds up a mirror to society and allows them to witness the abuse of power that she is dismantling. this subverted approach to bondage as a narrative device began to emerge in western literature in the 1970s. second wave feminism and the beginning of what is known as the ‘post civil rights movement’ era in the united states shifted the dynamics of western society in a way that we see reflected in media. as more legislation was put into place in both the united states and united kingdom to protect the rights of more marginalised groups, media produced at the time began to reflect these sentiments. while this does not apply to all movies and literature, many authors began depicting the state as the topic of fear, rather than villainising minorities.

a core example of dystopian fiction that comes to mind is margaret atwood’s ‘the handmaid’s tale’ (1985). themes of subjugation, autonomy and reproductive rights run through the novel. atwood stated that the novel is speculative fiction, rather than science fiction, as she ‘didn't put in anything that we haven't already done, we're not already doing, we're seriously trying to do, coupled with trends that are already in progress... so all of those things are real, and therefore the amount of pure invention is close to nil.’ while this distinction has massive significance in terms of the social commentary atwood is offering, her work still operates, in part, under the writing structure of science fiction. the year of the book’s release, reviewers commented on ‘the distinctively modern sense of [a] nightmare come true, the initial paralyzed powerlessness of the victim unable to act.’ atwood depicts the social bondage enforced upon women by the theonomic, totalitarian state by building an environment full of physical limitations; women are treated as commodities and are stripped of the right to chose clothing, sexual partners, pregnancy, and so on. these are all forced upon them in very particular ways, to the sexual benefit of both men domestically and men in authority. ‘the handmaid’s tale’ combines two core aspects when it comes to control. the fear of religious figures abusing their authority, which has deep roots in both traditional gothic literature and true historical events, and the fear of a surveillance state, often utilised in modern science fiction.

the 2017 television adaptation of ‘the handmaid’s tale’ uses forms of physical bondage as a clear symbol of control: red or leather ‘masks’ are worn by handmaidens as ritualistic punishment for ‘disobedience’ or ‘independent thought’, covering their mouths, and handmaidens are often forced to wear veils. this use of bondage is multi-dimensional; it prevents women from seeing and being seen, from speaking and being heard. it removes the humanity of the individual and solidifies their objectification.

similarly, a well-loved trilogy in modern sci-fi, the wachowski sisters’ ‘the matrix’ (1999) truly leans into socially relevant anxieties surrounding the corruption of the state. the movie itself was ‘born out of anger at capitalism and the corporate structure and forms of oppression’, according to lilly wachowski. the film’s core message is one of reclamation and rebellion against a controlling state; aside from the anti-capitalist rhetoric driving the plot, many of the constraints shown represent social barriers preventing the population from experiencing reality or affirming their own identities. twenty three years from it’s release, ‘the matrix’ is more widely understood now as an allegory for the sisters’ experiences as transgender women in an unaccepting society. there are various uses of bondage and unbalanced power dynamics built into the plot, largely where the ‘agents’ of the state hold authority and dominance whereas the ‘rebels’ and general population are the subordinates being controlled. an example of this is a scene where the protagonist, neo, refuses to cooperate with these agents. in retaliation, they fuse his lips together, removing his ability to speak for himself and creating a terrifying, mangled version of his original face. neo is then pinned down as a ‘tracking bug’, shown to be a robotic centipede, is implanted in his torso. the agents, the dominant force, take his display of autonomy as a threat, and immediately respond with physical restraints in an effort to control it, or at the very least discourage it with scare tactics. this sentiment is echoed in other media, such as the aforementioned masks in ‘the handmaid’s tale.’ forms of gags are often utilised as the ability to speak opinions, call for help, express oneself holds an incredible volume of inherent social value, and having that ability supressed or blocked creates a far more tangible image of the loss of autonomy that resonates strongly with audiences.

a popular image from ‘the matrix’ comes from the infamous ‘red or blue pill’ scene, where neo is exposed to the physical system used to keep the population in a simulated reality while their ‘bioelectric power’ is harvested by machines. gasping for air in a pod filled with liquid not dissimilar to that of the womb, neo is shown to be one of millions of humans being held in pods and kept alive via medical tubes. this is a particularly visceral method of depicting the world’s population as enslaved; humans are stripped of the ability to experience the ‘real world’ and are not even able or permitted to breathe on their own. the way humans are tied into their ‘pods’ that feed their consciousness into the matrix is an example of sci-fi utilising forms of restraint to represent vulnerability and abuse of power. while this is not, by definition, bondage as it does not include sexual arousal it does exemplify why restraints are a vital narrative device. in the context of the wachowski sister’s film, the constrains represent systemic barriers preventing the population from experiencing reality and affirming their own identities. even in instances like this where restraints are used against a protagonist who does not find pleasure in the experience, the perpetrator, such as the agents in the matrix, tend to react with pleasure and almost delight at having someone captive, and the arousal is on their end of the experience as the dominant figure in this interaction. modern sci-fi often has plots rooted in a protagonist or group of protagonists’ journey to dismantle corrupt systems, systems which are reflected as binding or restricting population’s bodies, choices and autonomy. the agents of these systems take pleasure in enacting this restriction as it is a method of maintaining their power and control. consequently, protagonists reclaiming control serves as a natural way for the tables to turn on oppressors and for the narrative to reach its’ hope-filled conclusion.

the aesthetics of bdsm have their place in modern science fiction, but specifically in the matrix. western gothic and alternative fashion appear to be culturally associated with bdsm accessories, namely chokers, harnesses, garters, and so on. kym barrett, the costume designer for the matrix, has stated ‘[the costumes are] reflecting back more obviously to what’s really going on in the world, so maybe subconsciously people are connecting to it.’ the cast sports ensembles comprised of latex, leather, harnesses and accessories; while their clothes must serve a practical purpose and be appropriate attire for action, this also comes across as a co-opting of bondage gear as an act of reclaimation. barrett goes on to explain, ‘when they go into the matrix, they create their persona, which is how they see themselves.’ the depth of these characters centres around their reactions to their oppression, and co-opting symbols of this oppression helps to reinforce their fight against it.

other iconic fashion uses of bondage such as vivienne westwood’s alternative lines of clothing follow a similar vein, described as ‘clothing and imagery that appear dirty, ripped, scarred, shocking, spectacular, cruel, traumatised, sick, or alienating.’ this description matches western societal perspectives on bdsm, specifically the practice of bondage. uses of bondage in the mainstream are often a tool in shock fashion, largely influenced by both the gothic and by punk. punk subculture in particular is built upon shock culture, and utilises bondage alongside the themes of anarchy and anti-capitalism to promote a deeply political message. again, bondage gear and physical restraints are co-opted to form an anti-establishment narrative that jeers in the face of social restraints. despite music and fashion not being the same as literature, we can still see bondage being used as a narrative device. westwood’s sado-masochistic inspired clothing saw the addition of a punk line, named seditionaries, in 1976 after the designer met with the sex pistols. as previously discussed, what defines the gothic genre is the uncanny relationship dynamic between two binaries: romantic language and horror content. this translates to the worlds of both fashion and music, where gothic or alternative content relies on the uneasy contrast between the glamour of fashion or the melodic sound of a song and the shocking, counter-culturalist ‘traumatised’ method of presentation, be it the bdsm influence in the design of a garment or the macabre lyrics. this places bondage at the forefront of alternative media and reinforces its’ relevance as a narrative device.

the history of science fiction narratives is peppered with taboos, bent social conventions and abuses of power. the genre’s framework is inherently a development of gothic framework, recontextualised in a fantasy setting. we rely upon science fiction as a means of coping with capitalism; it is therapeutic to see an unlikely hero burst into the office of a space warlord, a corrupt government, a rogue machine, and blow the fucking place up. in order to experience this catharsis, we have to be able to visualise the constraints that they are dismantling, and to see the perverse nature of them in the first place. bondage traps the core sentiment of a narrative in manacles and allows it to violently break free and confront audiences head-on. it asks the audience, do you feel restrained? do the systems restraining you take pleasure in holding you in place? do you see how unjust it is to be controlled? and as our protagonist triggers an exodus of people ripping off the duct tape, loosening the rope, and unlocking the manacles, our narrative device turns to the audience again and asks, do you see how just it is to be free?

i.k.b

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docwormie · 9 months

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Little rant about the Etoiles Noires and gender ahead (i need to get the starmania brainrot out of my system and can not stop analyzing everything i watch through a queer lens)

i can't quite articulate how much i love the 2022 version of Starmania but one of my fav bits is at the end of travesti, after sadia's just sung about being hot and fucking crazy and Not Cis™, and after killing like 3 different people in the span of one song, all of the étoiles noires (which are mostly men here) gather around the car and sing with her !!! like. they know, they don't care, and they think it slays.

the fact that those murders happens during travesti makes the queer narrative more obvious because, of course, it's all about transgression. the étoiles noires are those left behind by society, those who don't "fit in" an expected norm, so they embrace what makes them different and they find community in violence. sadia (who is literally the allegory of that violence) embodies that !! the whole group singing the word "travesti" while in the middle of organized crime to overthrow the system is a political statement (and it would have been even more radical back in 1979, though idk how the song was staged). the things that makes them outcasts and their anger feeling left out are their fuel to act.

of course their respective reasons to join the zonards/étoiles noires must be different but queerness (and more generally, non-conformity to social norms) is definitely a part of it. the fact that sadia is not the one singing "des gars qui se maquillent" in 2022 confirms it, and although the étoiles noires have this "manly" behavior (which the women share anyways), they also somewhat subvert the norm, wearing make up and nail polish, showing emotions... btw i think it's good that the 2022 show goes back to a sensitive, vulnerable, somewhat feminine portrayal of johnny (which Balavoine definitely had and that was kind of lost in the 1988/1993 versions). i also really love how there seems to be a real spirit of camaraderie/friendship between them all ?? like there are displays of affection, (cf. johnny with the guy that helps him put the white coat on + the person sitting on the car next to him). they're literally commiting heinous murders but all you can see is how much fun they're having !!

then there's also the "besoin d'amour" bit which is really great because just like in travesti (the parallel in the choreography is very obvious !), they have cristal, aka stereotypical barbie, singing this girly, very much france gall-esque, pop song on the top of the car, about how joyous and fun it is to be in love, and the whole gang is dancing around her like a chorus to highlight how universal the message is. and then cristal's transformation after joining the étoiles noires !! it's clear to me that what the media depict as a "kidnapping" is actually a sort of liberation for her: she's allowed to leave behind her perfect image (= the golden cage stella never escapes) and maybe even a part of performative femininity as shown through her outfits. (i have a short post about that coming soon!) to become this more "messy", darker version of herself that doesn't need to be pure as crystal (lol) all the time.

overall the way the étoiles noires are portrayed is really cool because it subverts the classic representation of that scary gang with cold, judgmental, unfeeling vibes, and instead makes them a supportive group that faces together a cold, judgmental, unfeeling society ! (however !!! the different periods (1979/2022/whatever year starmania takes place in) overlapping in starmania do create a dissonance in how queerness is portrayed, and of course queercoding villains is a little problematic, but that's a post for another day!)

so yeah this violent group (of outcasts) terrorizing the population being made of gnc characters that aren't afraid to show feelings means a lot to me that's it 🫶🫶🫶

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helianthus21 · 9 months

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accompanying fic to this fanart in the Early Adoption AU by the amazing @nalivaa who wondered what would happen if rival mafiosi exploited the weakness Vin's cute little brother posed and kidnapped him,,,,

The mafia business is a lawless one but there are some rules, unspoken or not, that you just have to adhere to.

Such as, Never rat out your friends.

Or, Don’t start a fight you cannot win.

And perhaps the most important one in Milanese circles: You are not to touch a hair on the head of Vincenzo Cassano's little brother.

Like with most rules, they get established after the transgression has already been committed, even if just once. And the poor sons of bitches who tried are example enough to deter any madmen from even trying to copy them, even though, or rather because all but one of them did not live to tell the tale.

Having such a reputation is a relief to Vincenzo, though he has regrets about the way it was built up. Not because of what he had to do to get there – he doesn’t give two fucks about the poor suckers who became victims of his wrath – but because of what Han-seo had been forced to endure.

Han-seo should’ve never gotten dragged into this. He should not even be a blip on the radar of any mafia members. Unfortunately, no matter how careful Vincenzo thought he was in keeping Han-seo's existence a secret from the mafia circles, trying to keep hidden someone who is such an essential part of your life is something of a herculean effort.

He still remembers, all too vividly, the numbing fear he'd felt back then, when Luca had approached him and told him that his brother was gone. Taken. Fear that had quickly transformed into white-hot rage: he would kill everyone who had dared lay a finger on Han-seo, and everyone who got in his way would burn to cinder.

Without waiting for Luca or any of the other guys Luca had been trying to rally as reinforcement, he'd taken his Father's precious Cadillac and sped to the location he'd been told.

Apparently they'd demanded ransom – an insane amount at that – as well as some land Don Fabio had appropriated but Vincenzo couldn’t care less about any demands, let alone about fulfilling them. All he would fulfill that night was the blood-thirsty need for revenge that raged inside him.

They had taken Han-seo.

They were going to pay.

When Vincenzo arrived at the scene, there were four armed men guarding the entrance to the warehouse that held Han-seo captive. As a rule, it is foolish to take on four armed men single-handedly. The four armed men seemed to think so too, which must have been why they did not even lift a brow (or move a trigger finger) when they saw Vincenzo approaching.

Underestimation, Vincenzo had long since understood, was man’s greatest downfall, right next to pride.

That was why, when Vincenzo raised his gun, aimed, and shot the nearest guy right between his eyes, it took them a second to even process what was happening.

A second too long.

A second enough for Vincenzo. Taking advantage of their delay in action, he shot off two more bullets. One hit Goon Number Two in the heart, the other one missed by a hair's breadth and got Goon Number Three at the shoulder instead. By then, Vincenzo was close enough that some of his blood splattered on his hands.

Number Three and Four had caught themselves enough to coordinate each other: taking off in different directions, they tried their luck by coming at Vincenzo from different angles at once. But Vincenzo didn't hesitate for a moment. He let out another shot to his left, didn’t even stop to check if he'd hit home before whipping around again, anticipating Number Four pouncing on him.

That was his second mistake.

"Guns are a long-distance weapon, stupido!" Vincenzo commented as he dodged Goon Number Four's attack, grabbed him by the wrist to kick the gun from his grip and spun him around to use as a shield just in time for when Goon Number Three recovered and fired off his own shot in their direction.

Vincenzo pushed a limp Goon Number Four on him and shot Goon Number Three in the aorta.

There was no time to lose.

"Where is he?"

With the weight of Goon Number Four squarely over his chest and bleeding out, Goon Number Three glared at him. "Testa di cazzo!"

Unimpressed, Vincenzo pushed his foot down on the hole in his leg and repeated his question, voice raised over the man's scream of pain. "Where. Is. He."

"Third door down the corridor to the left."

Expression impassive, Vincenzo nodded. "Keys. And I'll make it quick for you."

From his pocket, the man pulled out the keys to the warehouse and handed them to him

As promised, Vincenzo blew his brains right out.

Vincenzo took a moment to reload his gun. This time, he had every intention of going in with a plan. A more solid one, maybe find a way to see how everyone was positioned around the room before entering or such.

Until he heard Han-seo’s voice.

“Hyu–”

It went muffled at the end, like someone pressed a hand to his mouth to silence him.

Someone put a hand on him.

And silenced him.

And Vincenzo saw red.

What happened next is a blur to Vincenzo to this day. He knows that he bullied his way inside, somehow, that at one point he lost his gun – someone must’ve kicked it from his grip – so that he’d have nothing but his fists and whatever he could leverage from his surroundings. He doesn’t know exactly how he fought against all of Han-seo’s captors and came up on top, all he can say is that there were four more dead men, and three gravely injured, once he was done with them.

What he remembers, though, all too clearly, is standing in that room, gun still firm in his hand like an extension of himself, and looking for his brother in the midst of all that grime and death.

Han-seo was standing, staring, wide-eyed.

Some blood had splattered on his face and clothes when Vincenzo had shot the man who’d been holding Han-seo in the cruel attempt to use him as a shield. It had been, perhaps, the scariest moment for Vincenzo in this whole mess. In his entire life thus far, perhaps: the risk he had to take when he aimed with Han-seo so close to his target. But he’d hit home, hit the man in the shoulder, not enough to kill, but enough to make him stumble away from Han-seo. Then, he followed up with another bullet, to his thigh this time, just to keep him from running.

Han-seo had tumbled to the ground, hands and knees breaking his fall. Wincing, Vincenzo took a look at the stone floor. That must have hurt, he thought, and rage flared up once more at that. “Han-seo,” he rasped, taking a step towards him. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

There was a mirror, just behind Han-seo, a little to the left, and it caught Vincenzo’s eye the moment he moved. It was leaning against the wall, an old thing, with cracks at the upper left corner and dust sticking to the rest of it, distorting Vincenzo’s reflection into a grotesque form, like a specter. Blood was splattered all across his suit. Blood sullied the white of his collar. His own blood dripped sluggishly down a cut on his cheek, and blood stuck to his hands: the blood of the people he killed to get here.

He looked like–

He looked like a monster.

He couldn’t look Han-seo in the eyes, wouldn’t bear to see fear reflected in them: fear of his own brother.

“Hy- hyung?”

Han-seo’s voice sounded so thin, so shaky, and this made Vincenzo seek his gaze after all. His feet brought him the rest of the way to him, closing the distance. He dropped to his knees before his brother. Han-seo was still wearing the same jacket he’d been wearing when Vincenzo had dropped him off at school that morning. An ugly atrocity of brightly colored patterns reminiscent of eighties fashion that Han-seo had zoned in on at the mall and absolutely insisted on. He was the same boy from that morning, yet ages had passed behind his eyes.

Taking care not to touch Han-seo directly, he examined the handcuffs that chafed the skin around his wrists. Bastardos, he thought. To do that to a child! Don Fabio had clear rules about never involving women and children in their work, never harming the innocent and he demanded from his men to abide by this law religiously.

These men were worse than trash for putting Han-seo through this hell.

With practiced ease, Vincenzo unlocked the cuffs with a safety pin, careful not to let the metal scrape against Han-seo’s skin any more. They fell to the floor with a clang.

Throughout it all, he felt Han-seo's eyes on him, and the urge to hide his face, to shield Han-seo’s eyes from all this grew by the second. He dreaded to know what Han-seo was thinking now, how the picture of his big brother had, undoubtedly, changed irrevocably. He never wanted Han-seo to see this side of him.

Instead of meeting Han-seo's eyes, Vincenzo focused on his hands: the scratches on his wrist were an angry red, and Vincenzo reached out, then, by instinct, but he caught himself before his hands (the hands of a killer) could meet bare skin, and gripped Han-seo by the arm instead, as though the fabric of his jacket was barrier enough from his tainting touch. Instead, his bloody hands sullied that damn jacket, pink mixing with red, but despite the disgust at himself, Vincenzo needed to make sure he was real, solid. That he was fine.

“Hanseo-yah,” he whispered.

Han-seo stared at him.

His knees were bleeding, and Vincenzo was partly to blame for that. There was a cut on his right cheek, smaller than the one Vincenzo sported, yet enough to make his heart constrict at the sight.

Almost more incriminating, tears were welling in his eyes. When one spilled over, Vincenzo reached out a hand to his left cheek, by instinct, to wipe it away with his thumb. “Han-seo,” he whispered again. “I’m sorry.”

Horrified by the way his touch left a stain of red on Han-seo’s face, he wanted to draw back, but Han-seo was faster. Like a dam breaking, more tears spilled from his eyes and he launched himself at Vincenzo, scraped knees hitting the cold hard floor once more and it was all Vincenzo could do to catch him in his arms as Han-seo began to cry for real.

For a moment, Vincenzo was too stunned to do more.

Wasn’t he scared of him? Wasn’t he horrified?

“Hyung!” Han-seo got out between sobs. “They– they…”

They hurt him.

Any other thought flew out the window, as Vincenzo’s heart flared with the feeling that had risen in him since the first time he’d laid eyes on Han-seo, when Vincenzo had sworn to protect him, that small boy that got left behind just like Vincenzo himself had been left behind.

Vincenzo pulled Han-seo closer, tightened his hold on him, so tight it might almost hurt. “It’s okay.”

“I was so scared!”

“It’s okay, I’m here now.”

“They hurt me.”

“I know.” Vincenzo swallowed. He pushed down another wave of nauseating rage. “I’m sorry.”

“Hyung.”

“You’re alright,” Vincenzo promised “I’m here now. You’re okay. I won’t let anything happen to you.” One of his hands rubbed back and forth soothingly across his back. “By my first father’s grave, I swear this. Anyone who tries, I’ll…”

He’ll pay them back tenfold, and his currency is pain. He’ll make them feel every second of blinding fear he’d felt for Han-seo since the moment he realized he was missing. Every second that Han-seo was scared, that he had to live in a world where he wasn’t safe, where Vincenzo had failed him.

Eyes drifting, he caught another glance at the mirror.

He looked awful.

Like a killer.

Like a monster.

Suddenly, he couldn’t bear to be near Han-seo. His innocent, carefree dongsaeng had been pulled into this world, his world, and he was the one to blame. He couldn’t stand to touch him with his filthy hands, hands full of blood.

But as he loosened his grip to draw back, Han-seo only clung to him more tightly.

“Hyung, please!” Han-seo wailed. “Please stay.”

Stunned, Vincenzo didn’t move. “I’m not going anywhere,” he assured. “I’ll keep you safe, from now on. I promise.”

While Vincenzo was wearing the blood of his enemies, the blood on Han-seo was mostly his own. His knees. His cheek. His wrists were full of scratches from where he had likely pulled against his too tight restraints. He must’ve been so scared.

Vincenzo would kill them all again, would shoot another load of bullets in their bodies. Make it hurt this time, draw it out, for what they put Han-seo through. For every drop of blood they drew from him, he’d draw a hundred, for every tear that fell from his eyes, he’d tear off a limb.

He doesn’t know how long they stayed like this, how long until Luca arrived with the cavalry. But when their medic tried to rip them apart to treat their injuries, Han-seo wailed even louder than before.

"Han-seo," Vincenzo chided carefully, not letting go either. "You need to let them have a look at you."

"No, I'm fine, I just–" he sniffed, and Vincenzo's heart melted.

He didn’t spend more than a furtive second wondering what Father’s men will think of him now, seeing him fold so easily for this kid. That was less important. More important was to keep Han-seo close, to reassure himself that he was here, that he was fine. He hadn’t been able to breathe since he found out Han-seo had been captured, and now he finally could. He closed his eyes, took in the vague smell of candy and Han-seo’s strawberry shampoo and, most damningly, the iron smell of blood that now clung to his little brother. Instinctively, Vincenzo hugged him a little tighter.

“You’re alright.” He couldn’t in all sincerity tell anymore if the reassurance was for Han-seo’s or his own sake.

Now that he knew that Han-seo was largely unharmed, the thing he most abhorred about this day was the fear these men put Han-seo through. The fear that shook his world view, burst the bubble that his world was a safe one. The fear that stripped him of the belief that as long as his brother was around, things would go alright, that he’d never let any harm come his way.

Because he had been there, and harm had still found Han-seo.

In the worst way, Vincenzo had failed. If something worse had happened to Han-seo, he’d never have forgiven himself…

In the end it was Luca who managed to dislodge Han-seo’s iron hold on Vincenzo.

“Han-seo,” he’d addressed the boy directly. “We really need to have a look at the both of you. Your hyung doesn’t look so good himself…”

Immediately, Han-seo drew back to look Vincenzo over. There was a determined look in his watery eyes fighting to overthrow the state of distress he was obviously still in, his cheeks marked with tear tracks. Vincenzo reached out to wipe them away but the sight of blood on his hands made him waver.

He wanted to drop his hand to his side, but Han-seo was faster.

"Hyung, your hands!" His brother caught them between his smaller ones, the same delicate fingers that had pieced together a toy car at the breakfast table this morning brushing over Vincenzo’s bruised knuckles, where skin had ripped open when he’d punched his way through Han-seo’s captors. More blood transferred from Vincenzo onto Han-seo’s skin, and his stomach lurched at the sight, urge to pull back growing exponentially but Han-seo was insistent. “You need a band-aid!”

And in front of the eyes of his Father’s most trusted men, their medic and the corpses of their enemies, Han-seo reached into his pants’ pocket, pulled out a strip of dinosaur-themed bandaid and, very gently, stuck it right across Vincenzo’s knuckles.

Wide-eyed, Vincenzo stared at him. A small smile brightened Han-seo’s miserable face as he examined his handiwork and Vincenzo remembered what he had said to Han-seo, on that fateful day when Han-seo was hand-delivered to his doorstep by an uncaring former brother.

Let's just take care of one another from now on.

Han-seo never failed to save Vincenzo right back, it seemed.

He let the man go, the one who had used Han-seo as a shield. Someone needs to live to tell the tale. The tale of what happened when you dared to mess with Vincenzo Cassano's little brother.

The saying doesn’t specify for how long that person should be allowed to live, however. But Vincenzo was a patient man when he wanted to be. He liked to play with his food.That man was how Vincenzo earned the title of the gatto sazio, but that's another story yet to tell.

#fuck around and find out💁🏼‍♀️#vincenzo #early adoption au #jang han seo #pls hand-wave the action scene im bad at this #and if young adult vin is already larger than life and his enemies are dumb and incompetent #that's just consistent with the show y'know #heli writes #posting this to ao3 soon #ficlet

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ineffable-opinions · 1 month

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School Culture & Male Androphilia in Japan

[This is part of a series on Takumi-kun 6. The aim of this piece is to discuss the origins of student culture and male androphilia & how it plays out in Takumi-kun series.]

Takumi-kun series is an early BL novel by Shinobu Gotoh with an enduring legacy. It is also an on-going work as we follow Takumi-kun and others beyond their student (gakusei) days and into adult (shakaijin) life.

Takumi-kun series is mostly set in an all-males boarding school Shido Academy. As I have mentioned in my previous posts, pre-modern Japan has a long tradition of male androphilia[1], much of which was age-stratified, class-stratified or both and involved strict/normative inserter/insertee dichotomy. BL has inherited (such as in seme/uke dynamics) and bastardized (such as with younger seme/older uke pairing) traditions of male androphilia in its tropes. Let's discuss a bit of the history before diving into how Shinobu Gotoh plays around with the setup of boarding school male-male sexuality that emerged in the Meiji period.

Part 1

[ Main resource used for this part of the write-up is the chapter titled “Toward the Margins: Male-Male Sexuality in Meiji Popular Discourse” from the book Cartographies of Desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse, 1600-1950 by Gregory M. Pflugfelder. ]

What Review of Senryu From Meiji Japan Reveals

Meiji period Japan saw transformation of Japanese customary male-male sexuality ‘within the newly established framework of a centralized nation-state’.

…male-male sexuality, which had enjoyed a prominent and respectable place in Edo-period popular texts, came during Meiji times to be routinely represented as “barbarous,” “immoral,” or simply “unspeakable.”

The marginalization of male-male sexuality can be traced through its representation in senryü verse composed during that period. In post-Meiji Restoration popular humor Yoshichö districts of Edo well-known for organized sex work was no longer associated with the kagema or male sex worker. Instead, it was associated with female geisha, mirroring the 18th centuary decline of kagema teahouse and their shutdown by local authorities'. Once mainstream male-male sex work had to go underground and faded from popular memory.

Just as old customs were forgotten, new ones emerged in senryu of 1880.

Two figures […] associated with male-male sexuality were the bantö and detchi—clerk and apprentice, respectively, in a commercial house. The bantö wielded considerable authority over other employees, and had been portrayed in senryü since the Edo period indulging his lechery with young male coworkers. The detchi, on the other hand, may be seen as the merchant version of the priestly chigo or samurai page boy: male adolescents for whom the favor or disfavor of senior males might have significant consequences for their professional advancement.

Meanwhile male-male sexuality involving Buddhist priests went from being considered ‘a lesser transgression than fornication with women’ and a ‘contradiction between the priest's personal indulgence and the ascetic ideals of his religion” to an “emblem of “ancient evils” (kyühei) in dire need of reform’ and ‘a criminal offense’.

Following period saw state regulation of representation of sexuality in media (print media, theatre and paintings - artist Kawanabe Kyösai’s erotic drawing of Meiji oligarch Sanjö Sanetomi & a male foreigner landed him in jail; not much different from jailing of ero BL creators in present day[2]) and a shift in popular discourse that deemed that male-male eroticism has no place in the “civilized” environment of Meiji. Male-male sexuality was further marginalized through silence resulting from ‘state censorship, editorial discretion, authorial inclination, public taste’, etc. Meiji journalists continued reporting on male-male sexuality but adopted a tone of moralistic outrage and condemnation.

In the demarcation of civilized behavior, male-male sexuality was relegated to ‘the Japanese past, the southwestern periphery, and the world of adolescence’.

Japanese Past

‘Male-male erotic practices lay in the past’ which was seen as ‘a backward and “feudal” age, whose institutions and customs Japan must abandon in order to achieve “civilization.”’

Meiji era authors depicted male-male sexuality with historical backdrop (such as samurai society of the Sengoku and Edo eras) that would excuse their representation in the name of historical accuracy. [This is in contrast to say depiction in cinema which has largely avoided depiction of nanshoku with exception of Taboo (1999) and Kubi (2023).]

Pflugfelder gives a couple of examples:

Higeotoko (Man with a Beard; 1890–1896) by Köda Rohan – very shonen ai about the whole thing – involved light hand-holding and fade to blank.

Kagema no adauchi (Kagema's Vendetta; 1899) by Jöno Denpei –about a professional “love boy”. As a person born in 1832 Jöno was familiar with male sex workers like the protagonist from his childhood. But the practice has thoroughly disappeared from the cultural fabric by 1899 that Jöno had to introduce the protagonist whose profession was “disgraceful” “from today's perspective” and his gender identity ambiguous.

Marginalization of Male-Male Sexuality Was Japan's Southwestern Periphery

Centered around Kagoshima prefecture (the former domain of Satsuma), the region encompassed various parts of Kyushu, Shikoku, and Honshu. During the Meiji period, it was popularly believed that male-male erotic practices were more prevalent here than in the rest of Japan. Other than the obvious geographic distinction, there was a social reason too for this distinction. It was believed the region was a stronghold of old customs with lasting imprints of samurai class and the high concentration of warrior families. Satsuma had customary homosocial groups with strict sex-segregation practices such as hekogumi and gojü until the Restoration.

Male-male erotic interaction […] was reportedly common within such groups.

… the martial ethos of the samurai class slowly dissolved under the pressure of social change and “civilized morality.” Contemporary observers correlated the deterioration of shiki or “warrior morale” with a decline in male-male erotic practices.[3]

During the Meiji period, southwestern region (Kagoshima in particular) was known for its male-male sexual practices. These practices were seen as regional peculiarities, distinct from the mainstream culture centered in Tokyo. The southwestern region was viewed as a “feudal” backwater, and the association of male-male erotic practices with this area underscored their perceived “uncivilized” nature. Instead of being seen as a universal practice [the way shudo was percieved], male-male sexuality was considered a “folkway” (füzokü) surviving on the cultural margins of a newly “civilized” nation-state. In the 20th century, sexologists further marginalized these practices by diagnosing regions like Kagoshima with a hereditary condition called “regional same-sex love” (chihôteki döseiai). This effectively contained male-male sexuality within specific geographical and cultural boundaries.

Moreover, from Kagoshima men’s regional identity imperial navy and seafaring got associated with male-male eroticism in Meiji Japan.

male-male sexuality & the world of adolescence

… the sexual object in shudö had always been defined as a young male. In Meiji popular discourse, as in that of the Edo period, it was generally understood that youthfulness formed one of the conditions of male-male erotic desirability. More and more commonly, however, the desiring party too was presumed to be an adolescent, older than his partner as a rule, but neither of them yet an adult.

‘Adolescence (seishun) as an “institutionalized moratorium between childhood and adulthood” [allowed for a] social space where adult standards did not fully apply’. This also allowed male-male sexuality which had gained the status of uncivilized behavior to be excused as ‘youthful folly’.

Institutions of formal education were around since Edo period and so was male-male erotic practices in them. Not only that but also ‘violence between rivals in love’. Following the Restoration, schools mushroomed throughout Japan with an added emphasis on education as a vehicle for social mobility. Students, tasked with future nation building, were expected to be diligent in their study and to stay away from sexual diversion. Male-male sexuality in schools were not just that in discourse of the day but was inextricably linked with ‘shifting definitions of masculinity, regional and political rivalries, and the ongoing “civilization” of morality’.

Mori Ögai - father of Mori Mari who wrote the first BL

Two terms born out of Mori Ögai's 1909 novel critiquing naturalism[4] Wita sekusuarisu (Vita Sexualis) köha and nanpa were used in discourses surrounding male-male sexuality among students. The term köha (translated as “roughnecks” by Pflugfelder and “queers” by Kazuji Ninomiya and Sanford Goldstein) referred to students who eschewed interest in male-female eroticism instead engaged in male-male sexual relations. This was in contrast to their nanpa (translated as “smoothies” by Pflugfelder and “mashers” by Kazuji Ninomiya and Sanford Goldstein) classmates.

[These are penetrator roles but not fixed categories. Students did move from one category to another even in Mori's novel. "Boy" (shonen) who were penetrated could take up penetrator role later on.]

“Smoothies” […] did not tuck up their sleeves or swagger about with menacing shoulders like their “roughneck” peers, but instead dandified themselves in silk kimonos and white socks (tabi) in order to win the favor of women.

In Mori’s school köha student were mostly from Kyushu and southwest Honshu prefecture of Yamaguchi while nanpa were from northeastern region. This regional distinction shows up in Tsubouchi Shöyö's novel Tösei shosei katagi (Spirit of Present Day Students; 1885–1886) wherein Kiriyama Benroku a quintessential köha is a native of Kyushu who wears coarse garb and is contrasted against his classmates womanizing peers not only by his leaning towards samurai ideals of masculinity but also by his interest in his companion Miyaga.

The köha-style of masculinity was modelled on engaging brute strength even in erotic dealings. Moreover ‘the strict age hierarchy that prevailed in student society constrained the very notion of consent, since junior males were in principle supposed to obey the dictates of senior schoolmates.’

In such an environment, male-male sexual practices often took a predatory form, with younger students providing fodder for older ones.

However, there were also non-forced köha-shonen sexual relations too.

Mori describes, for instance, a set of crude hand signals whereby a “boy” could consent to or refuse a senior male's overtures; subtler forms of seduction involved treats, favors, and the prospect of “special protection” (tokubetsu na hogo) by the older party.

Meiji newspapers was eager to cover köha violence wherein the older students who preyed upon “beautiful boy” in the streets of Tokyo and other Meiji cities or fought over a “beautiful boy”. They stood to gain readership especially those from middle- and upper-class who were likely to send their kids to boarding schools. It also fit well in the political context with journalistic crusade aimed at male-male sexuality & exploitation as a “Satsuma habit” in a time when ‘domination of the national government by the so-called “Satsuma clique” (Satsubatsu) faced mounting criticism’.

The portrayal of köha by journalists in post-Restoration Japan led to a strong association between male-male sexuality and adolescence. This association was so strong that any discussion of male-male sexuality would inevitably reference student societies and dormitories as common places for such relationships. Furthermore, accounts of school life often highlighted the culture of male-male eroticism as a distinctive feature. This is evident in memoirs by several notable figures such as Ösugi Sakae (himself a former köha), Iwaya Saza-nami, Ubukata Toshirô, as well as in literary works by Dazai Osamu, Hori Tatsuo, Kawabata Yasunari, Mushanoköji Saneatsu, Origuchi Shinobu, Satomi Ton, Tanizaki Jun’ichirö, and Uno Köji.

Chigo-nise ties (that is, erotic relationships between junior and senior youths) were reportedly common [in Kagoshima] as late as the 1940s, while student memoirs and other accounts describe similar attachments in schools outside the region. With the twentieth-century rise of the notion of [döseiai] “same-sex love,” however, popular representations of such relationships would come increasingly to focus on their psychological features, rather than on physical predation of the Meiji type.

The other half of the ‘asymmetric dyad that made up a male-male erotic relationship’, the sexually penetrated partner, is referred to as ‘shonen’ (boy) in student lingo. By then a mix of inherited knowledge from various arena – Japanese past, classical Chinese, and contemporary forensic pathology – entered public discourse such as seen in Kömurö Shujin's Bishönenron (On the Beautiful Boy).

In Kömurö Shujin's work, the primary effect of this paradigm was to bring to the fore the psychology and physiology of the “beautiful boy” in a manner that would become increasingly common as the century progressed. Kömurö Shujin cited an impressive array of Western authorities on “same-sex love,” most of them doctors or scientists who believed that the “passive” partner in male-male intercourse differed from others of his sex on the basis of certain mental and physical peculiarities, both inborn and acquired. At the same time, the author's understanding of Western sexology was filtered through a set of native assumptions, emerging in a form that often differed in telling ways from the intentions of the original theorists.

Masculinity of wakashu was rarely ever problematized during Edo period. But with the medicalization of male-male sexuality led to attribution of “effemination” with “passive” partner put forth by Western sexologists as Richard von Krafft-Ebing to gain traction in Japan and persist.

[Parallels can be found in bishonen (beautiful boy) stock in BL deemed feminine by readers unfamiliar with the bishonen aesthetics. For example, misattribution bishonen Ayase even when contrasted with feminine Someya in No Money. This also extends to treatment of seme/uke dynamics as though it is a reflection of heterosexual pairing when it is in fact a pairing of two different masculine aesthetics, not to ignore the misogynistic, xenophobic and colonial conception of men who do not fit into specific masculine aesthetics being deemed unmanly/feminine.

Interestingly, Miki Koichiro the director (and screenwriter) of Pornographer, Given, Zettai BL, Bokura no Micro na Shuumatsu etc. is well versed in the male androphilic traditions (among other queer traditions). We can see him using the term “shonen” when instructing the young actor playing Mob-san’s brother’s friend who has a crush on Mob-san. His usage was perfect, proving that he knows what he is doing.]

Part 2

Relics of traditional androphilia in Takumi-kun series

The norm or at least the expectation is that senior students (senpai) pursue pretty boy (bishonen) juniors (kouhai).

This is what outsiders expect even within the universe the novel series is set in as is seen from the conversation between Gii, his best friend Akaike Shouzou and Namiko (Shouzou’s girlfriend) in Sorera Subete Itoshiki Hibi (Those Were Precious Days), a part that never got live action adaptation.

This plays out in Takumi-kun series in various ways. There are two notable bishonen in Takumi-kun’s batch: Gii with his exotic beauty and the princess-like Takabayashi Izumi. In case of pursuit of Gii plays out in a pretty straight forward manner. He is relentlessly chased by seniors who are interested in Gii and their numerous attempts at wooing him.

Takumi-kun 4 - Gii & Sagara

Notable pursuer is Sagara Takahiro who was in the third year when Gii joins Shidou. Sagara as the school president organized many recreational events hoping Gii would participate and they would grow closer. But Gii refuses to participate except for in the final one which took place in Sagara’s absence, the Shinto Shrine Hunt event that is depicted in Takumi-kun 6. Even though the pursuit plays out straight forwardly, it come to nothing since Gii is not there to be pursued. He is there to pursue Takumi-kun.

In case of Takabayashi Izumi, he turns his most ardent pursuers into a band of followers. This obedient little group of lackeys help him to stir up trouble for his love rival Takumi. Moreover, Takabayashi is one of Gii’s pursuers. This pursuit also doesn’t yield any result as Gii doesn’t entertain any pursuit.

Thus, both bishonen of Takumi’s batch subverts expectations surrounding bishonen by being pursuers.

Takabayashi’s plot gets further complicated when he falls in love with Yoshizawa Michio. Their pairing is that of weak seme x weak uke type – both are reluctant to actively pursue each other and requires external intervention to set their ship in motion.

Meanwhile Misu Arata wishes to be the target of his senior Sagara Takahiro’s affections. He actively participates in Sagara’s events wanting to get close [and they do get close as schoolmates] but Sagara is only interested in Gii.

Takumi-kun 4 - Shingyouji & Misu

Misu’s plot further deviates from the pursued bishonen track when a junior (Shingyouji Kanemi) pursues and eventually gets together with him in a clear inversion of the norm.

Takumi is also pursued by his seniors. Aso Kei’s pursuit is depicted in Takumi-kun 6 while Nozaki Daisuke’s attempts at courtship is depicted in Takumi-kun 1.

Aso Kei is the only one Takumi is comfortable interacting with apart from Katakura Toshihisa (Takumi’s best friend). Aso’s pursuit is aided by Gii who wholeheartedly wishes for Takumi’s happiness irrespective of whom he gets together with. Gii creates opportunities for Aso and Takumi to meet by delegating library duty to Takumi when Aso is around thus getting them to interact. Aso’s courtship fails and he takes it out on Gii by showing off – he lies to him that Takumi agreed to shrine hunt with him. When Gii notices that Takumi doesn’t reciprocate Aso’s feelings, he decides to actively pursue Takumi and turns from Aso’s enabler to rival in love.

Nozaki Daisuke’s pursuit of Takumi plays out within the senior pursuing junior set up. Another classic trope is that of love rivals fighting over a bishonen with both literary and in real life precedents. This is evoked in a race between Gii and Nozaki in Takumi’s name from Takumi-kun 1. Here the love rival’s competition is complicated since Gii is a bishonen who is fought over by many others (Takumi, Takabayashi, Nogawa Masaru*, etc).

* Nogawa Masaru is not depicted in any of the movies as far as I can remember.

Even though the novel series is called Takumi-kun series, there are many parts that doesn’t involve Takumi-kun and some of them are exclusively from the point of view of other characters. All in all, Takumi-kun series is like an anthology of many many love stories involving characters who are directly or indirectly connected to Takumi-kun. There are other stories involving younger pursuer and older pursued with all sorts of seme/uke arrangements. Here are some that I can recall right away:

Even guys who are not androphilic such as Akaike Shouzou gets pursued by seniors (Shibata Shun in Shouzou’s case). But these courtships are doomed from the get go.

Younger guy pursues older – senior & junior, teacher & student, etc.

senior x junior pursuit abandoned to establish senior x senior romance (Moriyama & Shibata) or junior x junior romance.

senior x junior romance sometimes end in heartbreak. (Takumi-kun 2)

senior x senior relationships are abandoned in pursuit of senior x junior relationship.

Sometimes seniors employ their seniority to retain power imbalance. (Misu and Shingyouji)

In case it is not clear, who pursues who has got nothing to do with who is seme, uke or riba and vice versa. Since the novel series involves many pairings, we get to see all sorts of seme/uke/riba dynamics (if we are to call it that given Takumi-kun is a June novel).

Footnotes

[1] I prefer using male androphilia because queerness is a bit too vague and in most case in inappropriate since it was the norm. Academics usually use male-male sexuality, male-male desire, male-male eroticism, etc. Male androphilia must not be confused with the narrower term homosexuality.

[2] Danmei author Tian Yi and her companions were sentenced for 10 years for profiting from obscene content on male-male sexuality.

[3] while the courting of “beautiful boys” was a “barbaric custom” (banpü), domain authorities during the Edo period had tacitly encouraged it as a means of preventing young men from going “soft” (nyüjaku) through erotic involvement with women (joshoku).

[4] In the Company of Men: Representations of Male-Male Sexuality In Meiji Literature by Jim Reichert (199-208)

Takumi-kun meta series

1.Trailer plus

2.School culture and male androphilia in Japan. (you are here)

3.How does the movie compare with the source novel?

4.How does the movie compare with previous adaptations?

#takumi kun series #takumi-kun 6 #japanese bl #タクミくんシリーズ長い長い物語の始まりの朝。#タクミくんシリーズ #Gotoh Shinobu #Takumi-kun Series 6: The Morning of the Beginning of a Long #Takumi-kun Shirizu 6 #タクミくんシリーズ6 #Takumi-kun: The Dawn of the Long Tales #takumi kun 6 #takumi kun 1 #takumi kun 2 #takumi kun 3 #takumi kun 4 #takumi kun 5 #Takumi-kun Series 1: And The Spring Breeze Whispers (2007)#Takumi-kun Series 1: And The Spring Breeze Whispers #Takumi-kun Series 1 #Soshite Harukaze ni Sasayaite #Takumi-kun Series 2: Rainbow Colored Glass (2009)#Takumi-kun Series 2: Rainbow Colored Glass #Takumi-kun Series 2 #Takumi-kun Series 2: Nijiiro no Garasu #Takumi-kun Series 3: The Beauty of Detail (2010)#Takumi-kun Series 3: The Beauty of Detail #Takumi-kun Series 3 #Takumi-kun Series 3: Bibou no Detail #タクミくんシリーズ3「美貌のディテイル」#タクミくんシリーズ3

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shadebyshad · 8 months

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About Rebekah and her desire to have a child...

There are too many things to put in this title, so let's go with a brief subtitle: Rebekah Mikaelson, her desire to have children, things about humanity vs. vampirism and my contained anger about the whole plot.

Maybe it's too long, but stick with me

vampirism vs. humanity

First, we need to remember what vampirism symbolically represents in literature (and eventually in film) over the years: by exploring the transgression between life and death, they represent the concerns of a society at a particular time, as well as the dark side of the individual. They symbolize the exploitation of others, sexuality, lack of respect for others, contagious diseases, fear of the unknown (especially foreign cultures), non-conformism and religion.

Today, vampires personify real-world problems and offer a kind of refuge. Whereas previously vampires were subversive and unwanted beings, today they are something to be envied, a goal to be achieved. Despite being ambiguous beings, they are still beautiful, romantic (Twilight and TVD) and immortal. They are beings who reflect on their impulses, who repudiate the act of feeding on human blood (Edward and Stefan) and, according to myself, with a certain morality surrounding them.

And why does this matter for my long analysis? Well, because I'm obsessed with vampire and witch stories HAUAHUA. And because I think that TVD/TO fails a lot by not wanting to reflect deeply on humanity vs. vampirism. The writers bring up the concept of vampires being able to "turn off their humanity", but they never really define what "humanity" would be and then, in the last seasons, they show that they don't know what that means.

I like this concept a lot, it's interesting to see it used in the first seasons with the younger vampires and the older ones, who have a different idea of feelings and so on. I think too much, I analyze too much and I think the writers should have done the same, HAUHAUHA. What is humanity to vampires? Is it relative? Certainly, but what would be the humanity of each vampire who has been turned off in the series? And why should humanity reflect on how vampires perceive themselves and are perceived by others in the series? Klaus said that vampires should adapt their perception of time, but what about humanity?

They're not human anymore, they're going to live/have lived things that no human could understand, what we humans and mortals consider "humanity" shouldn't be relevant to them, at least for the older vampires. I understand and find it totally plausible that these concepts are still present in Caroline, Tyler and Elena when they turn. In fact, it would be very interesting to see them shedding this human notion in order to understand that it is no longer something viable for them.

And all this to say that I understand Rebekah wanting to be human by living a thousand years and realizing that life has no meaning if it's eternal, a human philosophy, but I understand the gorgeous's thinking and, like a fan, I'll just say: Rebekah, go for it!

Rebekah, trauma and being human again

I've only watched TO up to the second season, so if I've got something wrong, sorry, but anyway… Rebekah has a terrible fear of being abandoned, falls in love easily, loves too much, was transformed without her consent and, unfortunately or fortunately, I find her decision/desire to be human very coherent with the character.

Being human again would be a way of regaining the control that was taken from her, although wanting to "build a family" would be her way of escaping from the Mikaelsons. Since you can't choose what kind of family you're going to be born into, you just have to be lucky, the family Rebekah built would be different, they would be people she had chosen, people who had shown themselves to be worthy and affectionate. It's even common for this desire to manifest itself in children from toxic homes, at least I see it that way.

I'd love to see what made Rebekah think that her salvation was to be human, even though she was one of the most powerful beings in the world and had lived for so many years. Societies could be shitty to her because she's a woman, but like? Who gives a fuck? She could have a whole city at her feet if she wanted to, she could make people doubt her existence as a vampire like Klaus did and whatever else. So, how did she get there?

And I think that has a lot to do with his inability to have biological children. And with that…

children

REBEKAH COULD HAVE BEEN A MOTHER! Regardless of whether or not she is capable of giving birth, she can be a mother. Many women can't give birth either, and then the excuse of the story is that she's a vampire? Oh, fuck off, eh? That's what adoption is for.

I don't understand TVD's obsession with biological children and "creating a family", they're vampires from thousands of years ago, who go to school, go to several colleges, found a town, open a fucking bar, buy a bunch of houses, whatever, but they can't have a child? Spare me, spare us

I hate Caroline's pregnancy plot, but they know how to work that obsession better… work it more or less. I still hate it, it's one more time that TVD overturns all its pre-established rules.

And Rebekah might have thought that adopted children didn't have the same value as biological ones, but this isn't shown at any point. And if that were the case, her relationship with Klaus and Mikael would have been very different, as would the way she sees Klaus and Marcel's father-son relationship

It would have been lovely to see Rebekah find that mother-daughter connection with a child she could actually adopt, instead of the aunt-niece relationship. Vampires are so connected to the unconventional, even today being a worshipped and envied being, that it's very frustrating to see her wanting a child so badly and NOT GOING TO ADOPT ONE!!! It would be going against the typical tradition, understanding and showing that there are other ways of being a mother.

For a teen series with so much violence, it lacked boldness

And Rebekah can be a great feminist icon with good writing, okay?! When she comes out of the coffin and we meet her in the third season, she herself says that she was criticized for wearing pants at a time when it was a scandal. She's a Viking who, if we pretend that the writers have done real research into the Norse and the Vikings, has learned to fight and has done things that, from a Eurocentric and patriarchal perspective, are not good for a woman. And it's quite likely that she did more things that went against the grain, so I don't know why we didn't get our "Interview with the Vampire" plot starring Rebekah Mikaelson.

Well, at least she got the happy ending she deserved

#tvd #to #tvu #the vampire diares #analysis #text #rebekah mikaelson #some portuguese slang doesn't shine as brightly now that it's been translated

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amrosenberg · 1 year

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Taxonomies of Fandom

In the 19th century, taxonomies were a big deal. A hundred years after Linnaeus developed the system of binomial nomenclature, Darwinian natural philosophy emphasized that new and existing taxonomies should reflect the principle of common descent, giving rise to today’s system of evolutionary taxonomy.

If you’ve read the Aubrey-Maturin series of nautical adventure novels, you might be familiar with Testudo aubreii, the majestic tortoise that Stephen Maturin named after his best friend Jack Aubrey. It is an honor not lightly to be given, a sort of taxonomy as immortality: “This is Testudo aubreii for all eternity; when the Hero of the Nile is forgotten, Captain Aubrey will live on in his tortoise. There’s glory for you.” Putting a name to something makes it easier to understand and discuss; it can provide a starting point for study and for further investigation.

I’ve been thinking a lot about taxonomy lately, thanks to a few conversations I’ve had this month with people looking for expertise on fans and fan studies for final projects. I’m always happy to chat about this stuff, but sometimes I’m unexpectedly run up against the limits of my expertise: to be honest, I don’t know a lot about sports fans, or the practices of fans of massive commercial domains like Disney.

I’m interested in transformative fandom, which is a relatively small (but impactful) slice of the pie, as well as digital platforms and the ways in which youth audiences in particular utilize affordances of those platforms to express enthusiasm. I suppose I’m a fan scholar in the same way that an expert in ants is an entomologist: it’s a useful bit of nomenclature, but don’t ask them about spiders. There’s obviously a lot of benefits to specialization: but for someone who has aspirations towards the public humanities, I’m increasingly aware of my own need to have a more comprehensive overview of the different types of fans.

Over the 30 years of fan studies’ existence there have been numerous attempts to do just that: create a useful paradigm that neatly sections off fan practices into families and genii. The split between “transformational” and “affirmational” fandoms, first proposed by a pseudonymous fan in 2009 and later taken up by scholars like Henry Jenkins, is broadly handy, but problematic: it can lead to viewing “affirmational” fandom such as cosplaying, merchandise-buying, and information-collecting (such as in wikis) as purely mimetic and of lesser cultural value than “transformational” fan activities (see Hills, 2014).

That binary also ignores the large swathes of people that perform both types of fandom, or whose fan practices exist somewhere in between, or not on that axis at all; it’s also slightly outdated. In 2009, transformational fans who wrote erotica about non-canonical ships could still be safely said to be “against” canon in some way, non-sanctioned and acting transgressively out of bounds. I would say that in many cases, that is far from the case today.

Something I’m interested in is how fan practices develop and spread from one “genus” of fandom to another. (Presuming “species” is an individual fandom, and “genus” is a group of species connected by ancestry and shared practice). You see this in the phenomena in sports RPF, for example: slash fanfiction is a genre of practice developed by media fandom (TV/film fandom) in the 1970s and 80s, but it has been “adopted out” so to speak to form the nucleus of a sub-species of sports fans.

This circulation of practice is especially notable in the field of transcultural fandom (see Morimoto, 2017). Fan practices developed in the context of East Asian pop music fandom, such as chart-boosting, have made their way over to Western fandoms and communities centering on non-music media objects. Digital platforms afford this circulation, which in turn results in a blurring of boundaries between fan species and increasing difficulty in parsing out which “type” of fan someone is. Practices are contagious and amoebic. The type of sparkly fancams intially made by K-pop idol fans were adopted by Succession stans.

Like the animal kingdom, there’s just so much going on. To say nothing of what was going on. Which types of fans have gone extinct? Which modes of interacting with media are now archaeological artifacts, thanks to the shifting relationality of the apparatus of cultural production with respect to audiences?

I think that especially in a time when many groups who might not explicitly consider themselves “fans” have freely taken up digital practices developed and popularized in fandom spaces, investigations into the origins and classifications of fans and fan culture has the potential to provide broader behavioral insights into online communities.

#fan studies

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denimbex1986 · 3 months

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'There is a moment in NT Live’s Vanya – a one-man version of Anton Chekhov’s 1898 classic Uncle Vanya – where it feels fully possible that Andrew Scott could have cloned himself, and that three versions of him are on stage at once. He’s chameleonic enough that you’d believe it.

Vanya shows how life on a rural estate is completely upended when famous filmmaker Alexander, and his young, glamorous second wife Helena, visit. During this time, estate manager Ivan (Vanya) and country doctor Michael both fall for Helena, and consequently reevaluate their lives. The play stars Andrew Scott portraying all seven characters – including Ivan’s niece Sonya, housekeeper Maureen and local boy Liam – in a powerhouse, multipronged performance. The production enjoyed a sell-out run on the West End last year, alongside a spate of five-star reviews.

In a way, it feels like Scott’s career has been building towards Vanya, so varied are his most celebrated roles. Starting out on the stages of his native Ireland, the West End and Broadway, Scott burst onto our television screens in 2010 as the delightfully unhinged villain Jim Moriarty in BBC’s Sherlock. He gave a playful, terrifying edge to a character who is usually dull and professorial in his ruthlessness. Since then, Scott has been a mainstay of stage and screen, his characters running the gamut from Hamlet to Bond antagonist (Spectre), fantasy hero (His Dark Materials) to droll matinée idol (Present Laughter), the latter of which earned him an Olivier. With every part, Scott conveys a sense of something deeper going on under the surface – unsaid, but clearly legible on his face.

With his beloved ‘Hot Priest’, hired to officiate a family wedding in series two of Fleabag (2019), Scott further demonstrated this facility for internal performances. His clergyman forms a tentative, transgressive romantic relationship with Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s titular tearaway, which simultaneously heals and serves as rock bottom for both of them. Scott brings a quiet confidence to the priest as he flirts with abandoning his vows, trying to do the right thing no matter how much it hurts. It’s terrifically subtle, deeply felt work.

Scott is uniquely adept at holding space for emotion, as seen with Adam, a man dealing with the impact of a lifetime of loneliness in Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers. He brings a guardedness to the character, who discovers that his late parents are alive and waiting for him in the house he grew up in. His visits home become the key to opening himself up to a romantic relationship with his neighbour (Paul Mescal). Throughout the film, we feel Adam’s gratitude and grief as he discovers the love and support he’s denied himself for so long. Scott is a master of smiles that never quite make it to the eyes, of lit-up eyes downplayed with hesitant smiles. His emotions are fluid, never vacillating, never overwrought.

He takes his considerable skills to new heights in Vanya, where he showcases his immense versatility as an actor. One minute, he’s a beleaguered and gossipy housekeeper, and the next – literally, the very next – he’s a bored and depressed doctor. Another moment, and he’s a young woman filled with hope and energy, and, almost in the same breath, he’s transformed into her uncle, whose decline from cringey jokester to an utterly lost man has happened before our eyes.

Scott introduces us to each of his characters slowly: establishing their physicality, their voices, their mannerisms. His transitions between them are more marked at the beginning, when he uses props and leaves space for us to register his change in posture, or physically moves from one side of the room to another. He accustoms us to the characters’ different voices – Helena’s is cold, reserved and posh; Alexander’s slow and scatterbrained; Ivan’s jovial and tense, like something could imminently break. Some characters are linked with certain props: Sonya with her tea towel, Michael with his tennis ball, Ivan, again, with his comedy sound-effects box.

But eventually these visual clues fall away, and we know everyone by their sound and posture. Soon, Scott is setting one character down and picking another up as he rises. He is both the person being blocked and the one doing the blocking, the person being comforted and the one tenderly stroking their head. Even the scenes of sexual intimacy between two characters are made believable, handled in a way so focused and naturalistic they don’t seem contrived or actorly. By the play’s end, Scott is throwing his voice as one character and reacting as another, and we know who is who by the arc of his brow, the curve of his smile or the movement of his hand.

These smaller movements, which would be felt more than seen from anywhere other than the front rows of a theatre, are what give this cinematic version of Vanya its magic. It’s in the way Sonya can handle a tea towel both nervously and with resolve, the way Michael’s slumped posture goes from listless to lustful and the way Ivan slowly crumbles, sloughing off layer upon layer of coping mechanisms. All of the decisions Scott makes as an actor are clearly rooted in a deep empathy for each of these characters. Quite a feat, then, to maintain this dedication for more characters than can be counted on one hand over the course of two hours.

Vanya is an acting masterclass, a beautiful unfurling of Scott’s multifacetedness. It’s a culmination of what we love about him as an actor: his constant, daring shapeshifting. If he was at the top of his game before, then now he is absolutely stratospheric.'

#Andrew Scott #Vanya #All of Us Strangers #Anton Chekhov #Jim Moriarty #Sherlock #Hot Priest #Fleabag #Hamlet #Spectre #His Dark Materials #Present Laughter #Olivier Award #Phoebe Waller-Bridge #Paul Mescal #Andrew Haigh #NT Live

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imagine-sterek · 6 months

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I would like to share my quick opinion on ai if you don't mind, cuz let's actively discuss it. I myself am against ai, specifically in terms of usage in creative spaces such as art and writing. I understand that there is ai in programs and apps such as grammarly and canva and such, but just something is made use of in a place doesn't necessarily mean that it should be there if I'm making sense with that outlook. I can completely understand your desire to use it to make things easier, but I also see the other side especially since I'm and artist and writer myself. I for am not keen for the usage of ai in fandom spaces like this, and please correct me if I'm wrong or have a completely skewed idea of it here, I do have an opinion but I don't have 100% knowledge to back it up. I feel like it's not right because of the theft aspect in regards to the art or writing side of it as ai is trained to create those things specifically by feeding it already existing art and writing. But there is still leeway and places for it to be used. I'm not trying to force my opinion you here, please don't think that, I just want to bring up areas to talk through since I feel like you are willing to do that in an open and polite way if the intent isn't to be rude. I feel like ai could be applied in a lot of ways and although there's controversy in this regard, this isn't the be all and end all of it. I don't know if my rambling made any sense but yeah:)

- Tae

Hi Tae,

Absolutely! I have friends who know a lot about technology and computers, some are game devs, some are artists and writers, and I myself am a writer, so I’ve had discussions about AI from all sorts of different angles and I’m happy to listen to others opinions and points of view.

I agree, the way in which it was trained is, frankly, criminal. It was trained off of stolen art and writing that the developers had no right to and the implementing of AI in everything we use is an attempt to force compliance and sweep their transgressions under the rug. But just because it’s there doesn’t mean we have to use it, and if we do use it, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing or used in a bad way.

I also agree with you about the leeway. This is going to seem controversial, but hear me out: when people photoshop edits for fandoms, they have no legal right to those photos—the photographer does. In the art world, these edits and photoshopping is called transformative art or adaptation, where changing roughly 80% or more of a work is seen as transformative and not infringing on copyright. Like Andy Warhol using Marilyn Monroe’s picture to make the famous pop art piece or the photo of Obama becoming the famous Obama HOPE poster (and several meme versions that followed).

So what’s the difference between someone photoshopping a ship together and using AI to create the same image?

The only difference is the lack of the human element, but both are arguably transformative works and both are legally allowed under the fair use laws.

There are other ways that you could use AI in a positive way: you could use ChatGPT to give you prompts for writing or and AI image generator to put together inspiration or reference material that you then work off.

The problem is when people use the AI that was trained off of material they had no right to to then create something they aim to pass off as their own. When people use ChatGPT to write a story and then publish it (either fanfiction or actual stories they could earn money from publishing), or art works that they didn’t put any effort into, then it’s a bigger problem than just a program trained off of stolen material; it’s people stealing that stolen material.

The biggest problem is that the people who trained the AI won’t own up to using the material they had no right to or make any attempts at restitution.

AI is the Frankenstein’s monster of our culture: it didn’t ask to be made and it didn’t ask to be made mosnerous, the fault lies with those who made it and those who push it to do bad things.

AI can be used in ways that benefit writers and artists, but the biggest problem we face - as I see it - is people trying to pass the AI generated material (which is based off of stolen material) as their own.

#ai #reply #I hope that answers any questions you had

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five-rivers · 2 years

Text

What Lies Between

Popping on for just a moment to drop this. :P

This is a Danny Phantom x Fallen London crossover.

Spoilers for Fallen London.

The kernel of the story, as it so often was, was love.

Love, that vast and unpredictable force that destroyed kingdoms and raised them up all at once. The mountain-mover. The subtle chain and anchor. The intemperate fire. That madness that caused the otherwise sane to take up fists against spears and play chess against death itself. The love that tamed the worst of monsters and the most terrible of angels. The many-faced love, that may lie between lovers, between brothers, between worshiper and god, between parent and child, between artist and work, between soldier and country, between friends, between enemies, between sinners, between sky and sea and stone, between imagination and memory, between, even, strangers unlikely to ever meet.

That love.

This love was between executioner and condemned, between the axe and the neck it was told to fall upon. The neck it only scraped.

Listen. Carefully, now. One love can grow to another, like a seed sprouting, like rust weakening chain, like ice creeping up the side of a ship.

The axe was set to watch, because it was also clockwork, because it was also mirrors, because it was also a bell that rang to warn of danger and the passing hours, and in watching, it learned this: love is watered by knowledge. Love is like war - secrets bring it close, and those who prove exceptions are monstrous indeed.

And so, because the axe was not monstrous, when a hand was put to it again, and it was raised for a second strike, it twisted.

But love transforms. The axe did not flee with its victim. The watcher did not flee with the observed. It was a parent that fled with their child.

There are risks that come with running.

The ones who had owned the axe and passed down their condemnations were sharp of eye and long of arm, keeping their hands clean through use of convenient tools. They did not like their fingers being caught in clockwork gears. They did not smile at the mark of love.

There was nowhere in this world they could not see, no place in this world they could not touch. The parent was strong, and old, and had earned fortitude from many wounds. The child was swift, and bright, and held a sharpness whetted by hope. What parent would not take a blow for their child? What child would not take one for their parent? That was the bloody truth of love, and love bled.

The wound bled.

But time ran on, and time was like a river split, like a mirror shattered, like a path with a thousand crossroads. There was nowhere in this world they could be safe.

There were other worlds, lit by other stars. Step through a mirror, step through a door, a turn in the path… They would be there.

But there were risks in running.

Those who sought the parent and their child were cruel, but the stars were kind and generous. They gave freely of life, and freely of death, and knew of the places where stardust fell into souls. Those stars that burnt out burned green in contemplation, in sanctuaries of passion and purpose.

In other places, glimpsed down other paths they might have tried, starlight fell like knives and things greater than the ones who ordered the child’s destruction were of the same mind. The child had transgressed. The child would be struck down. What difference was there, between the axe and the fires of the Law, except that the axe would be kinder?

Why not return once more to the hands that had wielded it? Why not become, again, the executioner?

And yet…

Love is the breaker and maker of chains. Love is the hope when hope is lost. Love is the final stroke of the knife.

They came to a place green with the dreams of dead stars, and from the mirror spilled a country drenched in an impossible rainbow. Beyond the rainbow was a city at a crossroads shaded by tall trees, beyond that, a city of sand and grand monuments, another of water and wells and things hungry for blood, a fourth city, with a silver tree growing through its heart, and a fifth, with a leaning clockwork tower, and beyond that fifth, two others, indistinct like mist. The cities were drowned and fell and rose and fell and rose again.

And they were dark. Untouched by sun or star. And with them– Within them–

“She loves the stars,” said the child, drinking in the impossible colors, the last kind starlight lambent on him like a blessing, like an apology. His eyes were half closed in dreaming.

It was true enough, though not as it was for the child. Love wore a different face, and the stars there were cruel.

But there–

The cities–

Dark. Deep. Marvelous.

The parent took their child in their arms and stepped through the mirror into a forest the color of sleep. The moon slunk across the sky like a cat carved of ivory. The starlight was shaded in hues of memory. Blood dripped like necessity onto grass that did not remember.

They had stepped from one country of impossibility into another. From death into dream, for there is love between those siblings as well.

Necessity dripped like grief, and the parent walked through the colors of the Is Not to bargain with a lover of stars for the sake of their child.

All things that love must also dream.

Love is a lie that is also a truth, as are all things with value, and such things must be found in dreams. So too are truths that are also lies, and things that could have been and things that never were.

But as the child dreamed within dream, and the parent followed the path of blood that even now drained from their child, so too did dream a messenger of delivering a message.

The sky– Black. A star– fallen. Light– gone forever.

A lesson: even the cruel can be loved.

The inky fall of a final night drifted on the air of dreams. Tears drifted up. Snowfall in reverse. It was always known that grief could not be delayed forever, a reckoning could not be postponed indefinitely. Seven cities, seven stories told in the dark, never reaching sunlight. Seven stories, their pages wet for weeping, a letter, useless, useless, there was never enough time.

"I offer you a betrayal," said the parent, for although it was the axe, it was also clockwork, and the treachery of clocks is no small thing. "I offer you service."

The messenger's twelve attendants drew near, and one was a mirror, in that it was mirrors, and another was a mirror in that it was the parent, and they recognized themselves and nodded across the vast distance.

"It has been done," said the creature swathed in cloaks and wings. "The bargain has been struck and it will be struck again."

"Sanctuary and healing. Protection and life."

"Until the message must be delivered."

It would have to be time enough.

The parent went away twice, transformed. First, to the city at the crossroads, where a priest-king bargained for the life of his lover, and the others go with it. Second, with its child to a garden lit with the light of Stone. The others went with it, here, too. They went with an apple as red as a heart, with knives held in both hands, with a cup of pearls, with a mirror shining green, with a honeycomb dipped in allspice, with a bottle of poisoned wine, with a skein of spider-silk, with a burning coal - no, a cinder - held between long tongs, with a book with pages of lead, with a gem of immeasurable value, with a light that is not named, with the sound of bells. And this made possible by what the parent had given.

The garden was bright. The garden was glorious. The garden was paradise. In the garden was vitality. In the garden was life. In the garden was a truth that should not be spoken.

It is the domain of children to speak such truths.

"The daughter of–"

"Quiet," snapped the stone-bearer.

"It is a nonameliorant discussionary topic," said the book-carrier, significantly more gently.

"Even here?"

"In omnilocatory. Perfidicious elements require that we practice discretionics.”

The one armed with knives made a rather violent hushing gesture. They were silent, the child laying upon the grass as his parent stroked his hair with hands that were twisting into claws.

The book-bearer opened its tome and began to read to the child in a language that burned. Symbols hung upon the air as it spoke, and it was understood: these were prayers, these were instructions, these were old and secret laws that had long been held broken and were being reforged by those who listened - or, perhaps, laws once thought unassailable being riven to pieces be the same.

The child was offered first the unnamed light that is sleep, borne by the one whose name would be forgotten. He refused it, and that one nodded, and watched hungrily. By this, it had seen what was to come, and what had been, and it knew that with the contract being consummated, that which he would be could not be destroyed in entirety. It was not enough. It would never be enough.

The wine was poured into the cup of pearls, and brought to his lips. For poison was of death, and so was the child, and here, where death was impossible, he must die.

Then, the mirror was held over him, and his lips anointed with honey, and the gem-bearer raised up its charge to cast captured sunlight over all. Thus, death and dream the siblings were brought together.

The knives cut away the child's clothes and the makeshift bandages the parent had managed to give him. The wound was exposed. Glistening and gaping, it lay in the spirit as much as the flesh, and dreams as well as the waking world. It was a disease and a curse as much as an injury.

The knives fell again, this time on the apple, cleaving out a hollow place inside it where the cinder might sit. Then, slowly, slowly, it was lowered, down, into the wound.

The silk-bearer unwound its skein, and with it threaded a needle fine enough that the silver glint of it was lost in the light. It looked at the mirror and began to sew, stitches dipping in and out of possibility. The wound closed, inch by inch. With the last stitch, the reader closed its book.

There was silence.

Then, Mr Chimes raised its bell and–

You try to visit the House of Chimes regularly. Not because it is terribly exciting - for a place frequented by the most interesting of Londoners, it is, in fact, rather dull, once a person is accustomed to it - but because being seen there tends to attract other opportunities.

(And you’re certainly paying for the privilege, aren’t you?)

As often as you remember, you forget, of course. A person of such importance as yourself is always dreadfully busy, even when you don’t mean to be. There was, for example, the matter of that peculiar plant, and the murder at the university, and getting that contract reversed - really, you should have known better than to keep that sort of acquaintance - and, oh, there’s really too much to list, now, isn’t there?

Today, you come with your dog. She’s a very good girl, altogether, huge and black and smelling strongly of honey, though you know she puts many people off. That’s just what you want today. Too many people, aware of your reputation, expect you to be constantly sociable. It simply isn’t sustainable.

You scratch her head between her ears. Good girl. Very good girl. She could, you think, take on the Eater-of-Chains at its prime. Too bad you hadn’t met her, yet.

The Personable Doorkeeper gives you a friendly nod as you approach the door of the House, and you return it. He reaches for the handle, and…

You pause at the threshold, one foot still raised. It is… uncommonly busy. Beneficial or not, some of the more regular Friends of Mr Chimes, such as the Silk-Clad Expert and the Regretful Soldier, had a tendency to… discourage others. There is, after all, a limit to how much one can bear to hear of Spider Councils or Hell.

Well. Not for you quite so much. You are, after all, the sort of person who would let someone tear your heart out just to satisfy your curiosity.

(To be quite honest, donating one’s body to science did become dull after the first few times. You never would have guessed.)

You put your foot down, and continue your confident stride towards your favorite table. How and why are so many exceptional people here tonight? And behaving so strangely, too. The Sulfur-Perfumed Dandy isn’t even trying to corrupt the Unlikely Innocent. The Acclaimed Beauty, the Often-Censored Poet, and Mr. Huffam are in a corner together, so drunk they lean into one another. The Staunch Patriot and the Suspected Traitor, who rarely leave the House of Chimes for reasons of identical and yet somehow opposite issues with the law, are within plain view of one another and haven’t gotten into a fight… and, more concerningly, are fidgeting so intently with their respective badges that they are falling apart. As you watch, another red feather drifts into the air above the Suspected Traitor’s table.

Something, you conclude, is wrong.

Very wrong, indeed, you amend yourself, as a woman who looks just a little too much like a certain widow stands up and leaves.

You sit. Your table mate looks up from her book. Her fingertips are colored in violant. You think there might be just a touch of the shade on her lips as well. She always did have a bad habit of licking her pens.

“I was wondering when you’d show up,” she says. She takes a brass bookmark from the back of the book - the edge sharp enough to cut - and places it on her current page before shutting the book and pushing it to one side. The author is a noted poet of the Celestial school.

You nod at the book and wonder if she was going back to her roots. She had been a poet once herself.

“I never left them,” she says.

You have known the Flame-Touched Fabulist for years now. You despair of ever understanding her. But there are more important things at the moment. Social requirements fulfilled, you need to know…

What is going on?

“You really don’t know? This is one of your random visits after all?”

You bristle in annoyance. Your visits aren’t random. They are precisely calculated and planned, carried out in…

You deflate.

You have only just gotten back.

“Past the mirror again?” asks the Fabulist.

Your lips twitch, which is, apparently, all the answer the Flame-Touched Fabulist needs. Yes, you were in Parabola. Blasted snakes. Blasted cats. Blasted whoever is riling them up, too. Likely that new researcher. The one the Dean of Supernumerary Fellows was so fond of. Git.

“Any luck looking for–”

She broke off, looking over your shoulder. The whole club quiets to muttering. You twist, looking over your shoulder. You can’t see what’s arrested everyone’s attention.

“Well. Even my words won’t equal the real thing. Go look.”

You give her an inquiring look.

“I’ve already seen,” she says. “I…” Her hands flutter, uncharacteristically. “I have not decided how I feel about it, yet. It isn’t a bad thing, but it is… unsettling.”

In the Neath, there are many things that could fall under that label. Some of them, you get used to. Others, you never really do. Even when they move in next door. And, sometimes, it’s the most innocuous things that do the most damage…

Still. It was curiosity that brought you and the Fabulist together. You get up and weave through the crowd. Your dog helps with the parting. As desperate as people seem to be to catch a glimpse of whatever this is, no one wants to get that close to her. You give her an absent-minded pat. Good girl.

The crowd is gathered around a little-used table in the back of the club. The one that always gets a draft. You shift sideways around the Disobedient Clay Man and freeze.

Because what you are seeing doesn’t make sense.

There is a child at the table. That sentence, stripped of context, doesn’t seem so impossible, doesn’t seem so extraordinary. But this was the House of Chimes, not some random cafe or cheap restaurant. What you have to pay for your membership doesn’t bear mentioning.

Who would pay that for a child?

A more disturbing thought crosses your mind: Did the child pay for himself? Somehow?

You banish the thought for the moment, to instead observe the child. Pale skin, ink black hair - it must have been a while since he’d seen the sun, if he ever had. He is dressed expensively, which fits with his location, at least. You cannot, quite, see the color of his eyes, as he’s looking down. Reading a book.

There is a plate of cut apples on the table in front of him. Surface fruit. And is that honey? Who in the world is giving a child prisoner’s honey? On apples?

Or, maybe, like the apples, it’s from the surface. The expense of that beggars your belief almost as much as it would beggar your wallet.

The boy absent-mindedly reaches across the table and pops an apple slice into his mouth. He does not vanish. So it is surface hon–

You barely have the thought when the Sticky-Fingered Epicurean darts to the table and snags one of the slices. He disappears as soon as he shoves it in his mouth.

That is. Ah. Disturbing. The implications are–

You turn back to the table to see that the boy has looked up, frowning just a little at the theft. You see his eyes.

Once upon a time and years ago, you lived on the surface. Once upon a time, you knew the sky, the stars. Once upon a time it wasn’t enough.

You remember the last, clear, winter day before you came down. You remember standing on the deck of the ship and craning your head back to see the clear, cold-burning blue of the sky, framed by delicate, lacy clouds. You remember, although until this moment you had forgotten, because the color is looking right at you.

Those eyes.

You have seen people with blue eyes before, of course, despite the way blue tends to fade to storm-gray down here. You have spent time in the Forgotten Quarter, cataloging the blue-glazed pagodas denizens of the Fourth City worshiped in. You have never seen this blue down here, in the dark, twin shards of the sky implanted in someone’s face.

Those eyes crinkle. Smile. It’s a smile.

“Are you looking for a place to sit down?” asks the Sky-Eyed Boy. “It is awfully busy in here, isn’t it?”

You take his offer and begin to introduce yourself.

“No, no, don’t tell me. I like to guess.” The boy laces his fingers together and props his chin up on them. “Hmmmm… A Parabolan Polymath?”

That… is far closer than you would have expected. Close enough to one of your more common appellations to chill you. You do not particularly like being known as the Mirror-Marching Mathematician, but it is accurate. However, you prefer being a Fastidious Geometer.

“Huh,” says the boy, eating another slice of honey-drizzled apple. “Really? What’s your favorite shape, then?”

You’ve always been partial to hyperbolas. But that’s really neither here nor there. This child… He reminds you, a little, of the princesses. That presence, that draw on attention, on sanity, the pure and overwhelming color of their eyes…

What is the boy?

More diplomatically, who is he?

“I haven’t really been here long enough to pick up a title. I haven’t done anything significant.”

You disagree, but you keep that quiet as the Sky-Eyed Boy thinks.

“I was told that some people just use their parents’ titles.”

You allow that it’s true. The Watchmaker’s Daughter comes to mind.

The boy nods. “Then I should be called Mr Chimes’ Son… Or do you think the Son of Mr Chimes is easier to say?”

You stare at this latest impossibility. Attention is never drawn to the fact, but… The Masters are distinctly… They aren’t human. At all. You’ve met Mr Chimes. It doesn’t look anything like this boy.

“I’m adopted, of course,” says… Mr Chimes’ Son. As if that’s any easier to swallow.

“Why?” you manage, voice hoarse from shock.

The boy tilts his head, as if assessing your intelligence and finding it lacking. “Because he loves me.”

Well. That just has all sorts of unsettling implications. At the same time… of course that is the answer. Here in the shadow of the Bazaar, what else could it be?

Love. Always love.

And, uhhhhhhhh if anyone wants to say hi to me on Fallen London my character name is Marsali.

#danny phantom #dp x fallen london #fic #my fic

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