Ichiro Tsuruta 鶴田一郎

めざめ (Awaking) 2003

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我決定，夠痛了。我會把我的復仇之情依附在他們夜裡幸福的嘴唇上。 我不是那個在被遺棄和缺席的打擊下支離破碎、發瘋、死去的女人。 只有幾塊碎片脫落了，其餘的我都很好。 我是完整的，我會保持完整。 對於傷害我的人，我會以實物回報。 我是黑桃皇后，我是蜇人的黃蜂，我是黑蛇。 我是刀槍不入的動物，經過火不被燒傷。

I decided, enough pain. I was not the woman who breaks into pieces under the blows of abandonment and absence, who goes mad, who dies. Only a few fragments had splintered off, for the rest I was well. I was whole, whole I would remain. To those who hurt me, I react giving back in kind. I am the queen of spades, I am the wasp that stings, I am the dark serpent. I am the invulnerable animal who passes through fire and is not burned. 

─ Elena Ferrante, The Days of Abandonment《被遺棄的日子》

Jimin-💜-Jungkook

This IS a LONG share, so have a seat, grab some coffee or tea, and bear with me....

Where to begin is a question... where to begin? My Heart is filled with so much right now that it is hard for my mind to translate it all.

The Heart Knows All.

When they went live the other day with Joonie and Tae, I could sense and feel(emapathically) that Jimin and Jungkookie were already in the energy of "companionship" in regards to the military. It was already in their field. This is in addition to their already established energetic connections that span all other aspects of their lives.

The energetic signature of the military is new and foreign. And, it is also distinct.

In that short time on the live, it was very clear to me that JK & JM would be okay. Everything was in place, energetically. That means that their bond, their commitment to one another to navigate the enlistment together was rock solid. It was palpable. And, there was the love that they share that clearly fuels this for them. However an observer "sees" that Love that flows between their hearts. Love is Love.

So, after watching that Vlive, I felt some peace. My Heart felt more settled, after that. I'm grateful for that peace, as I had been feeling some concern about them. My concern was not about them being bullied or something of that nature. It's been more of a concern about their emotional and mental wellbeing, while facing the challenges of going through the training and beyond.

This is where I get a little wobbly in my words.

I know without a doubt that Jimin and Jungkook will be each other's rocks, for the duration of the enlistment. They will have each other's backs. They will support each other in every way, on every level. That I have total confidence in.

Here is where concern creeps into my heart. Here is where I bear all in my own way, in putting into words what needs to be said.

When I watched the short video of their enlistment day what I saw, felt and sensed in both Jimin-ah and Jungkookie was VULNERABLILITY.

Yeah. Vulnerability.

Yeah.

Something that I had not seen in them, in quite this way. Or, at this level...

That broke my heart.

What we were seeing in both of them is vulnerability. An unease. Like they were stepping out to the precipice, and about to take a huge step off, into the unknown.

Seeing that reminded me that this experience is life-changing, beyond anything that a civilian can understand. Truly. Especially considering their choice of path, to enter the training for front line duty.

{{{A side story here- My bestie is a Veteran. She served in two wars, jumped out of airplanes, gave everything she had to serving the US. We have had many conversations about JK & JM enlisting. Some of what I know and understand comes directly from things that she has shared, her understandings (she's lbgtq), and such. I am not a Veteran, and have not had direct experience in the military.}}}

While watching the livestream waiting for Jimin and Jungkook to arrive, I noticed and felt some things about the military base, and I also realized some things about what JM & JK were stepping into.

.....that livestream was literally 4+ hours long.

As I sat with the volume on, I began to notice a man's voice shouting (it seemed) through a loud speaker (megaphone?), and then voices responding to him. There was a specific cadence to his words, and a specific crescendo in tone and volume, every time he spoke. He would get louder and louder, and the voices that responded would shout out the exact same words every time, and they repeated the response 3 times. What really caught my attention was the voice of a woman that was high-pitched, and louder than all of the others.

I began to listen to this, and after about 5 minutes I began to feel really uncomfortable. That kind of twisting in the solar plexus type of uncomfortable. I wound up turning the volume off, as it was really bothering me, and I began to feel anxious.

After several more minutes, I turned the volume back on and they were still going at it. Call and response. Over and over and over again... The same man shouting out and the same response back to him. That same woman's voice.....

Drill Sergeant. It finally dawned on me that the man was a Drill Sergeant. He was "drilling" instructions into the psyches of those soldiers , and who knows what else.... This type of repetition is designed to mold minds, to instill compliance, and to establish the foundation of training that follows.

That call and response lasted for an hour. They had a break for maybe 30 minutes, then it began again and continued. (It was still going on when JK & JM's vehicles arrived.) That same female voice calling out above the others...

So, my discomfort intensifed as my empathic and intuitive hits just made it hard to bear witness to what was happening. Even with it being something I was hearing and not seeing. So... I turned off the volume again, and then really looked at the base energetically. What dawned on me was the biggest awareness that brought me to tears, and it also sent me into prayer. (not religious prayer, just simply communicating with the Divine, and Benevolent Beings)

(What followed that prayer could be described in another post, but it will never be written. All I can say is that some big work was done, to clear that base of all nefarious energies, and to establish a clear Foundation of Light. To support everyone there.) (a tiny digression here!)

In those moments what I realized, is this: As soldiers they are taught how to take the life of another Human Being. Jimin and Jungkook would be learning this, in a way that also instills a commitment to do it, if they were to ever participate in an armed conflict.

Going back to my Bestie, I spoke with her about this. She said, "yeah, it's totally de-humanizing".

My thoughts then turned to what is and has been happening in this world for thousands of years. How and why we are still in a position on this planet where Human Beings have to be trained and prepared for war is something I just cannot understand. (Again, another rabbit hole!)

Jimin and Jungkook are enlisting because they have NO choice. Just like citizens of all 34 countries on Earth that have mandatory enlistment. This brings one more awareness into this.

There is a stark difference between a person enlisting by choice (like my Bestie), and a person enlisting because they do not have the right to choose otherwise. The experience is beyond difficult either way, but for those who are forced to go into the military it is another level.

Circle back to vulnerability. Circle back to Jimin and Jungkook, and their obvious state of being when they were enlisting. Especially in those last moments when we saw them marching off with the other enlistees.

What we have witnessed is beyond sad. There are no words that can adequately express this. That we live in a time where Human Beings are forced to enter into military service. That we live in a time where Human Beings are still being trained and taught to kill.

And, those beautiful Hearts that are Park Jimin and Jeon Jungkook (and the others, too!) have to somehow get through their “training” and “service”, intact and unscathed. They have to make it through, maintaining their Innate Human Essence, and Heart.

Yeah.

All we can do on our end is continually send them clear energies of Love and Support. All we can do is hold Space, while they navigate through each day, each week, each month....

What will help them most is to Love them through this experience. In every moment. See them as being carried by Love and Grace, surrounded by Love and Grace, and held in Love and Grace. Every single moment of every single day.

What they are going to face is something that will impact them in ways that are yet to be known. I am just grateful beyond words that they have each other, to walk side by side, through this experience.

Bless their beautiful Hearts and give them Deep Strength, as they take each step along the way.

June 2025 cannot come soon enough. 💜

Xenia (Dean Winchester One shot)

Baucis and Philemon retelling. Dean and Sam as Zeus and Hermes. Reader as Baucis and Philemon.

It was no secret that the almighty King John Winchester was looking for a wife to marry his eldest son. The whole kingdom was aware of this fact, and every young girl of age sought to be chosen to become the next queen of Winchester. For this reason, the castle was constantly being visited by noblewomen and commoners alike. It was a blessing the King made no distinction between the high class and the lower class. On the other hand, this only brought more problems to Crown Prince Dean. Foremost, every girl he met was interested in marrying him, and he had no idea who wanted to do so because they liked him, and who wanted to do so because they wanted the power that came with it. In addition to this, the prince did not desire to marry out of an arrangement or pressure. Deep down, he wanted to find true love, even if it was a fairy tale notion.

“But father, I have told you before that there is no need for me to get a wife,” Dean said one day to his father for the thousandth time.

John Winchester, perched on his throne like a true king, took no time to answer to the tantrum. “I am not getting any younger, and soon enough, you will be the next king of Winchester, you need a wife to support you and to give you heirs.”

Another thing that was well-known by the whole kingdom was the precarious health of the king. Everyone knew that, since his wife and previous queen Mary died years ago, his health had declined considerably. A kingdom with a weak leader was going to soon enough become a target of war. The people were sure that the only reason why neighboring kings have not attacked yet was because of the existing strong princes, Dean and Sam. People were well aware of their courage and intelligence. Nevertheless, John Winchester's arguments were true, for neighboring kingdoms to respect the ascension of Dean, he needed to have a future queen.

“I can rule on my own, I do not need a wife, I have Sammy to step up if needed…” Dean left the commentary unfinished, he knew this was not going to convince his father.

“A queen has an important role in the monarchy, Dean, the kingdom has suffered long enough without one.” Then, he looked at Sam, who was currently standing to the right of his brother. “And Sam will have other duties to fulfill as the new Crown Prince until you have heirs.” After that talk, there were no more complaints on Dean’s part for a while.

During the next month or so, the Winchester castle celebrated several different gatherings in order to look for a potential queen. Dean met dozens of girls from various social standings and physical appearances, yet he found all of them to be extremely dull or material. There was not one that he considered salvageable. At first, his father wanted him to be the one to decide on his wife, but once he saw that his son was not interested in the slightest, King John took the matter into his own hands.

“If none of the girls you have met so far is of your interest, I will be the one who chooses for you.”

That is the last thing that he wanted, so Dean pleaded to his brother for help. Sam, ever the wise man, came up with a solution to Dean’s problem. “You don’t want any of these women because they only care about your face, money, or power, am I right?” Sam inquired.

“Yes, I swear, there is no one girl who I can have a normal conversation with. All they care about is the future Queen position.” The annoyance in Dean’s voice was clear as day.

“And father mentioned that he wanted you to find a kind woman, someone who cared about the people, like Mother.” A plan was forming in Sam’s mind. “I know what we have to do.”

The idea that Sam proposed was simple enough; they would test their unknowing subjects to see who could be worthy of the crown, and at the same time, it would allow Dean to meet someone without the advantages of being the prince. First, they decided to take the plan to their father for approval. John was a little skeptical of the results, but he supported his boys with the condition that, if the plan were to fail, Dean would marry a girl John saw fit. The Crown Prince accepted begrudgingly.

The next part of the scheme was to have the royal magician create a concoction strong enough to change a man’s appearance. The whole kingdom could recognize them by face, and for the plan to work, discretion was a must. Thus, the wizard supplied them with the potion that could change how they looked for everyone else. One for Dean and one for Sam, because they would go together on their little adventure. They only needed to wait for the perfect moment to cast their strategy. On a fated day of storm, they drank the elixir and went into town, looking for a soul kind enough to let them stay the night.

The brothers departed highly optimistic, thinking that their people were warmhearted because all their life they received nothing but kindness, being royals. Dean was even worried about not being able to choose a wife among so many. Sadly, they rapidly realized that would not be the case. The potion that made them unrecognizable also made them incredibly ugly and dirty, which was realistic given their awful clothing. Closed door after closed door, negative after negative, the princes made their way through town.

One of the first houses that they went to, was that of lady Cassie. Out of all the women Dean had met, she was probably the most tolerable to think about marrying. She was a dark-skinned beauty with a fiery personality. Though, as soon as Sam and Dean rang their doorbell, they were met with judging stares and unfriendly words. Not only the butler did not want to let them come in, but also lady Cassie herself declined to help them get out of the pouring rain. Ultimately, they had to leave for the next house. Eventually, they made their way through all the nobility, with none of them offering shelter to the princes.

They had a list of the houses where they knew all young marriageable women lived, so at least they did not have to go through every single house in the kingdom. Still, there were a few. That was how they knew where to knock when they reached the town folk. Jo Harvelle’s house was next on the list. With soaked-trough clothing, Dean expected to be let in by people with a more humble background. Nevertheless, when Jo opened the door, she made a disgusted gesture and closed it back immediately after. Through the thick wood, they heard her scream her refusal to let them come in. They continued going from house to house, and every negative sent a pang of heartache to Dean’s chest. He did not think his subjects were this unkind to travelers. By the time they reached the last house on the list, Dean was sure his father was going to marry him off to the best suitor, possibly one of the many girls that thought him disgusting this night.

“Let’s just go home, Sammy,” Dean murmured, defeated, “there is no one in this town that desires to know me for me.”

Sam, however, still had hope. “There is one house left, come on.”

Their tired steps guided them to your doorstep, where they knocked gingerly on the wood. You were still awake by the time they came, you were sewing a dress for one of your customers that needed it to be delivered the next day. You were not precisely the poorest of the kingdom, but considering that you had no parents to take care of you from a young age, you had to step up to acquire a living. Most of the time you did little jobs, such as cleaning and cooking for other people, but your specialty was repairing and creating cheap clothing for the town folk. The current dress that you were making was for Anna Milton, apparently, she wanted to cause a good impression on the Crown Prince in one of the upcoming balls. You had heard a lot how about the Prince was searching for a wife, and while your friends tried to convince you to participate in the unofficial competition, you were not interested in it, why would a prince marry a commoner like you? Even if the Winchester royals saw no distinction between nobles and commoners, you could not imagine yourself becoming the next queen.

You approached the door with hesitant steps, it was very late in the night, and you lived alone, so being careful was a must. On the other side of the threshold awaited two young but lanky men. They were shivering from the cold of the midnight air, their clothes soaked through. The rain was heavy outside, so you were not surprised by the sight. What made you waver on the doorstep was their appearance altogether. You were not a person that judged others easily based on their looks, but these men were possibly the ugliest people you’d ever seen. Not only their faces were ugly, but also their clothing could only be described as rags. There was nowhere you could look at them without feeling repulsed. Nonetheless, you clearly noticed that they needed your help.

“Hello, my name is Seth, and this is my brother Dan.” Half of your brain screamed at you to close the door; what if they were dangerous? Though, the gentleness in Seth’s voice held you still. “We are not from around here, we do not have enough money to stay at the inn, and we were hoping some kind soul would allow us to stay the night. We just seek shelter from the rain.”

Seth seemed to be telling the truth, however, that did not take away the fact that you lived alone, and letting two strange men spend the night was dangerous. “I do not know…” The doubt was clear in your voice. You wanted to be a good person, you really did, and considering your house was at the end of the lane, it meant that they probably already had gone to the other homes in the village. No one else dared to give them asylum.

“We have nowhere else to go,” this time, the plea came from the other one, Dan. His eyes looked into yours and for some reason, your heart started to beat faster. You found yourself nodding and stepping away to let them in. The brothers seemed surprised, like they did not believe you would actually allow them in. Even if the eldest was really hoping you would.

Dean -or Dan- took in your features like a thirsty man as you guided them to your very small living room. You were the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and he had seen plenty. Not only because you gave them a place to stay, but also because you really were gorgeous. That was how he knew you had never gone to one of his balls, or to the castle in general. He would have remembered your face if you had.

“Here, take this to dry off.” You gave them some big leftover fabric from one of your previous projects. The material felt warm and cozy as they wrapped it around themselves.

“You are very kind,” Dan praised and to his delight, you blushed slightly. Then, as he was sitting on one of the chairs, he noticed the dress you had been working on. “That is very pretty, are you planning on using it for the Crown Prince’s next ball?” If so, then Dean had something to look forward to.

“Ah, no, you murmured.” How could he think such a pretty item is meant for you? “I create clothing for the townspeople, sometimes even the nobles. This one is for someone else.”

Dan seemed disappointed by your response. “I see…”

You did not know why, but you started explaining. “Yes, the business has increased ever since the Crown Prince said he was looking for a wife,” you laughed lightly, “everyone wants to be the new queen.”

The way said it made the brothers pause. It was like you found the situation funny. “You don’t think he should look for a queen?” Dean asked.

With a gentle smile, you gestured for them to sit at the table. “That is not it, I think he will need a partner, but having extravagant balls and being pressured to choose is not the right way for him to find the one.” You looked Dan in the eye as you said your next words. “I mean, if I were him, I would hate to be forced to marry someone that I do not love.”

If Dean previously thought you were a gorgeous woman, now he believed you were the perfect creature. You understood him in a way no one else, but his brother, did. John Winchester was too preoccupied with trying to leave the kingdom in good hands to even consider his son’s happiness. The women in court, all of his prospects, they only cared about getting the big prize. His brother understood him, and now you did too, and he might have passed out with the realization that it was you. You were who he was looking for and no one else. Sure, it was too soon for Dean to say that he was in love, but there was something there, a spark he never found with any of the others. The promise of a future with someone who could understand him, who was kind, who he could love. The fact that you were totally his type was just a bonus.

“Please wait for a moment, let me find something for you to eat, you must be starving.”

Seth -Sam- went to stop you, “oh, there is really no need. Shelter from the rain was all we were looking for.”

You made a dismissing gesture, “nonsense, what kind of host would I be if I did not offer you food?” You smiled sweetly at them. Dean’s heart skipped a beat. “Besides, I have some delicious leftover pie I made yesterday… it is not every day that I have such a delicacy.”

“Pie?” Dean’s stomach grumbled at the thought of it. You giggled at the reaction.

“It is apple, my favorite, wait here…” And before Sam could protest again, you disappeared into the other room.

For a second, neither of them spoke, then; “Sammy, I think I am going to marry her.”

Sam snickered, “why? Because of the pie?”

“No, not because of the pie…”

That night, you served them food and offered them a place to stay. When the clock stroke 3 a.m. and Sam had gone to sleep, you and Dean kept on talking. Eventually, you fell asleep at some point in the night. The last thing you remembered was being at the dining table, but you woke up in your room. You were still wearing the same clothes as the previous day, so at first, you had trouble recalling Dan and Seth’s visit. It was until you heard a masculine voice coming from outside your bedroom that everything came back to you.

You recollected permitting two strange men to stay in your house, which had been probably a very questionable decision. You wanted to help them stay away from the cold and prove that not everyone was unfriendly to travelers. Despite something in your common sense telling you that perhaps they could be bad for you, that they could do something to you, you had allowed them to stay. Now, in the morning, you did not regret it. The chat you had with Dan had been very special for you. You never had thought you would feel this way about someone, but there was a distinctive connection with him. You hadn’t had a good time with anyone else in a while, not the way you did with him.

As you made your way to the living room, you started to hear male voices, in your still-sleep brain, you did not recognize the clear difference from Seth and Dan’s voices. It was until you were right in front of them that you realized the people before you were not the travelers you helped yesterday. In your tiny and poor kitchen, Crown Prince Dean and Prince Sam stood. They were in such a deep discussion that they did not notice you at first, it was until you let out an audible gasp that they looked your way.

“Princes, what- what are you-?” Flabbergasted, you only managed to bow.

“Please, please, none of that,” Crown Prince Dean objected. When your eyes clashed with his, you had the feeling that you had seen them before, but different. It was shortly after that, that you found out the truth.

As the Princes explained to you that they were actually the man you previously allowed to stay in your home -Dan and Seth- they also ended up telling you everything about their plan. How the Crown Prince was indeed looking for a wife. How he struggled with that idea, and even more so with finding someone. They also told you about their plan to find the kindest woman in the village. You did not believe that was you, but you accepted their explanations as the truth. Foremost, because there was not an ounce of lies in their eyes, but mostly because you could feel with Dean the same connection you had with Dan. It also helped that they were still dressed in their previous clothing.

Finally, when Dean talked to you about marriage, you were considerably surprised, but not entirely opposed to the idea. You could understand that his father was pressuring him to settle down, but that did not mean you wanted to take away from him the possibility of choosing, even if he claimed he would rather marry you than any other of the girls he met. Ultimately, you agreed to marry because, in that short period of time, you had felt for him in a way you had not had for anyone. It was not a matter of the crown, the money, or not even about his looks, it was about Dean as a person. Dean was very happy once you accepted, and that very day, everyone in the kingdom heard the good news. Eventually, time would go by and that would be the story you’d tell your children. The story of a kind soul who allowed a traveler stay in her home.

Tags: @sweetwerewolfqueen @unabashed-lover-of-fictional-men @perpetualabsurdity @deanswaywardgirl @seppys-return-to-madness @hobby27 @desimarie12 @mrspeacem1nusone

This is mi Secret Santa gift for @taloyo. I love your art and I hope you enjoy my little gift!

You can read here on tumblr or in AO3 if you prefer.

Kei didn't say anything as he stepped into Kai’s house. On paper, Kai supposedly lived with his uncle, but in reality Kei was pretty sure he could count with a single hand the number of times the man had been in the house this year.

After leaving his shoes in the genka Kei continued to follow Kaito towards his bedroom. As they entered, Kei mumbled, "This is a stupid idea."

Kaito looked at him and smiled. He sat down on the bed that was pushed against one of the room's walls. "Well, how are we doing this?"

Kei felt his blood pressure go up for a moment. "You were the one who wanted a piercing," Kei grumbled as he entered the room. He dropped his backpack at Kaito's feet and sat on the bed. "Why am I the one that’s supposed to have a plan?"

"I mean, from the moment you accepted, I supposed you’d want to take care of everything," Kaito said as he grabbed Kei’s backpack and started to rummage through it. "That's just the kind of person you are."

Kaito pulled out a bottle of rubbing alcohol with a sound of triumph, and before he could continue, Kei quickly took the backpack from his hands. Kei didn't say anything, feeling vaguely embarrassed. He did, after all, have everything planned. 

"Well, I didn't actually bring a piercing, so I hope you at least took care of that." Kei said as he pulled the rest of the supplies. He pulled out some seringues in different sizes; he wasn't sure about the size of the piercing, some gauze, and a marker.

Kaito laughed and got up, walking towards his desk and grabbing a small jewelry box and a handheld mirror that Kei hadn't noticed before.

"This used to be my mom's," Kaito said, settling the box and the mirror into the bed between the two of them. "I thought I could use one of her old earrings."

The silence rang clear for a couple of seconds between the two of them. Kaito usually didn't talk about his mom. Kei didn't know much about the woman who used to be Kaito’s mother. Maybe he’ll find out more about her today. 

Kaito opened the jewelry box and stared at the content: "Help me choose an earring."

Kei stared at Kaito for a second. The atmosphere felt heavy, and all Kei could hear was the sound of jewelry moving against each other and Kaito’s breath. 

Kei gave a small sigh before peering into the box as well. The first thing he saw was a couple of loose hoops. He quickly dismissed those. They wouldn't be good for the healing process.

Kai grabbed one of the earrings and showed it to Kei. After a quick look, he dismissed them too. The backing was missing.

Continuing to look, Kei grabbed a small bag that was separated from the rest of the jewelry. Kei poured the contest onto the bed and hummed as he saw the earrings.

All of them were single earrings. Earrings that at some point had lost their pair. As he looked, an earring caught his attention immediately. Between the lone earrings, a smiley face shone. Kei grabbed it and held it up. It reminded him of Kai. 

It was bright and yellow. Terribly eye catching and distinct between its peers. At least to Kei.

Kei saw Kaito look up from behind where he was holding the earring. "Look at this one." 

Kaito blinked, somewhat confused. Although Kei had no idea why. "Do you not like it?"

Kaito didn't say anything but grabbed the earring, he held it in his hand and stared at it. "No, I like it."

Still holding the earring, Kaito pulled a few rings from the box. They were iron with black accents. 

"Huh," Kaito mumbled as he held both things in his hands. "I wonder if my mom had a punk phase."

A pleased smile appeared on his face. Kei thought it was a nice expression.

After a second Kai exclaimed. "Well! Now that we have the earring, it’s time to get to work!" Kaito quickly started to scoop up the box and the rest of the jewelry, leaving behind the lone earring in order to clear the bed.  

Meanwhile, Kei prepared everything. 

Kei grabbed the different seringues that he had and looked at the earring. The needle needed to be bigger than the earring in order to avoid unnecessary pain while putting on the earring. As he was choosing, Kei felt the bed move; Kaito had returned. 

After choosing the correct needle, Kei grabbed the alcohol and some gauze and filled it with alcohol. He grabbed the chosen earring and started to disinfect it. After that, he left it on top of the bed, grabbing at the alcohol-soaked gauze. 

Kei looked up from his work and found Kaito looking intently at him. An embarrassed blush appeared on his face. "What? Do I have something on my face?"

"No, haha." Kaito said it with a smile, as if it were nothing. "I simply like your serious face." 

Kei felt the blush on his face intensify, and he pushed a hand towards Kaito’s face. Kei’s hand found his target in Kaito’s cheek, and he pushed to make Kaito stop looking at him. 

"If you have time to stare at me, you should at least already know which ear you want to get pierced on, right?" Kei said as he pushed at Kaito’s face. Kaito just laughed and squirmed against Kei's hand.  

After a couple of seconds of pushing, Kaito turned his head into Kei’s hand until his cheek was smashed against the fleshy part of Kei’s hand and Kei’s thumb rested behind his left ear. Kei's hand was now awkwardly cradling Kai’s face. 

With a twinkle in his eyes, Kaito said, " How about this ear?"

Kei felt his heart beat go faster as he stared at the way his hand was splayed across Kai’s face. It felt warm, and soft. And Kaitos' smile made something stutter in his lungs. Without thinking he moved his finger across Kai’s face in a facsimile of a caress. Kei noted duly the way Kaito's face changed as he let out a small gasp. His gaze was fixed on Kei.

The atmosphere felt heavy, charged, like something could happen at any moment. It made Kei nervous.

And in the next second, Kei moved his fingers and pinched Kai’s ear. 

"Ow ow, wait, wait" Kaito complained, and Kei let go of Kai’ ear. Kei then quickly turned to grab the alcohol and another gauze. 

By the time Kei looked at Kaito again, Kaito was pouting while holding his ear. 

"What was that for?" Kai said with a grumble. 

"Just checking your ear," Kei said with an ease he did not feel. He poured alcohol into the gauze and passed it to Kaito. "Clean the area, while I prepare everything else."

Kei grabbed a marker and removed the cap. Kai popped an eyebrow with a silent question. 

Kei gestured towards the mirror resting on the floor "It’s so you can see where I’m going to perforate"

"There's no need. I trust you," Kaito said like it was nothing as he rubbed the alcohol-soaked gauze across his ear.  

Kei stared at him and let the words wash through him. They felt warm. Kei closed the marker cap and mumbled that he was going to the bathroom to wash his hands. 

When he returned, Kai had already finished. Kei sat next to Kai on the bed, their knees almost touching.

Before touching Kai's ear, Kei grabbed the alcohol bottle and let a small amount fall onto his hands, disinfecting them one last time. 

He grabbed the syringe pack, opened it, and removed the needle, taking care not to touch the needle itself directly. 

"Move your head. I need to have a good look at your ear" 

Kei grabbed Kai's ear, pulling on the lobule. Kaito had an attached lobule, Kei noticed vaguely. 

"Are you ready?" Kei asked, lifting his eyes to Kai’s face, catching Kaito looking at him from the corner of his eyes. 

Kaito smiled warmly."Always"

Without saying anything else, Kei stared at Kai's ear, deciding where to perforate.

After deciding, Kei put the point of the needle against the flesh of the lobule and let out a deep breath. “Here we go,” Kei mumbled. His heart felt heavy, clumsy, yet fast in his chest. He was somewhat nervous. He could feel Kaito looking at him, even from the corner of his eye. 

Kei pushed the needle in and stopped breathing. It was giving more resistance than Kei thought it would give. After a second he pushed with a little more strength. Kei’s shoulder felt tight with tension.

And after a breath, It went in. Kei cracked his neck to look at Kai's reaction.

Kai simply blinked. "Huh, I expected it to hurt more," Kaito commented lightly. And Kei felt the air return to his lungs. 

"I’ll put the earring in now, then." Kei grabbed the earring from where it was resting in the alcohol soaked gauze, it was still a little wet. 

The needle was still piercing Kaito's ear, so Kei pulled it out slowly, always keeping an eye out for Kai's reaction. Noticing that his expression remained calm, Kei quickly pushed the earring inside the hole. It went easy; afterwards, he grabbed the backing and screwed it in. As he screwed, Kei took notice of Kai’s neck and nape. It was tan, like the rest of Kai. 

As he finished, a small idea popped into his head. It was childish, not like himself. Still, without thinking more of it  he blew into Kai’s ear. 

Kaito let out a scream and fell sideways into the bed, holding his ear between laughs. Kei started to laugh too. 

They laughed, and as soon as one started to calm down, it would trigger the other one to laugh, and so they stayed like that for a couple of minutes, in a short buckle of unexpected joy.

After a final laugh, Kaito sat up and stretched to grab the hand mirror. They were sitting side by side in the bed once more.

Kai let out a hum as he stared at his reflection, a smile growing and growing in his face the more he stared. 

"It came out great, Kei!" Kai spoke suddenly, turning to look at Kei. Smile big, stretching across his face. 

Kei felt a flash of pride run across his spine, and without thinking, he straightened his back. A grin appeared on his face. "It does look quite good, better than expected actually."

"Well, I guess I now have my very own personal piercer," Kaito said in a joking manner. 

"I’ll actually charge you next time," Kei returned. 

Kaito returned to look into the mirror, and Kei distracted himself by looking at Kai. 

After a few more minutes, Kai suddenly said as he caught Kei’s eyes once more, "Hey, Kei. Thank you. Really." His words felt like they meant more than what was said.

Kei felt something on his hand, and a quick look told him that Kai had moved his hand, his pinky now resting against Kei’s. 

Kei did not move his hand. 

"It would do it again." Kei’s words also meant more, but for now, with the easy atmosphere and the gentle intimacy, he decided not to pop the bubble they had created. 

Kei moved his eyes to the smiley face in Kai’s ear. They still had time. He did not have to decipher everything between them today. 

For now, they would just enjoy the rest of the day.

Just say it's gay!

I don't like when people use Foucault's arguments to uphold heterosexual hegemony in older western lit. This happens a lot in pop culture-y casual discussions: someone will point to two male characters (we'll say in renaissance lit to narrow us a bit here) showing intimate fondness for each other, and they'll say, "That's pretty gay." & someone else will chime in, "Well, homosexuality as a label didn't exist until the 1800s, and in that culture it was much more normal for male friends to be sensitive and intimate with each other, so you can't say conclusively that this had romantic connotations."

First off, this argument never crops up with assumed-het characters or historical figures. When we assume that, say, Hamlet is straight, since he says he is in love with Ophelia, no one in popular conversation chimes in to add, "Actually though, heterosexuality is a modern construct. He could be attracted to men, but as royalty, Hamlet would have been forced to comply with an assumed heterosexuality whether he was attracted to men or not." Without other evidence, that would be a silly thing to bring up, right? The play says Hamlet is into Ophelia - if you wanna argue Hamlet is also or actually attracted to men, you can do it, but the burden of proof is on you to make that case. So, why is it that when a work of literature from a place and time when being sexually attracted to men as a man (or women as a woman) was marginalized into the dirt, indicates with clear evidence that a character has homosexual attraction - why is it only then that we bring up semantics?

The other leg of this is that, well, I cuddle with my friends, including male friends who I'm not interested in sexually. That is part of my queer identity. Men who like to have sex with men are, it is fair to say, more likely to also be nonsexually affectionate with men. The strict distinctions between platonic friendship and sexual romance are just as much a construct of modern heterosexual hegemony as the distinctions between heterosexuality and homosexuality. To argue that "this act of fondness would have been friendly and wouldn't have sexual connotations" is to argue that being queer always means being sexual, which is untrue. It also means arguing there is a strict boundary between the platonic and the sexual, the friendly and the romantic, which is also untrue.

If we examine places and times when being openly queer was not possible, we have to consider that the main way to display queerness was through "fond friendship." It may not even occur to someone that she could love her "good friend" the way she is "supposed" to love men, with romance and marriage and all that. Homosexual love and attraction would very often have been seen by its participants as "very close friendship." We can't categorically dismiss acts of fondness between men as "just friendship," because friendship was the mechanism of homosexual attraction back then.

Nothing I've said so far, as far as I'm aware, contradicts Foucault's ideas about how we construct and categorize sexual identities. Now is when I do so: if there is evidence of attraction or romance or "fondness" between two characters of the same gender in an old work of literature, rather than sloshing in semantics that obfuscate the point - that there is some kind of attraction, something that we'd now call queer, happening in the text - I think it is more accurate to just say, "this is gay." Yes, it is a modern term and a modern framework of attraction, but so is heterosexuality. So is the idea that women are more than the property of their husbands, and you don't see that stopping feminist theorists from calling the portrayal of Eve in Paradise Lost misogynistic. We should not be so pedantic about what we call "gay" or "queer" or "homosexual," because this pedantry erases the experiences and portrayals of attraction between men and between women in old literature.

(quick postscript: I am talking about western lit and the "western canon" here. It feels kind of colonialist to make this point about Everyone Everywhere, esp since Foucault is correct that "homosexual" and "heterosexual" are modern, western constructs. Other cultures should equally be allowed to describe their literature using both their own modern and their own historical terminology.)

u said u understand inetellectually that ur not capable of being loved, but "intellectually" all that theorizing and shit is based on underlying assumptions.

''im not capable of being loved'' is an underlying assumption the primate that runs most of ur brain made. its not math or biology or shit really. the distinction between emotion and the frameworks we make is less blurry than people like to think.

You're not dealing with facts about yourself, you're dealing with your own feelings and being in a shitty situation. Give yourself time. Show yourself and that brain primate some love. Apollo you deserve it, and you will see love from the people around you also.

I meant intellectually more in the sense that I acknowledge it but don't know what to do with that information. I guess theoretically would have been a better word?

But to your point, it's not based on math or biology no, but it is based on experimentation. Coming up on 26 years of it. With me as a constant and variables of other people, and outside circumstances (life circumstances, how we met, what we 'bonded over', etc). And time and time again, people are only interested in me as far as I am useful to them. As a young kid I was useful as a dress up doll because I was raised by a butch lesbian single mother so I didnt know anything about makeup or hair so the girls could do whatever they wanted to me and I didn't know any better. As soon as I didn't like what they were doing or wanted to try something for myself, they didn't want me around anymore. Later in school, people were friends with me because I let them copy off me in class or did their homework for them, as soon as I stopped, I had no friends again. As an adult its been that I drive people around or buy them lunch or little gifts, or they just wanted another trans person around and as soon I wasn't the only other option I wasn't needed anymore. Even if you don't count the time before I started school, which is a perfectly reasonable portion of my life to exclude, even though my family doesn't care about me either, that's still over 20 years worth of the same results over and over again. I mean, I'm an actor, not a scientist but I think any experiment that shows that kind of consistency over that period of time is pretty clear.

I also know it's true due to observation. I know a lot of trans men, of all ages, and of all of them, only one has had a successful relationship, and that's with a woman. I'm gay so that's not really relevant to me. Of all the gay men I know, and I know a lot of gay men, none of them are interested in trans men (unless it's as a hookup they'll never tell anyone about).

I know that due to deductive reasoning. Communication is vital to any kind of relationship. I'm autistic. I can't do communication.

And honestly it doesn't really matter if, hypothetically, I am able to be loved. I currently have to navigate the world completely on my own, and that's not possible long term. I have no support system, and no one willing to help me. I lose my housing this summer, and I have nowhere to go. And because I don't have anyone, I have no way of fixing that. There is no holding out for better times without people to help you get there.

I am once again having to write about this, as a follow up to a post from the winter solstice 2022 and I had snooped around on a pair of blogs after falling down a rabbit hole of sorts because... I don't know if it's just a coincidence and he's trying to demonstrate their relationship in the wake of his mother being hospitalized, or if there's something more sinister going on around here and my fears are being confirmed. But, go through my archive to that post for context because you'll be completely lost otherwise.

Alex was very active on social media, and he was especially sweet to me. I would flirt with him and I knew he found it flattering, because he would like my comment and he would love it whenever I spoke in such a way on stories. I knew I had made an impact on him when I caught him writing and acting a way that mirrored me, like he would repeat certain words that I used or write in a manner almost identical to mine. I don't know when I started to get a sense that he wasn't happy with his relationship, but I have this very distinct memory of seeing him on some woman's profile, which is now deleted, but chatting up with her and being a little too friendly towards her. Plus, I have the memories of him speaking to me in a very soft, very silky voice, the kind of voice that men use when they're attracted to you, on his live streams. In hindsight, I realize that he did that because it's very ephemeral and he didn't always capture the live stream and post it, either. Stories are private, too: only the poster can see replies.

I should also mention that after I made that post, he was a lot friendlier towards me, even kind of flirty.

When Arlene was in the hospital, and he found himself strapped to the side of her bed until she was moved to another room, I worried about him. I thought about him every day. And then when he surfaced again the day before Memorial Day, he seemed well and he was talking to people and gave us an update. But then, that one week between Memorial Day and when he returned to the fold on the fifth—a lot of people didn't notice this but I sure did—it was like he vanished. He posted on stories, I think twice, and it was very 'here and gone', which was so unlike him: it wasn’t a mental health break, either. I took one just this past week and I didn’t come on Instagram at all. On the fifth, when he said he was back, he told us that she had been out for a few days and was recovering at home, so right away I knew it wasn't trauma from that.

Another dead giveaway that I knew something was wrong? The way he looked. Alex has always looked healthy, even when he said he didn't feel like it: his hair's always been smooth and soft looking, his eyes were always clear and had a little twinkle in them, his skin was smooth and clear, and he was always scruffy and a little shaggy but well put together, though. He was chubby, too, he had a belly on him and his face was round, and he even had a little double chin going there at one point. Hell, when Arlene was first admitted and he took that selfie, he still looked good. He came back and... his skin was sallow, his face was gaunt, his arms looked thin—and before, they were nice and toned—he very obviously lost a lot of weight, and his hair was a frizzy staticky mess, and the only thing I could think of was 'he doesn't look well'. I even said it to him, too, like 'Alex, your face is pale, like... you don't look good.'

Before, he always looked focused, kind of that Aubrey Plaza staring-right-through-you-kind-of-expression, but he was always happy to be there, though. I can't stop thinking about this one selfie that Chuck took, they were all sitting at a table for the birthday lunch for their head tech, and you can see Alex, and he has this vacant look on his face, totally staring off into space. 'Lights are on but nobody's home' as I put it. I thought, 'this is not the same Alex. Something happened to him, and it wasn't just from his mom being sick, either. I think there was some foul play going on that we didn't see because ~she's a private person~ Yeah, you know who else was a private person? Ted Kaczynski. Just 'cause they're private and not very social doesn't mean they're decent—I've known a number of people who were asocial and they were not nice to say in the least. Just 'cause they're shy doesn't mean they're decent, plus, shy people don't work that way, Alex. I never met her, but I can tell you that shy people don't have shit like blogs, or post selfies with big smiles on their faces. According to him, photos with her are rare and... I'm sorry. That is a major red flag, especially when you put the aforementioned pieces together. Couples who are happy to be together will be seen together, and the fact that I have to go to her profile just to see her is not a good thing, believe me. That's a sign of hiding something, and the whole 'shy' thing really does feel like a copout after a while because, again: I was a shy girl once, and I did not act like this. Like, not at all.

In fact, and this should give you an idea about me... she strikes me as being cut from the same cloth as Amber Heard, because I see her in comment threads on Alex’s instagram and her attitude is almost in the same vein as “don’t you DARE talk to me.” where Alex is Mr. Friendly.

Am I unfairly judging just by mere observation when humans are far more complex and messy than we tend to realize? Maybe, and I’m willing to take the fall here as I have a multitude of times. But when he goes from a jelly-bellied happy boy in a grown man’s body who loved to be around people all the time to... sickly-looking reclusive old man who looks like he's about ready to pass out, and he has this unmistakable look of pain in his eyes, it really does make you assume the worst. And, here's something interesting, and I talked about this before, too: I can tell you right now that she was not just a 'consultant' on Planetary Coalition. Consultants are basically advisors, they aren't bosses (especially when he's supposed to be the boss?) and I literally should not have to tell you that, either.

This man is my first real, big crush, like... the first time I ever really had feelings for someone and I didn't eventually write it off as a mere phase. He lives thousands of miles away from me, too, so it's not like I can do anything except what I'm doing already. To see him like this, and to know that

…

she's there, it makes me helpless.

I want to protect him, or as Christine in Seasons Grey says, 'I want to give you the love that Captain Howdy could never give you.' I also keep having this brief vision of him keeling over at some point and she comes after me. Well, I'm gonna beat her to the punchline and I'm going to blame her for it, lock stock and barrel. I made some of my best art because of him. I wrote millions of words because of him. I got a handle on how I love because of him. I call Chris my first boyfriend, but I'm starting to wonder if I should apply that title to Alex instead. My first legit crush: he gives me butterflies and makes me all tingly downstairs and makes me fantasize. You took control of most of the goddamn legwork for an album that he felt very passionately about... why, because you just so happened to be there and you were in the honeymoon phase? I'll buy that.

…you're not a very good renaissance woman, Captain Howdy. Sure, you may have a million billion irons in the fire, but can you imagine one thing and one thing only like that of a cockroach? What you resist, persists, you know.

It's so weird to me how you claim to be shy and not very social, and yet, you speak to people just fine. I don’t appreciate your patronizing tone with them (and I imagine him sticking his head into the sand and yelling at the sight of it) but you seem socially well-adjusted nevertheless. You speak to Alex's followers as if you know more than them. You have an Instagram and a blog. You seem very social, and I don't think it's just with the “right people”, either. 

We have a word for this: two-faced. I mean, the fact you refer to yourself as “gypsy” when that word is actually very offensive no matter who's using it—and I actually feel awful for saying it, too—and you claim to be taking it back like the way third wave feminists did back in the 90s with words like “slut” and “whore”, actually ironically does you no justice. To “gyp” someone means to swindle them, to fool them, to screw them over, and that's quite literally where we get the word “gypsy” from. Calling someone, especially someone with darker skin like yourself, a “gypsy” is actually quite racist—I remember seeing it in Wuthering Heights to describe Heathcliff, coincidentally, spelled the same way you spell it, and I can't believe no one noticed it before: to refer to yourself as that signifies calling yourself a thief or someone who habitually screws people over. It doesn't mean what anyone wants us to think that it means. If anything, I actually consider it worse than the n-word, because when black rappers use that, they're being truly self-aware.

I don't like your obsession with femininity, either, because that falls dangerously close to TERF behavior, if not, it's arguably there. What's a TERF? Trans-exclusionary radical feminist. These so called 'feminists' who obsess on the way how women look and behave for the sake of being women and maintaining the state of being women, and often times to the point of obsessing over petty bullshit that's really none of their business, like how their genitals look or how they dress. They don't see gender as this fluid thing (nor do they try to cover it up with these hollow, brain-dead messages of “being yourself” and adding Holy Grail references for some reason—that's one of my favorite movies, too, so... thanks for that), and they don't bitch about the fluidity of it, either. Most importantly, they don't see trans people as human. They seem like good people at first glimpse, but when you really start looking around at them and sifting their words and really thinking about it, it's nauseating. That's the feeling I get from you, aside from someone who's also very controlling.

I should take a moment here to say that telling me what you and Alex do (or don't do) is none of my business is not going to work: if anything, you're way better off wasting your breath on one of your banal, meandering, condescending, brain aneurysm-inducing blog posts. You put it online for the whole world including a curious bastard like me to see, you make it my business. You send mixed messages about being shy when you very obviously aren't, you make it my business. He turns into fucking Robocop when you're in the room with him, and prior to then he was loose and friendly with everyone, and um... hello, he was talking to me—god damn, do you make it my business.

You seem like someone who only has eyes for him, and you want him to only have eyes for you. Hm. About that...

I'm not just saying this because I'm pansexual and my eyes wander regardless of who it is, but. I would be more concerned if he didn't at the least, let his eyes wander. And I would be concerned if you didn't let your eyes wander. It makes you wonder if one of you is secretly gay, or at least cold and unfeeling—a hallmark of someone who doesn't have a grasp of their sexuality. I know this because I quite literally went through that: when I was eighteen, I was certain I was straight but I knew deep down, that was bullshit. I knew there was something else to me that I couldn't uncover right away because of shame and festering wounds. As a result, I just left at that but I never even attempted at the dating game until I was fucking twenty-three. Another hallmark of someone who’s secretly gay (this is especially the case with women)? Internalized misogyny, and it manifests in more ways than one, but one that comes to mind immediately is being a woman in stem and segregating yourself from the boys (and fixating on the fact that you’re a woman in this field, too). I saw this horse shit so much when I was in engineering school, most notably with S.W.E. I was member of that for about a week and I didn’t like how they were separated out from the boys. At first, I’m genuinely intrigued by your sentiments about being a woman in architecture... but then it goes right back to nitpicking and fixating on things that you probably shouldn’t fixating on, and holding yourself over those “other girls” and the other male architects and just looking like a spaz while you’re at it. You don’t call yourself a female architect but you phrase it in a way that you might as well do that. Hurt people hurt people after all.

“I’m pro-choice! I was at the women’s march!” Good for you. Do you want a prize or something? At least Alex goes out of his way to talk about these things and you know what side he’s on and that’s the common sense side.

I know he's not cold: quite the contrary. He’s not a misogynist, either: again, quite the contrary. And there's only one other person here, so…

I'm not trying to discriminate against you or do anything like that, but I feel like you're short changing everybody, especially him, by clinging onto personas that don't work for you and if anything, it makes you seem sketchy and incredibly paranoid. I think it's interesting that he's been tagging you a lot lately, when he didn't do that before. Could just be a coincidence, given you were supposedly there for him when his mom was ill (and I flatout told him that my porch light is always on when Jeff Beck died), but there's just something off about it: it's like he's trying to coax you out of your shell, but... I don't know, simply because... you still aren't in the picture with him.

In fact, I won't be surprised if the two of you have a “we need to talk” moment at some point here because, oh. You're supposed to be the shy, private, asocial, avoidant of attention person... albeit with profiles and social skills out the nose, but shy and reserved people prefer to be alone, however, and being dead center of attention like that, that never goes over well, especially with mixed messages on top of that. Mixed messages that only make me assume the worst: I look at him, how his left eye has a bit of a droop to it (which is worrying; I'd like to think it's just fatigue, but it confirms my suggestion that he had a stroke at some point in the weirdest and darkest way possible: I don’t think he did but it certainly does look like it) and the pain in his eyes and the fact that he's obviously faking a smile, when he wasn't like that before. All jokes aside, Alex has a very expressive face. He's usually quite stern, but I can he's a very emotional guy: when he was in a good mood, you felt it. When something spooked him, you feel it. This all gives me a feeling that I really don't want to know. Cover your ass with “but people change, you know” all you want: they do, but not this rapidly or drastically, especially when I know his mom's getting better and his career is white-hot right now.

And we have seen, time and time again, that you cannot fix (or more broadly: change) someone by “the power of love”. It’s physically impossible. But you sure can do wonders with the power of resentment, though. Heathcliff wound up letting his anger completely ravage him, and Alex looks like a house plant in 100-degree weather, meanwhile you’re looking like a supermodel from the 2000s. He doesn’t look good where you are. I’ve seen his crestfallen expression when he talks about “having an excuse to indulge” (as if he needs one, like dude, I’m gonna tell you the same thing you told me when I did my White Pony drawings: you don’t need permission). I’ve seen him talk about himself in self-deprecating fashion: it’s endearing and refreshing in small doses, but in hindsight, I saw how he took it a little far sometimes. I just think of the time he was asked about cannoli and he said, “you can’t too many because they’ll make you gain weight” and I know he was alluding to himself. Or the time he called me “too kind” for when I paid him a simple compliment. It’s the hallmark of someone who’s being tormented and doesn’t see himself in the best light, either, and I know it’s because he’s with someone who makes him feel like shit.

You're so lucky I call you Captain Howdy and not Heathcliff, although... in Seasons Grey, you are Captain Howdy, after Regan’s “imaginary friend” in the Exorcist (who turned out to be the demon) given how you haunt Alex and visibly torment him and make him ashamed for completely innocuous things like enjoying himself or talking to girls. In real life, I think I’m gonna refer to you as Heathcliff, the rascal “gipsy”—I fucking gag every time I write it like that—and an angry bastard who was pushed to utmost bitterness until he became violent. When I think about it, people really do see you the same way Heathcliff was depicted initially in Wuthering Heights: a romantic... but then his own bullshit hoist him by his own petard and he wound up misusing his ownership of Wuthering Heights, forcing Isabella to marry him, and abusing his son. Alex is no Catherine Earnshaw, though, because Catherine insisted she loved Heathcliff and yet she married Edgar Linton and the whole thing was back and forth until Catherine finally died and she and Cathy both haunted Heathcliff until he died.

You did something to him. And mark my fucking words, you will pay the karmic price for it. And I’ll be dead center, front row to watch it happen. I am getting relentless with this because like Christine, I want to give him what you can’t give him, and the only way I’ve ever fought with people who were tormenting me was relentlessly until they finally gave out.

Serenity now. Sanity later.

#23GloPoWriMo

28/4/24

Day 28 Response 1 Poem 34

****

Prompt :

Have you ever flipped to the index of a book and found it super interesting? Well, I have (yes, I live an exciting life!) For example, the other day I pulled from my shelf a copy of on old book that excerpts parts of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s journals. I took a look at the index, and found the following entry under “Man”:

fails to attain perfection, 46; can take advantage of any quality within him, 46; his plot of ground, 46; his use, 52, 56; not to be trusted with too much power, 55; should not be too conscientious, 58; occult relationship between animals and, 75; God in, 79, 86; not looked upon as an animal, 80; gains courage by going much alone, 81; the finished, 89; and woman, distinctive marks of, 109; reliance in the moral constitution of, 124; the infinitude of the private, 151; and men, 217; should compare advantageously with a river,

Write your own index poem. You could start with found language from an actual index, or you could invent an index, somewhat in the style of this poem by Kell Connor.

Sharp air. Marigold, the scent of the other world, the underworld, on a clear day. Lilac, soft red wheat. She will miss it: The carnal, that char of desire. That bitter register, the marigolds again, the color of cartoon flames. Body heat trapped beneath a worn quilt. I go into the next room and its the same room repeatd, she writes. That's the softness of this world, or all she can know of it. It's as fragile as foam. Where her form ends something else begins in the warm air. or I go into the next room and its the same room repeatd, she writes. It feels like receding, like something sneaking away and then coming right back through a different door. At a certain point a sense of place just assembles from thin air. I am inside my arrival, she writes. And here the phrases begin to fall apart at all points, too tender for our grammar.

*****

My Poem for Day 28 April 2023

GAZELLE FOUND

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Something to love.It wasn’t easy finding the tame gazelle. Moving from novels about small-town spinsters and vicars . Cranford and Thrush Green. The Tattler’s flattering conclusion. Pussycat wit and profoundly unsoppy kindliness. The deeply peculiar, face-saving, gently tormented English middle classes may be left safely in their hands. The wry invention of "Maschler pudding". A combination of lime jelly and milk.

I’d be a Butterfly. Discovering the Loves of Butterflies. Influential citizen of Bath. Earls of Stamford and Warrington. Baroness le Despencer. Winchester. Oxford. Bayly did not apply himself to “the pursuit of academical honours”. Sketches of Bath. Songs and Ballads. Grave and Gay. Weeds of Witchery. Kindness of Women. Budget of Blunders. Helena Hayes. She Wore a Wreath of Roses. The Bridesmaid, which drew a flattering letter from Sir Robert Peel.Played the harmonica, guitar, and banjo. Invested his wife's dowry in coal mines. Proved unproductive. Property in Ireland. Manager failed to give satisfactory account.

Sold for a Song. Perfection. Madame Vestris produced it. Appeared in it. Lord Chesterfield present on the first night. Declared he never saw a better farce. Cast included the Marchioness of Londonderry. Lord Castlereagh.Shallow imitations. Continental estate looted. Songs of the Old Château. Isle of Beauty, Fare Thee Well! Gaily the Troubadour Touched his Guitar. I'll Hang my Harp on a Willow Tree. Oh, No! We Never Mention Her. The Mistletoe Bough. Long long ago. Long long ago.

Prolonged absence makes you forget.

( Wikipedia :

‘Some Tame Gazelle’ is Barbara Pym's first novel, originally published in 1950. The title of the book is taken from the poem "Something to Love" by Thomas Haynes Bayly, and the work of other English poets is frequently referenced during the course of the story.)

( PS I read the novel fifty years ago )

( copyright @Amita Sarjit Ahluwalia )

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Get up frighteningly early to oversee the delivery of a coffee table I turn out to hate. The wood grain is beautiful but it's too orange. I cover it with jackets and barely-resurrected plants. I do not love painting today but it's all I have. By 2pm I am done for the day and bike to catch V before her Monday Pilates class. I refill my tea cup at her hot water tap and we swap stories of the seemingly endless indignities that come with being attracted to men. I read the "break up" text I sent to J last week when I realised after 4 days I couldn't handle another phone conversation. V approves, though if she hadn't it would be too late. She tells me about an episode of the TV show Love Is Blind, which sees two people put in "pods" and have no access to each other except talking through a wall. One particular couple shared a passion for fitness, and halfway through their conversation the man asks whether the woman is doing star jumps while talking, which she is. This is why I largely can't watch reality TV without life's innate darkness overwhelming me. I don't know why I continue to ask "why do they let these people on TV?" when it's clear that production companies don't draw any kind of clear distinction between eccentricity and mental health crisis. I think of J and how he corralled some wedding guests in New Orleans to go on a 7 mile run every morning, and then of myself flexing my stomach muscles as subtly as possible at every dinner table throughout my teens, the only exercise available to me while being policed by professionals At home I watch a video about a man who married a woman who had secretly had enormous amounts of plastic surgery very young, and her true genetics revealed themselves in the kids they shared. He then divorced her

Chiming in as a bisexual to say you're wrong about Isobel and if you don't have the experience to understand the nuances that make a relationship between a bi woman and a man different from a straight woman and a man, maybe not talk about it at all. It isn't as if the show hasn't been able to show men and women just being friends, in fact there are several examples, so what this comes down to is being annoyed a bi woman's primary love interest is a man and wanting Isobel treated differently than anyone else when it comes to love triangles. Isobel/Anatsa is being written similarly to Alex/Forrest, Liz/Heath and Max/Cameron, and while Michael/Maria lasted almost an entire season, Alex was frequently a central part of Michael's stories during that time. If anything the issue is about how Black women are treated, not WLW.

I do genuinely appreciate this feedback, anon. I apologize in advance for the novel-length response, but it's clear that my desire to avoid a novel-length critique in my original post has misconstrued the key issues I was trying to address. I will start with saying though, your claim that I don't have the experience to understand the nuances that differentiate straight women and bi women in relationships with men just because I personally do not currently identify as bisexual and thus I shouldn't speak on bi issues is ridiculously unfounded but I am choosing to believe you are good faith and so I will respond in kind :)

What predominantly rubs me the wrong way about the Kyle/Isobel pairing is how CW (which my critique was aimed at! at a corporation who views queer people as $ makers rather than humans worthy of sincere storytelling! i made that very clear in the op) has a history of similar downplaying of bisexual experiences-- think the queerbaiting in the first season of Riverdale, or how Sara Lance's bisexuality was handled in the first few seasons of LOT (actually my main critique of Sara's is the initial downplaying of her attraction to men in order for cheap "oh she's a horndog" jokes about her & women, so your "i am just annoyed that a bi woman's primary love interest is a man" assertion holds no water), the list goes on. There are some exceptions, of course, but when comparing straight relationships to queer relationships of any gender pairing, opposite sex relationships are almost always given space to be Shown vs same sex relationships being almost always Told (an important distinction in any story writing). CW creative executives want the laurels of being queer inclusive, but they are terrified of being "too gay" and almost always default to normative and/or shallow representations. Hell, Superwoman has a whole ass lesbian character, but I see more lesbians fawn over the imaginary ship of two straight characters than actually connect with Alex & her love interests. However, seeing as I have not watched any of these shows in several seasons I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that CW may have course corrected, but I am extremely dubious. My critiques come from a place of sociological media analysis and the technical craft aspects of storytelling, both of which are my formal & informal areas of study. It’s the reason I have a specific tag for discussing media, although I fully admit that sometimes it’s just venting or ooooo-ing rather than principled analysis, which can make it fuzzy to suss out what my “deal” is.

"there are several examples [of men & women just being friends]" it’s an ensemble cast, of course some of the men & women are friends. But I am talking about the specifics of Kyle & Isobel’s friendship, which is unique to other m/w platonic friendships in the show. Kyle was the first man outside of her family who she developed a deep friendship with after the horror that was her experience with Noah. She was a guarded character before, but that guardedness understandably heightened after that trauma. So to me, it really undermines the power of traumatized women finding trust in good men (and Kyle is indeed a very good man) only for the relationship to iNeViTaBlY develop into romance. They had that one scene in the gay bar where they almost hooked up, but beyond that there was nothing to my eye that indicated Kyle was heavily falling in love with her (and don’t get me started about how Steph’s character was basically just a love interest with very little bearing on the actual plot before disappearing entirely). So to me, it comes out of nowhere, and instead of an organic friends-to-lovers trope it only serves to reinforce the idea that if a Good Guy is patient enough, he will break free of the dreaded friendzone as long as he puts enough kind supportiveness tokens into his traumatized woman friend. Everyone has different life experiences that will paint their interpretation of this, and my life experiences are that which place great value on male friends supporting traumatized women (or any gender person) without the ulterior hope that one day you’ll get to smash, so you can’t assert that my interpretation of this point is “wrong”. Without delving into my personal history, I see part of myself Isobel's experience, and I also see the former friend who tried to make a move on me when I thought I could rely on him after some separate fucked up shit happened, because that's how immersing yourself in fiction works. But if you have different life experiences & don't have that baggage painting how you view the storyline & like Kyle & Isobel as a pairing, that's fine! I'm not saying anyone is wrong or bad for seeing something that I don't personally see. That's the magic of fiction!

As far as the love triangle point you’re trying to make, I found most of the ones you listed as pretty meh b-plot conflicts that didn’t really matter, since the writing on the wall since episode 1 is that Max/Liz & Alex/Michael are endgame, so of course there will be relationships in between to amp up the yearning but will obviously they will not be a genuine threat. A real, juicy love triangle needs to hook the reader/audience into believing there is a legitimate rivalry & chance that the endgame ship might actually not be endgame. Like, Heath absolutely had no chance at usurping Max. Michael & Maria are the exception where the relationship did feel grounded, but it still wasn't enough to trick me into thinking that Michael & Alex wouldn't ultimately come back together. So I don’t really think that the love triangle trope has any bearing to Anatsa/Isobel/Kyle situation, but that’s a matter of personal taste in the tropes we like. I am personally very picky about love triangles & it's on the lower end of tropes I enjoy, which is another factor in why I am being such a stickler on this one.

We are 100% in agreement with your last point, how CW does an appalling disservice to the only dark-skinned Black woman on the show (this is another CW trend. Again, it is the pattern of bad behavior that has made me so frustrated with this and other shows). There were what, three? episodes in s3 where she actually had screentime in any prominent way, and they frame her almost as an antagonist during the cheap “wah wah not all cops are bastards wah wah i’m a good cop” story arc that made me cringe out of my skin. She was key to arranging the sting on the racist militia, yet Max continues to be hostile to her (yes I understand that in s4e1 he was trying to dissuade her from investigating the alien thing, but he HAD to have known, given their history, that playing cranky cop would not be effective on her, so the only reason i can parse is that he doesn’t like her because because she hurt his fee-fees with correctly pointing out that marginalized communities of color aren’t going to rush to trust him, even if he is a nice guy out of uniform). Then, circling back to her role as a love interest & the distinction of showing vs telling, there is 1 episode in s3 where we get to see Isobel being flustered over her crush & ultimately asking her out, and we get next to nothing about Anatsa's feelings, and then she is gone until one scene in the final episode, where her appearance isn’t centered on her and Isobel, rather it’s about KYLE watching her with Isobel and being sad about it. Isobel and Anatsa didn’t even get one full on-screen episode as a couple before the Pining Kyle arc began, so you cannot look me in the eye & tell me that the writing execs really value Anatsobel. We then skip to 6 months later, where we learn she and Isobel are in love (yay!) but we don’t get to witness the moments that make a relationship, that bring us along for the ride of two badass women falling for each other. Which is forgivable in other contexts, but given all the other compounding details that trouble me, it ends up feeling like a cheap workaround to get away with featuring less queer love. Clearly the relationship will not last, and given that her role as a love interest is currently surpassing her role as a journalist (I’ve only watched episode 1 of s4 so there is plenty of time for me to be wrong on this point, & I hope I am), I am extremely nervous & frustrated that we will lose Anatsa entirely in this final season because of CW’s track record with blackness & queerness, especially when they intersect. I could break it down further with examples from other CW shows, but this response is long enough as it is for me to dig in as deep as this subject deserves & I think this is an area that is genuinely not appropriate for me (as a saltine) to speak on with authority, and it goes without saying that I invite black women to chime in if you think I’ve gotten my analysis wrong on CW's pattern of handling race.

I hope that I’ve better explained myself, because as someone who is blessed to have many bi friends of all genders, I do not want to unintentionally spread rhetoric that leaves them feeling alienated. If you still have concerns, anon, I genuinely welcome it. If you message me privately off-anon we might be able to have more of a conversation rather than me writing a small essay where I'm trying to cover a lot of ground & may have missed important points, lol. I believe greatly in the power of queer storytelling, stories of ALL flavors of queerness, and bisexuals in particular have gotten thrown under the bus in every direction when it comes to depictions in media, which is why I get such a stick up my butt whenever I get the bad bi storytelling tingles. I will not apologize for wanting Anatsa around more, and to be glib & gay about it, nor will I apologize for simply wanting more girl-on-girl smooching. Kyle is nice, but can he shoot a bow & arrow? No? Well consider my case rested.

Okay. Just finished Faithless Hawk by Margaret Owen. I am. I am. Borderline catatonic. Knocked flat. Consider my flabbers gasted. Absolutely fucking floored.

Hefty spoilers, probably.

Ok so it’s two books: The Merciful Crow and The Faithless Hawk. Owen learned from Bardugo and kept her Russian-YA-fantasy series as a duology rather than a trilogy, which does wonders for the pacing, but that’s a whole other conversation. I have a couple things I wanna address front-and-center:

One, the way Tavin is written. I, as a guy, have never felt seen by male love interests. The books I’ve read that feature leading ladies with male love interests tend to paint them very, very flat; cardboard cutouts who are defined solely by their interactions with the protagonist. Yes. I know what you’re going to say. My pity for every girl and woman who’s had to grow up reading books in which they were treated that way is immeasurable. It really is. I truly feel so incredibly lucky to have grown up with a wide variety of easily accessible heroic protagonists of my gender.

But to move along, Tavin has this kind of softness to him that pierces a deeper layer of characterization than many male YA love interests reach. It’s really truly driven home near the beginning of Faithless Hawk when Fie touches his tooth and sees through his eyes from when he thought he’d found her body. That scene did more for well-written ManPain than anything else I’ve seen in recent memory. It gave him the full complement of ManPain Generators: a Fie-shaped hole in his heart, a distinct and clear goal to fill it, something that completely shreds all hope of doing so, and the ability to have a bone-rattling, gut-curdling sobbing cry about it. It was fucking good.

Two, the use of refrains. “When, not if” is the first really big one, but it’s far from the hardest-hitting. I love stories with refrains in them. Wheel of Time has its intro paragraph, Kingkiller has “a silence of three parts”, Red Rising has “live for more”, etc. etc. etc. This duology has a wonderful complement of refrains that do a good job of treading the line between “this is something a character would conceivably repeat to themselves” and “this absolutely fucks but nobody talks like that”.

Very specifically, the repeated mention of the Money Dance in all its forms. It culminates in that absolutely diaphragm-clenching final iteration at the gates of Dumosa, but every time it comes up it adds just a little depth to the world. Fie knows that a Money Dance isn’t always a dance and isn’t always about money, and that’s something I appreciate as a lover of incredibly strung-out metaphor.

Three, the unabashed badass factor. Owen isn’t afraid to dish out lines that just rip your ass to shreds and toss it down the storm drain to rot. Really, anything surrounding Tavin is so goddamn Zuko-brand emo in the best way and Owen smacks you with so many good fuckin lines. “The best thing he could do with his life was die” and shit like that. C’mon, Margaret. Man. Don’t do that to me.

And the fact that Fie being... uh... feisty... actually tracks. Those of you who read my long-winded rants know that I have a serious issue with a certain popular YA fantasy author’s approach to “wit”. Owen neatly circumvents that by having Fie’s feist come from something, rather than being a trait in and of itself. She does a consistently good job of building Fie up to outbursts; it never comes from zero. Fie can be collected when she’s calm, but the situation rarely calls for it, especially in the latter half of the second book, so it works well. Also, her scathing remarks are legitimately scathing and never feel like an authorial attempt to tickle my (the reader’s) sense of humor. There’s funny shit, for sure, but it’s entirely contained within the narrative and never asks the reader to step in and laugh with the characters; they’re already laughing themselves.

And also, can’t forget the whole “we’re here to carry you.” God damn you Sean Astin for making me read the words “carry you” in your voice.

Four, the names. Look. I’m a sucker for a good name. “The Eater of *literally anything that isn’t traditionally eaten and has some metaphorical weight*” is pretty much the best possible name ever. Little more need be said here.

Five, and this one’s more for me as a person rather than me as a shitty amateur internet critic, it makes me wiggle in my chair and go “Eeeeeeeee!!!!” a lot, it makes me laugh out loud in my stupid little strained giggle a lot, and it makes me cry a LOT.

Make no mistake, this book has its flaws. I’m sure. I bet it does. Probably. Somebody else could point them out to you.

No, I’m kidding. I can.

There’s something left to be desired with the philosophy behind the politics at the end; it’s a little uninspired. “Oh, yeah, we’ll abolish the monarchy and put up a ruling council” YEAH BUDDY NEVER HEARD THAT ONE. Not a big deal, all told, and kind of falls squarely outside the purview of the story’s main themes, but I do wish there was a little more complexity behind it. Felt like too neat a bow to wrap up with.

The book is far more about character than world. You really don’t see shit about the world except through Fie’s eyes and her secondhand stories from others. It leaves a world with a lot of mystery and a lot of untold stories. This would be totally fine, but for some reason I got the feeling that these stories were just a little too faint to make the world actually feel bigger than this story. Throughout the two books, I never had a moment where I felt like I wanted to know what someone else was doing. This could be to Owens’ credit--her characters are too interesting to care about anything else--but it does make the world feel a little smaller. Like I said, the bow that tied off the story was a little too neat. 

Tavin can feel a bit cardboardy at times. Maybe a lot of times. He’s very much cut from the “hot strong warrior boy with a sordid life who just can’t love you” mold and it’s kinda silly. It’s played fairly straight and it works just fine; serviceable if nothing else. He’s not particularly 3D--more like 2.5D, think Paper Mario--but his contours are defined by the way he bounces off Fie so it works out okay.

Honestly that’s kinda it for criticisms? I just liked the books a lot.

Unexpectedly pretty solid and casual gay and bi representation, as well as at least two characters, one named, who use they/them pronouns. Not something that makes the series any more worth reading than it already is, but worth noting and kinda nice.

Actually, to go back to the thing about the worldbuilding: weirdly enough, it reminds me of John Wick. Just the first one, really. You see the surface of this placid pond of a world, but there’s a chill that runs through your bones that tells you it’s deeper than it looks. You see the character move through it and you realize they know every single little tooth of every single little gear that moves this machine. To be negative, the ending of the series feels a little bit like if John Wick had ended with him just walking in and killing the whole council and then went home happily to his dog where nobody would ever bother him again and he’d take naps on rainbows and sip on sunshine.

I understand and appreciate a happy ending. I loved that it was an unambiguously happy ending. It made me happy, if you can believe that. But there can be happiness in complexity. Some threads can be left loose, some problems can remain to be solved, without making the ending tragic or sad. Could’ve been nice.

But yeah you should read these books. They’re very good and prove my point that YA isn’t an indicator of quality, but rather of audience. If you, like me, are in your 20s, just let yourself automatically age everyone up by 10 years and you’re chillin.

Media Market Research (and why its undermining all the things you love)

Trying to understand what is dysfunctional about Hollywood is an epic task, and the answers are like the stars – arguably infinite. Hollywood is dysfunctional for literally more reasons than I could count.

But market research plays a fairly heavy role in its dysfunction (IMO) and the time has finally come for me to add my professional two cents about this issue. (This rant of mine has been building for a while, FYI. Hence why it is so...comprehensive. There is a tl;dr section towards the bottom, if you want the high level summary)

*** For the last 4+ years I’ve worked in the field of market research, almost exclusively with major media makers like Warner Bros., NBCU, AMC/BBCA, Viacom, FOX (before Disney acquired them), A+E, etc. (this past year I quit the job where I was doing this work for a variety of reasons, many of which will become clear as you keep reading, but I am still listed as a consultant on the company website):   https://www.kresnickaresearch.com/who/ (Rachel)

And just for comparison, here is a Halloween selfie I took 4 years ago and posted on my blog, so you can see I am who I say I am. 

I know a fair amount about how market research on major media franchises is conducted and how it influences production, and a lot of these choices can also be at least somewhat tied back to the massive flaws in the market research industry and its impact. *** First, at the highest level, you need to understand market research in general is not well-conducted much of the time. Even the people doing a reasonably good job at it are VERY limited in doing it well because of financial constraints (clients don’t want to spend more than they have to), time constraints (clients want everything done as fast as humanely possible) and just the inherent problems within the industry that are decades old and difficult to fix. For example, all market research ‘screens’ participants to make sure they qualify to participate (whether it is a mass survey, a focus group, a one-on-one interview, etc.). So, we screen people based on demographics like race, gender, age, household income, to get representative samples. But people are also screened based on their consumption habits. You don’t want to bring someone into a focus group about reality TV if they don’t watch reality TV. They aren’t going to have anything useful to say. 

However, a lot of the people who participate in market research have made a ‘side-gig’ out of it and they know how to finesse the process. Basically, they’ve learned how to lie to get into studies that they aren’t a good match for because most market research is paid, and they want the money. So, a lot of TV and film market research is being done on people who don’t actually (or at least don’t regularly) watch those shows or movies or whatever but have learned how to lie well enough in these screening processes to make it through. And because of the aforementioned time and money issue, clients don’t want to spend the time or money to actually find GOOD participants. They just accept that as an inevitable part of the market research process and decide not to let it bother them too much. So, a fair number of the people representing YOU as a media consumer are people who may not be watching Supernatural (for example) at all or who watch a rerun occasionally on TNT but haven’t been watching consistently or with ANY amount of investment whatsoever. You can see why that creates very skewed data. But that’s just the tip of the skewed iceberg. *** Second, media market research is conducted in line with the norms of market research more broadly, and this is a huge problem because media is a very atypical product. How people engage with media is far more complex and in depth than how they engage with a pair of jeans, a car, or a coffee maker. There are only so many things that matter to people when it comes to liking or not liking a coffee maker, for example. Is it easy/intuitive to use? How much space does it take it on my counter? How expensive is it? Does it brew the coffee well? Maybe does it match my décor/kitchen aesthetic? Can I make my preferred brand of coffee in it? The things you as a consumer are going to care about when it comes to a coffee maker are limited, fairly easy to anticipate in advance, and also easy to interpret (usually). How people mentally and emotionally approach MEDIA? Whole other universe of thing. Infinitely more complex. And yet it is studied (more or less) as if it is also a coffee maker. This is one of the many reasons I decided to leave the media market research field despite my desire to have some ability to positively influence the process. As so often seems to be the case, I fought the law and the law won. I could never make the other people I worked with in the industry understand that the questions they were asking were not all that useful a lot of the time and they weren’t getting to the heart of the matter. They were just following industry standards because they didn’t know any better and none of them want to admit they don’t REALLY know what they’re doing. Which leads me to point 3. *** Most of the people doing this research don’t have any expertise in media or storytelling specifically. They are typically trained as social scientists in the fields of psychology, anthropology, sociology, or math/statistics. And many of them do not have any kind of specialization or education in media/storytelling beyond the English classes they took in high school and the one Media Studies course they took as an elective in college. Most of them have a very unsophisticated understanding of narrative structure, thematics, tropes, subtext, etc. They mainly think in terms of genres at the VERY broadest level. Also, not infrequently, they don’t watch or have much knowledge of the shows they are supposed to be doing research on, beyond what they’ve read on IMDb or Wikipedia or what is generally common knowledge. Unless they by chance happen to watch the shows themselves (which often they don’t) they often know very little about the shows they are crafting these questions about. Again, partly because they think it is like the coffee maker, and you don’t need to understand it in any depth to research it. (I know this must sound insane to you as avid media consumers, but that is the general attitude among those who do market research) There is such a lack of sophistication in how people in the business side of the industry understand media and storytelling. Most of them are either MBAs or social scientists and their training has not prepared them to examine fictional works with the kind of depth that people in the Humanities (who are specifically trained to study texts) have. Somehow, despite the fact that the Humanities is all about understanding texts, that is the one discipline they make almost no use of in the business side of Hollywood. And boy howdy does it show. *** Point 4 – average consumers CANNOT ARTICULATE WHY THEY LIKE THINGS. Particularly media things. I know this sounds condescending, but it is my honest observation. It is unbelievably hard to get people to have enough self-awareness to explain why they actually like things, especially things as mentally and emotionally complex as media. What typically happens when you ask people why they like a TV show or movie, for example? They will tell you what they most NOTICE about the TV show or movie, or what is distinctive to them about it (which may or may not have anything to do with what they actually LIKE about it). They will say things like “I like the genre”, “I think it’s funny”, “The car chases are exciting”, “I want to see the detective solve the puzzle.” Sometimes you can get them to talk about what they find relatable about it, if you push them a little. But often they leave it at either the level of literal identity (young black woman), basic personality traits (she’s a social butterfly and so am I) or situations they’ve personally experienced (I relate to this story of a man losing his father to cancer because I lost a close family member to cancer). But the vast, vast, vast majority of them can’t go to the deeper level of: a) Why X representation of a young black woman feels accurate/authentic/relatable and Y representation doesn’t b) Why it matters to me that X,Y,Z aspects of my personality, identity, experience get reflected in media whereas I don’t really care about seeing A,B,C aspects of my personality, identity, or experience reflected in media c) How and why they are relating to characters when they can’t see the literal connection between their identity/experience and the character’s identity/experience. (For example, many people have argued that women often relate to Dean Winchester because a lot of his struggles and past negative experiences are more stereotypical of women – being forced to raise a younger sibling on behalf of an actual parent, being seen and treated as beautiful/sexually desirable but vacuous/unintelligent, his body being treated as an instrument for a more powerful group to quite literally possess, etc. Part of the reason Supernatural has always been such a mystery/problem for the CW and Warner Bros is they could never crack the code at this level. Never.) Part of the reason they can’t crack these codes is average people CANNOT give you that kind of feedback in a survey or a focus group, or even an in-depth interview (much of the time). They just don’t have the self-awareness or the vocabulary to get it at that level. Let alone asking them to articulate why Game of Thrones is compelling to them in an era where wealth disparity is creating a ruling class that is fundamentally incompetent at maintaining a just/functional society, which is especially concerning at this particular moment, given the existential threat we face due to climate change. And the truth is, that IS part of what people – even average people – are responding to in Game of Thrones. But what they’ll tell you when you do market research on it is: they like the dragons, they like the violence, they relate to Tyrion Lannister being a smart mouth, maybe they’ll say they like the moral ambiguity of many of the conflicts (if they are more sophisticated than average). But the ‘Dean Winchester is heavily female coded despite his veneer of ultra-masculinity’ or the ‘Game of Thrones is a prescient metaphor for the current political dynamics and fissures of modern western society’ is the level you ACTUALLY need to get to. And most market research can’t get you that because the people ASKING the questions don’t know what to ask to get to this level, and most of the respondents couldn’t give you the answers even IF you were asking them the right questions (which usually you are not) And I’m not saying average people are dumb because they can’t do this. But it requires practice, it requires giving the matter a great deal of in-depth thought, and most people just don’t care enough about it to do that while taking a market research survey. (I know this is going to feel counter-intuitive to people on Tumblr. But you have to remember, you are NOT average media consumers. You are highly atypical media consumers who have far more self-awareness and a much more sophisticated engagement with media than the average person watching TV. If you didn’t, you probably wouldn’t be here talking about it in the first place) Point 4.1 – People also lie/misrepresent their own experiences to market researchers because they want to maintain certain self-narratives. You have no idea how many people would get disqualified from our surveys for saying they watched less than 5 hours of TV a week. And sure, that might actually be true for a few of them. But if you watch TV with any regularity at all (which most people in modern America do) you probably watch more than 5 hours a week. The problem is, people think it makes them sound lazy to say they watch 15-20 hours a week, even though that’s about 2-3 hours a day (which actually isn’t THAT high). People lie and misrepresent their behaviors, thoughts and feelings because it can be socially uncomfortable to admit you do what you actually do or feel how you actually feel, even in the context of an anonymous survey, let alone a focus group or a one-on-one interview. People want to make themselves look good to THEMSELVES and to the researchers asking them questions. But that makes the market research data on media (and lots of other things) very questionable. For example, one finding we saw more than once in the surveys I was involved in conducting was people would radically downplay how much the romance elements of a story mattered to them, even large portions of female respondents. When we would ask people in surveys what parts of the story they were most invested in, romances ALWAYS came out among the lowest ranked elements. And yet, any passing familiarity with fandom would tell you that finding is just WRONG. It’s wrong. People are just flat out lying about how much that matters to them because of the negative connotations we have around being invested in romance. And never mind the issue of erotic/sexual content. (I don’t mean sexual identity here, I mean sexy content). The only people who will occasionally cop to wanting the erotic fan service is young men (and even they are hesitant to do so in market research) and women frequently REFUSE to admit that stuff in market research, or they radically downplay how much it matters to them and in what ways. There is still so much stigma towards women expressing sexuality in that way. Not to mention, you have to fight tooth and nail to even include question about erotic/sexual content because oftentimes the clients don’t even want to go there at all, partly because it is awkward for everyone involved to sit around crafting market research questions to interrogate what makes people hot and bothered. That’s socially awkward for the researchers doing the research and the businesspeople who have to sit in rooms and listen to presentations about why more women find Spock sexier than Kirk. (Which was a real thing that happened with the original Star Trek, and the network couldn’t figure out why) Aside from people not have enough deeper level self-awareness to get at what they really like about media content, they also will lie or misrepresent certain things to you because they are trying to maintain certain self-narratives and are socially performing that version of themselves to researchers. *** Point 5 – Qualitative data is way more useful for understanding people’s relationships to media. However, quantitative data is way more valued and relied upon both due to larger market research industry standards and because quantitative data is just seen as harder/more factual than qualitative data. A lot of media market research involves gathering both qualitative and quantitative data and reporting jointly on both. (Sometimes you only do one or the other, depending on your objectives, but doing both is considered ‘standard’ and higher quality). However, quantitative data is heavily prioritized in reporting and when there is a conflict between what they see in qualitative versus quantitative data, the quant data is usually relied upon to be the more accurate of the two. This is understandable to an extent, because quantitative surveys usually involve responses from a couple thousand participants, whereas qualitative data involves typically a few dozen participants at most, depending on whether you did focus groups, individual interviews, or ‘diaries’/ethnography. The larger sample is considered more reliable and more reflective of ‘the audience’ as a whole. However, quantitative surveys usually have the flattest, least nuanced data, and they can only ever reflect what questions and choices people in the survey were given. In something like focus groups or individual interviews or ethnographies, you still structure what you ask people, but they can go “off script.” They can say things you never anticipated (as a researcher) and can explain themselves and their answers with more depth. In a survey, participants can only “say” what they survey lets them say based on the questions and question responses that are pre-baked for them. And as I’ve already explained, a lot of times these quantitative surveys are written by people with no expertise in media, fiction, or textual analysis, and so they often are asking very basic, not very useful questions. In sum, the data that is the most relied upon is the least informative, least nuanced data. It is also the MOST likely to reflect the responses of people who don’t actually qualify for the research but have become good at scamming the system to make extra money. With qualitative research, they are usually a little more careful screening people (poorly qualified participants still make it through, but not as often as with mass surveys, where I suspect a good 35% of participants, at least, probably do not actually qualify for the research and are just working the system). 

Most commonly, when market research gets reported to business decision-makers, it highlights the quantitative data, and uses the qualitative data to simply ‘color in’ the quantitative data. Give it a face, so to speak. Qualitative data is usually supplemental to quant data and used more to make the reports ‘fun’ and ‘warm’ because graphs and charts and stats by themselves are boring to look at in a meeting. (I’m not making this up, I can’t tell you how many times I was told to make adjustments on how things were reported on because they didn’t want to bore people in the meeting). (Sub-point – it is also worth noting that you can’t report on anything that doesn’t fit easily on a power point slide and isn’t easily digestible to any random person who might pick it up and read it. The amount of times I was told to simplify points and dumb things down so it could be made ‘digestible’ for a business audience, I can’t even tell you. It was soul crushing and another reason I stopped doing this job full time. I had to make things VERY dumb for these business audiences, which often meant losing a lot of the point I was actually trying to make) Point 5.1 – Because of the way that representative sampling works, quantitative data can be very misleading, particularly in understanding audience/fandom sentiments about media. As I’m sure most of you know, sampling is typically designed to be representative of the population, broadly speaking. So, unless a media company is specifically out to understand LGBTQ consumers or Hispanic/Latinx consumers, it will typically sample using census data as a template and represent populations that way. Roughly 50/50 male/female. Roughly even numbers in different age brackets, roughly representative samplings of the racial make-up of the country, etc. (FYI, they do often include a non-binary option in the gender category these days, but it usually ends up being like 5 people out of 2000, which is not enough of a sample to get statistical significance for them as a distinct group)   There is a good reason to do this, even when a show or movie has a disproportionately female audience, or young audience. Because they need enough sample in all of the “breaks” (gender, race, age, household income, etc.) to be able to make statistically sound statements about each subgroup. If you only have 35 African American people in your sample of 1000, you can’t make any statistically sound statements about that African American cohort. The sample is just too small. So, they force minimums/quotas in a lot of the samples, to ensure they can make statistically sound statements about all the subgroups they care about. They use ratings data to understand what their audience make up actually is. (Which also has major failings, but I’ll leave that alone for the minute) With market research, they are not usually looking to proportionately represent their audience, or their fandom; they are looking to have data they can break in the ways they want to break it and still have statistically significant subgroups represented. But that means that when you report on the data as a whole sample – which you often do – it can be very skewed towards groups who don’t make up as large a portion of the show’s actual audience, or even if they do, they don’t tend to be the most invested, loyal, active fans. Men get weighted equally to women, even when women make up 65% of the audience, and 80% of the active fandom. Granted, they DO break the data by gender, and race, and age, etc. and if there are major differences in how women versus men respond, or younger people versus older people, they want to know that...sometimes. But here’s where things get complex. So, if you are doing a sample of Supernatural viewers. And you do the standard (US census-based) sampling on a group of 2000 respondents (a pretty normal sample size in market research). ~1000 are going to be female. But with something they call “interlocking quotas” the female sample is going to be representative of the other groupings to a degree. So, the female sample will have roughly equal numbers of all the age brackets (13-17, 18-24, 25-34, etc.). And it will have roughly 10% non-heterosexual respondents, and so on. They do this to ensure that these breaks aren’t too conflated with each other. (For example, if your female sample is mostly younger and your male sample is mostly older, how do you know whether it is the gender or the age that is creating differences in their responses? You don’t. So, you have to make sure that all the individual breaks (gender, race, age) have a good mix of the other breaks within them, so groups aren’t getting conflated) But what that means is, Supernatural, whose core fandom is (at a conservative guess) 65% younger, queer, women, gets represented in a lot of statistical market research sampling as maybe 50-100 people, in a 2000-person survey. 50-100 people can barely move the needle on anything in a 2000-person survey. Furthermore, usually in the analysis of data like this, you don’t go beyond looking at 2 breaks simultaneously. So you may look at young female respondents as a group, or high income male respondents, or older white respondents, but you rarely do more than 2 breaks combined. And the reason for that is, by the time you get down to 3 breaks or more (young, Hispanic, women) you usually don’t have enough sample to make statistically significant claims. (It also just takes longer to do those analyses and as I explained in the beginning, they are always rushing this stuff). To do several breaks at a time you’d have to get MUCH larger samples, and that’s too expensive for them. And again, I want to stress, this type of sampling isn’t intended to sinisterly erase anyone. Kind of the opposite. It is intended to make sure most groups have enough representation in the data that you can make sound claims about them on the subgroup level. The problem is that it can create a very skewed sense of their overall audience sentiment when they take the data at ‘face value’ so to speak, and don’t weight segments based on viewership proportion, or fandom engagement, etc. Point 5.2 – Which leads me to my next point, which is that fandom activity that doesn’t have a dollar amount attached to it doesn’t make you a ‘valuable’ segment in their minds. One of the breaks they ALWAYS ask for in data like this is high income people, and people who spend a lot of MONEY on their media consumption. And they do prioritize those people’s responses and data quite a bit.   And guess what – young women aren’t usually high-income earners, and although some of them are high spenders on media, high spending on media and media related merch skews toward higher income people just because they HAVE more disposable income. Older white men are usually the highest income earners (absolutely no surprise) and they are more likely in a lot of cases to report spending a lot on the media they care about. Having expendable income makes you more important in the eyes of people doing market research than if you’ve spent every day for the last 10 years blogging excessively about Supernatural. They don’t (really) care about how much you care. They care about how much money you can generate for them. And given that young audiences don’t watch TV live anymore, and they give all their (minimal) expendable income to Netflix and Hulu, you with your Supernatural blog and your 101 essays about Destiel is all but meaningless to many of them (from a business standpoint) Now, some of them kind of understand that online fandom matters to the degree that fandom spreads. Fandom creates fandom. But if the fandom you are helping to create is other young, queer women with minimal income who only watch Supernatural via Netflix, well, that’s of very limited value to them as well. I don’t want to suggest they don’t care about you at ALL. Nor do I want to suggest that the “they” we are talking about is even a cohesive “they.” Different people in the industry have different approaches to thinking about fandom, consumer engagement and strategy, market research and how it ought to be understood/used, and so on. They aren’t a monolith. BUT, they are, at the end of the day, a business trying to make money. And they are never going to place the value of your blogging ahead of the concrete income you can generate for them. (Also, highly related to my point about people lying, men are more likely to SAY they have higher incomes than they do, because it’s an ego thing for them. And women are more likely to downplay how much money they spend on ‘frivolous’ things like fandom because of the social judgement involved. Some of the money gender disparity you see in media market research is real, but some of it is being generated by the gender norms people are falsely enacting in market research– men being breadwinners, women wanting to avoid the stereotype of being frivolous with money) *** In sum/tl;dr: Point 1 – Market research in general is not well conducted because of a variety of constraints including time, money, and the historical norms of how the industry operates (e.g., there being a large subsection of almost professionalized respondents who know how to game the system for the financial incentives) Point 2 – Media is a highly atypical kind of product being studied more or less as if it were equivalent to a coffeemaker or a pair of jeans. Point 3 – Most of the people studying media consumption in the market research field have no expertise or background in media, film, narrative, storytelling, etc. They are primarily people who were trained as social scientists and statisticians, and they aren’t well equipped to research media properties and people’s deeper emotional attachment and meaning-making processes related to media properties. Point 4(etc.) – Average consumers typically don’t have enough self-awareness or the vocabulary to explain the deep, underlying reasons they like pieces of media. Furthermore, when participating in market research, people lie and misrepresent their thoughts, behaviors, and emotional responses for a variety of reasons including social awkwardness and preserving certain self-narratives like “I’m above caring about dumb, low-brow things like romance.” Point 5 (etc.) – Quantitative data is treated as way more meaningful, valuable, and ‘accurate’ than qualitative data, and this is a particular problem with media market research because of how varied and complex people’s reactions to media can be. Also, the nature of statistical sampling, and how it is done, can massively misrepresent audience sentiments toward media and fail to apprehend deeper fandom sentiments and dynamics. There is also a strong bias towards the responses of high income/high spending segments, which tend to be older and male and white. Side but important point – Research reports are written to be as entertaining and digestible as possible, which sounds nice in theory, but in practice it often means you lose much of the substance you are trying to communicate for the sake of not boring people or making them feel stupid/out of their depth. (Because god forbid you make some high-level corporate suit feel stupid) *** What can be done about this? Well, the most primary thing I would recommend is for you to participate in market research, particularly if you are American (there’s a lot of American bias in researching these properties, even when they have large international fanbases). However, some international market research is done and I recommend looking into local resources for participation, where ever you are. If you are American, there are now several market research apps you can download to your smart phone and participate in paid market research through (typically paid via PayPal). Things like dscout and Surveys On the Go. And I know there are more. You should also look into becoming panelists for focus groups, particularly if you live near a large metropolitan area (another bias in market research). Just Google it and you should be able to figure it out fairly easily. Again, it is PAID, and your perspective will carry a lot more weight when it is communicated via a focus group or a dscout project, versus when it is shouted on Twitter. However, that’s merely a Band-Aid on the bigger issue, which I consider to be the fact that businesspeople think the Humanities is garbage, even when they make their living off it. There is virtually no respect for the expertise of fictional textual analysis, or how it could help Hollywood make better content. And I don’t know what the fix is for that. I spent 4 years of my life trying to get these people to understand what the Humanities has to offer them, and I got shouted down and dismissed so many times I stopped banging my head against that wall. I gave up. They don’t listen, mostly because conceding to the value of deep-reading textual analysis as a way to make better content would threaten the whole system of how they do business. And I mean that literally. So many people’s jobs, from the market researchers to the corporate strategists to the marketing departments to the writers/creatives to the C-level executives, would have to radically shift both their thinking and their modes of business operation and the inertia of ‘that’s the way it’s always been done’ is JUST SO POWERFUL. I have no earthly idea how to stop that train, let alone shift it to an entirely different track. BTW, if you want the deeper level of analysis of why I can’t stop rewatching Moneyball now that it’s been added to Netflix, the above paragraph should give you a good hint

what do you think about obara?

Hi there!

Obara would be my third favorite Sand Snake after Sarella and Elia.

Obara Sand always walked too fast. She is chasing after something she can never catch, the prince had told his daughter once, in the captain's hearing. (AFFC, The Captain of Guards)

My goodness, what could it be?

Oh, right. Her mother. Her identity. Her sense of self.

She is the reason I can never ever truly like Oberyn.

“I am the whore's whelp, or had you forgotten?" (AFFC, The Captain of Guards)

No matter how heartbreaking Oberyn’s determination to get justice for Elia’s murder, I can never forgive him for this.

"The day my father came to claim me, my mother did not wish for me to go. 'She is a girl,' she said, 'and I do not think that she is yours. I had a thousand other men.' He tossed his spear at my feet and gave my mother the back of his hand across the face, so she began to weep. 'Girl or boy, we fight our battles,' he said, 'but the gods let us choose our weapons.' He pointed to the spear, then to my mother's tears, and I picked up the spear. 'I told you she was mine,' my father said, and took me. My mother drank herself to death within the year. They say that she was weeping as she died." Obara edged closer to the prince in his chair. "Let me use the spear; I ask no more."

(AFFC, The Captain of Guards)

Oberyn not only suddenly came to take her away from her mother. He did not come to offer her a “better life”, or do his duty to her as her father.

He made her choose.

He demonstrated an absolutely despicable abuse of power. He shows up out of the blue after presumably no contact and no support, assaults and humiliates her mother, a woman already on the very edge of society, and then makes Obara choose between this distorted image of victimized weakness, and his own power. Female tears vs. his phallic symbol. It’s a false dichotomy, the birth place of “not like other girls”, of internalized misogyny, of self-hatred.

She cannot have both. She cannot love both. She must disdain one to reap any benefit from the other. It is a horrifying violation. He erases half of her identity by dragging it through the dirt and creating a clear distinction between himself and his offer, and the woman who has been Obara’s caretaker all her life up to then. Her own mother. Her own sex.

We know that the young red-haired prostitute died trying to save her daughter, little Barra, while Robert had not lifted a finger to support them, and only had scorn for the girl’s choice of name. Was she weak?

Even her mother’s grief and desperate end is turned into a weapon against Obara, instead of proof of her mother’s love, it is proof of her mother’s supposed worthlessness. She must hate her mother because to stop would be to recognize that her father, her sole source of security in the world, was a monster to do this. She must cling to this phallic symbol of a weapon because Oberyn tainted all alternatives. The whore’s whelp she calls herself, spitting on her mother every time.

When she arrives at Sunspear to confront Doran about Oberyn’s death, she asks for troops and permission to sack Oldtown. Her hometown. For the wealth of the Hightowers, supposedly, but somehow her first instinct upon the news of her father’s demise is to attack the place she herself came from, her mother’s city. Begging to use the spear.

Perhaps it is the only way she knows how to express her pain, as Oberyn stole her tears. Self-destruction.

Even Nymeria understands there is a personal motive outside of Oberyn’s death.

“Obara would have me go to war.”

Nym laughed. “Yes, she wants to set the torch to Oldtown. She hates that city as much as our little sister loves it.” (AFFC, The Captain of Guards)

Obara is the only one of the elder Sand Snakes for whom GRRM constructs this kind of look back at her "acquisition" into the royal family, and I sincerely doubt that it is accidental. It is the one that matters, the one that is the most illustrative.

Nymeria has her noble Volantene mother’s beauty and bearing.

Tyene is said to carry her mother’s innocent appearance, and received a religious education at least thorough enough to enable her to “ingratiate herself” with the new high septon. It is, of course, a cynical facade.

Sarella proudly practices the marksmanship of the Summer Islanders of her mother’s heritage.

But Elia and Obara both show the real cracks that counter this hazy facade of the fierce Eight Sand Snakes, liberal Oberyn‘s loyal and independent daughters. They are all an extravagant self-indulgence on Oberyn’s part, created wherever he went and then picked up like a shiny tourist trinket. They all must revolve around him, the reflections of Oberyn in the looking glass of their mothers.

No," Elia broke in. "You're the one they'll want to ransom. You're the heir to Dorne, I'm just a bastard girl. Your father would give a chest of gold for you. My father's dead." (TWOW, Arianne II)

Elia, bless her, has her mother to lean on and still she keenly feels the legal reality of her position. Obara does not even have that. 

Sarella out of all the elder Sand Snakes, seems to be the most emotionally independent. She is the only one NOT around all the others in Dorne, and while she follows her father’s footsteps in Oldtown, she practices her mother‘s traditional archery and emphasizes her.

Alleras smiled back at him. "I only buy for friends. And I am no lord's son, I've told you that. My mother was a trader." (AFFC, Prologue)

This healthier balance, this valuing regard for her mother’s heritage (unlike Tyene's pretense) is what makes Sarella truly remarkable to me. She is not hot-headed nor does she seem to be boiling with a thinly veiled fury. She does not seem to advocate for murder, but we see her muse about feeding the people. She is serene, like the black swans on the Godseye, like the swanships, with a steady hand and a sure intention. Whatever exactly that intention may be. Ironically, sexism forces Sarella into a masculine role, as well. But it is a deliberate mask, elegantly worn. Freely worn. Unlike Obara's struggle.

The character in whom I see most parallels with Obara Sand is Jon Snow in his current iteration.

Ned, well-meaning though he may have been, robbed Jon of half of his identity and left him with an image that is considered tainted by the world around him. His mother is as inaccassible as Obara’s mother, emotionally, though for different reasons. Their father’s choices left both of them emotionally crippled to a degree. One mother was erased by silence, rendered invisible. The other, worse, was erased by violent and verbal degradation.

Consequently, it is Obara we see the most seemingly “unhinged”, when she is introduced, the most overtly violent, the most “unfeminine”. This is not an expression of personal taste, nor a handy mask. It is a grim adherence to the choice she was offered.

She is almost thirty, and came to Dorne almost two decades earlier, well before Elia’s murder.

"It has been twenty years, or near enough to make no matter.” (AFFC, The Captain of Guards)

She was somewhere between Sansa’s and Arya’s current age when Elia was killed. Does she perceive the contradiction in Oberyn living for vengeance for Elia, when he treated her own mother not so very very differently? He did not kill her truly, but he erased her just the same, with a violent contempt. A "weak woman", with only tears for weapons, her child ripped from her.

If Obara sees it, she is not letting on. She craves violence. She craves an expression of power to put something where tears might have their place. The way she was taught.

Of course, it would be boring if that is where it was truly headed. Much like Aegon and Jon, much also like Asha Greyjoy who adapted to an extremely male-dominated society, Obara would probably benefit from turning away from her father's looming shadow to a certain degree. I have some hope that GRRM will make room to explore it.

Obara is given a quest of justice and distraction: Darkstar. "Beard him in his den", as Arianne travels to "beard the dragon".

Your Speculation here (by @sayruq) is extremely interesting, placing Obara in the line of defense of peaceful children at the watergardens. The same children she had dismissed earlier, like the child she was not allowed to be. Wielding that spear not for vengeance or self-glorification but in the way it should be wielded: to defend those soft weak things that are precious.

I really hope this is where it's headed, and I really hope she will find her peace in that role.

Short Story: Traveling Secretary

Female’s Point of View - Compounds

I’m not quite sure why my Boss always insists on bringing me on his business trips. I know I’m good at my job and keep his private files perfectly organized, but I hardly need to come along when he goes on his week long business trips. I understand that it lets him worry about his meetings instead of organizing his presentations. But really... I’m so good that I could easily prepare everything before his trip. But he insists! So who am I to protest? I get to travel free everywhere in the world! Furthermore, I get loads of free time while he is at his meetings. I can sightsee, explore the local cultures... And go shopping!!!

My shopping sprees abroad have become legendary among my friends! I get to shop everywhere around the globe making them green with envy! And... Just between us... I get to charge some of it to the company credit card! How awesome is that? Like this little number! So insanely sexy! I love it so much I keep wearing it under my clothes! Makes me feel extra naughty! Come to think of it... I hardly ever wear regular underwear anymore... I keep wearing sexy lingerie all day. Huh... Seems my personal tastes evolved with the awesome access I get to high end lingerie. Anyway! I love my job! So I make sure to always be extra nice to my Boss on these long trips. I get up early and make myself elegant, yet stunning. I don’t care how long it takes me as long as I can look at myself in the mirror and see a gorgeous woman. I’m no dummy, I know he hired me as much for my talents as to admire my curves. I’m used to it and I don’t mind as long if it stays professional. I then go to the lobby and order him a large double espresso and prepare it just the way he likes it. I might be a secretary, but I view myself more as a very talented personal assistant. I go back to his room and enter with the key he always gives me. But I only do so at the exact time he needs to be up. Not a minute before and certainly not a minute after. I always imagine I’m the reason he’s never late. But really... He’s always awake and out of his morning shower when I come in. I serve him his drink, just like I do at work, and we have a morning meeting about the day’s business. Watching him start to sip his perfectly prepared beverage always reminds me to start sipping my own morning shake. I've never told my boss, but ever since he helped me discover this miracle shake, I've become rather addicted to it. Why wouldn't I? It starts my day off with all the health boosting nutrients I need to keep my gorgeous figure and has the added bonus of making my mind super efficient and clear. No excess thoughts or worries to be had once I start drinking it. He told me this shake was the secret to his success and was based on an old herbal concoction of some kind. I never really paid much attention to his explanation of the details, I was just happy I discovered it! It's become my own secret weapon and has made my job so much easier. Now, I’m so good that my mind goes on cruise control during our routine morning meetings. I’m so prepared for all his questions that I don’t really pay attention to what we are doing and just answer as my brain goes on autopilot. And I can just relax and let the delicious effects of my shake work their way through my body... Leaving me with a very distinct and, as I said before, addicting pleasure tingle. Which I would never dream of telling my Boss about! Anyway, before I know it I’m back in my room! Time always flies by in the morning. We can’t waste too much time or else he’ll be late for his meetings. But he never rushes me out or anything. No... My Boss is sweet and considerate. The best example of this would be how he always offers to reserve space in his luggage for my special morning shakes. I can always taste it on my lips after he leaves. So delicious and nutritious! After that I’m free to spend the day however I want! Which ends up with me shopping for more hot little numbers. I’m always back in my room well before he finishes his day though. I don’t want him waiting around for me! Especially since he usually brings me out to a fancy restaurant for dinner while we talk about his meetings. I always keep an elegant dress or 2 in my luggage just in case. I know I take forever to get ready, but I know it is worth it when I notice his wandering eyes. I kind of love to see his lust for me. Even if he keeps things completely professional. It just means he’ll be more likely to bring me out on his trips! After that, we take a nightcap at the hotel bar before parting ways and retreating to our respective rooms. A girl needs her beauty sleep after all! I get in my room and take a long hot shower before putting on my sexy lingerie. It’s so strange that I always feel like wearing those on our trips. I just can’t help myself! After I prepare everything for the next busy day, I lie down on the bed and let the steady sound of the air system guide me to sleep... I’m not sure why I like to go to bed with my underwear. Especially since I always seem to wake up naked... Come to think of it, it is pretty odd that I sleep so much on our trips. I’m usually more of a night person. I just feel compelled to get a good night’s sleep on our long trips. Which doesn’t seem to rest me at all because I always wake up exhausted and admittedly, deliciously sore in all the right places! ​Anyway! It's time for me to get ready for dinner and I don't want to be late. Especially since tonight is our last night of the trip and my Boss always has this big recap meeting with me in his room so we can organize every meeting and contracts he worked on during our trip. I'll come clean and admit that those are always super boring... I'm so good that I already know every detail we are going to go over. But my Boss insists and I can't disobey his wishes when it comes to our work. Plus, ever since I discovered my special shakes, I've found that I can just turn my mind off when we get into those types of meetings. HA! I remember the LONG meeting we had on our last trip, I zoned out and did my usual thing. You know, just being the awesome secretary that I am... And then, the next thing I know, I was back in my room! Easy peasy! But I do remember that I must have been the one doing all the talking for that particular meeting though... Why else would my mouth feel so sore? Anyway, I hope he hasn't planned for more of the same for our wrap up meeting tonight, but if he did, I'm sure I'll perform perfectly for my Boss. As I always do...

In The Fairest Season ~ Part 1

18+ only- oral sex, strong sexual content see Masterlist for full warnings

~ ~

LATE SEPTEMBER

The field of pale long grass dotted by wild flowers, bends and sways in time with the distant waves far below the cliffs, its waters cold and black, its peaks bright white. There is no distinction between the sound of the wild, hidden shoreline and the wind whipping through the blades of grass which spread out like that wide sea far into the distance. This place is untamed, and completely unbothered by her.

She is sitting, still as a stone in its middle, like a fixed spot in time.

She, is soft morning beauty, and quiet, contemplative grace. She should seem out of place along the lonely Sokovian coast but instead it is hard to imagine her any where else but here.

She is the vision of life and love and a second chance at both, and she, is you.

The Baron is watching as you take a deep, slow breath of the country air, so clear and easy to inhale that it makes you a little sad to know that this has been here all along and you are only just beginning to explore it.

The city was wonderful in so many ways when it was all you’d ever known, but out here you realize just how shut in you’ve been, living between the press of stone and steel, breathing in the thick smoke of industry.

When the Baron first asked you to come, you’d feared leaving the excitement, pollution or not, but one look into his eyes and you’d been persuaded. You would do anything just to see them shine and his love had burned as bright as the sun when you said yes.

“Are you hungry? Breakfast is ready.”

Helmut’s voice is soft as the morning wind that lifts your hair and strokes your cheek. You’d felt his presence but only now do you turn to look up at him and find the man gazing down at you in his morning finery. A jacket and vest, the gold chain of his pocket watch catching the faint sunlight, his boots black and shining in the grass. Even at this hour he is every bit the Baron.

You feel next to naked in the white nightgown you’d snuck out in, but you wanted to feel the air on your skin and the earth beneath your feet. Sokovia should be experienced with all of the senses. You’d decided this the moment you arrived, and while your unrefined ways will be the talk of the servants quarters, you could not care less what they whisper about. This is your home now and you wish to know it.

“I am actually.” You answer and do little to hide your smile as you think to yourself that after last night, you could eat him out of house and home, but you’re too shy to say this out loud. However Helmut is an astute man and reads your face easily. He knows what you’re thinking of which draws out his own smile and he extends his hand to help you up.

When you are on your feet and at his side, he slips his arm around your waist and pulls you close to lead you back towards the stone wall that separates his land from the fields and cliffs and sea.

“You’re feeling well?” He asks, eyes fixed ahead though you can hear his sweet concern for you. You know why he’s asking, and a shiver of pleasure shoots through your belly as you shut your eyes remembering.

He held your wrists tighter as he thrust into you, faster, harder— it is overwhelming, but you love him— you cling to him, awed that this works, that he fits. A tear streams down the side of your face as you gasp wanting to scream from the sheer joy of it.

“Perfectly.” You answer opening your eyes and feeling a flush as you glance up. The memory makes your breath shallow as you speak. “I’ve never known such a perfect morning.” You hope he understands how deeply you mean it. The absolute only thing that compares, is the feeling of euphoria that washes over you while onstage. It happens just as you’ve completed an aria and the audience sits in silence, too overcome by your voice to react until they finally break out into applause. That, is what loving him, and being loved feels like.

As you walk together he leans over to kiss the top of your hair, still wild from sleep. He feels the same sort of untethered joy in this morning as you. The way he inhales your scent makes your heart flutter.

“I realize” He says walking upright again. “I don’t know what you like for breakfast, so I’ve had the cook prepare a little of everything for you to try.”

Your eyes dart up in the direction of the house. From here you can only see the east tower peaking up over the crest of the walled hill. “That’s so much trouble! I only need something small, an egg, a piece of toast.” You shrug.

Helmut laughs and shakes his head at you. He reaches and lays the hand not wrapped around your waist against your face bringing you close so that he may kiss your cheek. “A small breakfast may have been enough for you, the singer. But not you, the Baroness.” He says playfully, lips still touching your skin.

You melt against his warmth and think that while he may be right, it doesn’t matter. You like eggs and toast. “And as the new Baroness, I’ve decided on eating what I always have.” You say with your best voice of authority. “Wait.”

He halts the march towards home and looks down at you, his brow raised as he waits.

“I’d like some jam too actually. Mmm Raspberry.” You sigh and shut your eyes.

Helmut truly laughs now stepping around to block your path just before the break in the wall. “You can have all the raspberry jam in Sokovia. Please, Voljena, darling girl allow yourself to enjoy this life, it is yours for as long as you draw breath.” He says softly with his hands on either side of your face. “I know, it will take time to adjust, but I only want to see you happy."

You hold onto his wrist, sliding your hand over the back of his larger one. “Helmut… Happy is such a simple word, it’s a shame there isn’t a better one. I feel so many things all at once. But I promise I will say the words I feel in my heart as soon as I know them.”

His worry melts away to a look of content and he leans in to kiss you.

When his hands migrate down to your shoulders, his thumb stroking the soft line of your collar bone, he pulls away and glances down, chuckling softly. “As beautiful as you look out here in your nightgown, perhaps a coat next time?”

You laugh and blush embarrassment. “I like the cool air. And I thought I could come and go before anyone noticed I’d gone.”

He shakes his head and holds the back of your neck, “I knew. I felt the bed empty.” He says, his gaze slowly moving across your face, lingering on your lips.

You feel your knees go a bit weak. He does know how to make a woman feel wanted with the simplest of words. “I’m sorry I woke you.” You say, secretly happy to know that your absence was enough to rouse him.

“No, no don’t apologize. I’m pleased to see that you want to know my homeland.”

“Yes, but its mine now too, isn’t it?” You ask glancing out at the beautifully moody landscape.

Helmut nods and looks you over as though the love he feels physically hurts in the best of ways. “Yes, all of it. Everything I have is yours moja ljubavi” He whispers and kisses you again.

My love. Each time he says it you feel your heart swell.

He pulls you close in a way that sparks more memories of last night. They flicker, quick as a candles flame —his elegant fingers turning to fists as he pulls your nightgown over your head leaving you naked and vulnerable. But Helmut is kind and gentle as he touches parts of you that have been aching for this. He kisses and strokes, grabs and pulls until you lay on the bed nearly begging for him— you had not known that you could want something you’d never had so badly until last night.

When he takes your waist in hand now and turns you around so that he can walk you to the wall, your back finds the stones and he kisses you with a renewed enthusiasm. His mouth dragging from your lips to kiss along your jaw and into the curve of your neck.

You shut your eyes and run your fingers through his thick hair as he makes his way to your breast, your nipples pushing against the thin cotton of your shift, their color showing through the nearly sheer fabric and even you can see how badly they long for his attention.

“I want you here.” You breathe, pushing your head back against the wall, moaning from the anticipation.

Helmut glances up at you. The heavy look of desire in his eyes is a reflection of your own. He takes your left side in hand, lifting to suck your sensitive flesh through the material and you bite your lip, little moans and shivers your uncontrollable response to his mouth on your covered breast.

Releasing your nipple which now feels cold without his attention, Helmut reaches down and gathers your shift, raising until your lower half is exposed.

Your eyes meet.

Helmut's smile so often walks the thinnest of lines, you imagine he could so easily go towards darkness especially with what you know him to be capable of. But you are drawn to this and to him like a moth to the flame.

Holding your breath, you wait. Wanting him, completely unsure and a little afraid of what it is he will do. And then you feel his hand, warm and strong rub down over your mound of silky  hair to the soft skin below; the gold ring on his little finger is cool against your skin.

He strokes a small circle with his fingers pressed close together, much like he did in bed, watching you to see your reaction. You try to hold back but even this simple stimulation feels so good that your mouth opens with a sound you thought you could only make under the cover of night.

Helmut smiles wider and nods for you to take the hem of your shift. “Hold it up.” He says. You quickly grip the night dress tight against your stomach as he goes to his knees —lord, in his beautiful trousers, you grin— and looks up at you, but not at your face.

The way he stares boarders on sacrilegious. He kneels before your alter of lovely folds and glistening skin like a man seeking penance before the only true thing he believes in.

His thumb strokes, parting you just enough that he may tease himself with the view and you hear him humming a deep moan. He takes hold of your ankle and moves your leg out so that your thighs are farther apart before using both hands to spread you, exposing your most intimate places to the wind and you toss your head back, holding onto his shoulders as he dives in to praise you as you’ve never felt before.

This did not happen last night.

You gasp loudly—shocked and resistant— but he grabs your thighs, sliding his hands up and around to your backside, holding you tight, burying his face in the heat of your center until you fear he won’t be able to breath… and then he starts to move his mouth and you think, let him die if this is how he goes.

Laughing as you moan, your eyes roll shut, feeling his tongue swirl and lap, exploring and playing as much as he is working towards something.

You’ve heard of this? Heard the other theatre girls laughing about the skill of the different Lords who see your kind as fair game, but you’ve managed to avoid their honeyed words and empty promises, instead dedicating your life to your singing.

But this man… every word from his lips has been as true as his tongue.

He starts to suck at that place only you have ever touched before last night and when the perfectly crude movements combine with the trust and love you cary for him, you realize what it is he wants to make happen.

It almost did before, but you were so overwhelmed and nervous. It was incredible to know that you could make him climax, powerful even. But how would he ever be able to do the same for you when you needed more than he did.

Now you understand.

With your hands full of the shift and his hair, you feel the pressure begin to mount. Opening your eyes you look out past the field to the distant water that looks as calm and still as the sky. Helmut is rolling his tongue around the peak of your clitoris slowly, so slowly you can’t stand it. It makes you want to scream and you feel your chest tighten as you tilt your hips forward urging him to never stop.

So this is what it feels like…

You dare to look down, watching his head move which makes you smile with a rush of love and appreciation for his efforts. A gasping laugh rushes from your lungs as he runs his tongue from opening to peak, and you catch a glimpse of his mouth wet and shining when he pulls back to take a breath.

You involuntarily moan his name and pull at his hair, needing more with an urgency you will be ashamed to admit to when this is over, but for now it’s all you want.

You feel him chuckle against your skin before continuing. He sucks your clitoris into his mouth and batters it with his tongue until you can only cling to him and let the wind carry the loudest of your cries away from the keen ears of the servants just behind the wall.

The rise begins again, and though you've known it before—alone in your bed, quietly sighing into the dark— this is new and as your body insists you feel it not only there but seemingly everywhere, you succumb to the wonderful shock of your first given orgasm.

Pulsing against his mouth, your eyes fixed on the sea as you come, you fight the urge to fall to the ground as your thighs flex against his face while Helmut laps at your tight entrance. He swallows your sticky sweetness as though it is the elixir to long life.

When he does finally pull away, you drop your shift and wrap your arms around his neck and head, thankful for his strong and steady arms that hold you up.

Helmut lets go with one arm to run the back of his hand across his mouth with a smile. He looks up at you, and suddenly the strongest urge to taste yourself on his lips takes hold which surprises you. But the moment you bend and kiss him, you understand why.

There are so many levels to the connection between the two of you. Of course it is not new, this sort of love, but it is the first time you have ever felt it.

You inhale as you kiss and the sense of there being no start to him or end to you is intoxicating. There is only this single union that your love has formed.

Of course I’m happy— you think back to his heartfelt request before you’d both forgotten about breakfast— I am loved and satisfied. I am your wife.