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carewyncromwell · 3 years

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[Ficlet] Gonna Hit Rewind

Hi guys! So this is a little drabble inspired by a prompt by my friend @drinkyoursoupbitch, where I show what my MC, Carewyn Cromwell, was up to during a certain scene in the Harry Potter series!

Before we begin, just a couple of notes --

Post-Hogwarts, Carewyn becomes a lawyer for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement -- you can read more about her life as an adult here, if you’d like! When it comes to the Order of the Phoenix, Carey-Bear doesn’t formally join, instead providing covert assistance while staying autonomous from Dumbledore (who she doesn’t really like as a person) and looking “subservient” to Fudge’s wishes. Later on, this becomes very useful after the Death Eaters take over the Ministry in 1997: when the Battle of Hogwarts begins, Carewyn actually helps take back the Ministry by placing Umbridge under citizen’s arrest and temporarily taking charge until Kingsley Shacklebolt is officially appointed Minister. Carewyn’s outfit in the sketch enclosed below is inspired by this design. Musical accompaniment for this ficlet were “Leave Me Alone” by Michael Jackson (for Carewyn’s conversation with that...certain family member in the aforementioned sketch) and “Turn Back Time” by Derivakat (which inspired the title of this drabble!). And in regards to Carewyn’s negative attitude toward Time Turners...that is 110% my mother talking. When we read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child together, she absolutely hated that it involved time travel, as she found the whole idea ridiculously confusing and illogical. (The whole climax of Prisoner of Azkaban was even her least favorite aspect of the original Potter books. 😂)

Hope you enjoy -- and much love, Soup dear! xoxo

x~x~x~x

“Down here, down here,” panted Mr. Weasley, taking two steps at a time. “The lift doesn’t even come down this far…why they’re doing it there…”

They reached the bottom of the steps and ran along yet another corridor, which bore a great resemblance to that which led to Snape’s dungeon at Hogwarts, with rough stone walls and torches in brackets. The doors they passed here were heavy wooden ones with iron bolts and keyholes.

“Courtroom…Ten…I think…we’re nearly … yes.”

As Arthur Weasley rushed down the hall toward Courtroom Ten, he was unaware that in Courtroom Seven, the door of which was left slightly ajar, Carewyn Cromwell was speaking to her estranged uncle, the new head of the Cromwell Clan, at that very moment, nor that their conversation would ultimately determine Harry’s fate in that courtroom happening just three doors down.

“You’re not supposed to be here, Blaise, and you know that full well.”

“I merely wished to speak with the Minister, little Winnie -- you are aware of how much our family still supports the Ministry and, by extension, your career, are you not?”

Carewyn fixed Blaise with a very cold blue eye. “And I suppose Lucius Malfoy speaking with the Minister down here mere moments ago had nothing to do with you making an unscheduled visit?”

Blaise cocked his eyebrows, his identically colored and shaped eyes narrowing under them.

“I can sense you trying to enter my mind, Winnie,” he said very softly, his eyes rippling like light blue flames despite the hardness of his face. “It won’t work. You couldn’t reach my thoughts when you were a girl, and you can’t reach them now.”

His voice became cooler, to the point of sounding condescending.

“Whatever questions you have, you know your uncle would be more than willing to answer them, if you merely ask nicely.”

‘Answer’ -- ha! Carewyn thought to herself scornfully. Lie your face off, more like. But even so...if I’m going to get what I need, I need to keep him talking...

Carewyn went very quiet, considering Blaise carefully and her next words even more so.

“...Are you or are you not associating with Lucius Malfoy?” she asked softly.

“You might recall that he and Father were business associates back in the day.”

“Of course I do. That’s why I’m asking. Or have you forgotten where Grandfather’s activities sentenced him -- where they sentenced you, until you were able to bribe the Minister to reduce the rest of your family’s sentences?”

“Our family, little Winnie,” Blaise corrected her, a notable, fiery edge to his voice.

You all may be related to me by blood, but you are not my family, Carewyn thought fiercely, but she once again bit her tongue. If she provoked his temper the way she was tempted to, he’d be less likely to talk to her.

When she didn’t respond, Blaise continued.

“Lucius Malfoy has always had a working relationship with the Cromwell Clan. It’s only natural that we speak from time to time, as two patriarchs of prominent magical families.”

“Magical families with certain reputations, you mean,” Carewyn said very coolly.

“Cornelius Fudge thinks very highly of Lucius Malfoy.”

“And of you, thanks to your impressive acting. But that doesn’t extend to everyone else, and you know it.”

“Of course,” said Blaise with a very cool smirk. “That’s something we have in common, isn’t it, Winnie? Putting on a charming face to get what we want, and not caring who hates us for it?”

Carewyn didn’t care enough to argue this point -- she’d already had this sort of discussion with Rakepick several times back in the day, and she knew that it meant Blaise was not only trying to divert the conversation, but also was absolutely full of it.

You’re acting like this fact makes us just as bad as each other, Blaise, but it doesn’t. Even if we have some similarities in our methods, that does not make us the same. I’ve never terrorized people to try to advance myself. I’ve never manipulated or forced anyone to join a criminal organization. I’ve never masqueraded as my nephew in order to try to manipulate my niece into selling her soul and her freedom just to save him. However much I’m not perfect, I’m head-and-shoulders above you, when it comes to the moral high ground.

But honestly, there was no point in arguing with people like Blaise. It wasn’t like she’d ever convince him that everything he thought was wrong -- that Muggles weren’t inferior, Charles Cromwell was an abusive monster, and everything he and the Cromwell Clan did to try to get Carewyn, Jacob, and Lane back under their control was reprehensible rather than justified -- and she didn’t feel enough passion to try. Especially not when there were more important things happening at that very moment...

Harry would be in the courtroom by now. She had to hurry.

Although Carewyn tried to keep her face stoic, her brain was working very fast. Her eyes drifted away, off toward the far wall of the courtroom where the Wizengamot benches were lined up.

“...Look,” she said slowly, her voice becoming a little softer, “my Legilimency has become very sensitive, in this line of work. It allows me to read people’s intentions and feelings very quickly, even when I’m not actively trying to. And Lucius Malfoy...he doesn’t see you as an equal, but as a pawn.”

Blaise’s eyebrows came down over his eyes, but he didn’t respond.

“You and the rest of the Cromwell Clan only got out of Azkaban because you were able to appeal to Fudge,” said Carewyn, “but if you’re associating with the wrong people, that could very quickly sour. Your position will become uncertain again, and you won’t be able to protect them -- especially if Fudge gets the kind of control over the Wizengamot that he wants...where charges and judgments are laid down based on favoritism more than legality. We’re already seeing it with how Fudge is now treating Dumbledore and Potter, after how much he always sucked up to them. End up outside of Fudge’s good graces, as they did, and the same might befall you. I realize that you and Malfoy...”

Are Muggle-hating bigots.

“...have similar politics,” she said at last very stiffly, “...but Lucius Malfoy’s politics are far more extreme than yours, and although the courts decided there wasn’t enough evidence to prove his methods were also...we both know that’s also true. If he falls, he will drag you down with him -- and if you take the fall for his actions, he won’t lift a finger to help you.”

Carewyn forced herself to look Blaise in the eye.

“Grandfather’s dealings with R got you all in enough trouble. You bought yourself and the rest of...our family a second chance -- something many others did not get. Are you sure you want to endanger that?”

Blaise considered Carewyn very carefully as she spoke, his blue eyes boring into hers critically. By the end, they’d actually widened.

“...Are you actually expressing concern for us, Winnie?” he asked very lowly.

Carewyn scoffed. “Don’t misunderstand me, Blaise -- I don’t really think you all deserved a second chance in the first place, after everything you’ve pulled.”

Her blue eyes became a bit more solemn.

“But truthfully...I’m not that upset that you were released from Azkaban. Dementors...they’re wretched creatures. I’ve seen what they can do to people.”

Her expression darkened.

“...I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, however terrible they are.”

Something confused and almost disgusted rippled over Blaise’s face, making his nose wrinkle.

“Ugh -- and here I’d thought you’d actually weeded out that weakness in your heart...”

Carewyn’s red lips came together tightly, but she didn’t reply. The two stared each other down for a moment, before Blaise finally exhaled.

“Very well, Winnie -- you want to know why I’m down here?”

He reached into his scarlet robes and pulled out a gold chain, on the end of which dangled a tiny gold hourglass.

A Time Turner.

Carewyn’s eyes narrowed upon it.

“Lucius Malfoy has expressed quite a bit of interest in my old department, when we’ve spoken,” murmured Blaise. “One sub-section in particular -- one where records of magical predictions are kept.”

Carewyn’s eyebrows furrowed. “Prophecies?”

“They are truly a fascinating thing,” said Blaise, his voice sounding rather airy. “So much value is placed on them -- too much, one could argue...just as one puts too much value on all attempts at ‘future sight.’ Alas, the section of my old department that Malfoy was interested in was not my area of expertise -- my area was in the study of Time, specifically backwards-facing. We did occasionally dip into the study of forward-facing time magic, but more in the sphere of inevitabilities -- things that evolve naturally in nature, every season -- not human affairs. Unfortunately when I was there, there was an employee monitoring the perimeter of the section I meant to enter -- I couldn’t have explored further even if I’d wanted to.”

“So Malfoy wanted you to stop by your old desk and pick up something that might help him or someone else enter the Department of Mysteries?” Carewyn asked. “Why?”

Blaise shrugged. “He didn’t say.”

“And yet you have a suspicion as to why?”

Blaise’s eyes narrowed upon Carewyn’s face, not angrily, but almost darkly.

“I may no longer work for the Department of Mysteries, Winnie, but I cannot discuss the more classified branches of their work too deeply. That is part of the Vow I made when I first joined the Department -- it forces me to speak in hypotheticals and vague descriptions more than specific details. But I fear no random stooge using this tool to try to enter my old department, whether Malfoy or otherwise. In fact,” he added with a smirk, “I would frankly love to see them try.”

He ignored Carewyn’s critical, confused expression and pressed on more seriously.

“You’re not a stupid girl, Winnie. I know you know what’s really going on, under the surface. Me offering assistance to Lucius Malfoy early on is merely how I intend to earn enough favor to keep my family safe, should the worst happen.”

“And what is that?” asked Carewyn.

Blaise cocked his eyebrows again. “Ask your mother. She remembers the First Wizarding War just as well as I do -- how it all started before.”

He turned on his heel and headed for the door.

“Blaise.”

Carewyn speaking his name and sharply grabbing his arm holding the Time Turner made him stop.

“If you wish to provide Lucius Malfoy useful information,” she said lowly, “you can tell him that that employee was not there by accident.”

Blaise looked back over his shoulder, startled. Carewyn closed her eyes tight, trying to block out the intense nausea rippling over her.

“He’s there to make sure Malfoy’s superior can’t reach what he wants,” she murmured. “There are many more, just like him, all with the same goal. It doesn’t matter when you go there -- there will always be someone there who will keep him away from what he wants.”

Blaise stared at Carewyn, his eyes narrowing in bewilderment.

“...Why are you telling me this?” he whispered.

Carewyn swallowed back the lump in her throat.

“I haven’t worked with time magic like you have...but people aren’t supposed to be in two places at once. That I do know. A lot of problems have been caused by people trying to mess with time. Mum told me that once in the 19th century, a whole bunch of people’s lives were erased out of existence, all because someone messed around with a Time Turner...”

“Ah, yes, Eloise Mintumble,” said Blaise, sounding as darkly amused as a bully might upon seeing one of their usual targets wearing a particularly obnoxious dress. “Tried to go back more than a few hours and ended up changing things so dramatically that she both erased 25 people out of existence and aged her body five centuries and died upon return trip. A rather fascinating case study.”

“You’re disgusting,” Carewyn said coldly. But she got back to the task at hand, her voice hardening. “Even if Malfoy couldn’t get what his master wants from the Department of Mysteries with that Time Turner, he could still do irreparable damage with it. If all Malfoy needs is assistance, to believe that you’re helping him and for you to earn enough esteem that the Cromwell Clan stays safe...then give him the intelligence I’ve given you. Don’t give him that Time Turner.”

Blaise raised an eyebrow, his lips spreading into a rather condescending smirk. “Why? Because it’s wrong, little Winnie? Because it’s illegal and immoral, and ‘not the right thing to do?’”

“I’m not foolish enough to appeal to you with morality, Blaise -- I know you don’t have any,” spat Carewyn. “I’m asking you not to do it for your own self-preservation. For the Clan’s. ...For your family’s.”

Blaise’s smirk actually slid off his face. Carewyn held his gaze as best as she could, even with how ill she felt.

“I may not be one of those who takes turns standing watch in your old department,” Carewyn said very softly, “but Jacob is.”

Blaise’s face went rather white, and Carewyn knew she’d struck a cord. For as cruel, selfish, and immoral of a person as Blaise was, he still saw his family -- all of it -- like his personal belongings. And he “took care” of his belongings. He wanted complete control over them and, like Charles before him, he never respected them as people, nurtured them, or gave them any freedom...but Blaise didn’t want anyone touching “his things.”

The older man’s jaw clenched as a rather dark glint flashed through his eyes.

“...I see.”

His teeth still bared, he extended the hand holding the Time Turner’s gold chain and, very slowly, lowered it into Carewyn’s hand.

Carewyn’s eyes softened in relief.

“Thank you.”

Blaise exhaled heatedly through his nose.

“Jacob always was a fool,” he growled, his voice full of resentment. “Risking his life for people like that Muggle filth who abandoned you and your mother -- ”

“Better than selling his soul and freedom to serve the person who locked my mother and all of you up like prisoners,” Carewyn shot back rather coolly.

Blaise’s eyes flashed angrily. “You will not speak ill of your grandfather, Winnie! Everything he ever did in his life was for us, including you, your brother, and your mother, and I will not have you forgetting that!”

“Crow that lie as much as you want -- it won’t ever make it true.”

Blaise seethed as Carewyn pocketed the Time Turner in her robes. Slowly, his temper cooled enough that his lips spread back out into a rather vindictive smirk.

“For the record, Winnie...Time moves in a loop. If Lucius Malfoy were to use the Time Turner after I give it to him a half-hour from now, the effects would’ve already been felt by us by now. We would have heard about someone having broken into the Department of Mysteries before our conversation even started. The fact that we are not hearing that means that he never receives the Time Turner from me. So, in fact, it was already clear that I would give you the Time Turner before I actually did -- ”

“Oh, shut your trap,” Carewyn said tiredly. Just listening to Blaise wax on was giving her a headache. “I don’t even want to try unpacking all that time travel rubbish. All I care about is that Malfoy and his ilk can’t try to mess with time, now or ever.”

She turned on her heel and strode for the slightly ajar door. Pushing it further open, she then looked back over her shoulder at Blaise.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some business to take care of. Stay out of trouble, or I will not hesitate to prosecute you.”

Blaise’s eyes were very cold even around his smirk. “If there’s anyone who should be warned to stay out of trouble, it’s you, Winnie. I’m not the only one who’s aligned themselves with people who could drag them down, if they fall.”

“Perhaps,” said Carewyn mildly. “But my friends will catch me if I fall, just as they have before. Just like I always catch them. That makes all the difference.”

She walked away, her heels clapping against the black tiled floor as she strode to the end of the hall, listening at the door of Courtroom Ten. She could hear several voices talking inside -- after a moment, she recognized two as Amelia Bones and Cornelius Fudge.

“...certainly described the effects of a dementor attack very accurately. And I can’t imagine why she would say they were there if they weren’t -- ”

“But dementors wandering into a Muggle suburb and just happening to come across a wizard! The odds on that must be very, very long, even Bagman wouldn’t have bet -- ”

“Oh, I don’t think any of us believe the dementors were there by coincidence,” said a very misty, serene voice from inside the Courtroom.

Carewyn’s shoulders relaxed, even as her eyes rolled up toward the ceiling.

Dumbledore. He’d made it in time.

Exhaling heavily, Carewyn quickly turned back around and walked briskly back down the hallway, back upstairs toward her office. On the way, she walked by Blaise, who was now deep in quiet conversation with Lucius Malfoy, and Carewyn and Malfoy coldly stared each other down as she passed.

x~x~x~x

Carewyn hated keeping the Time Turner in her desk. She wanted to be rid of the thing immediately, but she knew she had to be patient.

Around 11:00, just before lunchtime, Carewyn asked to borrow a Dungbomb from Tonks and covertly dropped off it just outside the Auror Department on her way back to her tiny office. The resulting smell resulted in the entire floor clearing out, until someone could deal with the smell. Carewyn herself, however, stayed in her office and powered through, spraying some Muggle air freshener to try to mask the smell.

I forgot how much I hate Dungbombs, Carewyn thought dully. Oh well...desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess.

Keeping the files on a case she was working on open on either side of her, Carewyn read through them every-so-often as she pecked away at a letter she had to write. This letter had to be concise and to the point, if its recipient was going to know it was safe and exactly what she had to do, to help keep Harry Potter from getting unjustly expelled.

Right on time, three hours after Harry’s hearing, Carewyn’s Legilimency picked up the feeling that someone was approaching her office. A moment later, there was a knock on her door.

The ginger-haired lawyer exhaled heavily, her eyebrows knitting together.

“Come in,” she said.

Although she kept her voice level, she already felt a headache coming on. She knew who was on the other side of that door -- and sure enough, when it opened, in came tall, silver-bearded Albus Dumbledore, dressed in long midnight-blue robes.

Carewyn’s eyes hardened as the Hogwarts Headmaster closed the door behind him.

“Hello, Carewyn,” Dumbledore said pleasantly.

“You got my message from Tonks, then?” Carewyn asked.

“To come straight to your office as soon as I arrived, but to not let anyone see me entering? Yes. Though I daresay the evacuation of this floor thanks to the smell of Dungbombs helped with that considerably,” said Dumbledore, and his light blue eyes twinkled. “I presume it has something to do with why some members of the Wizengamot were asking what I was doing back here so soon, and why Cornelius looked even more sour at my presence than usual.”

Carewyn’s face was twisted in a deep frown as she finally took the Time Turner out of the drawer and put it on top of her desk.

“The time and place of Harry’s hearing was changed three hours ago, with no notice,” she said stridently. “The hearing originally scheduled for 11 o’clock instead was moved to 8 o’clock at 7:58 this morning. The letter was sent by owl to Privet Drive at 7:59, right before a second letter informing Harry that because he didn’t show up for his hearing, he was presumed guilty and therefore expelled from Hogwarts. Both letters arrived at 8:52. The Order wasn’t informed of the change until a little after 9, but was also informed by Arthur Weasley that you’d had the matter well in hand and had arrived miraculously early.”

“And so they felt no need to send me any post regarding the matter,” presumed Dumbledore with a dewy smile. “But in order for all of that to have happened, I will have to go back and ensure it does happen -- isn’t that so?”

Carewyn nodded curtly as she handed the Time Turner and a sealed envelope to Dumbledore.

“Three turns back should be enough -- you don’t want to risk changing too much, by arriving too early, and I have a closed-door meeting with Chester Davies prior to that. Give this letter to me as soon as you arrive in the past. As soon as she...escorts you out, head straight for Courtroom Ten. You should arrive just after Harry does -- it shouldn’t raise as much suspicion if you make it to the courtroom after Harry, since he was already in Arthur’s office when he first received word of the change...”

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled with some mischief. “Clever as always, Carewyn, my dear. You do the Order very proud.”

Carewyn’s eyes flashed. “I’m not doing this for you or your ‘Order,’ Dumbledore, as you know full well. Jacob was completely at R’s mercy after he was expelled from Hogwarts, and I don’t want to even think about where Potter might end up, if the same thing happened to him. And if Jacob’s guarding something in the Department of Mysteries, I don’t want to make it any easier for You-Know-Who and his goons to get the drop on him.”

Dumbledore’s calm didn’t shift, though his eyes did turn a bit more solemn. “And as always, Carewyn, your cleverness is only rivaled by your caring for others.”

Rising to his feet, the Headmaster tucked the envelope inside his robes and then picked up the Time Turner.

“I’ll be seeing you,” he said cheerily, “or, should I say, ‘I will have seen you?’”

And with three turns, he’d disappeared.

Carewyn gave an exhausted, groan-like sigh.

“I hate Time Turners,” she muttered to herself.

x~x~x~x

When Dumbledore appeared in Carewyn’s office out of the blue at 8 o’clock that morning, the ginger-haired lawyer reacted with a lot of irritation and suspicion. Those feelings weren’t helped when Dumbledore handed her the letter addressed to her, and yet written in a hand identical to hers.

Carewyn,

First of all, yes, I know you recognize this handwriting. This isn’t a trick -- it’s just the work of a Time Turner: specifically the one Dumbledore’s holding. On that note, ask him to hand it over and then smash it. We have more than enough problems in the here and now: no sense in adding more time travel rubbish to the pile.

Now that that’s been taken care of, let’s get to business --

The time and place of Harry’s hearing was moved just a minute ago. It now starts at 8 o’clock in the morning in Courtroom Ten. Don’t worry, Arthur’s already been notified and is ferrying Harry as we speak, but Dumbledore needs to get down there right now. Kick him out of your office, nice and loudly -- there are people outside who could overhear, and you don’t want anyone to think you and Dumbledore are on good terms. Which, fortunately, you’re not.

Now that Dumbledore’s out of your hair, let’s go over what you need to do --

Blaise has sneaked into the Ministry, specifically the bottommost floor near the Department of Mysteries, on Lucius Malfoy’s direction. No, Blaise isn’t a Death Eater -- just short-sighted and self-serving as ever. The point is that he has a Time Turner on his person, which he cannot be allowed to walk away with, under any circumstances. You’ll be able to catch him leaving the Department of Mysteries if you go downstairs in the next fifteen minutes. He’ll be meeting Lucius Malfoy around 8:30, in the middle of Harry’s hearing, so don’t let him walk away without getting that Time Turner away from him. Don’t come at the issue straight-on, though -- you can appeal to Blaise to give it to you willingly. Just keep him talking. Once you have the Time Turner, you can hold onto it until Dumbledore arrives in your office at the time that was originally scheduled for Harry’s hearing, so he can use it to go back far enough to arrive at Harry’s hearing on time.

I know, this Time Travel stuff is absolutely bloody ridiculous. But at least this way Malfoy won’t be able to use the Time Turner Blaise stole to cause even more havoc.

Burn this letter as soon as you’re done reading it. We don’t want anyone coming across it.

Good luck.

As for Dumbledore himself, he arrived at Harry’s hearing right on time, all according to plan.

“Ah,” said Fudge, who looked thoroughly disconcerted. “Dumbledore. Yes. You --er -- got our -- er -- message that the time and -- er -- place of the hearing had been changed, then?”

“I must have missed it,” said Dumbledore cheerfully. “However, due to a lucky mistake I arrived at the Ministry three hours early, so no harm done.”

#hphm #hogwarts mystery #my writing #harry potter #fanfiction #carewyn cromwell #albus dumbledore #cornelius fudge #amelia bones #blaise cromwell #lucius malfoy #time turners #AHHHHHH #YES IT ALL COMES TOGETHER #this took a while to write but it was worth it #but yeah my mum loathes time travel stories #she's a scientist at heart so the illogicality of them just drives her crazy #jacob honestly doesn't like working with dumbledore any more than carewyn does but he does see 'the greater good' of it #so he ends up being a guard not just for the prophecy but also later on for people escaping the death eaters #he likewise just barely evades ministry scrutiny enough to be able to hide people during the War #yes carewyn's choice ultimately does lead to negative fall-out like bode getting imperiused and arthur getting attacked by nagini #which of course carey-bear deeply regrets #but at the same time how much more damage might she have prevented? we'll never know #sometimes in war you have to make bad choices to try to mitigate even worse consequences :(

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secretgamergirl · 3 years

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A Little Horrifying Primer on Transphobes

Some time ago, I put together a Little Fact Checking Primer on Trans People, as a basic resource for disabusing people of some of the many completely ridiculous yet absurdly widespread beliefs about trans people that simply have no basis whatsoever in reality. And wouldn’t you know it, every single lie exposed in that primer is not only still widely believed, but is presently being used as a basis to sign some absolutely horrific human rights abuses into law. So it’s high time I follow that up, in this case focused more on who keeps actively spreading these lies and why. I’m going to try and keep things as light as I can here, but we’re going to be looking at the most monstrous side of human nature, so apologies in advance if this is a dark read.

First, let me just note that there are two things I don’t plan to do in this piece. I’m not going to waste time debunking the arguments of the people I’m highlighting (much of this is already covered in my earlier primer, others have done the work in cases where I haven’t, and frankly these people’s claims should be self-evidently utter nonsense to begin with). I am also going to be very selective in what I link to, or even share related images of, as I would frankly not like to fill a post on a blog I generally try to keep safe for all audiences with media directly dealing with, for instance, child sexual assault, and much of the relevant information also involves stochastic terrorism against innocent people, and I would prefer not to throw more fuel onto such fires.

Transphobes lie constantly, about everything.

To some degree this is obvious. We’re talking about people who scaremonger about the possibilities of trans women dominating competitive sports and assaulting people in restrooms, despite the status quo already reflecting the conditions they insist would make these inevitibilities for decades and centuries respectively, and their grim visions never once having come to pass, and also constantly insisting that the woman in the photo below is actually a man, going further to say this is evident to anyone giving her the merest glance.

It goes beyond that though. There’s at least a little plausible deniablity in claims like this, or that “science is on their side” if they were simply uninformed about the world they live in, never actually looking into what laws exist, what science actually says, and never actually meeting a trans person or even seeing a picture of one of us. I’m talking really bold lies here. Like wholecloth fabricating a story that a convicted murder was trans, including anecdotes about wigs dresses and a planned name change, in a major newspaper. Or to cite an old favorite of mine, the time a pack of bigots walked up to a crowd of people peacefully picketing a transphobic legal proposal, started roughing them up and taking closeup photos of members of the crowd to stalk online when they got home, got sufficiently riled up for one to straight up assault an innocent person half her size, filmed the whole thing, uploaded it to youtube, and used stills of that assault as acomanying photos when they went home to write articles about the assailant being a “grandmother” attacked by rowdy trans women. And yes, they did monkey’s paw my wish to see that specific image on newspapers. Interesting side note, when it came to real public light that J.K. Rowling endorsed this sort of hatred, it was because she accidentally pasted some profanity laden rambling about how the imagined moral character of the other party in that incident, years after the fact, into a post praising a child’s fan art of her work.

To be a little less niche, transphobes can’t get enough of spreading the lie that the young fellow in this photo is a girl. Specifically a trans girl, providing proof that all their scaremongering about the dastardly threat of trans girls in competitive sports has finally come to pass.

To be fully clear, that’s a man (or a boy if you want to split hairs about him being 17 in that photo). Mack Beggs. A rather insidious choice for this sort of story, considering the actual context for that photo. See, Beggs attended high school in Texas, during a (still ongoing as I write this) period wherein that particular state had caved to this exact sort of propaganda, and in order to head off a wholly imagined wave of trans girls competing on girls’ sports teams, and enacted a law mandating that in all such competitions must compete under whatever gender is stated on their birth certificates. And as it happens, the first, and to my knowledge ONLY time this has come up was with Beggs here, who again, is a man, as no one with a grip on reality could argue against, has “female” on his birth certificate. Which is another way of saying he is a trans man. The guys in the same boat as trans women who we talk about a whole hell of a lot less because their existence is extremely inconvenient to the majority of transphobic propaganda. Case in point. And this is all information it is really impossible to come across if you’re coming across this photo in any sort of respectable source. Take this story, which is as unambiguous about this as you can get. And yet, in the very comments section of that story, there they are. Carrying on like this story about a trans guy, forced by a transphobic law to compete as a girl, which he absolutely did not want, and received horrific threats over, using phrases like “female to male” and bringing up that he was assigned female at birth and is on testosterone-based HRT, is about a trans woman cheating the system. Or to quote word for word, “Now also transgender female want to be male also compete in female sport. biological born“ That’s not “being confused,” that’s standing next to you in a white desert and complaining about being adrift in a black ocean, bald-faced, not even trying to be convincing just make a power play, lying through one’s teeth.

I could spend this whole article on just this point. Lying about who they are, various people’s falsified credentials, whole websites full of “anonymous parents of children who think they’re trans” turning out to be one single woman documenting the abuse of her very much trans son, or of course the people behind the whole “bathroom bill” panic candidly admitting it was all based on utter fiction. I do have other points to cover though.

Transphobes are firmly entrenched in the media.

It is extremely difficult to find oneself in a position of having to explain to people that a particular group of people is effectively in control of press outlets, as that is rather classically a claim conspiracy theorists absolutely love to toss around at various marginalized groups (including trans people hilariously enough, but of course the most common and lingering version of this is the antisemitic variant). I really can’t get around it here though. Specifically in the U.K., you honestly can say that transphobes control the media. I already touched on this with the assault case I mentioned above and the fabricated story about the murderer, but this is a pretty well-documented situation. I mean, even The Guardian calls out The Guardian on this, and that’s the outlet that gets the most attention because it’s the one with the most otherwise respected name, but every paper in the country has been running transphobic propaganda pieces on a weekly if not daily basis for years now, and while they do get reprimanded by watchdog groups and have mass walk-outs over the worst of it, it’s not like there’s some governing body with the authority to step in about it. Meanwhile the BBC is constantly inviting diehard zealots like Graham Linehan to news programs where he compares being trans to being a nazi, and hosting debates where someone just sits down and repeatedly chants the word “penis” at a trans woman.

Things are better in the rest of the world, but we still have right-wing creeps like Jesse Singal both writing horrific propaganda pieces (we’ll get back to that one) and blackballing trans writers out of covering trans issues ourselves (and personally stalking the hell out of those of us who try). We’ve got our Joe Rogans and Tucker Carlsons out there (no way in hell I’m linking videos here, have a real information link and a still).

The line between diehard transphobes and straight-up nazis basically does not exist.

What even is there to say here? You can easily poke around havens for nazi activity for yourself and compare the particular unique vocabulary used there to the primary bastion of anti-trans hate speech on the internet (the “feminism” section of what was originally a site for parenting tips before violent fascists took the forums over) or just peruse the follows of the thousands of people I’ve blocked on social media and see if you can sort out a clear division in the networks of channers with frog avatars and the accounts with names like GoodieXXrealwoman, or you can read up on Gab and Spinster, the two twitter alternatives that are just different portals to the same server, set up by the same guy. Maybe do some research into “the LGB Alliance,” or WoLF but any way you slice it the only real difference to be found is the general purpose nazis take a little time off now and then to watch borderline pedophilic anime and the really dedicated transphobes think to use language that sounds vaguely well-educated and left-leaning. I mean, this came from the “feminist” side of the fence:

And not to belabor the point here, but the ones claiming to be a bunch of “feminist mums” sure do let the mask slip any time they’re confronted with the fact that “women” includes black women, and oh just have a whole thread about all the weird conspiratory theories these people have about how trans people’s whole existence is some sort of Jewish plot for world domination. I swear a few months ago they were all passing around a story about some bank having an above average number of trans employees and they were all just “and we all know who controls the banks, right?” about it.

Transphobes endorse an awful lot of people who are openly pro-pedophila.

This is the part where I am really loath to link the many many specific examples I have on hand. Or to talk about this at all for reasons of good taste. Or, for that matter, to talk about this in a tumblr post when there’s an ongoing problem of people with backgrounds strongly tied to this site making baseless accusations of pedophilia against every queer person they can find, so let me be very clear just what I’m talking about while avoiding anything too graphic.

That’s James Cantor. Transphobes love him for being one of the closest things they have to a scientist on their side. And I am featuring him in a screenshot here showing that he is followed by current queen of the transphobes J.K. Rowling, while speaking to both another big name in transphobic circles, Debra Soh, and based on their names, what I’m guessing is at least one straight-up nazi. And in case you think “the P” he’s talking about adding to LGBT (or “GLBT” as weird anti-queer bigots who also have issues with women often write it) might stand for “poly” or “pan” he’s all too happy to clarify that.

This is the entire thrust of Cantor’s work and life. He is the world’s biggest pedophile rights advocate. He wants it declassified as a mental disorder, all stigma on it removed, and tirelessly pushes forward the idea that the majority of.. people who feel compelled to sexually assault children are good people who present no potential harm to anyone and should in fact be lauded.

I am not generally one to claim that someone with a PhD is spewing out questionable garbage with regard to their field, but the reason I am aware of Cantor at all is that other transphobes keep trying to hold up a particular post on his blog as "a study” (which it is not) that offers “proof” (in the form of a blurry jpeg of basically some random numbers) of some ridiculous quackery about how trans kids will “grow out of it” if exposed to conversion therapy (another way of saying torture), which Cantor himself seems to be pushing, so I am somewhat skeptical of his academic chops. And I am, of course, REALLY suspicious that all these other bigots gravitate to him purely because they’re that desperate to find anyone with a PhD in anything that backs them up against literally every scientist in a relative field, to the point that they merely forgive his particular advocacy they are plainly all aware of, particularly when such a common fig leaf used by transphobes is “keeping children safe from sexual deviants.”

And of course, Cantor is most often invoked when coming to the defense of Kenneth Zucker. This Kenneth Zucker.

Those are separate papers. Zucker isn’t controversial though for organizing panels to discuss how attractive people agree small children are (at least not exclusively). Mostly, he’s known for running a conversion therapy center which subjected gay and trans children to various sorts of torture in an effort to “fix” them, which at least for those trans "patients” I have spoken with involved a fair amount of having them strip completely naked and talking a lot about their genitals.

Zucker is something of a controversial figure with the transphobic scene, as they are extremely on board with his sexual torture of queer children, but he does actual work (for some value of the term) involving trans people and thus is not able to commit as fully as they would prefer to making life horrible for trans people, due to a professional obligation to acknowledge reality now and then. As an aside, the similarly positioned Ray Blanchard, while not to my knowledge particularly interested in the attractiveness of children, lives in a similar purgatory of trying to reconcile his career, bigotry, and sexual hangups, yielding compromises like this:

Of course, that’s just looking at the straws transphobes grasp at when looking for scientific credibility. Real leaders of the movement include Germaine Greer, author of The Beautiful Boy, which is about what you are afraid it might be, and features a very young child in a cover feature he did not consent to posing for. Or Julie Bindel, who among other things is rather infamous for writing whole articles on subjects like whether a teenage girl she came across maybe has a huge penis you can totally see if you really squint at her skirt. Again, I will not share a link to go along with that one.

Transphobes terrorize and attempt to defund charities and other unambiguously good organizations.

Graham Linehan, previously best known for cowriting some sitcoms and possibly spending a year angling to get into my pants so awkwardly I didn’t pick up on it is now best known for trying to pull the plug on a children’s charity, in a story that somehow also involves Donkey Kong. Well, and the interview about nazis. And possibly the other interview about “defending me from nazis” until it got into his head that I might not be as young and hot as he imagined. Rather not link to a far right extremist youtube channel though.

There’s also a current effort to replace Stonewall (an organization named after the location where a pair of trans women kicked off a riot which is generally agreed to be the start of the LGBT+ rights movement) as the UK’s primary LGBT+ rights organization with the “LGB Alliance.” The hate group mentioned above, with the skull face and the rifle. Closest I can find to an article on that effort on short notice that isn’t propaganda.

Transphobes paper areas in truly disgusting propaganda.

I don’t want to directly link to grown adults skulking around children’s playgrounds and bathrooms plastering surfaces with mass printed stickers of crudely drawn penises, but would encourage you to read this very long post, being sure to load all the images, to really understand how deeply strange this behavior gets.

Finally, I cannot stress this enough, this really extreme behavior I’m citing, and the specific people involved in the examples I’m giving, these aren’t random cranks on the fringe of things. The people going on televised panel discussions, writing up news stories, and testifying before lawmakers in efforts to pass horrifically discriminatory if not literally life-endangering laws (there is a major ongoing effort to legally end all medical care for trans people, and I don’t just mean care directly relating to being trans) are literally the same people involved in the sexualization of children, nazi collaborations, and roving gangs assaulting people in the street. At a bare minimum I urge people, when booking guests and handing out writing contracts, to do background checks and see if they’re platforming actual terrorists. If we could actually bring legal consequences to bear against the worst of this, that would be great too. As things stand though, the whole world is just consistently citing a bunch of racist, woman-hating, serial liars with no real credentials, and questionable attitudes towards the sexual abuse of children, as “trusted experts” and refusing to seat actual trans people or people who have legitimately committed lifetimes to academic and practical work with trans people any seats at the table.

#trans #transphobia #educational resources

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manage-mischief · 4 years

Text

Regulus Black and the Darkest Shadows

Chapter 3: The Risky Play

Read on: AO3 or FF.net

Chapter Summary: A familiar face graces the halls of Hogwarts.

Notes: Chapter 3! Yay! So, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be posting Sundays every week. Keep a lookout! Thank you so so much to everyone who has reviewed so far. I really appreciate it. Also, thanks to my incredible beta reader: @leah-ravenanne :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

September 6th, 1978

Quidditch tryouts were Saturday and Regulus was quite looking forward to them. He was never happier than when he was playing Quidditch. He had played Seeker on the Slytherin Team for three years now, and had enjoyed every moment of it. The freedom of flying through the air, the wind whipping through his black locks, the sting of the frost on his face—all of it made him feel alive. This year, his good friend Woodrow McDrew, would be captaining the team. Although McDrew was not a member of Regulus’s normal circle of friends, Regulus respected McDrew all the same. He was a highly talented and fiercely kind individual. Avery and Mulciber often mocked McDrew, commenting that he should have been in Hufflepuff due to his friendly, outgoing demeanor and staunchly pro-Muggle views. However, Regulus found McDrew to be a breath of fresh air. He demonstrated the best qualities of Slytherin House, and, despite his disapproval of Regulus’s friends, always treated him with respect. No one deserved to be Quidditch Captain more than McDrew.

“’Ello, Regulus!” McDrew greeted him with a wide smile and a firm handshake. “Have a good summer?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did. How about yourself?”

“Oh, you know, nothin’ too interesting to report. Well, until I found out about being Quidditch Captain!” He lowered his voice, suddenly serious. “I’ve been studying up on the other teams, you know? Who they’re likely to keep, who’s gone, and that sort of stuff. We’ll win this year, I know it!”

Regulus laughed, appreciating his confidence. “That’s great. Who do you reckon are going to be toughest to beat?” he asked, although he already feared the answer.

“Ravenclaw, as always.” McDrew rolled his eyes. As if on cue, the Ravenclaw team stormed merrily out onto the pitch, trailed by a hopeful group of newcomers ready to try out. The Ravenclaw Quidditch Team was daunting, there was no denying it. Their offensive strength lay in their elite group of Chasers. Gwenog Jones, who had clearly been named Captain, was a force of nature. Rumor had it that she had already signed a contract with the Holyhead Harpies and would be leaving Hogwarts immediately following the Quidditch season to play for them. George Fleet, a lanky, sandy-haired seventh year, came from a long line of Quidditch royalty. His father had, until very recently, played for the English National Team. Regulus had remembered cheering for Giles Fleet when he was a child. And then, there was Des Lewis. For a girl raised by Muggles, she had immense skill. Regulus remembered the conversation he had overheard her having with Slughorn. Gwenog had taken her to training camp with Holyhead this past summer.

As the blue-clad team passed the Slytherins, McDrew tensed his shoulders. He tersely nodded at Gwenog Jones, who cordially returned the gesture. “Going to the Slug Club next Friday, McDrew? I hear he’s got Ludo Bagman coming in.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” McDrew replied. There was an awkward pause before Gwenog cleared her throat and signaled to her team to move down the field. “See you around, McDrew. Black.” She stomped away.

McDrew exhaled deeply after she had gone. “What a woman!”

---

As Regulus packed up his broom after the conclusion of Slytherin field time (during which he’d flown beautifully, thank you very much), he noted a fleck of maroon in his peripheral vision. Sure enough, the Gryffindors had arrived for their time on the pitch. However, Regulus was shocked to see an old familiar face. Laughing along with the rest of the team, with his untidy black hair and smug grin, was none other than James Potter, the brother-stealer. What was he doing here? Come back to relive his glory days? James caught Regulus’s eye as Regulus stared loathingly across the pitch. Bollocks.

With a new sense of urgency, Regulus haphazardly shoved the rest of his equipment into his bag. He tried to blend in between a group of young Gryffindors cheering on their team as he rushed toward the field’s exit. He wasn’t so lucky.

“Oi, Regulus.”

Regulus walked faster.

“Hey! Hey Reggie, come back!” James Potter sprinted towards him, seizing his robes and yanking him backwards. “Didn’t you hear me shouting?” James asked innocently.

“Oh dear, I guess I’d better get my hearing checked,” Regulus snidely remarked. “What do you want, Potter? Why are you even here? Finally realize that you’re nothing outside of school?”

James looked uncomfortable. He shifted his weight from foot to foot and fiddled with the cuffs of his robes. “It’s…it’s for work! You know what? That’s none of your business! Listen. I need to talk to you. It’s about Pad—Sirius. It’s about Sirius.”

Regulus’s throat constricted. “What about him?”

“Well, he…um. He wanted me to talk to you. He, uh, well… he wants to say he’s sorry for leaving and sorry that you guys lost touch…”

Regulus was shocked and enraged. “Oh, poor Sirius! How will he go on? Well, you can tell that traitor that if he was truly sorry, he’d have come to me himself, not had his replacement family do it for him! Or better yet, he’d have had the balls to come talk to me a year ago when this whole mess started. So, you tell dear Sirius that I’m sorry his guilt has finally caught up with him, but he can take his guilt and shove up it up his—”

“Stop!” James interrupted. “Don’t you understand how hard it was on him? He’s only just come to terms with being disowned. He thought he’d put you in danger by talking to you himself. He didn’t want your mum and dad to hurt you.”

Regulus remembered the threats his mother and father had made before he returned to school last year, warning him against having any contact with his disgraced brother.

“We will know...”

James seized Regulus’s moment of pause as an opportunity to continue. “He’s fine, now. But he…he’s seen how you’ve changed since he left. We can all see it. He’s afraid that you’re going down a dark path.”

Another wave of rage coursed through Regulus’s veins. “Oh yeah? Well you don’t know anything about my life, and neither does he! He went out and found himself a new family. Well, I did the same!” he shouted, not caring about the younger onlookers surrounding him.

James’s faced contorted. He was angry now too. “You think those Death Eaters are your family? That’s sick, mate. Absolutely sick. Sirius always told me that you were different from old Orion and Wally. He said you didn’t really believe all that pureblood, anti-Muggle shit. But, I guess he was wrong. You’re in just as deep as the rest of them. Spineless. You disgust me, mate.”

Regulus blanched. “Just— just because I’m in with them doesn’t mean I believe all they have to say. I- I can make my own decisions!”

Potter scoffed. “Clearly not. You think that old Voldie’s going to let you think for yourself?! Then you’re way too naive to be caught up in this mess! You’re either in or you’re out. This is a war, mate! I know you know what’s on the horizon. And if you choose the side of hatred and bigotry…well…then you’ll get what’s coming.”

With those scathing words, Potter spun on a heel and stormed back towards his old teammates, leaving Regulus standing there, shocked and confused. Sure, he’d been having some doubts but…He was where he belonged, wasn’t he? His mind raced. His cheeks burned with shame. What did Potter know, anyway?

Turning down a corridor into the castle, he ran into Ginger, whose hair was now putrid green. She was covered with flecks of something dark and wet.

“What happened to you?” Regulus asked.

She rolled her eyes. “I heard Lewis use the Dark Lord’s name in the hall. So, I hexed that Mudblood friend of hers, Bode. Used one of Severus’s old curses. It worked wonderfully—he’s in the hospital wing now. But, Lewis got me with this jinx before I could get away. It’s not too bad, though. Avery reckons he can fix it right up. Those little Muggle lovers don’t have the balls to do anything serious! Pathetic!” She cackled. Regulus found it to be a shrill, ugly sound. He realized the dark spatters peppering Ginger’s face and robes were specks of blood. His head pounded. He felt like he was going to vomit.

“I’ve gotta go.” Regulus spun around and quickly walked away from Ginger and the Slytherin Common Room.

Regulus aimlessly wandered about the castle, reflecting on Potter’s words. He had always told himself he wasn’t as bigoted or as prejudiced as his friends. He had attempted to justify his involvement with the Death Eaters by blaming others; but Sirius hadn’t given into the pressure like Regulus had. Besides, Regulus had wanted a family, he had wanted people who accepted him for who he was. But, did they accept him? Or, did they only want him among their ranks because of his prominent, Pureblood status? He remembered when they had approached him during first year.

“We know enough about you…” What had they known, really?

Back then, Regulus had refused. He had felt that he had higher moral principles. Sure, he had been raised by his parents to hate and fear Muggles. But Regulus had never personally believed Muggles and Muggleborns were less than human. He hadn’t then… did he now? He thought of the boy Ginger had sent to the hospital, just for fun. He felt sickened by himself. How had he let himself end up here?

---

The rest of the week dragged on. Regulus had become detached and distant. He poured all of his time and energy into his classes. He barely slept. He thought about reaching out to someone, but didn’t know who he would go to for help. He could send an owl…but who would he write? Sirius? They hadn’t spoken in years, what would he even say? Plus, Regulus still harbored some animosity towards his brother for abandoning him. James? Not likely after that verbal thrashing. Regulus would be too embarrassed. And they had never quite gotten on, even before Sirius’s flight. He racked his brain. He barely knew anyone outside of his Death Eater circle, now. Dejectedly, he plopped himself on his bed and pressed his fingers over his eyelids, trying to block the oncoming migraine. Quidditch practice tonight was going to be a pain.

Quidditch…McDrew! That was it! He would talk to McDrew. Regulus knew he could trust his fellow seventh year. Cheered up slightly, he grabbed his broom and Quidditch bag and headed to down the pitch, hoping to catch his captain there before the others arrived.

Sure enough, the Slytherin Captain had also arrived early and was currently pouring over a strategy book in the locker room as Regulus walked in. Engrossed, McDrew didn’t notice his entrance. Regulus coughed, and the boy looked up.

“Oh, hey Black! Didn’t realize you’d be here this early. I was just reading up on some new moves I want us to try.”

Regulus forced an awkward smile, suddenly extremely nervous and shy. McDrew noticed something was off.

“You alright, mate?”

Regulus sighed. This was his opening. “Can…can I ask you something?”

McDrew raised an eyebrow, confused. “Sure.”

“Do you think I’m a bad person?”

A prolonged silence filled the room. McDrew considered his answer, deep in thought. “To tell you the truth, mate, I don’t think anyone is really a bad person. I think people make bad choices, especially when they’re lost or confused. But, deep down, I don’t believe anyone can survive without a little bit of good in them.”

“That was philosophical.”

McDrew laughed. “Yeah, I suppose it was.” He became serious again. “But, I think it’s true. Look, Regulus, I don’t pretend to know everything about you. But, I spent my fair share of time around your brother and his friends, so I’ve heard things. Heard things about what it’s like living with your parents, with all of that pressure, with some of their…disciplinary methods…”

Regulus paled and averted his gaze.

“…And I think growing up like that would be enough to send anyone over the deep end. Considering all you went through, you seem pretty sane to me. But, I think you’re lost. You’re angry. You’re scared. And, I think that’s caused you to make some bad decisions. To fall in with some bad people. I know it’s hard. In Slytherin, there’s this expectation to follow exactly what old Salazar used to say. ‘Purebloods first, Muggles are scum,’ that sort of thing. I, myself, think that’s all bullshit. Sure, I’ve made some enemies, especially among those whom you consider to be your friends. At the end of the day, though, I see it as my duty to speak up. To go against the grain, to prove that all that rhetoric is troll dung. There comes a point where you’ve got to make a choice about who you want to be. And, I think it seems like you’re at that point. So, mate, if you decide that you don’t want to continue down whatever path you’re currently on, you know where to find me. Me and my friends’ll gladly take you in. Don’t let the fear of being alone—of making others angry—ruin your own life.” McDrew smiled. “You’re a good bloke, Reg. I just think you’ve lost your way.”

Regulus fought back the pricking of tears in his eyes. He hadn’t realized how much he needed to hear those words. All he had wanted was to be loved and accepted. Yet, so far, all love in his life—from his family, from his friends—had been conditional. The fear of losing their love had caused Regulus to conform, to become a person he barely recognized. But, here he was, sitting in the musty Quidditch locker room, presented with a way out. A way to rediscover himself and become a better person. Energized by the prospect of this new life, he broke into a wide grin. He heard the rest of the team coming down into the changing rooms.

“Practice is starting, I guess,” Regulus said. “Maybe we can talk more at breakfast tomorrow?”

McDrew smiled crookedly. “Of course, mate! I’ll look forward to it!”

#regulus black #james potter #sirius black #marauders #marauders era #regulus arcturus black #regulus and sirius #quidditch #the noble and most ancient house of black #regulus deserved better #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter #slytherin #ravenclaw #good slytherins #rab #regulus lives #my writing

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cloudbatcave · 3 years

Text

The vampire looked off into the distance, searching for something they seemed not to find, yet when they looked back it was not with dissatisfaction. Their face was thoughtful, the long pointed ears ever so slightly arched upward.

“It’s likely I can’t be good. But what is goodness? It’s less great deeds and more many little ones, I’ve found. I’ve watched empires rise and fall, and certainly, some single acts have incredible weight. Humans love that story; one hero saving the rest. It’s not a bad story to like, either. It’s relatable. Humans are individuals; they want to hear what individuals can do. They want comfort, and why not? They live in a terrifying world.”

Jessica shifted, her feline ears flattening a little as she bit her lip, wondering if she should protest at the obvious meaning of the last line. If she could protest.

“Well, what does that have to do with it?” She said instead, slightly snappish but more worried than anything. “You still haven’t said what you think.”

“Patience, I’m getting there.” They waved a finger at her, just as her sister said they’d always done when lecturing and she half wanted to laugh, half wanted to strangle them. How had Elly ever put up with so many tangents?

God, Elly had put up with so much.

She forced back the stupid tears that threatened to pour out of her again. She was so sick of crying.

“Jessica?”

They were looking at her, concern in their bright green eyes.

“Yeah. Go on. I’m fine.”

“You can always tell me to stop, you know.” They reminded her gently, slender fingers clasped together.

They clutch their hands when they’re trying not to fret - you wouldn’t think a vamp would be so anxious, Jessie, it’s the funniest thing.

“Don’t. Don’t stop right now.”

She needed noise. There was too much empty space. Background babble was better.

They looked mildly confused along with concerned, but nodded.

“It matters because I am not really an individual as humans understand it. I look like one, I can function like one, but I don’t have the morality of a single person. I have the morality - or perhaps the lack of morality - of a superorganism. Every semblance of manners and decency, I had to actively learn. I don’t have a human’s natural impulse to care for their kind, to slow down for others, to ask about their feelings.”

Jessica rolled her eyes. “Everyone has to learn those, Tuuya. Babies aren’t born knowing them. So what if you’re a little...” she tilted her hand back and forth. “...you know. You do those things. That’s what matters. Plenty of humans - and other species - suck balls at them.”

“How very utilitarian of you.” They replied, teasing approval in their voice before they sobered. “But lacking a natural tendency for warmth and kindness would be seen by many as unsettling and make my actions appear fake or hollow. Not an invalid view.”

“Oh my god.” The young woman groaned, stretching her arms out and extending her claws. “How does your head not hurt thinking about this all the time. Do you argue with yourself when you don’t have a class to hold captive? Is that why you teach, to have an audience who needs you for a grade?”

“Blast, you’ve found me out.” They said mock-sorrowfully, ears drooping for effect. “I became a professor because no one would hold still long enough to talk to me otherwise. Damned annoying having to keep tying them down.”

Jessica laughed much louder than she meant to. It wasn’t even that funny, it was just...she’d had such a long day, and it was ending with some sort of worm swarm being the person she had to rely on right now. What the fuck was her life.

How was this real? She felt like any moment Elly was going to walk through the door, the body they’d found had been someone else, and -

No. She couldn’t let herself live in denial. Elly was fucking dead, and they were going to find her killer, and Jessica was going to beat the shit out of them, claws and teeth and all. Human respectability could kiss her ass.

She didn’t realize she was sitting down until what felt like a while later. Maybe it was, maybe it had only been a few minutes. Time was weird now.

There was a blanket around her, fitting for the autumn chill. The half-Sphinx pulled it closer, more out of habit than anything.

A meal sat on the table in front of her, and judging by the coolness of the plate and the low-burning candle nearby, it had been there a while.

There was a note too, written in green ink, the handwriting swoopy and old-fashioned.

Jessica,

There’s a room for you if you want it, second down the hall on the left. But if you’d rather go back to your apartment, I understand. Find me in my study if you do, I’m grading papers. If you don’t want the food, just put the plastic bag around it so it doesn’t attract ants.

She thought of the empty, dirty apartment, where she could walk in and smell her sister’s deodorant hanging over the place. Where she could eat the ramen leftovers they’d made together two days ago, adding pork belly and garlic and making fun of each other for bad breath. She could sleep on the worn couch, uncomfortable but in a way she’d gotten used to over the last six months.

So quiet.

She takes a few bites of food (she hardly even tastes it) but wraps up the rest. She should probably put it in the fridge but can’t seem to find the energy, so she wanders into the room the vampire has left for her.

It’s a lot more modern than she expected from something - someone so old. But then, the antique furniture Elly always liked was expensive, and professors aren’t paid big bucks. Some people like to imagine all vampires are rich, but she’s always figured that was bull because not all sphinxes like riddles. She’s never seen the appeal.

You’re half-Sphinx, honey, she can hear her father’s gentle voice saying. Things are different for you.

The old man will probably never realize he’s just as bigoted as the people he enjoys ranting about. He thinks he’s such a saint because he doesn’t scream hate. Because he didn’t turn her out on the streets.

Tuuya would rethink their idea of goodness pretty fucking quick if they met him, she thinks acidly. No pride solidarity urges or human empathy for him.

Except when it came to Elly. Elly, who wasn’t his bio daughter, who wasn’t even half a Sphinx, but who could do no fucking wrong, apparently.

Fuck, no, what’s the matter with me? She screamed at herself. Elly was dead, why was she feeling this way? Not that she’d felt great about resenting her when she was alive, either, but...

She dragged her hands down her face, claws sheathing and baring as she tried to reconcile her roiling emotions. Then all the energy went out of her again. What was the point?

The bed was surprisingly comfortable as she flopped in it. Didn’t vampires not need to sleep? What did Tuuya keep an extra room for anyway? Who would even visit the weird old bloodsucker willingly?

God, I’m such a bitch, she thought to herself, half-amused and half-ashamed at her thoughts. They’ve done nothing but help me.

Then again, even they said they probably weren’t really good. But did it matter? Jessica hadn’t met a long list of people she’d actually call ‘good’. Polite was the best you could hope for. Polite and not too damn nosy.

Long as they don’t chew on me in the night, I don’t care, she decided. As long as they help me find the shitstain who did this, and then...

She decided to go to bed instead of thinking about the nebulous and very, very empty space after ‘and then’.

#cloud writes #my brain: here have a whole new character #me: not what I wanted but ok I like this one #despite how it starts this is mostly Not About Tuuya #it’s about this brand new girl who has all sort of opinions #and trauma

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ninety6tears · 4 years

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king-of-exchanges letter

Wooo kingofexchanges is happening again!

I’m a big fan of SK but only somewhere in the middle of my consumption/obsession; with King being heavy on self-referencing and crossover-friendly treatments, I’d be happy for you to mix and match any of my requests, as long as you can see from my goodreads page that I’ve read the relevant stuff.

Basic preferences: I read everything from G-rated to explicit PWP. I love pastiche for lit fandoms but something that feels more off the beaten path of the original style can also be fun.

I love: Angst, pining, subtle UST, first times, or established relationships with some level of conflict to be resolved. Intense friendship stories. Protectiveness in close relationships as well as in those that wouldn’t obviously appear to be protective at first. A character or characters experiencing a type of attraction that isn’t the status quo for them. Relationships that had a falling-out and neither of them ever really got over it. Characterization that focuses on the nature & nurture of who people have grown to be and the unique ways they take care of or need other characters. Insecurity/hangups over worthiness. AUs of all varieties.

I can handle: underage, dubcon, noncon, torture and incest. Character death. Love triangles. Infidelity.

Do Not Want: Fix-its without sacrifice/troubles. Soulbonding/magical soulmate tropes. Disputes centered around marriage as a show of commitment ("If you were really serious you'd have proposed by now rather than just wanting to live together" and all that). A/B/O, mpreg, or any body fluid kinks. More than a mention of Alzheimer’s/dementia.

Christine ‘83 (FIC):

Arnie/Dennis

Arnie/Christine/Dennis

---NOTE - The movie is more fresh in my mind for prompting purposes but I have read the book, so feel free to run with this request for either version. I do like the dark humor Carpenter brings to adolescence without mocking the angst of being a teenager, not that King isn’t morbidly funny in his own right.

We get very little of them together before Arnie starts to go all possessed but we can tell their friendship has lasted a lot of changes over the years. That hospital visit over the holiday (which I remember was more bittersweet, less tense in the book?) feels like the last time Arnie remembered that he's supposed to be a big part of Dennis’ life. But even before all that, there’s a nice dynamic where Dennis is protective of Arnie and really thinks highly of him (and huh, maybe sees something in his looks other people don’t) when it’s not socially advantageous for him to retain that loyalty, and I’d like to get more of that. Maybe they’ve fooled around once or twice? Maybe Arnie was the one who got weird about it, afraid of the eventual rejection, or they’re both just too repressed? I like the triangle with Leigh too, if you wanted to get into the confused jealousy/conduit attraction thing, just nothing that completely dismisses any meaning of her relationship with Dennis if it’s referenced at all.

If Dennis was the one Christine got dangerously jealous of (either because something happens between them or she just knows) how would that go down differently? Or what if the car decides she wants to be shared by them, and maybe likes to watch them do things to each other (take that however you want it to mean) and either their closeness makes the two of them eventually snap out of it, or they all just become a weird evil threesome? I'm also into the idea of some other fantasy/sci-fi AU in which Christine is something or someone else entirely but is still threatening in some paranormal/inhuman way.

Crossover Tags (FIC):

Peter McVries & Ray Garraty & The Stand

Peter McVries/Ray Garraty & The Stand

---I’m interested in how these two would fit into a story with such an elemental moral war. Both are reckless but McVries more prone to hopelessness and nihilism; would he be tempted to join Flagg without outside influence? Would he just kind of wander around with no sense of purpose until Ray found him? It could also turn the existential misery of The Long Walk on its head, with them losing their families and possibly realizing too late the preciousness of life that way. You don’t have to get into much philosophy or plot either; I’m kind of into the everyday pain-in-the-ass minutiae of the post-apocalypse and people finding ways to laugh about their circumstances and reach for each other in their grief. Feel free to write it as full-on crossover with some of the canon Stand characters appearing.

Larry Underwood & Richie Tozier

---If you have some other idea of where to put these two together, go for it, but I had this idea of Richie hosting an occasional interview special for up-and-coming musicians and Larry being invited on when the single’s just out and being so nervous to meet this famous personality, and maybe they get drunk or high together before or after the interview (bonus points if Larry can hardly get in an answer cause Richie gives him the giggles). They’re kinda both assholes so they get along? They’re both assholes so they kinda hate each other? I didn’t nominate it as a shippy treatment but if you’re really sad I didn’t, hey, stuff happens when people party.

The Dark Half (FIC):

Alan Pangborn/Thad Beaumont

Alan Pangborn/Elizabeth Beaumont/Thad Beaumont

George Stark/Alan Pangborn

---I thought the surprising friendship and trust that takes hold between Thad and the officer who initially believes him to be a cold killer was one of the better aspects of this novel, and the way that connection is so soon polluted by Stark's insurmountable connection to a part of Thad’s psyche is chilling and more than a little sad. I would love to get a shippy treatment of their immediate companionship and/or the inevitable disturbance of it. If you wanted to make it a poly thing with Elizabeth, with all three of them not really pausing in the midst of all these maddening things happening to question opening their marriage to someone they find comforting, I would be interested in how that might underscore the events.

And when it comes to George/Alan...yeah, I want darkfic, potentially outlining Stark’s role in putting Alan off Thad in a more sinister way, whether it’s poisoning the well of Alan’s (sublimated? not yet acted on?) desire and affection for Thad by being sleazily flirtatious in pointing it out, or going to a darker noncon place with all the mingled disgust and misplaced attraction that might provoke. (In the context of this prompt, I’m not super into the gross-out factor of Stark being at the stage where his skin is falling off, but if you can’t somehow set it at an earlier stage it would be better to just not mention it.)

Also, I realize Alan has a family, but you can deal with that however you want; his wife can just not exist for the purposes of the story, but even infidelity wouldn’t put me off if you’re taking the character that far out of a healthy mindset.

The Long Walk (FIC):

Peter McVries/Ray Garraty

---Since we’re never in Pete’s head, it would be great to get anything detailing how his initial distance from Ray quickly erodes into the protectiveness he obviously can’t help over him, if there’s a spark of empathy there even before the first time Ray saves him, or what he’s really thinking or trying to say at some of his more cynical and cryptic moments. I wonder what it was that Parker said to him to imply he thought he and Ray were “queer for each other” and how this apparently was covered without McVries feeling the need to deny it?

If you wanted to write them both somehow surviving, I would love to see how their relationship remains in the aftermath; maybe they don’t exactly end up together because they associate each other with this traumatizing thing, and they have an essential but troubled friendship because of it (and maybe they end up fucking a couple times but don’t really talk about it).

In the realm of more absolute alternate universes...a bigoted boarding school atmosphere, an aggressive correctional camp, anything where a compulsive make-out might happen in the bunks or the showers and then be stiffly denied later on sounds like a backdrop I’d love for these boys if you want to do something bleak-but-not-as-mortally-bleak.

I prefer to think of McVries as having complicated depression that doesn’t just stem from girlfriend problems; I’d prefer you mention the incident with Priscilla as little as possible, but any focus on Pete’s scar is totally fine.

The Stand (ART):

Larry Underwood/Lucy Swann

Lucy Swann/Larry Underwood/Nadine Cross/Randall Flagg

Nadine Cross

---My attempts to prompt for art for these tags may be unhelpful but I’m really into Nadine’s scary paranormal bond with Flagg, the imagery of her hair and Flagg’s tainted handsomeness and everything haunted about her and her life, and how the love triangle with her and Larry and Lucy is really a quadrangle of temptations and baggage beyond the usual moral pressure of romantic entanglements. They’re all figuratively in bed together whether they like it or not, but I could see that presented more literally in art. I also would like anything associated with the individual permutations (Larry/Nadine, Larry/Lucy, Larry/Nadine/Randall?). Desperate/melancholy embraces, or moments of almost touching. That ghost leering over Nadine’s shoulder in her moments of getting too close to tenderness.

#stephen king #christine #the dark half #the long walk #the stand #it

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an-incurable-affection-blog · 5 years

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Ivanhoe

Sir Walter Scott. 1819. “Romanticism and Gothic” list.

“Rebecca and the Wounded Ivanhoe” by Eugene Delacroix.

“The knights are dust, And their good swords are rust, And their souls are with the saints, we trust.”

In the style of Sir Walter Scott, whose books and chapters open with epigraphs, I begin with a quote that Scott adapts from Coleridge’s “The Knight’s Tomb” (although in Ivanhoe we find this in the main body of the text).

The quote is just one of countless places where the narrator calls attention to the fact that the book is set in an earlier age (the reign of Richard I, in the 12th century) than its time of publication (1819). Whereas a contemporary historical novel typically presents a self-contained story, without extradiegetic references to its nature as a period piece, Ivanhoe scuttles between its setting and (Scott’s) present-day: for example, to contrast what a certain building looked like in the period with how it does now; or contrast the customs of the time with current customs, sometimes to help readers understand an event (“And as there were no forks in those days, his clutches were instantly in the bowels of the pasty”), sometimes just because; or offer reasons why we should believe in the plausibility of his fictions, naming his historical sources. As the first historical novelist, Scott seems to feel called upon to explain and justify his new genre even within the text itself. In their context, the Coleridge lines are trotted out to justify why the narrative declines to include lengthy descriptions of the devices and colors of the knights at a particular tournament⁠—contrary, the narrator explains, to “my Saxon authority (in the Wardour Manuscript).”

Of course, no work of fiction needs to justify why it includes certain details and leaves out others—it is the author’s job to decide what material is relevant, and there are far too many choices involved to justify each one. But the narrator brings up his reasoning behind not describing knights’ heraldry—namely, because they’re all dead now—to play up the theme of nostalgia, a staple of the Romanticist movement. Not only are we, in the nineteenth century, looking back at knights (how nostalgic), but remember, readers, they no longer exist (aw!).

But the Romanticist project here is ambivalent, with the narrator both criticizing (explicitly) and glorifying (usually more implicitly) the Age of Chivalry. The narrator frequently opines on “the disgraceful license by which that age was stained,” and how “fiction itself can hardly reach the dark reality of the horrors of the period,” and so on. “In our own days...morals are better understood” (he’s no relativist). But on the other hand, as Richard the Lionheart comments upon hearing the Saxon noble Athelstane detail how he escaped from a crypt, “beshrew me but such a tale is as well worth listening to as a romance.” That’s because it’s a tale within a romance, and romances, the implied author seems to agree, are well worth listening to. “The horrors” are seductive. The horrors are romantic. (Cf. the Gothic.)

The title may be Ivanhoe, after its chivalric Saxon hero Wilfred of Ivanhoe, but the real hero(ine), arguably, is the beautiful and long-suffering Jewess Rebecca. Here we can see the real divergence of this 19th-century Romantic work from its medieval-romance inspiration. In what can be read as an implicit criticism of medieval romance and the age that gave rise to it, the show, I think, is stolen from the titular knight-errant by a Jewish woman.

The only character with no flaws or foibles, Rebecca is even more perfect than the heroine we would expect to star in this romance—Ivanhoe’s lady-love, the Saxon princess Rowena. As the similarity of their names suggests, Rebecca and Rowena are doubles. They appear in back-to-back chapters, simultaneously unfolding chapters that feature them, imprisoned in separate rooms of the same castle, spurning the sexual advances of their respective captors. Heroines locked up in castle chambers, besieged by would-be rapists and the threat of forced marriages; heroines demonstrating their noble character by rejecting wicked seducers—all tropes. Less predictable is the use of these tropes as a means of contrasting the situations of women from different classes, and with a Jewish woman emerging as the superior character, no less.

Both women do triumph in their goal of averting the fates their captors intend. But Rowena, normally haughty, crumples in a flood of tears when she realizes De Bracy’s power to force her hand in marriage. (Luckily for her, De Bracy is soft at heart—this would not have worked on Rebecca’s admirer, the still more wicked Brian de Bois-Guilbert.) Rebecca, though bearing herself with “courtesy” and a “proud humility” (in contrast to Rowena’s haughtiness), shows herself to have more spirit and strength of character. As a member of a despised race, Rebecca is approached with an offer far less honorable than marriage. (Also, Bois-Guilbert’s vows as a Knight Templar forbid his marriage to anyone.) Instead, the Knight wants to make her his mistress. In such a station she will be showered with riches and glory, he promises. She answers with true fighting words: “I spit at thee, and I defy thee.” In a classic (literally, going back to classical mythology) heroine move, Rebecca threatens to commit suicide, jumping to the ledge of the high turret and warning him not to come a step closer. This both dissuades Bois-Guilbert from his original intent and heightens his passion for her: “Rebecca! she who could prefer death to dishonor must have a proud and a powerful soul. Mine thou must be!...It must be with thine own consent, on thine own terms.”

Thus Rebecca finds herself at the center of a Gothic-heroine-threatened-with-rape-in-castle-chamber scene turned into a Samuel Richardson-style seduction narrative—that gives way, at this part, to a Gothic castle siege passage. Whereas Rowena’s persecutor uses the interruption presented by the siege as an excuse to desist in his ill-fated suit, the Richardsonian plot starring Rebecca continues as a dominating strand of the novel, another respect in which her character appropriates the literary territory of the highborn Englishwoman. Before Brian de Bois-Guilbert closes his first scene with Rebecca to go defend the castle, he established himself as that tantalizing character-type, the potentially reformable rake. “I am not naturally that which you have seen me—hard, selfish, relentless. It was woman that taught me cruelty, and on woman therefore I have exercised it...” He came home from knight-errantry, he explains, to find that the lady-love whose fame he spread far and wide had married another man. Here the reader can glimpse the possibility for Rebecca to be a Mary (another Jewess) to the former lady’s Eve, the means to redemption for a man who was led by a woman into corruption. Whether the Knight Templar will turn out like Richardson’s reformable Mr. B or the irredeemable Lovelace remains to be seen.

In another aspect of Rebecca’s and Rowena’s doubleness, Rebecca’s (rejected) lover is antagonist to Rowena’s (accepted) lover, the hero Ivanhoe. Brian de Bois-Guilbert is the ultimate 12th-century bad boy: he has “slain three hundred Saracens with his own hands,” and he slays with the ladies, too. He is described, in the Ann Radcliffe tradition, with all the dark fascination of a Gothic villain:

“His expression was calculated to impress a degree of awe, if not fear, upon strangers. High features, naturally strong and powerfully expressive...keen, piercing, dark eyes, told in every glance a history of difficulties subdued and dangers dared...a deep scar on his brow gave additional sternness to his countenance and sinister expression to one of his eyes...”

and so on. One of the most interesting things about the novel for me is the way that Bois-Guilbert—over and above whatever is appealing about bad boys—is a strangely sympathetic character, more so than Ivanhoe, and to what degree that was built into the narrative intentionally. When the narrator weighs in with moral judgments (as he often does), it can offer insight into what his take might be on those scenes unaccompanied by commentary. So for example, when the narrator calls “the character of a knight of romance” (here, describing King Richard) “brilliant, but useless,” it implies an author for whom Rebecca is a mouthpiece when she comes down on the anti-chivalry side of a debate with Ivanhoe. So the narrator—and most modern people—likely agree with Rebecca’s opinion of the laws of chivalry as “an offering of sacrifice to a demon of vain glory,” to which a highly miffed Ivanhoe responds that she can’t understand because she is not a noble Christian maiden (unlike Rowena, is the unspoken subtext).

Applying this to the case of Bois-Guilbert, the villain, we might conclude, to our confusion, that his views of race are closer to the narrator’s (more progressive). I have already discussed the novel’s treatment of Rebecca, one of two major Jewish characters; the other, her father Isaac, conforms to some offensive Jewish stereotypes (stingy, money-hoarding, obsequious etc.) but is ultimately portrayed as good-hearted. Moreover, anytime the narrator draws on negative stereotypes he accompanies it with vindications of the Jewish people based on their historic oppression. As in other areas, the storytelling is here flavored with a decidedly 19th-century sensibility (even perhaps progressive for 1819, when Jews still could not hold public office in England). The narrator repeatedly describes the anti-Semitism of his characters as “prejudiced” and “bigoted.” All the characters seem to feel Rebecca’s beauty and greatness, but Bois-Guilbert is the only one who sees her as an equal, without qualifying her noble traits in terms of her Jewishness. Her race seems to be a non-issue for him. Contrasted with Ivanhoe, whose admiring male gaze turns into a demeanor of cold courtesy when he learns Rebecca’s descent, the medieval villain looks more and more like a hero for the 21st century. Could he be Scott’s real hero?

Moving forward, the evidence piles in favor of Rebecca as the real star (despite her complete lack of mention on the back cover of my 1994 Penguin Classics edition). The penultimate chapter, the novel’s denouement, decides Rebecca’s fate in the Richardsonian narrative. The two chapters prior, separating the conclusion from when we last left Rebecca, in danger of being burned at the stake as a Jewish sorceress, are sort of like...okay, Ivanhoe, Rowena, Richard the Lionheart, blah blah blah. Every chapter in Ivanhoe is fun, and there’s a surprise in these chapters, but it’s ultimately an example of Scott’s mastery of the suspense trick of drawing out a cliffhanging moment by switching to a different plot, one that is slower and more predictable and less emotionally captivating. It’s all great reading, but whether or how Rebecca will be saved is what we really want to know, what we will read through anything to find out. Rebecca’s importance—and Rowena’s as her foil—is also borne out by Scott’s choice to close the novel on their farewell scene.

The penultimate chapter contains Rebecca’s trial by combat. Rebecca’s life is at stake, but the real trial is Brian de Bois-Guilbert’s. Since backing off the whole raping Rebecca idea, he has saved her life and then put it at risk again. Bois-Guilbert’s rescue of Rebecca from the burning castle of Torquilstone, by the way, is an example of Scott’s practically cinematic sense of humor and flair for dialogue. Essentially, the Knight Templar appears in the room where Rebecca has been nursing Ivanhoe, when they’re all about to go up in flames; Rebecca is more fiery than the fire (“Rather will I perish in the flames than accept safety from thee!”); Bois-Guilbert picks her up and carries her off anyway (“Thou shalt not choose, Rebecca; once didst thou foil me, but never mortal did so twice”); Ivanhoe, unable to move, yells hilariously impotent threats of rage from his sickbed: “Hound of the Temple—stain to thine order—set free the damsel! Traitor of Bois-Guilbert, it is Ivanhoe commands thee! Villain, I will have thy heart’s blood!” The perfectly timed next sentence: “‘I had not found thee, Wilfred,’ said the Black Knight, who at that instant entered the apartment, ‘but for thy shouts.’”

After this daring rescue, in which the Knight Templar uses his shield to protect Rebecca at the risk of his own life as they gallop on his horse through the flying arrows of the battle, he spirits her to the prefectory of his Temple with the purpose of keeping her captive until she feels forced to “consent” to sex with him. As one might expect in the case of two equally indomitable people with a difference in values, this isn’t going well, until it goes even worse: the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, a stickler for all those pesky rules about not drinking and fucking, makes a surprise visit and finds out about Rebecca. The leader of the prefectory, who knew about Rebecca and was cool with it but has to save face for himself and his most important Knight, convinces the Grand Master that the Jewess has literally bewitched Bois-Guilbert (an easy sell). So in all fairness, she should really be burned to death and he should be given a few Hail Marys. Learning of this horrific prospect, Bois-Guilbert returns to Rebecca with his final offer: he will leave England, abandoning the Knights Templar in all its attendant glory and ambitious prospects, in order to save her, on the condition that she accompany him to start a new life back in the Middle East, where he can conquer everything (his reigning passion) there instead; if not, he’s not giving up his whole life for nothing, and she will see that “my vengeance will equal my love.” For the third time, Rebecca’s answer is that she’d rather die. Bois-Guilbert despairs, wavers, makes a plot to save her without compromising his position—he gets her, when inevitably convicted, to request a trial by combat, imagining that he can be her champion in disguise. Then he is required to fight for the Knights Templar against her champion (if she can even find a champion). Brian de Bois-Guilbert is like the third best knight in the world, so that’s probably a death sentence for Rebecca. He offers to save her again when she’s at the stake, with no champion for her yet appearing and time running out, and is again rebuffed. Ivanhoe rolls up at the last minute to be Rebecca’s champion, still really wounded, and his horse is totally exhausted. Under these conditions, the Knight Templar knocks Ivanhoe off his horse, as everyone expects. But no one, not the live audience, certainly not me, expects Brian de Bois-Guilbert to fall off his horse for no reason, practically untouched, and die. The Grand Master says, “This is indeed the judgment of God.” True to genre, the narrator replaces divine intervention in human affairs with a very Romantic and scarcely more probable explanation: “he had died a victim to the violence of his own contending passions.”

Rebecca’s would-be seducer dies of being unable to decide whether he is a Mr. B or a Lovelace. Some readers may be left in similar indecision about how to judge him. Not so Rebecca, who has actually loved Ivanhoe the whole time, "imput[ing] no fault to [him] for sharing in the universal prejudices of his age and religion.” Rebecca is very unusual among Romantic heroines from the long 18th century in that her love goes unrequited. She may meet the type’s standards of perfection notwithstanding her Jewishness, but ultimately she cannot escape its limitations to claim her full literary-generic inheritance, the hero’s adoration. Happily ever after goes to the less deserving Rowena, and Ivanhoe only has the decency to recall Rebecca’s beauty and magnanimity “more frequently than [Rowena] might altogether have approved.” Rebecca must withdraw and devote her life to God. In this genre, there is no such thing as second love, and that is one of many points on which the narrator remains silent.

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conoscenze · 5 years

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self-esteem // part two.

As the title says, this is a continuation of this post, in which are featured five out of the ten muses of this blog. (Number may grow in the future.) Not much else to say!

POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING FOR MENTIONS OF MENTAL ILLNESS, EMOTIONAL & MENTAL ABUSE, AND IN GENERAL COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF SELF-LOATHING. Nothing except the latter goes much in detail. Enjoy!

Fujunko, I’d say, has a very normal situation. While she did grow up bullied and isolated from others due to her family situation, she has always been a strong child because of her grandmother’s support. She thinks of herself as pretty okay, average even, and truth be told she lacks a proper conception and opinion of herself because she is always more focused on what she does, rather than who she is. Fujunko is modest and humble, and is aware of her faults and that she should fix them. The prospect of that doesn’t weigh for her, it instead fuels her determination further because she knows she’ll be an even better person once she might succeed. Perhaps the only thing she is a little self-conscious about is her sexuality, or more specifically the fact that she has always lived in an environment that is full of sexualization as well as other things related to sex. For example, not many people know she lives in Kabukicho because she is well aware of that district’s reputation. Along with that, even without having visitors coming over, she prepared a special spot where to hide her hentai manga and porn magazines. Fujunko is conscious of her sexuality and how active her libido is, and she’s not truly ashamed of it---perhaps it’s more of a situation where she would rather not risk looking like a complete pervert. Being degraded to just that would be greatly inconveniencing.

Min-Seo defines her self-worth based on others’ opinions. Ever since she was young, she has always been influenced by the judgement of others, the prime example being her own parents. Self-made people that base one’s worth through what they can achieve and how they can handle business: from the very start Min-Seo was expected to fit in that archetype as well, she was pampered and educated to retain that mindset much like her father and her mother. The moment Min-Seo decided to direct herself towards something less academic, but rather more artistic (cooking isn’t exactly seen as something material, in her family) they turned their backs on her. Maybe she could’ve been able to pass not too unscathed had they just done that. Instead they decided to stick their fingers and salt into the wounds, considering Min-Seo is not a hard read: it’s obvious how she constantly craves approval from others, no matter about what. Her parents were disappointed, and decided to make her understand to what extent they felt hurt. Victims of a crime she never committed in first place. She thinks that acting according to her own personality and morals is wrong in itself. A lot of times Min-Seo doubts her actions, questions her worth, wonders about her existence in itself. The weight that her parents’ expectations have on her back is far too much for her to handle without breaking. Min-Seo can persevere, but one thing is for sure: she will forever be scarred by her own lack of assertiveness. This is her conviction. The way she constantly puts herself down for every little thing may come across as attention-seeking, and it wouldn’t be wrong to think so. In a way, she is craving of attention and validation, even though she constantly denies so if directly asked. She wants to be looked at for who she is, but she is too scared to disappoint others in doing it. Thus, she is content with superficial reassurances and compliments---they satisfy, even if a little, her need for that bit of positivity while not digging in too deep. Because who likes a loser that’s constantly fretting over the future and her own identity?

Marzanna is another complex case, mostly due to the fact that her ego made, for the most part, an incredible shift. Its timeline can be divided very neatly: pre-Nev, the time previous to her “punishment”; and post-Nev, the time spent living in the human world with her reborn appearance, which she dons to this day. It wasn’t exactly a drastic change, as it came gradually with its own time, but the differences between before and after are rather striking. Impressive as they are quite scary. However, as a deity, Marzanna will always retain a sense of superiority. Obviously, pre-Nev she was much more cruel, merciless, violent---a goddess of Death and Winter true to her name. But going along with the myths, even then she possessed a very intricate personality due to her double-nature as a goddess of Harvest and Rebirth. You could say she played “both parts”, even if her nature was still prevalently more inclined to be the vicious Marzanna all humans worshipping her cult feared. That respect and terror in her regards constantly fuelled her ego and pride, hence why she rarely took kindly to those who critiqued her ways and manners (which were basically non-existent). After all the whereabouts in the Underworld, there was a change. Marzanna, the first time she came out of her “cocoon”, did not seem like Marzanna at all. Though it took her time to settle comfortably in her new body and her new life amongst humans, she managed to prove not only to Veles and Perun, but also to herself, that she was capable of being better. Of real emotions other than bitterness, anger, and spite. Marzanna became humble, she felt humble, and wanted to be kind to others without expecting anything in return. This doesn’t mean that she forgot who she was and what she did---Marzanna remembers everything very clearly. And, an important note, is that her “rebirth” did not erase the being she was before. Marzanna is gentle---but she still is prideful, she still can be fearsome, she, of her own will, can hurt others to her liking. The difference is that now her patience is much broader and more difficult to abuse of, seeing as she has learned how to properly control herself. If you bring into discussion the matter of self-worth, though, Marzanna will state with confidence that she doesn’t think of herself as neither too worthless, nor worthy. She is right in the middle. She would be telling the truth. There are certain things she is especially self-deprecating about, such as Jarilo and Vesna and her past wrongdoings, but they don’t feel so heavy that she needs to chastise herself because of them. Rather, she believes acknowledging them will help in avoiding further mistakes that may bring to those very same terrible choices. So, in short, Marzanna has decent self-esteem, and considers herself not exactly the best person, whilst not belittling her own efforts. She strongly believes in self-improvement, and despite not liking enjoying the memories about the things she has done and said, she doesn’t deny having acted upon them out of her own free will. While she is kind around humans, she still retains a bit of sense of condescending superiority, as perhaps remnant of her once-fiery pride. She’s not the kind to abuse of her nature, however, preferring to conceal it.

Annaliese is confident, it’s not difficult to tell. Although her past is rather bizarre---between neglectful, bigoted parents, a difficult life in the orphanage and a quite null life before the one in the convent---she seems to have come unscathed out of most of her experiences. In fact, one could even dare say that no matter how bad a thing could be, she will make the best of it and treasure the good part of her experience. Annaliese is a simple woman with a rather picky mind, because while she does not necessarily forget the horrible things said and done to her, they don’t affect her. They literally wash off as easily as rain. Is it in her nature to be so simply careless? Most’s insecurities (at least in the case of this blog) stem from the fear of other’s judgement and opinions, and they can augment following more events worth of a great shock or a trauma. For some reason, this does not apply to Annaliese---she has a stable view of herself, which is nor exceedingly high nor stratospherically low. It could be her airheadness playing a part as well, considering she’s not too aware of her own flaws and faults: but when met with confrontation about them, as long as it’s reasonable, she is willing to listen (hoping the other party will be kind enough as to explain properly what they mean). Annaliese considers hostile approaches annoying and useless to deal with, and perhaps this way of “shrugging them off” came with the stern teachings of the orphanage she grew up in, which was handled by the clergy. It is very stereotypical, and mostly true, for religious people to be obstinately stubborn about their beliefs. This could apply to Annaliese, who is outright unwilling to communicate with someone who is not able to take on a calmer attitude. Annaliese thinks of herself as decent, and doesn’t really take to mind her flaws nor her merits. She almost only acts on instinct, meaning she doesn’t use her head all that much. This means any ill judgement is typically rejected without batting an eye, and without giving thought to it---almost as if it was never heard in first place. This also means that if she feels unjustly attacked, she will act upon personal pride to try and defend herself.

Momoko is... complex. That, in itself, is not the correct word to describe her situation with self-esteem. Let’s start with the fact that Momoko has a very distorted view on many things, varying from common knowledge to specific psychological matters such as love, affection. She also has a very hard time dealing with what’s real and what’s not, as she constantly lives in a hazy and confused status that’s constantly oscillating between reality and hallucinations. It’s enough of an example to mention how her dreams, as described by her, almost exactly resemble her daily life. Sometimes, her brain---high on medications---creates hallucinations out of nowhere, be it auditory, sensory, or visual. Momoko lives her life constantly on edge because of this. To understand exactly why she ended up living in this perpetual state of uncertainty about what’s real and what not, you’d have to know what happened in her past. Considering that, as of now, it’s for the most part concealed and vague, we’ll try to explain without having to necessarily explore that specific aspect. As a first, Momoko thinks mostly two things about herself: “I’m a miserable piece of shit” and “But at least I’m better than the cockroaches”. She considers herself a despicable, lowly being, without a doubt. But at the same time she contradicts her own belief, by stating that she is superior in comparison to what she calls “cockroaches”. It’s a rather interesting paradox, as well as huge. She hates herself whilst not truly hating herself---confused as her own perception of reality is. Momoko judges others for anything simply because she can, and because she doesn’t feel the need to repress hostile and rude thoughts. It took her some time, and a lot of pressure from her medics, to understand that it’d be best if she kept comments to herself---but when she’s alone, or in a scarcely populated area, she doesn’t refrain from commenting under her breath any and all evil things she can think of. It’s efficient for distancing others from approaching her, is her conscious thought. Subconsciously, she is feeding her own ego, which is dramatically starving for some sort of validation. Momoko feeds her own self-esteem however she can, and since only anger runs through her veins, she will fuel her confidence with hatred towards others. Acting out based on her impulses and pleasures (such as hurting small living beings and being a disturbingly active member of the darknet community) doesn’t truly feed into this illusion of hers, it’s useful to fulfill a sense of utility. Momoko is conscious and makes use of her own intelligence, despite the fact that it doesn’t make her feel good about herself. Her own self-worth isn’t based on her skills. Then if her pride is based on her hatred towards others---the “cockroaches”, as she calls them (though it’s not exclusive to other people); what is her self-loathing based on? A very good question. The most clear-cut answer is her unveiled past, of course, and the events that occurred in her middle-school years. But since we cannot explore that part of her timeline yet, a possible answer could be... her self-consciousness. Momoko has never been particularly subject to bullying---nor to others’ judgement. In fact, while she was often picked on, she just as perpetually fought back with teeth and nails. Momoko always had a strong confidence regarding herself ever since she was a kid. So, one would be curious as to why she would grow up to resent herself to the point which she literally can reach starving points of two full days, one would be dying to understand what is pushing her to risk her (so far) untainted criminal record with all the illegal actions she follows on her own accord. Momoko is conscious of her actions. She knows what she does is horrible. And she doesn’t feel an ounce of guilt. Time and time again she’s bared strong self-fulfilled conviction in her own actions, and rarely does she feel like she is in the wrong. Even when presented with proof, it’s hard to convince her that she might be the one at fault. Then what is it? What is the cause of her self-hatred, if not aforementioned self-consciousness? Could it be something rooted in that so-mysterious event that caused her whole life to go downhill? Honestly? Momoko does not know. She hates herself---because she is human, that much is obvious. She doesn’t feel remorse when she acts vile, and that’s when she feels good about herself. Having emotions is the bane of her. She hates feeling. Perhaps this could be the reason. It’s her own nature as an emotional human being that she despises the most.

#now this is REALLY long #brace yourselves fellas this is a ride #if you need pictures to skim more easily ghgjghghg im sorry this is a Bit of a textbooky thing i guess. as in. it can get boring?#or at least i assume bc this shit.... yO. INTERESTING.#fujunko || disclosed information.#min seo || disclosed information.#marzanna || disclosed information.#annaliese || disclosed information.#momoko || disclosed information.#outta violence || ooc.#long post /#again ask if theres anything to tag!#i wont be arsed to let this wait more than it should so ofc im posting right away

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andrewuttaro · 3 years

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The Friction of the Gospel

Dorothy Day maybe the most cited Saint-to-be of the twentieth century. Her life’s work consisted of advocating for the poor and oppressed in the form of the working people of New York City throughout the Depression Era and beyond. Her Catholic Worker’s Movement took Jesus’ Gospel message seriously in a way few other organizations dared to. She and her compatriots were radically involved in the hopes and needs of those excluded from the benefits of American society as its first gilded age gave way to the brutal realities of a massive economic downturn. A copy of her daily Catholic Worker Newspaper can still be bought for a penny.

Day and her right-hand man Peter Maurin believed in “blowing up the dynamite of the Gospel” as contemporary apologists and evangelists will remind you. This phrase of course being a modern expression for the “Good News” the New Testament speaks of. In other news: the explosive, liberating reality of God made flesh in Jesus Christ, death, and resurrection. The focus of evangelizing the Gospel, particularly after the Second Vatican Council from the Catholic perspective, would focus on finding similar modern retellings of the same ancient truths that have moored Christianity for twenty centuries. Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI both spilled much ink laying out the theological groundings that they believed could undergird a new evangelization in an increasingly Post-Christian world with an eye for Day’s charism.

As those who know Dorothy Day are probably already saying to themselves reading this: “blowing up the dynamite of the Gospel” is actually something very few Christians really want to do. Day’s message didn’t belong to any person except Jesus, and it isn’t easily fit within contemporary conservatism or liberalism. The thing about dynamite is its really hard to control. You light it up and then run away because it’s going to tear through everything around it. As the fifties and sixties drew on an aging Dorothy Day didn’t stop challenging indifferent power structures for the sake of the poor for Jesus Christ. She firmly embedded herself in the Civil Rights movement and the Counterculture of those days, often finding herself arrested and in prison for her activism. The thing about the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that it doesn’t neatly fit into anyone’s narrative. The Gospel challenges all of us and only comforts those who truly, recklessly love Jesus and neighbor. This is a hard life to live so most all of us domesticate Jesus in some way, sanding off parts of the Gospel we prefer to downplay.

There is a friction implicit in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Dynamite might be a good way to imagine it. On one hand we are called to follow the Son of God: the one true God who became incarnate in our flesh to suffer with us and finally wipe free our consciences of the guilt of sin on the cross. There is an objective truth to it. On the other hand Jesus tells us to go, baptize in his name, and make disciples of all nations. Go to the gutters of the excluded like he did and eat a meal with the outcasts, welcoming them in as Jesus himself. The first will be last and the last will be first. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man into the Kingdom of God. There is a missionary calling that will do whatever it takes to save souls in every time and place: Mercy.

Truth and Mercy aren’t in friction theologically but anyone whose really contemplated how they would tell someone why they have a relationship with Jesus intuitively knows it’s a different story on a practical level. Oceans of tears have been spilled in the religious trauma of that unique pressure to share Jesus in every interaction. Rivers of ink down through the centuries have been spilled trying to strike the most effective balance between accommodation and proselytizing. Perhaps us Christians haven’t nailed that balance since we were being fed to lions in the colosseum. The practical friction that exists within our Gospels callings, to love God and others AND go make disciples of all nations, is at a fever pitch in the world today.

Within my family I have the full range of friendliness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. On one end I love family members in outright departure from our Catholic faith, judging it (like Dorothy Day did) as corrupt, self-interested, and ultimately abusive in myriad ways. These family members have very strong moral codes and I’m not convinced Jesus isn’t working in them in less overt, non-institutional ways, but they certainly wouldn’t let you know it. On the other end I have family members I love who are so devoted to their particular domestication of Jesus that they are convinced the magisterium of the Church upholds it. Perhaps they are attentive to the assent to Jesus, but their missionary zeal is gone: others coming to him is ultimately on them to walk in the door and accept his truths point blank as if they’ve always been presented the same way with little help. It’s a club you have to pay your dues for apparently.

With both the ends of the spectrum and everyone in between Jesus is domesticated to look the way we need him to for our ideological convictions. For many of us an ideological first principle unrelated to anything Jesus actually said is what really dictates how we approach the Gospel. Even among the most outwardly Catholic people I’ve ever met there is a clear ideological messaging that is not in line with Jesus Christ. To look at it from the outside looking in it would seem 40-60% of those who apply themselves to spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ, clergy or not, are outright toxic to contemporary audiences. Their own clout is their God and Jesus condemns more than anything else for them. In Catholic circles one might say there is an unwillingness to “think with the Church” if you will, to act as with one heart no matter what our ideologies would prefer. In the broader Christian world Jesus is being used as a cudgel for strongmen and bigoted regimes the world over. Here in America we are only now trying to contemplate how we can answer the sin of Christian nationalism.

Too often I hear my brothers and sisters in Christ repeating the tired old euphemism “we are to be in the world, not of the world”. Often these co-religionists of mine will struggle to say why nationalism is bad if it’s a “Christian nation” or why the sinful world minoritarian perspective shouldn’t just win out, allowing us to isolate ourselves from disagreement. Some seem to aspire to a permanent retreat into a neat enclave locking ourselves behind doors of moral certitude and walls of self-assured righteousness. We know Jesus is our treasure: what we frequently seem to forget is that Jesus wants to share himself with all of humanity. There might be no more godless place on the internet these days than the forums where Jesus is discussed.

That friction of the Gospel, between upholding truth and saving souls at all costs, has always been with us and always will be until Jesus comes back to settle it himself. In the meantime the dynamite remains here with us, unlit and hidden beneath a bushel in the biblical metaphor: a light hidden away. Have we decided to horde it? Have we locked Jesus in? Does he knock from the inside now, asking to be let out to a world who desperately needs him? Whatever the state of your relationship with Jesus the next step for each of us is the devotion of Dorothy Day. The kind of devotion that is recklessly in love. If we can fix our eyes on Jesus sincerely and humbly enough to know we don’t have all the answers then we might just find him right there with us leading the way. Jesus respects our consent. He knows the fiction his Gospel brings, and he will help us to the right way of things if we can only first focus on him undomesticated.

Perhaps the friction of the Gospel only really exists when we have reservation: when we want to keep something from God we’re not quite ready to subject to the explosive power of Jesus just yet. He can wait. Take your time. Do your research. Suffer through that confused ranting from yourself and others. Listen. Open your ears. Attend to the hearts of your loved ones. Attend to the needs of those who have nobody and nothing. Attend to your own soul, it’s needs, and pray to the one who reaches out to you everyday just waiting for you to reach back without anything holding you back.

#Dorothy Day #Christian #Catholic #Gospel #Jesus Christ

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criticalalexandrite · 7 years

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Why do you hate each of those episodes?

1.) The Zoo The fact that it took an environment that mirrored real life human zoos and even if you ignore that the humans there are in fact slaves,. Because they were most likely kidnapped there and they’re not allowed to leave. But then the show had the nerve to make light of that kind of situation.2.) That Will Be AllThe beginning of The Great Diamond Woobification, which killed all my hope for the Diamonds being interesting and complex villains. Also why didn’t Holly Blue notice that Pearl wasn’t wearing a Homeworld outfit? That really distracted me.3.) RocknaldoThe episode was falsely advertised and all it did was flanderize Ronaldo rather than…properly develop him which was annoying.4.) The Trial There’s so many plotholes in this episode I’d have to make a whole post addressing all of them.5.) Three Gems and a BabyPearl trying to kill baby Steven and not being called out on it ruined the whole thing for me. Also the moment of the Crystal Gems attacking one of Steven’s babysitters was less charming and more annoying for me.6.) Beach City DriftStevonnie being told that being rightfully angry at Kevin for harassing them makes them just as bad as Kevin is a gross moral, especially for kids. (The one thing I loved this episode was Stevonnie officially being given they pronouns. Bless. Ok and also the joke about Greg REALLY loving his car, that was legit gold.)7.) BismuthI don’t even need to explain this one. Just look at the other SU critical blogs that feel like Bismuth was unjustly treated. Becky even revealed through the release of the art book that Bismuth is an anti Black Lives Matter caricature. Considering the “reverse racism” execution of the episode, that’s horrible! And incredibly racist!8.) Gem HarvestEpisode moral was crap because it basically said “You HAVE to forgive your bigoted relatives cuz they’re family!” As if found family isn’t a completely viable option in these cases. As if tolerating relatives who want the POC family members dead/enslaved is wiser than hating said oppressive relative. As if in real life this approach to forgiving bigoted relatives would actually work. Also the deportation jokes were absolutely disgusting. What are you doing CN sensors? Also Pumpkin being brought into the show just to be a cutesy mascot was annoying9.) I Am My MomThe Crystal Gems being so stupidly useless so Aquamarine can seem strong was annoying. Steven not fusing with Connie to beat up Aquamarine and Topaz was annoying. Steven sacrificing himself to “atone for his mom’s crimes” was annoying.10.) Lion 4: Alternate Ending A needless fakeout episode that could’ve given us more lore on who or what Lion is but didn’t for no reason.11.) Steven’s DreamRacist Korean joke, beginning of Blue Diamond’s ugly design and woobification and a stupid reason for Steven going to Korea with just Greg. ALSO WHY DO NO HUMANS IN KOREA NOTICE THE GIANT BLUE WOMAN SHOWING UP EVERY FEW YEARS. WHERE IS THE GOVERNMENT IN SU. ANSWER ME, REBECCA.12.) Barn MatesOOC Lapidot fanservice clearly done just so Zuke can have her Lapidot roommates AU fantasy, which I thought was annoying. In all seriousness though I was originally looking forward to this episode. I wanted the show to make me like Lapidot. But it didn’t because I didn’t enjoy the new dynamic chosen for them which to be honest doesn’t really fit them imo. It also gave birth to neon gremlin Peridot which I will never forgive this episode for doing.13.) Cry For HelpMade Pearlnet toxic when it didn’t need to be. Pearl originally shuns Sugilite because of Garnet and Amethyst’s sensual dance, yet her dancing for the Sardonyx fusion is some of the most sexualized fusion dancing so far. Villainized Garnet for getting mad at Pearl when Pearl literally manipulated her. None of the gems were on Garnet’s side (except Ruby, we later find out) which is a questionable writing choice. Demonized Sugilite again at the end for no reason other than crewniverse might need to work out some worrisome world views.14.) Steven’s BirthdayOOC Connverse moments and makes Steven’s aging process even more confusing to avoid drawing an actual teen Steven.15.) The New Crystal GemsMore Lapidot fanservice filler, Lapis saying “I almost drowned a lot of people” and Pumpkin is still annoying for me.16.) Adventures in Light DistortionOne of the worst filler episodes to date imo (third to Rocknaldo for me and Gem harvest is second worst filler episode), the Steven crying scene was annoying even if half-understandable, no proper seizure warning for the ship’s lightspeed mode animation, the whole aspect of how the Red-eye ship travels doesn’t fit with how it functioned in past episodes and the Crystal Gems still not putting any effort to help the Rubies who are hardly a serious threat was annoying.

#editing since i no longer platform or suggest pitaya's SU crit blog to anyone

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neth-dugan · 7 years

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Nine Worlds 2017

This is a slightly lengthy report but meh. Tumblr has a ‘skip to next post’ function so what the heck.

I managed to get a pre-con cold rather than the traditional post-con one, which I’ve managed to give to @knittedace as well, oops. I did have hand gel on me and tissues to minimise the spread. If I gave anybody else my cold I’m sorry!

I met up with @knittedace on the Thursday. We were meant to go to the Natural History Museum but I’d been off work sick the previous day and just couldn’t do it. No energy. Instead we met up at the hotel itself and as soon as we could get into the room we unpacked and I took a nice and much needed nap.

We went to the ‘Cheese and Cheese’ evening event, one of two events to welcome people to the convention. There was cheese of both the literal and literary variety to be enjoyed. I read out a riveting and very cheesy Power Rangers VHS tape description, but the best was a very cracky, rather explicit Doctor Who one that had the entire room in hysterics. I was laughing so much I was coughing up a lung.

FRIDAY

I was initiated into the Order of the Dalek! Learnt how to put on @knittedace‘s knitted Dalek costume - something I got better at as the weekend went on. I also came across some great cosplays, and @knittedace got to pose with a Missy and Thirteenth Doctor. She’ll post the pic if she wants to.

In the morning I decided to go for something different from what I usually go to. We’d met the woman running some of the kids panels and she invited us along. So I went. It was pretty cute, gave the parents some adults to be around too and just played some simple games. Don’t really get to do that ever. And then there was a fun story that was like some kind of Dinosaur version of Planet of the Apes but about environmental issues and written a few decades back.

Then I went to a crafty thing in which we all made hair bands! Met some great teens, two of whom had made their own cosplays. For one it was her fourteenth birthday and she ended up having to help me out because I’m rubbish at this stuff. We had some good talks fandom but also human orientations and labels and just being happy with who you are. Oddly we all also ended up in the next thing which was basically free tea and cake with tables to chat at.

I came across this same group of teens at this con, all through the weekend. They’re all smart and for all that they’re still growing up and maturing they’re great people already.

I was given the green tea left ofter after. Yay free tea!

Toxicity in Fandom was my next stop. Nothing particularly surprising but still a good talk that had someone who had once been a part of those hostile groups though they’ve grown up and are better now. It also touched on how the toxicity doesn’t just come from the traditional bigots and gamergate type folk, but also people from those who use the language of social justice to bully rather than for good. The folk who live up to all the bad things people throw at the ‘sjw’ name.

Nine at Nine Worlds: Nine Tropes which was about, well, tropes in fan fic. Nine of us presenting five minutes on our favourite trope. It had the return of Nina - Lady of the Puppets - and then I did mine on ‘Time Travel Fix It Fics’. Went well. People laughed. Someone the next day pulled me aside to have a chat about it. Apparently I accidentally made them read loads of fic with the trope. Oooops. There was also a dramatic 007/Q power point fic reading that I helped out with, to lots of laughter.

There was also a late night game of Slash, with my home made deck, with other members of that panel including Tanya who had lead it. Tanya, for those who don’t know, was co-head of the Fan Fiction track back when tracks were organised differently and there was a specific Fan Fiction track. She’s still a big part of the fan works type stuff and is pretty damn awesome. She’s been there to help me out when I needed it and is pretty brilliant. There were also others who just came and joined in and that’s the beauty of these things. But then it was time for bed.

SATURDAY

Before any panels started, me and @knittedace met up with the person who’d be our third in Sunday’s Redemption round table to have a real world chat over breakfast which was fun. I’ve no idea if he has a tumblr ID to tag him in however. I’d wanted to have someone who knew about anime on there because neither me or @knittedace know anything about it. I know about Yuri on Ice but not much else. And though it’s mostly a workshop it is a bit panel so yeah. We had a great talk. And food.

We found the infamous ‘TARDIS full of Bras’ cosplayer. For those who don’t know there was a comment on a British newspaper site that is our version of Fox saying that the new Doctor couldn’t be a woman because then the TARDIS would be full of bras. So some brilliant soul went and turned this into a cosplay and just…. love. Again the pic I have is of Helen too so it’s up to her to post it. But seriously, OMG LOVE.

Time Travel and Film was our first panel of the day. We both got there in time for the hall to be mostly empty. I had on my TNG uniform hoodie thing with my comms badge pin so we get this photo:

The talk itself was also fun. Presented by an actual university lecturer on Philosophy, and turns out she was also the woman on a panel I’d be running later in the day. I looked at her name on the power point, down at the names I had for the panel and up again and went ‘huh’. Seriously though, good lecture about time travel from the perspective of philosophy rather than physics and its different possible models.

I was talking to some folk and the lecturer after, @knittedace having already left when I got a text from her saying there was a Londo cosplayer outside. I sped out there as fast as I could to find this fantastic person:

I have no idea their name or anything other than they were determined to remain in character and had a wife who sounded a bit bemused and long suffering of it all. Kinda reminded me of my mom trying to deal with my dad actually. He was really fun though. (ETA: I am told that he is @TheWarLlama on twitter) (ETA2: Apparently the woman wasn’t his wife. I just assumed because the dynamic going on reminded me of my mom lol. Oops. )

Queer Coding in Disney was my next stop. The person doing it did a good job. Made sure they explained what queer coding was in the first place for those who didn’t know and then went through Disney. Talked about films I didn’t know much about, and there was some talk about how some of this also intersected with other minorities and representation of various people.

After that I went upstairs for a nap. I was tired, still had that damnable cold, and wanted to be my best for my panel. I missed a panel slot with content but self care is important so up I went.

But then I was back! With my Hufflepuff scarf and wand! And still in my Starfleet uniform hoodie!

I think on the way into the panel hall someone said something like ‘hello Commander’ and I was a bit confused. Mostly because I didn’t have any pips so couldn’t be an officer but that’s a small thing and I think I smiled back?

In any case, next up was my panel. Which upon arriving at the convention I discovered was to be held in the largest room at the convention. Eeeep!

Dumbledore: Good or Evil? Went pretty well. At least one member of my panel was surprised it was ever even a debate, but she none the less stood up and argued for good. She was the above mentioned philosophy lecturer so debating is kind of her thing. She comes at it very much from a philosophical theory perspective though which I think caught out one or two people in the audience going from twitter. A person took a picture and stuck it on their twitter. You can find that here. I’m in the middle.

There was a lot of talk about how Dumbles does or doesn’t use his power for people, abandoning Harry, the things that go on in his school under his responsibility, and at one point he was compared to Boris Johnson. How he seems to be about consequences more than the actions themselves. Is it intent or your actions that make you good or evil? Does the era that the man grew up in excuse things? Does the fact that there was a war coming/going on excuse things or not?

There was a question at the end about him being a slave owner due to house elves. That…. I had red sirens screaming in my head there. Thankfully it was with hardly any time to go. It’s a very good question. Something worth looking at. But nobody on the panel had any real place speaking on it. The philosopher took it, but she took it from literally a philosophical perspective rather than a moral one which probably came off wrong to some. Because yeah, that wasn’t a moral stance. I didn’t really know what to do there other than internally panic a bit and try to move on as fast as I could with a ‘this could be a whole other panel and should be’ thing.

I was so worried about not being neutral that I didn’t step in to point things out or ask things when looking back I wish I had. There are things about that I’d have liked to improve but largely the response seemed to be good. I learnt from it. We had a vote at the end on of the audience thought Dumbledore was ‘good, ‘evil or bad leaning’ or ‘it’s complicated guys leave us alone’. The result was a mixed bag with lots of complicated so I guess that wins. People did come up to chat to us when we were still on stage after it ended to thank us for this or that. I’d warded off a comment from team Evil that was about cheating but could also have come across as anti-poly and so someone thanked me for that.

Druids, Deities and Daemons: Archeological Horrors in ‘Doctor Who’ was my next thing. It wasn’t particularly exciting but it was an interesting look at how the show portrays archeology from an Egyptologist who had a delightful manner of presentation. You can tell he’s upper middle or upper class but he isn’t snooty and he’s just really cheerful and into his thing. Which is always a joy to see. He wasn’t fond of Ten saying that as a time traveller he laughed at archaeologists. Fair.

Ageism in fanworks/fandom was a panel Tanya had asked me to be on last minute when playing Slash the night before. So I had no prep time and possibly a few people were confused as to why an extra person was sat up there. I was probably the youngest person on there, no worries. But interestingly also the only person who had actually grown up in fandom rather than finding it as an adult. It was interesting, throwing up different experiences with fandom and how it sees age, how it changes. But also how media sees us. How it expects women to age out of fandom but for male fans to be the sad lonely people in the basement forever.

Space Opera! SF&F in Musicals was a unique panel, for me anyway. Held in the lower levels with half the room covered by bean bags. By this point I could barely walk. I don’t know why, something happened to my legs and I found it increasingly hard to walk through the day. @knittedace said I should grab a priority access sticker but I’d have felt like a fraud even as I slowly limped my way around the place so i didn’t. But I managed to get a chair anyway so yay!

The person presenting it was drunk. I thought they were just mellow. It had originally been designed as an academic thing but given when it was scheduled it became a kind of guided tour of musical SF/F complete with YouTube clips, sarcastic comments from the audience and much fun. Also singing along sometimes. I lost the key to my room. It later turned out I’d left it there when I awoke from my nap but I couldn’t find @knittedace so I got reception to invalidate the old ones and issue new ones. With slightly disturbing ease come to think of it. And that was that.

SUNDAY

Marvel v DC Fanworks was the first panel of the morning. Chaired by a very very very tired Tanya who was having a hard time of it I think. It was a good conversation but you could tell she didn’t have the energy to chair it as she might want to. I was sat next to the birthday girl from Friday who is smart and knows her stuff and was very very excited. So excited she frequently interrupted and spoke over others. I don’t blame her. She was excited and we’ve all been there. I’ve been there. And ideally it is the chair’s job to gently deal with that but as I said, tired. In the end a person left the room when they got talked over once too often. I don’t blame either. It sucks to be talked over, especially for some people who find that really hard. And though I’m sad she left I understand it.

But I’ve been a very excited teenager, in fandom at that, before. It’s also hard to pull that in when you don’t have the experience and you’re having so much fun and you have so so so many things you want to say and nobody is telling you no. I’ve been her as I said. The things she wanted to say were all good things. Just a convergence of multiple things that didn’t mix well is all. I think she noticed too as she got a sad look with the woman left the room. Felt bad for both of them really. All three of them.

Queer Dax was my next panel, and one I was running. I’d decided that there was no way joined Trill weren’t queer, and wanted to talk about that, so here we are. I’d made sure that the panel had people on it who were queer in various ways and though one person couldn’t make it due to passport issues we held on.

The room started to fill up well before the start time. So we were chatting at everything from pets in the different series with someone insisting that Neelix was the pet on Voyager. Gasp! To how Mourn maybe talks a lot in ways we don’t get to Garak/Bashir slash to anything. The place was pretty full by the time we started.

It was a good discussion. I later found out that the person who’d manned the convention’s front desk really wanted to go but couldn’t and so was following a person’s live tweet of it as it went on.

We talked about the identity of the symbionts themselves, what it may be like to suddenly be flooded with all these humanoid identities. How maybe they’re like drag (at the start anyway). How we never hear them talk for themselves, as themselves, just the hosts. We’ve even had former hosts separated from the whole and able to talk in the singular. But never a symbiont. We asked how memory worked, to what degree were the hosts individuals or now and how that may work. How there were ‘very special episode’ moments but how they kinda also played out like every other Dax romance and was pretty good for the era. How Trek at least had a framework where this discussion was possible.

I framed lots of things as ‘for Paramount in the 90s’ or similar because yeah. The studios. Boy. And the times.

There was also a good deal of talk about the parallels between the way joined Trill are treated, and how Trill are screened to trans gatekeeping and queer separatism. How Dax seems to get away with literally everything and does Jadzia Dax at least have privilege? Lots of stuff I haven’t mentioned.

Someone in the audience asked about things within Trek that called to us as queer people and I got to go on about my asexual headcanon for Seven of Nine.

A Study in Redemption: Character Arcs in our Fandoms aka ‘Redemption’. And oh boy this has a long history. Originally this was a proper panel but stuff happened behind the scenes, messages got mixed and instead of it being a panel full of fandomy meta people it was proper Named authors and I got anxious and didn’t know what the hell to do and internally screamed some. I reached out to Tanya for help, and she and a person above her in the Nine Worlds team really did help. I am so thankful to the both of them. We ended up splitting it into two with the authors keeping the proper panel thing and doing it from their perspective and I’d do a kind of panel/round table discussion thing. Mostly round table. I heard some not so great things about the ‘Redemption in Sci-FI’ panel aka the parent one. I couldn’t be there so I don’t know the details.

This one was awesome though. @knittedace was on it with me, as well as our third the anime guy. Who did have things to contribute even to western stuff that coming from another perspective and tradition was pretty cool.

Again it filled up fast. We were chatting about various stuff before the panel time started. And by the official start time arrived we had to put a sign on the door outside saying we were full except for a couple priority access seats. And it truly was only two priority access seats. One woman came in, and then left as she didn’t have a priority access sticker when there was still a ‘open to all’ seat left. Oh well.

In this one I brought all of my experience charing over the weekend. What I’d seen and liked, seen and didn’t like, as well as stuff I knew already. I knew this could be a tricky topic for some so I made sure rules were set out first.

Like, obviously we are talking about characters who have done bad things. And this will be mentioned. We can talk about Anakin Skywalker but not go into graphic detail over what he did. Use trigger warnings. If someone is talking about something you find hard raise both hands or otherwise make yourself known in a way other than ‘I want to talk next’ and we will stop. Let you get out. And send someone to let you in again. That people know the protocol for spoiler warnings in their own media types and fandoms and to use them. And again if you need to stop someone because you’re behind the bell curve in catching up, let us know and leave and we’ll bring you back in after. Someone did take advantage of this which was awesome.

I also made sure people knew talking over others wasn’t what I wanted, that they were to respect others and let them finish and that sometimes the three of us on the mini panel thing would pull things back to us to raise new points or add new questions etc.

It went really well. Orderly. One person had to leave for a minute and did so, no fuss was made, and came back in after, People respected others, good discussion was had, the topics moved forward rather than spiral deeper and deeper on things, nothing got graphic. Somehow there was humour even given the topic but not inappropriate humour.

Lots of good points including how some characters are seeking redemption even if probably they don’t need it. How for many people who had either been raised in a toxic/evil environment or who had been through crap otherwise, redemption was also often a story of gaining or regaining agency. How doing a good thing and then dying to save a person for selfish reasons wasn’t really redemption. Or how someone forcing you to be good by putting a soul in your body or other magic or something making you good is also not really redemption. Redemption, proper redemption, required choice and consequences and owning what you had did and overcoming. How sometimes there is an aspect of white saviour going on.

I loved that panel. I really really did.

What gets me most is that at the end of the night, someone who I really respect (not Tanya to be clear) came up and told me that my Dax and Redemption panels had been her two favourite of the entire convention. I was so so touched, and honoured and it meant a lot. I had a couple other people say they’d loved Dax but this one person was… it blew me away.

Geeky Cupcake Decorating was just pure fun. Me and @knittedace went to this just as a fun thing to do. Also being asexual we figured it was our duty. Speaking of, I made this lovely delight:

I had to mix the grey fondant myself. I think it’s fondant? Terms confuse me. @knittedace Made this brilliant set of Doctor Who cakes that she can show off later but where much admired. And the table near by made a truly adorable set of Yuri on Ice cakes. Some seriously talented folks. Also plenty of kids having a lot of fun. One little girl was running around showing off the cake she’d made and that her dad had made with real pride. So cute.

We went for dinner after that, sad that things were ending, and came back in time to go to the end of convention quiz.

End of the Con Quiz is hosed by Ash every year. And much to my delight we were once again visited by the infamous No Face. This isn’t a cosplay, this is like a visitation from the real thing. Last year they were slowly chasing Ash all over the place. This time they were menacing him from the corner whilst people gave it tribute (and it ate the dire wolf) to making Ash dance.

I knew almost none of the answers. I never do. But they did ask a question about my panel!

Our team decided to call ourselves ‘Quiz Master Ash/No Face OTP’. Not much of a reaction from Ash to that when he read it out. We came fourth. There was joint last which mean they had to battle it out to get (or not get if they so chose) the last place prize.

Never have you seen such a tense and dramatic game of Jenga. There was Star Trek fight music (Kirk edition) on repeat several times, there was the Benny Hill chase music, there was the Crystal Maze music, there was the Tetris theme. There were people at the back standing up to watch, everyone was tense. Even No Face got in on the action intimidating people/paying attention.

No Face got way closer than that. Scary.

I mean seriously. Though it has since been revealed, nobody knew who the person doing No Face was for two years. And they were fantastically in character. It was genius. And people treat them with the respect and caution as though they were actually a malevolent spirit. So this was fun for everyone up there lol.

Eventually that ended and we retreated to the mini bar in the games rom. Played more Slash for a bit until we all had to leave.

And then it was the end of the con. And all is sad.

Me and @knittedace had to share a bed as the room was one large bed rather than two singles. And I was joking that if we were inside a fan fic this would so be the ‘forced to share a bed’ trope. Followed by some joking about waking up to bumps in unexpected places. Like lower legs. Or something. But we got to sleep eventually.

I’m sad to be home. I have ideas for panels next year already. I miss it. @knittedace described getting home sick when she got home and I hadn’t framed it that way before but it is. We both grew up in fandom. Spending time here, talking here, learning here. Fandom is a culture we spent our formative years in and are still a part of. And conventions are like temporary pop up real world manifestations of that. So it kinda makes sense. But what makes them so special, in many ways, is that they are temporary. Even if it’s always sad to leave.

Also, and importantly, at the bottom of the back page of the program was this very touching easter egg that will make you feel the feels if you decode it:

–. -. ..- / - . .-. .-. -.– / .–. .-. .- - -.-. …. . - -

Nine Worlds Staff and Volunteers

They are brilliant. They work tirelessly before, during, and after the con to make things work. From the techies making sure all the equipment works to those running the front desk and twitter so people know what is going on to those making sure things go to plan or even have a plan, to everyone else who makes everything work. To those who do the nitty gritty stuff like finances and talking to hotels or sponsors to get stuff done to those who organise tracks and content to those who book entertainment to everyone who volunteers for a few hours.

They work so hard. And need so much thanks. None of this would work if not for them. It doesn’t matter how many of us are willing to sit at behind a mic and babble at you for an hour, if none of them are there nothing would happen at all.

So thanks to them for all they have done, and all they continue to do.

#nine worlds #nine worlds 2017 #star trek #harry potter #fandom

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fakesam · 6 years

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Stopped Procrastinating just in time for “Games of 2017” List

The worst year most of us could’ve imagined wouldn’t have been much worse than 2017. This year gave us the following: dystopian nightmares brought into reality by sycophants and cowards. Capitalistic greed reaching its inevitable, destructive conclusion. A bigoted baby as a president and given free reign by people who chose money and power over morals. Despair is constant. Hope is scarce. Next year might be worse. But at least we had good video games?

Referring to this year’s crop of games as simply “good” is like describing Ajit Pai’s face as “slightly punchable”. This was an all-time year for the medium, with a full catalog of memorable games that will be talking about for years to come. Every type of gamer was satiated. You could explore open worlds with diverse environments and secrets to discover. You could play tiny, affecting indie games that helped the expand the notion of what games are capable of. You could play games that leave you exasperated and angry at the depths publishers will steep to in order to extract maximum profits. There were more games than anyone could ever keep up with. At this time, I’ve only played seven games released in 2017, so rather than scoop the diamonds out of the muck, I decided to just rank the games I had the chance to play over the course of the year. Overall, these games are a good mix of brilliance and profound disappointment, which is a pretty good description for 2017 as a whole. If your favorite game isn’t on my list, It’s simply because that game sucks and you have bad taste. Here's to 2018!

8. Danger Zone

I wiped this game from my memory until I wrote most of this list. I reviewed the game when it was released over the summer. Go read that if you want more detailed exploration of my disappointment. There was a rumor floating around a couple weeks back about a remastered version of Burnout: Paradise. I will pray to whatever deity makes that happen.

7. Battlefront 2

Star Wars was the first thing I chose to love. My earliest childhood memory is watching the remastered original trilogy tapes. I convinced my mom to fake a doctor’s appointment to see Episode three on release day. My first viewing of The Force Awakens is the best theater experience I’ve ever had. Star Wars means a lot to me. This backstory is why I feel Battlefront 2’s total failure so heavily. It’s almost impressive how thoroughly EA managed to poison the well for three giant franchises (Mass Effect, Need For Speed, and Star Wars). But Battlefront 2 is the Mount Everest of completely preventable fuck-ups. Enough’s been written about the predatory design of the multiplayer and the various ways that segment of the game is awful. But the single-player is even more of a letdown.

Viewing the end of Return of the Jedi from the Empire’s perspective should be fascinating, the writing ruins the plot before it has a chance. The premise collapses under the simplest questioning. It’s taken as a given that Iden Versio’s reversal is inherently meaningful, but Battlefront 2 does little to justify this. Why does the destruction of her home planet upset her to the point of defection? What was her life like there? How is this the first time Iden has seen evidence of the Empire engaging in nefarious tactics? She goes from diehard Empire defender to joining their sworn enemy in the span of about ninety minutes. The gameplay is just as dull. Sometimes a space battle gets thrown in and those are enjoyable, but those sequences aren’t prevalent enough to elevate the dreck that surrounds them.

Rather than tell an original story that earns its own space in the canon, the campaign becomes an edition of Star Wars Madlibs. Heroes from the original trilogy show up constantly, for little rhyme or reason other than EA wanted to give players the chance to demo each character before, in an ideal world, you move on to the multiplayer you don’t want to play. This overwrought deference to the past is put into even more stark relief by what Rian Johnson did with The Last Jedi. The thing that makes that movie so great is the number of chances it takes to add to the universe in surprising ways, such as the casino planet full of war profiteers, or the quad-boobed slug seal monster that provides Luke Skywalker with delicious space milk (These points are equally important in my mind). Battlefront 2 had the opportunity to really show what it’s like to be indoctrinated in the ways of the Empire from the moment a person is born, and it chooses to do the exact opposite. Bummer.

6. Nier Automata

There’s a chasm of quality between Nier and Battlefront 2, but many people might be surprised to see Nier this low on my list. I really wanted to like Nier more than I currently do. Let me explain: I loved the way the game’s experiments with form and storytelling, treating each playthrough like a season of television. The commitment to world building all the way down to the mechanics of how you save the game is impressive. The list of side characters I’ve ever met who have affected me as much as Pascal is short. Every encounter with him left me wanting more. He’s the robot stepdad of your dreams.

But after playing through the game three times, the idea of roaming through the world destroying generic machine enemies for the 800th time fills me with dread. Nier Automata needs to be open world to get its ideas across. But the environments are very drab and crossing this overly vast expanse became very tiresome very quickly. You should’ve seen my face when I unlocked the ability to fast travel. Christmas presents don’t give me that much joy. The combat would’ve been described as uninspired ten years ago. My completionist streak is urging me to see the two endings I have yet to see, but the dozens of enemy mobs I have to shoot and slash to see it through actively impede me from doing so.

And it’s all in service of a story that, while filled with cool images and presented incredibly well, isn’t really tailored to my tastes. The way the machines and androids reckon with their autonomy is fascinating at times - some of the context given to boss battles in later playthroughs is heartbreaking, but Nier is ultimately another “robots discovering they have feelings” tale. The future horror stories that interest me the most - Black Mirror, Twilight Zone, The Fallout series - are more focused on how humanity reacts to such calamities. When you remove humans from the picture altogether, it becomes more of a science experiment, and I struggle to invest in that. Sorry!

5. Portal Quest

If you’ve never heard of this game, it’s a free-to-play mobile action-RPG. Its art style could accurately be described as ‘Tearaway on a lesser budget’. There are a lot of modes, most of which use timers and daily limits to control how you play them. One of these modes comes attached with a story, but it never calls attention to itself. The gameplay mostly resembles strategy games, in the sense that the player has very little control once combat actually starts. Portal Quest is deceptively simple enough to worm its way into the slivers of boredom that accent everyday life, where mobile games are at their most seductive. I play it in line at the grocery store. I played it while waiting for my screening of The Last Jedi to start. I play it when I’m avoiding hard/meaningful work during my small time on Earth. There are guilds you can join which add a substantial multiplayer component that plays on my deep-seated displeasure at letting other people down. I’m currently in a guild named after the devil. My old guild kicked me for reasons unknown and I was sincerely annoyed when I found out. I’m not making this game sound very good, am I?It’s probably because I’m so confused by it. Mobile games tend to be non-starters for me (I actually tried to look at my phone way less this year), and the only reason I downloaded this game at the suggestion of an app that claimed that credits I earned for using certain apps could eventually be used as currency for many online marketplaces. I didn’t stick with that very long. And now we’re here. Is Portal Quest’s standing on this list a mediocre joke from an unfunny man? It might be. Did I place this above Nier Automata just to mess with that game’s passionate fanbase? Possibly. Do I feel good about placing a mobile game this high on a game of the year list? Not especially. I dunno man. It’s the one app that keeps me checking my phone more than any other. It’s free on the Android store (I assume it’s playable on iPhones, but I also don’t feel like checking?). Go check it out.

4. Fifa 18

When it comes to sports games, I don’t ask for much. The FIFA franchise has reached a baseline level of good that means that EA would have to seismically screw up to keep me from playing the newest rendition for forty hours at the minimum. Career mode dominates my time in this genre, and FIFA 18 was the year that this mode finally got the overhaul that’s been needed for years.The AI tactics still aren’t where I want them to be, and their version of Jordan Henderson continues to look more “Vegas wax figure” than man. But these details are small in the grand scheme. It’s the only reality where I can see Liverpool not shoot themselves in the feet, hands, and superfluous third nipple to win the Premier League. The Journey is also the best story in a sports game, and it’s not even close. That’s worth something.

3. Persona 5

Following Persona 4 is basically an impossible job. That game was a comet across the sky that dropped from the heavens and into my heart. I’ve watched the endurance run multiple times, played through the game twice on my PS2, and played through most of the game again on my Vita (Rest in peace.). Whatever Atlus followed that with would be a comedown. It’s definitely colored how some of the characters and the story affected me. The crew in Persona 4 was a much cooler hang than the Phantom Thieves were, and I missed some of the small-town intimacy of Inaba. But when taken on its own merits, Persona 5 is a spectacular RPG. It just plays so well. Every annoying quirk from Persona 4 was dealt with in a way that kept dungeon crawling from feeling too stale. Coercing enemies to become your persona was a surprisingly engrossing tactic. Being able to switch out team members on the fly is a game changer. I was able to capture hearts in a couple in-game days and focus on the social interactions that make this series so special. I eventually grew to love this version of Tokyo, and realized its sense of big city culture shock was a feature, not a bug. And no discussion of Persona 5 would be complete without commending the game for its impeccable style. It’s not quite Persona 4, but it never could be.

2. Horizon: Zero Dawn

Robot Dinosaurs! Is there a more attractive combination of words in the English language? No one expected Guerrilla Games, a developer who had previously been such purveyors of sludgy monochrome shooters with the Killzone franchise, to suddenly discover the entirety of the color spectrum and create a universe that pulls from the earliest parts of human civilization and far-flung science fiction pontifications. Fewer expected that such a fusion would be so successful. It’s been a while since I fell for an open world this hard. I had to see everything this world had to offer, and document it via Horizon’s photo mode. Watching these machines go through the motions of real animal behaviors became a regular past time (Although it still frustrates me that I couldn’t make the machines fight each other more easily).

Horizon is iterative more than innovative, but I enjoyed playing it much more than the recent Far Cry or Assassin’s Creed. I usually hate bow and arrows, but I loved how the weapons felt in this game. The moment to moment story about the three tribes was just okay, but uncovering the mysteries of the world and how it became this way kept me going until the end. They even made audio logs a powerful storytelling device again. One of 2017’s few pleasant surprises.

1.Super Mario Odyssey

Nintendo is a company defined by reinvention. Their consoles and games refuse to follow market trends and exist in their own world, for better or worse. The last couple years had skewed towards the worse end of that dichotomy. I’ll die on “The Wii U wasn’t actually that bad” island, but the system was still a commercial disaster. Nintendo’s genius is singular and vital to the industry, but, outside of Splatoon, there had been few examples of their creativity delivering on its potential. It was fair to question whether the company could make their increasingly fleeting moments of brilliance slightly less fleeting. But Nintendo tends to show out when their backs are against the wall, and this year proved that axiom true yet again. The Switch is the great console the Wii U should’ve been, and the games released for it are good and interesting in surprising ways. I was excited for Super Mario Odyssey by the time I heard the phrase “New Donk City”, but by the time I started playing it, I was feeling full up on open-ended sandbox games with dozens of hours of side content and an overarching story that only unfolds at my pace. Over 200 hours of Persona 5, Nier, and Horizon will change a man. Nintendo showed why that sentiment was false. It wasn’t the genre. It was the imagination.

Each kingdom is an intricately designed diorama that constantly throws new things at you while continuing to be a peerless platformer we’ve come to know and love an indulging fan nostalgia along the way. There doesn’t seem to be any idea that wasn’t met with anything less than an affirmative “hell yes!” The childish exuberance that courses through most of Nintendo’s best work somehow becomes more surreal and gleefully discordant as Mario explores more and more worlds that are completely alien to him. Super Mario Odyssey has so many moments that make me smile involuntarily, from the hundreds of moons I’ve found due to blind faith in Nintendo’s design process to the NES-style levels that somehow exist in the world without a loading screen, to the objectively perfect festival scene in New Donk City. How many other games would reward you for sitting with a lonely man on a bench? This game is so damn weird, I love it. I’m not usually inclined to obsessively mine every bit of minutiae out of a game, but I definitely plan on finding every moon and purple coin that’s evaded me so far. I’m 600 moons in, and I’m still nowhere close to being sick of Super Mario Odyssey. This game is special.

#games of 2017 #writing

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ninety6tears · 5 years

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King of Exchanges letter

It’s a Stephen King exchange! I’m a big fan but only somewhere in the middle of my consumption/obsession; with King being heavy on self-referencing and crossover-friendly treatments, I’d be happy for you to mix and match any of my requests, as long as you can see from my goodreads page that I’ve read the relevant stuff.

Basic preferences: Anywhere from gen to PWP is fine. I love pastiche for lit fandoms but something that feels more off the beaten path of the original style can also be fun.

I can handle: underage, dubcon, noncon, torture and incest. Character death. Love triangles. Infidelity.

Do Not Want: Canon divergent fix-it scenarios unless prompted (AUs where the original conflict never happened doesn’t fall into that; I just don’t want “X didn’t die and everything’s okay now” as a main premise rather than just an element). Soulbonding/magical soulmate tropes. Disputes centered around marriage as a show of commitment ("If you were really serious you'd have proposed by now rather than just wanting to live together" and all that). A/B/O, mpreg, or any body fluid kinks. More than a mention of Alzheimer’s/dementia.

Christine ‘83 (FIC):

Arnie Cunningham/Dennis Guilder

---NOTE - You can totally make it fic for the book if you want; I like both but the movie is more fresh in my mind for prompting purposes so I went with that; plus I do like the dark humor Carpenter brings to adolescence without mocking the angst of being a teenager, not that King isn’t morbidly funny in his own right.

We get very little of them together before Arnie starts to go all possessed but we can tell their friendship has lasted a lot of changes over the years. That hospital visit over the holiday (which I remember was more bittersweet, less tense in the book) feels like the last time Arnie remembered that he loves Dennis. But even before all that, there’s a nice dynamic where Dennis is protective of Arnie and really thinks highly of him (and huh, maybe sees something in his looks other people don’t) when it’s not socially advantageous for him to retain that loyalty, and I’d like to get more of that. Maybe they’ve fooled around once or twice? Maybe Arnie was the one who got weird about it, afraid of the eventual rejection, or they’re both just too repressed? I like the triangle with Leigh too, if you wanted to get into the confused jealousy/conduit attraction thing, just nothing that completely dismisses any meaning of her relationship with Dennis, please.

Crossover Tags (FIC):

Peter McVries & Ray Garraty & The Stand

Peter McVries/Ray Garraty & The Stand

Larry Underwood & Richie Tozier

The Long Walk (FIC):

Peter McVries/Ray Garraty

The Stand (ART):

Larry Underwood/Lucy Swann

Lucy Swann/Larry Underwood/Nadine Cross/Randall Flagg

Nadine Cross

---My attempts to prompt for art for these tags may be unhelpful but I’m really into Nadine’s scary paranormal bond with Flagg, the imagery of her hair and Flagg’s tainted handsomeness and everything haunted about her and her life, and how the love triangle with her and Larry and Lucy is really a quadrangle of temptations and baggage beyond the usual moral pressure of romantic entanglements. I also would like anything associated with the individual permutations (Larry/Nadine, Larry/Lucy, Larry/Nadine/Randall?). Desperate/melancholy embraces, or moments of almost touching. That ghost leering over Nadine’s shoulder in her moments of getting too close to tenderness.

#stephen king #christine #it #the long walk #the stand

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heideggirl · 4 years

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bad arguments people make on the internet, part I

maybe this is the first of many rants, or maybe it’ll be my only rant, but I often think how useful it would be to have a catalog of responses to bad internet arguments at the ready, so that instead of making them over and over I can just send them to people and move on with my life. (it would also be very therapeutic to write them out! )

the first (and maybe only) bad argument I'll take up is the argument of the form “you have spoken/written/published about Y; therefore, you think X is unimportant.” examples: why are you writing about graduate workers and their unionization struggles when you could be writing about less privileged groups of workers? it must be because you think people in the latter group are NOT IMPORTANT and their suffering DOES NOT MATTER. why are you writing and reading about ANTI-BLACK RACISM but NOT ANTISEMITISM? it must because you hate the Jews and think the Holocaust is NOT IMPORTANT YOU TRAITOR-TO-YOUR-PEOPLE-JERK.

caveats:

first, the arguments I make are about individuals, not institutions. it is certainly true that if a university has classes about Jewish studies but not ethnic studies, that is a problem and evidence of wrong-doing of some kind, because university administrators (and other institutional figures) have special responsibilities. I won’t get into the institutional question here, except to say that my arguments don’t really apply to these kinds of cases.

second, it is true that sometimes when someone writes about one thing, but not about something else you’d expect them to care about if they were earnestly reflecting on the former thing, their motives become suspect. so, if you are very interested in what’s wrong with “cancel culture,” but you are completely uninterested in ending at-will employment, that represents at least an error in judgment if not evidence of outright bad faith. (if you have opposed ending at-will employment, that’s evidence of either logical failure or extreme bad faith.) I couldn’t explain when exactly to be suspicious of someone (at least not here), and I certainly think sometimes the evidence strongly supports suspicion. but arguments of this form--you talked about x, so you think y doesn't matter!--are wielded all the time against people in a range of contexts, and often they are stupid.

responses to this argument/alternative explanations for why people would write about X and not Y (at least on one or two occasions):

1. it’s just not true that focusing on one thing for the span of one discussion means you don’t care about other things, much less that you think they are objectively less important. for instance, a person could write a personal essay about the death of her mother. in doing so, she wouldn’t be implying that she thinks the death of her mother is more important than the pandemic; if pushed, she probably wouldn’t say that she thinks that; the pandemic is just not the subject of her essay. it is possible to think multiple things are bad at once. it is even possible to think X is worse than Y, but to find oneself, for whatever reason, more drawn to writing about Y (more on some possible reasons for writing about Ys below).

it is actually good that essays aren’t about everything, since an essay that were about everything would be pretty confusing. moreover, it is okay to have a special investment in a topic you have some personal relationship to (e.g., to have a special affection for your union, or your mother). this is an important aspect of being human. it doesn’t and shouldn’t preclude also caring about people very different from you to whom you have no connection, but luckily it isn’t incompatible with doing so.

2. if you are an academic or a writer, you are not trying to say as many true things as possible rather to say something new and interesting. in fact you have to do this in order to publish an academic paper. so you might choose to focus on, e.g., your union, about which little has been written, rather than unions in general, about which a ton has been written. example: in analytic philosophy, there has been comparatively little written about what makes at-will employment wrong, and there has been a lot written about what makes murder wrong. in choosing to write a paper about what makes at-will employment wrong, a person is not implying that she thinks murder is less wrong or less important. she is just trying to say something new--to fill a gap.

3. this is related to--but not identical with--(2): some people (like me) feel more compelled to write about something and think about something when they don’t understand it yet. this means that I write and think more about things I'm not sure about than about things I am sure about. I feel sure that women are human beings. this isn't to say I could write an awesome philosophy paper about it (or about anything really) but is to say I don’t feel the kind of pressing curiosity about it that usually drives me to inquiry. I feel uncertain about, e.g., ‘cancel culture,’ so I feel more compelled to work through my confusions. (3) is related to (2) insofar as we often feel we understand things better because a lot has been written about them already. (although of course sometimes existing writing has the opposite effect. in my own case I find myself drawn to topics about which there isn’t a lot written yet.)

this brings us, again, to a question implicitly raised in (2) about what public-ish and public platforms are for. are they for making interesting/new contributions? saying the truest stuff as many times as possible? expressing what you happen to be thinking about that day? talking to your friends? different platforms are for different things. magazines and academic journals are for saying new and interesting stuff. some activist platforms are and should be for saying true stuff over and over. social media for private citizens can be--and during mass-quarantine must be--in part about chatting with your friends about what you’re thinking about that da. because I'm not a celebrity or an activist or a person who holds public office, I use social media to raise questions that are actually preoccupying me. that means I talk less about things I'm sure about, and so less about things I might regard as more morally obvious or even more morally important. i don’t want to talk about, e.g., how women are people because I don’t have a lot to say about it besides “this strikes me as obvious.” whereas I have a lot to say--really, to ask--about “cancel culture.” (is it an issue? what is the issue? etc.)

4. finally, when it comes to social media, there is the question of context and audience. some people are posting primarily for the benefit of their bigoted family members, which means they think it is important to emphasize the kinds of things you would want to emphasize if you had a five-minute segment on CNN. that makes sense. other people have different audiences and so different aims. for instance, most of the people I interact with on social media are leftist writers and thinkers who agree with me about almost everything. this means that I am not primarily concerned to talk them into leftism or educate them about it. I don’t need to convince them to support Bernie because they already do. my goals, then, are (a) to learn from them, and (b) to challenge them to be consistent (as well as to just talk about whatever is on my mind, since at least some of my social media is primarily for my actual friends).

these are some reasons why people might write about Y instead of X in a range of contexts without thinking or meaning to imply that Y is more important than X. there are probably a lot more.

WhOooooOOOOOOooooo

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live4thelord · 5 years

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A Scriptural Guide for Living and Evangelizing in Troubled, Confused Times

There is a Christian hymn, written in the 1940s during World War II, that says, “In times like these, you need a Savior. In times like these, you need an anchor. Be very sure, be very sure, your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock.”

There are very few faithful Catholics who are not shocked and dismayed by the rapidity of decline into confusion (sexual and otherwise) of a culture once described as Judeo-Christian. Whatever our sectarian differences of the past (and they were significant and embarrassingly numerous), there was at least basic agreement on the fundamentals of biblical morality and the authority of the Word of God. Most of this is gone—and it has gone quickly. Consider some of the things going on in the world today:

Celebration of homosexual acts (exemplified by “Pride Month”), transgenderism, physician-assisted suicide/euthanasia, the decline of marriage and the family (due, among other things, to widespread promiscuity), the seeming impossibility of balancing generous welcome of immigrants with the need for order and respect for the rule of law.

Even within the Church, sexual abuse and sexual harassment have been too easily overlooked or not taken seriously.

The rapid acceptance in our culture of things that even ten years ago it would have seemed impossible to imagine gaining widespread approval feels like whiplash. Those of us who hold to tradition and believe that God’s teaching and five thousand years of recorded history should be respected have suddenly become out-of-touch—or even worse, hateful, bigoted, homophobic, and just plain mean! All this for failing to fall into step with the new “morality.”

Yes, in times like these we need a Savior!

The early Church experienced similar struggles. As the gospel left the relatively sane but religiously hostile world of Judaism, it encountered the pagan world, which, while not religiously hostile, was morally confused by corrupting sexual practices and entertainment marked by violence and the destruction and disposability of the human person. Sound familiar?

There is one difference, though, and it was noted by C.S. Lewis in his Latin Letters (1948-53): ancient Greece and Europe were like a virgin awaiting her husband while the modern West resembles an angry divorcée. This makes our task today even more difficult. We seek to re-propose the gospel to a cynical world that responds, been there, done that, divorced that, and am now demanding an annulment.

Nevertheless, we have much to learn from the early Church, which experienced similar decadence and confusion. Perhaps a survey of some texts that both describe the all-too-familiar situation and offer advice may be helpful.

These texts from God’s Word do not mince words. They are a tough assessment of a world at odds with God. We live in soft times and shy away from strong, clear descriptions; we prefer euphemisms and pleasantries. However, the world of the New Testament, especially Jesus Himself, spoke boldly, plainly, and without any hint of political correctness.

That said, these texts do not mean to say that everyone who opposes Church teaching has all of these qualities. They speak to the collective qualities of a fallen world governed by a fallen angel. Even we who strive to come out of the world and not be of it do so gradually and imperfectly.

The passages are addressed to both believers and non-believers, all of whom have fallen natures and need to be vividly reminded of this, summoned to courage, and called to speak the truth in love.

The scripture passages are presented in bold, black italics while my commentary appears in plain red text.

Let’s begin first with texts that describe the situation:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father (Gal 1:3-5).

The age then (and now) is described simply as an evil age, for this world is at odds with God and what He teaches. This has been more or less obvious over the centuries, but Jesus Himself warns that the most consistent experience of His followers will be persecution and hatred from the world (cf John 15).

And you were once dead in the trespasses and sins in which you walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind (Eph 2:1-3).

The unrepentant are described as following the prince of this world (Satan), being in disobedience, living in the passions of the flesh, and destined for wrath. These are tragic truths for many unless they repent, and for us if we turn away from the faith.

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake (2 Cor 4:3-5).

The confused are described as being blinded and deceived by the “god” of this age and time. This is a prophetic description of the world in which we live. Do not excessively admire the wisdom or thoughts of this age. Science has accomplished much, but knowledge is not on par with wisdom, and wisdom is what this world lacks. Knowledge without wisdom is like a car without a key or a life without a known purpose.

For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead (1 Peter 4:3-5).

Sound familiar? Adultery, premarital sex, cohabitation, promiscuity, homosexual acts, and the acceptance and even celebration of all these disordered actions. Add to this our modern struggles with addiction and all forms of excess. Yet let anyone, especially the Church, say that there should be limits on behavior and the pitchforks come out: Intolerant, bigoted, homophobic, uptight, hateful! Many don’t understand why we do not simply join in their celebration of all sorts of illicit sexual union, debauchery, and greed. But see what the text says: we do not owe them assent; it is the unrepentant disobedient who will have to render an account to Him who will be their Judge.

But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh (Jude 1:17-23).

In other words, do not be dismayed. The times are unpleasant but not unexpected. For our part, we must not be fascinated by or enamored of what we see around us, nor should we be discouraged. Draw back from this confusion and see it for what it is: ungodly, worldly, and devoid of the Spirit. Have nothing to do with it.

But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, … (1 Tim 4:1-2).

Take note: lies, deceit, demonic doctrines, and seared consciences.

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of great trouble. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power … so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith … But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus (2 Tim 3:1-8; 14-15).

This is all too familiar. Let’s be clear that there are more problems today than just sex. Greed, consumerism, excess, the arrogance of scientism, the prideful belief that we know better than the ancients, the demand for comfort, and the insistence on flattering our massive egos are all common problems today. We who would believe and seek to come out of this world must examine our lives and repent of drives and actions like these.

The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust and defiling passion and despise authority. Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme … blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant … reveling in their deceptions … They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray … For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved (2 Peter, various verses).

The hatred of the truth, the blasphemy, and the contempt for sacred doctrine are nothing new, but they are now more arrogantly on display than ever before.

In these passages were many descriptions of what is only too familiar today. It has returned on our watch, and we need to take responsibility for the situation. As the Lord’s witnesses, we are supposed to be prophets to this world. If things have declined—and they have—it happened on our watch! As a Church, we have not been as clear as we should be; we have made compromises and been intimidated into silence. Parents, too, have been largely passive. We have collectively and too easily tolerated contraception, promiscuity, cohabitation, divorce, single motherhood (absent fatherhood), and all sorts of confusion about life, marriage, and family.

What then are we to do? Scripture speaks to witnessing to a dubious, resistant, and rebellious age. Consider some of these passages:

For it is written, “I WILL DESTROY THE WISDOM OF THE WISE, AND THE CLEVERNESS OF THE CLEVER I WILL SET ASIDE.” Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe (1 Cor 1:19-21).

Preach with confidence, and when ridiculed, remember that the Wisdom of God is unfathomable to the world, but the thoughts of this age are foolishness to Him. Do not be impressed by or fearful of the foolishness that parades as enlightenment and tolerance. It will neither last nor emerge victorious. God and His wisdom will out!

Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory (1 Cor 2:6-7).

Notice that the rulers of this world are passing away, but the word of the Lord remains forever. Do not lose heart!

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is (Eph 5:15-17).

Stay in conformity with God’s will no matter how much the world scoffs.

Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person (Col 4:5-6).

Be gracious but clear. Give answers to doubters with kindness but also with clarity. Do not hide; do not fail to answer.

Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame (1 Peter 3:15-16).

Never, never, never defile the faith through bad conduct or inconsistency. Allow the joy of the gospel to permeate your life such that people will notice and ask you for the reason. Not everyone in this world is so jaded that he will not respond to joy and the message of the truth.

Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside (2 Tim 4:2-4).

Never give up. Preach and teach even if people laugh, ridicule, walk out, write to the bishop, or threaten. Preach, preach, preach, even if your own children scoff or manifest confusion and error. Many today will resist and quote so-called authorities to seek to refute you; just keep on preaching. Stay anchored in the Scriptures and the Catechism. Read the Fathers and do not succumb to trendy revisions of the Word of God.

Let this be advice for difficult days. In times like these we need a Savior; thankfully, the Lord Jesus is still here. He himself was scoffed at, ridiculed, called a threat, and finally crucified outside the city gates. Let us be willing to go out and die with Him if necessary, out of love for the many who have been deceived by this confused culture.

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industriousmind · 6 years

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In the Maze

Must history have losers?

By: Dayna Tortorici

One of the purposes of this section is to provide a testimony of a moment — to recognize and record, as C. L. R. James said — the questions and debates that preoccupy us. But sometimes life furnishes situations that cannot be approached intellectually. None of the usual keys fits the lock. An intellectual situation grades into an emotional situation and becomes untouchable. How do you write a history of the present, then? Sublimate, sublimate — until that stops getting you anywhere.

Two years ago, in January 2016, I wrote to my coeditors with a proposal for an Intellectual Situation about what I felt was an impending male backlash. One colleague asked, “What backlash?” Another worried it was too close to the bone. In the end I abandoned the essay because I couldn’t find a way in. I couldn’t figure it out.

What was happening was that the men I knew were beginning to feel persecuted as a class. They remarked on it obliquely, with jokes that didn’t quite sound like jokes, in emails or in offhand remarks at parties. Irritation and annoyance were souring into something worse. Men said they felt like they were living in Soviet Russia. The culture was being hijacked by college students, humorless young people who knew nothing of real life, its paradoxes and disappointments. Soon intellectuals would not be able to sneeze without being sent to the gulag.

Women, too, felt the pressure. “Your generation is so moral,” a celebrated novelist said to an editor my age. Another friend, a journalist in her fifties, described the heat she got from online feminists for expressing skepticism toward safe spaces. “I’m conservative now,” she said, meaning to the kids. But the most persistent and least logical complaint came from men — men I knew and men in the media. They could not speak. And yet they were speaking. Near the end of 2014, I remember, the right to free speech under the First Amendment had been recast in popular discourse as the right to free speech without consequence, without reaction.

The examples in the press could be innocent and sinister. A Princeton undergraduate, the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, could not argue he was not privileged in Time magazine without facing ridicule on Twitter. A tech executive could hardly make a joke without being fired, a young tech executive told me. “Take Mahbod Moghadam,” he said. Moghadam was one of the founders of Genius, and had been dismissed for his annotations of the shooter Elliot Rodger’s manifesto. (“This is an artful sentence, beautifully written” he wrote. Of Rodger’s sister, he added, “Maddy will go on to attend USC and turn into a spoiled hottie.”) Once, on my way to work, I heard a story on NPR about a Pennsylvania man named Anthony Elonis who was taking a First Amendment case to the Supreme Court. He was defending his right to make jokes about murdering his ex-wife on Facebook, in the form of non-rhyming, rhythmless rap lyrics. “I’m not going to rest until your body is a mess, / soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts,” he posted. When she filed a restraining order, Elonis posted again. “I’ve got enough explosives / to take care of the state police and the sheriff’s department.” Posts about shooting up an elementary school and slitting the throat of a female FBI agent followed. When he was convicted for transmitting intent to injure another person across state lines, via the internet, he argued he was just doing what Eminem did on his albums: joking. Venting, creatively. Under the First Amendment, the government had to prove he had “subjective intent.” His initial forty-four month prison sentence was overturned by the Supreme Court but was ultimately reinstated by an appeals court. I learned later that he had been fired from his job for multiple sexual harassment complaints, just after his wife left him.

How did I feel about all this? Too many ways to say. The aggregate effect of white male resentment across culture disturbed me, as did the confusion of freedom of speech with freedom to ridicule, threaten, harass, and abuse. When it came to the more benign expressions of resentment, in the academy and in the fiefdoms of high culture, I was less sure. On the one hand, I was a person of my generation and generally thought the students to be right. Show me a teenager who isn’t a fundamentalist, I thought; what matters is they’re pushing for progress. The theorist Sara Ahmed’s diagnosis of teachers’ reactions to sensitive students as “a moral panic about moral panics” struck me as right. (Her defense of trigger warnings and safe spaces in “Against Students” remains one of the best I know: trigger warnings are “a partial and necessarily inadequate measure to enable some people to stay in the room so that ‘difficult issues’ can be discussed” and safe spaces, a “technique for dealing with the consequences of histories that are not over. . . . We have safe spaces so we can talk about racism not so we can avoid talking about racism!”) I also agreed with my colleague Elizabeth Gumport when she observed, speaking to a man in mind but also to me, “It’s not that you can’t speak. It’s that other people can hear you. And they’re telling you what you’re saying is crazy.”

Still, I had sympathy for what I recognized in some peers as professional anxiety and fear. The way they had learned to live in the world — to write novels, to make art, to teach, to argue about ideas, to conduct themselves in sexual and romantic relationships — no longer fit the time in which they were living. Especially the men. Their novels, art, teaching methods, ideas, and relationship paradigms were all being condemned as unenlightened or violent. Many of these condemnations issued from social media, where they multiplied and took on the character of a mounting threat: a mob at the gate. But repudiations of the old ways were also turning up in outlets that mattered to them: in reviews, on teaching evaluations, on hiring committees. Authors and artists whose work was celebrated as “thoughtful” or “political” not eight years ago were now being singled out as chauvinists and bigots. One might expect this in old age, but to be cast out as a political dinosaur by 52, by 40, by 36? They hadn’t even peaked! And with the political right — the actual right — getting away with murder, theft, and exploitation worldwide . . . ? That, at least, was how I gathered they felt. Sometimes I thought they were right. Sometimes I thought they needed to grow up.

The outlet of choice for this cultural moment within my extended circle was Facebook. More and more adults were gathering there, particularly academics, and reactions to campus scandals ruled my feed. A mild vertigo attends my memory of this time, which I think of, now, as The Long 2016. It began at least two years prior. There were reactions to Emma Sulkowicz’s Mattress Performance, to Laura Kipnis’s essay in the Chronicle Review, to Kenneth Goldsmith’s Michael Brown poem, to Joe Scanlan’s Donelle Woolford character in the Whitney Biennial, to Caitlyn Jenner’s coming out as trans, to Rachel Dolezal’s getting outed as white, to the Yale Halloween letter, to Michael Derrick Hudson writing under the name Yi-Fen Chou to get into a Best American Poetry anthology, to the phenomenon of Hollywood whitewashing, to sexual abuse allegations against Bill Cosby and Roger Ailes. Meanwhile, in the background, headline after headline about police murders of black people and the upcoming presidential election. Many of these Facebook reactions were “bad” — meaning, in my personal shorthand, in bad faith (willful misunderstanding of the issue at hand), a bad look (unflattering to he or she who thought it brave to defend a dominant, conservative belief), or bad politics (reactionary). Yet even the bad takes augured something good. A shift was taking place in the elite institutions. The good that came of it didn’t have to trickle down further for me to find value in it. This was my corner of the world. I thought it ought to be better.

The question was at whose expense. It was easy enough to say, “white men,” harder to say which ones and how. Class — often the most important dimension — tended to be absent from the calculus. It may once have been a mark of a first-rate intelligence to hold two opposing ideas in mind, but it was now a political necessity to hold three, at least. And what of the difference between the cultural elite and the power elite, the Harold Blooms and the Koch Brothers of the world? While we debated who should be the first to move over, pipe down, or give back, we seemed to understand that the most obvious candidates were beyond our reach. What good would it do, for us, to say that Donald Trump had a bigger “problem” with black voters than Bernie Sanders did, or that Donald Trump would be kinder to Wall Street than Hillary Clinton would? To do so would be to allow a lesser man to set the standard for acceptable behavior. We would tend to our own precincts, hold our own to account.

This may have been bad strategy, in retrospect. Perhaps we lost track of the real enemy. Still, I understand why we pursued it. It’s easy to forget how few people anticipated what was coming, and had we not attempted to achieve some kind of equality within our ranks, the finger of blame would have pointed infinitely outward, cueing infinite paralysis. Shouldn’t that domino, further down the line, be the first to fall? Yes, but we’d played this game before. Women of color couldn’t be asked to wait for the white male capitalist class to fall before addressing the blight of racism or sexism on their lives — nor, for that matter, could men of color or white women. It was not solidarity to sweep internal issues under the rug until the real enemy’s defeat. Nor was achieving a state of purity before doing politics. But a middle ground was possible. Feminism and antiracism shouldn’t have to wait.

Only they would have to wait. By summer 2016, Trump, the echt white-male-resentment and “free-speech” candidate, had proven all kinds of discriminatory speech acceptable by voicing it and nevertheless winning the Republican nomination. A low bar, to be sure, but even his party was horrified when the Access Hollywood tape leaked a month before voting day. Trump’s remarks crossed a boundary his apologists didn’t expect: the GOP’s standing benevolent-patriarch attitude toward white women and sex. How depressing it would be, I remember thinking, to muster a win on so pathetic a norm as the purity of white femininity. But I was desperate. I’d take just about anything.

And then, despite the outrage, we didn’t win. Although it matters that Trump won the election unfairly, it shouldn’t have even been close. Perhaps I’d forgotten what country we lived in, what world. Sexual harassment was by and large accepted as an unfortunate consequence of male biology, and joking or bragging about sexual harassment was a comparably minor offense. Months later, I walked down the street in Manhattan and saw a row of the artist Marilyn Minter’s posters wheat-pasted to a wooden construction fence. Gold letters on black read DONALD J. TRUMP above a two-tone image of his smiling face, and across the bottom, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. In between was a prose poem of Trump’s words captured on the hot mic, iterated across the span of wall:

I did try and fuck her. She was married.

I moved on her like a bitch,

But I couldn’t get there.

And she was married.

You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful.

I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss.

I don’t even wait.

And when you’re a star they let you do it.

You can do anything . . .

Grab them by the pussy.

You can do anything.

You can do anything was the refrain of my childhood. I was a daughter of the Title-IX generation, a lucky girl in a decade when lucky girls of lucky parents were encouraged to play sports, be leaders, wear pants, believe themselves good at math, and aspire to become the first female President of the United States. The culture validated this norm. Politicians and advertisers loved girls. Girls, before they became women, could do anything. (Women were too old to save, an unspoken rule behind all kinds of policy. Need an abortion? Better to keep the kid, who has not yet been ground down by life.) But if girls were taught to be winners, boys were not taught to be losers. On the contrary, to lose was a man’s worst fate — especially if he was straight — because winning meant access to sex (a belief held most firmly by the involuntarily celibate). Even then I understood that someone’s gain was bound to be perceived as someone else’s loss, and over time, I learned not to be too brazen. I maintained a prudent fear of the falling class. Even when men weren’t dangerous, they weren’t defenseless. Some still had the resources to bring you down, should you be unlucky enough to be crossed by one.

Combine male fragility with white fragility and the perennial fear of falling and you end up with something lethal, potentially. Plenty of men make it through life just fine, but a wealthy white man with a stockpile of arms and a persecution complex is a truly terrifying figure. Elliot Rodger, Stephen Paddock: both these men had money. This is not to say that men punishing women for their pain is a rich thing or a white thing or even a gun thing. It occurs across cultures, eras, and classes, and the experience of being on the receiving end of it varies accordingly. As Houria Bouteldja writes in “We, Indigenous Women”:

In Europe, prisons are brimming with black people and Arabs. Racial profiling almost only concerns men, who are the police’s main target . It is in our eyes that they are diminished. And yet they try desperately to reconquer us, often through violence. In a society that is castrating, patriarchal, and racist (or subjected to imperialism), to live is to live with virility. “The cops are killing the men and the men are killing the women. I’m talking about rape. I’m talking about murder,” says Audre Lorde. A decolonial feminism must take into account this masculine, indigenous “gender trouble” because the oppression of men reflects directly on us. Yes, we are subjected with full force to the humiliation that is done to them. Male castration, a consequence of racism, is a humiliation for which men make us pay a steep price.

Women pay the price for other humiliations as well. The indignity of downward mobility, real or perceived, is a painful one to suffer, and a man takes it out where he can (Silvia Federici: “The more the man serves and is bossed around, the more he bosses around”). Whatever else it may be, sexual harassment in the “workplace context” is a check on a person’s autonomy, a threat to one’s means of self-support. It can feel like being put in place, chastised, challenged, or dared. Sure, you can do anything, it says. But don’t forget that I can still do this. The dare comes from winners and losers alike. Either you accept it and pay one price or you don’t and pay another. All of it always feels bad.

I imagine that some people feel good about bringing perpetrators to justice, such as it is under the system we have. But I imagine just as many do not want to be responsible for their offender’s punishment. They might say: Please don’t make it my decision whether you lose your job, are shunned by your peers, or get sent to prison. Prison, unemployment, and social exile are not what I want for men. I’m not here to be the police. I don’t want to be responsible for you.

There are many obstacles to honesty in conversations about sexual assault. Loyalty and pity, fear of judgment or retaliation, feelings of complicity or ambivalence — all are good enough reasons not to talk. Alleging sexual misconduct also tends to involve turning one’s life upside down and shaking out the contents for public scrutiny. It’s rarely done for fun.

When victims do want to talk, however, the litigiousness of men proves an obstacle to honesty. It is not unusual for women who speak too liberally about men to be threatened with legal action. Of all the striking things in Ronan Farrow’s New Yorker articles about Harvey Weinstein’s sex crimes, what struck me most were the allusions to Weinstein’s lawyers. “He drags your name through the mud, and he’ll come after you hard with his legal team,” said one woman who asked not to be named. Another chose to pull her allegation from the record. “I’m so sorry,” she told Farrow. “The legal angle is coming at me and I have no recourse.”

In the weeks after Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey first reported the story in the New York Times, as colleagues and strangers on the internet moved to identify the Weinsteins within their own industries, I felt uneasy. Behind every brave outing I saw a legal liability. I suppose that’s what happens when you know enough men with money. Such men are minor kings among us, men with lawyer-soldiers at their employ who can curtail certain kinds of talk. While I do believe in false allegations, and I do believe that women can be bullies, it’s hard, sometimes, not to be cynical about the defense. Some men love free speech almost as much as they love libel lawyers.

“Smart or reckless or both??” I texted my friends when I first saw the Google spreadsheet, titled “Shitty Media Men,” that compiled the names, affiliations, and alleged misconduct of men in my field: writers and editors of books, magazines, newspapers, and websites. The document had been started anonymously, and though intended for circulation among women only, it was visible (and editable) to anyone with the link. I saw the names of men I knew and men I didn’t, stories I’d heard before and a few I hadn’t. “The List,” as it came to be called, didn’t upset me, but neither did it give me comfort. Mostly I worried about retaliation: the contributors getting sued or worse. “Reckless,” a friend texted back. “Not sure how but definitely reckless.”

By then I was once again preoccupied by backlash. The day the Weinstein story broke in the Times and five days before Farrow’s first article, an investigative piece on BuzzFeed had described the range of people who’d sustained an email correspondence with Milo Yiannopoulos, the former Breitbart editor who’d once been the face of the company. In addition to the usual alt-right characters, there were “accomplished people in predominantly liberal industries — entertainment, tech, academia, fashion, and media — who resented what they felt was a censorious coastal cultural orthodoxy.” Named among them were two writers I knew, both men, who according to the article had tipped off Milo for stories. One of them was a Facebook friend. He vehemently denied the allegations and said he hadn’t written the emails provided by BuzzFeed as proof. The other, as far as I know, said nothing. He was the managing editor of Vice’s feminist vertical (he once profiled Ann Coulter) who emailed Yiannopoulos with the request, “Please mock this fat feminist,” linking to a story by Lindy West.

The article had made me feel naive. These were the people I’d given the benefit of the doubt, the professional acquaintances who adopted such strong anti-identitarian poses that I often couldn’t discern their true sympathies. I figured that like the liberal professionals in the throes of a moral panic about moral panics, they shared the goal of collective liberation but disagreed about how to reach it, and in their disagreement came off as more resistant to change than they were. But what if some of them were not just acting like reactionaries? What if they didn’t share the goal?

In the case of Milo’s pen pals, their connection to the right was far from abstract: they talked, griped, shared notes. The lesson was that if someone sounds like an enemy and acts like an enemy, he may in fact be an enemy. I wasn’t sure what this meant for the men on the List. These were men I’d known to say “woke” in a funny voice, to make intellectual arguments against the redistributive efforts within their control — who they published or how they assigned. They lamented the intrusion of politics on quality art and warned of the perils of hysteria, witch hunts, and sex panics. To prove myself worthy of their confidence I tried not to leap to conclusions. But the allegations against men like this were damning: rape, attempted rape, sexual assault, choking, punching, physical intimidation, and stalking; “verbal intimidation of female colleagues”; “sexual harassment, inappropriate comments and pranks (especially to young women).” Even if half of it was false, I knew at least some of it to be true. At some point it’s irresponsible not to connect what a man says with what he does. In the days following the BuzzFeed article, “Who Goes Nazi,” Dorothy Thompson’s famous Harper’s piece from 1941, sprang to the collective mind:

It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times — in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis.

None of the men I had in mind were Nazis. None resembled the men who’d marched through Charlottesville with tiki torches shouting, “You will not replace us!” But there was another spin on the game, and this was the one that worried me: Who in a showdown would accept the subjugation of women as a necessary political concession? Who would make peace with patriarchy if it meant a nominal win, or defend the accused for the sake of stability? The answer was more men than I’d been prepared to believe. I’d have to work harder not to alienate them, if only to make it harder for them to sell me out.

And so I talked to men. Men on the List, men not on the List, men secretly half-disappointed that they’d been left off the List, mistaking it for some kind of virility ranking. In the past I’d argued that it shouldn’t be women’s job to educate men about sexism, and I sympathized with the women who said so now. But reality isn’t always how it should be.

Perhaps it was just time for my shift. People take turns in the effort to explain collective pain, and I’d tapped out plenty of times before, pleading exhaustion, depression, and rage. The fact that I had the emotional reserves to discuss harassment at all implied that it was my responsibility to do so. (“It is the responsibility of the oppressed to teach the oppressors their mistakes,” Audre Lorde wrote in 1980 — “a constant drain of energy.”) This is not to say I was good at it: I overestimated the length of my fuse, listening, talking, reasoning, feeling more or less levelheaded — then abruptly shutting down or crying. It was nevertheless more than some friends could muster. From each according to her ability, et cetera.

If my approach was too much about men, my defense is that the situation was about men from the beginning. The shared experience of sexism is not the same thing as feminism, even if the recognition of shared experience is where some people’s feminism begins. It was to be expected that the discussion turned to men’s fates and feelings. How could guilty men be rehabilitated or justly punished? Under what circumstances could we continue to appreciate their art? As think pieces pondered these questions, other men leapt at the opportunity to make their political enemies’ sexual crimes an argument for the superiority of their side. It might have been funny if it weren’t so expected, so dark. When a friend and former colleague mentioned the “male-feminist” journalist who had choked her at the foot of his stairs, right-wing outlets rushed to “amplify” her voice. The pro-Trump website Gateway Pundit quoted her without permission; the Men’s Rights activist and alt-right personality Mike Cernovich retweeted the blog post to his 379,000 followers; Breitbart followed up with its own story. “My therapist said that I should sign every tweet with ‘also the alt right sucks’ so they can’t use my tweets in any more articles,” she joked.

Leftist men celebrated the fall of liberal male hypocrites, liberals the fall of conservative ones, conservatives and alt-rightists the fall of the liberals and leftists. Happiest were the antisemites, who applauded the feminist takedown of powerful Jewish men. It seemed not to occur to them — or maybe just not to matter? — that any person, any woman, had suffered. Outrage for the victims was just another weapon in an eternal battle between men. I remembered the emergency panel Trump assembled in response to the Access Hollywood tape with Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey, and Paula Jones — women who had accused Bill Clinton of harassment or rape. A fourth woman, Kathy Shelton, had been raped by a man Hillary Clinton defended in court as a young lawyer. As the adage goes: in the game of patriarchy, women aren’t the other team, they’re the ball.

All this posturing made optimism difficult and clarity imperative. Patiently, my peers and I explained to men that we understood the difference between a touch and a grope, a bad time and rape, and mass online feminist retribution and a right-wing conspiracy (how credulous did they think we were?). Meanwhile, we wrung as much change as we could from this news peg. We called meetings, revised workplace policies, resumed difficult conversations we’d have preferred not to. As we learned during the Long 2016, the self-evident harm of sexual assault is not self-evident at all: no automatic mechanism delivers justice the moment “awareness” is “raised.” Donald Trump remains the President. Social media, the staging ground for much of this reckoning, remains easy to manipulate. Our enemies pose as allies, and our allies act like enemies, suspicious that our gain will be their loss.

Must history have losers? The record suggests yes. Redistribution is a tricky business. Even simple metaphors for making the world more equitable — leveling a playing field, shifting the balance — can correspond to complex or labor-intensive processes. What freedoms might one have to surrender in order for others to be free? And how to figure it when those freedoms are not symmetrical? A little more power for you might mean a lot less power for me in practice, an exchange that will not feel fair in the short term even if it is in the long term. There is a reason, presumably, that we call it an ethical calculus and not an ethical algebra.

Some things are zero sum — perhaps more things than one cares to admit. To say that feminism is good for boys, that diversity makes a stronger team, or that collective liberation promises a greater, deeper freedom than the individual freedoms we know is comforting and true enough. But just as true, and significantly less consoling, is the guarantee that some will find the world less comfortable in the process of making it habitable for others. It would be easier to give up some privileges if it weren’t so traumatic to lose, as it is in our ruthlessly competitive and frequently undemocratic country. Changing the rules of the game might begin with revising what it means to win. I once heard a story about a friend who’d said, offhand at a book group, that he’d throw women under the bus if it meant achieving social democracy in the United States. The story was meant to be chilling — this from a friend? — but it made me laugh. As if you could do it without us, I thought, we who do all the work on the group project. I wondered what his idea of social democracy was.

As for how men might think about their role in a habitable future — or how anyone might, from a position of having something to lose — a visual metaphor may be useful. Imagine walking through a maze, for years and years, to find that your path has dead-ended near the exit. There’s an illusion of proximity, of closeness to the goal: you can see the light through the brush, hear the traffic just outside. It’s difficult, in that moment, to accept that you’re not in fact close — that you can’t jump the hedge, and that to turn around would not be to regress but to proceed. You turn around not because it is morally superior or because it will get you into heaven, but because it is your best and only option. Perhaps redistribution is like that. To attempt it is not to guarantee that the future will be better than the past, only to admit that it can be.

https://nplusonemag.com/issue-30/the-intellectual-situation/in-the-maze/

#metoo #feminism

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