I didn’t sit here for years tryna stay calm and silent while listening to your bad takes on gale (who grew up oppressed, in poverty and then witnessed his entire district getting wiped out then rightly went to fight in the rebellion because it was his inlg chance of tearing down the system the wanted him and his family dead) being a “terrorist war criminal who is single handedly responsible for killing innocent people including prim and who is the REAL villain of the hunger games” just for y’all to turn and start stanning and defending actual facist dictator and child trafficker Coriolanus Snow because you saw a young hot version of him.

it's also crazy to see people who call themselves activists bully a 17y/o who has continuously shown how supportive he is of various marginalized groups and that has openly talked about educating himself like. id love to see them spend this much time and energy learning about legislation in their own irl communities and learning how to actually create change because at the end of the day, a 17y/o is not responsible for the systemic oppression in our society

idk if i phrased that last ask well enough cause there's so many layers to this whole thing, but i just wanna add that it all just feels so performative and arrogant, like 'look im a better person than you for claiming to know more than you.' online activism should be about listening to marginalized voices who dont get the chance to speak about their experiences irl, not about tearing down strangers to feel better about yourself

I've got nothing to add, anon, you said it all

...actually I have a little bit to add. I'm pretty sure that one of the underlying reasons why people do this is because they feel powerless in their actual lives. Considering that most of them are teens, specifically afab and/or queer teens in cultures where both afab and queer people tend to be (not to put too fine a point on it) shat on, probably a lot of them are powerless. So they grasp for the feeling of control wherever they can find it.

What better way to feel powerful than by harassing somebody as famous as TommyInnit (and Ranboo, and Wilbur, and Techno, and the list goes on) into an onstream panic attack and off of twitter? Especially when you can tell yourself it's all in the service of Activism™ and therefore whatever you do is righteous and justifiable.

It's the classic cliche of "kid with rotten home life becomes school bully" writ large. I'm not saying that applies to everybody - some people are just abusive shitheads, and some people genuinely think they're doing the right thing - but look at how they treat someone like Tommy or Ranboo who caves to their pressure and is visibly emotionally affected by it versus how they treat someone like, idk, KSI, who couldn't give a fuck in public. There's no questioning that KSI has done much more questionable things than Tommy, but all the hate brigade's energy is focused on Tommy, because he's the one they actually have the ability to hurt.

tl;dr: people attack CCs like Tommy and Ranboo instead of putting their energy into solving actual problems or even calling out more problematic creators because their goal isn't to teach anybody anything - it's to control someone who they and all their friends look up to.

the insistence that trans men face a lesser kind of oppression than trans women is no different from the insistence that bisexuality is a watered down form of gayness

all of these groups can have different relationships with their oppression thanks to how they’re presented and perceived by society (invisibility in media vs overt demonization in media for instance) but these differences being boiled down to one group being distinctly More Important or More Authentically Oppressed than the other is legitimately harmful.

on the surface both of these ideas seem to make a sort of logical sense. trans men are trans people But Men, and we all know how men are treated by society. bi people are like gay people except they also like people of a different gender, and straight people like it when you do that. add on the relative invisibility and there isn’t much in the mainstream to challenge those ideas. 

the truth of the matter is that invisibility affects more than just mainstream media. this idea that bi people or trans men have lesser experiences with oppression are gut instinct because their voices, their experiences, have a history of under-representation. people don’t Hear the experiences that the people in these groups face and then create conditions within queer (and activist) spaces that treat those people like their voices matter less because they’re privileged. this creates a cycle where these groups are devalued and talked over because these groups are Already devalued and talked over.

this all pares horribly with the atmosphere in discourse (and particularly exclusionist) spaces where identities are used as social capital that is enforced by tearing down whoever it is you think is encroaching on your space. it’s not uncommon to see posts talking about the experiences of one identity that goes out of their way to exclude whatever’s being spoken of from another identity that they see as lesser, deliberately putting another identity down and crushing their voices in the conversation to lift themselves up. (the sheer amount of times I’ve seen a post start with “trans men Never-” while describing something I experience in my daily life is exhausting)

the most insidious thing about this is the fact that when you create an environment where oppression is social capital then someone trying to assert their lived experiences with their oppression when you view them as under you is considered overtly aggressive and is often framed as bigotry within itself, because theoretically if they’re equal to you then your social capital has been lowered. you see this Constantly within ace discourse, with people doing things like calling asexuality Inherently homophobic because they didn’t want to acknowledge another marginalized group’s oppression.

this can be particularly dangerous when it leaks into broader and more serious subject matter and colors how people look at and talk about a marginalized identity’s experiences. one of the bigger arguments in these spaces was that trans men are literally incapable of experiencing misogyny and this notion was enforced by people directly discrediting trans men talking about their experiences (telling people that they’re lying about their experiences, that their experiences didn’t happen in the way or for the reason that they said they did, and sometimes intentionally misgendering the person to discredit it). I had personal experience with that which was, not great I gotta say.

this kind of target vitriol isn’t unique to any of the mentioned groups, in fact it’s something that goes both ways. there are trans men who are absolutely Horrible to trans women. but well meaning people in activist spaces are particularly skittish to stand up for trans men in this situation because they’re Aware that trans women are particularly marginalized (which they are) while also being affected by the lack of visibility for trans men. I’ve seen people who engage with Nasty discourse defending asexuality, nonbinary people, transness in general, bi/pan people, etc who outright Refused to get involved in when it was trans men on the line because it wasn’t Worth it to them. that’s definitely anecdotal evidence on my part but it’s emblematic of a bigger issue.

moreover, there’s a common trend in and around queer spaces where people identify vulnerable groups based on how established they are and go out of their way to hurt those on the outskirts because they know that it’ll be tolerated. from asexuals to nonbinary people to mogai to neogenders to pan people to intersex people to polygamous people to bi people and beyond. what you’ll see a lot of is transphobic cis women extend performative activism towards trans women while being overtly transphobic towards trans men and justifying it with the fact that trans men are Men and therefore they’re punching up.

this wasn’t really made with one solid thesis in mind and I honestly could keep rambling until the sun died out, but to cap things off I want to remind people of something that I still think about to this day.

quite a few years ago trans men were looking for a term that they could use to describe their specific experiences with the intersection of transphobia and misogyny, particularly when trans men were being pushed out of spaces talking About that intersection. obviously “transmisogyny” was taken, so someone came up with the idea of taking that word as the root and changing it to be clearly and obviously about trans men. which is how the word “transmisandry” came about.

if you’ve lived through gamergate you probably just flinched reading that if it was your first time, which is fair. the point of the term was to make its meaning as immediately identifiable as possible. if you know what transmisogyny means and you know what misandry means then it’s not too difficult to put together what transmisandry is supposed to mean if you’re seeing it for the first time. that said, it (perhaps predictably) sparked quite a bit of controversy. but the criticism it got? was that trans men didn’t Need a term to describe their own experiences. trans men aren’t oppressed for being men, “transphobia” should cover all of their experiences because they don’t Have unique experiences, trans men don’t Deserve a term to describe their own experiences. a lot of this was attributed to ignorance after people started pointing out how fucked up that reaction was, how it was kneejerk, but I don’t think that’s an excuse anymore. I don’t think it should Ever be an excuse.

nowadays people tend to use “transandrophobia,” not because the meaning is any different, not because it’s a functionally better term, but because people weren’t Willing to overlook their kneejerk reaction to Not take a term away from another marginalized group because their ability to talk about their own lived experiences in their own spaces mattered Less than momentary discomfort.

Shadow Work Prompts Part 2

Hello my loves! I'm going to add some more shadow work prompts (primarily because... Kaye needs to do shadow work and maybe this will convince them to do it. (It won't. We all know it won't. But we can hope....))

I'm gonna put these below the cut just so people don't have to scroll through this long as fuck list on their dash if they don't want to see them lol

Some of these are really, really heavy, and do touch on things like sexual assault, abuse, death, etc., so this is the trigger warning for you.

A lot of these are also focused on women and AFAB folks because I'm trying to reconcile with my femininity and whatnot.

Anne Carson Quotes

You remember too much, my mother said to me recently. Why hold onto all that? And I said, Where can I put it down?

Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief.

Words bounce. Words, if you let them, will do what they want to do and what they have to do.

Eros is an issue of boundaries. He exists because certain boundaries do. ... Eros: the boundary of flesh and self between you and me.

Desire is no light thing.

It is easier to tell a story of how people wound one another than of what binds them together.

Reality is a sound, you have to tune in to it not just keep yelling.

All mortals owe a debt to death.

...sex is a substitute, like money or language.

...your story begins the moment Eros enters you. That incursion is the biggest risk of your life. How you handle it is an index of the quality, wisdom, and decorum of the things inside you.

Myths are stories about people who become too big for their lives temporarily, so that they crash into other lives or brush against gods. In crisis their souls are visible.

Philosophers say man forms himself in dialogue.

There is no person without a world.

If there is anything dearer than being alive, it's dark to me.

We humans seem disastrously in love with this thing... life.

The underworld's a blank and all the rest just fantasy.

Caught between the tongue and the taste.

What is mortality after all but divine doubt flashing over us? For an instant God suspends assent and poof! we disappear.

Girls are cruelest to themselves.

What really connects words and things?

Blessed be they whose lives do not taste of evil

Perhaps the hardest thing about losing a lover is to watch the year repeat its days.

Consider incompleteness as a verb.

You can get used to anything, my mother was in the habit of saying.

I am talking about evil. It blooms. It eats. It grins.

I don't want to be a person. I want to be unbearable.

Beauty makes me hopeless.

The dead... are victims of love, many of them.

To live past the end of your myth is a perilous thing.

You read a hundred military manuals you won't find the word kill they trick you into killing.

I went mad, a god hurt me, I fell.

Those nights lying alone are not discontinuous with this cold hectic dawn. It is who I am.

Love does not make me gentle or kind.

Your grief is as great as your splendor was: some god is weighing the one out equal to the other.

You can never know enough, never work enough, ... never leave the mind quickly enough.

Language is what eases the pain of living with other people, language is what makes the wounds come open again.

Where does unbelief begin?

Everything that is me is with me.

A wound gives off its own light...

I began to think I was someone thirsting for God.

You are a person in love with the impossible.

When we are denied a story, a light goes off.

Some conversations are not what they're about.

I lack myself.

Who knows what will happen if I'm alone with my grief.

I... forbid that you should ever lose your screams.

You are not a god. You are not that enlarged self. Indeed, you are not even a whole self, as you now see. Your new knowledge of possibilities is also a knowledge of what is lacking in the actual.

There is a loneliness that fills the plain.

The women of mythology regularly lose their form in monstrosity.

We live by waters breaking out of the heart.

Time as hunger. Time passing and gazing. Time as perseverance. Mountain time. Time as paper folded to look like a mountain. Time compared to the wild fantastic silence of stars.

What are we made of but hunger and rage?

When I look at you, even for a moment, no speaking is left in me.

Kelly Cherry Quotes

I didn't find my story; it found me.

There is blood everywhere and I am lost in it. I breathe blood, not air.

The story of [their] great-grandfather [or any ancestor]... was [their] own story, too.

Ashe Vernon Quotes

Don't you dare, for one minute, believe that my kindness makes me anything but insurmountable.

Understand that I am not your next victim in a laundry list of broken girls.

I will eat you alive before I let you make a meal of me.

What they don't tell you about standing up for what you believe in is that your feet will bruise and your legs will ache.

I'd like to take a moment to submit a formal apology to my soft parts because they kept me warm when I was trying to freeze to death, and I hated them for it.

I let myself be afraid.

When you learn you are only as good as your beauty routine, you forget how to define yourself by anything else.

I will know how to be vulnerable with you, but I won't know how to not regret it.

I know how to put my body inside someone else's but not how to make it beautiful.

I love better at a distance.

I am as much lion as I am lion tamer.

I got good at inflicting pain the same way I got good at soothing it.

Quit picking old wounds and going tor walks in the aches and pains you already made it through--you call it healing, but it sounds like a good way to take a haunting home with you.

I am a cathedral of almost-lovers

Louise Gluck Quotes

We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory.

I thought that pain meant I was not loved. It meant I loved.

The soul is silent. If it speaks at all it speaks in dreams.

Intense love always leads to mourning.

You will never let go, you will never be satiated.

It will feed you, it will ravish you, it will not keep you alive.

Why love what you will lose? There is nothing else to love.

I speak because I am shattered.

I don't need your praise to survive.

Whatever returns from oblivion returns to find a voice.

Nakedness in women is always a pose. I was not transfigured. I would never be free.

The unsaid, for me, exerts great power.

I am tired of human... I want to live on the sun

Death cannot harm me more than you have harmed me, my beloved life.

There are places like this... you enter as a young girl... you never return.

Writing is a kind of revenge against circumstance, too: bad luck, loss, pain. If you make something out of it, then you've no longer been bested by these events.

The riddle was: why couldn't we live in the mind. The answer was: the barrier of the earth intervened.

It is true that there is not enough beauty in the world. It is also true that I am not competent to restore it. Neither is there candor, and here I may be of some use.

You're not a creature in body. You exist as the stars exist, participating in their stillness, their immensity.

And then, suddenly, something is over.

You must be taught to love me. Human beings must be taught to love silence and darkness.

Sappho Quotes

Someone will remember us/I say/even in another time.

Their heart grew cold. They let their wings down.

What cannot be said will be wept.

What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon be beautiful

Once again love drives me on, that loosener of limbs, bittersweet creature against which nothing can be done.

Love shook my heart like the wind on the mountain rushing over the oak trees

Love is a cunning weaver of fantasies and fables.

I know not what to do, my mind is divided.

The female creature is a letter.

No holy place existed without us then

She who loves roses must be patient and not cry when she is pierced by thorns.

Because I prayed this word: I want.

If you had a desire for good or beautiful things and your tongue were not concocting some evil to say, shame would not hold down your eyes but rather you would speak about what is just.

Wealth without virtue is no harmless neighbor.

I am weary of all your words and soft, strange ways.

Paisley Rekdal Quotes

Does it offend you to watch me working in it, touching my hands to the greening tips or tearing the yellow stalks back, so wild the living and dead both snap off in my hands?

I can wait longer than sadness.

It is such a small thing to be proud of.

Should I, too, not be loved?

We are even now still so young

I loved him. I loved forgiving him.

Yasmin Belkhyr Quotes

Contrary to wound, I still know nothing of defeat.

Contrary to ache, I still know nothing of guilt.

I help: a good daughter.

Someone always ends up holding something mangled.

It wasn't enough to feel... he had to see, to know.

Adrienne Rich Quotes

There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep and still be counted as warriors.

Lying is done with words, and also with silence

Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work.

When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her.

My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed

If you are trying to transform a brutalized society into one where people can live in dignity and hope, you begin with the empowering of the most powerless. You build from the ground up.

Until we know the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves.

The truth of our bodies and our minds has been mystified to us.

It will take all your heart, it will take all your breath. It will be short, it will not be simple.

You look at me like an emergency.

The unconscious wants truth. It ceases to speak to those who want something else more than truth.

In a world where language and naming are power, silence is oppression, is violence.

There is no 'the truth', 'a truth'--truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity. The pattern of the carpet is a surface. When we look closely, or when we become weavers, we learn of the tiny multiple threads unseen in the overall pattern, the knots on the underside of the carpet.

The moment of change is the only poem

There is nothing revolutionary whatsoever about the control of women's bodies by men. The woman's body is the terrain on which the patriarchy is erected.

The scars bear witness but whether to repair or to destruction I no longer know.

Not biology, but ignorance of ourselves, has been the key to our powerlessness

What kind of beast would turn its life into words?

Truthfulness, honor, is not something which springs ablaze of itself; it has been created between people.

You touched me in places so deep I wanted to ignore you

Silence can be a plan rigorously executed, the blueprint to a life, it is a presence, it has a history, a form. Do not confuse it with any kind of absence.

Most women have not even been able to touch this anger, except to drive it inward like a rusted nail.

We have lived with violence for so long.

This is my body, take it and destroy it

We have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves, our deepest cravings. And the fear of our deepest cravings keeps them suspect, keeps us docile and loyal and obedient, and leads us to settle for... many facets of our own oppression.

Every journey into the past is complicated by delusions, false memories, false namings of real events.

A language is a map of our failures.

The more I live the more I think two people together is a miracle.

Poetry is, among other things, a criticism of language.

How do you make it, all the way from here to morning?

An honorable human relationship--that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word "love"--is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.

You grieve in loneliness, and if I understand you fuck in loneliness.

We write from the marrow of our bones.

The liar has many friends, and leads an existence of great loneliness

We must use what we have to invent what we desire.

William Styron Quotes

We're all in this game together.

In depression this faith in deliverance, in ultimate restoration, is absent. The pain is unrelenting, and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no remedy will come-not in a day, an hour, a month, or a minute.

It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul

We each devise our means of escape from the intolerable.

Reading--the best state yet to keep absolute loneliness at bay.

Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.

Let your love flow out on all living things.

Loss in all of its manifestations is the touchstone of depression--in the progress of the disease and, most likely, in its origin.

Kai Cheng Thom Quotes

I wanted to protect you, but I'm starting to think that the best thing you can do for people is teach them how to protect themselves. Every girl needs to be at least a little dangerous.

A sanctuary is a place where the door only locks from the inside.

Sometimes to be somebody else, you have to be nobody first.

You will be able to stop hurting people when you stop hurting yourself.

When you're a child trapped in a situation of physical or psychological depravation, you learn shame as an efficient, elegant mechanism of survival: shame simultaneously shields you from the reality that danger is out of your control (since the problem is not that you're unloved and deprived; it's that you're Bad) and prevents you from doing or saying anything challenging that might provoke a threat.

It's good for you to cry sometimes. Even if there isn't a reason.

When you live in a community of queers, anarchists, & activists, crisis is the baseline and stability an outlier.

You are mine like nothing has ever been before.

Safety is, I believe, an inherently classed, raced, and gendered experience that frequently runs the risk of being used for regressive ends--ironically, for restricting the freedoms of the vulnerable, those who are never really safe. Often, we see the call for safety actually reinforce the power of oppressive institutions, like the police and the prison system, in our lives. When we choose safety over liberation, our movements fail.

When they looked at me and my sister, even their love was hungry.

Some people will cling on to anything that makes them feel even a little bit free.

Forget, if you can, all the promises you've ever made and the lies that you've told.

Once you start hurting people, you can't stop

I feel tired. I don't want to be myself anymore.

Sometimes it's important to be alive.

Sometimes, there is nothing you can do but surrender.

You are always disappearing in the hope of being seen. You are always shrinking to fit into someone else's arms. You are collapsing ever inward, a galaxy to become smaller.

Gregory Orr Quotes

If we're not supposed to dance, why all this music?

Even hell is holy.

I was born with a knife in one hand and a wound in the other.

Maybe she loved me, maybe not--who knows? Not even the gods can see into a human heart--it's that dark.

Writing often reveals us to ourselves, lets us name what's important to us and what has been silent or silenced inside us.

And to live only once--what if that's not enough?

Maybe it was always simple: loss surrounds us. Who would deny it? We ourselves are loss, are lost.

I want to study the book of the world: every vanishing page.

The dead sing us songs I'm learning to answer.

Won’t be Without You

Villain Deku x Fem!Hero!Reader

A/N: Hello! This is my first fan fiction that I’ve written. It’s completely unedited, so I’m sorry for any spelling/grammatical errors. Feel free to message me with suggestions and corrections, I appreciate any input you’d take the time to offer! 

Warnings: Kidnapping, imprisonment, violence against reader, language

-------------------------

     A dizzying sense of nausea crashed over you like a wave from the ocean, stirring you from unconsciousness. A dull, throbbing pain in your head made itself fully known as your head rolled forward, chin resting heavily against your chest. You tried and failed to bring your hands to your face, only then realizing that they were bound tightly behind you. Jerking your head upright, you tried again to tug your hands free. Horror swept through your mind, and an attempt to kick out with your legs confirmed that they were also well-bound to the seat you sat in. The scratchy and rough material peeled away at your skin as you struggled, a slick, wet feeling rolling down your hands and collecting on your fingertips before falling to the cracked pavement floor. The disgusting, rhythmic dripping of what could only be your own blood pounded in your ears over and over again like a drum, causing you to double down and fight harder against the restraints.

    Small whimpers and yelps left your mouth as you thrashed in a desperate attempt to free yourself for what felt like hours, only stilling when you had long since used the reserves of your strength. Only now, huffing out ragged breaths and sweat rolling down the slope of your neck, did you stop to look around the makeshift prison cell. The room was dark, a small window set high into the wall acting as the only source of light. Sounds of zooming cars could be heard faintly every once in a while, their headlights pouring into the room and bathing it with artificial yellow light before abandoning to the pitch-blackness once more. In the moments of illumination you could see the bland, red-brick walls of the oppressive room, the shapes of the barrels and crates surrounding you revealed by the streaking lights. The sound of a far-away door clicking open stopped your inspection in its tracks.

     Your head shot towards the noise, panic washing through your mind, and you could see light pouring into the room from the top of a set of stairs about 15 feet to your right. Trembling, Y/N hung your head once more and clenched your eyes shut in a poor attempt to pass as unconscious. The sounds of two distinct sets of footsteps filled the room. They approached your bound figure at a steady and consistent pace, one coming to stop directly behind you while the other took up post in front of you. A rough, calloused hand slid across your shoulder, and you couldn’t stop the resulting shudder. The ensuing chuckle was far too familiar. You jerked away from the sound, tucking your head forward against your chest in a sad attempt to create distance between yourself and Shigaraki as you bucked wildly against your restraints. The thought that those killer hands had touched you, even for a second, almost caused you to pass out right then and there. Tears pooled in your eyes, choked sobs and grunts escaping your throat despite efforts to stuff them down. A much smoother hand gripped your chin, easily yanking it up from its semi-protected position, and you froze completely when your y/e/c eyes met a nostalgic set of striking emerald green ones. Confusion clouded your already overwhelmed mind.

     “...Izuku?”

     A wicked smile twisted your previous classmate’s face as he stared at your grief stricken expression, his hot breath fanning across your sweat-soaked face. 

     “Surprised?” he asked excitedly, his hand sliding up from your chin to rub tears away from under your eyes. “I’m so happy to see you, Y/N. I’ve missed you so much since I went away.”

     Reeling, you took in the sight of your childhood friend. Midoriya was crouched between your knees, easily balancing on his toes as he looked at your face with melancholic adoration. He wore a crisp white dress shirt tucked into creased black slacks, a simple belt with a small silver buckle adorning his waist. A dark green tie hugged his neck, disappearing underneath a pristine black dress vest. The black leather glove on his right hand hid the thick scars that you’d always thought were so beautiful. His wild curls had been cut shorter, revealing a neat undercut on the back of his head. He looked exactly as handsome as he had when he’d disappeared during your freshman year at U.A, almost four years ago.

     “This is where you’ve been this whole time? No one’s seen you in years, Izuku, we thought you were dead!” you spat at him, turning your head to escape the affectionate touch. “Don’t touch me!” you almost screamed. “Do you have any idea what this has been like for us? For your mo-”

     SMACK

     The coppery taste of blood filled your mouth as you sat in stunned silence, your cheek already beginning to swell. Your head swiveled towards Midoriya slowly, as if on a post, and you looked up at him with defiant eyes. He was standing again, teeth bared in a vicious snarl as he bore down on your bound form. The tension in the air ratcheted up to an unbearable level as the stare down continued, not caring about igniting his wrath at this point. You were mad, you were hurt, and there was no way he was going to let you walk away from this either way, so you were going to let him feel the full array of the pain you’d endured during his absence.

     “You’re telling me you ditched Katsuki and I to be a villain and you still hit like a sissy?”

     He bristled at the jab, fists clenching tightly at his sides as he worked to restrain himself.

     “You’d do well not to antagonize me. I’m happy to see you, but not that happy.” he said, voice laced with malice.

     “I’ll do whatever the hell I want!” you screamed. You stilled when a weight settled onto your neck.

     A hand now gripped the base of your neck from behind, one finger missing. Anger and indignation melted into stark terror as Shigaraki leaned in close to your ear, the sound of his sickening laughter biting into your sanity and making your skin crawl. As if to solidify the unspoken threat, the black detachable collar of your hero costume dissolved into ash. Midoriya crouched between your bound legs once more, fixing you with a level stare.

     “I’ll be straightforward. I want you to join the league. Be with me again, like before.”

     Your eyes blew painfully wide, mouth falling open. “You’re joking.”

     “Don’t you remember what those ‘heroes’ did to us? They bullied us, they ignored us, they called you a villain. Kachan humiliated us almost daily and no one batted an eyelash. And now he gets to be the #1 top hero? How is that fair? Why should you dedicate your life to a society that hates you? Join us, you and I can be together again.” His hand snaked up from his side to press against your cheek again, thumb running gently across your bottom lip. “We can be together the way we always wanted.”

     Your nausea returned full-force as his fingers ghosted across your face greedily. What is he talking about? Izuku had been your closest friend. He’d supported you through bullying and family crisis, self-esteem issues, classroom anxiety, and just life in general. In return you’d done the same by answering a seemingly endless stream of phone calls about the most recent heroics from the news or glimpsed on the street or supporting him through a particularly nasty confrontation with Katsuki. But despite your closeness, you’d never been or even wanted to be involved. If he had romantic feelings for you then this was the first you were hearing of it, and it wasn’t good news. Setting that aside, you decide to press this moment of vulnerability, hoping to stir some sense of the golden heart you’d always admired.

     “Zuku, is this really who you want to be?”

     He recoiled from your like you’d struck him, nursing his hand against his chest, and a jolt of fear ran through your icy veins. “Who cares who I wanted to be? I pined for hero society my entire life and they rejected me!” he bellowed, rising to a standing position to pace a few feet in front of the seat. “If they don’t want me the way I wanted to give myself to them then they should at least take responsibility for the person I became instead.”

     You scoffed at the delusional rant, anger boiling lowly behind your y/e/c eyes as you stared up at the shell of your friend. “That’s bullshit and you know it Zuku! We got into U.A, we made it into hero society! Hell, you were a top performer in the hero course! It was all within your reach, and you skipped out to join these guys!” The muscles in your neck twitched with exertion as you worked to remain perfectly still, a lifted finger dancing tauntingly in your peripheral vision. You took a deep breath and lowered your strained voice. “We never stopped looking for you. y’know. You could just come home with me. Walk away from all this right now and I’d never say a word.”

     Calm down. Katsuki’s probably out looking for me right now. I just have to stay calm till he turns up.

     At that, Midoriya stopped pacing. He turned to face you, a pained expression on his face. Striding forward, he waved off Shigaraki. You sagged against the seat in relief. The adrenaline that had pounded through your veins had been burned off, and all it left behind was absolute exhaustion. You were unable to resist when Midoriya ran his fingers through your hair, both of his hands trailing down your jaw to hold your face between his palms. He inclined your head towards him and pity surged through you at the glossy look in his once optimism-soaked eyes.

     “Do you still love me?” he asked in the most pitiful voice you’d ever heard from him.

     You leaned into his gloved palm, nuzzling it weakly. “Of course I do, Zuku. You’re my best friend. But...I just can’t do this for you.”

     He knelt down between your legs again, scooting as close as possible before resting his forehead against yours.

     “Please agree to stay with me. I won’t be without you again.”

     “Come with me instead.” you said, not hiding the desperation in your trembling voice. “You and I are the only ones who know you’ve been here, and I’d never say a word. We could make something up and go back to normal.”

     Midoriya sighed heavily. He stood up, pressing a light kiss to the top of your head before walking towards the door. Shigaraki followed without a word, shooting a vicious smirk over his shoulder.

     “Where are you going?” you asked, panic creeping into your voice as he drew closer to the door.

     “If you won’t agree to stay then I’ll just have to keep you here by force, doll. You’ll come around eventually, but until then you’ll just have to stay right where you are.”

    Completely drained and unable to thrash anymore, you sagged limply in your seat. Darkness enveloped you once more as the door clacked shut, and dread ate at your gut while you prayed for someone, anyone, to save you from the man you’d devoted your life to finding for four agonizing years

As usual for me, thinking about Guild Wars means thinking about the Searing and its consequences, and one of the things I wonder:

Did ArenaNet plan for the Charr to one day be playable when creating GW: Prophecies?

[ridiculously long, yet probably familiar, screed about the Searing/conquest of Ascalon/my undying resentment of it below the cut]

They clearly planned for it in Eye of the North (Pyre Fierceshot seems pretty obviously designed to bridge the gap between the purely villainous Charr of Prophecies and the playable ones of Guild Wars 2). But I wonder about Prophecies.

The thing is, the Searing is utterly devastating, not just to Ascalon as a state, but to the civilians, the land, the rivers, the everything. As players, we see all this with our own eyes. We encounter NPCs who talk about having flashbacks to the screaming, and others who completely lose their minds, or get burned alive, or get enslaved, or whatever. It’s treated as an absolute horror.

And EOTN is interesting because it ... doesn’t really back away from that even while introducing some nuance. It turns out that the Searing was orchestrated by a specific faction of the Charr, and the PC (an Ascalonian who lived through the Searing, if you started with Prophecies) can ally with oppressed Charr to overthrow that faction. But EOTN doesn’t downplay the brutality of the invasion, either. On the contrary, it explores the trauma experienced by Ascalonians through Gwen’s arc (esp since you can play her backstory). The resident sympathetic Charr says outright that he doesn’t blame her for her fearful hatred because she was a prisoner of the Charr.

...and then there’s GW2.

It turns out that the Charr—not just the faction that got overthrown, all of them—exploited the devastation caused by the Searing to conquer nearly all of Ascalon. Gwen et al failed to take back Ascalon, but did manage to carve out a corner of it that the Charr have been besieging for over 200 years, until a very recent treaty.

So it seems like, whatever the Charr’s inner disputes, the conquest built on the Searing continued. And continued. And continued. This was all well after the overthrown faction had lost power.

But! GW2 also introduces the Foefire. The Searing and invasion drove the King of Ascalon out of his mind and he laid down a curse that wiped out a huge number of people, mainly Ascalonians who became angry ghosts attacking everyone on sight, unable to tell friend from foe. This doesn’t stop the permanent Charr occupation of Ascalon, but it does make it super inconvenient for them (/sheds a single tear).

I’ve always kind of felt that the Foefire was introduced to counterbalance the Searing. Like, okay, the Charr did a bad thing, but it was a long time ago, and hey, the Ascalonians also did a comparable thing, so it’s a both sides scenario.

Except it doesn’t really ... work, because the Ascalonians did not do a comparable thing. One Ascalonian did it, specifically because he had been driven out of his mind by the Charr. The Ascalonian people in general were either a) his victims or b) desperately trying to survive the Charr.

But, overwhelmingly, GW2 labours to create parallels between the Ascalonians and the Charr. The people who have objections to the ultimate surrender of nearly all of Ascalon are irrational terrorists, sympathizers with the irrational terrorists who have to be talked down, or more reasonable people who are still hostile in general and typically unfair to the Krytans who have helped them. The Charr also have their irrational terrorists! They have sympathizers with them, and other people who are reasonable but still basically hostile. #bothsides

In Prophecies, though, the Charr are very very very clearly the Bad Guys, and it seems that even Charr oppressed within their own society are perfectly happy to participate in the follow-up to the Searing (again, for over 200 years).

And while I haven’t played all of GW2, I’ve seen plenty of Charr who are like “the Searing was pretty cool” or “damn ghosts, lo how we suffer,” or “these Ascalonians are weak and pathetic.” I’ve seen none who acknowledge that it’s fucked-up. At most, there’s (essentially) “well, that was the Flame Legion, the rest of us just rightly used it for our benefit.” Of course, acknowledging it would be against their ~culture or whatever, but that culture was barely existent in Prophecies. I guess there’s a little bit once (some of) the Charr got dialogue in later updates—originally they just sort of growled or roared, so we had no idea what their deal was beyond devastating the landscape and slaughtering/enslaving random people.

Anyway, I suspect the whole Charr/Ascalonian dynamic comes across really differently to people who didn’t play Prophecies or weren’t particularly invested in the storyline (...in which you lead desperate Ascalonian refugees from the Charr over the mountains). It’s framed very differently in GW2, and I think it’s pretty clearly because they wanted to do more complicated things with the Charr up to and including making them playable. I tend to think Prophecies just needed a villainous horde to drive XP and the plot, and back then, they weren’t thinking of ever making them playable. I don’t know for sure, though!

Note: That does raise the question of the gap between EOTN and GW2′s portrayals, though, because IMO they definitely were planning to make them playable by EOTN and certainly made them much more complex. But it doesn’t lean nearly as far into the both sides stuff or downplay what the Ascalonians have been through (even though they’ve been through more by GW2!).

I don’t know if there were internal reasons for this, or if it came of GW2 being so much bigger in scope than the original games, or if the conversion to playability raised concerns that weren’t apparent in EOTN, or something else. But it’s a thing and, while I get the desire for a more nuanced portrayal, I always find it frustrating that it involves downplaying the events of the original games.

Patchwork Tales: Book 1

A “9" roleplay compendium.  Read on AO3 Chapter: 11 [First] [Back] [You Are Here] [Next] Warnings for this chapter: Graphic Violence, Death, Suggestive Material

Hey have you heard these 50 songs from 2019

I really enjoyed this last year so going to give it another go for ‘19. I put quite a lot of thought into what actually a ‘song of the year’ for me when I was first constructing and then heavily editing the playlist that came to be my Top 50 of 2019. I think the most important thing is that above all it’s a track that I’m glad exists, sometimes this is because of the songwriting or composition, sometimes the performance, sometimes the lyrical importance and sometimes just because it sparks joy.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6bFJOjL8b8Zc2s5r1oJbsk?si=UJdqSXOTR3SQ8D3IwcmV2g

Explanations for each tracks inclusion below the fold…

100 gecs - 800db cloud 100 gecs channel a mix of Crystal Castles and Sleigh Bells with a Death Grips level appreciation for noise. It’s an absolute rush and that outro is just absurd.

Natalie Evans - Always Be Natalie Evans soft melody and sing song vocals are sublimely sweet on this heartfelt track of lost love, longing and nostalgia.

Petrol Girls - Big Mouth “If you fight back or disagree you’re the one with the fucking problem” this hits home, hard. Big Mouth is a rallying cry to speak out against oppression and discrimination, to raise you’re voice and be heard, not to be controlled.

Charli XCX ft. Lizzo - Blame it on your Love Charli has a midas touch when it comes to pop, combine that with Lizzo who has just about been the most fun thing in music this year and you’ve got a 10/10 banger.

Poppy - BLOODMONEY Poppy’s music just keeps going further down the rabbit hole. Originally playing with blending elements of nu-metal with bubblegum pop, she now seems to have transcended genre altogether to create whatever BLOODMONEY is, it’s absolutely ridiculous and I love it.

Body Hound - Bloom Get on that GROOVE! So proggy it hurts, this track from Body Hound is a technical wonderland of metamorphosing rhythms, gargantuan riffs, and just the tastiest of chord progressions.

Can the Sub_Bass speak - Algiers Word of warning, this is not an easy listen. A freefall tumble through genre and tone accompanies a stream of consciousness monologue full of racism, prejudice and political and artistic critique.

Elohim - Buckets Buckets is an onslaught of trap influences, emotional outbursts and aggressive distortion. I’m a big fan of this sound.

VUKOVI - C.L.A.U.D.I.A I know very little about VUKOVI as a band, but that riff is absolutely massive and this track has been a constant throughout my year on that basis alone.

Show Me The Body - Camp Orchestra Apparently more hardcore bands should use Banjos, because this is a damn good sound. Slowly building from a single bass line this track builds into a powerful demolishing force.

clipping. - Club Down Having thoroughly proven themselves able to do afro-futurist scifi on the Hugo nominated Splendor and Misery, clipping. now turn their considerable talents to horror core and unsurprisingly nail it. Daveed’s flows are tight as ever as he brings to life a decaying city backed by tortured screams.

Dream Nails - Corporate Realness YOU ARE NOT YOUR JOB. WORK IS NOT YOUR LIFE. YOU ARE NOT WHAT YOU MUST DO IN ORDER TO SURVIVE. Dream Nails are great and exactly what we need right now.

ControlTop - Covert Contracts This track positively bristles with an anxious energy. A fitting sound for the subject of the information overload we find ourselves locked into everyday.

Cherry Glazerr - Daddi There’s an icy coolness to ‘Daddi’, a disconnected sarcasm that falls away to reveal the anger and torment in the chorus, it’s a masterful bit of emotional storytelling through musical tone.

The Physics House Band - Death Sequence I Listening to Physics House latest release, the Death Sequence EP feels like a physical journey. This opener is a perfect example of this, as you’re plunged straight into a heady and disorienting mix of rhythms and counter-melody’s, the Sax guiding you through the turbulence until you land in a placid midsection, before that bass riff drags you forward through rhythmic breakdowns into an absolutely absurd brain melting saxophony and then it just keeps on going from there…

Witching Waves - Disintegration I saw WW back in the early summer, they were a bassist down so it was just a guitar and drums duo. They started with this track and it was one of the most pure punk things I’ve experienced, drummer/vocalist Emma Wigham bashing the absolute shit out of her kit . A great no-nonsense lo-fi banger.

Lingua Ignota - DO YOU DOUBT ME TRAITOR Another, not particularly easy listen here. DO YOU DOUBT ME TRAITOR is a dark and angry brooding track, building in intensity to release the primal rage, fear and horror of the abused. Its deeply chilling and instantly arresting. This track and the entire CALIGULA album stands as an absolute must listen.

Carly Rae Jepsen ft. Electric Guest - Feels Right I love the instrumentation on this one, those chunky piano chords and screaming guitar lift the track out and make it the highlight of an already great album to me.

Orla Gartland - Figure it out Dialing back the intensity slightly, Orla chronicles the frustrations of having to deal with someone in your life who you’re done with. The choruses burst forth in beautifully fuzzy explosions of noise. That vocal flair at the start of the final chorus is chef kiss.

Battles - Fort Greene Park Battles are at their best when they keep things simple. This is evident on 2019′s Juicy B Crypts which features some incredibly cluttered moments, but this just makes Fort Greene Park stand out all the more. A delightfully spacious piece of math rock, from some of the best in the business.

Dogleg - Fox Boy howdy, do I love me some midwest emo. Catharsis in musical form, it just makes me want to mosh my troubles away like I’m 16 again.

Tørsö - Grab A Shovel Tørsö go hard, I can appreciate that. An absolutely brutal track about the destructive power of depression and self-loathing.

“Pijn & Conjurer playing Curse These Metal Hands” - High Spirits “We were like, are we Pijn and Conjurer, or are we Curse These Metal Hands? I think we’ve settled with ‘we are Pijn and Conjurer playing Curse These Metal Hands’ …whatever that means!“ what it means is one of the most joyously triumphant pieces of metal music I’ve ever heard. Some of the guitar lines in this absolutely soar.

Lizzo - Juice Lizzo has won 2019, her message of self love, acceptance and body positivity has won her both critical and cultural acclaim and permeates her music in a way that makes it impossible to not love.

COLOSSAL SQUID, AK Patterson - Kick Punch Colossal Squid is the name given to Three Trapped Tigers drummer, Adam Betts’ experimental project. After a solo album of percussive wizardry Betts has now teamed with vocalist AK Patterson to give us something else entirely.

Evan Greer - Liberty Is A Statue Evan Greer uses the a folk punk sound to deliver an essay on the damaging influences of cis-normativity and social inequality. Of course I like this one.

Taylor Swift - Lover I wasn’t on board with this song for a fair while, but then I kept listening to it and kept coming back to it because of a roughly 50 second section which ties the track and the whole album together. Yeah, this is on here purely for the bridge, which is just beautiful.

Dodie - Monster Monster is an incredibly well written and delivered study on how perception changes with resentment and it makes me cry.

The Y Axes - Moon Moon is a delightfully dreamy piece of pop that glitters with infectious melodies, it’s lyrics a blissful embracing of cosmic nihilism, need I say more?

Ezra Furman - My Teeth Hurt My teeth hurt is a song about tooth ache, about that pain you carry with you everywhere and can’t get rid of, that ruins your days and and is one hell of a mood. Yeah it’s about gender dysphoria.

Nervus - No Nations Speaking of things being a mood, this track hits the nail squarely on the head.

Cultdreams - Not My Generation "Everyone ignores me Unless I’m on a stage talking Because they put me on a pedestal And pretend I’m just performing“ Lucinda Livingstone calls out the misogyny in our culture with a singular ferocity.

Lil Nas X - Old Town Road If there’s one song that’s dominated 2019 this is it right here. Who ever had the idea of putting that NIN Ghosts sample to a trap beat and cowboying over the top of it is an absolute genius.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Planet B It’s impossible to predict where King Gizzard’s sonic influences are going to take them next I doubt even they know half the time. Whatever they turn their hand to though they do it as if they mastered the sound decades ago Planet B is an all out thrash track with a strong environmental message.

Kesha - Rich, White, Straight Men Okay, I’m about to compare Kesha to John Lennon here but HEAR ME OUT… As ‘Imagine’ asked us to consider a world without conflict or capitalism, Kesha now posits that we should tear up our conceptions of our society based on its formation by a privileged group and imagine what kind of utopia could be built if we gave the underprivileged and minority groups a say.

Allie X - Rings A Bell The chorus here sounds like it could have been off Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, and I’m all about that sound. Combined with Allie X’s dreamlike vocals make this a certified bop.

Poly-Math - Sensors in Everything Sensors in Everything is a beast of a track spanning over 14 minutes of absurdly dense prog. Having recently enlisted keyboardist Josh Gesner. Polymath make use of the new sounds and textures available to them, at times imitating a sort of Hammond sound not unlike John Lord to the chaotic maelstrom of noise.

Calva Louise - Sleeper Big hooks on this one. Sleeper has a confident swagger to it’s sound which stands apart for the bands previous work. It’s an absolutely huge track.

Slipknot - Solway Firth Slipknot didn’t disappoint after the tease of 2018′s “All Out Life”, following up with an album which blended old and new aspects of their sound to create one of their best to date. Solway Firth is a perfect example of this matching the punishing heaviness of Iowa with the melody driven sound of All Hope Is Gone.

Clt Drp - Speak To My Seeing Clt Drp perform live was one of my highlights of the year. The filthy guitar tones, powerhouse vocals tight as heck drumming and the _grooves. _Absolutely like nothing else I’ve seen. Just an incredible band that deserve so much more recognition.

Black Country, New Road - Sunglasses Black Country, New Road released two tracks this year and now I just want more. Dense wordy lyricism plays off against ever evolving instrumentation to present a raw cut of emotional storytelling.

Her Name Is Calla - Swan Her Name Is Calla are a band that have always been on the edge of my radar, my Dad is very fond of them and saw them live a couple of years ago, but never went back to relisten to any of their stuff, then they started an album with this. I was sold instantly.

black midi - Talking Heads Talking Heads (the band) are an obvious inspiration on this track. Both David Byrne’s vocal style and the Talking Heads penchant for sharp angular melodies are on show here. But given an extra ounce of chaos through Black Midi’s delivery.

Amanda Palmer - The Ride The ride is ten minutes of bundling up all your fears and anxieties of where we are and where we’re going and just, accepting them as part of the ride. Written off the back of a prompt from Amanda asking her fans what they were afraid of right now.

Kim Petras - There Will Be Blood Okay, let’s have some out of season spookiness. Love the squelchy synths on this, there’s a huge amount of energy on this track and with it’s commitment to the horror conceit it makes for a super fun bop.

Kate Nash - Trash Kate Nash’s sound is like bathing pure nostalgia,here she spins the toxic-relationship narrative central to her work to deliver a bigger story about humanity’s, quite literally toxic relationship to our planet.

American Football & Hayley Williams - Uncomfortably Numb The other side of the “midwest emo” coin. A melancholic song built on a soft bed of arpeggiated chords and clean harmonics, Uncomfortably Numb is a heartbreaking track of losing everything and of cycles persisting thorugh generations. Employing the clever metatextual trick of referencing Pink Floyd’s comfortably Numb to mirror the generational similarities.

Glenn Branca - Velvet and Pearls Disclaimer, Glenn Branca was a musical hero of mine, his approach to music and composition being solely responsible for influence a vast number of my favourite bands. Released posthumously, Velvet and Pearls is taken from a live performance by Branca’s ensemble and perfectly captures the sense of sonic disorientation, conjuring aural illusions through an assault of intricately crafted noise. It’s an exhilarating piece that should be played as loud as humanly possible.

Brutus - War The raw emotional strength of Stefanie Manneart’s vocals instantly made me pay attention when I first heard this track. Then the song exploded into a barrage of riffs and breakneck drumming.

Valiant Vermin - Warm Coke Another slice of throwback pop, Valiant Vermin proved with “Online Lover” how much of an ear she has for pop and has proven it once again with Warm Coke. Is a real good bop.

———

Welp there it is, 50(+1) songs, I had to limit myself to one track per artist in the main 50 because according to Spotify I listened to [checks notes] 1082 new artists this year. There are a small handful of tracks I wanted to highlight from the same artists though as they offer something quite different to the tracks in the playlists, so here they are quickly with 3 word descriptions.

Petrol Girls - Skye (dead dog, sad) Amanda Palmer - Voicemail for Jill (Talk about abortion) Ezra Furman - I Wanna be Your Girlfriend (Trans Torch Song) Battles ft Jon Anderson & Prairie WWWW - Sugar Foot (Batshit Prog Insanity) Poppy - Choke (Dark Minimalist Pop) Show Me The Body - Forks and Knives (Anxious nightmare punk) Lingua Ignota - CALIGULA (the whole album.)

———

Closing Statement

Cultdreams - Statement

There has been a shadow over the entertainment industry the latter half of this decade. Whether film, music, TV or video games, the late 2010′s are filled with stories of people coming forward to bravely tell their stories about being abused and manipulated by men in positions of power. The #metoo movement as it’s come to be known has been a powerful force in giving marginalised people a voice and the ability to call out oppressors and in starting the groundwork to root out the misogyny in the seats of power, but this is a battle far from won.

While there are thousands of stories out there I want to focus on one in particular.

In 2016 a number of women spoke out about various forms of abuse by a well-known musician in the punk scene. It’s now over three years later and this group of women are in the midst of a long fought claim of defamation from this musician. If this case goes through it sets a precedent for silencing marginalised voices in the industry. They have been fighting for so long and with no legal aid available for the case they have had to finance their defense from their own pockets.

This is where Solidarity Not Silence comes in. Solidarity not silence is a crowdfunding effort to help take the case to trial without the women bankrupting themselves entirely so that they don’t have to give in to this mans demands.  You can read more about Solidarity not Silence and make a donation (if you feel so inclined) here: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/solidaritynotsilence/

You can also follow them on twitter here https://twitter.com/solnotsilence

Book 1: Fire | Chapter 1: The End

In the heart of Republic City, it was a smoggy, humid afternoon. Through the streets trudged languid couriers with their empty rickshaws behind them; capuchin cats sought shade beneath the parked Satomobiles that lined the curbs; vendors called out their wares - mostly cold treats to combat the oppressive summer heat. 

The General’s Tea House, the high street’s most popular tea joint during on-season, was scarcely populated today. The place smelled of wilted jasmine and salty sweat. Two old men sat at the bar, ignoring each other, wasting the afternoon away. A handful of university students studied at one of the tables in the sunken main area in front of the stage.

“Nobody wants hot tea on a hot day,” Shinza complained behind the sheer curtain that partitioned the stage from the back of the house. “Let’s just bail and get some ice cream.”

Behind her, Nero had already uncased her flute. “We need the money,” she reasoned. “Let’s just get it over with, and then I’ll buy you a birthday drink.” She passed Shinza on the way to the stage, bumping hips with her friend for a little confidence. The two had been friends since their days as students at Republic City University; it seemed like they had graduated so recently, but when Shinza stopped to think about how long it had been since that day, and how the two of them, like many others their age, hadn’t ever really found their careers, a black cloud seemed to grow over her head. Expelling a deep breath, Shinza followed Nero out onto the stage, slipping the strap of her guitar over her head. If nothing else, at least she could get lost in the song for a moment.

“Thank you,” Shinza said as she stepped in front of the microphone, in response to the solitary student sitting in the corner table who’d whistled at them. “Thanks. This one’s an old favorite - we hope you like it.”

What Shinza loved about performing with Nero is that the two of them seemed to be two gears in the same mechanism, turning effortlessly together toward the same goal. Nero brought her flute to her lips, and Shinza strummed the first note. Together, they produced an airy, dreamy rendition of Secret Tunnel, one which caught the attention of the two old men at the bar, who by anyone’s assessment might not have been impressed by much at all. By the end of the song, the men and the lone student cheered, with the others applauding on autopilot, not daring to break away from the books in front of them. 

Shinza and Nero bowed to their audience, slipping backstage to rest their instruments and take a quick interlude at the bar. “So, birthday girl,” Nero purred, sidling up and climbing into a bar stool. “What’ll it be?”

Shinza, much taller than her friend, perched on the stool beside her and pretended to scan the menu, although they both knew what she would order. “Mmm… pear sake.”

“What a surprise,” Nero teased. Then to the bartender, she said, “Make that two, please.”

Shinza settled, taking in the atmosphere of the place - the shuffling of pages turning; the idle sounds of the students clearing their throats or tapping their pens. Beside her, Nero shifted in her seat. “You’re going quiet on me,” she noted. “What’s up?”

“I don’t know,” Shinza shrugged. “I mean… That’s a lie. I do know. I’m twenty-seven, and this is what I have to show for it? This is what I’ve been doing with my life?”

She’d known her art degree wouldn’t amount to much, unless by some stroke of luck she could manage to become a famous artist, or maybe end up teaching at the university she’d graduated from. But those odds were long, and the competition too strong for those odds to play out in her favor. It had been a risk that hadn’t paid off. Her parents would have happily paid for her tuition, if she’d chosen to be a doctor like her mother had done. But she hadn’t, and now she was saddled with debt from a degree she didn’t use. Feeling aimless was what had brought her and Nero together in the first place, and it was a continuing feeling that they lacked any real value in society that had created such a strong bond between them.

“Hey,” Nero sounded in that famous mom-friend tone of hers. “Look, just because some people are lucky enough to have a passion for something that makes them money in life doesn’t mean we have it so bad. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Besides - we may not be rolling in cash, but I love performing with you. That has to count for something.”

“I do too,” Shinza replied. “I really do. I hope you know that. It’s just… I feel like I’m doing this in the meantime, you know? Whatever that means. I don’t even know what I’m waiting for.”

Behind them, a man and a woman entered the teahouse; neither Shinza nor Nero paid them any mind as the bartender slid them a jar of hot sake and two tiny cups, until the two approached the bar. “Shinza Kwon?” said the woman. “We need you to come with us.”

As Shinza swiveled to face them, it was immediately clear that they weren’t from around here. They wore the garments of Fire Nation officials - which she only happened to know from the Contemporary Fire Nation Studies class she’d taken, and from pictures her father’s family had sent from Fire Fountain City. 

“Uh…” Shinza squinted at them. How did they know her name?” “I’m sorry - why?”

The woman and her partner, in unison, placed their knuckles into their palms and bowed to her. “Ms. Kwon, it’s recently come to light that you’re the Avatar. You need to come with us immediately; a lot of time has been wasted already.” Was this a joke? Had Nero set up an elaborate prank on her to cheer her up?

“Hilarious,” Shinza noted. She wasn’t laughing. “I’m not even a bender. You’ve got the wrong person.”

“You’re Shinza Kwon,” the man recited. “Graduate of Republic City University? Daughter of Li Kwon, a retired United Forces captain, and Desa Kwon, a doctor? You live at Eighteen Dichi Street, apartment–”

“Yes,” Shinza stopped him. She felt as if she were melting into her seat. Around her, not a single patron was looking anywhere but at her and the Fire Nation officials. Most of them were slack-jawed; two of them bowed reverently. “That’s me. But I don’t understand. How can I–”

“Time is of the essence,” the man pressed. “Please, we need to get you to your destination.”

Shinza stared them down, as if maybe by sheer force of will, she could find the answer between the two of them. “Can I see some ID?”

The woman rolled her eyes and groaned, unfurling the official scroll - which, by scanning, Shinza came to learn was the official documentation summoning her to the Island of the Sun Warriors - complete with the Fire Lord’s seal.

“Good enough for me,” she said weakly, slipping down off her bar stool, leaving Nero with their untouched sake. Her friend’s dark eyes were wide and round, as if Shinza were a ghost. The officials took Shinza by the arms and gently but swiftly led her to the door. The two patrons who had bowed to her hadn’t lifted their heads yet; one patron who stood by the door made a point of rudely bumping into the three of them as they exited the establishment. The two tucked Shinza into their Sato, parked along the curb; the engine was still running as the woman slipped into the driver’s seat.

“So, hang on,” Shinza sounded. “Where exactly are we going? I don’t understand how you could possibly think I’m the Avatar.”

“We have intel,” the man reported, as if that answered everything. “We’re taking you to the Island of the Sun Warriors so you can start your training immediately. You’re… very behind.”

“When? Like, now?”

“Yes. Right now.”

“But wait, what about my apartment? What about my capuchin cat?”

“We’ll make arrangements for you. Don’t worry.”

Panic began to swell in her chest as the Sato pulled out into traffic, going notably above the speed limit as they dodged other Satos, rickshaws, and people alike. “Can I at least say goodbye to my parents? So they know where I’m going? Please, they just live two blocks from here.”

The two officials looked at each other. “Fine,” said the woman.

They reached her parents’ apartment building, stopping along the curb. “Just hang back here. I’ll only be a second.”

“No. We’re coming with you,” said the man.

Shinza blinked at him for a second and then sighed as she opened the door and slid out of the vehicle and onto the sidewalk. Whoever these people were, their job seemed strictly never to let her out of their sight. Before they entered the building, Shinza pressed the buzzer mounted on the bricks. “Mom? Dad? It’s me. Can you let me in?”

“Hi, baby,” said her mother’s voice. “Everything okay? Come on up.”

Was everything okay? Shinza felt dizzy as the officials led her through the door and into the elevator car. The confinement of the space seemed both to clear her head and make her even dizzier. At last, the bell sounded and the doors slid open, revealing her parents’ floor. Shinza led the officials to the correct door, and she rang the doorbell.

It seemed like days passed between when she heard the sound of the bell and when her mother finally answered the door. But when she did, as soon as she saw her Shinza framed by two Fire Nation officials, she grew pale, understanding in an instant what was happening. 

“Mrs. Kwon,” said the man flanking Shinza. “Your daughter is the Avatar. She requested we come visit you on our way to the Fire Nation.”

The door slowly swung open wider; behind her mother, her father caught sight of the three in the doorway. Despite his bad leg, using his cane, he found his way onto one knee, bowing reverently the way they did in his homeland. “Mama,” Shinza said evenly, despite finding herself suddenly blinded by her own tears. “I don’t understand.”

“Go with them, child,” said her father as he painstakingly made his way back to his feet. 

“But what about Bao? I’m going to lose my apartment.”

“Don’t worry,” said her mother, placid as the moon, as she wiped away tears with her long sleeve. “We’ll go get Bao. He can live with us.”

The man nudged Shinza. “We have to go.”

“I’ll be in touch,” Shinza called to both of her parents, although she wasn’t sure whether that was strictly accurate. Her parents gazed down the hall at the three of them from the open doorway, her mother blowing a kiss. “We love you, Shinza,” she said. “No matter what.”

Back in the Sato, Shinza wiped tears off her face, embarrassed at having let her emotions gain control of her, especially in front of two people she didn’t even know. As they pulled away from the curb, the city passed them by in a blur. Shinza felt somehow, despite having grown up here and being as familiar with the streets and the shops and apartments along them as the veins on the backs of her hands, she was suddenly a stranger here. The ride was silent for a long time as they left downtown and headed for the port, just on the outskirts.

The man turned around in the passenger seat to face Shinza. “I’m sorry this all happened so quickly. But you should know that you’re doing the right thing. You’ve lost a lot of time, but it’s not your fault. I’m Zhang, by the way, and that’s Mai.”

“Hey,” said Mai, chancing a glance at Shina in the rearview mirror.

“We’re taking you to a boat bound for the island,” said Zhang, “Once we’re there, you’ll start your training.”

“Nice to, uh… meet you, I guess,” said Shinza. She still didn’t know how they could possibly have her, a non-bender, confused for the Avatar. But she had a feeling Zhang and Mai didn’t know, either. For how quickly the trip to her parents’ place seemed to go by, the journey to the port seemed to take an eternity.

“You want some music?” asked Mai, her hand hovering over the radio dial in the dash.

“No,” Shinza replied. “Thanks.”

After what seemed like an eternity in a car with two strangers, the coast finally crept in from the horizon. The air smelled salty as they pulled into a lot that housed the Satos of people boarding the boats that lined the docks. Mai and Zhang came around to collect Shinza, who had already slid out from the back seat.

“I know it’s annoying,” said Mai as she and Zhang took their positions on either side of her. “But surely you’ve heard of everything happening with The Org. We can’t risk anything happening to you. Especially now, when you’re not trained yet.”

The three of them made their way to a dock, at which a sizable travel vessel with the Fire Nation flag waving proudly from its mast sat waiting for them to board. Ahead of them, several families, single adults, and a few unaccompanied children queued along the wooden ramp, each with their tickets ready. She and her escorts didn’t have tickets; the scroll with the Fire Lord’s seal was more than enough to grant them passage.

Shinza had heard of The Org, and had seen the flyers that littered the streets after their periodic demonstrations. She’d even heard whispers that what went on inside the group was much more dangerous than what most people knew about. But the truth was that she’d never concerned herself with the Avatar or whatever The Org had against them. What business was it of hers? Apparently, now, it was very much her business. As Mai flashed the scroll at the person permitting entry, Shinza wished she’d bothered to give a damn when she’d had the chance.

With one last look behind her at the view of Republic City, Shinza boarded the boat, feeling that somehow this marked the end of her life as she had always known it.

Gem Ascension Tropes (Peridot-specific: I - K)

Reference:

Primary Peri Post ▼ Primary General Post ▼ Full Article

I Am What I Am: While technically in Chartreuse’s form in this moment, Steven’s (as Pink 2.0) intensive Epiphany Therapy towards the end of Chapter 8 of Act III revolves around Peridot’s inner turmoil and self-acceptance regarding her past life as a Manipulative Bastard, which has wracked her with endless guilt since her canon Heel-Face Turn. Said guilt turns out to be what is really inhibiting Peridot’s ability to fuse with Steven. Once it’s lifted when Peridot fully accepts herself, she not only finds that she and Steven can fuse after all, but together fulfill an ancient prophecy as the Diamond of Miracles.

I Gave My Word: Peridot promised herself and everyone else that she’d save everyone trapped on Homeworld and make sure they’re brought home to Earth, and remembering this often helps shake her out a mental funk she’s stuck in.

I Hate Past Me: A major internal issue for Peridot that only gets worse the further she progresses through Homeworld as former repressed memories of how horrible she was as a Homeworld Gem are inadvertently regained. White Diamond actively tortures Peridot by making her watch these memories in Act III, and this ends up weighing down so heavily on Peridot’s conscience that it inhibits her potential for fusion.

I Just Want to Be Special: Peridot is well aware she’s the weakest Crystal Gem, is one of the most common types of gems in existence (as well as the lowest-regarded kind in society) and is destined to be insignificant as an Era 2 gem who will never measure up to her friends. That hasn’t stopped her from going above and beyond to avert this even in her Homeworld days, and now being able to legitimately lead what’s left of the Crystal Gems is Peridot’s opportunity to really stand out and shine. However…

I Just Want to Be Normal: By Act III, it’s revealed Peridot is not only a Chosen One, but a one-of-a-kind Unwitting Test Subject that hasn’t been seen in several millennia. She becomes the first and only ascended gem, capable of being an ordinary gem and a Diamond simultaneously. This consequently makes her the only Era 2 gem with Era 1 capabilities, the only Diamond to be created from another gem, and then there’s her ridiculously powerful ability to conjure things by willing them into existence. All of this is thrown onto Peridot at once, who was determined not to let White Diamond compromise her identity… only to succumb to her fate following a Moment of Weakness. This trope is especially prevalent in Peridot at the very end of GA and all stories following it, as the consequences of her achievements in Act III force Peridot onto a pedestal she doesn’t feel ready for. Ironically, all of this is something Peridot would have been fully on board with prior to her Character Development.

I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Double Subverted with Pumpkin. Celadon Diamond – a fusion of Chartreuse Diamond and White Diamond – killed Pumpkin (while attempting to kill Greg, which he narrowly avoided). While Celadon used willpower (inherited from her Peridot/Chartreuse component) to do the deed, Peridot herself tried to do everything she could to make the fusion hold back. However, resigning to the fusion the way she had made Peridot’s influence on Celadon very limited; White was a much more dominant presence in the fusion, and her desire to kill Steven’s father overpowered Peridot’s resistance. It was only after this happened that Peridot managed to find a way to break the fusion, after several failed attempts. Had she been able to break the fusion earlier, all of this could have been avoided. While Peridot knows it wasn’t fully her fault that she lost Pumpkin, severely injured Greg, and destroyed the Crystal Gems’ spaceship, the fact remains that it was her power that caused this mess. Peridot failed to use her powers to save Pumpkin despite her efforts, and until Steven consoles her later in Act III, she laments that she could have spared Pumpkin, Greg, and their ship from this if only she had been strong enough to break or hold back the fusion. She also could have prevented this if she hadn’t fallen prey to White’s tactics earlier that rendered her emotionally vulnerable, which allowed the Celadon fusion to happen in the first place.

I Lied: Manipulative Bastard Peridot says this verbatim to 9FC in a flashback shown in Chapter 2 of Act III in regards to their friendship.

I Owe You My Life: Peridot wholeheartedly credits her life to Steven. It’s more than him simply liberating her from the oppressive Homeworld life where Individuality is Illegal and giving her a second chance when no one else would. Because he spent so much time teaching Peridot about Earth, as well as talking to her and enjoying life together, Peridot has very good reason to believe her “Great and Lovable” self would never have existed without him. She’s deeply grateful for it and makes sure Steven knows she feels that way several times in the story.

Before this (though it takes a long time for Peridot to remember this), Lapis is similarly credited simply due to coming in just in time before Peridot’s Near-Rape Experience with Jasper went any further than that. Lapis had no intention of saving Peridot; in fact, she was more than willing to let Peridot be subjected to the full extent of being violated for the sake of her own safety. However, Jasper was naturally more drawn to Lapis not only out of instinct, but lust/alleged “love” – meaning Lapis inadvertently took the bullet for Peridot anyway. Several times, at that, while the three were a team together. While the trauma surrounding the incident and Peridot’s own reprehensible behavior during this time were so overwhelming that they had to be fully repressed and nearly forgotten in order for Peridot to function properly after this, she never let herself forget that Lapis did save her from an incident that nearly erased her entire identity – which can be seen as her life being saved. This was the main reason why Peridot went out of her way to be accommodating for Lapis in canon, even at her own expense.

I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Played with. Peridot was fully prepared to be rejected by Steven when it came to the pursuit of a romantic relationship. No matter how jealous she was over her competition, Peridot valued her friendship with Steven far too much to jeopardize it over a selfish desire. She will gladly put Steven’s needs above her own every time. Thankfully for her, it never came to this.

I Will Only Slow You Down: Her rationale when she tells Steven and Garnet to Go on Without Me. White Diamond is just a couple of minutes away, which affords them no time to break the gate with brute force, while Peridot is too fatigued and injured to save herself. While she tries to smile at her friends without showing any tears or sorrow, that briefly fades when Peridot turns her head to hear White Diamond closing in. She resumes her smile when she looks back at Garnet and Steven, now more adamantly ordering them to leave her behind.

I Will Wait for You: Has this sentiment for Steven regarding her feelings for him, under the assumption that he may not be ready for that kind of relationship yet or if he’s with someone else entirely. Peridot’s got all the time in the world to wait for her turn. Luckily for her, she doesn’t have to wait too long.

I’m Having Soul Pains: When Peridot tries to do too much with her willpower in her base form, she will suffer this in the form of headaches, fatigue, and overall physical strain. This is due to her form not being a very good conductor for this kind of power; this kind of side-effect does not happen when performing the same feats (or greater) as Chartreuse Diamond. Only problem is that Peridot doesn’t exactly like to be Chartreuse unless she absolutely has to…

The Immodest Orgasm: It’d be more surprising if someone as naturally loud, expressive, and dramatic as Peridot didn’t behave this way. And sure enough, this is what happens in Chapter 2 of It’s a Birthday, Yes It Is.

Improvised Weapon: Even post-ascension, Peridot never gains an official weapon. Beforehand, she literally could not summon one from her gemstone due to her limitations as an Era 2 gem. Now charged with willpower, Peridot can summon pretty much any weapon she wants for the right situation, assuming she can decide on what to go with. Prior to this, Peridot improvised at least two weapons in a hammer (which she later gifted to an unarmed Connie) and a piece of metal scrap she was able to manipulate into whatever shape she wanted. Although it was mainly a mode of transport, Peridot also used a steel beam to ram into a pallid gem late in Act I.

Drop the Hammer: Though she used it very sparingly before giving it to Connie, Peridot did use the hammer to damage Yellow Diamond badly enough to stun her for the entire battle.

Indy Ploy: Peridot is forced to resort to this in Chapter 5 of This is Who I Am. 5XG is strangling the Light Steven in a separate dimension – consequently, Dark Steven (Peridot’s opponent) is unable to breathe due to his life being bound to his counterpart’s. Being isolated in a separate dimension makes Peridot unable to directly interfere with her counterpart’s efforts… except for one way: injuring herself. The problem is that 5XG is extremely resilient to damage, so Peridot has to inflict a severe injury on herself to have any hope of causing enough mutual damage to disrupt her dark self. With both Stevens moments away from being choked to death, Peridot has no choice but to go with her instincts, as there’s no time to think anything through. She knows it’s a bad idea to directly damage her own gemstone, but being bereft of options and not having the luxury of taking time to think this through leaves her with no choice. She stabs her own gemstone with a broken floor tile – this does force 5XG to stop, but now both Peridots are on death’s door. Luckily for them, Light Steven is merciful enough to heal the one who almost killed him while Dark Steven begrudgingly respects Peridot’s efforts to save his life and heals her to avoid feeling indebted. Ultimately, this insane plan helps end both deathmatches, as both Peridots are too injured to function while both Stevens are too fatigued to carry on, leading to a draw where both Steven and Peridot escape with their lives against all odds.

Inelegant Blubbering: Downplayed, but Peridot’s reunion with Steven in Act I includes sobbing into his chest, calling him every derogatory name she can think of, and punching his shoulder for each insult. Being that Peridot is severely injured, she’s not hurting Steven at all and it isn’t long before she fully devolves into this. Badly enough that the Crystal Gems need to split up and relocate, since Peridot’s cries are garnering unwanted attention.

Inferiority Superiority Complex: Still burdened with this, as Peridot can’t really escape being faced with constant limitations as the only Era 2 of the Crystal Gems… until she ascends, of course. But even then, she has limitations on her new powers unless she shifts into Chartreuse Diamond. She’s constantly self-conscious as a leader, and now that Peridot has regained her memories of her life as a Homeworld Gem, she has a lot of Old Shame moments that are hard for her to live down… especially when the Homeworld refugees constantly remind her of those times.

Insecure Love Interest: Downplayed, as this mostly applies to Peridot after she regains her memories about how awful she used to be during her pre-Earth life. It’s only hinted at in Act II; by Act III, Peridot also struggles with her identity as an Unwitting Test Subject that led to her betraying her friends early on. While it’s seemingly mended with Steven’s declaration of them being an Official Couple by Chapter 5, another problem arises in their inability to fuse. By Chapter 8, it’s revealed the primary cause of that was Peridot’s own guilt over her past crimes weighing her down to the point where she subconsciously believed she didn’t deserve to fuse with Steven.

Insistent Terminology: At the end of It’s a Birthday, Yes It Is, Steven points out the Department of Redundancy Department nature of Peridot’s GA-exclusive catchphrase, “stupid idiot”. Peridot’s response?

Peridot: “It’s not redundancy, clod. It’s emphasis.”

Steven: “I’m… not following.”

Peridot: “Some people can be stupid; others are idiots… but it takes a special kind of clod mentality to achieve the level of stupid idiot, Steven. When I say you’re a stupid idiot, I mean you’re an idiot even by idiot standards, get it?”

Insufferable Genius: Per canon, Peridot definitely has her moments of this, although she’s often prone to self-criticism in the story as well. Sometimes, she deliberately invokes this trope in an attempt to cover something up (usually an insecurity).

Internalized Categorism: Downplayed as time goes on; in Act II, she admits to envying Amethyst for being a gem made on Earth rather than Homeworld, as Peridot had grown to loathe being associated with her home planet in any way. Still, Peridot knows there’s nothing that can be done about it, and she soon no longer has the luxury of lamenting over such trivial details. But then, it’s revealed Peridot is part-Diamond in Act III – and this trope returns with a vengeance. Peridot learns to accept herself by the end of the primary GA series, but still isn’t really comfortable about embracing her Diamond heritage.

Involuntary Shapeshifting: Happens a couple of times. Most notably, she shifts into her Chartreuse Diamond form as she grieves over Pumpkin’s death that only makes her destructive reactions worse.

It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: For all the times Peridot wanted to stand out and be special, she didn’t get to enjoy even a second of it when it was revealed in Act III that she is a very unique Chosen One after all. While Peridot eventually has Steven to lean on to share her burdens with, the Post-GA stories exaggerate their woes as the new Era 3 operation looms over them, as they are the designated centerpieces for the operation, being the only diamonds left in existence at that point. Stories taking place after their project launches show that the burden of responsibility and work have weighed heavily upon the pair.

It’s All About Me: Heavily downplayed due to the high stakes and circumstances of Peridot’s goals in the story, but still has her moments of this. Played very straight regarding who Peridot used to be before she was assigned to monitor Earth.

It’s Personal: Messing with Steven automatically makes any matter personal for Peridot. After Act I, it becomes more personal as White Diamond directly messes with her life and compromises her identity that brings life-long consequences. Then Pumpkin gets brought into it, and… the results are not pretty.

Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She’s still full of herself, she’s still a brat, and she’s still prone to respond aggressively, but don’t ever question Peridot’s love for her friends, her loyalty towards her family, or what she’s willing to do or what she has to sacrifice to keep them out of harm’s way.

Jerkass Ball: Chapter 6 of Act III: after failing to fuse with Steven during their private time together, Peridot covers up her misery with this in order to function not only as a Crystal Gem, but a co-leader of the team, as well as avoid admitting her confirmed inability to fuse to the rest of her friends. However, this façade only makes it more apparent to the others that something is wrong with Peridot, who absolutely refuses to talk about it.

Jerkass Woobie: Peridot in a nutshell after her Near-Rape Experience with Jasper, but before her Heel-Face Turn when she aligned herself with the Crystal Gems.

Jumped at the Call: The moment she realizes Steven’s in trouble, Peridot not only does this, but is irked the others didn’t react like this and instead waited for her to reform before doing anything at all.

Karma Houdini: Until she met Jasper, Manipulative Bastard Peridot suffered no consequences whatsoever for her horrific behavior on Homeworld. She literally got away with murder on several occasions; even worse, often got rewarded for it. Peridot’s good fortune abruptly ran out once she was finally promoted and got on Yellow Pearl’s bad side; ever since her first encounter with Jasper, misfortune followed Peridot everywhere she went. Before long, she was finally suffering the consequences for her cruel ambitions.

5XF expresses that she has no desire to become “another 5XG” regarding her own despicable actions during Chapters 4 and 5 of This is Who I Am. Apparently “5XG” is a synonym for this trope now.

The Killer in Me: The Amnesiac variety, as Peridot is horrified and disgusted to remember how reprehensible she used to be once she reaches Homeworld, and how many lives were lost due to her actions, directly or otherwise.

The Klutz: Per canon, but also the reason why Gem Ascension didn’t end with Act I. Actually heavily downplayed in Act I after leaving Earth, specifically so it happening in Act I’s climax would be even more impactful and unexpected.

Knight, Knave, and Squire: The Squire to Bismuth’s Knight and Lapis’ Knave.

Patriarchy, it’s abuses and a starting course for its ending

A patriarchy is a society in which the male or males are in total control and women are oppressed, A society which we live in today, it is characterised by unequal representation and power relations between men and women in which the latter was the minority, it is also greatly tied with misogyny and homophobia. It has started millennia’s ago even before known civilisations had begun in which females have been relegated as “home-makers”are gatherers and were under male domination; In the case of the third gender or known now as the LGBT+ there have been periods or records of them and the agenda against them.This was done under the invisible rule of the patriarchs and up to the recent times they are still prompting for total control of the other genders and they are almost winning, but with feminist and other social constitutions fighting against them there is a chance of escaping their grasp. Given this notion the author implies that some of our societal problems, if not all of them, are caused by the patriarchal system

   Where there is smoke, there is fire, very much like the same for the patriarchy and those involved in it, and given here are some of the cause for their abuse.First is the fear of what they can’t control; it is known that males are out of their element whenever their weaknesses are being challenged thus prompting them to cover up any of their weakness and vulnerable spots. Their fear of women’s power can also be a trigger for their male ego, it shown that whenever a female is in high power i.e: presidency, prime ministry, queendom etc., men will always complain that a woman can’t do a proper job and this stems from their understanding that women should be submissive to them, and they are in control of the power to lead. Now in the case of the third gender, there has been a great change in the gender spectrum; several new genders have been developed and this leads to confusion on the hetero-normative patriarchy as they have no idea how these genders will affect the new generation and in turn they attack it thinking of it as something that they have no control over.Upbringings are also part of the first cause as it closes those under the patriarch's rule perception for new ideas of gender roles; it should always be remembered that the patriarchal society has been passed down from past generations to the new ones and this serves as walls around the newer generations in regards of gender nexuses,blocking whatever there is to  develop and putting them in the two-gender,being-gay-is-not-natural way of thinking.

Another cause for their abuse are their century of exposure to power.throughout their history are the notion that if you are a man is you are better than any woman you encounter and these boosted the egos of those in the patriarchy. Leading to their upbringings were their tight grasp to being the power player and refusing to relinquish it as to stay on the top of the power nexus. And through this history of power grabbing was the notion of it as a societal and political norm which can’t be broken,ensuing the attacks against females if they refuse to conform to it. In the said attacks they will use every resources they have to prove that males are on the top of the society and the political strata.

Hate on what they would consider as odd is the last cause of the abuse;since the LGBT+ has come on the scene as a major group of minority, the patriarchy has attained more enemies. One reason for the continued hate was their alpha complex, this complex takes on their cognitive perception that they are the “alpha” or the primary human beings and that they should be followed and given the power to lead. A great contrast to what they think of the opposite sexes, who they see as weak and unable to fend or have the wit that they have. Because of their history of teaching children their beliefs, a young boy who grew up in a patriarchal family often turns misogynistic or have off opinions regarding his opposite gender. Because of this the rational thinking of a man or sometimes girls (although it’s a case-to-case basis) have been suppressed and they grow up to be persons with lack of moral sensibility.

        The effects of the said causes have impacts and here are some. Harmful choices sprouts out of the decisions chosen by people who are under the patriarchal rule. Discord between moral duty and their own bias are done, e.g are the senators withholding the ruling of reproductive health bills like the one in the United states. Like said before, the approaches done by patriarchs can sometimes be full of their own prejudice but it also affects the issues being discussed on regards of the LGBT+ like the bathroom segregation for trans people. This issues exploits the weakness of their opposite gender that in turns empowers the patriarchs regulating them. This shows visible misogyny and oppression towards the males’opposite genders

Another one is dissonance in power, It is shown when men tear down women in power or waging for a power balance. This males often cite sources or materials that puts them in the higher strata of society,example is the bible  where it is said that males where the first to be created. When that didn’t work they will use foul language to attack, like bitch, ball buster for the ladies and faggot,dyke, scum for the LGBT. They often produce speeches that supports their egos and tear down those who oppose them.

The last one effect of the patriarchy are the physical and emotional, sometimes even psychological, attacks. People under rule of patriarchy attacks the queer people and females verbally and physically, calling them mentally ill and can result into severe beatings.Their arguments gravitates towards the bible and will seldom have facts, merely stating their nonsensical beliefs. Females receive verbal and physical attacks,being called whores and bitches and receiving death threats. They also use children’s naivete and teach them to hate on these kind of person, and will sometimes teach them the slurs.

 These effects can and have solutions and here are some; educating them is first,educate these people on the developing society, the new social constructs and gender spectrums. Understand where the hate is eminating from them. Employ the males who understand the cause. Using this methods, start the eradication of misogyny in our society.

Promoting equal work balance is another thing,jobs should be about skill sets and talents; not whose more popular. Start to teach the notion of abolishing the alpha thinking,it doesn’t promote anything.Reinvention of workplace and ethics can be a starting point of societal reconstruction. And tipping the power scale into the middle is and will always will be a good start.

Lastly is putting a stop to harassment, the fight will be taken legally, with female judges in court the fight could be a fair one. Standing up to the oppressors should be done to ensure its minimization. New laws with extensive punishment against discrimination and oppression should  be made. And education of the new generation where they are thought to be lawful and respectful should be done.

In conclusion to this narrative there are just point that should be raised,although the fight is long it is also worthwhile.This is gonna ensure the future of children, both male,female and inbetween. Prejudice does not belong in the society anymore and should be eradicated.Always remember that if there is a will, there is a way.

Like, leaving aside issues with Nazi parallels (both because I’m not the right person to ask about it and because I’m on the pro-creator end of the “gross symbolism” debate most of the time) and just talking about How To Write

Gray and Gray Morality requires SETUP.

Usually, it means you need two societies or factions that actually have competing value systems. So, for example, you have Order and Chaos.

Neither of these are inherently good or inherently evil. Both sides can have good people deeply devoted to their faction and evil ones.

A good Order type will be someone who notices that without social cohesion, the poor and the marginalized have no safety net. She wants to create or defend a well-structured society so that all have their chance to succeed in it.

An evil Order type will be someone who imposes an arbitrary order. But for her to be an interesting character, there should be more than just “this is how it’s done.” What does she gain from the oppressive Order? Maybe imposing it protects not her, but someone she loves, or would have protected someone she couldn’t protect.

A good Chaos type will be someone who notices that ordered societies are often ordered wrong. They stifle people’s freedom. But worse than that, they tend to create the kind of social dynamics we’re talking about when we protest “privilege” and decry”marginalization.” Social strata can reinforce themselves, in ways that have absolutely nothing to do with merit or justice. A Chaotic hero wants to tear it all down to get rid of that.

An evil Chaos type just wants to watch the world burn, sure. But why? Maybe he was a freedom fighter before he became a force of nature. Maybe he knows exactly how destructive his vision is, but believes it is absolutely required in order to make people free.

And Order/Chaos is just one obvious polarity to try here. There are others.

There’s a lot of Gray and Gray out there where things get... muddy, because how sympathetic we are to whatever issue varies by point of view character and there is no firm grounding in what the essential conflict is.

We should be sympathetic or horrified depending on the character or the choice they’re making, but we should always be able to tell what the central belief is that they disagree with the other side on. There should always be a fundamental values conflict that we can see and understand the basic contours of.

22 Weird Things You'll Experience when You Stop Shaving

1. In our culture, it’s still terrifying at first.You look around at everyone else with their smooth, bare legs and armpits and realize how taboo body hair really is. Stepping out naturally hairy feels like a social death sentence. It seems certain that each person you encounter will look at you with disgust and that no one will see you as sexually attractive ever again. Still, in the back of your mind you remember how natural it really is, that some other cultures do find it quite acceptable, and that you hate shaving all the time. You might even break down and shave every so often, but in the end, you persist and let your hair grow no matter how frightened you still are. 2. It’s strange, but you keep looking at yourself and thinking it isn’t that bad.As you watch your little leg hairs get longer and longer and feel the prickles of your once-forgotten armpit hair soften, you’ll look in the mirror or down at your legs and feel calmly okay about it. It’s different than when you shaved, but looks and feels very...normal. 3. You want to touch and play with your legs a lot.Touching your smooth legs right after shaving used to seem nice, but by the end of the day they felt like a cactus with a million sharp, tiny prickles. With the hair grown out, your legs feel soft. And the skin beneath still feels silky smooth. You wouldn’t have guessed it, but all that gentle texture is downright tantalizing. 4. A lot of people don’t really notice.You were afraid that you would look like you have furry man-legs, but the hair on your legs is actually much more sparse than you thought. And your armpit hair is hidden in, well, your armpits. Many people can’t even see your body hair while you are out and about. And when the weather is cold enough, it’s all covered up anyways. This might be easier to get away with than you thought. 5. Did it get warmer out here?You used to get chilled by the breeze so easily, even in the summertime. That was the joke: “women are always cold.” Now your exposed, naturally fuzzy legs feel a lot more comfortable out in the elements and the shivers have become rare. 6. Natural hair starts to look comfortingly normal when you see it on other people.After all, there is just something so completely natural about it. It appears as if it is meant to be there. You find yourself looking at photos of models and celebrities who have been brave enough to show off their body hair and it looks right. By contrast, the mass amount of people who shave start to look artificial and edgy...like they are missing something. 7. Many of the people who do notice don’t seem to really care.Okay, so your leg hair was glistening a bit in the sun or you lifted your arms up in excitement and your little puff of armpit hair was revealed. Everyone definitely saw. Yet no one says a word. They don’t look at you funny. They don’t even treat you any differently. Huh. That’s kind of nice. 8. You’ll feel the need to hide or throw out your razors in order to strengthen your resolve.It’s still so tempting to shave, just to end the mental discomfort. If you shaved, maybe you wouldn’t have to think so much about feminism and unrealistic physical expectations and time wasted on materialism anymore...you could just be blissfully ignorant… And then you are disgusted by your own thoughts and throw out every razor in the house so as not to succumb in moments of weakness. Besides, you can’t bear to let the people who do know about your decision to be “au naturale” think you are a wuss who gave up. 9. You start to actually prefer how you look with all of your body hair.It begins to matter less to you what other people think about it, because you start to think you look and act sexier with it. It shows you are an adult woman with enough inner strength and personal confidence in herself to make a difficult decision and let her body be exactly as it is. And that attitude is very sexy. Plus, it’s all so soft and mysteriouslooking... 10. When people do notice and do care, it actually makes you feel kind of smug and powerful, which is fun.You were talking with a stranger and when you lifted your arm to gesture, she caught a glimpse of your armpit fuzziness and was clearly mortified. You kind of laugh inside. She has no idea how good you feel, how much less effort and stress you experience from trying to be “good enough”. You find yourself hoping that the memory sticks with her and plants a seed that grows into doubt about her own shaving habits. 11. You’ll find yourself being surprisingly truthful with your partner and male friends.It starts with your partner, because you can’t hide it from him. When he questions you about it, you find yourself spilling your guts about the stress of getting ready in the mornings, the ugly and painful razor burn, the feeling that you can never please a man unless you do so much to make your body “just right”, the fears that hair-removal encourage a youth-focused sexuality that borders on pedophilia… It was easy to gripe with other women about these things, but once you've already been that vulnerable with your man, you find yourself being able to share these difficult, oppressed feelings with other men too. 12. You will feel strangely more equal to men.Now that giving up shaving has encouraged you to openly share your female opinions and emotions with men, they start to look at you in a different light. They start to question why they've found shaved hair attractive and expected. When you have body hair and are willing to share why, men see your humanity and not just your polished appearance. And this creates the compassion which paves the way for equality. 13. You’ll desperately want other women to join the fight.Okay, admittedly, a big part of you wants all the other women to quit shaving just so that you don’t have to feel self-conscious or alone anymore. There is comfort in conformity. But the more noble piece of you wants all women to stop shaving so that they feel like less of a sex object and more like a person, and at the same time know that they can be completely irresistible just as they are in their natural, female form. You imagine what more women could achieve in art, science, and technology if they spent less time and mental energy on material appearance alone. And you begin passionately expressing this vision to other women. 14. So many men shave their faces. You start to believe that they should stop too.After considering the sexual oppression you have undergone as a woman in being expected to shave and wear makeup in order to fit the cultural beauty standard, you realize that our society does the same thing to men. You look around at the shaved masculine faces and consider that these men are fighting a perfectly normal bodily expression of their masculinity in order to appear more professional, less threatening, or more attractive to certain women. And you begin to want men to stop shaving and embrace their true selves just as much as you want the same for women. 15. You will feel more like yourself.You can’t quite pinpoint why it works this way, but you feel more at home inside of your body. You are more present and drift off in thought a little less. You gain a better sense of who you are and what you believe in and feel more comfortable expressing that. 16. You will feel less nervous and more grounded.With that newfound ease of being in your own skin comes a sense of inner stability. You start to feel calmer and you actually move with more grace and certainty. Maybe your body hair acts like antennae, allowing you to read the environment around you and make subtle adjustments in how you react. Surely there is some biological or metaphysical explanation – you sense this intuitively – but really you are just glad to feel better than you have since before adolescence (probably around the time you caved to the social requirement of shaving in the first place). 17. Armpit hair on women is somehow so alluring.As you look at yourself in the mirror and at beautifully done photos of au naturale women, you start to realize how sensual women look with armpit hair. There is a wholeness and an ease to these women. And something dark, playful, and seductive about that tease of fluffy hair. Maybe it’s their breezy confidence, the lack of worry about being technically “sexy”. Or maybe armpit hair is what we actually find more visually appealing deep down, once we rid our mind of what society has told us we are supposed to like. Either way, you now personally find it very attractive and feminine. 18. And did you know you can feel the wind through your leg hair?You are walking outside, bravely baring your natural legs and a new, tickley, wonderful sensation brushes through you and takes you off guard. You’ve never felt that before and it feels almost as amazing as when wind blows through the hair on your head. It makes you feel very connected to the earth and sky, both physically and spiritually. 19. It makes people more uncomfortable to hear you talk about keeping all of your body hair than it does for them to actually see you do it.When you simply go about your business as your hairy self, most people don’t seem to care. But as soon as you verbally point it out, people start to squirm. Not everyone wants to delve into the real reasons behind their long-standing habits or standards for attractiveness. And it is difficult for anyone to admit that they may have been carrying unhealthy or oppressive opinions, or that they have been doing something purely out of physical insecurity. 20. Your legs stay so much more moisturized.You assume it is because the hair allows your skins oils to wick down along your legs or simply because you aren't tearing up your skin with razors. Whatever it is, you never get the dry, scaly legs you used to and you no longer have to use oil or lotion on your legs. They keep themselves smooth and soft. 21. Razor burn is forgotten forever. No more itching. No more burning. No more hideous red boils on your armpits or legs. You don't miss any of it. 22. Others will support and applaud you, and it will feel very humbling.You start to receive admiration where you thought you would find disgust. Friends tell you that what you are doing (or rather what you've stopped doing) inspires them and this surprises you. It becomes clear that more women than you realized are longing for permission to put down the razor and be accepted for who they can’t help that they are. And more men than you had hoped are looking for women who are confident enough to be comfortable in their bodies and not constantly get distracted chasing a false, and ultimately pointless, ideal of sexual attractiveness. Your partner tells you he never wants you to feel again that you won’t be loved, accepted, or considered beautiful unless you fight your body's ordinary state every day. He doesn't think anyone should feel that way. You start to feel loved. You start to feel supported. You start to feel hopeful. You even start to feel like things are changing for the better. And this fuels you through each and every day as your gorgeous, natural, hairy self. I love you all!! Thank you for reading!

Good Stuff - THE TROOF ABOUT STEVEN UNIVERSE - Part 2

WARNING: If anybody’s got a clown suitcase, I would very much like to see it. And here’s part 1, if you wish to know more. Thank you, take care out there, and enjoy.

Steven Universe is a charming, popular show with a quad-polar fandom, and I’m only here to point out what I say is legitimately wrong with the cartoon. Simple enough? Fair enough. Previously, I talked about how their action is so basic, it’s inexcusable. Now for Point number 2, which is also my favorite:

THE VILLAINS:

I fucking love villains. Not just for the who, but why and how they do it. When bad guys like the Joker, Lord Dominator, DIO, or Him do their thing onscreen, I enjoy every moment of their threatening essence (except Jared Leto’s Joker, he sucked). Villains remorselessly do unethical, downright vicious, things to fulfill their goals while initiating setting up the heroes to correct these effects with their efforts and abilities. Steven Universe has villains, sure. Yet, after having so many chances, Rebecca Sugardaddy has failed to make them REAL villains, specifically the Great Diamond Authority.

Now originally, I was gonna compare the Diamonds to the likes of Fire Lord Ozai (Avatar: The Last Airbender) or DIO (JJBA); villains that work in the shadows and when they’re eventually revealed, they’re already a force to be reckoned with. But looking into how they and Homeworld is set up, there was no other villainous ensemble that could stack up with the Diamonds perfectly like the Gorosei from the anime One Piece.

Looking more badass than the US Government

Now these five gentlemen aren’t necessarily what make up the end all be all for the series, but above all, the Gorosei are the ruling leaders of the organization that controls the entire world of One Piece. They command the military, the police, and other agencies, like their investigative and espionage departments, and the only people that out rule these gentlemen are the descendants of those who created it several centuries ago. Like the Diamonds, they seek to maintain order and justice for the people of their world and doing so means taking on any sign of revolution (namely Pirates) that could damage not only their image, but their purpose. Both Authorities possess absolute rule over the many classes that are under them and their stance of power can be present with the many actions that effect the characters we focus on currently. The difference between the two ruling classes is nuance, aka a grey sense of morality, aka an actual sense of relatability. So when I see a series having an overall narrative villain, Steven Universe has shown me that sympathy should NOT be a factor in storytelling.

And their crocodile tears are not welcome either...

Now when I say this, I don’t mean you can’t sympathize with any villain you see. Most of the time, you can feel for the antagonist when their lives never were good to begin with, that’s namely how villainy starts out, therefore making their actions not so much justified, but understandable. Take the rogues gallery that are the enemies of Batman.

Every one of them has a story to tell and a method to their madness. Their histories weren’t as nice or as hopeful as they may have hoped, and you can feel their pain as their efforts to be successful at something grand falls apart due to the Dark Knight or life’s unforgiving nature. However, the sympathy stops there because none of these masterminds, with the Joker being an exception, serve as a main villain to Batman’s crusade for justice, they’re continuous rivals and one off stories that expand the DC Universe. No evil in Gotham is powerful enough because Batman’s story has no real endgame. Steven Universe and One Piece will eventually have an endgame. And while the Gorosei represent an Oligarchical commodity that separates its order seeking rule from their affiliating countries, The Diamonds have amounted to being under one system alone:

Yep. Nazis.

And it’s weird I bring this up. For I would’ve thought to have called Homeworld an authoritative caste system where the gem you’re born with defines your class and status, coinciding with the gems’ natural abilities. The specific gems are given a role and everyone plays a part to maintain societal order, like what India has, with the Diamonds being the biggest and strongest gems and therefore are the de facto Matriarch of the gem society, you feel me? That would’ve earned a little sympathy from me, because the Diamonds losing Pink would’ve meant the massive changes to accommodate their order and resources might not have worked out so well and their image as leaders are slowly diminishing and that can explain the huge resentment for Earth and Rose’s Rebellion.

But no. Instead the Diamonds are a repressive totalitarian government that basically control everyone and everything, all the gems below to strictly follow and almost never question their line of reasoning, and they’re reasons for destroying the Earth has been summarized down to the emotional baggage and grudge that came with their failure long ago.

CAN YOU NOT FEEL THEIR PAIN?!

Wanna know why I didn’t compare the Diamonds to Avatar’s Fire Nation when talking about humanizing the enemy and the connection couldn’t be more obvious? Because before Ozai is ever mentioned, The Last Airbender states very clearly that the Fire Nation is the region Aang and his friends need to infiltrate to stop their manifest destiny. And when we’re early hinted that Zuko’s not full on evil, it lets the audience know that not everyone is on board with those in charge of the Fire Nation invasion, leading up to Ozai's big debut where we see that as the endgame villain, he’s irredeemable and has such a lust for power, that he’s recognizably the main drive everyone has to stop. Avatar did this right because little by little, the main enemy was narrowed down to a single force that hasn’t made itself known until near the end when his presence bear more importance. The same can’t be said for Steven Universe because Rebecca Sugar Rush presented yet another faint mistake.

The Diamond’s personalities are given to us before they’ve shown us who they are and what they’re capable of...

So we see Yellow Diamond as a vindictive, no nonsense leader that wants shit to get done and Blue Diamond as a more tender looking, yet no nonsense leader that’s grieving over Pink Diamond’s death and does whatever she can to move on and remember the fallen fondly. So, have they done anything before we’ve met them personally? Sure.

*They corrupted thousands of their own kind (because of the rebellion)

*Allowed experimentation towards shattered gems to make artificial fusion (because of the rebellion)

*Ordered a search and destroy on all “defective” gems that go against the Authority’s standards and prevalence while said defectives put themselves in a literally hole of despair for coming out wrong (Gaslighting)

*And let’s not forget the Cluster (because of the rebellion)

So yeah, quite a lot actually. Now you might be thinking, “But Monkey Network, what does those five old men have to do with what the Diamonds did?” Well, when you see the villainous shit the Gorosei have commanded, their actions are actually more relatable.

*Ordering the destruction of an island of archaeologists because they were secretly researching forbidden history

*Allowing a hit on their own government affiliated island to erase any potential surviving threats that invaded there

*Directing the Marines, or the front line enemies of our Pirate heroes

*And contemplating their system’s next move when updates arrive

Now I don’t know about you, but these gentlemen make up quite an authoritative class with understandable motives and relatable notions on running the world without necessarily being on the front lines. Kinda like the US over the years? Even when their level of corruption can be on par and we still know little of their true power and who they really are, they’re instantly better than the Diamond Authority because we can see why they’re in command, their thoughts and actions towards our heroes shows no sign of being sympathetic, and yet we see where their motives lie. I mean, their Government’s enemies are pirates. You know, Pirates? People who’ve robbed and killed and are the opposite of order? See where I’m going here? They namely go after our heroes who are seen to be the enemy even when the Pirates and plenty others consider them the enemy. It’s almost as if there’s a grey choice for the audience to wonder whom the real bad guys are. OooooOOh.

Also, quick side note. The Gorosei look fucking cool. Like their designs aren’t exactly human, credit towards Eiichiro Oda and his expressive designs, but they’re drawn with such a level of seriousness and stature that it presents their elder wisdom and grave subtlety towards a subject in a contrasting light to the pirates bombastic, emotional appeal. But the Diamonds?

This picture summarizes how I will never take them seriously, no matter how hard they try or how good Patti LuPone is

So, what has this amounted to? Basically, Rebecca Sugardop has given us nonthreatening villains that showed no sign of any redeemable qualities beyond their ability to mesmerize us with their acting. That and give us an episode that, in summary, tells the audience that killing an enemy like the Diamonds makes you no better than them. Yeah, I have to go there.

I’ll try and make this quick.

This episode was Crime and Punishment done bad. For Crime and Punishment, it was an old Russian tale of a man killing a woman that’s rich yet unliked in the community because he believed it was for a greater good; implying that murder is permissible in pursuit of a higher purpose. Same can apply to Bismuth, having faith that in killing the Diamonds, Homeworld can be liberated from the oppressive elite. Here’s where that tie-in ends: the effect. In Crime and Punishment, the killer shows sincere regret towards his actions because it didn’t present any change in the community beyond the fact that an old woman got murdered and the only thing the she was despised for was being a greedy pawnbroker. What regret would’ve there been in using the Breaking Point on the Diamonds? Bismuth wasn’t set on killing any Homeworld gem around, just the leader who show that they mean and will mean business unless they’re fully out of commission. The show wanted to say killing the Diamonds is bad even when the effect of it could be good, but never offered any other method to success and just shunned Bismuth to dormancy until they need her again, proving she might have been onto something.

Whew. So, what’s the tl;dr aspect of this since you probably won’t take this seriously. Well, call this a domino effect. Rebecca Sugar Pop is trying to make sympathetic dictators, which is itself an oxymoronic detail. In doing so, she failed to make them real villains. In doing that, there really are no real villains in the show. And when there are no villains, the conflict feels dry and absent. And without conflict, she failed at putting together HALF an overall story. And when you’re a coming of age story where it has to end on some note with maturity and change, after almost five years in the making, you just FUCKED yourself over when you didn’t even invest time in HALF of what makes an overall story of good and evil investing and engaging. Oh I’m sorry, what makes an overall story of a blurred line between good and evil. Investing and engaging.

I can’t care anymore. If they get redeemed, sure. If they end up dying like a tragedy, fine. They feel less like villains to overcome and more like stairs Steven has to step on to become a better person. Just let White Diamond be as grandiose and badass as Tumblr’s AUs of her, because again...

The fandom is doing the show a bit of justice

My life story, Part 42

I was beginning to have a poor attitude towards society in general. I had always been a little off, a girl who walked around imagining things that weren't there, dazing off, obsessing over small interests, talking to myself just a little. I had been bullied in small ways, belittled by teachers and abused by my family, but I had more or less kept this sense of innocence about me. I think late 2004 was the year that I became resentful. I used to keep a journal for instance, and I would chronicle the lives of my fellow students, noting if they had had a rough time that I had noticed, or if they were dating someone. I never dehumanized anyone, no matter who ridiculous or mean to me they were as a person. This was starting to change around then. I would see society as this towering feeling of oppression, and the people around me as one choreographed mass of human-tools, sucking up whatever was given to them, be it the top 20 radio hits, television shows, what people wore or dressed like, religion, political parties. It seemed homogeneous and empty to me now, and people around me were smiling slaves working for whatever force it was that Zack had always told me about. It was baffling to me that I had once been somewhat taken in. I had never of course succeeded in fitting in because I was already been too weird to belong to these people truly, but I had more or less gone through my entire life unquestioning.

It was hard for me to smile. I truly felt alone and opposed to almost everything around me as I walked down the halls. There was a thick skin between me and everyone else. I had been shamefully open with high school jocks who had always looked to making me perform my silly ideas out in the open. I had always trusted that the world made sense, your friends were really your friends, society was mostly good and also not worth thinking about, and the latest fad was popular because of it's merit alone. Now I was guarded, and slightly on the attack if anyone intruded my space, and willing to tear anything apart to find something not to like about it. I suffered from black and white thinking, and a need to dismiss people, places, things and ideas without truly studying them. The things that were good were almost religious to me in nature, my aesthetic taste had transcended to a moral objective truth. The bad was corrupting, evil and by it's very existence, an insult to me personally and everything I loved and found worthy of defending. I didn't see a lot of middle ground.

As I am much older now, I know my way of thinking at the time was largely due to fear and a lack of trust. I was beginning to develop a set of defense mechanisms, and one of those defense mechanisms was a very oversized ego about my own opinions and what I liked and what moved me being better than the fake feelings that were sold to the masses. I didn't think I was great or anything personally – as I was very insecure in all reality, and I would not say that it really developed into true narcissism in the DSM sense. I was giving myself certainty I believe. I was setting up an enemy to confront my own pain really. The modern world was too confusing and I was rejecting it in some way to embrace a cultish tribal feeling against the rest of the world as a whole. The enemy was some force that I didn't understand. It seemed to dictate the lives of every seeming adult I had ever known, and every aspect of the society I lived in, and yet it didn't have a face. Zack of course, in his cliché' things he had read or heard called it The New World Order. So I blindly clung to that feeling of an impending need to cling to the art I held dear, in much the same way a Christian might cling to their faith and be willing to die for it.

The only person that I emotionally felt open to was Zack. And I was bent on keeping him around. But I had chased him away. I had some luck with him after I had used Noah to make him jealous and then changed my mind, but in a sense he never quite sat at the lunch table with us. I remember one day quite vividly. Zack and the rest of us had snuck into the small seldom used basketball court. Zack had taken his shoes off. He was talking about love, and about how loving people was the one thing that the freemasons couldn't stop us doing. He talked about how he had this deep painful and profound love for everything in the entire world. I admired him, and wished I could be more like him. He somehow convinced me to take off my shoes and hippie dance with him. And then he told me, looking me straight in the face, that 'Everyone deserves to be loved, Renee'. I really felt blown away by this statement. It kind of tore down the defenses I was making. And it felt good, even for a moment, to escape from the inner prison I was living in. The notion that everyone deserved love rehumanized everyone. The hordes of mindless jocks and popular girls no longer seemed like empty shells, but uncertain souls trying their best to maneuver and often stumbling through life trying to find meaning and love in some form just as I was. Of course, Zack was also the same person who  told me that the entire school had been replaced by robot replicas. I had never bought into it, much as it seemed right to agree with whatever Zack believed. So I cannot entirely verify that Zack knew what he was really talking about. But I held onto that statement, and for many years of my life, I think it kept me sane, and I held it near to my heart, like a psychological locket I wore under my clothes.

There was also a day where Zack introduced me to a very strange and odd technique for 'waking yourself up' when you were beginning to feel like you were dying inside and becoming 'one of them'. He walked out of the school, ran and leaped as high in the air as he could and forced himself to land on his knees. He threw his entire body into it. His knees were scraped and bloody and stung. At first I was hesitant, but I took a deep breath and did the same thing. We must have looked insane to onlookers. We started doing it over and over again till our knees were bloody. Sarah tried it but didn't care for being in pain, and Samantha probably thought we were morons. There was something addictive about the pain of jumping and falling. You were throwing yourself to the winds, using yourself as a weapon and at the same time accepting that you were your own weapon. The stinging pain was surprising and addictive. Both of us had bloodied knees by the end. There were times when I wondered if Zack was trying to start a cult. He talked about the world very much like a cult leader at times, and liked creating barriers between the world and a small following.

Ava showed up midfall one random day. She now had a license and wanted to drive around. She took me in her car and instantly put on Manic Monday by The Bangles and driving the car in sharp circles till we were both sick. Typical Ava. We were all mad about the war in Iraq, but none of us understood why. It just seemed like something an evil corrupt group of powerful men decided on arbitrarily. Honestly, I was mad for the sake of being mad. I didn't care about war on a grand scale, nor could I really comprehend it. I just felt strangely against it at the time. Ava was probably more aware of what was happening than I was. She had a friend named Emily with her, who was a quiet mousy girl. Ava, Sarah and I got in her new vehicle. She bragged about her never ending gas card. She could basically drive around however she liked, with nothing stopping her. We got in her car, and throughout the afternoon, went through our town, and all the neighboring towns looking out for Support Our Troops magnets. I guess we felt that stealing these magnets was the ultimate act of defiance against the government. I think we stole twenty or more. The only time any of us got caught was when Emily got caught. They called her to come to the car, and she got chewed out. But she was small and mousy and they chastised her but left her alone.

In history class one day, one of the classes I paid no attention in still, I was randomly called upon in front of the class to explain what I thought what the government was for. I immediately told everyone that the government was there to push people down and make them subservient and submissive to the real masters of the world. Mr. Bradley looked at me surprised. He told me I was wrong, but seemed amused overall. The rest of the class looked at me like I was crazy. At some point, a preppy girl named Mary stood up and explained that people like me didn't belong in America. She said that if I didn't like America, she would like to see what they would do to me in Saudi Arabia. I was annoyed, but I didn't get much of an opportunity to defend myself. But this was by and large how people in the school felt about me. If I didn't like it, they would just assume that I disappear.

At this point in my life, I was very invested in my sort of self-righteous atheism. I think this is probably fairly common with first-year atheists in middle and high school. It wasn't enough to have my own personal developed sense of the world – I had to make sure others knew they were wrong in their faith. I still have retained many of the beliefs I had back then, but honestly, half of my reasons for not believing in a higher power were more based on a mistrust for church, and an incredibly limited historical look at Christianity specifically. I knew next to nothing about Islam, Judaism, any of the beliefs of Asia. My thinking was so all or nothing in those days that I scoffed at anything that didn't hold up to my version of reality, or didn't seem obvious to me. Basically, I was beginning to turn into Ayn Rand, though I didn't know who she was at the time. This is why, in the present, I kind of understand why some people gravitate towards objectivist thinking, towards believing in 100% free will, anarcho-capitalism, and a more traditional libertarianism (I was never a tea-party or Obama is a Muslim type of person). I have retained nearly nothing of this former belief system of mine, and I chock it up more to having to personally try to rationalize what I had personally grown up with. You don't want to believe that the world has failed you, or that the people in your life have let you down. There is a strange satisfaction in believing that you are 100% in control of your own destiny, that your life doesn't belong to anyone else but you – unaffected by society or anyone around you, and that if everyone behaved as free and openly selfish creatures than there might be something honorable to derive from that.

The truth about it was that I was actually dealing with a combinations of realizations about the world, and an enormous amount of emptiness and grief. It was easier and more favorable for me at the time to see the world as an eat or be eaten kind of world, where my value was only as good as the amount of my own dreams that I could make happen. It was easier for my to divorce myself from being a victim in any way. It also made it a lot easier for me to judge other people and condemn them when they did and said things I didn't agree with. It was a way to keep myself guarded from trying to love and understand others. And honestly, the only thing that I held dear that I kept an open mind about was that one time Zack and I hippie danced and he told me that everyone deserved to be loved. It undid the belief, but I couldn't seem to live on the day to day with that understanding. It's a tall order for anyone to buy into for one, and so much easier to live in a world where you can dismiss the pain of others as being self made.

So in history class, I sometimes, in a very arrogant manner, would question and harrass Mr. Bradley, about his Christianity. He was of the belief that the world was only 6000 years old. He went to church every Sunday and had always been very religious. It was obnoxious on my own part. I wasn't trying to learn anything new, as much as I was demonstrating that I was smarter than him, and could mentally overpower him. I tried to tell him that religion was invented for people like him to be ruled over. I at times accused him of being a puppet of those in power. I mocked him, and eventually made jokes that he was secretly cheating on his wife to date a man. It was incredibly rude of me. He took it well all things considered. I eventually pissed him off though, and he called me up to his desk one day and told me to knock it off. Which I definitely had coming. It would have been one thing had I paid attention in class and known to question what was being taught in that class. I could have used our lessons in history to question his logic on bigger things, in a respectful manner that would have given us both something to take home and think about in a bigger context. But attacking him because of his religion, however scientifically in the dark his beliefs were, was really messed up on my part.

I still was babysitting more than ever. I started seeing my position in a different way however. For the last several years, I had helplessly fallen into a sense of distress, self pity and resignation about what my parents forced upon me every weekend. But at fifteen I started seeing my position as a blessing in disguise. One of the realizations that came to me was that Allison and David were people. I hadn't really treated them like they were, but I was beginning to clearly see that now. Secondly, I felt excited that I might have the potential to mold them into cool people. I looked over my empty childhood, mostly siphoning through bad music, movies, styles, searching for something meaningful and falling short always – lucky when I found a small seed of something valuable in the garbage of the mainstream. I had no one to guide my thoughts or beliefs. My father and mother didn't think people had many layers and didn't acknowledge any of us as individuals outside of their understanding. They had no concern or curiosity for what any of us kids believed or what we felt about things personally, or how they impacted us. My father had some strong opinions and he would often tell us about it, but this was very much a one sided discussion. I started seeing myself as being responsible for improving Allison and David's life.

I also started seeing this as a power grab, mainly against my father. He had belittled me and pushed me down in any way he could and made me feel like nothing. There were elements to how he knocked me down that I would never recover from, but  I could start taking the power back in increments and he would not even know. His kids could slowly become decreasingly his children and more my own. All I really had to do was befriend them and gain their respect. Before this time, I had never been able to appreciate or differentiate the difference between fear and true respect. For my father, he saw no difference. For both of them really – mother and father, this rule held/holds true. They would do what they could get away with. They had no respect for anyone save themselves.

But what they did seem to respect was anything that put fear into them. And likewise, when either of them wanted to feel loved or validated, they would do something mean. They were criminal in this sense of the word. And it was strange, but even with all the influence they had over me, even underneath my own power trips, I had more class and benevolence towards the world. I saw the beauty in being kind when there was nothing to be gained. I could see the value in being patient and open – even when I was having difficulties getting by without my own personal closed off nature. Obviously, I still retained some of their opportunism, but I didn't generally see my friends and family as tools, even when I considered myself to be some kind of libertarian. It was strange, but there was something about that previous year that had really opened my eyes. I understood how to love people because that person was who they were and not because they offered me anything. I appreciated what pain had taught me and the finer details of what it meant to be a person. I accept that the world wasn't meant to be easy. And unlike them, I quite defiantly decided to live my life with a sense that I was going to try to be honorable.

I also saw the value of making friends out of both Allison and David so that I could have friends. I wanted to include them in my struggles, and perhaps this was a little selfish, but given they were growing up in the same homes that I was growing up in, it felt necessary to start seeing the three of us as being able to help one another out in some way. I wanted to reach them emotionally and make them understand me. I didn't want to admit it, but even with Sarah, there were things I just never felt understood for. She didn't seem to care about anything. She didn't get mad, or feel motivated. She loved dreaming about being a rock star, but what I wanted to see was anger and passion and I saw very little of that. Sarah had this void in her personality, and she often times would cave to whatever felt easiest. She was more interested in being comfortable than making her dreams come true, and she wasn't as readily ready to fight for a cause like I was. It bothered me, but at the same rate, she seemed to understand me in a way that people can't understand about themselves. Like, she seemed to perceive when I was going to feel hungry, or how I was feeling even when I myself didn't quite know. But in other ways, she simply didn't seem to understand. And that's what I felt Allison and David could be good for.

I started reading to them every night. I started to read A Child Called It one day to them after school. I remember reading it in one go. I knew the book, having read it a year previous, and the story was very painful and sad. Allison and David's faces were both streaked with tears by the end of the evening. Especially David, who was particularly sensitive. I warned them about never trusting authority or the government in any way. This did little to no good naturally, since I didn't know what the heck I was talking about and believed every website I came across that had some conspiracy theory to spread. A lot of it was lies. Some of it was downright detestable. I really just didn't know. In an attempt to 'see through the bullshit' I was myself just as naive as I had been before, and maybe even more so.

One thing that was most memorable was my starting a  home tape of something I called The Clown Show. Allison had this karaoke machine with a tape deck in it. It was the same one used to tape I'm A Big Man that summer. There were knobs that I could control my voice with. I distorted my voice to where I sounded like this clown voice. It wasn't quite male, nor was it quite female. It sounded like me and it didn't. I was able to create this weird echo, and I was this character, a clown, who ran this fucked up insane talk show that you could listen to on a weird broadcast that was hard to get on an AM station. I had this insane chanting audience, and I made these awful dissonant jokes that I would laugh at. I wanted it to be creepy and upsetting, but not like an overt and obvious killer clown in a cliché sense. It reminded me an awful lot of what Tim and Eric sometimes was if you watched Adult Swim late at night. Or more specifically, it reminds me an awful lot like the work of this really bizarre lo-fi musician that has been around since the 70's named R. Stevie Moore. I really could never explain that to anyone unless they listened to it, and it's incredibly unlikely that anyone would know unless they heard. There is a lot of random singing, random vintage commercials, psychotic sounds. Very strange tape music.

Allison and David were several characters. I had David make these weird impromptu car commercials, Allison would sell soap in a soft voice. Then I would have them be guests on the show. I would interview them for the audience, and they would come up with these insane answers that they perceived adults would say. David was Billy Idol, except he clearly wasn't. And Allison was Britney Spears. Then they would sing a song that Allison or David made up on the top of their head that they perceived a musician like Billy Idol or Britney Spears would sing. I made these tapes, and I would show them to people. Most of the time people said it made them feel really empty, disturbed and slightly nauseated. They were funny, and horrifying at the same time.

Zack and I were just starting to get close again. It had only been about six weeks or so since school had started. I had managed to drive him away, had to contend with his girlfriend for awhile, and then had to win him back. I seemed to be doing it. I came to this sense of calm about him. I just had to accept that I was still very much in love with him and always would be. I wasn't going to worry about the future, or worry about the attention I was being given. I was simply going to love him, for whatever that was worth. I had to forgive him. I had to forgive everyone. I was not going to give up my own sense of identity, but I wasn't going to try to hurt him to prove something petty to myself about who I was. I was going to expect nothing, and just be happy to have him around.

And then one day we were in health class. He sat next to me and scooted his desk up next to mine. Earlier that day he had come to me and explained that there was a school assembly last hour. He wanted to make sure that I was sitting right next to him. I was very happy. It felt like maybe things were going back to normal. So in health class, we were just waiting for the bell to ring and the intercom to sound so we could go to the gymnasium together. I remember people looking over at us strangely, perhaps judging us as the class freaks, trying to figure out if we were dating. I felt this soft sort of confidence inside.

Then the intercom came on and we all assembled to the gym. As Zack and I were walking together, Cody Smith – Ava's ex (It might be worth mentioning that the Smith household left him in Kendrick even though they had moved), came up to Zack and told him to come with him. Zack looked at me, and then looked at Cody. He smiled and told me to save a spot for him. I felt really rattled and confused. I went into the gym and saved a spot for him, but as everyone piled in, Zack didn't show up. I looked around. And then I spotted him, though just barely. He and Cody, were running out the back door by the boy's locker room, going out the secret way through the weight lifting room. Zack had been quickly convinced to skip the assembly. And he had forgotten all about me. And I had this really bad feeling that he was never coming back to school again.

Two weeks went by, and he didn't come to class. There was no word of him at all. Samantha knew nothing. Soup hadn't heard anything. I kept telling myself that he was just skipping for a few weeks like he had last time, but something about this felt a lot different. For one, he had been seen skipping the assembly, and if he returned they were waiting and ready to put him in several days of suspension. So why would he even want to come back? Secondly, he had just turned sixteen and he was legally able to leave school now. He never liked school. He liked playing music and smoking pot all day. So why would he want to be here?

I had troubles smiling. Noah was now talking to me all the time. He was friendly enough and I liked him. But he was incredibly engaged in trying to get my attention now. He wanted me to read his Invader Zim comic books, and I didn't really get into them. He wanted everyone to listen to Ween. I didn't like Ween that much. He wasn't pushy or anything. But he bothered me for some reason. And I mostly just missed Zack. I started comparing Zack to Noah, and finding that Noah annoyed me. I felt like Zack had been taken away from me and been replaced by this other person. I didn't want Noah. I wanted Zack. Eventually, one day at lunch break, as I was sitting in the parking lot, Zack and his father drove up unexpectedly in his father's red pickup. His dad didn't look too happy. But he was there to sign Zack out of school. Zack was quitting for good. He ran to us briefly, but his father didn't want to wait around. He was only able to explain what was happening, before he was called back to the truck and they drove away.

I was despondent and I felt empty. It was one thing when I had felt betrayed, or broken. But this was another thing altogether. I was somehow going to have to make it through life without him. Somehow, a big portion of my life had just floated away, and left this big empty space. I avoided everyone around me. I was short tempered with Sarah when she asked what was wrong. Noah came up to me at one point and offered me chewing gum and tried to be nice to me in a very Meyers-Briggs INTP kind of way. I took it resentfully. And yet, the world went on, and for the most part nobody paid too much attention. Nobody really seemed to understand what I was going through. And I had set it up that way. I hadn't been honest about how I felt. Which was of course what kept me safe, but also kept me trapped.

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PART 1 - http://tinyurl.com/l8xbvg8

Lemonade by Beyonce: F**k Respectability Politics

Lemonade by Beyonce, released in 2016 was her sixth studio album and second visual music album that topped the charts and became her most critically acclaimed album to date. Beyonce uses her platform to radically approach the marginalized narratives of Black people in American history through the use of visual efforts in airing a sixty-five minute film to accompany the album, which showed on HBO. In the visual album, she includes the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown: all of whom have fallen victim to the anti-black police state enforced in the United States. She breaks all stereotypical chains of the cookie cutter Black woman pop artist she portrayed herself as at the beginning of her musical career. Refusing to be known as only being capable of sticking to one sound, she crosses through multiple genres of music including country, reggae, blues, hip-hop, soul, funk, R&B, americana, gospel, electronic, and trap all in one album. Confronting historical anti-black violence in “Freedom” featuring Kendrick Lamar, and facing intersectional forces of oppression that Black women deal with in “Formation,” and “Sorry,” Beyonce lays out her socio-critical perspective on the table whether we were ready for it or not.

“Formation” focuses on prominent issues within the Black community and turns the historical oppression of  “othering” of Black people into an “us,” encouraging the Black community to come together “okay ladies now let’s get in Formation” and rise up against the oppressor. When she dropped this song, she did so a day before her huge Super Bowl Halftime Show appearance as a way to really stick her nose up in the air at the fact that yes, although she is Black and comes from a marginalized community within Houston, Texas, she is still here taking up space on such an esteemed stage, earning millions of dollars for her talent, “I earned all this money, but they never take the country out me / I got hot sauce in my bag (swag).” In Beyonce’s visual piece to “Formation” there are references to Black Lives Matter and Hurricane Katrina that are clear; it includes an image of Beyoncé on top of a sinking police car, walls strewn with "Stop Shooting Us" graffiti, and a young African American boy in a hoodie dancing in front of police officers. The significance behind including Hurricane Katrina is a commentary on the lack of government involvement in providing assistance like shelter and adequate resources, such as food or medical attention to survivors, most of whom were Black. In the video, the young, Black boy is used to symbolize the tragic and inhumane death of Trayvon Martin. Beyoncé uses this as a way to highlight the discrepancies in the government and their lack of support for marginalized communities. Beyoncé also shows Black women in different hairstyles that have been deemed as inappropriate. Not only does she showcase the beauty and power of hair within the Black community, but she uses it to make a statement that Black beauty is majestic. Incorporating lyrics like, “I like my baby hairs with baby hairs and afros / I like my negro nose with Jackson 5 nostrils” she makes a strong statement on beauty standards claiming they have always been eurocentric, while doing the work of marginalizing and demonizing Afro-descendant features like large nostrils, and kinky hair. Throwing the Jackson 5 reference in there further proves her point in showing that the biggest voices in music like Michael and Janet Jackson were harmed because of these societal norms so much to the point where they paid to have their faces reconstructed and even further, skin bleached. I believe she also included these lyrics in response to the racist and eurocentric outlast she got from revealing what her baby, Blue Ivy, looked like after her birth.

In her song “Sorry,” Beyoncé uplifts her Black feminist voice, creating commentary of the cheating scandal involving her husband that broke the internet. Here we see Beyoncé lose all respectability politics by including words and phrases like, “n*gga naw” and, “middle fingers up, put them hands high / wave it in his face, tell him, boy, bye.” Here she is taking a stand and saying she refuses to play the quiet role of the stereotypical Black wife who stays at home and takes whatever treatment her husband puts her through. “he tryin’ to roll me up, I ain’t picking up / headed to the club, I ain’t thinkin’ bout you” and “suck on my balls, pause, I’ve had enough” shows her refusal to stay in the confinement of what society thinks Black women should be and how they should act. She’s bringing the focus to her doing her own thing and making her own money, she does not have time to lose fussing over a man who she can easily replace giving that she is independent and makes her own money and shows it through her use of lyrics like, “suicide before you see this tear fall down my eyes / me and my baby, we gon' be alright / we gon' live a good life” and “stop interrupting my grinding / I ain't thinking 'bout you.” At the end of her song she finishes it with, “he better call Becky with the good hair” providing commentary once again on beauty standards for Black people, but Black women specifically and their hair. The social norm in American culture today focuses hugely on Black women’s hair and how it must look a specific way, lose, soft, curls, in order for it to be considered “good” hair. The association of good hair and Black women historically has always served as a losing-comparison to white women who usually have what is deemed as neater, straight hair. Here she is playing against the stereotype that Black women’s hair is unkept, deemed as ugly, and associated with undesirability and low intellect by pushing that narrative onto “Becky” who is painted here as the culprit and the one being undesirable.

In “Freedom,” Beyonce brings back the theme of #BlackLivesMatter, this time accompanied by Compton gangsta rapper Kendrick Lamar. Separately, both artists have quite much to say on the oppression of Black people and racist institutions. Together, they have created a beautiful spiritual ballad that speaks to the souls of past enslaved Africans. In the chorus you hear the strong, and undeniably sense of a Black Negro spiritual with lyrics like, “Freedom, freedom, I can’t move/Freedom, cut me loose (Yeah)/Freedom, freedom, where are you?/’Cause I need freedom too/I break chains all by myself/Won’t let my freedom rot in hell, hey./I’ma keep running/’Cause a winner don’t quit on themselves.” Alluding to an older spiritual that tells one to “wade in the water”, she also includes, “I’ma wade, I’ma wave through the waters/Tell the tide don’t move” in her lyrics, bringing the timeline of slavery, emancipation, Jim Crow, and segregation full circle.