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opthomastic · 3 months

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STATICITY

“Staticity is an illusion . . . energy . . . created nor destroyed. You feel like you're still in the moment . . . but stillness is an impossibility. The earth revolves beneath your feet, continuously, and the presence of . . . stillness invites only the figment of staticity, while our planet turns with us aboard . . . nothing truly stops, nothing comes to any end . . . outside theoretical temporal vacua, molecular . . . energies aren't bound to our perceptions of space and its limits, and no kinesis is subject to any such terminality rubric . . . there is no force stronger than motion-change in this cyclical universe—nothing comes to any end . . . and when something is thought to stop—can you feel it? The space you think you occupy in staticity . . . it exists no more or less than the moment of its genesis. The concept of space in your head, just a figment of relativity . . . and when one stops in perceived space, their energy continues unimpeded outside perception . . . the heart, the mind, the body, what does it take to turn these static? I'm not asking Arba, I'm asking . . . how do you determine staticity from a point of constant motion . . . how can you say anything's truly static . . . the heart, the mind, the body, the soul? . . . A star burns out . . . the star remains in motion—the light carries on . . . an endless journey of energy undestroyed . . . unimpeded . . . where does it go? If the body is no longer perceivable, it is not necessarily static . . . if the mind no longer transmits a signal . . . if the heart no longer beats . . . but the perception cannot be said to see cessation . . . while the light of the soul has yet to see termination—an energy existing as . . . infinitely as any other.”

John hears the rambling madman, but he doesn't listen. He sees the frantic arc of each brushstroke over the canvas, but he doesn't watch. He registers the inanity of holding audience to a solitary inmate, but doesn't move from the hall between windows. And yet, he does—he's always moving, actually, just as everything else is. After all, staticity is an illusion, and so on, and so forth. But no; he's standing still, leaning on the massive foot-thick pane of glass wall with the sprawling city a dozen stories below cast in pale sunlight over his shoulder. And who's to say his interpretation of stillness is at fault? Sane people know what it means. Though his heart still beats, relative to the sterile white hall and solid resin floor underneath his rooted feet, it stays in one place. He'd consider that static enough.

He'd only just noticed the other man's peroration slowing down by the time he made that observation. Across from him, through the second window-wall, the cell's sole occupant seemed to be granted a measure of lucidity amid his stochastic painting. Hunched forward at his canvas, the loose black robe hanging over those shoulders appeared exceptionally still indeed as only the head of inky curls turned, gradually, over the inmate's suspended painting arm.

John regarded him with all the measured indifference he'd grown accustomed to showing his partner in commiseration since the novelty of the painter's insanity wore off. And yet, there remained a shade to those dark eyes immeasurable; relative lucidity notwithstanding, the depth exuded sent the old paroxysmal twitch of the eyebrow into motion, turning indifference into doubt.

“Is the picture not coming out like you'd hoped?”

The man's steady gaze lingered before falling away, his brush-bearing arm falling with it. What its purpose was in sighting him through the glass, he couldn't begin to guess. As that dark sight settled back onto the canvas, so did John's seek it out, leaning aside from out in the hall to see past the deranged silhouette.

It was a . . . decent piece. If one were inclined toward senseless surrealism—one or many, such as Satre's abounding artistic society, bless their hearts—it could be considered one of the deeper cuts into artistic psyche. The strokes were as refined as they got under that monomaniacal brush, yet again confined to the palette of dunduckytimur grays after a bit of thorough, indiscriminate adulteration of the paints. Given some considerate work he might affect a coherent shape or two and add a semblance of representation, toss it to those bent on divining such a thing. That smear there: that could be the arm; that dribble a shadow.

“All done now?” John asked into the humming silence—an echoing distillation of air down the hall kept the tinnitus at bay, and once the madman fell torpid again it was awfully quiet otherwise. Regardless of the inmate's conversational skills, it felt refreshing to offer something sensible to the air.

“Nothing is done.” The hoarse whisper resounded off the canvas, the back of the cell, through the spartan space within, slipping through the vents in the glass wall between them. Though Oras spoke with rare clarity and purpose, his meaning remained tenebrous as ever.

John finally stepped away from the outer window, moving toward those circular cuts in the glass that lent the inmate a minor conduit to the outside world. “I know, Oras. But do you want to keep painting it?”

The rumpled form shifted back from the canvas—a fine piece of cotton duck put to dubious use as a madman's toy, though the results were hard to argue when all is said and done—and Oras situated himself off to the side of his cell, docile for the time being. John slipped his phone from his breast pocket to tap out a quick message. Within minutes there were two lab personnel sweeping through with their rubber gloves and slippers to maneuver the canvas out amid splatters of paint.

“I'll see to it momentarily,” said John, eyes staying on Oras while they carried it down the hall. Their steps receded around the corner of the curving passage, and he was left with the air conditioner to fill the silence once more.

“So what is this one?” John's gaze drifted away from the painter as he slowly stepped forward along the length of the glass. “I think you were saying something about stars, again. Is that a hint?” The edge of his mouth twitched despite a lack of substantial irony. “Or was it the planets? Excuse me—planet. Neither bring portraiture to mind, if I'm being honest. It was a portrait, right? Oh—maybe Mother Earth? But . . . no, that's ridiculous. The coloring leaves much to be desired in that vein.”

Oras sat against the graying wall, essentially just another stain among the rest of the spilled paint. The dark hair framing his face in dishevelment from chin to crown left his expression in shadow, but there was never much to tell from it either way.

“My best guess is my first one. But that always feels too easy. Besides, how do you even interpret 'static'? Unless we're talking about the other kind—that mess does resemble total signal loss.” He barked a laugh at that one, eyeing the mess in the cell: spots of black paint, sprinkled everywhere. The only place routinely cleaned anymore was that which was immediately around the easel. After the latest piece it was once more splotched with the leftover colors Oras had spilled while mixing them all together on the poor abused palette that lay at its feet.

“But I think you were mumbling 'staticity is impossible' during all that. Sure did capture the moment in something awfully static. If you want dynamic art, try animation. Now that doesn't stay still.” He reached the other end of the window and turned around, changing his mind on the spot. “Actually . . . Staticity sounds pretty poignant. I'll go with that. Much appreciated, as always, old pal.” His gratitude rang off the glass just as transparent and twice as vain. What ghosts of mordancy hanging dry as the oldest stains in the cell still haunted their banter left no illusion as to its sincerity. Not that it wanted for any.

John reversed course again to head for the hall the attendants left through—same one as the other way, really, just the shorter route to the elevator. “Let me know if you remember anything better, Oras. It could do with that old flair of yours.” He stopped at the edge of the cell, staring in. His reflection, framed in white sky, posed a more receptive counterpart than the huddled mass of rags it was in that light overlaying; eyes of boldest blue imposing upon the poor patient a sober lament unmet.

Or was it aimed at the reflection? Either way, commiseration loves company. John proceeded down the shadowed corridor of the circular hall, leaving the madman behind.

Delineate? No . . . Hint at a curve here? No, no, no . . . Too much work to maintain form that way—stretch as it was to term it such. He'd have to keep it subtle; nothing drastic or imposing, just an altering of the features already present. A shame. He liked curves.

“What do you see in it, Thea?”

There was a soft shift of paper or fabric, and he surmised the councilwoman to have looked up from her desk behind him in the pale room, imagining her steady turquoise stare in the less-steady image of what he hoped the painting could be. Nothing for it, it seemed.

“I see a man given to his impulses so irreversibly he doesn't put any thought to them anymore.” Her answer came as dry and indifferent as ever, that flat tone turning away with her attention, if the echoes in the broad space between them were to be trusted. “I see an incomplete result on the radiology test. But I imagine the paint's still resonant.”

John brought a knuckle to his lips, frowning at the muddy canvas before him. “Is it ever not? It's a good thing you're the only one with the means to test that, otherwise I daresay we'd have some pretty telling discrepancies.”

“As long as you do your job well, it's irrelevant.” Still sounding as if she were speaking to her desk, Thea drew in a lengthy breath, preparing herself to finally face the work before her. “Coal leaves room for license, but that of the artistic variety remains solely his own, if his critics are to be believed.”

His hand came away from his chin in a dismissive wave. “My critics wouldn't know this mess from a Pollock. It's like giving them the head chef's specialty after he's drunk his mind away for ten straight years and acting as if it's the same sapid soup. The least I can do is try to spice up the slop.”

Another soft shifting, and he guessed she was standing. The proceeding click of heels across terrazzo affirmed that, and while they were but three, he was doubtless the aim of her attention. He spared a glance over his shoulder to see it for himself.

She was gazing out the window, stoic as a statue.

“Have you had a closer look yet?” he asked, at last garnering a glance in kind. As John returned his eyes to the splattered square sheet, he listened to those clicking heels with some sated appetite for proximal conversation. “My first guess was a portrait, but . . .” His fine-featured face twisted in a savorless grimace. “. . . who can tell with him?”

“I don't know . . . a road?” She stood aside and behind a step, one hand on a hip that fit her pencil skirt with ease. “A wave? Honestly, interpretation has never been my strong suit. Unless we're talking about legal jargon.”

“He was going on about 'staticity' while he did it. Something about its impossibility. I suppose both those things play on the theme, but neither are striking my fancy.”

“Signal loss? I could see it.”

“That's what I said.”

Thea's lips pressed thin, remaining slightly pouty despite her drawn demeanor. “The asymmetry of that corner bothers me, but it's art either way. I'd say it's fine as-is.”

“I'll balance the corners. Just for you.” John gave her a smile, and she took her time turning those lips in like fashion, attention lingering on the painting. “It shouldn't be too hard. Adding spots of darkness up there should do it.” He slipped his watch from his wrist as he spoke, rolling up his sleeves to prepare for the task.

Click, click, as Thea walked back to her desk in the shared office, the wide windows behind her casting her long shadow his way. He watched it slide out of his field of vision along the pale resin floor, continuing to face the canvas propped before him.

“Whatever you do, make it tasteful,” she said. “The journals were rather piqued last year. But that event was sensationalist in and of itself, so I'm inclined to say a little excitement was inevitable.”

He adjusted the tuck of his shirt and slipped on a pair of gloves before grabbing a neatly folded smock off a corner table. “I'm not responsible for the public interpretation of this stuff.” His implements sat upon the table: a brush, a knife, a palette, and an array of paints. Oras used a similar allotment, if one less tidy.

“You're half-responsible,” echoed Thea's plain-spoken reply. “And only more so as his form deteriorates. The harder it is to make it look like it should, the greater your hand in its reception. Not to mention the presentation work. Your presence doesn't exactly dissuade their baser notions.”

“I maintain that my lack of control over pareidolia itself is grounds enough for irresponsibility. But I'll admit I have a . . . presence.” He deliberately struck a posture of poise that affected coquettish irresponsibility as well as any. A sidelong glimpse of Thea caught her stealing a glance, and he un-cocked his hip as he resumed his preparations.

Once things were set, he began the work of turning the mess upon the canvas into art as defined by the fanatics of Oras Coal himself: those attentive followers of his early work that knew his telltale signature by heart, eager for another chapter in that ruined legacy. Would John be counted among them? Undoubtedly. Should he be? His transcendence belied the notion into arrant absurdity.

Sure, beforehand, he fell into the category like any other Coal connoisseur. Personal experience with the artist changed that, though. And the more personal they became, the easier it was to see just how high the bar sat. They lauded his work as ever-avant-garde, subtly imploring upon the eyes of its beholder a connection to the world outside oneself. Or so his critics raved. The apex of that work, to the John who surpassed the bar and could see even higher, was not the stratosphere they said it was. Troposphere, maybe. But art is not something one can trap in a bubble and subsist off the atmosphere of in isolation. Bubbles pop, and fresh air grants breath anew.

That was a lesson Coal taught him. He'd never understood it before his transcendence. But the strata below that bar posed a poor coign of vantage on the matter, and now that he'd seen past it he could glean its meaning with a new perspective. What made art “art” was a quality acquitting broader dynamics than one bubble can boast. From up here, he could play to all their eager strata with the vantage of a Master's Master.

He feathered the brush, not so much limning as eliding definition. The strokes were delicate and deliberate, favoring the corner in need of aesthetic equilibrium by means of congregation therein, a methodical chiaroscuro which Coal was known for best. The technique Oras employed never failed to bear his particular mark, and John had spent long hours at the canvas practicing the very balance it took to do so.

It was a damn shame he was its only extant executor.

The farrago of paint at hand bore hints of that technique, yes, but only to his well-trained eye. And to that eye it was painfully apparent how much it was missing—the finesse once found in Oras' masterpieces was now but a drudging smear of struggle upon his canvas. He supposed degradation was to be expected, though. If the mindless madness wasn't enough alone, the achromatopsia acquired on top of it was what broke the poor painter irreversibly.

It wasn't clear what Oras was envisioning while he put paint to canvas—not by the results, at least. What was notable was that the form it took, or lack thereof, posed a wildly insensate contrast to the work that earned him his relative fame on Satre. The evidence that his loss of color vision rendered his skill with the brush all but dead was the only clear thing to be gleaned. The rambling as he attempted it? Equally absurd.

Not that his art monopolized his renown. To the contrary, he might have never grown to be a professional artist had his employment not garnered him notice beforehand. But Oras had just as well screwed himself over on that front, if not more so. Now John was left to clean up the mess.

The painting eventually leaned away from abstract and toward a hint of description. By his judgment, as the hand behind the brush, it described reparation: a chaos being sewn together into uniform lines. The lines had to amalgamate into something darker and denser, but it delivered the balance Thea remarked upon a lack of, and so the added distinction served to sate the eye twofold. His eye, at least. Surely her's as well. He lowered his brush with a silent respiration, stepping aside with a backward look.

“How about now?”

She cast a belated glance up from a glowing tablet, sparing the artwork a blank review before rising from her desk. Whatever it meant to be visually sated, he searched for it in her expression as she moved in for a closer look. The eyes told him nothing, but the body language read contemplation as she held an elbow in one hand, the second curled back at her shoulder.

“It's good. The piece seems to have some movement from corner to corner, now, not weighing too much on either side. It could even pass for his old stuff.”

“Eh, hardly.” He didn't blame her for the presumption—though he suspected she was just trying to flatter him—given the difference in expertise. “But it's close enough. They'll find the same charm they always find. And you'll get the same price.” As he walked away from the easel, he pulled off his smock and gloves, letting them fall to the floor. He'd been clean enough not to mind it. He then made his way over to a short marble counter hugging the curve of the inner wall, wrapping his naked hand around the neck of a tall bottle of vintage red waiting there.

“Care to join me in celebrating the occasion?” John took the stem of a glass between his fingers, snatching it from the end of the row standing neatly against the wall. With both hands full, he deigned to sink his teeth into the bottle's cork, twisting in squeaky increments until it came loose. When all that filled the quiet was that rubbery pop, he relented to the side-eyed scrutiny that she was wont to drive him to. Pivoting around on his heel, he leaned against the counter, pouring wine into his glass and watching Thea tap at her screens with a lean that eschewed sitting as much as it retained his gaze. He made an expectant noise around the cork, setting the bottle down again to pull it from between his canines. “Any takers?” he asked the stark and lonely room.

“Not today,” she answered at last. Her posture put upright, she tucked the tablet under her arm, making her way toward the far door, click, click. “I'll have the painting tended to after another scan. You should see if he has anything more to say about it in the meantime.”

John swirled the wine in his glass; not to mix it, not to aerate it. Just to swirl it. She walked out, and he turned half his attention to the rocking fluid, trying to tip it in time with her gait. Click, click, swish, swish. She closed the door behind her; it regained its equilibrium, and he took a sip, sucking the residue from his upper lip with an indolent discontent. He rolled the dentally dented cork between his fingers before tamping it back into the bottle, leaving it and the painting behind without a second glance.

Oras was the same as when John left him last. They had brought him food, and it seemed someone made an attempt at cleaning him and his cell, but for all his surroundings differed, the madman himself remained awfully . . . static.

As he stepped up to the window surveying Jove's overcast metropolis, John took another sip of wine, then delicately tugged his sleeves back down along his arms, careful not to spill. His cufflinks flashed with a pallid gleam, their ruby-diamond bevel refracting the city below: a distant network of stochastic action, like hives of intersecting impetus indistinguishable from one another. It could be hard to imagine such a thing coming to any stop. In a photo, maybe; one can render an apparent stillness, yet the world would remain in motion past the picture. There was something to be said for the beauty of stillness, though. In the mind's eye, a moment can stay gripped in an imaginary stasis for the relish of its captor, unchanging no matter which way the earth turns without.

“She said it resembles your old stuff,” John spoke into the silence. He turned a blasé smile toward his drink, indifferent to whether Oras was aware of him. “Though what does she know, eh? She has 'Standing On Triumph' framed in her penthouse, but it was bought with vanity before taste. To her credit, she's accrued some since, but we both know I'm a better judge than her on these things.

“Not that she's wrong, exactly. It's just anyone familiar with your work could tell there was a resemblance. Anyone intimately familiar can tell what a mess you made of it. It'll pass, but at what cost? The last one went for a little under ten grand. Two years ago it was lucky to go for twelve. If that's not a sign of your decline, then what is? Oh, right, the mess itself. Hard to miss that part.

“I guess the bright side is they're not duds yet. Whatever you're doing to them, it's sticking. Then again, she said the results were 'inconclusive'. Any idea why that would be?” He waited for a reply, not deigning to look back, nor wait too long. “You don't even know what I'm talking about, do you? No, not even that silver lining can be discerned by your eyes. Well, I gave it my own touch, anyway. It'll serve as a fetching piece somewhere on the island, I'm sure.”

He sipped through a pensive lull boasting a digestive purgatory, where it was unknown whether the words were but sounds in the air to Oras, or if they registered in his haywire head as anything sensible. The prisoner could hear, but did he listen? It was hard to tell sans reaction.

John turned around to face the cell, approaching it with lilting steps. “Does the name 'Staticity' still work? My improvements gave it a new shape, but it's roughly the same au fond.” Oras remained a miserable heap against the wall, head hung low. “I know you're not able to see for yourself, but you never did give me any feedback on that bit. It was your idea, really. What does 'staticity' mean to you, anyway?”

The tangled pile of coiled ink enshrouding his face rose with deliberate slowness, giving preview to a dark eye languishing behind one long curl. It was an indirect stare, empty of even a contrite twinkle. Any situational awareness left to the man seemed haphazard in the best of times; in others, it almost seemed cruel to keep him locked away like this. Almost.

“Is it stopping?” rasped the painter, a nail stained to the bed drawn forth to rake through his unruly beard. “Is this going to be suspended? Would that be . . . static?”

John offered his usual regard. “Does it mean coming to a stop? I guess staticity has no meaning without motion to oppose.”

“Is this even progress?” It sounded as though Oras paid his response no mind. “Have I moved forward? Am I not in suspense here? It's not a damn riddle—I have nowhere to go. What is staticity? A thing of perspective. True staticity is an illusion . . . was I saying that already? Is that why you're asking?” His empty gaze continued to wander, as unbound as his point.

“Yes, it was your spiel while painting. 'Nothing comes to any end,' and all that.”

“Nothing comes to any end.” It was spoken with the weight of clear conviction behind it, those vacant eyes—no, not of vacuity, but a far-sighted castaway—fixed on him until it forced the old twitch into John's brow, then sank back into listlessness.

“I can think of a few things off the top of my head,” murmured John, glass at his lips. He supposed the madman employed a more philosophical colligation toward his point, however, as the mad often do. “What does that have to do with the painting, though?”

What he could see of those eyes flicked across the empty easel. “Staticity . . .” Oras whispered, lips continuing to squirm soundlessly through his torpor.

“It doesn't, does it? You just rambled through the process, same as always. Your inspiration is as screwed up as the rest of your mind, and it's only a thoughtless impulse.” He spoke softly, yes; no acerbity on his tongue past the bored drawl, yet his dispassionate regard sharpened one critical degree. “Far be it from me to look for sense in it anymore. I'd need eyes as ruined as yours to glean something of your old art in that debasement. I can see ghosts of it, if I squint. SOLACE can tell, but it's a computer's vapid datum connecting one gray dot to another. They find those 'golden spots' all over the city—it's nothing special by itself. Yaods wash up by the bucketful every day, rock after useless rock. I'm sure if your paintings still brought in the same audience they'd attract more than an old otiose stone or two. But I guess we can't all get what we wish for, eh? You're stuck with mediocre art, and I'm stuck with the unenviable task of turning its fading glory into tangible results.

“Of course you have nowhere to go—you're a virtual prisoner. Stagnation, staticity; whatever you call it, you're done. I have it on good authority you're in a state of decline. Maybe regression is better than stasis—backwards is a direction, after all. If you're so determined not to come to any end, then drag your sorry brush back to the canvas with the prowess of old, otherwise that once-bright future will continue to wither until your light's snuffed out for good, and all you'll have to show for it is a few fine relics representing a stained legacy and a pool of spilled paint that more than hammers the metaphor home.

“Not even she can figure out what's missing. I know it is—I can see the paucity in the paint—but each piece is its own beast. Bless her stubborn heart, she's trying every test out there, and having new ones researched just for the cause. If anyone can manufacture a miracle, it's her. It sure would help if you made an effort, though.”

John let his jaded castigation abate, aware of Oras' abstracted attention while his own thoughts drifted back along a certain curve that came to mind. “She does her best for you, you know. For both of us. A virtual prisoner . . . and am I any better off? Hard to ask for a finer warden, I guess.” He laughed, the sound echoing through the hall verging on hollow. “Sure, she parades me around on her leash, but only because I have enough wit about myself to keep from biting the hand that feeds me. Can't say the same for you.” His steely gaze bored through the glass, down toward the inmate with a cold, cold focus.

Reacting as if it were a palpable weight, Oras turned up to meet his eyes, the glint of a fractured star caught in those abyssal orbs in the full light. Nothing of it said recognition; there was no semblance of sanity tying the madman to his past. Guilt seemed a nebulous thing to him, mimicked in ignorance, only to let slip through indifferent fingers once the next whisper of madness had his ear ensnared.

“Is whatever went missing from your brush gone for good?” John held his stare steady, a sober lament perhaps met halfway. “Has your signature touch waned completely? Did it meet its end with your muse?”

He searched those eyes incisively for the man he once knew. He'd expected his questions to arouse . . . something in them. A light, or a fire. What he saw was black coal in white ash, cold as his own still pools of blue. He found himself focusing instead on his reflection in the glass, dimly aware of the fact that to Oras, his eyes were just as colorless. The twitch recurred, and he wasn't able to continue facing the cell. He stepped toward the window once again, tossing back the last of his wine.

He couldn't tell who was more troubled by the exchange, Oras looking as lost for answers as he was. It was stress; he'd spent too long on this floor, and his mood was suffering the climatic melancholy of the painter's sequestration. Without a hint as to the inner workings of the process, he figured his welcome was overstayed.

“Maybe next time, eh?” John said, looking out at the gray horizon. A gap in the clouds revealed the faint form of the full moon, a ghost in the afternoon sky. He spoke under his breath, “A cycle of commiseration . . . surely this has an end to come to. Maybe being stuck here really is an illusion.”

He turned a droll smile over his shoulder before heading for the elevator. “If you'll excuse me, I've got a painting to sell. I'm sure people will find the name just pompous enough for the show. Thanks again, old pal.” He raised his empty glass in the cell's direction, steps echoing through the bare hall. “Staticity . . .”

A chapter from my WIP novel that I wrote ahead of itself. More art of the characters can be found on my deviantart page (and other characters here, too.)

#character art #writing #scifi #deviantart #digital art #fantasy #story #excerpt

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blindrapture · 2 years

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okay I Did Not Know the US news when I posted those rambles earlier. it wouldn't have changed my point but it would have changed the words I chose to use.

there is a context where Empirical Truth both exists and matters, and that context is governance of people. this means governments, this means the political field for competition to become government. governance must not be treated like art. our species has, and I mean this literally and empirically, spent our entire history fighting bloody wars over this. (just you wait until I finally start Talking About Syberberg.) art stems from its still-living ancestor Storytelling, and Storytelling is rooted in conflict, is fundamentally an exploration of conflict, there is not a story on this earth that is not about a conflict. this works for Storytelling, this works for Art. this does not work for governance. the artistic tendency is to create scenarios that spectators must learn from. bringing this into the political field is, literally, manufacturing conflict, manufacturing war, manufacturing uncertainty, manufacturing murder.

governance is harm reduction, because governance is negotiation and compromise in the interest of as many people as is possible within pragmatical frameworks. conflict is the antithesis to that, providing friction. conflict is what harm reduction tries to prevent. it's the.. whole.. point.

none of what I am saying here should be a surprise, except perhaps the notion of articulating it so bluntly.

white evangelist supremacy is an anti-american anti-government, by definition. they fund right-wing political voices because they wish to dismantle the systems of harm reduction america does, in fact, have. and they fund right-wing political voices because Political Spectacle is a profoundly powerful vector in which to disseminate Conflict. they are doing it on purpose (and breeding useful idiots who do it on accident because it is now a norm). this is Information War, this is Culture War. it is not a cold war. it is not new to humanity, it did not come with the internet. the internet has simply done to Information War what automobiles did for military cavalry: upgraded it. this is ugly, and Evangelist. this is ugly Evangelist political violence, summoned stochastically. this is not both sides. the white evangelist supremacists consistently favor the right-wing. and this is about Their Truth versus Everyone Else's. this is not Art. they cannot accept Art as the search for truth, as Their Truth is easily dwarfed in artistic contexts. this is empirical life, this is "real life," this is... this is literally happening now only because 1) bannon is going to prison, and 2) the midterms are upon us. elections are active cycle for disinformation campaigns. vote. please vote, because the Evangelists see this as what it's all about, and they need to be defeated.

okay?

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secretgamergirl · 3 years

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A Little Horrifying Primer on Transphobes

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

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

Transphobes lie constantly, about everything.

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

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

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

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

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

Transphobes are firmly entrenched in the media.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transphobes paper areas in truly disgusting propaganda.

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

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

#trans #transphobia #educational resources

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stochastiz · 3 months

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forever fulfilling the ace stereotype of being a slut for garlic bread

#is it an aroace thing too?#i just remember cake garlic bread and dragons #asexual #ace #aroace #aromantic asexual #stochastic ramblings

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farrel-raven · 5 years

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Hello visitors to The Cloisters and welcome.

This Tumblr will be my thoughts and ramblings after a long and hazard filled life (hazard in the sense of stochastic behaviour) Names may be changed for personal privacy but all is true according to my fading memory. It is a tale of missed opportunities and rare insights into the human condition plus a predilection for pretentious language.

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fraudulence-paradox · 3 years

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02/18/2021

The best, worst thing happened today. I have to take this huge test; like enormously important: my preliminary exam. If I don’t pass, I’m kicked out of the whole program. Now, this shouldn’t be cause for alarm. The exam is easy, supposedly. We get two old exams to use as practice, and with a little fenagling, I got two additional exams from one of the guys in the lab, so that’s a total of 4, a total of 27 practice questions I get to look at. On the actual exam, I need to answer 2 questions from one section in particular (computer architecture), and an additional 3 from the other sections, not exceeding 2 per section. My plan at the moment is as follows:

The architecture section is easy. It’s what I’ve been studying for something like 6 years now. I’m calling those two questions a wash. I feel pretty good about them. Then, I plan to answer two questions from the linear systems theory section. This was without a doubt the hardest class I’ve taken so far in grad school, but I have two things on my side: 1.) I just took this course last semester, so it’s still relatively fresh and 2.) they always have the same three questions on the exam. They ask you to solve a linear system of equations (easy town, this is what we did in sophomore year of undergrad. Try harder); they ask you about the particular qualities of a system, which I absolutely blow at, because this requires taking a rather complex integral that I just don’t want to do; and they ask you to use state feedback to change a system’s transfer function, which sounds hard, but really isn’t. It’s pretty much a formula you just plug into the question and the answer is right there. Now from time to time, they have an oddball question on there, at least in the four exams I’ve been studying from they do, but the two aforementioned questions I said I knew how to do seem to always be there. If they aren’t, I’m fucked. Finally, there’s the stochastic processes (fancy prob stat) section. I feel… not great about this section, but there’s usually something I can struggle through and get halfway correct.

Now here’s the kicker: I only need to pass this exam. Which I think means either 60 or 70%. So, we have my two freebie questions from architecture for a cool 40%, and the two from the linear systems section for another 40% bringing me to an 80%, so I don’t need to worry too much about the stochastic processes section… I hope. There is always the possibility that they either won’t have the questions I studied for, or I’ll just completely fuck up my answers. As a result, let’s say I get maybe a 60% on the questions I’m sure of. Well, that may be passing, and furthermore, if I get a softball stoch question, that should, HOPEFULLY push me over the precipice to pass it.

But I’m sure, dear reader, you’re wondering why the best, worst thing occurred. What the heck am I rambling about a test for? Well, I’ll tell you. This exam was originally going to take place tomorrow. I needed to show up on campus at 8AM sharp (meaning I needed to wake up at six in the god damn morning) to check in for a “COVID test”—which, as it turns out is just a questionnaire where they ask, “is your throat sore?” and take your temperature. I remember last March, when they used to ask if you’d been to China lately too. But, alas. It’s been a while since China outnumbered our COVID case rate. I digress—and when/if you pass they authorize your student ID to unlock the door to the Science and Engineering Hall (SEH).

I’ve been rather stressed about this whole song and dance. What if the nice people at the front desk of the check-in building think I look sickly? What if I run a temperature? What if traffic is bad (because god knows I’m not getting on the fucking metro to get into school, I’ll pay the $20 parking fee, thank you very much) and I’m late to check in? What if my alarm doesn’t go off, or I sleep through it? On second thought, better set a few alarms on my phone, computer, alarm clock, microwave oven, drier, any device with a clock on it. It’s best to be safe about these things. And to top it all off, the weather right now is horrendous.

In Texas, the power is fully out. The cold is so intense that the entire state of Texas has lost power. Let me repeat that. The state of Texas has lost power. The largest singularly governed body of land in the continental united states (other than Alaska maybe?) has been in a black out, its constituents literally dying of hypothermia for days now. Not that any of this affects me, but it demonstrates the sheer insanity of the polar vortex currently ripping through the country. So in addition to the whole laundry list of things freaking me out right now, I also have to worry about the time it will take to scrape all the ice off of my car, and driving on roads with little to no friction for at least 30 minutes in potentially rush-hour traffic into the city. No fucking thank you. And on top of all of that, there’s uncertainty if any of this will even happen! Like, the chance of an icy apocalypse tomorrow is only 50%! What the hell?

So all day, I’ve been stewing. Worrying about all the things I’ve said. But at the same time, I just want to get this damn test over and done with. I don’t like things looming in the future, but damn it if I don’t hate things looming in the future with an unknown end date. So I literally spent something like 10 or 12 (or probably closer to 16) hours bouncing from my bed to my desk to my bed. I tried to study at my desk, but got so freaked out the thing I was studying before was happening tomorrow that I barely got any studying done. I’m a little ashamed to admit that I threw something like 10 hours of the day totally out the window just shitting around on the internet. I was a fucking mess. But at the very least, it would all be over tomorrow, granted I survived the drive in.

But no. I received an email this evening informing me that the school would have a two-hour delay. I remember when I was small, sleeping with my pajamas inside-out, flushing ice cubes down the toilet, because these rituals were supposed to result in school-annihilating snow days like the one that was just announced. I didn’t do either the night before, but it still worked out somehow. However, a two-hour delay didn’t really mean anything. The exam could still happen! This only exacerbated my stress levels. Then, as if to say, “fuck you” right into my ear drums at a decibel level comparable to a jet takeoff, I got an email from the department saying, “we saw there’s a two-hour delay. We’re still figuring out what to do. Await further instruction.”

What the hell does that mean?? I saw the email and was slightly relieved. At least there was hope the exam would be put off. But damn, man. I stewed for a while, trying to decide what to feel, mostly feeling a strange mix of anxiety, fury and relief, all at once. Unpleasant, I must say. I could feel this warm ball of tension in my throat all day, but for those brief 15 minutes of extreme uncertainty it grew to the size of a pool cue.

Finally, I got an email officially saying it would be pushed to next week. What a relief. Sort of. On the one hand, I get another week to study for the thing. Maybe I can get as confident about the stochastic processes section as I am about the linear systems section. On the other hand, this whole day just went completely down the tubes. More so than usual. I mean, I’ve wasted some days. I have seriously wasted some days. But, Christ, today it wasn’t even a pleasant waste of time. Today was just stressful wandering around. I felt like I’d seen the face of Yog-Sothoth and was slowly losing my mind.

Anyway, that’s how today was the best, worst day I’ve experienced for a while. Total ecstasy when I realized the test was pushed, preceded by total dread when it was looming in the near future. Oh well. I’d really rather just get it over and done with. In the words of Stephen King, “Yog-Sothoth rules”.

#journal #college journal #grad school #preliminary examination #stress #anxiety #test #exam #prelim #prelims #dread #snow day #winter #diary

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lockandk3yfiction · 7 years

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Title: Mathematical Equations

Date: June 1, 2017

Commissioned by @unashamed-shipper: Gajevy College AU

Pairing: Gajevy (mentioned Nalu)

Word Count: 1503

Summary: While lost in the Mathematics and Science Building, Levy finds her self colliding with a rather odd looking man. Who knew she would find him more than odd.

Rated: K+

Read on ffn.

Request closed. Commissions open.

“MSC 109. MSC 109. Where is it?”

Murmurs filled the hall as a blue haired young woman strolled through the Mathematics and Science Building (MSC) of Magnolia University. Levy McGarden bowed her head, hazel brown eyes focused on the class schedule in her hands. Every now and then, Levy would lift her eyes to scan the open classrooms, looking for the doorway that read “109” up above it.

This was her first year in a university, studying at one of the most prestigious schools in Fiore. She was hopeful and prepared; enrolled in the necessary classes, taking the proper amount of units, even best friends with her roommate after just a week of moving into the dorms. And, yet, she could not find the one door that led to her calculus class.

“All of these classrooms are in the 300 range,” Levy paused in her steps, looking back on the empty hall as she attempted to process her thoughts. “MSC 109 must be in a different wing then, right?”

Just as she voiced this question, a rather loud metal clang was heard, the sound of a heavy hallway door closing on itself. Such noise frightened the girl, Levy pulling her head back before she met impact with a man almost twice her size. Sprinting through the hall was a fairly tall man, piercings adorning his face and long wild hair flying quickly behind him. With no warning the two bodies clashed, chest meeting forehead as they collided to the floor.

It hurt and it stung, Levy could only see black as she lay on the tile too scared to open her eyes.

“Hey. Hey, you!” A rough tone barked, so close to Levy’s face that she nearly thought she would lose hearing.

“Hey! Are you okay? Say something!” The sound softened a little, worry filling the speakers’ words.

Turning to her side, Levy struggled as she tried to sit up, a calloused hand that wasn’t her own placing itself upon her shoulder to try and steady her movements. Levy’s brows etched together as her eyelids slowly flittered open, vision slightly blurred. It took a moment or two before the nausea of hitting her head settled and she was able to see clearly again.

Before her, still clutching Levy’s shoulder to give support was the same figure that had been running down the hall. Up close he had the face of a delinquent and a scowl that could ward off predators, but the intensity of his stare as he watched Levy with concern made her pulse quicken.

“Oh! Uh, y- ow...”

The man raised a brow as Levy began to rub at the back of her head, scrunching her hair into a small bundle in the process. “Y-yeah… My head hurts a little but I’ll be fine…”

Levy flushed in embarrassment, her gaze elsewhere as the air between them became awkward. The silence was broken though when the man breathed out heavily, rising to his feet and offering a hand towards Levy. A smile formed on her face at the gesture, Levy allowing him to hoist her onto her feet before he had started walking down the hall in less haste. For an instance, Levy stood there, her eyes trailing the man as he further left the hall before a lightbulb went off in her mind.

“Hey, wait! Can you help me find something?!”

After a short walk, Levy found herself seated at a front desk of room 109 of the MSC Building, attention toward the board as the professor went over their syllabus. At the back of the class was the man who had ran into her earlier. He had yet to apologize, but now Levy acknowledge that his name was Gajeel Redfox and he was a second year in the engineering program. In Levy’s mind he seemed like an odd one and while the professor dragged on about late work and how assignments would be graded, Levy’s attention left the classroom and went towards him.

Levy wiggled her toes, a small pout on her lips as she complained to her roommate about how she was a hundred percent certain she got all the question on her last calculus exam correct but had missed one question when they came back graded.

“Ah! I was so close, Lucy!”

Said blonde giggled, leaning her back against the wall. The two sat on the smaller ones bed, chitchatting about this and that as time pass them by. The topics would change frequently as they spoke, giddiness and peacefulness filling the atmosphere as the two friends rambled on.

It was late one Sunday night, three weeks into the fall semester when Lucy received a text from her boyfriend. Natsu had messaged her during the girls’ routine conversation, informing them of Gajeels struggle in math and how Natsu had thought it would be a great opportunity for Levy to help his roommate as they shared the same class. Levy felt her heart racing at the idea; ever since first meeting Gajeel, Levy’s chest would warm at the sight of him and her imagination would attempt to create situations in which they can spend time together and, as of next Tuesday, that time would come.

“Tell Natsu I don’t wanna!” Levy wailed, shaking her head comically as to show her despair.

At this, Lucy sighed. Combing through her hair with her fingers, she mumbled to Levy about help it would give Gajeel and how the two may be able to get to know each other a little better. “It can’t be that bad right? Don’t you like Gajeel?”

Lips pursed in defiance, Levy refused to answer while continuing to scowl at the blue bed sheets beneath her.

The weekend passed. Monday came and gone, leaving Levy kicking her feet in anticipation and tapping at the desk she sat in frustration. The pout on her grew as each minute ticked by, waiting in solemn torture in one of the many group study rooms the library had to offer. More than once, Levy entertained the idea that Gajeel may not show yet, ‘lo and behold, he arrived that Tuesday afternoon on schedule.

“How do you not know basic algebra? Can you even learn calculus if you can’t find the answer to y?”

“Why do you we’re here? I’m asking for help! Don’t make fun of me!”

Gajeel’s expression startled Levy when he spoke. Somehow, he had looked embarrassed, cheeks slightly pink and jaw tense as his chin rested on the study table. Her eyes were open wide in mild wonder as she stared down at Gajeel from her position across from him. He looked like a lost puppy when it came to mathematics but somehow he looked cuter. A shy smile formed on Levy’s lip before she tapped at Gajeel’s forehead for attention.

“Okay, okay. Let’s go over the question again. What are you confused about?”

Their first lesson had gone over smoothly. Sure, Gajeel still did not understand quantum stochastics’ but who did on their first try? It had even taken a toll on Levy as she had tried to explain it the third time, mixing up words and losing her train of thought as numbers scrambled around her brain. What an interesting event that was.

Though, Levy could not say it was all so bad. Gajeel had become someone Levy thinks of fondly, finding his way into her social bubble easily. To finish off their study session, the two had secured their self a booth at the local tea shop where they skipped talk of math and began getting to know each other.

Levy learned that Gajeel was a heavy metal musician. She had also learned he was not that great a singer when he had given her a sold out one person audience concert. Waving her hand before in a nervous sweat, however, it was not as if she were brave enough to say such. They were not much of the same person.

Levy enjoyed books and quiet walks on the beach; whereas Gajeel enjoyed vintage films and listening to music when jogging near the park. Levy had never owned a pet but, surprisingly, Gajeel was a cat person. Levy liked her tea with rosemary and Gajeel preferred black coffee. They were two of the opposite coin, yet still Levy found her chest warming the more she knew. Calculus was her strong suit, but just maybe she wanted to learn the mathematical equations used in chemistry.

Eyes still glued toward Gajeel as he rambled on about the antics he and Natsu shared last night, ordering pizza from the parlor three miles away, hoping it would not arrive in thirty minutes or less, a gleam sparkled in Levy’s eyes. He looked happy, excited and was roaring with energy. Gajeel Redfox really was not a bad guy, she determined, slowly realizing that yes, she did like this guy.

#gajevy #gajeel redfox #levy mcgarden #fairy tail #fiction #sierra-sama writes

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